"Narcissus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the frequency of trials for words spoken in Charles II.'s reign of terror, see the extracts from Narcissus Luttrel's Brief Historical ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... name, Fair Saccharissa!—and now only fair! To sacred friendship we'll an altar rear (Such as the Romans did erect of old), Where, on a marble pillar, shall be told The lovely passion each to other bare, With the resemblance of that matchless pair. Narcissus to the thing for which he pined Was not more like than yours to her fair mind, 60 Save that she graced the several parts of life, A spotless virgin, and a faultless wife. Such was the sweet converse 'twixt her and you, As that she holds with her ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... apparently so interested in his own image, repeated by the mirror before him as often as eyesight could trace its give-and-take with the one that faced it on the wall behind him. He was the wrong man for a Narcissus. The strength of his framework was wrong throughout. Narcissus had no bone-distances, as artists say, and his hair was in crisp curls, good for the sculptor. No one ever needed to get a pair of scissors to snip it. But though anyone might have marvelled ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... heart rather than the mind, Corinna looked through the doorway, and saw the face of Alice Rokeby glimmering narcissus white in the dusk ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... white veils fastened round our heads with white fillets. On each side of the bier walked three young girls, pall-bearers, in the same maiden mourning, holding in one hand long streamers of broad white ribbon attached to the bier, and in the other several white narcissus blossoms. ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the mountain hitherto for little Kirl ended in the grassy pasture where the goats stayed. Here was a pleasant slope thick with globe-flowers and narcissus at the lower end, and fragrant with wild thyme at the upper ridge, ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... illusive decorator, delighted to indulge. Indeed, at that hour and in that light, the fountain was as natural in effect as were the nimble hawkers who held in their extended arms baskets filled with roses, narcissus, red anemones, fragile cyclamens and dark pansies. Barefooted, with sparkling eyes, entreaties upon their lips, they glided among the carriages which passed along rapidly, fewer than in the height of the season, still quite numerous, for spring was very late this year, and it ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the kokila bird, and the hoarse plaint of the turtle-dove deep hid in her leafy bower, attracted every ear and thrilled every heart. The south wind—"breeze of the south,[FN145] the friend of love and spring" blew with a voluptuous warmth, for rain clouds canopied the earth, and the breath of the narcissus, the rose, and the citron, ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... figure, the lowest consisting of three leaves, the uppermost of four, in the form of a cross; from the top of the stalk grows a single flower, of an exceedingly dark red colour, in shape resembling the flower, of the narcissus, only much smaller; from the centre of the flower rises a style of a triangular form, and obtuse at the end, which is surrounded by six white stamina, whose extremities are yellow. The root is of the bulbous kind, and resembles ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... day by day with heavenly dew I 2 Bright flowers their never-failing bloom renew, From eldest time Deo and Cora's crown Full-flowered narcissus, and the golden beam Of crocus, while Cephisus' gentle stream In runnels fed by sleepless springs Over the land's broad bosom daily brings His pregnant waters, never dwindling down. The quiring Muses love to seek the spot And Aphrodite's golden ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... method by which the still more foolish philanthropist feebly tries to disarm the just rancour of the criminal classes. No: let me play to you some mad scarlet thing by Dvorak. The pallid figures on the tapestry are smiling at us, and the heavy eyelids of my bronze Narcissus are folded in sleep. Don't let us discuss anything solemnly. I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... valleys drop away, curve by curve, as the train climbed. Far below lay the lake, a blue rift glimmering between pine-clad heights. Then a turn of the track and the lake was swept suddenly out of sight, while the mountains closed round—shoulder after green-clad shoulder, with fields of white narcissus flung across them like fairy mantles. The air was full of the fragrance of narcissus mingling with the pungent scent of fir and pine. Ann sniffed luxuriously and glanced round to where ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... and labour dwells. How[97] young heads count to build on had I wist. Conscience but few respect, all hunt for gain: Except the camel have his provender Hung at his mouth, he will not travel on. Tyresias to Narcissus promised Much prosperous hap and many golden days, If of his beauty he no knowledge took. Knowledge breeds pride, pride breedeth discontent: Black discontent, thou urgest to revenge: Revenge opes not her ears to poor men's prayers. That dolt destruction is she without doubt, That ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... Yesterday morning bicycling inland, along a rising road along which alternate green pastures and sea, and woods of dense myrtle and lentisk scrub overtopped by ilexes and cork-trees, there were asphodels enough: deep plantations, little fields, like those of cultivated narcissus, compact masses of their pale salmon and grey shot colours and greyish-green leaves, or fringes, each flower distinct against field or sky, on the ledges of rock and the high earth banks. The flowers ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... The Nigger of the "Narcissus," by Joseph Conrad The Mirror of the Sea, by Joseph Conrad Captains Courageous, by Rudyard Kipling The Brassbounder, by David W. Bone Salt of the Sea, by Morley Roberts Mr. Midshipman Easy, by Captain Marryat The Wreck of the "Grosvenor," by Clark Russell Moby Dick, by Herman Melville An Ocean ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... they lived would the children forget the scene before them! The budding trees, the singing of the birds, and the sweet scents that came to them were only part of the great surprise that awaited them. Golden sheets of daffodil and white narcissus bordered the dark evergreen shrubberies; edging the old lawn were clumps of violets and primroses. Hyacinths, tulips, and other bulbs were making the flower beds a mass of bright colour, and the lilac and laburnum trees ...
— Bulbs and Blossoms • Amy Le Feuvre
... their gaze upon the captive king, Loaded with chains; his hands behind his back; The ponderous fetters passing from his neck Down to his feet; oppressed with shame he stood, Like the narcissus bent with heavy dew. Zohak received him with a scornful smile, Saying, "Where is thy diadem, thy throne, Where is thy kingdom, where thy sovereign rule; Thy laws and royal ordinances—where, Where are they now? What change is this ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... thus communed with myself I was sitting, like a pensive maiden in a thoughtless romance, by the side of a brook, watching the wavelets as they passed. They flowed by as smooth and quiet and sentimental as if Narcissus were about to see his reflection on the clear surface and become intoxicated with beautiful egoism. They might also have enticed me to lose myself deeper and deeper in the inner perspective of my mind, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... lilies are the sweetest flowers the spring brings us. Do you know that their real name is the white narcissus?" She looked ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... this London air they spoke of the spring—the spring which already in happier lands was drawing veils of peach and cherry blossom, over the red Sienese earth or the green terraces of Como. The fire crackled in the grate. The pretty, old-fashioned room was fragrant with hyacinth and narcissus; Julie's books lay on the tables; Julie's hand and taste were already to be felt everywhere. And Lord Lackington with the kitten, beside the fire, gave the last touch of ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Providence design'd, Rather in pity, than in hate, That he should be, like Cupid, blind, To save him from Narcissus' fate. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... as Narcissus; I plainly tell you so," replied Aramis. "You know I hate moralizing, except when it is done by Athos. As to you, good sir, you wear too magnificent a baldric to be strong on that head. I will be an abbe ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... among, Or sheltered 'neath the clustering vine Which, high above him forms a bower, Safe from the sun or stormy shower, Where frolic Bacchus often roves, And visits with his fostering nymphs the groves, Bathed in the dew of heaven each morn, Fresh is the fair Narcissus born, Of those great gods the crown of old; The crocus glitters, robed in gold. Here restless fountains ever murmuring glide, And as their crisped streamlets play, To feed, Cephisus, thine unfailing tide, Fresh ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Matthias, gift of God Maurice, dark coloured Maynard, great firmness Meredith, sea protector Merlin, sea hill Michael, who is like God Miles, crusher Moore, great Morgan, seaman Morris, sea warrior Moses, drawn from water Napoleon, forest king Narcissus, daffodil Nathan, a gift Nathanael, gift of God Nero, strength, fortitude Nicodemus, conqueror Nicholas, conquered Nicol, conquered Niel, brave, dark Niell, brave Nigel, black Noah, rest, comfort Noel, Christmas-born Norman, a Northman Obadiah, servant of God Octavius, the eighth-born ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... Messrs. Inman and Walmsley's kennel, there were such admirable dogs as the rough-coated Wolfram—from whom were bred Tannhauser, Narcissus, Leontes and Klingsor—the smooth-coated dogs, the King's Son and The Viking; the rough-coated bitch, Judith Inman, and the smooth Viola, the last-named the finest specimen of her sex that has probably ever been seen. These dogs and bitches, with several others, were dispersed all over England, ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... meeting with Hector. They hung down their heads in the most captivating manner, and continued silent for some time. But at last Amaranthe, more lively than her sister, recommenced her chatter. "Look, Bribri," she said—"Daphne I mean—he is one of the silvan deities, or perhaps Narcissus looking ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... because these animals are destructive to the vine. Among the Egyptians they sacrificed a swine to him before their doors; and the dragon, and the pye on account of its chattering: the trees and plants used in his garlands were the fir, the oak, ivy, the fig, and vine; as also the daffodil, or narcissus. Bacchus had many temples erected to him by the ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... hands of the Angel of the Annunciation even by Florentine artists, in their general design, the fleur-de-lys is given to him by Giovaiini Pisano on the facade of Orvieto; and that the flower in the crown-circlets of European kings answers, as I stated to you in my lecture on the Corona, to the Narcissus fillet of early Greece; the crown of abundance ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... Menippus. But look over there to your right, and you will see Hyacinth, Narcissus, Nireus, Achilles, Tyro, Helen, Leda,— all the beauties ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... the blue violet bear, On the rude thorn Narcissus dress his hair, All, all reversed—The pine with pears be crown'd, And the bold deer shall drag the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... brilliancy, radiance, splendor, gorgeousness, magnificence; sublimity, sublimification^. concinnity^, delicacy, refinement; charm, je ne sais quoi [Fr.], style. Venus, Aphrodite^, Hebe, the Graces, Peri, Houri, Cupid, Apollo^, Hyperion, Adonis^, Antionous^, Narcissus. peacock, butterfly; garden; flower of, pink of; bijou; jewel &c (ornament) 847; work of art. flower, flow'ret gay^; [flowers: list] wildflower; rose, lily, anemone, asphodel, buttercup, crane's bill, daffodil, tulip, tiger lily, day lily, begonia, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... turned toward the bank. Renee perceived an over-swollen monster gourd that had strayed from a garden adjoining the river, and hung sliding heavily down the bank on one greenish yellow cheek, in prolonged contemplation of its image in the mirror below. Apparently this obese Narcissus enchained ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... H. foetidus, H. guttatus, H. niger, H. odorus, H. orientalis, H. olympicus, H. purpurascens, Hepatica angulosa, H. triloba, Jasminum nudiflorum, Leucojum vernum, Muscari botryoides, M. racemosum, Narcissus minor, Omphalodes verna, Orobus vernus, Phlox frondosa, Polyanthus, Primula acaulis, P. Cashmeriana, P. denticulata, P. marginata, P. purpurea, P. Scotica, Pulmonarias, Puschkinia scilloides, Saxifraga Burseriana, S. ciliata, S. cordifolia, S. coriophylla, ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... which grows on some shores beside the sea. There were large spaces of fine and solid turf, but, where the little streams flowed from the delicate-tinted distant mountains, there were narrow valleys full of all the flowers of a southern spring. Here grew narcissus and hyacinths, violets and creeping thyme, and crocus and the crimson rose, as they blossomed on the day when the milk-white bull carried off Europa. Beyond the level land beside the sea, between these coasts and the far-off hills, was a steep lonely rock, on which were set the shining temples ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... aglare like cockatrice, With thousand savours tongues entice. Fruits of all hues barbaric gloom— Pomegranate, quince and peach and plum, Mandarine, grape, and cherry clear Englobe each glassy chandelier, Where nectarous flowers their sweets distil— Jessamine, tuberose, chamomill, Wild-eye narcissus, anemone, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... he to do—this poor Narcissus? He thought to avoid all such things by going far away from haunts of mankind, where he should never have to face a mirror again. But in the woods to which he retreated a clear rivulet ran. Into this he happened to look and—saw ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... and she at me. We seemed to have formed an alliance in that look: she was the other half of my consciousness, I of hers. Ha! Ha! there were a lot of white narcissus, and little white hyacinths, Roman hyacinths, in the conservatory. I can see them now, great white stars, and tangles of little ones, among a bank of green; and I can recall the keen, fresh scent on the warm air; and the look of Beatrice ... ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... least) sing to him upon his hand, and preached to the birds, and made the wolf go its rounds every day as regularly as any Franciscan friar, to ask for a little contribution to its modest dinner. The Bee and Narcissus would have delighted to talk in ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... Narcissus and his Reflection. Electra and Orestes. Antigone and Polynices. Diana and Apollo. Scholastica and Benedict. Cornelia and Tasso. Margaret and Francis. Mary and Sir Philip Sidney. Catherine and Robert Boyle. Caroline and William Herschel. Letitia and ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... and, as the close-followed thought of what these last days had brought, rose in his mind, the wonder of it overwhelmed him. He told himself that the only possible explanation of her caring for such as he, was that Narcissus-like, she had seen her own image reflected in his heart, and had fallen in love with it. The fancy attracted him; he rode on, his mind set on a sonnet that should fitly enshrine the thought, and politics and religion, symbols and ideals, faded, as the stars ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... yet we have it but in part. Go out in the springtime among the meadows that slope from the shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains. There, mingled with the taller gentians, and the white narcissus, the grass grows deep and free; and as you follow the winding mountain path, beneath arching boughs, all veiled with blossom—paths that for ever droop and rise over the green banks and mounds sweeping down in scented undulation steep to the blue water, studded here and ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... the low-browed room at the "George," pouring in at the long windows and spilling in pools of hazy yellow upon the polished boards. Spring was in the old garden outside, touching the warm tangle of gillyflowers to fire, transmuting the pallor of the narcissus to light itself, making the very shadows more luminous than a winter's shining. The freakish sun, lit this and left that, after its habit, for nowhere is more mysterious alchemy than the mixing of sun and shadow in the spaces of the air. Ishmael's keen eyes could see how a spider's ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the sun and air I dreamed it but a dream That, like Narcissus, would confer With self in every stream, And to the leaves and boughs impart The tremors of ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... nymph of the hill, Of the dell and the deep-sounding shelves; If in spite of Narcissus you still Take to fools who are charmed ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... unseen 230 Within thy airy shell By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet imbroider'd vale Where the love-lorn Nightingale Nightly to thee her sad Song mourneth well. Canst thou not tell me of a gentle Pair That likest thy Narcissus are? O if thou have Hid them in som flowry Cave, Tell me but where 240 Sweet Queen of Parly, Daughter of the Sphear, So maist thou be translated to the skies, And give resounding grace ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... piety of those days was rather a passion than a sentiment. Their "beauty of holiness" was rather an active emotional impulse than a passive spiritualization, and was incomplete without a material expression, a tangible demonstration of itself. Like the fabled Narcissus, it yearned for its own image. Hence the joy and luxury of the ecclesiastical buildings of that period. They were the very blossoming of the tree of knowledge. This was, indeed, an unenlightened, perhaps ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... flower. According to Grecian fable, Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection in a fountain, and, having pined away because he could not kiss it, was changed into the flower which bears his name.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, iii. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... in glory from their winter graves, The painted Tulip comes, and Daisy fair, And o'er the brook the fond Narcissus waves Her golden cup—her image loving there. Those early flowers their glowing tributes bring To weave a chaplet round the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... sun is as potent as the glamour of the moon at Wellesley. High noon is magical on Tree Day, for then the mythic folk of ancient Greece, the hamadryads and Dian's nymphs, Venus and Orpheus and Narcissus, and all the rest, come out and dream a dance of old days on the great green billows of the lawn. To see veiled Cupid, like a living flame, come streaming down among the hillside trees, down, swift ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... either bank through the still shades appear A scene of pensive flow'rs, whose bosoms wear Drops of a lover's blood, the emblem'd truths Of deep despair, and love-slain kings and youths. The Hyacinth, and self-enamour'd boy Narcissus flourish there, with Venus' joy, The spruce Adonis, and that prince whose flow'r Hath sorrow languag'd on him to this hour; All sad with love they hang their heads, and grieve As if their passions in each leaf did live; And here—alas!—these soft-soul'd ladies stray, And—O! ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... tingle to the blood and the smell of rich, black earth and early green springing things to the nostrils; when the eye is ravished with the sight of purple hyacinths thrusting their royal chalices up through the reluctant soil; when the sun-colored jonquil and the star-eyed narcissus lift their scented heads above the sombre ground, as if unconscious of the patches of snow here and there, forming one of the contradictions of life, but a contradiction always welcome, because it is in itself a promise of ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... spring morning, and Sheba, having made herself ready, wandered into the garden to wait among the flowers. The rapturous first scents of the year were there, drawn by the sun and blown by vagrant puffs of wind from hyacinths and jonquils, white narcissus and blue violets. Sheba walked among the beds, every few minutes kneeling down upon the grass to bury her face in pink and yellow and white clusters, inhaling the breath of flowers and the pungent freshness of the sweet brown earth at the same time. She had lived among leaves ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... At Sparta, and at Lesbos, in the temple of Juno, and among the Parrhasii, there were contests for beauty among women. The general esteem for beauty went so far, that the Spartan women set up in their bedchambers a Nireus, a Narcissus, or a Hyacinth, that they might bear ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... still admired the sort of beauty she once had. He saw also that she was very prettily dressed, and, being one of those men who, imagining themselves gentlemen, feel at liberty to take liberties with women socially their inferiors, he plucked a pheasant-eye-narcissus in the border, and said—at the same time taking the leave ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... hand of his little companion clasped in his own, he descended to the street in quest of a cab to take them to the Palace of Narcissus. ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... dress. To be beautiful and to wear pretty things—these are two of the obvious privileges of woman. To be a living rose, with bosom of gold and petals of lace, a rose each passer-by longs to pluck from its husband-stem, but dare not for fear of the husband-thorns. To be privileged to play Narcissus all day long with your mirror, to love yourself so much that you kiss the cold reflection, yet fear not to drown. To reveal yourself to yourself in a thousand lovely poses, and bird-like poises of the head. To kneel to yourself in adoration, to laugh and nod and beckon to yourself with your own ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... anything. The epistles are read by both, and sometimes replied to by both! And she, in an effort to seem Oriental, calls the Dervish, "My Syrian Rose," "My Desert Flower," "My Beduin Boy," et cetera, always closing her message with either a strip of Syrian sky or a camel load of the narcissus. Ah, but not thus will the play close. True, Khalid alone adorns her studio for a time, or rather adores in it; he alone accompanies her to Bohemia. But the Dervish, who was always going wrong in Bohemia,—always at the door of the Devil,—ventures one night to escort another woman to ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... golden narcissus in her lily valley, Mary's heart was gladdened by the sudden outburst of a nightingale in a thicket close at hand. Careful watching was rewarded by a sight, not only of the singer but of a nest with three little ones in it. While she yet peeped at the nestlings, ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... Cliges I will limn you a portrait, the traits of which shall be very briefly told. He was in the flower of his youth, for he was about fifteen years old. He was fairer and more comely than Narcissus' who saw his own reflection in the fountain beneath the elm, and loved it so much when he saw it that he died—so folk say—because he could not have it. Much beauty had he, and little wit, but Cliges had greater store of both, ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... in his best—his Sunday suit of course; while his face glittered with the scrubbing he had bestowed on it. His dark black hair had been arranged and rearranged before the household looking-glass, and in his button-hole he stuck a narcissus (a sweet Nancy is its pretty Lancashire name), hoping it would attract Mary's notice, so that he might have the delight of ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Christian religion, at any rate the name of Christianity was not alluded to by the ancient writers who had mentioned the circumstance. Even if Rom. xvi. was addressed to Rome, and not, as I believe, to Ephesus, "they of the household of Narcissus which were in the Lord" were unknown slaves, as also were "they of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... last, the truth about a soul damned by music? Patel knew it. He promised me on his death-bed—" Olivie pushed by him and stood in the doorway. He only stared at her. "You are an Oread," he mumbled, "you still pine for your lost Narcissus till nothing is left of you but a voice—a voice which echoes him, echoes ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... preparation for it. Jones talking with me once on this subject, and about agape as against gnosis in art, said, "Oh that men should put an enemy into their brains to steal away their hearts." At any rate he and I have written "Narcissus" on these principles, and are not without hope that what it has lost in erudition it may have gained in freshness. I have, however, dealt with the question of how to study painting more at length in the chapter on the Decline of Italian art ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... the showman says, Dyspepsia. And the pair are intended to indicate that you may see yourselves complete by looking at them separately; and so your Royal Standard is your national mirror; and when you gaze on it fondly you're playing the part of a certain Mr. Narcissus, who got liker to the Lion than to the Unicorn in the act. Now will ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... garish mixture of colour does not offend the eye, toned down as it is by the everlasting twilight shed over the mimic palace and garden by overhanging branches of cypress and yew. An expanse of smooth-shaven lawn, white beds of lily and narcissus, marble tanks bubbling over with clear, cold water, and gravelled paths winding in and out of the trees to where, a hundred yards or so distant, a sunk fence divides the garden from a piece of ground ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... of the season as many as thirty tons are taken in one boatload. The more severe the weather on the mainland, the better is the demand. The bulbs are set in narrow fields, to secure their shelter from the winds by thick hedges. As many as two hundred kinds of narcissus, daffodil, and lily are now cultivated. "The beds are renewed every third year. This is necessary to retain the vigour of the plant, as if allowed to remain too long without lifting, the bulbs crowd each other and send up barren and feeble shoots. When ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... furiously angry, and small wonder. Those had been choice bulbs, some of which he had presented me from his own cherished store—freesias, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, and the starred narcissus, "such as Proserpine ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... ones dressed in white, with veils and chaplets of roses, blue cornflower, and pheasant's eye Narcissus, while the older women were more soberly attired. The Bank Managers and the banner headed the men, who were mostly peasants, but among them were a few who seemed to be of higher rank, and these, for the most part, though by no means all ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... narrow green leaves all growing from the bulb. The American child may know them as the big double monstrosities the florist sells in the spring, or he may have some single and prettier ones growing in his garden. The jonquil and the various kinds of narcissus are nearly related white or white and pink flowers. This picture on page 47 of Journeys Through Bookland shows a few daffodils growing. Miss Daffy-Down-Dilly, then, in her yellow petticoat and her green gown, is ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... roots of tulips, narcissus. Served raw sliced, with the above dressing, or cooked. Cf. notes ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... luxuriant creepers; whilst on the opposite side was a low woody patch, partly immersed by the lake-like glassy water of the river, into which one slender tree dipped its feathery crest, appearing like another Narcissus, to admire its own beauty in the stream. In front, the eye could penetrate far down the reach hemmed in as it was by trees that clustered thick on the ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... through greedy covetize Still to behold the obiect of their paine, With no contentment can themselves suffize; But having, pine, and having not, complaine. For lacking it, they cannot lyfe sustayne; And having it, they gaze on it the more, In their amazement lyke Narcissus vaine, Whose eyes him starv'd: so plenty makes me poore. Yet are mine eyes so filled with the store Of that faire sight, that nothing else they brooke, But lothe the things which they did like before, And can no more endure on them to looke. All this worlds glory seemeth vayne to me, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... rule Hyacinths, Tulips, and Narcissus should be planted about five inches deep, and ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... object in itself, independently of its spiritual significance. Next, under the influence of the classical revival, they brought home again the old powers of the earth—Aphrodite and Galatea and the Loves, Adonis and Narcissus and the Graces, Phoebus and Daphne and Aurora, Pan and the Fauns, and the Nymphs of the ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... double cherry in full bloom, while close beside it, but not so visible so late, with all their graceful growth outlined by rosy buds, were two Japanese crab apples. The grass just there is filled with narcissus, and at the foot of the oak a colony of tulips consoles me for the loss of the purple crocus patches, so lovely a ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... festive board. The baron, though very timid, and much embarrassed, had ventured to enter into conversation with his fair neighbours. The pedant and the tyrant were loudly discussing the respective merits of tragedy and comedy. Leander, like Narcissus of old, was complacently admiring his own charms as reflected in a little pocket mirror he always had about him. Strange to say he was not a suitor of either Serafina's or Isabelle's; fortunately for them he aimed higher, and was always hoping that some grand lady, who saw him ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... works. He might have drawn the other stem in excusable ignorance, or under some false impression of being able to improve upon nature; but this is conclusive and unpardonable. Again, take the stem of the chief tree in Claude's Narcissus. It is a very faithful portrait of a large boa-constrictor, with a handsome tail; the kind of trunk which young ladies at fashionable boarding-schools represent with nosegays at the top of them, by way ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... retained the very same names of the men and women who have been metamorphosed and transformed in them, as from Daphne the laurel is called also Daphne; Myrrh from Myrrha, the daughter of Cinarus; Pythis from Pythis; Cinara, which is the artichoke, from one of that name; Narcissus, with Saffron, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... with forget-me-nots and cranesbill in a never-ending dance upon the grassy floor. Happy, too, is he who finds the lilies-of-the-valley clustering about the chestnut boles upon the Colma, or in the beechwood by the stream at Macugnaga, mixed with garnet-coloured columbines and fragrant white narcissus, which the people of the villages call 'Angiolini.' There, too, is Solomon's seal, with waxen bells and leaves expanded like the wings of hovering butterflies. But these lists of flowers are tiresome and cold; it would be better to draw the portrait of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... a pair must go with a wedding gown and trousseau equally as extravagant, the climax of fashion's freakish ways being the rose-made garter worn over said stockings. Parisian society which smells to heaven in fashionable odors has now originated garters made of primroses, harebells, narcissus, violets and lillies, the same being worn by the ladies at balls and receptions in Paris. Knots of blossoms are caught among the thick flouncings and ruches of the petticoats; and even the embroidered corset has its little bouquet attachment. ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... else let there be breeding! But at this thing the world might look and understand and censure if it were not brass-browed and stupid. Sneak! Traitress! Serpent! Oh, Serpent! do you slip into our very Eden? looping your sly coils across our flowers, trailing over our beds of narcissus and our budding rose, crawling into our secret arbours and whispering-places and nests of happiness! Do you flaunt and sway your crested head with a new hat on it every day? Oh, that my Aunt were here, with the dragon's teeth, and the red breath, and whiskers to ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... native isle! The vision leads me on by many a stream; And spreading cities crowd upon my dream, Where turrets darkly frown, and lofty spires Point to the stars and sparkle in their fires! Here Sydney gazes, from the mountain side, Narcissus-like upon the glassy tide! O'er rising towns Notasian commerce reigns, And temples crowd Tasmania's lovely plains! The prospect varies in an endless range; Villas and lawns go by, in ceaseless change: And wafted on the gale from many a dell, Methinks I hear the village Sabbath ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... whom young men pay their first court, know much better how to make love than younger women. An adolescent youth is too like a young woman himself for a young woman to please him. Such a passion trenches on the fable of Narcissus. Besides that feeling of repugnance, there is, as I think, a mutual sense of inexperience which separates them. The reason why the hearts of young women are only understood by mature men, who conceal their cleverness under a passion real or feigned, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... the scenes.) The sun is fast declining! Maidens, haste, Scatter ambrosial fragrance through the hall, Strew roses and narcissus flowers around, Forgetting not the gold-embroidered pillow. He comes not ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... The long narcissus-blades appear; The cone-beaked hyacinth returns, And lights her ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... that are to come, drive away your cares by the intoxicating bowl: See you not that hands have painted beautiful flowers on the robes of drink? Spoils of the vine-branch, lilies and narcissus, and the violet and the striped flower of N'uman: If troubles overtake you, lull them to sleep with ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... but less so than her second daughter's. She walks a little on one side, which Madame de Ratzenhausen calls walking by ear. She does not think that there is her equal in the world for beauty, wit, and perfection of all kinds. I always compare her to Narcissus, who died of self-admiration. She is so vain as to think she has more sense than her husband, who has a great deal; while her notions are not in the slightest degree elevated. She lives much in the femme-de-chambre style; and, indeed, ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... Demeter, lady of the golden sword and glorious fruits, she was playing with the deep-bosomed daughters of Oceanus and gathering flowers over a soft meadow, roses and crocuses and beautiful violets, irises also and hyacinths and the narcissus, which Earth made to grow at the will of Zeus and to please the Host of Many, to be a snare for the bloom-like girl—a marvellous, radiant flower. It was a thing of awe whether for deathless gods or mortal men to see: ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... it was mere vanity that drew him closer; perhaps the fancy that he saw a rival; perhaps, but this is not likely, thirst. Close to the margin lay a rough-edged clumsy flint. On this he settled, and, Narcissus like, feasted his eyes on his own beauty. He nearly met Narcissus' fate. It was the flint that saved him. He felt the shadow, almost before it reached him, but even so he rose too late. For half a minute he, the Purple Emperor, ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... that Bettina allowed herself to think of these things. But now, in her solitude and idleness, visions would come of the eager lover, strong as a young Narcissus, who represented love in such a simple, wholesome guise—or at least so it had seemed to be. Then she would shake off the image, and tell herself it was but seeming, as the result had proved, and so she would accuse herself of weakness and sentimentality. ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... Fickleness. Other personages—sometimes with the same names, sometimes with different—follow in the train; Cupid watches the Lover that he may take shot at him, and the tale is interrupted by an episode giving the story of Narcissus. Meanwhile the Lover has seen among the flowers of the garden one rose-bud on which he fixes special desires. The thorns keep him off; and Love, having him at vantage, empties the right-hand quiver on him. He yields himself prisoner, and a dialogue between captive and captor follows. Love ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... filled with the incense of grateful and loving hearts. We cannot tell with what feeling we added our sprays of blossoms, perennials springing from the garden of the heart, waxen white and fragrant as the narcissus. ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... with the creed; He almost thinks he disbelieves indeed; But only thinks so; to give both their due, Satan, and he, believe, and tremble too. Of some for glory such the boundless rage, That they're the blackest scandal of their age. Narcissus the Tartarian club disclaims; Nay, a free-mason, with some terror, names; Omits no duty; nor can envy say, He miss'd, these many years, the church, or play: He makes no noise in parliament, 'tis true; But pays his debts, and visit, when 'tis due; His character and gloves are ever clean, And ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... the converts were probably in a humble social position. When St. Paul wrote to the Philippians, there were Christians in the imperial household itself, and it is possible that the Narcissus mentioned in Romans may be the freedman of the Emperor Claudius, put to death in A.D. 54. Ordinary slaves and freedmen seem to have been the principal element among those who were first "called to be saints" at Rome, but before long there were people of good birth and cultured intelligence ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... only creature outside of myself that I ever found myself in,' he said. 'And I could look into you like Narcissus until I died. You are home and Nirvana. That's what you are. When I look at you I believe in God. You gallantest, most foolhardy, little, fragile thing, you, you're not afraid of anything. You trust this rotten life, don't you? You expect to find lovely things everywhere, and you will, ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... still intent on that study of my robust-looking but slightly weather-beaten map when Dinky-Dunk walked in and caught me in the middle of my Narcissus act. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... the fosterers of enduring snows."[25] Rich sheltered plains lie at their feet, covered with an unequally woven mantle of trees, and shrubs, and flowers,—"the verdant gloom of the thickly-mantling ivy, the narcissus steeped in heavenly dew, the golden-beaming crocus, the hardy and ever-fresh-sprouting olive-tree,"[26] and the luxuriant palm, which nourishes amid its branches the grape swelling with juice. But it is the combination ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... How long he stayed like that he did not know. The little noises—of the tapping nail, the feet, the skirts rustling—as in a dream—went on about him; and before his closed eyes the figure stood and smiled and whispered, a faint perfume of narcissus lingering in the air. And his forehead where it had been kissed had a little cool place between the brows, like the imprint of a flower. Love filled his soul, that love of boy for girl which knows so little, hopes so much, would not brush ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... he continued, speaking to Reginald, "the Narcissus I was working on the last time when you called at ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... nature's "chiefest work," more beautiful than Narcissus, Ganymede, or Adonis.—Wm. Browne, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... public which may value them more highly than in Ruskin's day, but drops in a great many newspapers. Another so-called well—Anne Boleyn's well; her horse put its foot into soft ground above a spring—is a well no longer. Iron railings ward off the profane, and narcissus and ivy cluster round its brim, but below, according to the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... will tear the full flowers and the little heads of the grape-hyacinths. I will strip the life from the bulb until the ivory layers lie like narcissus petals on ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington
... wuz free he comed ter Raleigh an' from de fust I can remember he wuz a blacksmith an' his shop wuz on Wolcot's Corner. Dar wuz jist three of us chilluns, Charlie, Narcissus, an' me an' dat wuz a ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... that, during his whole life, his ear should not indulge in the music of the tabor, cymbal, and pipe. He could restrain his eyes from enjoying the garden, and gratify his sense of smell without the rose or narcissus. Though he had not a pillow stuffed with down, he could compose himself to rest with a stone under his head; though he had no heart-solacer as the partner of his bed, he could hug himself to sleep with his arms across his breast. If he could not ride an ambling nag, he was content to take his ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... you; which Thestilis Implores me oft to let her lead away; And she shall have them, since my gifts you spurn. Come hither, beauteous boy; for you the Nymphs Bring baskets, see, with lilies brimmed; for you, Plucking pale violets and poppy-heads, Now the fair Naiad, of narcissus flower And fragrant fennel, doth one posy twine- With cassia then, and other scented herbs, Blends them, and sets the tender hyacinth off With yellow marigold. I too will pick Quinces all silvered-o'er with hoary down, Chestnuts, which Amaryllis wont to love, And waxen plums ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... wish to attempt in a very few words to describe the beauty of Cliges. He was in his flower, being now almost fifteen years of age. He was more comely and charming than Narcissus who saw his reflection in the spring beneath the elm-tree, and, when he saw it, he loved it so that he died, they say, because he could not get it. Narcissus was fair, but had little sense; [227] but as fine gold surpasses copper, so was Cliges better endowed with wisdom, and even ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... Azaleas, Hyacinths, Heliotropes, Hydrangeas, Kalmias, Sedums, Lilacs, Narcissus, Pelargoniums, Pinks, Rhododendrons, and Roses in varieties. A batch of last year's young Fuchsias, Erythrinas, and Salvia patens, to be shaken out, repotted, and placed in bottom heat. Sow Balsams, ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane |
