"Polished" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... table, with plates and glasses, and then takes his place behind his master's chair to hand the wines and ices, while the footman stands behind his mistress for the same purpose, the other attendants leaving the room. Where the old-fashioned practice of having the dessert on the polished table, without any cloth, is still adhered to, the butler should rub off any marks made by the hot ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... have sat hours in conversation, the thing upon earth that I hate; have been to hear misses play on the harpsichord, and to see an alderman's copies of Rubens and Carlo Marat. Yet to do the folks justice, they are sensible, and reasonable, and civilized; their very language is polished since I lived among them. I attribute this to their more frequent intercourse with the world and the capital, by the help of good roads and postchaises, which, if they have abridged the King's dominions, have at least ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... to our hearts the wholesome lesson of our own weakness, are the beginning, and the only possible beginning, of divine strength. The only temper in which we can serve God and bless man is that of lowliest self-abasement. God works with bruised reeds, and out of them makes polished shafts, pillars in His house. Only when we are low on our faces before God, crying out,' Unclean, unclean,' does the purifying coal touch our lips and the prophet strength flow into ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... resembled Diamond Tom, his illustrious grandfather—Nature bred back. William was strong in body, firm in will, active, alert, intelligent. Times had changed or he might have been a bold buccaneer, too. He was all his grandfather was, only sandpapered, buffed and polished by civilization. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... cries, and many of our ruffians butchered one or the other with equal alacrity. I was ashamed of my trade when I saw those horrors perpetrated, which came under every man's eyes. You hew out of your polished verses a stately image of smiling victory; I tell you 'tis an uncouth, distorted, savage idol; hideous, bloody, and barbarous. The rites performed before it are shocking to think of. You great poets should show it as it is—ugly and horrible, not beautiful and serene. Oh, sir, had you made the campaign, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... extraordinary attention. A vulgar laugh is detestable. I never saw much merit in writing rapidly. You will believe me when I tell you that I have been present at the production of more genuine wit and humour than almost any person of my time, and that it was revised and polished and arranged with a scrupulous care which overlooked nothing. I have not often seen fairer promises of excellence in this department than in your correspondent; but I tell you frankly that they will all be blighted and perish prematurely ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... completion. As with one accord they went over to look at the Italian's finished work, and saw—no carving of archbishop's mitre, no sculpture of cardinal's hat (O mother, where were the day-dreams for your boy!), but a rough slab, in the centre of which was a raised heart of polished granite, and, beneath it, cut deep into the rock—which, although lying yesterday nearest the skies above The Gore, was in past aeons the foundation stone of ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... of existence; the compound probably means One in whom every attribute has been extinguished; hence, absence of change, of sorrow, of gift, etc., or, eternal and highest joy. Lohitaksha is Red-eyed, from His eyes being of the hue of polished copper. Pratardana, according to Sankara, means the killer of all creatures. Others take it as implying one who destroys the cheerlessness of his worshippers. Prabhuta is One who is Great or Vast in consequence of Knowledge, Puissance, Energy, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... eldest boy, who had run on before, joined us just as we came up to the arbour, where a neat round table stood, having curious feet made out of the rough branches of a tree; the top had been polished, and painted with varnish, and looked very splendid indeed. But the quick eyes of Vea soon detected an ugly scar on the bright surface, as if some boy had been attempting to cut out a letter ...
— Bluff Crag - or, A Good Word Costs Nothing • Mrs. George Cupples
... upraised, linked arms, a sort of human trellis-work of black and white. Mino's Madonna at Fiesole: the relief turned and cut so as to look out of the chapel into the church, so that the Virgin's head, receiving the light like a glory on the pure, polished forehead, casts a nimbus of shadow round itself, while the saints are sucked into the background, their accessories only, staff and gridiron, allowed to assert themselves by a sharp shadow; a marvellous vision of white heavenly roses, their pointed buds and sharp ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... that generous young creature, her feet scarcely touching the polished oak, her hair all unbound and rolling in waves down her back. Struck with sweet compunctions, she had broken from the hands of her maid, and left her with the blue ribbon fluttering in her hand, while she ran back ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... reared by Kit until she reached eight years, when he took her to St. Louis and liberally provided for all her wants. She received as good an education as St. Louis could afford and was introduced to the refining influences of polished society. She married a Californian and removed with ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... the brass paper knife reckless onto the polished mahogany desk top. "They ought to be, I will admit; but—oh, hang it all, if you're to be of any use in this beastly affair, I suppose you must be told the humiliating, ugly truth! They are not spooning. Robbie is very unhappy. ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... above his eyes. A cloud of dust was rising from the London road and drifting off across the fields like smoke when the old ricks burn in damp weather—a long, broad-sheeted mist; and in it were bits of moving gold, shreds of bright colors vaguely seen, and silvery gleams like the glitter of polished metal in the sun. And as he looked the shifty wind came down out of the west again and whirled the cloud of dust away, and there he saw a long line of men upon horses coming at an easy canter up the highway. Just as he had made ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... and her polished needles struck so violently against each other that you could hear them click. "My husband cannot be to blame for that; Toulan must have talked him into it, and he must have a reason for it; he must have a reason, and if it is only from ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... seemed sincerely repentant and happy in their way, and after an affectionate embrace I took leave of them and travelled all night. I stopped at Chanteloup to see the monument of the taste and magnificence of the Duc de Choiseul, and spent twenty-four hours there. A gentlemanly and polished individual, who did not know me, and for whom I had no introduction, lodged me in a fine suite of rooms, gave me supper, and would only sit down to table with me after I had used all my powers of persuasion. The next day he treated me in the same way, gave me an excellent dinner, shewed me everything, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... "small-lipped" species—Onc. serratum, O. superbiens, and O. sculptum. This last is rarely seen. As with others of its class, the spike grows very long, twelve feet perhaps, if it were allowed to stretch. The flowers are small comparatively, clear bronze-brown, highly polished, so closely and daintily frilled round the edges that a fairy goffering-iron could not give more regular effects, and outlined by a narrow band of gold. Onc. serratum has a much larger bloom, but ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... perfectly, answered her in French. When the three ladies had exhausted every form of dissimulation and of politeness, as a circuitous mode of expressing that the king's conduct was making the queen and the queen-mother pine away through sheer grief and vexation, and when, in the most guarded and polished phrases, they had fulminated every variety of imprecation against Mademoiselle de la Valliere, the queen-mother terminated her attack by an exclamation indicative of her own reflections and character. "Estos hijos!" said she to Molina—which ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... requiring deference and conciliation. Could such incongruous materials coalesce? Ann Yearsley's suit, no doubt was urged with a zeal approaching to impetuosity, and not expressed in that measured language which propriety might have dictated; and any deficiency in which could not fail to offend her polished and powerful patroness. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... a singular picture on Van Buren's retina—that gaunt, savage being, hairy, wild of eye, instinct with hatred and malice, posing awkwardly, and the sun-lit barrel of polished steel, just before its yawning muzzle belched lead and a cloud and a ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... hand Waves with an air the sleep-procuring wand; The glittering sandals to his feet applies, And to each heel the well-trimmed pinion ties. His ornaments with nicest art displayed, He seeks the apartment of the royal maid. The roof was all with polished ivory lined, 40 That, richly mixed, in clouds of tortoise shined. Three rooms, contiguous, in a range were placed, The midmost by the beauteous Herse graced; Her virgin sisters lodged on either side. Aglauros first the approaching god descried, And as he crossed her chamber, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Allegheny County Court-House, in the Romanesque style, erected in 1884-88 at a cost of $2,500,000, is one of Henry H. Richardson's masterpieces. The Nixon Theater is a notable piece of architecture. The Post-Office and the Customs Office are housed in a large Government building of polished granite. ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... got out of her clothes and into gingham morning things. She flung open windows everywhere. Downstairs once more she plunged into an orgy of cleaning. Dishes, table, stove, floor, rugs. She washed, scoured, swabbed, polished. By eight o'clock she had done the work that would ordinarily have taken until noon. The house was shining, orderly, and ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... wondered what sympathies could draw two young men together of such opposite characters. On becoming acquainted with Beauclerc he found that, rake though he was, he possessed an ardent love of literature, an acute understanding, polished wit, innate gentility and high aristocratic breeding. He was, moreover, the only son of Lord Sidney Beauclerc and grandson of the Duke of St. Albans, and was thought in some particulars to have a resemblance to Charles the Second. These were high recommendations ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... over to where his carefully polished and well-sharpened skates, strapped together, lay on a side table. Each look caused him to shrug his shoulders a bit. He could easily imagine he heard the delightful clang of steel runners cutting into that smooth sheet of new ice out at the mill pond; and the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... platform and looking at the illuminated clock at the end which told me that it was half-past eleven. I remember also my wondering whether I could get home before midnight. Then I remember the big motor, with its glaring head-lights and glitter of polished brass, waiting for me outside. It was my new thirty-horse- power Robur, which had only been delivered that day. I remember also asking Perkins, my chauffeur, how she had gone, and his saying that he ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Charlemagne, and Europe took alarm. Henry and Francis both thrust in, each of them suggesting to the German electorial princes that he had claims of his own, and would make an emperor far more suitable than Charles. Henry polished up his German ancestry; Francis recalled that Germans and Frenchmen were both Franks, had been one mighty race under Charlemagne, and surely might become so once ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... was not deceived, but, understanding that the Persians had set out in pursuit, he called in his stragglers, massed his troops, and pitched his camp in a strong position. Day-dawn showed that he had judged aright, for the earliest rays of the sun were reflected from the polished breastplates and cuirasses of the Persians, who had drawn up at no great distance during the night. A combat followed in which the Persian and Saracenic horse attacked the Romans vigorously, and especially threatened the baggage, but were repulsed by the firmness and valor ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... suffer by the change, but was deceived. Father Battista was an excellent man, highly educated, of polished manners, and capable of reasoning admirably, even profoundly, upon the duties of man. We entreated him to visit us frequently; he came once a month, and oftener when in his power to do so; he always brought us some book or other with the governor's permission, ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... the shooting. An officer whom we fished up afterward explained to me that they had only recognized we were a German warship when they were quite close to us. The Frenchman behaved well, accepted battle and fought on, but was polished off by us with three broadsides. The whole fight with both ships lasted half an hour. The commander of the torpedo boat lost both legs by the first broadside. When he saw that part of his crew were leaping overboard, he cried ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... romance of a sea life was driven out of him, and its stern realities were implanted. In less than three weeks there was not a cup, saucer, or plate in the ship that Watty had not washed; not a "brass" that he had not polished and re-polished; not a copper that he had not scraped; not an inch of the deck that he had not swabbed. But it must not be supposed that he groaned under this labour. Although reckless, hasty, and inconsiderate, he was not ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the fifth story, wounded on every angle." Only sympathy and a poetic touchstone could bring out the essence and sweetness of a nature so unhappily disguised; but Sainte-Beuve, discarding with a single gesture her penitential mask and hood, finds Madame Desbordes-Valmore "polished, gracious, and even hospitable, investing everything with a certain attractive and artistic air, hiding her griefs under a natural grace, lighted even by gleams of merriment." The poor details of her life he contrives to lose under a purposed artlessness of narrative and a caressing superfluity ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... kindly examined under the microscope, sliced and polished specimens of these concretions, and of the solid marl-rock, collected in various places between the Colorado and Santa Fe Bajada. In the greater number, Dr. Carpenter finds that the whole substance presents a tolerably uniform amorphous character, but ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... Scarcely had the tea-pot been placed on the table than it began to slip off; had not the watchful captain quickly caught it, it would have fallen to the ground and bathed our feet with its contents. Nothing could stand on the polished table, and I sincerely pitied the captain that he had ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... whilst I was writing this, also a joint letter from Hal and Blanche; I was so glad to get all three. As to clothes, I keep an old suit for the trenches; when I get out and have to go anywhere, I turn out quite smartly, excepting that my boots and leggings are "dubbed" with grease instead of being polished. When my old suit is done, my form will be encased in Government khaki garments with my badges of rank transferred, and that will keep me going to the ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... there was to be a grand wedding festival among the colored gentry on a farm about 6 miles from Uncle Dick's residence. He was, of course called upon to officiate as master of ceremonies. He donned his long-tailed blue coat, having carefully polished the glittering gilt buttons; then raised his immense shirt collar, which he considered essential to his dignity, and, fiddle in hand, sallied forth alone. The younger folk had set out sometime before; but Uncle Dick was not to be hurried ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... also marked by rapid and uniform progress in the English language. The sonorous, but cumbrous English of Milton had been greatly improved by Dryden; and we have seen, also, that the terse and somewhat crude diction of Dryden's earlier works had been polished and rendered more ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... disorder of the barrack room, amidst men rising hastily that they might not be reported missing at the morning muster, which would shortly take place in the courtyard, Fandor-Vinson dressed quickly. He put on his sword-belt, ascertained that his servant had sufficiently polished the brass buttons on his tunic, his sabre, and other trappings. The adjutant ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... them brighter than in Scotland? From the "bonny highland heather" of her lofty summits, to the modest lily of the vale, not a flower but has blushed with patriot blood. From the proud foaming crest of the Solway, to the calm, polished breast of Loch Katrine, not a river, not a lake, but has swelled with the life tide of freedom. Would you witness greatness? Contemplate a Wallace and a Bruce. They fought not for honors, for party, for conquest; 'twas for their country and their country's ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... valley, across the pale, rain-beaten grass of the moor, all the northern English detail vanished from his eyes. For one suffocating instant he saw nothing but a great picture gallery, its dimly storied walls and polished floor receding into the distance. In front Velazquez' 'Infanta,' and before it a figure bent over a canvas. Every line and tint stood out. He heard the light varying voice, caught the complex grace of the woman, the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Mead as he stepped from his room, freshly shaven and clad in black frock coat and vest, gray trousers and newly polished shoes. As he listened to Ellhorn's account of the sudden storm that was already shaking the little town from end to end, a yellow light flashed in his brown eyes and there came into them an intent, defiant look, the look of battle, like that in the ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... that Sabina had lamented that handsome Julia was not looking well. But where is there another woman of your age with such a carriage, such unwrinkled features, so clear a brow, such deep kind eyes, such beautifully-polished arms—" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... alongside, and a muller for wine or beer; and hams and sides of bacon and strings on onions and bunches of herbs; much pewter, and a copper warming-pan, and brass candlesticks, and a grandfather clock; a cherrywood dresser and wheelback chairs polished with age; and a great scrubbed oaken table to seat a harvest-supper, planed from a single mighty plank. It was as clean as everything else in that good room, but all the scrubbing would not efface the circular ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... but a refined and gentlemanly one, who cows you by his polite impertinence. He seldom indulged in harsh speech, never in personal violence—at least no instance of it was known to the students. He indulged in sneers and polished browbeating. A boy was never stupid—he lacked common intelligence; never a blockhead—his perceptions were very dull. His polite epithets were more cutting than good round ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... Presently, presently, was the answer. Marcus himself aided the convalescent to dress; then having seated him in a great chair of rude wickerwork, used only on occasions such as this, left him to bask in a beam of sunshine. Before long, his meal was brought him, and with it a book, bound in polished wood and metal, which he found to be a Psalter. Herein, when he had eaten, he read for an hour or so, not, however, without much wandering of the thoughts. He had fallen into reverie, when his door opened, and there appeared ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... to Missouri, thence to Mississippi where he arrived in 1868. In 1878, he married Miss Josephine B. Wilson, of Cleveland, Ohio, a lady of most excellent parts and refined culture. A son, Roscoe Conklin, was born in 1879—a polished gentleman by birth, an educator by training, an orator and debater by choice, and a scholar by nature. Both wife and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... He drew the chair somewhat apart from the table, knowing better than to place his elbows on that sacred spread of polished mahogany. ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... stoke-hold. We were all supplied with fishing-lines and hooks of three different sizes, and extra grog when getting steam up. The method of cleaning and polishing the engines and all bright work was very effectual, and did the stokers great credit; after having scoured and polished the steel and bright ironwork they were frosted, in imitation of hoar frost. A pot of hot tallow and white lead in which a clean piece of cotton waste was dipped, and the parts smeared evenly in line with the metal, and when this dried it was dabbed, or patted, with another clean piece ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... gold, have their intrinsic value; but, if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their lustre: and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold. What a number of sins does the cheerful, easy, good-breeding of the French ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... likewise; and Mayor for life—so to speak—of a new trading city, a nascent Genoa or Venice, on the shore of the Mediterranean. But the girl Nausicaa, as she sleeps in her "carved chamber," is "like the immortals in form and face;" and two handmaidens who sleep on each side of the polished door "have beauty ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... scores in the end. But he is a Roman father, at best. He has little compassion and no tenderness; he is acute, brisk, and sensible; but he has (at least to me) neither grace nor wisdom; or, if he has, he keeps them under a polished metallic dish-cover, and only lifts it in private. I do not feel that the Headmaster has any religion, except the religion of all sensible men. In seeming to despise all sentiment, Kipling seems to me to throw aside several beautiful flowers, tied carelessly up in the same bundle. There ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... secrets of George Eliot's heart are laid bare in these letters to the famous Methodist preacher, who was at that time her dearest friend. She is ever asking for advice and spiritual guidance, and confesses her faults with a candor that is rendered additionally attractive by reason of the polished language in which it is clothed. When quite a girl, George Eliot was known as pious and clever; and in the letters she wrote in 1839, when she was twenty years old, the cleverness has grown and expanded, although she is not so sure about her piety. She says that 'unstable as water thou shalt ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... snapping in the wind. To the south of it plunged two long low-lying torpedo boats, flying the French tri-color, and still further to the north towered three magnificent hulls of the White Squadron. Vengeance was written on every curve and line, on each straining engine rod, and on each polished gun muzzle. ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... was efficiency made insolent, in glass and chrome and polished steel, mirrors and windows and looming electronic clerical machines. Most of one wall was taken up by a TV monitor which gave a view of the spaceport; a vast open space lighted with blue-white mercury vapor lamps, and a chained-down skyscraper of a starship, littered ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... was mixing the bread. It was a still, deep-breathing summer night, full of the smell of the hay fields. Sounds of laughter and splashing came up from the pasture, and when the moon rose rapidly above the bare rim of the prairie, the pond glittered like polished metal, and she could see the flash of white bodies as the boys ran about the edge, or jumped into the water. Alexandra watched the shimmering pool dreamily, but eventually her eyes went back to the sorghum patch south of the barn, where she ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... to add insult to outrage, when the object of the outrage is the religion of Christ, is old in the blood of the northern barbarians; and Turgesius was merely setting the example, in his own rude and honest fashion, to the more polished but no less ridiculous assumption of ecclesiastical authority, which was to be witnessed in England, on the part of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. The power of the invader was so superior to whatever forces the neighboring Irish clans could muster, that no opposition was even attempted at first ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... repeated several times with different sizes of tracers and different adjustments to enable the cutting tool to cut at different depths, until finally a steel letter in relief is produced, engraved the reverse of the pattern and very much smaller. After being hardened and polished, this is called a steel punch, and, when driven into a flat piece of copper, it produces what is known as a "strike" ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... try," she said, and she walked to the piano which was screwed athwart the deck in front of the polished mahogany sheath of the steel mainmast. It was in her mind to play some lively excerpts from the light operas then in vogue, but the secret influences of the hour were stronger than her studied intent, and, ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... must go back. I'll be lame all right, but it won't be the first time. I'm lame and sore now. I've polished that saddle so you could skate on it ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... raiment, when he spoke, was his grey beard and uncut hair, they believed him. They did not ask too much of what they met, but polished and tallowed and scraped it to ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... his lodgings on this dark errand about eleven o'clock P. M.; not that he meant to begin so soon: but he needed to reconnoitre. He carried his tools closely buttoned up under his loose roomy coat. It was in harmony with the general subtlety of his character, and his polished hatred of brutality, that by universal agreement his manners were distinguished for exquisite suavity: the tiger's heart was masked by the most insinuating and snaky refinement. All his acquaintances afterwards described his dissimulation as ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... left breast a mark in the shape of a little white mole with which she was born, and she found it there enlarged by time. Then, with the same haste, she took off the girl's shoe, uncovered a snowy foot, smooth as polished marble, and found what she sought; for the two smaller toes of the right foot were joined together by a thin membrane, which the tender parents could not bring themselves to let the surgeon cut when ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the manner of the inhabitants of almost all the other islands in the South Sea. The lobe of their ears was pierced, or rather slit, and to such a length, that one of them stuck there a knife and some beads, which he had received from us; and the same person had two polished pearl-shells, and a bunch of human hair, loosely twisted, hanging about his neck, which was the only ornament we observed. The canoe they came in (which was the only one we saw), was not above ten feet long, and very ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... chateau, and here the Marchioness had held the assemblies, that made part of the festivities of her nuptials. If the wand of a magician could have recalled the vanished groups, many of them vanished even from the earth! that once had passed over these polished mirrors, what a varied and contrasted picture would they have exhibited with the present! Now, instead of a blaze of lights, and a splendid and busy crowd, they reflected only the rays of the one glimmering lamp, which the Count held up, and which scarcely served to shew the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... the chapel, about a hundred and thirty feet in length, with the breadth proportionable; it is divided into three arches, upon two ranges of pillars of marble of this country, of divers colours, most in red streaks, handsome and polished. On the windows and walls are several pictures and images, after the manner of the Lutheran churches. The rooms in the castle are many, some of them large enough for the state of a Court, and most of those are two stories high, after the use of this country. The situation ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... upon charcoal, it is absorbed. The sulphate fuses at first to a clear bead, which soon spreads, and is absorbed and converted while boiling into a hepatic mass. If this mass is taken out, placed upon a piece of polished silver and moistened with a little water, a black spot of sulphide of silver is left after washing off ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... and despair. These enormous cruelties, which would have disgraced the arms of a Tartarian freebooter, were acted by the express command of Louis XIV. of France, who has been celebrated by so many venal pens, not only as the greatest monarch, but also as the most polished prince of Christendom. De Lorges advanced towards the Neckar against the prince of Baden, who lay encamped on the other side of the river; but in attempting to pass, he was twice repulsed with considerable ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the Marquis Trotti and the Abate Bucchetti is likewise particularly pleasing; especially to me, who am naturally desirous to live as much as possible among Italians of general knowledge, good taste, and polished manners, before I enter their country, where the language will be so very indispensable. Mean time I have stolen a day to visit my old acquaintance the English Austin Nuns at the Fossee, and found ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... did her perfect work, and made the little lean body glistening white as polished marble, while the heavy hair hung limp like pale ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... forth their wares upon rudely constructed tables, ready for the first purchaser. Some of the things were truly beautiful—pieces of rare old lace, chains and chains of many-colored beads, silver that was polished till it reflected dazzlingly the dancing firelight. There were rude tents set aside for the telling of fortunes, and somewhere further back in the camp the wild, sweet strains of a violin mingled with a ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... of straw, when he might have the blue vault of heaven arching over him, and all God's stars for lamps, and for a bed a horse blanket stretched over an elastic couch of pine needles. There were two gaunt pines that had been dropping their polished spills for centuries, perhaps silently adding, year by year, another layer of aromatic springiness to poor Tom's bed. Flinging his tired body on this grateful couch, burying his head in the crushed sweet fern of his pillow with one deep-drawn sigh of pleasure,—there, haunted by no past and ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a rugged type of speaker who transcends and seemingly defies all rules of oratory. Such a man was the great Scottish preacher Chalmers, who was without polished elocution, grace, or manner, but who through his intellectual power and moral earnestness thrilled ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... time communicated to Ayoket and his countrymen our intention of sending a party of our people to the northward in the spring; and Captain Lyon had displayed to him all the charms of a brightly-polished brass kettle, of greater magnitude than had, perhaps, ever entered into an Esquimaux imagination, as an inducement, among various others, for him to accompany the Kabloonas in their excursion. The prospect of such riches was a temptation almost irresistible; but ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... condition, a few palaces, and three temples; one of the latter having a peristyle of twelve large Corinthian pillars, of which eleven were still erect. In one of these temples I found a fallen column of the finest polished Egyptian granite. Beside these, I found one of the city gates, formed of three arches, and ornamented with pilasters, in good preservation. The finest of the remains is a street adorned throughout its length with Corinthian columns ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... "Then Brother Paul has polished off Catherine," thought the Boy, "and he won't waste much time over a sore heart. It behoves us to hurry up with our penitence." This seemed to be Nicholas's view as well. He was beginning again ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... elegance of their movements, with a few dancing-masters to regulate and give the tone to the whole. Between this time and that I am now speaking of was an abyss. The education of those days instructed every one in grace, address, exercise, respect for bearing, graduated and delicate politeness, polished and decent gallantry. The difference, then, between the two periods is seen at a glance, without time lost in pointing ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... us, the women in Viraginia cut their hair and let their nails grow. Some of them also practise with profit the gymnastic art, so that they can make beautiful use of teeth, nails, and heels. A nobler and more cleanly polished place is not to be seen than Viraginia, where everything is washed, cooked and cared for by the men, and there is nothing unbecoming but the ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... shoulders, and kings and dog-drivers, old-timers and chechaquos, met on a common level. And it so happened, probably because saw-mills and house-space were scarce, that the saloons accommodated the gambling tables and the polished dance-house floors. And here, because he needs must bend to custom, Corliss's adaptation went on rapidly. And as Carthey, who appreciated him, soliloquized, "The best of it is he likes ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... surface of a cast plate is polished the material is such that you can see through it, but if it is left rough it is impossible to see through it, although it will permit light to go through. The term applied to such glass ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... of all that uninteresting accretion which he had inherited or copied, resolves itself, like that of any other man of genius, into those things which he really inaugurated. Underneath all his exterior of polished and polite rectitude there was in him a genuine fire of novelty; only that, like all the able men of his period, he disguised revolution under the name of evolution. He is only a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... afresh with the help of a laborer and a boy. Then he stepped indoors, changed his clothes, and filled a traveling-bag. When this was done he went in search of the stableman. Natt was in his stable, whistling as he polished his harness. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... to me: "What an instrument, your body! single and perfectly distinct from everything else! What a tool in the hands of the Lord! Only God could have brought it to its shape. It feels as if his handgrasp, wearing you had polished you and hollowed you, hollowed this groove in your sides, grasped you under the breasts and brought you to the very quick of your form, subtler than ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... old man with his "blast against women," his deep-set fiery eyes, his sovereign power to move and influence the people. He was absolutely a novel personage to Mary: their conversations are like a quick glancing of polished weapons—his, too heavy for her young brilliancy of speech and nature, crushing with ponderous force the light-flashing darts of question; but she, no way daunted, comprehending him, meeting full in the face ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... and rocked. Suddenly a telegraph post seemed to come crashing through the window and the polished mahogany panels. The young man escaped it by leaping to one side. It caught Mr. Dunster, who had just risen to his feet, upon the forehead. There was a crash all around of splitting glass, a further shock. They were both thrown off their feet. The light was suddenly ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... weighing some eighteen stone, an exceedingly florid countenance and good features, eyes full of quickness and shrewdness, but at the same time beaming with good nature. He wears white pantaloons, white frock, and white hat, and is, indeed, all white, with the exception of his polished Wellingtons and rubicund face. He carries a whip beneath his arm, which adds wonderfully to the knowingness of his appearance, which is rather more that of a gentleman who keeps an inn on the Newmarket road, "purely for the love of travellers, and the money which ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... inferior characters speak a kind of provincial dialect or patois, called Prakrit—bearing the relation to Sanskrit that Italian bears to Latin, or that the spoken Latin of the age of Cicero bore to the highly polished Latin in which he delivered his Orations. Even the heroine of the drama is made to speak in the vernacular dialect. The hero, on the other hand, and all the higher male characters, speak in Sanskrit; and ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... dinners, to the plain and discreet table of Madame Geoffrin, and to the little drawing room of Mademoiselle de L'Espinasse, all belonging to the great central state drawing-room, that is to say, to the French Academy, where each newly elected member appears to parade his style and obtain from a polished body his commission of master in the art of discourse. Such a public imposes on an author the obligation of being more a writer than a philosopher. The thinker is expected to concern himself with his sentences as much as with his ideas. He is not allowed to be a mere ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... afternoon there was another chap who swung off just ahead of me, and I noticed him particularly because he was so different from anything you'd expect to drop off the four-sixteen. Tall and well-set-up, dressed like the mirror of fashion, smooth and polished—and followed by a valet, if you please, carrying his grips and a bag of golf clubs! Imagine a sight like that in Hambleton! I thought he'd made a mistake in his station, until I saw him walk right across the platform to where Adams, the baggage-master, was standing. ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... the burgomaster. He was away and his servants permitted us to see the house. It was cleaning-day. Everything in the house was in keeping with the character of the village. But the kitchen! how shall I describe it? The polished marble floor, the dressers with glass doors like a bookcase, to keep the least particle of dust from the bright-polished utensils of brass and copper. The varnished mahogany handle of the brass spigot, lest the moisture of the hand in turning it should ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... localities in Upper Egypt. The members of the race were not acquainted with the use of metals, but they were expert artificers in stone and clay. Stone was skilfully carved into vessels of different forms, and vases of clay were fashioned, with brightly polished surfaces. Sometimes the vases were simply coloured red and black, or adorned with patterns and pictures in incised white lines; at other times, and more especially in the later tombs, they were artistically decorated with representations of men ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... then wept over the sliced ham, the potato salad, and the Saratoga chips, all of which she had brought home from a nearby delicacy shop in oily paper bags only an hour ago. She wandered disconsolately through the four rooms that had been her home for nearly six years. The dust lay thick on the polished wood and glass of the sideboard and glass closet in the dining-room; ashes and the ends of cigarettes filled half a dozen little receptacles here and there; a welter of newspapers had formed a great drift in a corner of the room, and the thick ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... the fire lay a neatly done-up pack, and beside it a high-pommeled Mexican saddle, while the firelight gleamed on the polished barrels of a fine shotgun and rifle leaning ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... driven away by them is manifestly untrue, for whoever comes to Jocelyn's remains. The beach at the foot of the bluff is almost a mile at its curve, and it is so smooth and hard that it glistens like polished marble when newly washed by the tide. It is true that you reach it from the top by a flight of eighty steps, but it was intended to have an elevator, like those near the Whirlpool at Niagara. In the mean ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... her lover, descended from the cavaliers of Virginia. This writing was cut with a diamond, and the children knew not that the writing was their parents'. The little ones walked carefully over the polished floors; but there seemed nothing in all they saw to tell them they were welcome. They lifted the grand piano that maintained its station in one of the unoccupied rooms of the house; but the keys were yellow ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... fine panelings and mosaics of many-colored woods from the Brazils, this study, secluded by its position at the head of the noble staircase, was not the least beautiful room. The floor and the walls were of rich-hued tiles, the arched ceiling was ribbed with polished woods to look like the scooped-out interior of a half-orange. Costly hangings muffled the noise of the outer world, and large shutters excluded, when necessary, the glare of the sun. The rays of Reason alone could not be shut out, and in this haunt of peace the young Catholic had ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... diction of this opera, as it is somewhat improperly termed, being rather a dramatic poem, strongly indicate the taste of Charles the Second's reign, for what was ingenious, acute, and polished, in preference to the simplicity of the true sublime. The judgment of that age, as has been already noticed, is always to be referred rather to the head than to the heart; and a poem, written to ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... Richard, when a boy, was a great reader of English poetry; but his exercises afforded no proof of his proficiency. In truth, he, as a boy, was quite careless about literary fame. I should suppose that his father, without any regular system, polished his taste, and supplied his memory with anecdotes about our best writers in our Augustan age. The grandfather, you know, lived familiarly with Swift. I have heard of him, as an excellent scholar. His boys in Ireland once performed a Greek play, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... have been brought to light. Idols, pitchers of clay, ornaments of copper, circular medals, arrowheads, and even mirrors of isinglass, in great numbers, have been found throughout the country. Some of the articles of pottery are skilfully wrought, and polished, glazed, and burned; inferior in no respects to those of ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... on, "do not laugh at me when I tell you that I have evolved a whole kitchen philosophy of my own. I find the kitchen the shrine of our civilization, the focus of all that is comely in life. The ruddy shine of the stove is as beautiful as any sunset. A well-polished jug or spoon is as fair, as complete and beautiful, as any sonnet. The dish mop, properly rinsed and wrung and hung outside the back door to dry, is a whole sermon in itself. The stars never look so bright as they do from the kitchen door after the ice-box pan is emptied ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... toes of his highly polished tan shoes to the sheen of his blond hair and the crown of his nobby straw hat, he looked like a well dressed and prosperous professional man. His dark gray suit with a thin thread of pale green in it, his silver-gray necktie, the gloves he carried in his left ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... from that most delicate and graceful painting of Leda presenting her newborn to her husband, from which the room derives its name. This charming apartment opened upon the fragrant garden. Round the table of citrean wood, highly polished and delicately wrought with silver arabesques, were placed the three couches, which were yet more common at Pompeii than the semicircular seat that had grown lately into fashion at Rome: and on these couches ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... in front. A reflection of her form upon the polished floor lent uncertainty to her stature, and gave her an appearance of walking on water. Those following were plainly her attendants. They were all veiled; while a white mantle fell from her left shoulder, its ends lost in the folds ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... thickly carpeted corridor, which reminded me of one at Peterhof leading to the Empress's private apartments, until the baron saluted a sentry, passed him, and a little farther on knocked discreetly at a polished mahogany door, that of ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... he drew from under the half-deck of the boat a heavy sporting-rifle, carrying about sixty balls to the pound, and sighted with "globe" or "peep" sights. Taking a polished gauge which hung at his watch-chain, he set the rear sight, and, cocking the piece, set the hair-trigger. Noiselessly raising the muzzle above the gunwale, he ran his eye along the sights. A whip-like ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... set the room in order, for it was the sitting-room as well as the kitchen. She shook the mats out at the front-door and put them straight; the hearth-rug was a rabbit-skin. She dusted the clock and the ornaments on the mantelpiece, and she polished and rubbed ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... was a child I used to visit my two great-aunts in Maryland. I loved to go to Aunt Mary's, but I dreaded Aunt Anne's. And the reason was this. Everything in Aunt Anne's house went by clock-work, and everything was polished and scrubbed and dusted within an inch of its life. When we arrived, we scraped our shoes before we kissed Aunt Anne, and when we departed, we felt that she literally swept us out—. We had hours for everything, and nobody thought of doing as she pleased. It was always as Aunt Anne pleased, ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... little more 'progressive' than the laws of that institution allowed. After leaving Cambridge, he traveled over a large part of the Continent, which, besides increasing his knowledge of the world, brought still nearer perfection that easy carriage and polished manner which had already attracted ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of all that was required for the completion of this work, we see that the erection involved an extensive acquaintance with the mechanical arts, and of those, too, which indicate a high degree of advancement in the luxuries of polished life. Thus the generation born in the wilderness were instructed, and preserved from degenerating into mere shepherds, hunters, or warriors. The restless were occupied, and the work proved a bond of union for the whole people, ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... half-way across the room on her stealthy path to the waistcoat. But silently as she came on with that cat-like tread, Mallalieu had just as silently drawn the revolver from beneath his pillow and turned its small muzzle on her. It had a highly polished barrel, that revolver, and Miss Pett suddenly caught a tiny scintillation of light on it—and she screamed. And as she screamed Mallalieu fired, and the scream died down to a queer choking sound ... and he fired again ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... with fine steel files under a magnifying glass of the outer 'layer, on the chance of the existence of a better underneath. The ancients treated lustreless gems differently, placing them before doves, under the belief that they could be polished by being pecked and played ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... here and there a star glimmering, but a host of shining ones, that God hath brought out of the darkness and covered over with an arch of His promises, where He has written, "They shall be mine in that day when I make up my jewels.' In that day, when we shall be permitted to see the polished gems in the keeping of the Holy One, we shall realize that no work for the Master has been done in vain. Here we toil amid the damp and fog and darkness, often underground, with no lamp save the promise of God, which is "a lamp to our feet, and a light to our path;" there we shall ...
— Why and how: a hand-book for the use of the W.C.T. unions in Canada • Addie Chisholm
... with its polished oak panelling and the chaste elegance of its electroliers, offered every inducement to a lover of comfort to linger. The fire glowed bright and red in the tiled fireplace, a silver clock on the mantelpiece ticked musically, and at his hand was a white-covered tray with a tiny silver teapot, ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... of the turkey were polished off in the middle of the day; with every one declaring that it had been a great treat. Larry kept the two drumsticks as well as the wings of the gobbler. Possibly he might many a time feel a queer little sensation ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... Rally had won back the Trophy for the land that gave it birth; it was time, they thought, for a Daleland dog, a Gray Dog of Kenmuir—the terms are practically synonymous—to bring it home again. And Tammas, that polished phrase-maker, was only expressing the feelings of every Dalesman in the room when, one night at the Arms, he declared of Owd Bob that "to ha' run was to ha' won." At which M'Adam sniggered audibly and winked at Red Wull. "To ha' run was to ha' one—lickin'; ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... greatly upset our hero; for, however foolish be a madman's words, they may yet prove sufficient to sow doubt in the minds of saner individuals. He felt much as does a man who, shod with well-polished boots, has just stepped into a dirty, stinking puddle. He tried to put away from him the occurrence, and to expand, and to enjoy himself once more. Nay, he even took a hand at whist. But all was of no avail—matters kept going as awry as a badly-bent ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... and came off in greater numbers than ever, and we were employed all day in boating and breaking out cargo, so that we had hardly time to eat. Our former second mate, who was determined to get liberty if it was to be had, dressed himself in a long coat and black hat, and polished his shoes, and went aft, and asked to go ashore. He could not have done a more imprudent thing; for he knew that no liberty would be given; and besides, sailors, however sure they may be of having liberty granted them, always go aft in their working clothes, to appear as though ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... works are known to be from the pen of Mr. Kimball, he has been a voluminous author. The vigorous and polished style of his avowed compositions, is never attained but by long practice. He has been, we believe, a contributor to every volume of the Knickerbocker published since 1842. He printed in that excellent magazine his "Reminiscences ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... I shall be very proud of instructing you.—Well for the present—but remember now, when you meet your antagonist, do every thing in a mild and agreeable manner.—Let your courage be as keen, but at the same time as polished, ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... over-note to the clamour—an uncanny thing too—is the soft rustle-down of the tea itself—stacked in heaps, carried in baskets, dumped through chutes, rising and falling in the long troughs where it is polished, and disappearing at last into the heart of the firing-machine—always this insistent whisper of moving dead leaves. Steam-sieves sift it into grades, with jarrings and thumpings that make the floor ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... know, has a very long beak: Not a crumb or drop could she gather Had she pecked at the plate every day in the week. But as for the Fox—sly old Father: With his tongue lapping soup at a scandalous rate, He licked up the last bit and polished ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... port our decks were clean, our sails white, our masts well scraped; the brass-work about the quarter-deck was well polished, and the men looked tidy and clean. A few hours after our first whale had been secured alongside all this was changed. The cutting up of the huge carcass covered the decks with oil and blood, making them so ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... the fresh clean skin, the well-kept teeth, the smooth polished nails, the spotless linen and the tasteful tie, the well-brushed clothing and the tidy boots, are all points of ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... this main thoroughfare, they stopped before a rather mean-looking house with jalousie blinds to every window; a flight of steps before the green street-door; a shining white ornament on the rails on either side like a petrified pineapple, polished; a little oblong plate of the same material over the knocker whereon the name of 'Pawkins' was engraved; and four accidental pigs looking ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... house for Finland, where a pastor is a great person. There were stables and cow-sheds, a granary, and quite a nice-sized one-storeyed wooden house. We marched into the salon—a specimen of every other drawing-room one meets; the wooden floor was painted ochre, and polished, before each window stood large indiarubber plants, and between the double windows was a layer of Iceland moss to keep out the draughts of winter, although at the time of our visit in July the thermometer ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... in my pockets, in my hat when I lifted it from the ground, in my box of colors, in my polished shoes, standing in the mornings in front of my door, those little pious brochures, which she, no doubt, ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... a treatise, entitled, 'The Art of English Poetry, alledges, that Sir Thomas Wyat the Elder, and Henry Earl of Surry were the two chieftains, who having travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and stately measures and stile of the Italian poetry, greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poetry, from what it had been before, and therefore may be justly called, The Reformers of our English Poetry and Stile.' Our noble author added to learning, wisdom, fortitude, munificence, and affability. Yet all these excellencies of character, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... reception, caused him to feel his inferiority more completely than the most elaborate arguments. Everything contributed to this effect. His own rough speech, contrasted with the soft persuasive accents of the other; his rude bearing, and Mr Chester's polished manner; the disorder and negligence of his ragged dress, and the elegant attire he saw before him; with all the unaccustomed luxuries and comforts of the room, and the silence that gave him leisure to observe these ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Jack to bed early and sat for a time in their room tinkering with the pistols. When the locks were working "right," as he put it, he polished ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... Ducie, go down and shut the stable door, and lock it inside," continued Burr major in a lofty tone; "we don't want to be interrupted before we've polished ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... himself Egmont was now furious against the prelate, and omitted no opportunity of expressing his aversion, both in his presence and behind his back. On one occasion, at least, his wrath exploded in something more than words. Exasperated by Granvelle's polished insolence in reply to his own violent language, he drew his dagger upon him in the presence of the Regent herself, "and," says a contemporary, "would certainly have sent the Cardinal into the next world had he not been forcibly restrained by the Prince of Orange and other persons present, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... still over sleeping stretches of open water; a line of white surf thunders on an empty beach, the shallow water foams on the reefs; and green islets scattered through the calm of noonday lie upon the level of a polished sea, like a handful of emeralds on a ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... happened, during the very next week Diana received a visit from her cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Burritt of Petteridge Court. They arrived in their Daimler car, and lunched with the school. They were the very epitome of cultured and polished America, and the girls raved over them. After half an hour of their company, seven intermediates had determined to mould themselves absolutely on the lines of "Cousin Coralie", and to marry ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... one hears making day and night hideous at summer-resorts; but when the "Merman" drew near, I realized afresh what it was to be the guest of a multi-millionaire. She was about fifty feet long, a vision of polished brass and shining, new-varnished cedar. She rammed her shoulder into the waves and flung them contemptuously to one side; her cabin was tight, dry as the saloon ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... merely adapted to religious observances. They as well as the Malays compute time by lunations, but do not attempt to trace any relation or correspondence between these smaller measures and the solar revolution. Whilst more polished nations were multiplying mistakes and difficulties in their endeavours to ascertain the completion of the sun's course through the ecliptic, and in the meanwhile suffering their nominal seasons to become almost the reverse of nature, these people, without an idea of intercalation, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... coachman. Dave had never been in a home like this, and his eyes, unaccustomed to comfortable furnishings, appraised them as luxury. There were a piano and a phonograph; leather chairs; a fireplace with polished bricks that shone with the glow of burning coal; thick carpets, springy to the foot; painted pictures looking down out of gilt frames. And Mr. Duncan had said he was not rich! And there was more than that; there was an air, a spirit, ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... bridal reception-room a gentleman with a stylishly-dressed lady on either arm, with whom he seems wholly absorbed. He is of middle height, peculiarly graceful in form and moulding, with that indescribable air of high breeding which marks the polished man of the world. His beautifully-formed head, delicate profile, fascinating sweetness of smile, and, above all, an eye which seemed to have an almost mesmeric power of attraction, were traits which distinguished one of the most celebrated men of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... that variety and richness of resources which give to tone-creations the splendor of color, which is one of the great charms of instrumental music, Spohr is inferior only to Wagner among modern symphonists. Spohr's more pretentious works are a singular union of meagerness of idea with the most polished richness of manner; but, in imagination and thought, he is far the inferior of those whose knowledge of treating the orchestra and contrapuntal skill could not compare with his. There are more vigor and originality in one of Schubert's greater ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... search was for his boots, but these had been taken out, as he supposed, to be polished. He would put on his breeches and wait for his boots. He cast his eye on the pile of clothes, but the breeches were not there. Then he looked on the floor, and in all the corners of the room, and then on the bed and under the bed—but in vain. 'What the d——l has become of my breeches!' said ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... of the box consisted of woods of about four inches square, all polished. Among these were mahogany of five different sorts, tulip-wood, satin-wood, cam-wood, bar-wood, fustic, black and yellow ebony, palm-tree, mangrove, calabash, and date. There were seven woods of which the native names were remembered: three of these, Tumiah, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... difficulty descried; the rains which clouded mountains and valleys bring with them; the dust which is inherent to and follows the contention between these forces; the rivers which are great or small in volume; the fishes disporting themselves on the surface or at the bottom of these waters; the polished pebbles of various colours which are collected on the washed sands at bottom of rivers surrounded by floating plants beneath the surface of the water; the stars at diverse heights above us; and in the same manner other innumerable effects to which ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... on a dampened cheese cloth wiped over the varnish and polished with a dry cheese cloth will pick up all the dust, remove the grease, smoked or blued spots, cover scratches and restore the original ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... prominent and in a sense logical candidate was William H. Seward. As Governor and then Senator of New York, as a polished and philosophic orator, as a man whose anti-slavery and constitutional principles were well understood,—he was easily in the popular estimate the foremost man of the party. Lincoln was in comparison obscure; his fame rested mainly on his achievements as a popular debater; ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... to the forms of courtesy, as for that chivalrous courage which, only two short years afterward, induced him to throw away his life on the plains of Abraham. Duncan, in turning his eyes from the malign expression of Magua, suffered them to rest with pleasure on the smiling and polished features, and the noble military air, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... thick and fast upon her—a regular hotchpotch; she had only to stretch out her hand and seize what she needed. It was simpler than the five-times multiplication-table, and did not need to be learnt. But all the same she was not idle: she polished away at her flimflams, bringing them nearer and nearer probability, never, thanks to her sound memory, contradicting herself or making a slip, and always able to begin again from ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... hung With black; a spacious scaffold, too, o'erspread With sable cloth, was raised above the floor, And in the middle of the scaffold stood A dreadful sable block! upon it lay A naked, polished axe:—the hall was full Of cruel people, crowding round the scaffold Who, with a horrid thirst for human blood, Seemed ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... succeeded, and the dogs lost the trail; but the hunter, coming up, passed by chance near the stump, when out bounded the fox, his cunning availing him less than he deserved. On another occasion the fox took to the public road, and stepped with great care and precision into a sleigh-track. The hard, polished snow took no imprint of the light foot, and the scent was no doubt less than it would have been on a rougher surface. Maybe, also, the rogue had considered the chances of another sleigh coming along, before the hound, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... room at the Elms vagrant breezes entered, loitered, and drifted out again, leaving behind them scents of sun-warmed flowers. The light there was soft and green. The comfortable chairs invited rest; the polished rosewood table, the bright piano shining in the brightest corner, the smooth old floor in whose rug the colours had long ceased to trouble, the general air of much used comfort, ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... first taken over to America because the white man could not work under the tropical heats, and because the native Indian would not work. The latter people has been, or soon will be, exterminated—polished off the face of creation, as the Americans say—which fate must, I should say, in the long run attend all non- working people. As the soil of the world is required for increasing population, the non-working people must go. And so the Indians ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... coast. Without changing his position he kept his eyes upon the beautiful white yacht as she drew swiftly near, and came opposite to Coralio. Then, sitting upright, he saw her float steadily past and on. Scarcely a mile of sea had separated her from the shore. He had seen the frequent flash of her polished brass work and the stripes of her deck-awnings—so much, and no more. Like a ship on a magic lantern slide the Idalia had crossed the illuminated circle of the consul's little world, and was gone. Save for the tiny cloud of smoke that was left hanging over the brim of the sea, ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... informed by Mrs. Steel, the author of The Potter's Thumb and other stories of Indian life, that, in watching an Indian conjurer, she generally, or frequently, detects his method. She says that the conjurer often begins by whirling rapidly before the eyes of the spectators a small polished skull of a monkey, and she is inclined to think that the spectators who look at this are, in some way, more easily deluded. These facts are mentioned that I may not seem unaware of what can be said to impugn the accuracy of the descriptions of the Fire Rite, ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... part of the furniture of the Why Not? for generations of landlords, and served perhaps to pass time for cavaliers of the Civil Wars. All was of oak, black and polished, board, dice-boxes, and men, but round the edge ran a Latin inscription inlaid in light wood, which I read on that first evening, but did not understand till Mr. Glennie translated it to me. I had cause to remember it afterwards, so I shall set it down here in Latin for ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner |
