"Sable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the hand, Gabriel Druse ordered the cortege forward, and silently the procession with its yellow banners and its sable, drooping plumes ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... cypresses in her burning summer twilights, touching with soft increase of silver light the rosy marbles of her balconies,—along the ridge of that encompassing rock, other circles are increasing now, white and pale; walled towers of cruel strength, sable-spotted with cannon-courses. I tell you, I have seen, when the thunderclouds came down on those Italian hills, and all their crags were dipped in the dark, terrible purple, as if the winepress of the wrath of God had stained their mountain-raiment—I have seen the hail fall in Italy till the forest ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... second Fenella in the sprightliness of her nimble exhibitions. Day Francis, the conjuror, was his admiration. He was delighted with Rannie, the old ventriloquist, and the first in America; and Potter, the late sable and celebrated professor of legerdemain, in slight-of-hand, he thought actually excelled Doctor ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... high blazing to the sky, Let numerous fires the absent sun supply, The flaming piles with plenteous fuel raise, Till the bright morn her purple beam displays; Lest, in the silence and the shades of night, Greece on her sable ships attempt her flight. Not unmolested let the wretches gain Their lofty decks, or safely cleave the main: Some hostile wound let every dart bestow, Some lasting token of the Phrygian foe: Wounds, that long hence may ask their ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... of butter, Fish and fowl of all descriptions, Beer I bought, home-brewed and sparkling, Wheat from all the distant nations, All the dainties of the Northland; But this all was unavailing, Gave my wife no satisfaction, Often came she to my chamber, Tore my sable locks in frenzy, With a visage fierce and frightful, With her eyeballs flashing anger, Scolding on and scolding ever, Ever speaking words of evil, Using epithets the vilest, Thought me but a block for chopping. Then I sought for other measures, Used on her my last ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... against the hapless Blacks, even in the course of passages which no more led up to them than to any other section of mankind, is a very notable feature of his anti-Negro production. As he frequently repeats, very often with cynical aggravations, his charges and sinister prophecies against the sable objects of his aversion, I could see no other course open to me than to take him up on the points whereto I demurred, exactly how, when, and where ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... similar motion, and to be scattering the grain-bearing troop on the fields below. These suddenly grew, and seemed greater and greater, and raised themselves from the ground, and stood with their bodies upright; and laid aside their leanness, and the {former} number of their feet, and their sable hue, and assumed in their limbs the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... among the throng are the velvety black Lytta or Cantharis, that impostor wasp-beetle, the black and yellow wavy-banded, red-legged locust-tree borer, and the painted Clytus, banded with yellow and sable, squeaking contentedly as he gnaws the florets that ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... adversary as he would have done an intimate acquaintance, made room beside him on the same seat with himself, offered him refreshments, and spread over his knees the sable cloak that had been thrown on the front seat. They then conversed of the court, without alluding to Madame; of Monsieur, without speaking of domestic affairs; of the king, without speaking of his brother's wife; of the queen-mother, without alluding ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... listener, is really an involuntary tribute to the marvellous wisdom and perfection with which Jefferson mingles pathos and humor. Again Hawthorne: "Human destinies look ominous without some perceptible intermixture of the sable or the gray." And, elsewhere: "There is something more awful in happiness than in sorrow, the latter being earthly and finite, the former composed of the substance and texture of eternity, so that spirits still embodied may well tremble ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... my cousin Madame Sable, whose husband is colonel of the 76th Chasseurs at Limoges. There were two young women there, one of whom had married a medical man, Dr. Parent, who devotes himself a great deal to nervous diseases and the extraordinary manifestations ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... neighborhood of Madeira, for which the course was next shaped. After passing that island on June 21 return was made toward the United States by way of the Azores, which were sighted, and thence again to the Banks of Newfoundland and Cape Sable, reaching Boston August 31, after an ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... Wearest of colour but golden shoon, And else dost thee array In a most sombre suit of black? 'Surely,' he sighed, 'some load of grief, Past all our thinking—and belief— Must weigh upon his back!' Do, then, in turn, tell me, If joy Thy heart as well as voice employ Why dost thou now most Sable, shine In plumage woefuller far than mine? Thy silence is a sadder thing Than any dirge ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... this, alight and throw the reins over the saddle-bow and let him go. He will enter the cavern, which do thou not enter with him, but tarry at the door five days, without being weary of waiting. On the sixth day there will come forth to thee a black Shaykh, clad all in sable, with a long white beard, flowing down to his navel. As soon as thou seest him, kiss his hands and seize his skirt and lay it on thy head and weep before him, till he take pity on thee and he will ask thee what thou wouldst have. When he saith to thee, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... Later the wind among the blossoms had been chill and fitful and Joan had been unaware of the romance in the white, sweet drift. Omens! And rain had come, the blossom storm. And Death had spread its sable wing over the first day of his love. He shuddered and closed ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... my old chamber at Glengoyle, and Heraine was sitting at my bedside. Her garments were sable, her brown hair thin, her face placid, as of yore, but marked by deep-seated grief, and the magnetism of will and courage was gone from it. To the eye she was the same; to the mind, a weak and broken thing. Crime had changed both our natures; she had been tutor and governess before, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... minister must rise for the first prayer, he saw Gibbie, who had heard a feeble cough, cast a glance round, rise as swiftly as noiselessly, open the door of the pew, get out into the passage, take the old man by the hand, and lead him to his place beside the satin-robed and sable-muffed ministerial consort. Obedient to Gibbie's will, the old man took the seat, with an air both of humility and respect, while happily for Mrs. Sclater's remnant of ruffled composure, there was plenty of room in the pew, so that she ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... open. In the doorway Frederick indulged in explanatory gesticulation. While, slowly ascending the last treads of the stairs, was a lady of unmistakable elegance, arrayed in a large black hat with drooping plumes to it, a sable cape—the price of which, Eliza felt assured, ran easily into three figures—and a black cloth dress in the cut of which she read the last word of contemporary fashion. Arrived at the stair-head the intruder ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... far was heard How groaned poor Afric's sable sons. Our hearts with pity moved, we feared Much evil by the monster done. Ask ye his name? 'Tis slavery dire, So big with crime, ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... still would call it mine. I'm old, and fain would live at ease; Make me the parson if you please." He spoke, and presently he feels His grazier's coat fall down his heels: He sees, yet hardly can believe, About each arm a pudding sleeve; His waistcoat to a cassock grew, And both assumed a sable hue; But, being old, continued just As threadbare, and as full of dust. His talk was now of tithes and dues: Could smoke his pipe, and read the news; Knew how to preach old sermons next, Vamp'd in the preface and ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... length threw her sable mantle over the bloody field, covering in her sombre folds the stiffened corpses and mangled forms of not less than fifteen thousand dead and wounded, including the casualties ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... as far back as I can remember. It still haunts me, and induces a sort of home-feeling with the past, which I scarcely claim in reference to the present phase of the town. I seem to have a stronger claim to a residence here on account of this grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, and steeple-crowned progenitor—who came so early, with his Bible and his sword, and trode the unworn street with such a stately port, and made so large a figure, as a man of war and peace—a stronger claim than for myself, whose name is seldom ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... roll off into the darkness again, on the other side of the station, on its way to Bath—till, tearing up at the rate of forty miles an hour, came another red-eyed monster, breathing horrible flame, and seeming to burn its way through the sable livery of the night with the strength and straightness of a red-hot cannon-ball. And then we called for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... orders given at the approach of the squall, the reader might possibly infer that the sable mariner was commander of a ninety-gun frigate, while in point of fact he was only skipper of a very disreputable fishing-smack. But he had been nearly all his life a "boy" on a government vessel, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... there stated, in describing the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia, and the ruins of Thebes, her opulent metropolis, that "There a people, now forgotten, discovered, while others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences. A race of men, now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil and religious systems which ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... the northward far She followed the torch of Waziya's star; For leagues away o'er the prairies green, On the billowy vast, may a man be seen, When the sun is high and the stars are low; And the sable breast of the strutting crow Looms up like the form of the buffalo. The Bloody River [40] she reached at last, And boldly walked in the light of day, On the level plain of the valley vast; Nor thought of the terrible Chippeway. She was safe from the wolves of ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... but she seemed to be reassured by his calm. He asked if he was not to have the pleasure of seeing Miss Dryfoos, too; and Mela said she reckoned the girl had gone up-stairs to tell her. Mela was in black, and Beaton noted how well the solid sable became her rich red-blonde beauty; he wondered what the effect ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of clouds creeping slowly over the moor crushed the sheen out of the valley and smothered everything in sable darkness. The silence of death supervened, and my anger turned to fear. Around me there was now—NOTHING—only a void. Black ether and space! Space! a sanctuary from fear, and yet composed of fear itself. It was the space, the nameless, bottomless SOMETHING ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... a distinct conception; the incarnation of a mourner's agony and hopelessness; a sable embodied Memory, the abiding chronicler of doom, a type of the Irreparable. Escaped across the Styx, from "the Night's Plutonian shore," he seems the imaged soul of the questioner himself,—of him who can not, will not, quaff the kind nepenthe, because the memory of Lenore ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... anon their reflection glimmered from the long slope of a wave like the glint of spangles on a dress. But it was a garment of far-flung amplitude, woven on the shadowy loom of night and the sea, and from such mysterious warp and weft is often produced the sable robe of tragedy and death. It was so now, within an ace. At one instance, the restless plain of the ocean seemed to bear no other argosy than the Andromeda; in the next, Hozier's quick-moving glance had caught the pallid sheen of some small craft's ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... dissimilar to that recommended a few years ago by Major Carmychael Smyth, the making of a road to the Pacific through the wilderness by means of convicts. The plan, however, failed, though attempted by the Marquis De la Roche, who actually left on Sable Island forty convicts drawn from the French prisons. A company of merchants having been formed for the purpose of making settlements, Champlain accepted the command of an expedition, and accompanied by Pontgrave, sailed for the St. Lawrence ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... as through a glass darkly. A shadowy file of poplars, a grey promise of meadowland, a sable thicket, far in the distance a great blurred mass rearing a sombre head, a chain of silent villages seemingly twined about our road, and once in a long while the broad, brave flash of laughing water—these and their ghostly like ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... of his father hang about the doorways. His own ensigns are displayed in groups and trophies, with the banners of S. Mark, the Montefeltrian eagle, and the cross keys of S. Peter. The hall itself is vacant, save for the high-reared catafalque of sable velvet and gold damask, surrounded with wax-candles burning steadily. Round it passes a ceaseless stream of people, coming and going, gazing at their Duke. He is attired in crimson hose and doublet of black damask. Black velvet ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... thy cherry cheeks, thy hair of night-dark sable, And how you squatted on the floor—the Japanese for table; They gushed about your merry ways, your manners without flaw, In thee, the girl idealised, you ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 27, 1893 • Various
... death severe. Then to the palace-hall they bore the knight, To lie in solemn state, a public sight: Groans, cries, and bowlings fill the crowded place, And unaffected sorrow sat on every face. Sad Palamon above the rest appears, In sable garments, dewed with gushing tears; His auburn locks on either shoulder flowed, Which to the funeral of his friend he vowed; But Emily, as chief, was next his side, A virgin-widow and a mourning bride. And, that the princely obsequies might ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... runnin' off and leavin' me with a run-down farm and mortgidge! After sendin' me a marked copy of a paper with your death-notice, and after your will was executed on and I wore mournin' two years and saved money out of hen profits to set a stun' in the graveyard for you! You mis'sable, lyin' 'whelp o' Satan!" ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... their—blind bodies, the panthersahib and his pointer. Call: no answer. He lifted his feet up from the suck and turned back by the mole of boulders. Take all, keep all. My soul walks with me, form of forms. So in the moon's midwatches I pace the path above the rocks, in sable silvered, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... astonished and amazed. He ventured not to follow or detain her. Here he stood alone, gazing at the stars; confounded as he was, here he stood. The rippling stream rolled on at his feet. Twilight had already begun to draw her sable mantle over the earth, and now and then the fiery smoke would ascend from the little town which lay spread out before him. The citizens seemed to be full of life and good-humor; but poor Elfonzo saw not a brilliant scene. No; ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... black, for she was, of course, still in mourning for her brother; but, in spite of her sable habiliments, she startled the parson by the brilliance of her beauty. There was a quiet dignity of demeanour natural to Fanny Wyndham; a well-balanced pose, and a grace of motion, which saved her from ever looking awkward or confused. She ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... is the reason why their beef and hams are so finely prepared and ripened; for the fireplace being backwards, the smoke must spread over all the house before it gets to the door; which makes everything within of a russet or sable color, not excepting the hands and faces of the meaner sort." [An Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover, by Mr. Toland (cited already), p. 4.] If Prussia yield to Westphalia in ham, in all else she ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... proud and fatal altar we whisper the secrets of our mighty thoughts, and breathe the aspirations of our inexpressible desires. A clouded flame licks up the offering of our ruined souls, and the sacrifice vanishes in the sable ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... fingers and hung them on the lance of a little knight in silver. She took off her waist where it hung to a brooch of feridets, her pomander of enamel and gold; she opened it and marked the time by the watch studded with sable ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... in sable for the Duchess of Brunswick who was sister to the King and Mother to the ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... over the weekly paper which he had brought from the village. The good, kind farmer! Hilda gazed at him as he sat all unconscious, and wondered why she had not seen at once how handsome he really was. The broad forehead, with its deep, thoughtful furrows; the keen, yet kindly blue eyes; the "sable-silvered" hair and beard, which, if not exactly smooth, were still so picturesque, so leonine; the firm, perhaps obstinate, mouth, which could speak so wisely and smile so cordially,—all these combined to make up what the newspapers would call a "singularly ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... carefully took down her name and address: still less to suspecting the old lady opposite, who sat and listened to the transaction—apparently a well-to-do customer, clad in a rich black silk and handsome sable furs—of looking down upon her and despising her. She herself never despised any body, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... parts white, slightly tinged with yellow. It is then called a stoat. In winter, the fur is closer and finer, and is of a snowy white color; the tip of the tail is black throughout the year. In Europe the fur is much used for ornamenting the state robes of sovereigns and nobles. The sable is another animal much prized for its rich fur; it is a native of Northern Europe and America. The skins of the marten, found in North America, as well as in Northern Asia and the mountains of Kamtschatka; and also of the bear, fox, ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... lip. There was a strain of vanity in all natives, she generalised contemptuously. Doubtless it pleased this native's conceit to carry out the colour scheme of his tent even in his clothes, and pose among the sable cushions of the luxurious divan to the admiration of his retainers. She made a little exclamation of disgust, and turned from the soft seductiveness of ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... bed, intent on making one pair of hands do the work of three, at least, I gradually washed, fed, and bandaged my way down the long line of sable heroes, and coming to the very last, found that he was my contraband. So old, so worn, so deathly weak and wan, I never should have known him but for the deep scar on his cheek. That side lay uppermost, and caught my eye at once; but even then I doubted, such an awful change had come upon ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... Dinapore, where the gallant King's 76th, with whom they had fought side by side, was cantoned, invited the soldiers to a grand entertainment provided for them by the sepoys. They consented to go on one condition—that the sepoys should see them all back safe before morning. Confiding in their sable friends, they all got gloriously drunk, but found themselves lying every man upon his proper cot in his own barracks in the morning. The sepoys had carried them all home upon their shoulders. Another native regiment, passing within a ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... first spreads her sable wings, All earthly things to darken, The woodland choir grows mute and still, To thy sweet trill to hearken; Though 'gainst thy breast there lies a thorn, And thou woeworn art bleeding, Yet, till the bright day dawns again, Thou ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... 22d, we sent our water-casks ashore and filled them with excellent water. At about noon his sable majesty paid us another visit, accompanied by his three wives and his favorite minister. These females were of an extraordinary corpulence, and of unmeasured size. They were dressed in the fashion of the country, having nothing but a piece of tapa, or bark-cloth, about two yards long, ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... some, but in the woods more. Love to hunt, catch beaver, sable, and such things. Come here to hunt now, soon as time. But must have moose kept when off hunting: thought the man lived here do that. May be you keep him, while I come back. Pay ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... was I knew not. She drew herself back, as from something poisonous or revolting, and the expression of her face became terrible. At the same time her right hand went swiftly to the masses of her sable hair, and as swiftly back again, armed with the small, narrow dagger which these women wear by way of hair-pin. Before the unhappy creature who had accosted her knew what was happening, she thrust the dagger, with a powerful movement—while ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... an epicure, and was well adapted to the means and skill of the different competitors, who were of all ages. He had offered to the younger and more humble marks men divers birds of an inferior quality, and some shooting had already taken place, much to the pecuniary advantage of the sable owner of the game. The order of the sports was extremely simple, and well understood. The bird was fastened by a string to the stump of a large pine, the side of which, toward the point where the marksmen were placed, had been flattened with an axe, in order that it might serve the purpose of a target, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Prout, our stalwart mulatto cook, whose sinuous arm had thus incontinently settled the dispute between my sable opponent and myself. "I'se guess dis chile gib dat black debble goss, ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... animated eyes, Each youth admires, though each admirer dies; Whilst you deride their pangs in barb'rous play, } Unpitying see them weep, and hear them pray, } And unrelenting sport ten thousand lives away; } For you, ye fair, I quit the gloomy plains; Where sable night in all her horrour reigns; No fragrant bowers, no delightful glades, Receive the unhappy ghosts of scornful maids. For kind, for tender nymphs the myrtle blooms, And weaves her bending boughs in pleasing glooms: Perennial roses deck each purple vale, And scents ambrosial breathe in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Melville bearing her train. Her dress, as carefully chosen as possible, as we have said, consisted of a coif of fine cambric, trimmed with lace, with a lace veil thrown back and falling to the ground behind. She wore a cloak of black stamped satin lined with black taffetas and trimmed in front with sable, with a long train and sleeves hanging to the ground; the buttons were of jet in the shape of acorns and surrounded with pearls, her collar in the Italian style; her doublet was of figured black satin, and underneath she wore stays, laced ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Now and then there was a bit in Madrid which one would be sorry to have missed, such as the funeral of a civil magistrate, otherwise unknown to me, which I saw pass my cafe window: a most architectural black hearse, under a black roof, drawn by eight black horses, sable-plumed. The hearse was open at the sides, with the coffin fully showing, and a gold-laced chapeau bras lying on it. Behind came twenty or twenty-five gentlemen on foot in the modern ineffectiveness of frock-coats ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... took him in the direction of "Robinson's," in the windows of which the golden brown of sable furs, the silver gray of rare foxes', and the commoner dim blue of long-haired goats', were beginning to enrich the usual display of silk ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... quite worn out with his lengthened walk, the young Parisian lay stretched on the moss, listening with painful anxiety to this melancholy conversation of the woods, when, suddenly, and as night fell, spreading over the earth her sable wings and shaking from the folds of her robe the luminous legions of stars, he heard a prolonged and sonorous howl in the distance—a ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... moment, and the spectators saw a deeper shadow roll over her sable face, like a cloud over a dark pool of water, and her immense person heaved ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... frequented the hill. And it was full of various gems, and was also infested by snakes bearing terrible poison and of glowing tongues. And the mountain at places looked like (massive) gold, and elsewhere it resembled a silvery (pile), and at some places it was like a (sable) heap of collyrium. Such was the snowy hill where the king now found himself. And that most praiseworthy of men at that spot betook himself to an awful austere course of life. And for one thousand years ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... this woman-throng Hitherward coming, by their sable garb Made manifest as mourners? What hath chanced? Doth some new sorrow hap within the home? Or rightly may I deem that they draw near Bearing libations, such as soothe the ire Of dead men angered, to my father's grave? Nay, such they are ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... the outside of this gateway, the keystone of the arch still bears the arms of Soulanges, preserved by the hardness of the stone on which the chisel of the artist carved them, as follows: Azure, on a pale, argent, three pilgrim's staff's sable; a fess bronchant, gules, charged with four grosses patee, fitched, or; with the heraldic form of a shield awarded to younger sons. Blondet deciphered the motto, "Je soule agir,"—one of those puns that crusaders delighted to make upon their names, and ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... in coming, because they had had a long discussion as to the propriety of wearing their sable garments. Romeo, disliking the trouble of changing, argued that Allison ought to see that their grief was sincere. Juliet insisted that the sight ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... pole before a coffin, pass through the streets chanting the service for the dead. The Brethren of Mercy may also be seen engaged in their office. The rapidity of their pace, the flare of their torches, the gleam of their eyes through their masks, and their sable garb, give them a kind of supernatural appearance. I return to bed, and fall asleep amidst the shouts of people returning from the opera, singing as they go snatches of the music with which they had been entertained during ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... From the corner where I stood, a rugged bastion of the line of bluffs concealed the doctor's house; and across the top of that projection the soft night wind carried and unwound about the hills a coil of sable smoke. What fuel could produce a vapour so sluggish to dissipate in that dry air, or what furnace pour it forth so copiously, I was unable to conceive; but I knew well enough that it came from the doctor's chimney; I saw well enough that my father had already disappeared; ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... help us please the dilettante's ear; Plutus limps homeward with us, as we leave The portals of the temple where we knelt And listened while the god of eloquence (Hermes of ancient days, but now disguised In sable vestments) with that other god Somnus, the son of Erebus and Nog, Fights in unequal contest for our souls; The dreadful sovereign of the under world Still shakes his sceptre at us, and we hear The baying of the triple-throated hound; Eros-is young as ever, and as fair The lovely Goddess ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... his surprise at their walking up to their post-office kept by a black man, and opening their letters to read "just like white men!" They don't know what to make of educated blacks,—it upsets all their ideas on the relative position of the two races! I expected some remarks from Rose about our sable guest—she was not here, but the next day she began: "That stranger man eat up here? Which side him eat?" In the dining-room with us. "Him free man?" Yes, he was born in Boston. "Him read and write?" Yes, as well as I can. This made her open her eyes, ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... had been accustomed to traversing apartments of a larger size. As Celia opened the door, the one opposite hers opened at the same moment, and a lady came out. Judging by her figure, for her face was thickly veiled, she was young; she was plainly but richly dressed, and wore a coat and muff of sable. Her appearance was so strangely different from that of the residents and visitors of the Buildings that Celia could not help staring at her with surprise. As if she were conscious of, and resented, Celia's ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... spoken when there was a loud rat-tat at the front door, and Jack Glover hastened into the hall to answer. But it was not the policeman he had expected. It was a girl in a big sable coat, muffled up to her eyes. She pushed past Jack, crossed the hall, and walked straight ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... Night hung its sable mantle over the earth. A silver moon rode in a clear sky, and the lightning express rattled down through the night with a hiss and screech that rent the silence with an ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... dusky, mysterious, sable, somber, dim, gloomy, obscure, shadowy, swart, dismal, murky, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... it was sable, that is to say, black, and in the middle of it appeared, with the vague whiteness of silver, a fleshless, deformed thing, which, like the rest, at length became distinct. It was a death's head. The nose was lacking, the orbits of the eyes ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... to war her sable Matadores, In show like leaders of the swarthy Moors. Spadillio first, unconquerable lord, Led off two captive trumps, and swept the board. As many more Manillio forced to yield, And marched a victor from the verdant field. Him Basto followed, but his fate more hard Gained but one trump and one ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... anchored to a bit of mainland yet," said Uncle Win dryly. "Off Cape Sable they encountered a violent storm. The Duc succeeded in reaching the rendezvous, but in such a damaged condition that he felt a victory would be impossible. Conflans with several partly disabled ships returned to France, and some steered for ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... black of hue, with orange-tawny bill." How dull a lawn would be without his pert movements when he comes down alternately with his russet wife. One blackbird with a broad white feather on each side of his tail haunted Elderfield for two years, but, alas! one spring day a spruce sable rival descended and captivated the faithless dame. They united, chased poor Mr. Whitetail over the high garden hedge, and he ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... gold net confining her sable locks, her ponderous earrings, her massive chains and bracelets, and gorgeous silk, she was a splendid ornament at the head of the table; but she looked sleepily out from under her black-fringed eyelids, turned over the carving as a matter of course to Owen, and evidently ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud; Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest; Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud; In vain, with timbrell'd anthems dark, The sable-stoled sorcerers bear ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... and I ground my teeth at such an egregious piece of folly. Her hood was thrown back, displaying the lenza of fine linen on her sable hair, and over this a net of purest gold all set with jewels. Her camorra, too, was open, and in her girdle there were gems for all to see. There were but a half-dozen men in the room. Two of these had a venerable air—they may have been traders journeying to Milan—whilst ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... every head had bowed obsequiously at his coming. Then one night he went to his office, carrying a leather portfolio in his hand. He still walked with his head up and met the eye of every man who cared to gaze into his own. About his neck was turned up the collar of a sable-lined overcoat—relic of his days of splendor. As he walked down-town he met no one who knew him, and this suited his plans. Lower Broadway after nightfall is as murky and silent as upper Broadway is aflare and noisy. The steep buildings are like cemetery shafts, save where belated clerks work over ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... of a human figure in white wax, looking miserably thin and as if starved with cold, taking snuff, rubbing his hands, treading the ground as if tender-footed, and evidently meant to burlesque and ridicule a white man, while his sable majesty frequently appealed to Clapperton whether it was not well performed. After this the king's women sang in chorus, and were ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... interpretation of this ominous dream so ingeniously doubtful. The latter circumstance, where the Emperor recognises his murderer as a personage in his vision, seems to be borrowed from the story of one of the caliphs, who, before his death, dreamed, that a sable hand and arm shook over his head a handful of red earth, and denounced, that such was the colour of the earth on which he should die. When taken ill on an expedition, he desired to know the colour of the earth on which his tent was pitched. A negro slave presented him with a specimen; ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... her a girl, for she could not have been more than twenty years of age. Her hair was of a fair brown, the features modelled splendidly, the head poised upon a flawless throat that gleamed white beneath a neckpiece of magnificent sable. ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... object. {zimieren}, wv. furnish with knightly accoutrements. {zinsen}, wv. give as interest, give away. {zir} {ze ir}. {zirke}, wm. garland, circle, prince's crown. {zirkel}, sm. prince's crown. {z[i]t}, sf. time, 19. {zobel}, sm. robe furred with sable. {zorn}, sm. anger. {zornecl[i]che}, av. angrily, violently. {z[u:]cken} (pret. {zuhte}), wv. pull quickly, tear. {zuht}, sf. bringing up, education; good manners, politeness, demeanour; chastisement, ...
— A Middle High German Primer - Third Edition • Joseph Wright
... tall geraniums, an overarching ivy, some delicate roses. She had paused there, on her way from Fanny's to her own room, and was looking into the garden, where a pair of silent nuns were pacing up and down the paths, turning now their backs with the heavy sable coiffure sweeping their black robes, and now their still, mask-like faces, set in that stiff framework of white linen. Sometimes they came so near that she could distinguish their features, and imagine an expression that she should know if she saw them again; ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... had made no great clamor until the menacing ship drew close enough for them to descry the dreadful pennant which showed as a sable blot against the evening sky. Two women fainted and others were seized with violent hysteria. Their shrill screams were so distressing that the skipper ordered them to be lugged below and shut in ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... mumble. Griff afterwards declared churchgoing to be as good as a comedy, and we all had to learn to avoid meeting each other's eyes, whatever we might hear. When the scuffle and tramp of the departing congregation had ceased, we came forth from our sable box, and beheld the remnants of a once handsome church, mauled in every possible way, green stains on the walls, windows bricked up, and a huge singing gallery. Good bits of carved stall work were nailed anyhow into the pews; the floor was uneven; no font was visible; there was ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... impish-looking man, with peculiarly restless features that seemed trying to run away from his face. Thin as he was, he looked all skin and no bones, a goblin of a man whom it would not astonish you to hear could creep through a keyhole, seeming still more shadowy and impalpable by his slight, thin, sable dress, not of cloth, but a sort of stuff like alpaca. Nor was that dress ragged, nor, as seen but in starlight, did it look worn or shabby; still you had but to glance at the creature to feel that it was a child in the same Family of Night as the ragged felon that towered by its side. The two ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... creation of man and the creatures it sheltered—men and women who had begun to shiver, and whose tense white faces stared with increasing anxiety into the mysterious darkness of the night that hung like a sable curtain ten ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... I would like to feel at home on my own roof and have a slippered familiarity with my slates and spouts. A chimney-sweep in the old days doubtless had an ugly occupation, and the fear of a sooty death must have been recurrent to him. But what a sable triumph was his when he had cleared his awful tunnel and had emerged into daylight, blooming, as Lamb would say, in his first tender nigritude! "I seem to remember," he continues, "that a bad sweep ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... any otter, mink, marten, sable, or fur seal, or other fur-bearing animal within the limits of Alaska Territory or in the waters thereof; and every person guilty thereof shall for each offense be fined not less than $200 nor more than $1,000, or imprisoned not more than six months, or both; and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... the golden day appeared, dispelling dreams, and still the abominations were silent, and the King's prophets answered not to portend the omen of the dream. One prophet only spake before the King, saying: 'The sable birds, O King, are the nights, and the white birds are the days,...' This thing the King had feared, and he arose and smote the prophet with his sword, whose soul went crying away and had to do no ...
— Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsay • Lord Dunsany
... truth of the matter; and when the Prince was convinced, he ordered a glass of vodka to be given to the brave youth, and begged to hear the famous whistle of the Robber Nightingale. So Iliya of Murom took the Prince and Princess under his arm, wrapped in his sable pelisse, and ordered the Robber Nightingale to sound his whistle softly. But the Robber whistled so loud that he stunned all the knights and they fell flat upon the ground, whereat Iliya of Murom was so enraged that he slew ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... before his unfinished production, absorbed in no very pleasing ruminations, one hand buried in the folds of his long dark hair, and the other holding the piece of charcoal which had so ill executed its office, and which he now rubbed, without much regard to the sable streaks which it produced, with irritable pressure upon his ample ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... deep, shrouding the raft with its sable canopy. Alice, having slept so much during the day, could not for some time close her eyes; so Nub did his best to amuse her. She talked to him not only of the past but of the future, and of the hope of deliverance. Nub calculated that their stock of provisions ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... hitherto-thought-to-be-possible art in America. The Princess's conception of night, black as a pall and yet luminous as a polished stove pipe, is only equalled by her feeling towards the Hudson which lies extended in soporific superficiality beneath the sable covering of darkness in which Her Highness has been pleased to overwhelm it. Throughout the day an eager-to-see crowd of spectators were beaten back from the picture by the ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... to shun thy sight Beneath the sable wings of night, One glance from thee, one piercing ray, Would ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... when many a young rose glowing, Blush'd through the loose train of the amber hair. Woe, woe! as white the robe that decks me now— The shroud-like robe Hell's destined victim wears; Still shall the fillet bind this burning brow— That sable braid the Doomsman's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... these high-sounding titles was hunched up on his cushions in the State Pavilion. 'On State occasions, among which it is evident that he included this Quaker audience, he delighted to deck his unpleasing person in a vest of cloth of gold, lined with sable of the richest contrasting blackness. Around him were ranged the servants of the Seraglio—the highest rank of lacqueys standing nearest the royal person, the "Paicks" in their embroidered coats and caps of beaten gold, and the "Solacks," adorned with feathers, and armed with ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... MM.) Su Majestad his (her, your) Majesty. sabado Saturday. sabana sheet. sabedor-a informed, aware. saber to know, learn; m. learning, knowledge. sabio wise, learned. sable m. saber. sacar to draw, draw out, fetch. sacerdote priest. sacrificar to sacrifice. sacrificio sacrifice. sacrilegio sacrilege. sacudir to shake; shake off. sagrado sacred. sagrario sanctuary. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... buried her cheeks in the fur of her mother's sable muff with which she was toying, and gave a sidelong glance at Mrs. Conwell's face. The study of it assured her that there was no use in "begging off" this time; so she silently laid down the muff and walked ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... solitude at Saint Desert, and a fresh pretext for postponing the hospitalities that were to follow on their period of mourning. The brougham—a vehicle as massive and lumbering as the pair that drew it— presently rolled into the court, and Raymond's sable figure (she had never before seen a man travel in such black clothes) sprang up the steps to the door. Whenever Undine saw him after an absence she had a curious sense of his coming back from unknown distances and ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... ter sit down," said his sable friend. "An' you'se 'll find a jug ob milk an' a pone ob corn meal. Luck ter yer. Don't git lonesome like and come out. We'se a-gwine ter look ater yer;" and the opening was hidden by brush again, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... accustomed to the use of colors. A little white with a dash of blue or a little silver, will improve white linen, lace, etc. The jewelry may be touched with gold or silver from the shells, moistened with distilled water, and laid on with a fine-pointed sable-hair brush. ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... With sable-draped banners and slow measured tread, The flower laden ranks pass the gates of the dead; And seeking each mound where a comrade's form rests Leave tear-bedewed garlands to bloom, on his breast. Ended at last is the labor of love; Once more through ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... coupes, and mules and horses and a courtyard full of liveried servants. Inside, it still looked barbaric, with its magnificent display of rich silks and furs. Great skins of tiger, panther, leopard, wildcat, sable, were hanging in profusion on all sides, interspersed with costly embroideries, wonderful brocades, and all the magnificence and color of the gorgeous East. It was the idea of Kwong, our pet rickshaw-boy, to bring us here and we soon found that foreigners were not expected and ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... past, by Bridewell all descend, (As morning pray'r and flagellation end) To where Fleet-ditch, with disemboguing streams Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames, The king of dykes! than whom, no sluice of mud With deeper sable blots the silver flood. 'Here strip, my children! here at once leap in, Here prove who best can dash through thick and thin, And who the most in love of dirt excel, Or dark dexterity of groping well: Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around The stream, be his the Weekly Journals ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various |
