"Piquant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... never have seemed better wedded than in the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. The music is always graceful, gracious, piquant, and gaily fascinating. The story has no purpose but that of carrying some satirical idea, and the satire ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... their former meaning. Life was devoid of savor, and I was thirsting for an appetizer, as it were, for some violent change, for piquant sensations ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... at once by someone very different from what he had expected. It was a woman, young and singularly beautiful. She was of the German type, blonde and fair-haired, with the piquant contrast of a pair of beautiful dark eyes with which she surveyed the stranger with surprise and a pleasing embarrassment which brought a wave of colour over her pale face. Framed in the bright light of the open doorway, it seemed ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... had met Lady Eileen Meredith, daughter of the Duke of Burghley. Like others, he had fallen a victim to her grey eyes. The piquant beauty, the supple grace, the intangible charm of the girl had aroused his desire. A man who always achieved his ends, he set himself to woo and win her with fierce impetuosity. He had won. Now he was spending his last night of bachelordom ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... a great influence in the reign of Louis XVI., became passionate supporters of the Americans, and made aiding them a question of honor. The simple manners of their envoys,—their hair without powder, their citizens' dress, pleased by a sort of piquant novelty. All who approached Franklin were charmed by his wit. In him people venerated the founder of the liberty of a great nation, and even grew enthusiastic in behalf of that liberty." M. de Tocqueville shows however that the prime ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... See Warburton's piquant note, in Mr. Bowles's edition of Pope's Works, vol. v., p. 116. "This remarkable periwiy [Transcriber's Note: periwig] (says he) usually made its entrance upon the stage in a sedan chair, brought in by two chairmen with infinite approbation of the audience." The snuff-box of ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... a luxury to us, a piquant, flavor-giving sauce. It is well worth while to get hungry and thirsty merely to discover how much gratification can be obtained from eating and drinking. If you wish to thoroughly enjoy your dinner, take a thirty-mile country ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... are more frivolous than is becoming to age, and both more ignorant of the day's doings than is consistent with even their social responsibilities, in compensation the women of this circle are as pretty and amiable as it is possible to be in a fallen world. The foreigner never forgets those piquant, mutines faces of Andalusia and those dreamy eyes of Malaga,—the black masses of Moorish hair and the blond glory of those graceful heads that trace their descent from Gothic demigods. They were not very ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... China, outside the Gobi district, was far better than in Turkey or Persia, and, for this reason, we were better able to endure the increased hardships. A plate of sliced meat stewed with vegetables, and served with a piquant sauce, sliced radishes and onions with vinegar, two loaves of Chinese mo-mo, or steamed bread, and a pot of tea, would usually cost us about three and one quarter cents apiece. Everything in China is sliced so that it can be eaten with the chop-sticks. These we at length ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... on the light-shot waves that crowned her vivid face, wondered whether he was or not. If she had been a woman to desire in the queenly, half-insolent indifference of manner with which she had first met him, how much more of charm lay in this piquant gaiety, in the warm sweetness of her softer and more pliant mood! It seemed to him she had the gift ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... happiness, and of the sudden vengeance of the Three. There is a brooding sense of peril over all the blithe and flitting fancies said or sung to one another by the lovers in their gondola; a sense, however, of future rather than of present peril, something of a zest and a piquant pleasure to them. The sudden tragic ending, anticipated yet unexpected, rounds the whole with a dramatic touch of infallible instinct. I know nothing with which the poem may be compared: its method and its magic are ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... visit to Crevenna. On his return, Mercier continued his work, too long suspended, upon the LATIN POETS OF THE MIDDLE AGE. His object was, to give a brief biography of each; an analysis of their works, with little brilliant extracts and piquant anecdotes; traits of history little known; which, say Chardon De La Rochette and M. Barbier, (who have read a great part of the original MS.) "are as amusing as ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... even tolerably imagined, may taste a cup of social kindness, of hospitality, deeper if not richer than any in the world. I do not say that one of the middle species will find in it the delicate, the wild, the piquant flavors of certain remembered cups of kindness at home; and I should not say this even if it were true; but he will be an ungrateful and ungracious guest if he criticises. He will more wisely and justly accuse himself of having lost his earlier zest, if he does not ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... fresh cold water and cook until very tender. Add other ingredients and bring to boiling point. Slice thin, hard cooked egg and lemon from which seeds have been removed and serve with each portion. Do not remove lemon rind as this gives a piquant flavor. ...
— Foods That Will Win The War And How To Cook Them (1918) • C. Houston Goudiss and Alberta M. Goudiss
... the tragic upon the comic, the merry upon the terrible, and at need calling in the charms of the opera, these performances, while presenting but one play, would be worth a multitude of others? The romantic stage would make a piquant, savoury, diversified dish of that which, on the classic stage, is a drug divided into ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... would rarely reveal as many as half a dozen, and in the great majority probably only parsley and sage would be brought to light. Yet these humble plants possess the power of rendering even unpalatable and insipid dishes piquant and appetizing, and this, too, at a surprisingly low cost. Indeed, most of them may be grown in an out-of-the-way corner of the garden, or if no garden be available, in a box of soil upon a sunny windowsill—a method adopted by many ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... boy's squib. Yet those plutocratic travellers up in the wagons lits were not having anything like the "good time" we enjoyed, warm in our motor coats, sitting snug behind our rock, a lamp from the car illuminating our little party and shining on Molly's piquant profile as she brewed savoury messes in her magic cauldron. This was testing thoroughly the resources of the automobile, which was playing the part of travelling kitchen and larder as well as travelling chariot, and ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... stimulus came to Shelley from three quarters early in the year 1821. Among his Italian acquaintances at Pisa was a clever but disreputable Professor, of whom Medwin draws a very piquant portrait. This man one day related the sad story of a beautiful and noble lady, the Contessina Emilia Viviani, who had been confined by her father in a dismal convent of the suburbs, to await her marriage with a distasteful husband. ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... on, led by the indomitable little figure, who, for once, did not seem to linger over the attentions, both piquant and tender, with which Garnier improved his opportunity. Given a shadowy lane, a lovers' moon, a pair of bright and not unkindly eyes, a charming and not distant figure—what more could he want? Yet he wished she hadn't walked so fast. One might be vivacious, ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... humble, her color was still heightened, and her eyes had a threatening, defiant sparkle in them, so contradictory, so piquant and fascinating in contrast with the little, fragile, graceful, helpless form, that his head was almost turned. It was with difficulty he could keep from snatching the fluttering, half-defiant, half-frightened, bird-like creature to his bosom. But ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... abounded in periphrases as highly coloured as sacred pictures. He talked of Rossini, quoted Racine, and spoke of "the Bois" for the Bois de Boulogne. He talked of divine love in words which were somewhat disconcerting, of present-day vices with piquant details, and of society in society language. Occasionally, expressions which were in vogue and which had only recently been invented, expressions only known among worldly people, would slip into his spiritual consultations and had the same effect as extracts from a ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... exuberant bust. This instrument for the distorted, with its bright crimson leather, thus pressed into the service of the beautiful, had a most singular and exciting effect upon the beholder. I have often thought of this girl in my maturer years, and confess that no dress that I ever beheld gave a more piquant interest to the wearer, than those straps and irons. The jade never wore them at home: perhaps the fancy was her father's, he being an old soldier, and his motto "Eyes right! dress!" Whosever fancy it was, his daughter rejoiced in it. "Eyes right! dress!" is as good a motto for ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... lecturing. Only at lectures have I been able to abandon myself entirely to passion, and have understood that inspiration is not an invention of the poets, but exists in real life, and I imagine Hercules after the most piquant of his exploits felt just such voluptuous exhaustion as I experience after ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... no attempt to supply the omission. "The Contessa thinks it is more piquant," she said. "But nothing is decided about me, till it is known how I turn out. If I am beautiful the Contessa will marry me well, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... and the glassy surface of the water that reflected the trees bending over it, the bunches of water flag growing here and there, and the scattered patches of broad lily pads with now and then a white blossom, made a most picturesque background for the girl who sat in the stern. Her piquant face, shaded by a broad sun-hat, was fairer to his eyes than any of the lilies she plucked, and as she drew one sleeve up a little to reach for them, the round arm and dimpled hand she thrust into the water looked tempting enough to ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... though the sweat was constantly upon his brow, and his good wife's fingers were never still. This son had unusual precocity, and strangers who looked upon him used to say that a great fire slumbered in his eye. He was bright, quick and piquant; and it is said that it was impossible to know the lad and not be pleased with his person and manners. One important eye had observed him many a time; and this was the great ecclesiastical dignitary of Red River, Monseigneur Tache. He conceived a strong affection for the lad and resolved ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Billings, of nearly equal age, was a good specimen of the wide-awake New-England woman. Her face had a piquant smartness of expression, which might have been refined into a sharp edge, but for her natural hearty good-humor. Her head was smoothly formed, her face a full oval, her hair and eyes blond and blue in a strong light, but brown and steel-gray at other times, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... side nor to the other. At intervals, however, the legend of the feud was embroidered with new and effective detail in the mouth of some inventive gossip, and by degrees it took high place among those piquant social histories which illustrate the real life of a town, and which parents recount to their children with such zest in moods ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... piquant face like Gertrude's, quickly smiling or quickly clouded, but a cheerful, reliable face with a pretty, good-tempered smile and kind, gentle eyes; a face that little children smiled back at, and which invalids loved to see bending over them. ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... continually. Did you feast on 'The Marble Faun'? I have a charming letter from Una Hawthorne, herself a poet by nature, all about 'papa's book.' Ought not Mr. Hawthorne to be the happiest man alive? He isn't, though! Do save all the anecdotes you possibly can, piquant or not; starved people ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... plumed headgear. Nevertheless, she studied the small figure and animated features of the new-comer with a critical severity not altogether in accordance with her next remark, uttered, apparently under pressure of the same irresistible enthusiasm, in an audible side whisper: "What a sweet face—so piquant!" ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... believed in none of those things, and, in short, was quite as bad or worse than she herself was. She walked her horse on slowly, thinking. Somehow it seemed to her that life in his cabin would be far more piquant and amusing than in Stephen's. Yet he neither drank nor gambled, and as for the dance halls and theatre,—well, he had told her he liked dancing; and what a waltz that had been they had had together! But life with Stephen! He ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... in the room. Every one's thoughts were on the piquant-faced Irish girl, whose sprightly manner and charming personality made her a favorite, and her plump, loquacious husband, whose ready flow of funny sayings ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... Damascus blade. To buy one paper meant to become afterwards one of its customers. It was indeed astonishing what a variety of reading was contained in one of those penny sheets; every thing was fresh and piquant, so different from the old party papers. As originally intended, the Herald has always been independent in politics, although inclined to be Democratic. It supported Fremont and the Republican party, and was one ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... seventeen or so was walking over the downs that undulate, wave on wave, from Newhaven all along the coast to Brighton. This young lady was tall for her age; slim of form; and she had a graceful carriage; her face was fair and markedly freckled; her nose was piquant rather than classical; her hair, which was of a ruddy gold hue, was rebellious, and strayed about her ears and neck in accidental wisps and rings: her grayish or gray-blue eyes were reserved and thoughtful rather than shrewd and observant. No, she ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... the object of my secret, enthusiastic worship. She was not exactly pretty, but her slight figure, fair complexion and beautiful auburn curls furnished a piquant setting for her refined, intelligent countenance which made up for the lack of mere beauty. I used to thrill with admiration as I watched her riding at a swift gallop, a little black velvet cap showing off her fairness, the long curls blowing about ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... serious earnestness of its fun, the fun of its seriousness, the natural religion of its plays, and the delicious oddity of its prayers,—all these waited for dear Little Prudy to embody them. Sam Weller is not more piquant; Hans Anderson's nutcrackers and knitting-needles are not more thoroughly charged with life. There are six little green volumes in the series, and of course other dramatis personae must figure; but one eagerly watches ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... private box, listening to the latest French farce at one or another of the theatres. Only one day, when they had driven out to the monastery at La Trappe de Staoueli, did a momentary cloud descend upon her piquant features, and she explained this by the frank confession that she had always wished to become a nun, but had been hindered from following her vocation by the necessity of earning money to support her aged parents. Mr. Greyne ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... a frame to the graceful picture, on one side rose the Buttes, that group of hills so piquant and saucy; and on the other tossing to Heaven the everlasting whiteness of their snow wreathed foreheads, stood, sublime in their very monotony, the ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... not fail to have treasured up a rich store of reminiscences, and his personal connection with the most-celebrated literary men of his day, gives them a spirit and flavor, which could not have been obtained by the mere records of his individual biography. The work abounds with piquant anecdotes of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Keats, Lamb, Hazlitt, and Moore—gives a detailed exposition of Hunt's connection with the Examiner, and his imprisonment for libel—his residence in Italy—his return to England—and his various literary projects—and describes with the most ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... nothing in the young girl which did not seem beautiful to the old relative. Her originality, which made the well-trained servants stare, seemed the perfection of piquant grace to one whose fastidious tastes had been an example to the whole neighborhood. In her estimation Lady Clara could do nothing which was not in itself loveliest and best. The old lady had been so long without an object of affection, that her love ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... St. Simon marriage, and its curious termination, have long ceased to be a subject of interest in those exalted circles in which the unfortunate bridegroom moves. Fresh scandals have eclipsed it, and their more piquant details have drawn the gossips away from this four-year-old drama. As I have reason to believe, however, that the full facts have never been revealed to the general public, and as my friend Sherlock ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Without vailing the character of the voluptuous queen, or concealing the poetical aspects of her romantic history, he delineates the events in her life, for which she is now chiefly remembered, with a naive simplicity that becomes piquant from its apparent artlessness. Nor does he indulge, to any disagreeable excess, in the superfluous moralizing which a less shrewd writer would have deemed essential to the effect. He leaves the story ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... opened it and called out for the master of the house. But only an echo came back, and returning to the fire, I sat down before the cheering blaze, in quiet acceptance of a situation too lonely for comfort, yet not without a certain piquant interest for a man of free mind and adventurous ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... years after I began to write, and describe the amatory episodes as leisure inclined me, and as they seemed to me unusually amusing or illustrative. I arranged them in order afterwards. Nothing at that time had been so piquant in my acquaintance with harlots as Kitty's had been. I had not then had much to do with lasses as young as she was, the novelty therefore I suppose made me write out her narrative intermixed with my own, at ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... with a waxen skin, thick brown hair, and limpid, long-lashed gray eyes. Each girl cherished a hope of winning the rich and handsome heir of Ellsworth, and they feared the rivalry of a girl as fresh and lovely as the morning, and with the rounded slenderness of eighteen, piquant features, rose-leaf complexion, delicious dimples, a wealth of curling golden hair, and large, deep, violet-blue eyes ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... evenings, Toepffer took either his pen or his pencil, and, with his pupils, re-gathered from their memoranda and drawings their summer impressions and adventures. Then he made his paper laugh with the spirited and piquant sketches which all know who have peeped into the "Voyages en Zig-Zag." Thus his fireside amusements have become those of the world. The "Voyages en Zig-Zag," before his death, were already classic in France. The richest luxury of type, paper, and illustration ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... was there, and also Beatrice Egerton, who, as exchange editor of the "Argus," Dorothy had come to know well and to like for her quick wit and her daring, piquant ways, while she thoroughly disapproved of her worldly, self-seeking attitude toward ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... with the author of "The Rosary," than to see the world only as it is portrayed by the pens of Bernard Shaw and Anatole France. The first is deplorable; the second is dangerous. I should deeply regret the day when a simple story of honest American manhood winning a million and a sparkling, piquant sweetheart lost all power to lull my critical faculty and warm my heart. I doubt whether any literature has ever had too much ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... refineries. They have immense farms, rich silver mines, large shops and butcheries, and do a vast trade. Yet they continually intrigue for legacies—a woman has recently left them 70,000 crowns—and they refuse to pay the appointed tithe on them. It is piquant to add to this authoritative description that the Jesuit congregation at Rome were still periodically forbidding the fathers to engage in commerce, and Jesuit writers still gravely maintain that the society never engaged in commerce. It should be added ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... a tailored suit which deprived her of the boyishness that had been so apparent on their first meeting. The cap had disappeared before a close-fitting, vari-colored turban. But the straying brown hair still was there, the brown eyes, the piquant little nose and the prettily formed lips. Fairchild's heart thumped,—nor did he stop to consider why. A quickening of his pace, and he met her just as she ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... to attend to the printing. Nor did his preparations end there. He wrote a piquant article on the glories of the Comedie de l'Art, and its resurrection by the improvising troupe of the great mime Florimond Binet. Binet's name was not Florimond; it was just Pierre. But Andre-Louis had a great sense of the theatre. That article was an amplification ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... respond to the gayety of her spirit. It was so open, cheerful, hospitable, in the appearance of its smooth, broad avenues and pretty little parks, with the bronze statues which all looked noble—in the moonlight; it was such a combination and piquant contrast of shabby ease and stately elegance —negro cabins and stone mansions, picket-fences and sheds, and flower-banked terraces before rows of residences which bespoke wealth and refinement. The very aspect of the street population was novel; compared ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... from the chair. Measured by any standard commensurate to his remarkable faculties, Pattison's life would be generally regarded as pale, negative, and ineffectual. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that he had a certain singular quality about him that made his society more interesting, more piquant, and more sapid than that of many men of a far wider importance and more ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... Bob, "but I really wish I could give you the story just as Pierre told it to me, with the sidelights of Indian philosophy and the natural expressions of wood lore that made his story much more piquant and picturesque than mine could ever be. Anyway, I'll do the ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... enthralling confrontations and denunciations of the Caillaux murder trial, the trial of the wife of her ex-prime Minister for the murder of a blackmailing journalist. It was a case full of the vulgarest sexual violence. Before so piquant a spectacle France it seemed could have no time nor attention for the revelation of M. Humbert, the Reporter of the Army Committee, proclaiming that the artillery was short of ammunition, that her infantry had boots "thirty years old" and not ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... my leave of heaven, and come down again here below, where we shall find nothing happy, nay, nothing tolerable, without my presence and assistance. And in the first place consider how providently nature has took care that in all her works there should be some piquant smack and relish of Folly: for since the Stoics define wisdom to be conducted by reason, and folly nothing else but the being hurried by passion, lest our life should otherwise have been too dull and inactive, that creator, who out of clay first tempered and made us up, put into ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... repartee, and, most of all, by their offhand way of talking and their ease of manner. The material luxury of Paris had alarmed him that morning; at night he saw the same lavish expenditure of intellect. By what mysterious means, he asked himself, did these people make such piquant reflections on the spur of the moment, those repartees which he could only have made after much pondering? And not only were they at ease in their speech, they were at ease in their dress, nothing looked new, nothing looked old, nothing ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... order, scarcely varying a note in a dozen repetitions. Sometimes, when a considerable distance off, he will fly down to have a nearer view of you. And such curious, expressive flight,—legs extended, head lowered, wings rapidly vibrating, the whole action piquant and droll! ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... There was something piquant in this notion. Was not life short? and precious hours were too often wasted carelessly and dawdled away. It might even be worth while to see how much could be seen in these few hours. In a few moments the resolution was taken, and I was walking down to Victoria, and in two hours was in ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... style in reference to this work superfluous. Another writer might have made a more brilliant performance: descriptions sparkling with antitheses, characters projected into startling attitudes by the use of epithets; a work more exciting and more piquant, that would have started a thousand controversies, and engaged the attention by daring conjectures and attempts to make a dramatic spectacle; a book interesting and notable, but false in philosophy and ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... cool drinks. Faces wearing the blandest smiles, grave matrons, and cheerful planters,—all dressed in rustic style and neatness-gathered around to partake of the feast, while servants were running hither and thither to serve mas'r and missus with the choicest bits. Toasts, compliments, and piquant squibs, follow the wine-cup. Then came that picture of southern life which would be more worthy of praise if it were carried out in the purity of motive:—as soon as the party had finished, the older members, in their turn, set about preparing a repast for the servants. This seemed to elate ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... face is piquant with recognition, waves in a snappy, "Oh! Hello, Kid" manner, and ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... now become of the diary it is impossible to say, but judging by the excerpts used in the anonymous letters, it must have constituted a particularly piquant volume or series of volumes! Thus there was one remark about the emperor which ridiculed "his intolerable swagger." There were also some comical references to Princess Victoria of Prussia, who was jilted by the late Prince ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... had been dreaming evidently, gazing into the fire, and seeing therein, no doubt, a pretty, piquant face, with large brown eyes and a wealth of dark curls round ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... skill in seeing her car coming far down the road. When either of them saw it the other was summoned, and they waited tremblingly. But the landaulet always passed, with Mrs. Carter staring straight ahead, gray-haired and hook-nosed; sometimes with Miss Margaret Carter, whose softly piquant little nose would in time be hooked like her mother's. Father's treacherous ally the chauffeur never even looked at "The T Room." Sometimes Father wondered if the chauffeur knew just where the house was; perhaps he had never noticed it. He planned to wave and attract the chauffeur's attention, ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... while nurse's duty was performed by one of her entertainers, and she smiled in proof that her faith was grounded on their righteousness. She was indeed a mere girl. Her short scarlet upper lip showed her teeth with piquant innocence. As much a creature of the woods as a doe, her lot had been that primitive struggle which knows nothing about the amenities and proprieties of civilization. This Brown could clearly see, and he addressed her with the same ...
— The Cursed Patois - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... began to pass around the dusky, piquant, Arlesian sausages, and lobsters in their dazzling red cuirasses, prawns of large size and brilliant color, the echinus with its prickly outside and dainty morsel within, the clovis, esteemed by the epicures of the South as more than rivalling the exquisite ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... extravagant justice to her rose-white flesh and her budding curves, and got her as speedily as possible into the arms of the villain; after which she became interesting. His natural taste in heroines was for the lady with a past, preferably several pasts. The blot on the woman's character was as piquant to him as the mole upon her shoulder. He had spent an ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... hand were better than the arguments at the second. Even when the toasts began to grow old as sarcasms, they were washed down with still older pricked election Port; then the acid of the wine made some amends for the want of anything piquant in the wit. But when his Grace gave them a second transformation, and brought out the vapid stuff which had wearied the clubs and disgusted the courts, the drug made up of the bottoms of rejected bottles, all smelling so wofully of the cork and of the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of this book is remarkable. The wealth of simile which bursts out genially and involuntarily is only paralleled by its strange variety, recalling CARLYLE in pleasant, piquant singularity. Its humor is irresistible; none the less so for being keenly satirical. We regret that our limits forbid copious extracts from these treasures, but do the more earnestly entreat the reader to buy the volume and make himself familiar with ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... heard the words themselves, cold, earnest words, fall one by one from her lips like a sentence of doom—and there was life in the thing, life and death! When she had finished, the whole court was in a state of tension. Everyone was leaning forward. It would be the most piquant, the most wonderful cross examination every heard—the woman lying to save her honor and to achieve her vengeance; the man on trial for his life. Wingrave stood up. Lady Ruth raised her veil, and looked at him from the witness box. ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Ruth would not answer him, he became only the more determined that she should hear what he had to say. What that was he did not exactly know. The whole affair was most mysterious and piquant. ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Oath" was piquant and spirited. The touch of restive scorn that could come out on Martha Josselyn's face just suited her part; and Leonard Brookhouse was very cool and courteous, and handsome and gentlemanly-triumphant as ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... reconstruction Sunday services were held in the school at the rear, which was built some time before, at a cost of 1,700 pounds. The new chapel, which cost 2,600 pounds, was opened on the 22nd of May, 1862. It has a rather ornamental front—looks piquant and seriously nobby. There is nothing of the "great" or the "grand" in any part of it. The building is diminutive, cheerful, well-made, and inclined, in its ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... the city, had been a carnival, a saturnalia that was renowned throughout the land. Then the caterers numbered hundreds; the patrons thousands. Drawn by the coquettish senoritas, the music of the weird Spanish minstrels, and the strange piquant Mexican dishes served at a hundred competing tables, crowds thronged the Alamo Plaza all night. Travellers, rancheros, family parties, gay gasconading rounders, sightseers and prowlers of polyglot, owlish San Antone mingled there at the centre of the city's fun and frolic. The popping ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... the poet in the social circle, as well as to introduce a very piquant portrait, drawn by a friend, we subjoin a leaf or two from Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries[5]—displaying all the graphic ease for which Mr. Hunt is almost ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 407, December 24, 1829. • Various
... is that of the mother-country, have modified it so that it is, as it were, a mirror of the difference between American and English life. In America there is more hurry and bustle and less dignity. It is this difference which makes Americans and the American way of speaking appear interesting and piquant to English people. But this is no good reason for the adoption of American mannerisms into the English language. A typically American word is boom, meaning a sudden coming into popularity of something. Thus one may speak of ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... Camille's they were the great banker Louvard, and Monferrand, the President of the Council and Minister of Finances. The quiet bravado which the latter displayed in thus supporting the bride after being compromised in her father's financial intrigues imparted a piquant touch of impudence to his triumph. And public curiosity was further stimulated by the circumstance that the nuptial blessing was to be given by Monseigneur Martha, Bishop of Persepolis, the Pope's political agent in France, and the apostle of the endeavours to win the Republic over to the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Byron humour in him. His mother was a sister of the homicidal lord, and possessed some of the family peculiarity: she was endowed with great talent, and in her latter days she exhibited great singularity. She wrote beautiful verses and piquant epigrams among others, there is a poetical effusion of her pen addressed to Mrs Greville, on her Ode to Indifference, which, at the time, was much admired, and has been, with other poems of her Ladyship's, published in Pearch's ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... that to a cultivated eye the soul of beauty was often visible in that face of hers, with its intelligent eyes, sensitive mouth, and fine lines about the forehead, making it a far more significant and attractive countenance than that of her friend, possessing only piquant prettiness. ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... plays a role in our politics—had been sufficiently well portrayed by the author of Monsieur le Ministre. And upon this, the first chapter of my book, Monsieur Ludovic Halevy adds, moreover, some special and piquant details ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... before the hour appointed, the invitation is repeated, to inform them that the feast is prepared and awaits them. A great number of dishes are served on small ebony tables, and dressed in the most piquant manner; there are several courses; and, in addition to various wines, cordials of a fiery nature are offered from time to time. When two persons wish to pledge one another, they leave the tables, go into ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... board—and how my own particular friend had got on board—I knew not, for we were yet far from quay-side.) I had been hearing all my life about the sublime American institution of the interview. I had been warned by Americans of its piquant dangers. And here I was suddenly up against it! Beneath a casual and jaunty exterior, I trembled. I wanted to sit, but dared not. They stood; I stood. These two men, however, were adepts. They had the better qualities ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... gave her more than a national fame, and three hundred pounds from her fascinated publisher. It contains much curious information about the antiquities and social condition of Ireland, and a passionate pleading against the wrongs of its people. It made the piquant little governess all the rage in fashionable society, and until her marriage she was known by the name of her heroine, Glorvina. As a story the book is not worth reading at the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... "Individualism in Modern Art." But as criticism wisely concentrated itself on this the only comprehensible portion of the book, Jewdwine (who otherwise would have perished in his own profundity) actually achieved some journalistic notoriety as a dealer in piquant paradox and ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... Chrysler's eyes rested on the village of Dormilliere from the steamer's deck, the observations of the place and its people were to him a piquant and suggestive study. ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... heard Grace's light knock she paid no attention to it. It was not until Grace said rather diffidently, "We heard you were ill and thought we'd come in to see you," that the girl at the window turned toward Grace. Her piquant little face was drawn and pale, and her eyes looked suspiciously red. She eyed Grace almost sulkily, then said slowly, "It was kind of you to come, but I shall be all right to-morrow." Under Grace's serious glance ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... made her appearance in the hall frequented by the inmates of the prison. More than a hundred persons had gathered there. They were now scattered about in little groups; and the conversation was very animated. Here sat an ancient dowager, delighting some gentlemen with piquant anecdotes of the Court of Louis XV.; there, stood a jovial priest, composing rhymes for the amusement of a half-dozen young girls; at a little distance were several statesmen, earnestly discussing the recent acts of the Convention—all ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... mountain top. The fame of the pine lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the foot-prints of a girl. And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant, and the trail of these girlish foot-prints led the young engineer a madder chase than "the trail ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... rank and fashion of Brighton; you will see costumes a ravir, dresses that are artistic and elegant; you will see faces beautiful and well-known; you will hear a charming ripple of conversation; you will witness many pleasant and piquant adventures; but if you want to dream; if you want to give up your whole heart and soul to the poetry of the sea; if you want to listen to its voice and hear no other; if you want to shut yourself away from the world; if you want to hear the music of the winds, their whispers, ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... memory affords occurred to me from reading the work entitled "Paris, Versailles, and the Provinces in the Eighteenth Century." That work, composed by a man accustomed to the best society, is full of piquant anecdotes, nearly all of which have been recognised as true by the contemporaries of the author. I have put together all that concerned the domestic life of an unfortunate Princess, whose reputation is not yet cleared of the stains it received ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... incontestably at the height of his powers. Here, as in his writing for piano and for orchestra, one will find abundant evidence of his distinguishing traits—sensitiveness and fervour of imagination, a lovely and intimate sense of romance, whimsical and piquant humour, virility, passion, an unerring instinct for atmospheric suggestion. But there are times when, despite his avowed principles in the matter, he sacrifices truth of declamation to the presumed requirements of melodic design—when he seems to pay more heed to the unrelated effect of ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... and fragrant narghiles, I begin to feel symptoms of ennui, and a thirst for European life, sharp air, and a good appetite, a blazing fire, well-lighted rooms, female society, good music, and the piquant vaudevilles of my ancient friends, ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... accurate understanding; but the only practical outcome of these things had been an intimate lesson in the small value of the intelligence, that flavoured her state with cynicism and made it more piquant. She did not altogether scorn her own intelligence as the result, because it had always admitted the existence of dominating facts that belonged to life and not to reason; it was only the absurd unexpectedness of coming across one herself. ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... a blessed week of work—a "human warious" week, with something piquant lurking at every turn. A week so busy, so kaleidoscopic in its quick succession of events that my own troubles and grievances were pushed into a neglected corner of my mind and made to languish there, unfed ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... her love. Such feeling as Eustacia had idly given to Wildeve was dammed into a flood by Thomasin. She had used to tease Wildeve, but that was before another had favoured him. Often a drop of irony into an indifferent situation renders the whole piquant. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... us not be too sure. It is no new discovery that what looks like complete tolerance may be in reality only complete indifference. Intellectual fairness is often only another name for indolence and inconclusiveness of mind, just as love of truth is sometimes a fine phrase for temper. To be piquant counts for much, and the interest of seeing on the drawing-room tables of devout Catholics and high-flying Anglicans article after article, sending divinities, creeds, and Churches all headlong into limbo, was indeed piquant. Much of all this ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... always takes her home—if it's in the evening. He gets along with these people better than we do," returned Mrs. Bradley, dryly. "But," she added, with a return of her piquant Quaker-like coquettishness, "Jim says we are to devote ourselves to you to-night—in retaliation, I suppose. We are to amuse you, and not let you get excited; and you are to ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... could be drawn between 'The Rivals' and the 'School for Scandal' on the one side, and on the other 'The Barber of Seville' and 'The Marriage of Figaro'; and there are also piquant points of likeness between Sheridan and Beaumarchais. But Sheridan, with all his failings, was of sterner stuff than Beaumarchais. He had a loftier political morality, and he served the State more loyally. Yet ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... though somewhat exaggerated coloring. The Frenchwoman understands the art of adornment—the headdress, the hair, the folds of lace on the bosom, all are arranged with care and, as one might say, con amore. The piquant, handsome face, with its lively expression, its parted lips disclosing a row of pearly teeth, presents itself to the beholder's gaze as if coquettishly challenging his admiration, while the hand holds the pencil as in the act ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... her portfolio, and showed two or three water-coloured drawings of the graceful little head and piquant features. Edgar criticised, and promised a lesson; and the sitter, nothing loth, though rather coy, was caught. She blushed and smiled, and took exception at little personalities, and laughed her forgiveness, going through a ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge |
