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Silk   /sɪlk/   Listen
Silk

noun
1.
A fabric made from the fine threads produced by certain insect larvae.
2.
Animal fibers produced by silkworms and other larvae that spin cocoons and by most spiders.



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"Silk" Quotes from Famous Books



... United Provinces themselves one of the features of this period was the growth of many new industries and manufactures, largely due to the influx of Huguenot refugees, many of whom were skilled artisans. Not only did the manufacturers of cloth and silk employ a large number of hands, but also those of hats, gloves, ribbons, trimmings, laces, clocks and other articles, which had hitherto been chiefly produced in France. One of the consequences of the rapid increase of ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... black lace gown of Paris make. Next she opened a box and took from it a picture hat, with long jet plumes, which she stroked and pressed fondly against her face. There were other garments also—a silken petticoat, silk stockings, and a pair of high-heeled shoes to match, with certain other delicate and dainty things which she modestly forbore to inspect before the Frenchman, who said no word, but only gazed at ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... two o'clock that afternoon, sitting sideways on Modestine, jaw tied up, veiled and sun-hatted, with Aggie's flowered-silk bag hanging to one wrist and a lunch-basket on the other arm. Tish and I saw "her" down the hill and ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... vanity of the wearer, this tunic was made of more or less costly materials; for wool and flax was often substituted the finest byssus, or other silky substance; and perhaps, in the latter periods, amongst families of distinction in Jerusalem, even silk itself. Splendor of coloring was not neglected; and the opening at the throat was eagerly turned to account as an occasion for displaying fringe or ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... of honor that Severin has, it is after all a strange thing for him to go about in the churchyard with such a decoration on—in the place where we see what we are all coming to, whether in our lifetime we have worn clothes of silk or of homespun. It annoyed me to see him wear it in the church—a thing of that kind ought to be taken off when one goes to church, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... together, and gave the ends of the bands to two men to hold, while first in one place he cleverly thrust a pin through the skin of one side of the wound and out at the other, then holding the lips of the gash together he quickly twisted a fine thread of silk over the pin-head on one side, over the point on the other, and so on, to and fro, till the wound was ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... Theodor and left an impression on him for life. His mother confined her efforts mainly to the cultivation of a good appearance and gentle manners, for, as one might perhaps expect of the daughter of a French silk merchant, she valued outward graces above inward culture, and she avowedly had little respect for the authority ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... constitute the kamala dye of the Hindoos. It was mentioned by the Arabian physicians of the tenth century under the names of Kanbil and Wars. In India the powder is highly valued as a yellow dye-stuff for silk. Medicinally it is used as an anthelmintic, the English physician Mackinnon, of the Bengal Hospital, having been the first to scientifically prove this property; he reported that it was successful in expelling the tape-worm. It ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera

... of silk stockings that she had hesitated at for weeks, and on Tuesday night sewed and drowsed wearily over a new shirtwaist and earned complaint from Sarah concerning her extravagant ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... to a choice of lively colours as being symbolical in their brightness of the new life on which she was about to embark. There was a green cloth rendered still more hideous by being inlet with medallions of pink silk, a cornflower blue with much silver braid already becoming tarnished in the few times it had been worn, and a mauve and orange ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward

... it a coat shaped like the coat of a robin to cover all. Finally there appeared a hat, broad-brimmed, low-crowned, and dazzling in its glossiness, a pair of gay dogskin gloves, a crutch walking-stick, a pink silk handkerchief, and then this joint work of art and nature ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... little wonderingly, and then putting her hand in the bosom of her yellow silk blouse, drew out a small ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke

... tips of his fingers, like a man that knows a woman's toilet as the modiste knows it, having all his life employed his artist's taste and his athlete's muscles in depicting with slender brush changing and delicate fashions, in revealing feminine grace enclosed within a prison of velvet and silk, or hidden by snowy laces. He finished his scrutiny by declaring: "It is a great success, ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... if you try to move him at present," was the grim reply, "for the silk may slip, in which case the artery will probably break out again, and he will ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... a few years older, is unconventionally but smartly dressed in a velvet jacket and cashmere trousers. His collar, dyed Wotan blue, is part of his shirt, and turns over a garnet coloured scarf of Indian silk, secured by a turquoise ring. He wears blue socks and leather sandals. The arrangement of his tawny hair, and of his moustaches and short beard, is apparently left to Nature; but he has taken care that Nature shall do him the fullest justice. His amative enthusiasm, at which ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw

... bazaars filled with lacquers and jars, And silk stuffs, and sword-blades that tell of old wars; They've Fuji's white cone looming up, bleak and lone, As if it were trying to reach to ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... all they came upon a ball dress of the former time, of white silk, with a sash of Macpherson ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... rivers, it is noways offensive in him, but seems perfectly of a piece with the general air of the picture. On the contrary, if the figures which people his pictures had a modern air and countenance, if they appeared like our countrymen, if the draperies were like cloth or silk of our manufacture, if the landscape had the appearance of a modern one, how ridiculous would Apollo appear instead of the sun, and an old Man or a Nymph with an urn to represent a river or lake?" He also says, in another place, that "it may be doubted whether ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... ill, didn't know but what it might be in the scheme of things that A should squint to make B happier in looking straight or that C should carry a wooden leg to make D better satisfied with his flesh and blood in a silk stocking. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... silver anklets hanging low over the rosy ankle-bone. She was dressed in jade-green muslin as befitted a daughter of the Faith, and from shoulder to elbow and elbow to wrist ran bracelets of silver tied with floss silk, frail glass bangles slipped over the wrist in proof of the slenderness of the hand, and certain heavy gold bracelets that had no part in her country's ornaments but, since they were Holden's gift and fastened with a cunning European snap, delighted ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... donned of a robe of purple velvet, with a pair of sotlars of cloth of gold of Nakes silk; the said velvet robe wrought with the arms of England, of golden broidery. The Queen bare a robe of green cloth of velvet, with a cape thereto, guarded with miniver, and an hood of miniver; her ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... interesting, because it was printed in gold letters on a beautiful silk cover, which enclosed the Pictorial Bible which was presented by the ladies of Swinton ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... Captain Suckling, and he valued it like a relic. Nisbet, who was close to him, placed him at the bottom of the boat, and laid his hat over the shattered arm, lest the sight of the blood, which gushed out in great abundance, should increase his faintness. He then examined the wound, and taking some silk handkerchiefs from his neck, bound them round tight above the lacerated vessels. Had it not been for this presence of mind in his son-in-law, Nelson must have perished. One of his bargemen, by name Level, tore his shirt into shreds, and made a sling with ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... for a woman to Say: This piece of silk really is yellow; it only looks white under this light. We all admit that a white house may look pink under the rays of the setting sun, and we never call it a pink house. We have seen that it is not unnatural to say: That tree is really green; it is only its ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... out all the women of La Madelena, never perhaps seen to more advantage than in a costume of black silk, suited to the solemnity, with the Genoese mantle of white transparent muslin attached to the back of the head, and falling gracefully ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... pang was reserved for poor Raoul. Madame Henrietta lifted up a silk curtain, and behind the canvas he perceived La Valliere's portrait. Not only the portrait of La Valliere, but of La Valliere eloquent of youth, beauty, and happiness, inhaling life and enjoyment at every pore, because at eighteen years of age love ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... two budgets were produced, and two loans contracted, amounting in the whole to L25,000,000. The total supplies granted for the year were L13,821,430. In order to meet the expenditure many taxes were augmented, as those on wine, spirits, tea, coffee, silk, fruit, tobacco, salt, horses, dogs, hats, and legacies to collateral relatives; the assessed taxes were also increased ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... neck was a chain with precious gems. Her hands were graceful, her fingers long. She was of middle stature, but stepped on majestically. She was gracious and kind in her address. The dress she wore was of white silk, with pearls as large as beans. Her cloak was of black silk with silver lace, and a long train was carried by a marchioness. As she walked along she spoke most kindly with many people, some of them ambassadors. She spoke English, French, and Italian; but she knows also Greek and ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... cook-maid, a farmer, a labourer, or a clerk, come on the stage and play their short parts with faultless demeanour. But otherwise, the entire company appear in the frock-coats and crinolines of the period, and every scene is played in silk hats, ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... every side the approach of the Huns, the Chinese troops, who slept with the helmet on their head, and the cuirass on their back, were destroyed by the incessant labor of ineffectual marches. A regular payment of money, and silk, was stipulated as the condition of a temporary and precarious peace; and the wretched expedient of disguising a real tribute, under the names of a gift or subsidy, was practised by the emperors of China ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... in nothing. You see how I distil all my speculations and improvements, that they may lie in a small compass. Do you remember the story of the prince, that, after travelling three years, brought home nothing but a nut? They cracked it: in it was wrapped up a piece of silk, painted with all the kings, queens, kingdoms. and every thing in the world: after many unfoldings, out stepped a little dog, shook his ears, and fell to dancing a saraband. There is a fairy tale for ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... haughtiness. The young man wore the Spanish holiday costume, the richness of which has made travellers exclaim, more than once, that no European prince is clothed like a simple peasant of Castile. Stephano had on a short vest of black cloth, lined with yellow silk, ornamented with fringes and bunches of ribbons; an embroidered shirt with open collar revealing a waistcoat with gilt buttons, knee-breeches of black silk confined at the knees by bunches of ribbons, shoes and gaiters of fine brown leather, while ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... hearing of a whistle. One of the Milanese hired vehicles drove up to the maestro's door shortly after, and Luigi cursed it. His worst fears for the future of the thirty napoleons were confirmed; the door opened and the Maestro Rocco Ricci, bareheaded and in his black silk dressing-gown, led out Irma di Karski, by some called rival to la Vittoria; a tall Slavic damsel, whose laughter was not soft and smooth, whose cheeks were bright, and whose eyes were deep in the head and dull. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... while to live in the city, that we may learn to love the country; and it is not bad for many, that artificial life binds them with bonds of silk or lace or rags or cobwebs, since, when they are rent away, the Real gleams out in a beauty and with a zest which had not been save ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... increases, yet it seems that the production may be of such a kind, and so related, or rather non-related, to population, that the population may be little the better for it. For instance, with the increase of population since Queen Elizabeth's time the production of silk- stockings has wonderfully increased, and silk- [235] stockings have become much cheaper and procurable in much greater abundance by many more people, and tend perhaps, as population and manufactures increase, to get cheaper and cheaper, and at last to become, according ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... eat nothing but oil, consequently must melt before a hard fire. I get awkward in my academic habiliments for want of practice. Got up in a window to hear the oratorio at St. Mary's, popped down in the middle of the Messiah, tore a woeful rent in the back of my best black silk gown, and damaged an egregious pair of breeches. Mem.—never tumbled from a church window during service. Adieu, dear ——! do not remember me to any body:—to forget and be forgotten by the people of Southwell is all ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... this rather anxious time, my master—Mr. Wyse—conducted himself in a most admirable manner. Vigilant, cool, and attentive, he handled the vessel most skilfully, and never seemed to lose his presence of mind in any emergency. It is true the silk tartan still coruscated on Sabbaths, but its brilliant hues were quite a relief to the colourless scenes which surrounded us, and the dangling chain now only served to remind me of what firm dependence I could place upon ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... it be not my doing that the blessed bairn has come back to us. Tell us, sweetheart, what thou hast round thy neck under thy shirt." Osberne laughed. Said he: "Thou didst hang on me a morsel of parchment with signs drawn thereon, and it is done in a silk bag. Fear not, foster-mother, but that I will wear it yet, since thou makest ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris

... to Easeby, my uncle's place in Shropshire. I was spending a week or so there, as I generally did in the summer; and I had had to break my visit to come back to London to get a new valet. I had found Meadowes, the fellow I had taken to Easeby with me, sneaking my silk socks, a thing no bloke of spirit could stick at any price. It transpiring, moreover, that he had looted a lot of other things here and there about the place, I was reluctantly compelled to hand the misguided blighter the mitten and go to London to ask the registry office to dig ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... She was a tidy little body, of the old school. Her notions of the world in general were somewhat narrow and antiquated; while the steeple-crown cap she wore on her head so jauntily, and her apron of snow-white muslin, that hung so neatly over a black silk dress, and was secured about the neck with a small, crimped collar, gave her an air of cheerfulness the sweet- ness of her oval face did much to enhance. My father, whose face and hands were browned with the suns of some sixty summers, had a touch of the patriarch about him. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... by her own self-pity and indignation, Patty got up and stalked about the room. She flung off her pretty summer frock, and slipped on a blue silk kimono. Then she sat down in front of her dressing-table to brush ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... Wine in and wit out, and Blanche troubled about it already. Engaged, they say. All right. But glass is sharp, and love's fetters are made of silk. Will the edge be duller if the glass is filled with wine? I ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur

... he died, and found that he came from my own county. His name was Michael Noonan. He made it his dying request, that I would carry half-a-guinea, the only money he possessed, to his aged father, and a silk handkerchief he had worn round his neck, to his sister. Pity for this unfortunate Irishman recalled Ireland to my thoughts. Many small reasons concurred to make me now desirous of going to that country. I ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... a little dog. It led the usual dog's life: slept in a basket on an eiderdown cushion, sheltered from any chance draught by silk curtains; its milk warmed and sweetened; its cosy chair reserved for it, in winter, near the fire; in summer, where the sun might reach it; its three meals a day that a gourmet might have eaten gladly; its very ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... vanished in the dryness, expanded and became soft, crinkly, green and juicy; and gray lichens which nearly had turned to snuff, spread their delicate ends, puffed up like brocade and with a sheen like that of silk. The convolvuluses let their white crowns be filled to the brim, drank healths to each other, and emptied the water over the heads of the nettles. The fat black wood-snails crawled forward on their stomachs with a will, and looked approvingly towards the sky. ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen

... and would take one of us to Kensington Gardens; so I was forced to go into the room and interrupt them, to ask Lucy if she would like to go, but she did not care to leave Edward; so I just run up stairs and put on a pair of silk stockings and came off with ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... was quickly opened, and a graceful-looking lady, in a beautiful dress of black silk and quantities of coffee lace, stood on ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... Columbia Avenue a magnificent building formed the gateway to a rich collection of Italian art ware and industries. The handsome Spanish Pavilion was succeeded by typically Persian exhibits consisting prominently of carpets, curtains, silk needlework, and tapestries. Mexico, the land of manana and poco tiempo was represented by costly decorations and art feather-work. The facade of the Siamese structure—close by—covered with gold leaf, was imposing and attractive. ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... I, who am named Gallus, have an errand to perform"; and drawing from his robe a letter tied with silk and sealed, and with the letter a package, ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... equally prolific, and make fine preserves with about double their bulk of sugar. Wild cherries are equally productive. The persimmon is a delicious fruit, after the frost has destroyed its astringent properties. The black mulberry grows in most parts, and is used for the feeding of silk-worms with success. They appear to thrive and spin as well as on the Italian mulberry. The gooseberry, strawberry, and blackberry, grow wild and in great profusion. Of our nuts, the hickory, black ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... The prices of Asiatic produce were exorbitant. Silk was sold for its weight in gold; and a Roman emperor refused his empress the luxury, or rather the splendour, of ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... and were kindly welcomed by the Indian family in the house. Six squaws were sitting on the floor, some of them smoking, others making shoes and baskets. They were very gayly dressed, their skirts handsomely embroidered with beads and silk of various colors. One of the girls seemed very intelligent, and conversed fluently in the English language which she spoke correctly. But she did not look at all like an Indian, having red hair and a lighter skin than the others. ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... to France in a few days; she is now in her habit de femme, in black silk and diamonds, which she received from the Empress of Russia, when she was in the army and at her Court as minister, A German of her acquaintance has promised Lady Townshend to contrive that she and I shall have ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... dressing-table, and when she had made her little garret almost as bright as day she unfolded her pale-blue blouse. She bent low over her treasure, examining the blue embroidery, which was rendered still more fascinating with small stitches of pink silk, looking with ecstacy at the real lace round the neck and cuffs and finally pressing the delicate color against ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... a woman's grasp—of needlework. She bore on her breast, in the curiously embroidered letter, a specimen of her delicate and imaginative skill, of which the dames of a court might gladly have availed themselves, to add the richer and more spiritual adornment of human ingenuity to their fabrics of silk and gold. Here, indeed, in the sable simplicity that generally characterized the Puritanic modes of dress, there might be an infrequent call for the finer productions of her handiwork. Yet the taste of the age, demanding whatever was elaborate in ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... been up that way this year, an' I'll lay my bottom dollar on that!" Hank added with emphasis, as though he had a reason for knowing. He looked over at his partner sharply. "Better take the little silk tent and stay away a couple o' nights," he concluded, as though the matter were definitely settled. For Hank was recognized as general organizer of the hunt, and in ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood

... thorough, slightly harrowing. I had not realized the embarrassing detail of such a search. An extended store of collars suitable for different occasions; neat and glossy piles of shirts, both dress and plain; black silk hose mountain high, and neckties as numerous as the sea sands. Noting the rapt attention that McGuntrie in particular gave to these disclosures, I felt that to deserve so inhuman a punishment my crime must have been black indeed. Shoes on their trees; articles of silk underwear; brushes, combs, ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... twenty-three years; but her features are so infantile, her figure is so tiny, her freshness so youthful, she would easily pass for sixteen. Robed in a muslin gown with flowing sleeves, she is reclining on a sofa covered with Indian silk, brown in color, embroidered with golden flowers; she leans her white forehead on one hand, half-hidden by a wilderness of loose curls of reddish blond tint, for the young woman's hair is dressed a la Titus, a profusion of silky curls falls on her neck, her snowy shoulders, ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... ladies had nice silk dresses to wear to church. Slave 'omans had new calico dresses what dey wore wid hoopskirts dey made out of grapevines. Dey wore poke bonnets wid ruffles on 'em and, if de weather was sort of cool, dey wore shawls. Marster allus wore his linen duster. Dat was his ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... being paid in kind. Dr. Davis mentions having observed on it a large junk decorated with a yellow umbrella, and found on enquiry that it had the honour of bearing the "Dragon robes," as the Emperor's garments are called. These are forwarded annually, and are the peculiar tribute of the silk districts. The banks of the Grand Canal are, in many parts through which it flows, strongly faced with stone, a precaution very necessary to prevent the danger of inundations, from which some parts of this country are ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... Hal cried. "Alymer ought to have had knee breeches and silk stockings, and they would look just perfect. I have to talk fast to Dick, or I should give it all away ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... wearing "dark brown hair, tied behind with blue ribbon; clear, mirthful eyes; boots which reached above his knees; a broad-skirted, scarlet coat, with gold lace on the cuffs, the collar, and the skirts; and a long waistcoat of blue silk. His breeches were buckskin; his hat was three-cornered, set jauntily higher on the right than on the left side." His name was Harry Garland. To his request that William, Edmund, and Robert might go with him, their ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer

... woven in blue, green, and red silk, and are to be worn on the sleeve of coat or shirt. ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... why, then, did she blush when she remembered how closely Dick Royson had clasped her to his breast over-night? Perhaps she might have asked herself that question, only to blush more deeply in trying to answer it, had not her thoughts been distracted by the extraordinary behavior of a silk underskirt hanging on a peg at the foot of the bed. It was swinging to and fro with the regularity of a pendulum, and that which is regular in a pendulum is fantastically irregular in an underskirt. She sat up quickly, and listened. There was a ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... was fair and ruddy. At about the age of nineteen certain parts of his good-looking face became covered with a substance resembling floss-silk. At twenty-five this substance had changed into a pair of light whiskers and a lighter moustache. By means of that barbarous custom called shaving he ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne

... fowls. I selected long-established, pure breeds, in which there was not a trace of red, yet in several of the mongrels feathers of this colour appeared; and one magnificent bird, the offspring of a black Spanish cock and white Silk hen, was coloured almost exactly like the wild Gallus bankiva. All who know anything of the breeding of poultry will admit that tens of thousands of pure Spanish and of pure white Silk fowls might have been reared without the appearance of a red feather. The fact, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... prevent it moving on, which greatly enraged Boo-Khaloum, but to no purpose, as he was only answered by shrieks of welcome, and spears unpleasantly rattled over the traveller's heads. In a short time, Barca Gana, the sheikh's first general—a negro of noble aspect, clothed in a figured silk tobe, mounted on a beautiful Mandara horse—made his appearance, and cleared away those who had pressed upon them, when the party moved on ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... the first time that the rhythm of the engines and the churning of the screw were neither to be heard nor felt. Suddenly he thought the great vessel was drifting in the ocean abandoned by passengers and crew, and he alone had been left behind from the general rescue. But a passenger in a silk dressing-gown reeled by, whom ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... destroyed; and, when the privateer returned to port, she carried in her own hold a miscellaneous cargo of light goods, too costly to risk in a less nimble bottom. Among these are named eighteen bales of Turkey carpets, forty-three bales of raw silk, seventy packs of skins, etc.[225] The "True Blooded Yankee" apparently continued to prefer European waters; for towards the end of 1814 she was taken there and ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... corn, oats, rice, indigo, cotton, tobacco, cane or maple sugar and molasses, sorghum, wool, peas and beans, Irish or sweet potatoes, barley, buckwheat, wine, butter, cheese, hay, clover, and all the grasses, hemp, hops, flax and flaxseed, silk, beeswax and honey, and poultry, in uncounted abundance. If he prefers a stock farm, he can raise horses, asses, and mules, camels, milch cows, working oxen, and other cattle, goats, sheep, and swine. In most locations, these will require neither ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... under a last year's parasol of pink silk from which the sun had drawn much of its pinkness and the wind and dust its freshness, sat beside the road with her back against the post that held the macaroni box, and waited for the stage. Her face did not need the pink light of ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... some of those silk-lined boxes as explanations and souvenirs. But our friends were now all standing round some soldiers, who had accidentally knocked aside some flags of stone, and had found a deep hole underneath. ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... in the web of it: A sibyl, that had number'd in the world The sun to course two hundred compasses, In her prophetic fury sew'd the work; The worms were hallow'd that did breed the silk; And it was dy'd in mummy which the ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare

... savagely. Lisbeth was clad in a long, trailing gown of dove-coloured silk—one of those close-fitting garments that make the uninitiated, such as myself, wonder how they are ever got on. Also, she wore a shawl, which I was sorry for, because I have always been an admirer of beautiful things, and ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... not for years, probably, worn anything coarser than silk on his feet, expressed in a few stiff words his thanks for two pairs of black woolen socks. Julia, famed for the dainty slenderness of her hands, expressed in even stiffer language her thanks for a pair of gray woolen gloves. She also begged ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter

... absence of a colour. All that I am urging here can be expressed by saying that Christianity sought in most of these cases to keep two colours coexistent but pure. It is not a mixture like russet or purple; it is rather like a shot silk, for a shot silk is always at right angles, and is in the pattern ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton

... looms of Persia or Turkey, so happy and contented were they in their ignorance. Their bed of freshly gathered grass and leaves, raised from the earth by a heap of branches carefully arranged, was to them as pleasant as beds of down, and the rude hut of bark and poles, as curtains of silk ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... which filled the old man's heart as he stood there scared of the flaming splendor of the room into which the sunlight fell, exaggerating its gold and pink and green, but bringing out the excellence of the furnishing, the richness of the silk tapestry. ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... permission of Mrs. Eddy.' Also we have Mrs. Eddy's and the Angel's little Bible-Annex in eight styles of binding at eight kinds of war-prices: among these a sweet thing in 'levant, divinity circuit, leather lined to edge, round corners, gold edge, silk sewed, each, prepaid, $6,' and if you take a million you get them a shilling cheaper—that is to say, 'prepaid, $5.75.' Also we have Mrs. Eddy's 'Miscellaneous Writings,' at noble big prices, the divinity-circuit style heading the extortions, shilling ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... (SILK-TREE.) Leaves twice abruptly pinnate, of many (over 400) leaflets; leaflets semi-oblong, curved, entire, acute, with the midrib near the upper edge. Flowers in globose heads forming panicles. Fruit plain pods on short stems. A very beautiful small tree, introduced from Japan; probably ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar

... answer beyond a wave of the hand suitable to his princely one-coloured costume of ruffled lavender silk, and the magnificent leg he turned to front me. My senses even up to that period were so impressionable as to be swayed by a rich dress and a grand manner when circumstances were not too unfavourable. Now they seemed very favourable, for they offered me an upward path to tread. His appearance ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... notice as she went up the stairs. She was not very tall, and was growing slowly and surely stout, but she carried her rather large head high and had cultivated importance, as a fine art, with some success. She moved steadily, with a muffled sound as of voluminous invisible silk bellows that opened and shut at each step; her outer dress was sombre, but fashionable, and she wore a long gold chain of curious and fine workmanship to carry her hand-glass, for she was near-sighted. Her ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... the mirrors. Before the first flush of their delight had passed, Honey ran down the beach, bearing aloft a long, shimmering, white streamer. Ralph followed with a scarf of black and gold. Billy, Pete, and Frank joined them, each fluttering a brilliant silk gonfalon. ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... well known, in wielding a very sharp saber, we make the draw-cut, that is if we add to the blow or chop, as with an axe, a certain slight pull and simultaneously, we can cut through a silk handkerchief or a sheep. ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland

... a careful and attentive umbrella, and the intention of being allowed to accompany her that little way. By the time they arrived Mr. Rattray had pledged himself to visit Scotland Yard next day in search of a dark brown silk en tout cas with a handle in the similitude of ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... of "carpets to beat," viewing a lesser one of "boots to brush;" having been entrusted with more "messages" than mortal ever could "deliver;" whilst innumerable vans, bearing the name of Strap, traverse innumerable roads in "Town and Country." Mrs. Strap, dressed in a plain plum silk, turns a mahogany mangle, and gets up nothing but "fine things." Ichabod has cut the choir, and made his debut in an opera as Herr Strapii, a ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner

... Jondrette girl had retired behind the door, and was staring with sombre eyes at that velvet bonnet, that silk mantle, and that ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... opened, and a strange apparition showed itself on the threshold. It was a small, compact masculine figure, clad in vesture of crimson silk, which was trimmed in a style showy and motley enough, with puffs and bows of all colors, and which, just on account of its motley appearance, contrasted strangely enough with the man's white hair, ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... the Middle Ages, of rich materials and costly workmanship; now represented as being formed of two rolls of silk of the principal metal and colour in the arms, which are twisted to show the metal and colour alternately. The earliest examples are about A.D. 1375. No. 233 shows three varieties of representation. (See ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell

... trim little figure in gray silk waiting for them in the porch. But if they had been an hour late Dinah would have greeted them with the same kind smile, and hoped that they ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... between the sexes is menaced with dissolution. The point of difference, the point of interest, is evaded by the brilliant woman, under a shower of irrelevant conversational rockets; it is bridged by the discreet woman with a rustle of silk, as she passes smoothly forward to the nearest point of safety. And this sort of prestidigitation, juggling the dangerous topic out of sight until it can be reintroduced with safety in an altered shape, is a piece of tactics among the ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in the water, for you are dripping with wet!" Katherine said, seeing the water which ran from the dog's thick coat as it sat in the boat thumping a grateful tail in thanksgiving. Then she noticed that the dog had something tied round its neck which looked like a silk waist-belt, and that a handkerchief was knotted ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... thanksgiving service, then they spent a long while over dinner—and Vera's new life began. She was given the best room. All the rugs in the house had been put in it, and a great many flowers; and when at night she lay down in her snug, wide, very soft bed and covered herself with a silk quilt that smelt of old clothes long stored away, she laughed with pleasure. Auntie Dasha came in for a minute to ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... presses, each closed by glass doors. The lower row is about four feet high, the upper row about ten feet high. The wood-work is painted white, and enriched with wreaths of leaves in ormolu. As a general rule the books are hidden from view by curtains of pleated silk. ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... minister, who lived, as our country-ministers generally do, rather near to the bone, but still quite contentedly. It was in the days when knee-breeches and long stockings were worn, and this good man was offered a present of a very nice pair of black silk hose. He declined, saying, he 'could not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... pretty figure, and her dress fitted it to perfection. It was a white dress, and she had a very gorgeous parasol, deeply fringed, and she wore a kerchief of many colours round her shoulders, and an equally bright silk one cleverly twisted into a little cap on her woolly head. Her costume was, in ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... decayed her teeth, dimmed her eyes, and even caused the dropping of their lashes. It almost seemed as if the finger of God had fallen upon the wife of the priest. Like all well-to-do country house-wives, she liked to see her closets full of silk gowns, made and unmade, and jewels and laces which did her no good and only excited the sin of envy and a desire for her death in the minds of all the young women who served Rigou. She was one of those beings, half-woman, half-animal, who are ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... of Silk.—An advanced method of treating silk cocoons, designed to dispense with the old hand winding of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... been written regarding proper and remunerative employment for women. Silk culture, poultry raising, and various other themes have been thoroughly ventilated, and the result has no doubt been very beneficial; but there are many ladies who have no opportunity to raise silk worms, or follow any business of that kind. To that class I wish to open what to ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... herself with more than usual care. The dress she selected was of gray cashmere. Her shoulders were covered with a silk fichu of the same color, knotted behind at the waist. Upon her head she wore one of the tall, plumed felt hats in fashion at the time, and from which her golden hair descended in heavy braids upon her white neck. Never had she been more beautiful. The light of immortality seemed to beam ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... were in a region of snow and cold. Then Noorna bin Noorka tethered the Ass to a stump of a tree and breathed in his ear, and the Ass became as a creature carved in stone; and she drew from her bosom two bags of silk, and blew in one and entered it, bidding Shibli Bagarag do likewise with the other bag; and he obeyed her, drawing it up to his neck, and the delightfulness of warmth came over him. Then said she, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... could not possibly go and supervise the men. She had washed her hair before breakfast, and she sat drinking her coffee in a green turban, with a dark wet curl stamped on each cheek. Jose, the butterfly, always came down in a silk petticoat ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield

... dissenters, or, more properly speaking, the restraints imposed upon them contributed to augment and people these colonies. Dr. Davenant affirms,[*] that the shipping of England more than doubled during these twenty-eight years. Several new manufactures were established; in iron brass, silk, hats, glass, paper, etc. One Brewer, leaving the Low Countries when they were threatened with a French conquest, brought the art of dying woollen cloth into England, and by that improvement saved the nation great sums ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... the Duchess de Chevreuse, and Madame Deshoulieres, afterwards distinguished for their political ability. At the feet of these noble ladies reclined a number of young seigneurs, dangling their little hats surcharged with plumes, while their mantles of silk and gold were spread loosely on the floor. And there, in more grave attire, were the professional litterateurs, such as Balzac, Voiture, Menage, Scudery, Chaplain, Costart, Conrad, and the Abbe Bossuet. The Cupid of the hotel was strictly Platonic. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... tolerably well. Mr. Strutt, the successor of Sir Richard Arkwright, tells me, I may count on forty or fifty in Derby. Derby is full of curiosities; the cotton and silk mills; Wright, the painter, and Dr. Darwin, the every thing but Christian! Dr. Darwin possesses, perhaps, a greater range of knowledge than any other man in Europe, and is the most inventive of philosophical men. He thinks in a new train on all subjects but religion. He bantered ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... form the most striking features of the countenance, and serve to give it that characteristic of finesse so peculiar to the man. The well-developed brow, the full cheeks, and faint suggestion of a double chin, the powdered hair, the black silk coat, the lace jabot, are all in keeping with our conception of this French dramatist, whom a competent critic[1] of to-day has classed as greater than any of his contemporaries in the same field, than Beaumarchais, Voltaire, Regnard, Le Sage, and second only to Moliere, Corneille, and Racine. ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

... less flourishing than agriculture; Italy at this period was rich in industries—silk, wool, hemp, fur, alum, sulphur, bitumen; those products which the Italian soil could not bring forth were imported, from the Black Sea, from Egypt, from Spain, from France, and often returned whence they came, their worth doubled by labour ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... idlers loll in silk, Around their costly board; Give us the bowl of samp and milk, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... to his lips, and sucked away until it was nearly empty. Then seating himself on the settee, he lugged out his illuminated missal and pored over its contents. Captain Brand occupied himself with opening the loop of the silk rope which fell from the ceiling, and securing the end firmly on the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... were many dolls, big and little—Sawdust Dolls, Bisque Dolls, Wooden Dolls, some very handsomely dressed, with silk or satin dresses and white stockings and white kid shoes. And some had the cutest hats, and some even had gloves, ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope

... this hour a smallish gentleman, in an old-style Inverness opera-coat that cloaked him to his ankles, with an opera hat set jauntily a wee bit askew on his head, a mask of crimson silk covering his face from brows to lips, slipped silently like some sly, sinister shadow through the Fifth Avenue portals of the Bizarre, and shaped a course by his wits across the lobby to the elevators, so discreetly ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... share in the profits, but were paid extra big wages in gold, and were expected to go to out-of-the-way places and further north than usual. Captain Burrows and myself only knew that there was a brand-new twenty-foot silk flag rolled up in oil-skin in the cabin, and that Father Burrows had declared: 'By the hoary-headed Nebblekenizer, I'll put them stars and stripes on new land, and mighty near to the Pole, or ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... she had to sell her watch and a gold bracelet and a silk dress to pay that, she says. She never could save out of her weekly salary,' ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin

... to their good blood, their "maintenances de noblesse," which they considered as much a family necessity as a house and furniture. From the records of their baptisms, marriages and deaths, from bits of old furniture, jewelry, glass, old miniatures, portraits, scraps of silk and brocade, flimsy fragments and the like, the author has made an interesting story and well illustrated it. There is a regret that some of these achievements of the past are so deeply hidden for the lack of records to throw light thereupon that a definitive account of some ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... him again—under silk this time—as a gentleman rider. He was the same quiet, cool little fellow, grey-eyed, steel-lipped, stout-hearted, with "hands" that Archer might have envied. He rode at his fences that day as the Australian amateurs can ride, with a rip and a rattle, with the long, loose leg, the hands well down, ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... me at my word, and though the Duke used all the arguments with her which he could think of, she bound my thumb with silk, and with a needle drew blood, with which she obliged me to sign a promissory note as follows: "I promise to Madame la Duchesse de Bouillon to continue united with the Duke her husband against the Parliament in case M. de Turenne approaches with the army under his command ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... down her work basket and went into the Ark to find them. And in a few minutes Capt. Noah appeared in full dress, his silk hat upon his head and a ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory

... of his inventions. One of them, the Franklin stove, is still in use in hundreds of old houses, and as an economizer of fuel has never been surpassed; another was the lightning-rod. He introduced the basket willow, the water-tight compartment for ships, the culture of silk, the use of white clothing in hot weather, and the use of oil to quiet a tempest-tossed sea. From none of his inventions did he seek to get any return. The Governor of Pennsylvania offered to give him a monopoly of the sale of the ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... say: 'We is all one fam'ly, Delphy!' she say. Law's, chillun, dem was times! You don't know nuthin' 'bout dem times. Disher house was full up all de time wid comp'ny; gran' comp'ny, what dress all de time in silk an' go walkin' 'bout under de trees an' ridin' 'bout over de prairie in de day time; and mos' every night dey call my ole man in to play de fiddle an' den, laws, how dem young folks dance! An' ole Mas' ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.

... flowers (Harrington knew them reportorially as caskets), were borne by the band of pall-bearers, stalwart young intimate friends, and lifted by the same hands tenderly into the hearse. The long blackness of their frock-coats and the sable accompaniment of their silk hats, gloves, and ties appealed to the observant faculties of Harrington as in harmony both with the high social position of the parties and the peculiar sadness of the occasion. That a young man and woman, on the eve of matrimony, and with everything to live for, should ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... he said, "of nuggets, is a gift from Willum. He desired me to deliver it to you, Miss Gray, as a small acknowledgment of your kindness in writin' so often to him. He'd have bought you a silk gown, or a noo bonnet, so he said, but wasn't sure as to your taste in such matters, and thought you'd accept the nuggets and buy it for yourself. Leastwise, that's somethin' like the speech Willum tried to tell me to deliver, but he warn't ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... sands are the cargoes of richly-laden ships, and their 'merchandise of gold and silver, and precious stones, and pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet.' 'To dig there' (if that could be done, say the Deal boatmen), 'would be all as one as going to Californy;' and who should know the Goodwins or the secret of the sea better than they do? 'Only those who brave its ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor

... in morning dress, appropriate to the country. The blonde wore a dress of some sort of light Japanese silk, covered with a pattern of great painted birds and flowers. The dark girl had a Nile-blue gown of some light material, and in style ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... know; but, if one might have judged by the under-breath exclamations in which he indulged, and by the looks of amazement and inquiry which he cast around him, from time to time, on the splendours by which he was surrounded, especially on the gorgeous bed, with its gilt canopy and curtains of crimson silk, which was destined for his night's resting-place, these feelings would appear to have been, after all, fully more perplexing than pleasing. It was, in truth, just too much of a good thing; and Donald felt ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... go through it, and try your fortune as a barrister, then, you're just the man for a jury? We shall have you taking silk in ten years.' ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... and gold, even to the dainty curtains at the windows. The walls were covered with a delicate blue paper, dotted with sprays of cheerful goldenrod; the dresser and table were decorated with blue silk scarfs embroidered with the same flower; gilt-framed pictures hung upon the walls; and from the head of each narrow, gilded bedstead floated soft draperies ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown

... for the monarch, and into carpets, coverlets, and hangings for the imperial palaces and the temples. The cloth was finished on both sides alike; 11 the delicacy of the texture was such as to give it the lustre of silk; and the brilliancy of the dyes excited the admiration and the envy of the European artisan.12 The Peruvians produced also an article of great strength and durability by mixing the hair of animals with wool; and they were expert in the beautiful feather-work, which ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... He had, I think, been a man of about five feet ten or eleven inches. His accent and tone of voice are decidedly French. His eye, which is black and penetrating, kindled up readily. He wore a black silk cap to hide baldness. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... sight of the lady and the little girl once as I passed along the train at Carlisle," the man replied. "I don't remember noticing the gentleman, but I fancy he was asleep, with a large silk handkerchief over ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... floor; across a kind of tempest of darkness pale shapes hovered about him; his heart was numb with anguish; he seemed to be falling, falling—and a bottomless abyss was opening at his feet. A familiar light rustle of a silk dress roused him from his numbness; Varvara Pavlovna in her hat and shawl was returning in haste from her walk. Lavretsky trembled all over and rushed away; he felt that at that instant he was capable of tearing her to pieces, beating her to death, as a peasant might ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... easily, and when she had brushed and pinned her hostess's thin hair as softly as she could arrange it, and had turned in the high collar of her blouse and pinned it with a cameo pin, the one fine thing remaining to Mrs. Peabody from her wedding outfit, adding a soft silk girdle of gray-blue, she knew the improvement was marked. Mrs. Peabody stared at herself ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... began to groan and move uneasily, like one in the grip of nightmare. Sholto listened yet more acutely. Outside the house he could hear the soft pad-pad of wild animals. Their pelts seemed almost to brush against the wooden walls behind his head with a rustle like that of corded silk. Sholto felt nervously for his sword and cleared it instinctively of the coverture in which he was wrapped. Expectation tingled in his cheeks and palms. The silence grew more and more oppressive. He could ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... Mrs. Edmonstone and Laura that these words made them lose sight of the details of lace and silk that had been occupying them, so that they only saw the radiance, purity, and innocence of Amy's bridal appearance. No more was said, for Mr. Edmonstone ran up to call Guy, who was to ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge



Words linked to "Silk" :   sarcenet, fabric, animal fibre, sarsenet, animal fiber, cloth, material, textile



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