"Ornamental" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... faced the Place, were the trees and greenery of the broad Champs Elysees. On his left were the fountains and the gardens of the Tuilleries. At the further end of the Place, five hundred feet straight in front of him, were the banks and the ornamental bridges of the Seine, beyond which could be seen the columned facade of the Chambre des Deputies, and above and beyond that, against the blue sky of a late June afternoon, rose the majestic golden dome of the Invalides, over the tomb ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... still whispering together, and Clara had just risen to go upstairs, and Alice and Will had finished the translation, and Will was just on the point of seeing how near he could come to throwing the Commentaries of Caesar into an ornamental Japanese jar across the room, when Mrs. Hardy parted the curtains at the arch and beckoned her children to come into the next room. Her face was exceedingly pale, and she was trembling as if with ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... cenotaph in an empty ornamental tomb. The body of the person to whom the monument has ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... and, together with the new art, had emanated from Paris, is closely akin to Gothic architecture. For the Gothic style and scholastic thought share the characteristics of the infinitely constructive and infinitely cleft, the infinitely subtle and ornamental—perhaps the last trace of the spirit of the north as compared with the simplicity of ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... amaranth flowers remain attached; and all over the sides and bottom masses of flower-stems of grass with the white silky down attached are thickly plastered, which, intermingled as this white down is with the glistening yellow flowers, produces a very ornamental effect, and looks as it the bird had really had an eye ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... requires less expense to be happy. He practices a kind of gilding in his style of living, and hammers out every guinea into gold leaf. The Englishman, on the contrary, is expensive in his habits, and expensive in his enjoyments. He values everything, whether useful or ornamental, by what it costs. He has no satisfaction in show, unless it be solid and complete. Everything goes with him by the square foot. Whatever display he makes, the depth is sure ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... to view the city; so you take an umbrella, an overcoat, and a fan, and go forth. The prominent features you soon locate and get familiar with; first you glimpse the ornamental upper works of a long, snowy palace projecting above a grove of trees, and a tall, graceful white dome with a statue on it surmounting the palace and pleasantly contrasting with the background of blue sky. That building ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... which is bound for Vivarais, passes through the town from end to end in a single narrow street; there you may see the fountain where women fill their pitchers; there also some old houses with carved doors and pediment and ornamental work in iron. For Monastier, like Maybole in Ayrshire, was a sort of country capital, where the local aristocracy had their town mansions for the winter; and there is a certain baron still alive and, I am told, extremely penitent, who found means to ruin himself by high living in this ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and sat among us, eating or smoking her cigarette, quite cut off from all society, or only now and then included through the intermediary of her son. It was a position that might have been ridiculous, and she made it ornamental; making believe to hear and to be entertained; her face, whenever she met our eyes, lighting with the smile of good society; her contributions to the talk, when she made any, and that was seldom, always complimentary and pleasing. No attention was paid to the child, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... here as opposing the erection of good, substantial, and even ornamental buildings by the Government wherever such buildings are needed. In fact, I approve of the Government owning its own buildings in all sections of the country, and hope the day is not far distant when it will not only possess them, but will erect in the capital suitable residences for all ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... city, in a beautifully fenced grove, the traveller came across a small group of servants, both male and female, carrying baskets. In their midst, carried by four servants in an ornamental sedan-chair, sat a woman, the mistress, on red pillows under a colourful canopy. Siddhartha stopped at the entrance to the pleasure-garden and watched the parade, saw the servants, the maids, the baskets, saw the sedan-chair ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... a hurdle jumping,—but entirely too Quixotic for the sober requirements of Yankee warfare. When anything absurd, forlorn, or desperate was to be attempted, the Irish brigade was called upon. But, ordinarily, they were regarded, as a party of mad fellows, more ornamental than useful, and entirely too clannish and factious to be entrusted with power. Meagher himself seemed to be less erratic than his subordinates; for he had married a New York lady, and had learned, by observation, the superiority of the pelfish, plodding native before ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... regain the normal temperature of cordiality the moment that Mrs. Plaistow returned that worsted. Outwardly and publicly friendly relationships had been resumed, and as the coolness had lasted six weeks or so, it was probable that the worsted had already been incorporated into the ornamental border of Mrs. Plaistow's jumper or winter scarf, and a proper expression of regret would have to do instead. So the nearer Mrs. Plaistow approached, the more invisible she became to Miss Mapp's eye, and when she was within saluting distance ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... great company. He told me, as vividly as though he had been an eye-witness, of how the canoes must have loomed up suddenly from between the islands. By-and-by he seized the lamp and conducted me outside, where hung ponderous ornamental steelyards, on which in the old days the ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... not quite fill his children's mouths, and they had to be filled. So, behind his house there was a little yard, reached by a passage from the back street, and in that yard was a pole, and under the pole a shop of quite another description than the ornamental one in the front street. Here on Saturday nights from seven till ten he took an almost innumerable succession of twopences from the farm laborers who flocked thither in crowds from the country. And ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Suspension Bridge, was motionless now above Niagara city, shadowing all that district about the power-house which had been the scene of the land fight. The monster had an air of quiet and assured predominance, and from its stern it trailed, serene and ornamental, a long streaming flag, the red, black, and yellow of the great alliance, the Sunrise and the Dragon. Beyond, to the east, at a much higher level, hung a second consort, and Bert, presently gathering courage, wriggled out ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... Professing to guard the republic the Ten in fact destroyed its liberties, disposed of its finances, overruled the constitutional legislators, suppressed and excluded the popular element from all voice in public affairs, and finally reduced the nominal prince—the doge—to a mere puppet or an ornamental functionary, still called ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... miles, which was accomplished in a short time by the spirited horses, the carriage entered, through an ornamental gate, upon a smooth driveway, which led up to a handsome mansion, of large size, with a veranda stretching along the ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... mischief or I'm much mistaken," said Jack, as he drew his companions back further into a patch of black shadow cast by some ornamental shrubs. ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... the city wall a broad concrete walk; along this walk seats, trees, and rude statues; and between the walk and the wall an ornamental garden. ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... every description; here, on the contrary, it was difficult to find anything in the shape of a shop until I was introduced to a soi-disant store, where everything was to be purchased from a needle to a crowbar, and from satin to sail-cloth; the useful predominating over the ornamental in all cases. It was all on a poor scale and after several inquiries respecting the best hotel, I located myself at that termed the Royal or Seager's Hotel. This was airy, white and clean throughout; but there was a barn-like appearance, as there is throughout most private dwellings in Colombo, ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... here is Tiflis before my eyes; walls of the citadels, belfries of the temples belonging to the different religions, a metropolitan church with its double cross, houses of Russian, Persian, or Armenian construction; a few roofs, but many terraces; a few ornamental frontages, but many balconies and verandas; then two well-marked zones, the lower zone remaining Georgian, the higher zone, more modern, traversed by a long boulevard planted with fine trees, among which is seen the palace of Prince Bariatinsky, a capricious, unexpected marvel of irregularity, which ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... life, real life, something that had happened, and the same may be said of what followed. For instance, there was what we call a review. Infantry marched, some of them armed with swords and spears, though these I took to be an ornamental bodyguard, and others with tubes like savage blowpipes of which I could not guess the use. There were no cannon, but carriages came by loaded with bags that had spouts to them. Probably these were charged with poisonous gases. There were some cavalry ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... sold at $7.50, (being $2.50 more than the price of subscription,) and superior in execution and elegance to any picture distributed in this manner." It has in its collection for distribution "ninety-nine elegant and costly oil paintings and engravings, richly framed in ornamental and plain gilt frames." All the difference between these Unions, seems to be in the fact that the "Homestead" has limited the number of tickets—certainly an improvement on the other, so far as the public interest is concerned. We may expect to ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... Store. But you cannot go to the Clean Linen Store and say "Please give me three pillow-cases." The Clean Linen Store either says "Why?" (a question which, under the circumstances, is flatly unanswerable), or else tells you, in language both firm and ornamental, that you have already had them: your ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... tarpaulin or two if the ship is ever to be brought into order," observed Benbow; "these young gentlemen from the shore are very well in their way, but they are more ornamental than useful." ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... ornamental. The girls were all to work on the staking out and preparation. But each girl was then to take a section of it and plant ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... were all dug, Bob got his sketch, showing the placing of the fence posts and the location of the two gates at the entrance to the property; also sketches for two extra large posts, one on each side of the driveway. These posts were ornamental and made specially strong by steel rods, not only to support the gates, but with two bolts placed near the top for attaching a sign, for it had been decided that there should be a sign, cast in concrete for permanency, and painted white with deep blue letters and border. The sign was to be fifteen ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... them to stairs, up which they clambered to where Davis, the Assistant Trader, kept store. There, barred by a heavy wooden grill from the airy loft filled with bright calicoes, sashes, pails, guns, blankets, clothes, and other ornamental and useful things, Sak-we-su and Mu-hi-kun made their choice, trading in the worn wooden "castors" on the string. So much flour, so much tea, so much sugar and powder and lead, so much in clothing. Thus were their simple needs supplied for the year to come. Then the remainder they squandered ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... enterprises: the good sense which he displayed in his discourse and conversation, seemed to warrant his success in every reasonable undertaking. Other endowments likewise he had attained, which, in a private gentleman, would have been highly ornamental, and which, in a great monarch, might have proved extremely useful to his people. He was possessed of an excellent taste in all the fine arts; and the love of painting was in some degree his favorite passion. Learned beyond what is common in princes, he was a good judge of writing in others, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... fight was practically over, and the odds at once turned in favour of Jackson, who thenceforward had matters all his own way. Even if Mendoza had worn a wig, he probably would have succumbed to Jackson, who was a more powerful man with a longer reach, and as scientific, though not so ornamental, a boxer. In 1803 ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... called his daughter, Betsy, and so she was called by almost everybody at all familiar with the family. Betsy Figgles was not a very poetical subject, by name or size. She was a fine, bouncing young woman of four-and-twenty; she was dutiful and bountiful, if not beautiful. She was useful, and even ornamental in her old father's eyes, and, as he was wont to say, in his never-to-be-forgotten ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... striking effect. Over the Lodge, upon a dial was inscribed the appropriate motto, "Venio sicut fur." The Gate, which crossed Newgate Street, had a wide arch for carriages, and a postern, on the north side, for foot-passengers. Its architecture was richly ornamental, and resembled the style of a triumphal entrance to a capital, rather than a dungeon having battlements and hexagonal towers, and being adorned on the western side with a triple range of pilasters of the Tuscan order, amid the intercolumniations of which were niches embellished ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Ch.C.P. in the reign of Elizabeth. The only difference between it and Sir Thomas More's is, that the rose is placed between the portcullises. I have another, in a later period of the same reign, of Sir Christopher Wray, Ch.K.B., in which the Esses are alternated with ornamental knots. I am not aware of any portrait of a chief baron before Sir Thomas Bury, in the first year of George I.; so that I am uncertain whether the collar was previously worn by ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various
... expenditures of Switzerland are much less than those of neighboring states. This may be ascribed in part to the lighter military burden, in part to the fact that no monarchs and courts must be supported, and further, to the inclinations of the Swiss people for practical rather than ornamental matters." And he might pertinently have added, "and to the fact that the citizens themselves hold ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan
... always, to the expensive and the aristocratic. He was proud of his pure plebeian blood, as many plebeians are; he gloried in it. He disliked show, with a calm and deep aversion. He was a plain man with a simple, unostentatious taste for money. The difference between Helen's name and her ornamental raiment gave him pleasure in the name. But he had not been examining her for more than half a minute when he began to find pleasure in her rich clothes (rich, that is, to him!). Quite suddenly he, at the age of sixty, abandoned ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... the King himself, nobody ever approached his magnificence. His buildings, who could number them? At the same time, who was there who did not deplore the pride, the caprice, the bad taste seen in them? He built nothing useful or ornamental in Paris, except the Pont Royal, and that simply by necessity; so that despite its incomparable extent, Paris is inferior to many cities of Europe. Saint-Germain, a lovely spot, with a marvellous view, rich forest, terraces, gardens, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... which he could hold out to those who would desert the royal cause. No words can exaggerate the self-abnegation of those men. I have seen a supper party under my father's roof where our guests were two fencing-masters, three professors of language, one ornamental gardener, and one translator of books, who held his hand in the front of his coat to conceal a rent in the lapel. But these eight men were of the highest nobility of France, who might have had what they chose to ask if ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... know how that old Greek looked; but if he had the build and lines of this chap he sure was some ornamental. Anyway, the one we had with us would have been a medal winner in any kind of clothes. Also he had the light wavy hair and the dark blue eyes of Millie's description, with some of the vacation ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... if anything can be said in praise of a prison, and was much lighter and pleasanter than the old, heavy, home-made structure in which I had been shut up so long. Its rim was painted a cheerful green, and the wires were burnished like gold. Ornamental sconces held the glass cups for my food and there were decorated hoops to swing in. Altogether it was a very handsome house, yet I could not forget it was ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... thought," replied she. "Consider it well and word thy thought elegantly, and I doubt not but it will procure thee his favour." So Bedreddin shut himself up and composed the following verses, which he copied in an ornamental hand: ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... small wren-like bird and the only member known of the genus, with a tail resembling that of the lyre-bird, the extravagantly long feathers being so narrow as to appear almost like shafts destitute of webs. This tail appears to be purely ornamental. ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... acquainted with the use of bronze from the first period of their settlement in Europe, and some of the battle-axes or shields which they manufactured from this metal were beautifully chased with exquisite decorative patterns, equalling in taste the ornamental designs still employed by the Polynesian islanders. Such weapons, however, were doubtless intended for the use of the chieftains only, and were probably employed as insignia of rank alone. They are still discovered in the barrows which cover the remains of the ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... all naked and bare-footed. They carry a shield in one hand and a sword in the other. Some of the servants are armed with straight bows and arrows. Elephants are greatly used in battle.... Large scythes are attached to the trunks and tusks of the elephants, and the animals are clad in ornamental plates of steel. They carry a citadel, and in the citadel twelve men in armour with guns and arrows.... The land is overstocked with people; but those in the country are very miserable, whilst the nobles are extremely opulent and delight in ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... children he had little. Bailey was useful in the office, and Ruth ornamental at home. They satisfied him. He had never troubled to study their characters. It had never occurred to him to wonder if they were fond of him. They formed a necessary part of his household, and beyond that he was not interested in them. ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... while to take a boat and pull over to Brownsea. The island, which once belonged to Cerne Abbey, is elliptical in shape, with pine-covered banks rising, in some places, to a height of ninety feet. In the centre of the isle is a valley in which are two ornamental lakes. In addition to a large residence, Brownsea Castle, and its extensive grounds, there is a village of about twenty cottages, called Maryland, and an ornate Gothic church, partly roofed and panelled with ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... kind of watch for a little girl like you," admired the Doctor; "neither too large nor too ornamental." ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... bead or beads on matchboarding is to break the jointing of the various pieces and to aim at ornamental effect; also to prevent unsightliness should the timber shrink slightly. When a moderate amount of shrinkage takes place, as is nearly always the case, the joint at the side of the bead appears to the casual observer to be the fillet or channel ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... A.F. Lindblad, taught him the latter, while his fondness for the former was richly satisfied during the years when he worked his way through the ranks of the Swedish navy. And his position on board the various man-of-war's-men in which he traveled on many seas was never merely ornamental or even exceptional. He took not only the title but also the work of the offices he held, from ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... and especially at Copan, there are clusters of four-sided stone pillars or obelisks varying from twelve to over twenty feet high. These are elaborately sculptured, and show human figures, ornamental designs, and many inscriptions. One or two statues have been discovered, and a statuette twelve inches high is described; "it is made of baked clay, very hard, and the surface is smooth as if coated with enamel." At Palenque are remains of a well-built aqueduct; and near the ruins, especially ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... up and down over the hills of Amesbury. The road was built along the sides of the hills without any pretence of grading to a level. It was built by the sturdy Canadians who will leave that monument behind them on Salisbury Plains, more useful if not more ornamental or enduring than Stonehenge, the tumuli, or the fallen ramparts and ditches of Celts, Saxons, ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... partners' shares in the business and have the whole undertaking to himself, and he profoundly regretted it. He needed every penny that he could collect; the strictest economy was necessary if he meant to survive the struggle. And here he was paying eight pounds a week to a personage purely ornamental, after having squandered hundreds in rendering that personage comfortable! ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... fine, sublime, showy, specious. artistic, artistical[obs3]; aesthetic; picturesque, pictorial; fait a peindre[Fr]; well-composed, well grouped, well varied; curious. enchanting &c. (pleasure-giving) 829; becoming &c. (accordant) 23; ornamental &c. 847. undeformed, undefaced, unspotted; spotless &c. (perfect) 650. Phr. auxilium non leve vultus habet [Lat][Ovid]; "beauty born of murmuring sound" [Wordsworth]; "flowers preach to us if we will ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... thrown round her graceful figure. There were no signs of haste or agitation in her appearance. She wore a very elegant and becoming dress, a Paris bonnet on her head, a pair of French gloves on her slender hands. She became at once the centre of the group, the ornamental point on which all eyes were fixed. Every one else was distressed, frightened, or angry; but Lady Caroline's pleasing smile and little air of society was not for one moment to ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... The Regiment had been almost continually broken up for detached service, at different head-quarters, or for the purpose of halting stragglers. With many of the men, their service appeared like their equipment, ornamental rather than useful, and in connexion with their foraging reputation, won for them the expressive designation ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... in the Eyes of Mankind, and ornamental to Human Nature, setting aside the infinite Advantages [which [4]] arise from it, as a strong, steady masculine Piety; but Enthusiasm and Superstition are the Weaknesses of human Reason, that expose us to the Scorn ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... how to feed, exercise, and rest the physical system, in order to produce health. Ministers of the Gospel have taught souls the way of life ever-lasting. Professors of the various sciences and arts, useful and ornamental, have instructed the intellects of men, and now and then a woman; but with all these, the affections—the crowning—rather the integral element of all life and being, have had few, or no exponents who have ever attempted to treat them from any basis which can be called philosophical, or which could ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... there is no doubt that much was done to purify both the language and the tone of thought. Poems, plays, epigrams, eulogiums, and even sermons were rehearsed before the committee of taste in the Hotel de Rambouillet, and a wonderful new stimulus was there given, not only to ornamental but to solid literature. Many of the great men who made France illustrious were either ending or beginning their careers at this time. Memoir writing specially flourished, and the characters of the men and women of the court are known ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cattle too, and was great in bulls. He was very loud in praise of Kentucky and its attractions, if only this war could be brought to an end. But I could not obtain from him an assurance that the speculation in which he was engaged had been profitable. Ornamental farming in England is a very pretty amusement for a wealthy man, but I fancy—without intending any slight on Mr. Mechi—that the amusement is expensive. I believe that the same thing may be said of it in ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... afford to treat men rudely. A lady must have a high intellectual and moral ideal and hold herself above reproach. She must remember that the art of pleasing and entertaining gentlemen is infinitely more ornamental than laces, ribbons or diamonds. Dress and glitter may please man, but it will never ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... by doing so in the case of several unimportant structures. Take an analogous instance from human contrivances. Unity of ideal in the case of gun-making would be shown by the same principles of mechanism running through all the different sizes and shapes of gun-locks, rather than by the ornamental patterns engraved upon the outside. Yet it must be supposed that in the mechanisms assumed to have been constructed by special creation, it was the trivial details rather than the fundamental principles of these mechanisms which were chosen ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... saddening, what is it to see a human dwelling fall by the hand of violence! The ripping off of the shelter that has kept out a thousand storms, the tearing off of the once ornamental woodwork, the wrench of the inexorable crowbar, the murderous blows of the axe, the progressive ruin, which ends by rending all the joints asunder and flinging the tenoned and mortised timbers into heaps that will be sawed and split to warm some new ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... somewhat cheered, and after a great deal of talking the cuckoo persuaded them to give in and consent to show their feet, as they could not possibly marry the princes without. Besides, perhaps when the king found their toes were all right he would think the colour rather ornamental than otherwise. So the princes were told to their great joy that the princesses had consented to show their feet; and the king and queen, on being informed, summoned a Cabinet Council for the next morning so that their ministers might be present ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... how I feel about it so long as the higher cravings of his own nature are satisfied? But I resent it—I resent it bitterly. I object to having my head look like a real-estate development with an opening for a new street going up each side and an ornamental design in fancy landscape gardening across the top. If I permit this I won't be able to keep on saying that I was twenty-seven on my last birthday, with some hope of getting away with it. So I insist that he ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... and last gentleman whom we think proper to describe, was a man of about the age of the first, but utterly unlike him. His head was covered with a black skull cap, (probably to protect his baldness,) beneath which, rose ears more prominent than ornamental, being very little relieved by the hair, which was cropped short. His complexion was florid, and the parts of the face, about the chin and jaws, full and heavy, giving an appearance of great roundness to the countenance. His features were regular, the mouth small and compressed, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... preserved his game, and where there were rabbits in abundance; while joining Brineweald to Hedlinge there was a small fast-running stream, called the Sprigg, which at certain points in its course, fell in picturesque cascades, surmounted by rockeries and ornamental foot-bridges. In the neighbourhood of these, on either bank, Sir Joseph had also built seats and bowers, and in the summer these resting-places were the coolest ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... servants, you brave officers of state, and you, too, my bodyguard, and all you useful and ornamental fellows of my palace, run and prepare, shoot off rockets and ring the bells in order to give a joyful welcome to ...
— Folk Tales from the Russian • Various
... Helping himself indifferently to all religions for rhetoric illustration, his preference was still for that of the soil, the old pagan one, the primitive Italian gods, whose names and legends haunt his speech, as they do the carved and pictorial work of the age, according to the fashion of that ornamental paganism which the Renaissance indulged. To excite, to surprise, to move men's minds, as the volcanic earth is moved, as if in travail, and, according to the Socratic fancy, bring them to the birth, was the ...
— Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater
... risk, and were the means by which the wealth and the piety of Christians were to be displayed. The newly imperialized religion must have its imperial temples, and the little dark chapels of the catacombs were exchanged for the vast and ornamental spaces of the new basilicas. It was no longer needful that the dead should be laid in the secret paths of the rock, and the luxury of magnificent Christian tombs began to rival that of the sepulchres of the earlier Romans. The body of St. Peter, which had long, according to popular ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... at the stiff, ornamental, and childishly antithetical style of his day and nation, he welded the flimsy elements of the French language into instruments of strength akin to his own conceptions, and wrought out of them a style for himself in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... a Noun must always be either (1) the ordinary word for the thing, or (2) a strange word, or (3) a metaphor, or (4) an ornamental word, or (5) a coined word, or (6) a word lengthened out, or (7) curtailed, or (8) altered in form. By the ordinary word I mean that in general use in a country; and by a strange word, one in use elsewhere. So that the same word may obviously be at once strange and ordinary, ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... of a suite of apartments opening into each other, on the second story. These apartments were somewhat lavishly furnished, but in the strictest good taste, and the eye was charmed by a profusion of choice plants blossoming in ornamental flower-vases, placed upon brackets on the wall; or of orchids floating in pendant luxuriance from baskets attached to the ceiling. Then, Madeleine had not forgotten the picturesque use so often made of the ivy in her native land, and had trained the obedient parasite ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... French, Latin, Greek, writing in a natural and easy style after the best precedents; arithmetic, vulgar and decimal; geography, with use of the globes; geometry, navigation with all the late modern improvements; algebra, and every other useful and ornamental branch of mathematical learning. Some of the other male teachers write in a similar strain ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... through the little city park. It is a pretty place in summer—a varied surface, well planted with forest and ornamental trees, intersected by a winding stream. The little river was full now, and ice had formed on it, with small openings here and there, where the dark water, hurrying along as if in fear of arrest, had a more chilling aspect than the icy cover. The ground was white ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... decorated with the addition of a false dhoti-fold in front and behind. The fearsome thing that resulted from combining a turban with a Sola-topee our most enthusiastic member would not have had the temerity to call ornamental. No person of ordinary courage could have dared it, but my brother unflinchingly wore the complete suit in broad day-light, passing through the house of an afternoon to the carriage waiting outside, indifferent ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... perhaps epargne, a save-all or hold-all. Here seems no more difficulty in the transfer of the name than in that of chiffonier, from a rag-basket to a piece of ornamental furniture. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 48, Saturday, September 28, 1850 • Various
... uncommon pains had been taken with her education, so that she could stitch in every variety of way, make all kinds of pickles and preserves, and mark her own name on a sampler. The influence of her taste was seen also in the family garden, where the ornamental began to mingle with the useful; whole rows of fiery marigolds and splendid hollyhocks bordered the cabbage beds, and gigantic sunflowers lolled their broad, jolly faces over the fences, seeming to ogle ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... things a thousand times more useful, Sally. I don't pretend to compare with you in the useful arts, and I am only a bungler in ornamental ones. Sally, I feel like a useless little creature. If I could go round as you can, and do business, and make bargains, and push ahead in the world, I should feel that I was good for ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... his son-in-law by learning some handicraft, till when he hoped they would accept of an abode near the palace. To this the old man readily consented; and in a short time the sultan, eager to possess his bride, became such an adept in the handicraft of making ornamental mats for sofas and cushions of cane and reeds, that the Arab agreed to the nuptials, which were celebrated with all possible splendour and rejoicing, while the subjects admired more than ever the justice and moderation ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... manage the fowls, but her management was almost entirely ornamental, and it is to be feared that the poultry yard would have fared but poorly had it depended upon her alone. All the fowls were hers. She said so, and no one contradicted her. Still, whenever one was wanted for the table, it was ruthlessly ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... neglected in the ornamental parts, for I had an uncommon natural genius for many things, and soon topped in accomplishments most of the persons around me. I had a quick ear and a fine voice, which my mother cultivated to the best of her power, and she taught me to ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his own. Him Teucer pierced beneath his ear, and pluck'd His weapon home; he fell as falls an ash Which on some mountain visible afar, Hewn from its bottom by the woodman's axe, 220 With all its tender foliage meets the ground So Imbrius fell; loud rang his armor bright With ornamental brass, and Teucer flew To seize his arms, whom hasting to the spoil Hector with his resplendent spear assail'd; 225 He, marking opposite its rapid flight, Declined it narrowly and it pierced the breast, As he advanced to battle, of the son Of Cteatus of the ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... of the boardwalk was empty, with, behind it, the suave ornamental roofs of the cottages. A wind quartering from the shore had smoothed the ocean into the semblance of a limitless and placid lake. Minute waves ruffled along the beach with a continuous whispering, and the vault of the west, from which the sun had just withdrawn, ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... from the torii which stand before every Shinto temple. There are no idols or exterior ornamentation of any kind. The walls are left untouched by either the painter or the lacquerer. In the Buddhist temples, on the contrary, the Japanese artist has had afforded him full scope for the exercise of his ornamental ingenuity. Numerous courtyards have to be traversed before reaching the temple itself. These courtyards contain many small buildings, bronze or stone lanterns, belfries, pavilions, pagodas, &c., &c., all elaborately decorated. Amongst ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... which their apartment was supplied. After bathing a good deal—more, indeed, than they had ever done before on a single occasion—they made their way into the dining room of the hotel, which was a spacious restaurant, with a fountain in the middle, a great many tall plants in ornamental tubs, and an array of French waiters. The first dinner on land, after a sea voyage, is, under any circumstances, a delightful occasion, and there was something particularly agreeable in the circumstances ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... stage; the windows are transomed in each face, and the lower tier is canopied; each angle is rounded off with an octagonal turret and the whole structure is a marvellous example of architectural harmony, and in every way a work of transcendent beauty. The two buttressing arches and the ornamental braces which support it were added at the end of the fifteenth century by Prior Goldstone, to whom the building of the whole tower is apparently attributed in the following quaint passage from a mediaeval authority: "He by the influence and help of those honourable men, Cardinal John Morton ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... only a simplification of scenic appliances that is needed. Other external incidents of production require revision. Spectacular methods of production entail the employment of armies of silent supernumeraries to whom are allotted functions wholly ornamental and mostly impertinent. Here, too, reduction is desirable in the interest of the true significance of drama. No valid reason can be adduced why persons should appear on the stage who are not precisely indicated by the text of the play ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... ancient, and containing female figure ornaments which are palpably of a disproportionate length. The Louvre quadrangle (if I may borrow our old college phrase) is assuredly the most splendid piece of ornamental architecture which Paris contains. The interior of the edifice itself is as yet in an unfinished condition;[4] but you must not conclude the examination of this glorious pile of building, without going round to visit the eastern exterior ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the bluebell and forget-me-not. The wild strawberry also is in great abundance, with its sweet, round little beads of fruit dotting the green. The square courtyard of the house is planned as a garden, with clipped yews at the corners of the ornamental plots of grass, and with beds all ablaze with summer flowers, a brilliant pink annual making a peculiarly fine appearance by well-arranged contrast with the sober greys of an edging of foliage plants. ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... meet with capital punishment, either by shooting or by strangling. The floor was littered with all kinds of paper, with scraps of furniture, a few chains and some prison books, which dated back for years. These gave details of all the punishments and were written in a very ornamental script, as though the clerks had taken a pleasure in their work. The Arad fortress had been partly used as a prison for a long time; but Misko Tatar, a Magyar, who stayed there sixteen years for having murdered his fiancee, his mother and his sister, as well as one Kocian, who remained ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... of Wyntoun, writing at the beginning of the next century, delights in the ornamental style which has added ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... rides together openly and without concealment, relating their adventures afterwards to Aunt Viney with a naivete and frankness that dreamed of no suppression. The city-bred Cecily, accustomed to horse exercise solely as an ornamental and artificial recreation, felt for the first time the fearful joy of a dash across a league-long plain, with no onlookers but the scattered wild horses she might startle up to scurry before her, or race at her side. Small wonder that, mounted on her fiery little mustang, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... lake, at some distance from us, we discovered the burial-place of the MacGregors, and did not view it without some interest, with its ornamental balls on the four corners of the wall, which, I daresay, have been often looked at with elevation of heart by our honest friend of Loch Ketterine. The lake is divided right across by a narrow slip of flat land, making a small lake at the head of the large one. ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... but now Mrs. Applebite, with a laudable spirit of economy, converted No. 24, Pleasant-terrace, into a perfect cuisine for a week preceding the eventful evening; and old John was kept in a constant state of excitement by Mrs. Waddledot, who superintended the ornamental department of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... be said in their favour. They are well drawn and well enough coloured; but the process and the material give them a glossy, unnatural appearance, which must prevent them from ever being considered as more than so many tours de force in the arts. But on vases, dinner-sets, and all ornamental furniture of this nature, in which we look for the peculiarities of the material, they produce a magnificence of effect that I cannot describe. Vases of the value of ten or fifteen thousand francs, or even of more money, are not ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... I say, the strangest dinner Rollo had ever attended. It was served in a private room of the handsome edifice owned by Mr. Ritz, and the menu or bill-of-fare was most elaborate, consisting of beautiful, ornamental dishes which were whisked before Rollo's eyes in rapid succession. Each course was accompanied by a different beverage, and toward the end the serving gentlemen filled large tumblers with a most delicious sparkling cider, ...
— Rollo in Society - A Guide for Youth • George S. Chappell
... Molly," said Mary B. (no one ever knew what the B. in Mary's name stood for,—it was a mere ornamental flourish), "that Rena was talkin' 'bout teachin' school. I've got a good chance fer her, ef she keers ter take it. My cousin Jeff Wain 'rived in town this mo'nin', f'm 'way down in Sampson County, ter git a teacher fer the nigger school in his deestric'. I s'pose he mought 'a' ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... well, and liked him in spite of their knowledge. They were used to his tempestuous bursts of narrative, and would laugh frankly in his face, while he joined in the laugh with the greatest enjoyment. With him ornamental story-telling was an amusing game, in which, if you were clever enough to catch him lying, you had won and he had ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... all been captivated by him, and he was at present looking at the display of all Margaret's treasures, keenly appreciating the useful and ingenious, but condemning the merely ornamental as only fit for his baby sister. Margaret was wonderfully gracious and child-like; but perhaps she rather oppressed him; for when Leonard explained that he must go on to meet Miss May at Cocksmoor, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Arab watchmen who see to the maintenance of the telegraph posts and wires. Behind a small hillock south of this house there is another Koubba called Sheik el Mzeyen (see illustration), with a doorstep of apparently old marble stone and an ornamental cupola. It is surrounded by a great number of aloes, and contains a simple tomb. Here, too, is a burial-place, with the graves indicated either by two stones, a piece of palm stem, or a leaf stalk, and, in some cases, ...
— The Caravan Route between Egypt and Syria • Ludwig Salvator
... that the Euritic statues of old Egypt such as that of Khufu (Cheops) in the Bulak Museum were drilled by means of diamonds. AthenFus tells us (lib. v.) that the Indians brought pearls and diamonds to the procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus; and this suggests cutting, as nothing can be less ornamental than the uncut stone. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... "Monsieur Creemsvort, that young person, who has just entered, wishes to have the advantage of taking lessons with you in English; she is not a pupil of the house; she is, indeed, in one sense, a teacher, for she gives instruction in lace-mending, and in little varieties of ornamental needle-work. She very properly proposes to qualify herself for a higher department of education, and has asked permission to attend your lessons, in order to perfect her knowledge of English, in which language she has, I believe, already made some progress; of course it is my wish to aid her in an ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... This was the castle, all the rest being native, and fresh from the hand of God. That singular residence, too, was in keeping with the natural objects of the view, starting out from the gloom, quaint, picturesque and ornamental. Nevertheless the whole was lost on the observers, who knew no feeling of poetry, had lost their sense of natural devotion in lives of obdurate and narrow selfishness, and had little other sympathy with nature, than that which ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the Foster-brothers' Story is remarkable for its patches of euphuistic rhetoric, which often appear suddenly in the course of plain, straightforward narrative. These ornamental additions are not all of the same kind. Some of them are of the alliterative antithetical kind which is frequently found in the old Northern ecclesiastical prose,[63] and which has an English counterpart in the ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... effective pearl-handled weapon, was a gift to Barbara from her "uncles," Texas and Pat; and though ornamental was not for ornament. The girl often went alone, as she was going to-day, for a long ride out on the Mesa, and the country still harbored ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... from 1880 onward it has become more and more favored, until now it has almost entirely superseded gold in the finest jewelry, especially for diamond settings. Long before the metal was known and used in Europe, ornamental use of it was made in South America, in the district we have mentioned, the material not being fused, but simply forged out of the nuggets found in ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz
... ornament in the Nome King's palace—a dreadful, creepy place in spite of all its magnificence. Without their little leader they did not know what to do next, and each one, down to the trembling private of the army, began to fear he would soon be more ornamental than useful. ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... city. Each quarter had a flavour of its own, a synthetic flavour belonging neither to the old nor to the new, yet partaking of both: a difference in atmosphere to which Janet was keenly sensitive. In the German quarter, to the north, one felt a sort of ornamental bleakness—if the expression may be permitted: the tenements here were clean and not too crowded, the scroll-work on their superimposed porches, like that decorating the Turnverein and the stem Lutheran Church, was eloquent of a Teutonic inheritance: The Belgians were to the west, beyond the base-ball ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... heart of what Donnelly called "Dagotown." There was little to distinguish this part of the city from that through which they had come. There were the same dingy, wrinkled houses, with their odd little balconies and ornamental iron galleries overhanging the sidewalks and peering into one another's faces as if to see what their neighbors were up to; the same queer, musty, dusty shops, dozing amid violent foreign odors; the same open doorways and tunnel-like entrances leading to paved courtyards at the rear. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... generations of gentlemen to particular schools in the kingdom; and such is the force of habit, that though I hate the place, I shall send my own son thither too, should I marry any day). I say I learned little that was useful at Slaughter House, and nothing that was ornamental. I would as soon have thought of learning to dance as of learning to climb chimneys. Up to the age of seventeen, as I have shown, I had a great contempt for the female race, and when age brought with it warmer and juster sentiments, ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... will find descriptions of nearly all that I have mentioned and plenty of others. You can order those you want direct from them, or get them through a local stationer. I expect you to acquire some practice at printing, and ornamental writing, in the Bank. If you have a steady hand, you should exercise yourself at it as much as possible, and learn mechanical drawing at the same time. Draftsmen get well paid out here, and are greatly in demand. ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... letters and poems of this period we note the endeavour to attain to a style in literature full of rich conceits and elaborate compliment, which may be compared to the style, elaborate and ornamental, but somewhat cold and unattractive, of the frescoes in the Cappella Paolina. As he grew older he devoted himself more entirely to architecture and literature. The arts of sculpture and painting, as exercised by him, could not be carried on by assistants; he now perforce had to employ himself ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... for a carriage, and of no use on sandy, rutty roads, where common horses do the work better and more steadily. At the building of a house I could not carry the bricks, but might do something in the ornamental line, but where it is a question of four simple walls and a sound roof, artisans such as I are not wanted. If at least I had a mighty impulse towards work, I still might be able to force myself to do something. But in the main, it is only a question ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of ornamental almonds are very beautiful in spring—the large, double flowering, and the well-known dwarf flowering. But we regard peach-blossoms quite as ornamental, and the ripe peaches much more so, and ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... satisfied on the whole with our attempt, we thought it absorbed too much of my husband's time, and he soon requested me to go on with it by myself, and frankly avowed that he could not take any interest in gardening, even in ornamental gardening. This lack of interest seemed strange to me, because he liked to study nature in all her phenomena, but it lasted to the end of his life; he did not care in the least for a well-kept garden, but he liked flowers ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... catalpa and black locust for fence posts. This makes no mention of the great variety of native timber trees such as pines, tulip poplar, and others which I try to protect from fires so as to get as great a variety of trees as possible to use for various purposes. I also encourage the growth of ornamental trees and shrubs such as dogwood, redbud, and holly to add beauty to the landscape ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... teaches a man a lesson. The action of the officers on the field is what I speak of. Somehow when you watch these men with their gold braid in armories on a dance night or dress parade it strikes you that they are a little more handsome and ornamental than they are practical and useful. To tell the truth, I didn't think much of those dandy officers on parade or dancing round a ball room. I did not really think they were worth the money that was spent upon them. But I just found it was different on the battlefield, ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... a brisk pace, in order to keep the person of her lord and master within reach of her moist and wistful trunk. She wore a blanket on which was printed: "Imogene, Mascot of the Smyrna Ancients." Imogene was making herself useful as well as ornamental, for she was harnessed to the pole of "Hecla Number One," and the old tub "ruckle-chuckled" along at her heels on its little red trucks. From its brake-bars hung the banners won in the past-and-gone victories of twenty years of musters. Among ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... plump-faced epicure, that she might learn to propitiate him. "He shall not think me timid and stupid," thought this brave girl, and indeed Adrian was astonished to find that she could both chat and be useful, as well as look ornamental. When he had finished one egg, behold, two fresh ones came in, boiled according to his prescription. She had quietly given her orders to the maid, and he had them without fuss. Possibly his look of dismay at the offending eggs had not been altogether involuntary, and her woman's instinct, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... up his confidential discourse by speaking to me of a joiner's business which he had hoped to buy, and work to good account with Robert's help. The present owner had made a fortune by it, and, after thirty years of business, he was thinking of retiring to one of the ornamental cottages in the outskirts of the city, a usual retreat for the frugal and successful workingman. Michael had not indeed the two thousand francs which must be paid down; but perhaps he could have persuaded Master Benoit to wait. Robert's presence ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... horticultural —— agricultural Camellia culture Charlock Corn averages and rents, by Mr. Willich Cuttings, to strike Diastema quinquevulnerum Draining clay Fibre, woody Fork, Mr. Mechi's steel Forking machine Hedges, ornamental Hitcham Horticultural Society Holly tree, by Mr. Brown Machines, forking Manure, liquid, and irrigation, by Mr. Mechi National Floricultural Society Nectarine, Stanwick, by Mr. Cramb Nymphaea gigantea, by M. Van Houtte Peas, late Pig farming Plants, woody fibre ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... light his skin, polished like ivory, takes on a warm and subtle glow. From his shoulders there hangs behind him, to his heels, something that might be a cloak, except that it does not cloak him. It does not envelop him; rather does it stand behind him in ornamental background, with a certain sculptural effect. And it is white, a wondrous gleaming white, against which the whiteness of his skin seems rosy. Starting from his shoulders, it goes out and up in gentle undulation to either side, and then descends in two swift slight curves that meet ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... his dangling cowries, his corded kersey-mere shorts, his blue knitted hose and silver buckles, had honour in Loafer Land, and every hulking rascal who carried the pattern of the ornamental wrought-iron posts at the gates of the "Green Dragon" yard permanently imprinted in the small of his back, swore by him just as much as did Wormit the landlord. They saluted him as he went to and fro. They pulled forelocks and touched caps, feeling elated when the great man ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... path was there, or a grassy glade, more or less wide, leading through a beautiful growth of firs and larches. No roses, nor any other ornamental shrubs only the soft well-kept footway through the woodland. Fleda went gently on and on, admiring where the trees sometimes swept back, leaving an opening, and at other places stretched their graceful branches over her head. The perfect condition ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... natural thing, them being the finest young man and woman in the place; and second, because everything points for it," declared Mrs. Cobley. "I wouldn't go so far as to say Milly wouldn't have come to it herself given patience in the man, for he's a fine, ornamental chap and would make a husband for a woman to be proud of. Besides, Milly has got nought but herself to offer. She's dependent on Jane for the clothes on her back, so Bewes would be a lot higher than she might ever ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... implement, probably a metal chisel. They are arranged in the most arbitrary way on the stones and are often crowded together in masses. There is no attempt to depict scenes of any kind, nor is there, indeed, any example of animal life. In fact, the designs seem to be purely ornamental. The most frequent elements of design are cup-shaped hollows, concentric circles or ovals, star-shaped figures, circles with emanating rays, spirals, chevrons, reticulated figures, parallel straight or curved ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... trained housekeepers were furnished on demand; lace curtains mended, laundered; dainty lingerie of every description, from a baby's wardrobe to a bride's trousseau; ornamental needle-work on all fabrics; artificial flowers, card engraving, artistic designs for upholstering, menus, type-writing, all readily supplied to customers; and certain confectionery put up in pretty boxes made by the inmates, and bearing ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... first time that he ever so conducted himself in his life, the Major took the girl in his arms and kissed her. She began to laugh and cry hysterically, and calling out "Ma, Pa!" with all her voice, brought up those worthy people, who had already been surveying the Major from the casement of the ornamental kitchen, and were astonished to find their daughter in the little passage in the embrace of a great tall man in a blue frock-coat and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 81 show the ladder stitch, often used in ornamental embroidery. Trace first the outlines as seen in illustrations; mark also the cross stitches between the outlines, so that the first touch the outlines only at both ends. The outlines are embroidered in overcast stitch ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... Her glance went once around the room and came back to Lyad's amiably observant face. Repulsive's container was nowhere around. There seemed to be nobody else in the room. An ornamental ComWeb stood against one wall. Two of the walls were covered with heavy hangings, and a great gold-brocaded canopy bellied from the ceiling. No doors or portals in sight; they might be camouflaged, or behind those hangings. ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... what appeared to be the drive. It was not difficult to do so, because of the moonlight that sifted down through the bare branches of the neighboring ornamental trees, ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... more mature life; and serious and discreet men, senators and judges, toiling painfully through elements, vocabularies, and rules of pronunciation, to acquire an amount of speech sufficient to attract ridicule, and produce inconvenience, but very inadequate to any useful or ornamental purpose.—Ibid. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... the cupboard and in the thickness of the wall can be opened. This again reveals a narrow passage, or staircase, leading up to the joists above the ceiling, and thence to a recess situated immediately behind the carved ornamental facing over the entrance door of the summer-house. In this there is a narrow chink or peep-hole, from which the fugitive could keep on the look-out either for danger or for the friendly Royalist agent ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... of the house presented me at the beginning of the performance with an ivory baton, carved from a design by Semper, the first and only complimentary one I ever received. There was no lack of flowers and ornamental trees, under which I stood when conducting, and when to suit my taste for musical effect we concluded, not with a loud, but with a deeply soothing piece, like the Adagio from the Ninth Symphony, we felt that Zurich society had indeed witnessed something quite unique, and my friends ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... were made them of belts and scarfs woven from hair and fur, and other small articles of Indian manufacture, brilliantly colored and richly embroidered with shells. They had also knee-bands and wrist-bands which were quite ornamental. ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... The cliffs ceased, and gave place to undulating hills; no pleasure-ground could have been more tastefully laid out than the country to the right, and the various groups of trees, disposed upon the sides of the elevations that bounded the western side of the valley, were most ornamental. On the opposite side, the country was less inviting, and the hills were bleak and bare. At length a clear horizon appeared to the south, the direction in which the river was flowing; Captain Sturt landed to survey the country, and beneath him was the great object of his search, the termination ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... James! In the spare bed on the North-east terrace, I suppose you mean? And what have we done in the Dutch Ornamental Garden?" ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... three turns round it, and ending in two large tassels of heavy bullion; he wore very large epaulets, and his sword had been inadvertently, as I conjectured, placed on the table, so that the steel hilt rested on the ornamental ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... There is a school kept on the estate at Windsor, in which the queen takes a very practical interest, regulating the books and studies, and paying frequent visits to it during the time of her sojourn here. The young girls are instructed in fine needlework; but the queen discourages embroidery and ornamental work, meaning to make practical, efficient wives for laboring men. These particulars, with regard to this school, were related to me by a lady living in the vicinity ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... are seen mountain peaks rising almost perpendicularly to the skies in varying height, then a little turn brings the spectator on forests of houses, with ornamental gilded domes ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... will do my best for those dreadful children, Esther. Are they not pitiful little overdressed creatures? And I will try and please their mother though I have not a thought in common with her. And when I have finished my ornamental brick-making—told my tales of the bricks——" here she paused, and looked at ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... lot of all men; but if the people have no faith in their rulers, there is no standing for the state.' CHAP. VIII. 1. Chi Tsze-ch'ang said, 'In a superior man it is only the substantial qualities which are wanted;— why should we seek for ornamental accomplishments?' ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... Persimmon, her cousin's riding-horse, a beautiful cream-colored mare with black, flowing mane and tail, and Green Persimmon, her colt, which was like its mother, and scarcely less beautiful. Besides, there were horses and mules which, if not so ornamental, were indispensable. Oh, these must be run off and saved,—but how? Goaded by these thoughts, and upon the impulse of the moment, the girl ordered a sidesaddle to be put upon old "Whitey," and, hastily mounting, belabored the astonished beast until, yielding to the inevitable, he started ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... escape, had locked the door, and either taken the key with him or thrown it where it could not be found. It was in vain that he ran in all directions, searched every place likely to conceal the villain; not a clump of trees or ornamental shrubs remained unexamined. The search, however, was fruitless. No individual was seen, nor any clue gained on which even a conjecture could be founded. The only individual visible was our friend the Cannie Soogah, whose loud and mellow song was ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... perfectly than the monologue, fits into the musical comedy. No matter what the two-act is, if it is short and humorous, it may be used for one of the ornamental time-gap stoppers. A quarrel scene may be just what is needed to fill out and advance the plot. But more often, the flirtation two-act is the form that best suits, for the nature of the musical ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... some even in late times, have been sadly mutilated and destroyed, to a greater or less degree, by human hands, and converted to the most base uses. The stone at Hilton of Cadboll, remarkable for its elaborate sculpture and ornamental tracery, has had one of its sides smoothed and obliterated in order that a modern inscription might be cut upon it to commemorate "Alexander Duff and His Thrie Wives." The beautiful sculptured stone of Golspie has been desecrated in the same way. Only ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... spent their time when not at meals or engaged in out-door sports and pastimes. The furniture of this room was more complete than that of the other parts of the building, but was still rude and scanty when judged by modern wants. The bed was of massive proportions and frequently of ornamental character. A truckle-bed for the children or chamber servants was pushed under the principal bed by day. At the foot of the latter stood the huge "hutch," or chest, in which were deposited for safety the family plate and valuables. Two or three stools and large chairs, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... was a spirit and power in his speaking that always animated himself and his hearers, and with the decoration of his manner, which was, indeed, very ornamental, produced, not only the most attentive, respectful, but even a reverend ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Most of the ornamental figures and designs worked into the finest basketry are symbolical in character, and of so ancient an origin that Indians of the present day do not know what many of them are intended to represent. They have simply been copied from ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... contemporary with the introduction of Venetian lace, a Pillow lace was being made in Flanders, the origin of which is not as yet discovered. It is possible that the fine flax thread grown and manufactured there may, at the time of weaving, have suggested a looser and more ornamental material, but that remains a matter of conjecture. There must, however, have been an interchange of examples, as about this time Pillow-made lace appeared in Italy, and led to the making of the Milanese and Genoese varieties, and Needlepoint motifs appeared amongst the woven ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... the contrary, my uncle Toby had not fully arrived at the period's end—then the world stands indebted to the sudden snapping of my father's tobacco-pipe for one of the neatest examples of that ornamental figure in oratory, which Rhetoricians stile the Aposiopesis.—Just Heaven! how does the Poco piu and the Poco meno of the Italian artists;—the insensible more or less, determine the precise line of beauty in the sentence, as well as in the statue! ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... slowly, as if he were making an effort, while a mirthful smile gleams in his eye. "But in the place of the stage father, I 'bless you, my children,'" and he raises his brows, indicating the two. "Eugene Grandon's mission in life is to be purely ornamental; he must have been born with an incapacity for doing anything of any real service to the world, and his manifest destiny is to be some rich woman's husband. Now here is an opportunity too good to lose. My advice is to go on ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... you, and the light falls dimly on the shrine like tombs in the centre of the glistening marble, see a winter palace, in whose glacial walls some gentle hand has buried the last flowers of autumn." In yon cenotaph, profusely covered with ornamental texts from the Koran, sleeps the lamented bride of the Indies. "Her lord lies beside her, in a less costly but loftier casket; and the two tombs are enclosed by a lattice of white marble, which is cut and carved as though it were of the softest substance in the world. A light burns in ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... escaped, and also of one who is a conspirator. He is not the dilettante literary person gone tramping, nor the pauper vagabond who writes sonnets, though either of these roles may be part of his disguise. He is not merely something negligible or accidental or ornamental, he is something real and true, the product of his time, at once a phenomenon ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... stately chateau, now abandoned to the poor and cut up into small habitations. There is in it a grand stone staircase with ornamental plaster ceilings on the several landings; one represents a boar hunt, the other an ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... turned her head away from him and looked out into the garden again with eyes full of interest, where her husband was just speaking to Friedrich and pointing with his finger to an ornamental cherry-tree that was ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... objects of interest, but none of so high an order as that of the Hospital of Invalids, for aged and wounded soldiers, the whole expanse of which is seen in the distance at the end of a long wide avenue of trees. From the Triumphal Arch on either side extends a row of ornamental lamps for nearly a mile, which when lighted have the most brilliant effect; and when it is considered how very small the distances are between each lamp, I believe the assertion to be correct, that there is not ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... men in Bontoc and Samoki own and sometimes wear at the girdle a large 7-inch disk of mother-of-pearl shell. It is called "fi-kum'," and its use is purely ornamental. (See Pls. LXXX and XXX.) It is valued highly, and I have not known half a dozen Igorot to part with one for any price. This shell ornament is widespread through the country east and also south of the Bontoc area, but nowhere ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... using the domes. The central portion of each of those palaces was lifted above the main surface of the roof to introduce a row of semi-circular windows to light the interior like a church. And the domes, besides being ornamental in themselves, gave spring to the towers. The big tower provided scope for the splendid archway that served as an approach and set the ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... had not discovered this reason from the very first. As life advanced, it happened unavoidably that real business advanced; the careless condition of youth prompted no topics, or at least prescribed none, but such as were agreeable to the taste, and allowed of an ornamental coloring. But when downright business occurred, exchequer bills to be sold, meetings to be arranged, negotiations confided, difficulties to be explained, here and there by possibility a jest or two might be scattered, a witty allusion thrown in, or a sentiment interwoven; but for ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... avoid which the bundles are exposed and spread about now and then in the open air. This operation is called ventilating by the planters, and is continued until there is no apparent heat in the heaps. The plant is quite ornamental, and its blossoms form a pleasing feature in a ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... who was an artist in plaster had decorated the entrance to the shaft with an ornamental facade worthy of any public building. Here, secure from the falling walls and explosive shells, the general by telephone directed his attack. The place was as dry, as clean, and as compact as the admiral's quarters ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... prandial fried fish, these trencher-men took from the dainties wherewith the ornamental plates were laden and gave thereof to their offspring. Now this was only right and proper, because it is the prerogative of children to "nash" on these occasions. But as the meal progressed, each father from time to time, while talking briskly to his neighbor, allowed his hand to stray mechanically ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill |
