"Silken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Gouverneur Faulkner were like minutes of time that dropped from a golden clock of joy. I danced on feet that were strong wings to glide over a floor that was a many colored cloud from the reflection of the soft lights and the silken skirts which ruffled over it. And, what was most enjoyable to me in this case, I glided in whatever direction pleased me and took with me the armful of cloud, which was the girl with whom I was dancing, on long swoops of my own ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... delights of abundance of food; the eternal happiness that awaited them in the heavenly future, where the slave-driver ceased from troubling and the weary were at rest; where Time rolled around in endless cycles of days spent in basking, harp in hand, and silken clad, in golden streets, under the soft effulgence of cloudless skies, glowing with warmth and kindness emanating from the Creator himself. Had their masters condescended to borrow the music of the slaves, they would have found ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... her step, every footfall seemed to be upon my heart. I did not dare to look round, for dread of seeing her turn away from me. I felt like one under a spell, or in an endless dream; but gladly would I have walked on for ever in hope, with that silken vortex of sound following me. Soon, however, it ceased. She had turned aside in some other direction, and I passed on to Mr ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... call she paused, but did not turn. He came up with her. ... he caught at her robe, soft to the touch as silken gauze, and overwhelmed by a sudden emotion of awe and reverence, he sank on ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... trapped and wondrously sported their swift horses; and on the same day they went from the City to Westminster, that they might discharge the service of butler to the king in his coronation, which is acknowledged to belong to them of ancient right. They went in well-marshalled array, adorned in silken vestments, wrapped in gold-woven mantles, with fancifully-devised garments, sitting on valuable horses refulgent with new bits and saddles: and they bore three hundred and sixty gold and silver cups, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... expressive of pain. Her eye, however, did not droop, but turned upon him with a firm and peculiar sparkle. She had been stooping with her mouth near his ear, as the reader knows, but she now stood up quickly, shook back her hair, that had been hanging in natural and silken curls about her blushing cheeks, and exclaimed: "No—no. Let me alone Bryan;" and on uttering these words ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... himself between silken covers, and for a moment he gazed thoughtfully at a high arched ceiling that was entirely unfamiliar. Then, remembering, he sprang from the downy bed to his feet. The room, the furnishings, his silken robe, everything was strange. His bed, he saw, was a high one, and the frame was of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... that Martin admired but could not understand. When the fresh irons proved too hot, they hooked them on iron rods and dipped them into cold water. This again required a precise and subtle judgment. A fraction of a second too long in the water and the fine and silken edge of the proper heat was lost, and Martin found time to marvel at the accuracy he developed—an automatic accuracy, founded upon criteria that were ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... There was a momentary pause, for the duty was of the most desperate character, but Captain Peyton snatched the little banner which he had carried so long from the hand of the sergeant who had succeeded to its charge, and raising it above his head spurred after his leader. As the silken folds fluttered out on the air a ringing cheer went up from the troop, and the whole line, wheeling into sections so as to pass through the narrow gap, dashed forward as one man. It was a daring attempt, and terribly did they pay for their audacity. A perfect ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... over his shoulders and pulling his hat well down over his eyes, the lad pushed the silken curtains aside and began working his way toward the front, beating against the human tide that had set in against him, wet, dripping, ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... his unnerved condition stood for some account. But he felt that when he saw her there, waiting for him, he would cast himself at her feet and kiss them. He would crush her white hands against his bosom. He would bury his face in her silken hair. She should know how strong his love was, and he would hold her in his arms till she yield back tenderness to his own. But—Therese met him on the steps. As he was mounting them, she was descending; wrapped in her long cloak, her pretty head ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... another whistle and, hauling at it again, they found that the ball had gone, and attached to the end of the thread was a very light silken cord, which they drew in. There was another low whistle, ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... much to blame as our many worries." She removed her hat and pressed slender fingers to her throbbing temples, while Oliveta drew the curtains against the fierce rays of a westering sun. Later, clad in a loose silken robe, Vittoria flung herself upon the low couch and her companion let down her luxuriant masses of hair until it enveloped her like a cloud. She lay back upon the cushions in grateful relaxation, while Oliveta combed and brushed ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... him with open mouth and pale eyes full of speechless gratitude; but Kit had unfurled the umbrella proudly, and sat like a queen in a silken tent. ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Carthage, never, above all, so rich a moon ripened through such perfect evenings. The Seine itself had no small share in this mysterious increase of the city's beauty. Released from all traffic, its hurried ripples smoothed themselves into long silken reaches in which quays and monuments at last saw their unbroken images. At night the fire-fly lights of the boats had vanished, and the reflections of the street lamps were lengthened into streamers of red and gold and purple that slept on the ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... fresco on the ceiling of an apartment, which has three lunettes on each main side and two at each end, with a series of friezes that go right round. The centre of the ceiling is divided into two quadrangular compartments; in the first, where a silken arras is counterfeited as upheld by the ornament, there may be seen, as if woven upon it, Scipio Africanus restoring the young woman untouched to her husband, and in the other the celebrated painter Zeuxis, who is copying several nude women in order to paint ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... the gift which God has giv'n To man alone, beneath the heav'n; It is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart, and mind to mind, In body and in ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... mien; an eye of amber, full Of that which keeps the faith with us for life; Lover of meal-times; hater of yard-dog strife; Lordly, with silken ears most strokeable. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... honeymoon, as people called it. To taste the full sweetness of it, it would have been necessary doubtless to fly to those lands with sonorous names where the days after marriage are full of laziness most suave. In post chaises behind blue silken curtains to ride slowly up steep road, listening to the song of the postilion re-echoed by the mountains, along with the bells of goats and the muffled sound of a waterfall; at sunset on the shores of gulfs to breathe in the perfume of lemon trees; then in the evening on the villa-terraces above, ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... their lives, and the poor Queen lay there shaking, and hoping she would not be found. But very soon the wicked King clattered into the room, and in a fury because the Queen would not answer when he called to her, he tore back her silken coverings and tweaked off her lace cap, and when all her lovely hair came tumbling down over her shoulders, he wound it three times round his hand and threw her over his shoulder, where he carried her like a sack ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... the faint pink that edges the clouds at sunset; her lips were full red, pouting and sweet. For costume she adopted oak-leaf green; all the wood-nymphs dress in that color and know no other so desirable. Her dainty feet were sandal-clad, while her head remained bare of covering other than her silken tresses. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... had retired to her own apartments. Lord Mar's banner being brought to her from the armory, she sat down to weave into its silken texture the amber locks of the Scottish chief. Admiring their softness and beauty, while her needle flew, she pictured to herself the fine countenance they ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... desolate hearts behind them. And in this same parlour at Arbitt Lodge had that little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then to run, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards, to play bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in his time faded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny nose into the bowl of pot-pourri on the centre table, which made him sneeze just exactly as—ah! but I am forgetting—never mind, I may as well finish the sentence—just exactly ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... stepped from the library clutching the silken curtains. She hesitated a moment at sight of him and then ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... meanwhile the throng in the Forum had become more and more dense. Already one or two gorgeously draped litters had been seen winding their way in from the Sacra Via or the precincts of the temples, their silken draperies making positive notes of brilliant colour against the iridescent whiteness of Phrygian ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... liberty and slavery were struggling to see which should rule the old homestead, it became evident that slavery would turn the garden into a desert, and the house into a ruin. And seeking a deliverer and a saviour, the great God, in His own purpose, passed by the palace with its silken delights. He took a little babe in His arms, and called to His side His favourite angel, the angel of Sorrow. Stooping, he whispered, "Oh, Sorrow, thou well-beloved teacher, take thou this little child of Mine and make him great. Take him to yonder cabin in the wilderness; ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... stout silken tassel-cord had been draped by Jetta at the window curtain. Perona snatched ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... pregnant with special message. Her eyes were misty when the fugues were over. Again she looked towards the Ark with its beautifully embroidered curtain, behind which were the precious scrolls with their silken swathes and their golden bells and shields and pomegranates. Ah, if the angel would come out now! If only the dazzling vision gleamed for a moment on the white steps. Oh, why did he not ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Wee. "This is Mrs. Epeira Diadema; and she is a respectable, industrious little neighbor. She spreads her tent, but sits under a leaf near by, waiting for her breakfast. She wraps her eggs in a soft silken bag, and hides them in some safe chink, where they lie till spring. The eggs are prettily carved and ornamented, and so hard that the baby spiders have to force their way out by biting the shell open and poking their little heads through. The mother dies as soon ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... zones, the slender body of the Arab with the ample chest of the Hollander; the squat figure of the Samoyede with the elegant form of the Greek and the Sclavonian; the greasy black wool of the Negro with the bright silken locks of the Dane; the broad face of the Kalmuc, his little angular eyes and flattened nose, with the oval prominent visage, large blue eyes, and aquiline nose of the Circassian and Abazan. I contrasted the brilliant ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... Rich coloured plates of beauties that appeal Less to the sense of sight than to the feel, So moistly satin are their breasts. A pang, Almost of pain, runs through him when he sees Hanging, a homeless marvel, next to these, The silken breastplate of a mandarin, Centuries dead, which he had given her. Exquisite miracle, when men could spin Jay's wing ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... Hamburg. I had learnt nothing but a little French, and to run my fingers over the embroidery frame, or the keys of my harpsichord. But, though I was ignorant of all useful arts, I had learnt full well to feast off gold and silver, to sleep beneath silken hangings, to bid attendant pages obey my voice, and to listen to the honeyed words of flattery and adulation. Six years passed away in sorrow and in sadness—the remnant of my scanty means was fast melting away—my old and faithful ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... through a deep and shady wood, cooled by the light wind which gently rustled the thick foliage, and enlivened by the songs of the birds that perched upon the boughs. The ivy and the moss crept in thick clusters over the old trees, and the soft green turf overspread the ground like a silken mat. They emerged upon an open park, with an ancient hall, displaying the quaint and picturesque architecture of Elizabeth's time. Long vistas of stately oaks and elm trees appeared on every side; large herds of deer were cropping ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... separation of ten years I met my old friend, Major——, at a railway station. If he had not spoken first I should not have recognized my Virginia comrade of '64. It was not merely the disguise of a silken hat and shaven cheek, but—as I told him after we had chatted a little about each other's ups and downs since the war—I was sure this was the first time I ever saw him away from the table without a cigar ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... wealth is but a name That leaves our useful products still the same. Nor so the loss. The man of wealth and pride 275 Takes up a space that many poor supplied; Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds; The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth Has robb'd the neighbouring fields of half their growth, His seat, where solitary sports are seen, 281 Indignant spurns the cottage from the green; Around the world each needful product flies, For all the luxuries the world supplies: While thus the land adorn'd for pleasure, all 285 In barren ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... conversation with the grandfather Courteney, and his eye tried to call the mate. But Ramsey, holding to Hugh by his sleeve, gave the old gentleman a toss of her chin, a jerk of her curls, and took the mate by a coat button. Her slim, silken figure intercepting him, and his rude bulk smiling down into her upturned face with a commanding yet amiable restiveness, made a picture to the players and to the distant pilot, but much more than a picture to the captive himself. He had thought he had been fending off the banter of a child, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... Rosaline and his appeal at the end of the play to "honest plain words," he shows a deep underlying seriousness. The soul of quick talkative mirthful Biron is that he loves beauty whether of women or of words, and though he condemns "taffeta phrases," he shows his liking for the "silken terms precise" in the very form ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... throwing my whole soul into the one thing I am doing. And at present I am over head and ears in the story for Dickens" ("Very Hard Cash"). "Write to me often. The grand mistake of friends at a distance is not corresponding frequently enough. Thus the threads of business are broken, as well as the silken threads of sentiment. Thanks about the drama" ("It is Never Too Late to Mend"). "I have but faint hopes. It is the best thing I ever wrote of any kind, and therefore I fear no manager will ever have brains to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... answer her, and still I knelt, for there was somewhat needed to come ere I could part from her without a word. But before I could frame aught she set her hand through the curtains, and in it was somewhat small, as it were a silken case cunningly woven round a ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... gods. He fought his paper single-handed; trusting no one, for he was something of a cynic; up early and down late, for he was nothing of a sluggard; daily ear- wigging influential men, for he was a master of ingratiation. In that slender and silken fellow there must have been a rare vein of courage, that he should thus have died at his employment; and doubtless ambition spoke loudly in his ear, and doubtless love also, for it seems there was a marriage in his view had ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and the gate below me complained as it turned on its rusty hinges. I faced toward my own door. I knew that it was shut and locked, but I knew that the ghostly procession were coming to call me to account, and I felt that no walls could keep them out. My door flew open, there was a rustling as of silken gowns, but the figures seemed to float in in the changing forms of swaying white mists. Closer and closer they gathered around me, robbing me of breath, robbing me of the power to move. There was a silence as of the grave—and then I saw before me the old priest with his gold-lettered book. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... to what was the private company of the Shogun, are many centuries old, and have been carefully preserved as heirlooms from generation to generation; being made of very thin wood lacquered over, and kept each in a silken bag, they have been uninjured ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... the tender green And underneath eternal shade did pass, With murmur shrill, cold, pure, and scantly seen; Yet so transparent, that perceived was The bottom rich, and sands that golden been, And on the brims the silken grass aloft Proffered them seats, sweet, easy, fresh ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... pilgrimage. The king was received with much honour by the pope, to whom he presented a gold crown of four pounds weight, ten dishes of the purest gold, a sword richly set in gold, two gold images, some silver-gilt urns, stoles bordered with gold and purple, white silken robes embroidered with figures, and other costly articles of clothing for the celebration of the service of the church, together with rich presents in gold and silver to the churches, bishops, clergy, and other dwellers in Rome. They say that the people of Rome marvelled ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... high-blooded mare, Many a lance in fist of might, Many a buckler beaming bright, Many a green marlote is spied, Many a ren aljube beside, Many a plume of gallant air, Many a rich-grain'd cappellare, Many a boot a-borzegui, Many a silken string and tie, Many a spur of gold there clung, Many a silver stirrup swung. All the men that rode that day Were expert at battle-fray: Midst of all that pomp and pow'r Chyquo Monarch of the Moor. Moorish dames and maidens high Them from proud Alhambra eye; And the Moorish Queen so grey In this ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... could speak a little Spanish and Malayan, in which last language Clawson the merchant was well skilled. All the people in these canoes were finely clothed from the waist downwards, some with loose silken robes, and others with breeches, and several had silken turbans on their head, being Mahometans. All of them had jet black hair, and wore many gold and silver rings on their fingers. They bartered their provisions with the Dutch for beads and other ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... be a sister woman's friend, Giving from out her large heart's bounteous store A living love—claiming to do no more Than, through and by that love, she knows she can; And living by her professions, like a man. And such a tie, true friendship's silken tether, Binds Helen Trevor's heart and mine together. I love her for her beauty, meekness, grace; For her white lily soul and angel face. She loves me, for my greater strength, may be; Loves—and ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... view the band Of faithful friends that round me stand, With pride exult that I alone Can join these scattered gems in one; For they're a wreath of pearls, and I The silken cord on which they lie. 'Tis mine their inmost souls to see, Unlocked is every heart to me, To me they cling, on me they rest, And I've a place in every breast. For they're a wreath of pearls, and I The silken cord on which ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... have weighed a hundred and eighty pounds, and he was maybe an inch over six feet. But evidently where nature had left off there had been nobody to go on save the tailor. His gray suit was faultlessly correct, his linen immaculate, his hose silken and of a brilliant, dazzling blue. His face was fine, even handsome, but indicating about as much purpose as did his faultlessly correct shoes. There was an extreme, unruffled good humor in his eyes and about his mouth, and with it all as much ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... showing; His helm's white plume is wet, and bent, And backwards o'er his shoulders flowing; Pale is the lovely lady's cheek, Her eyes grow dim, her hand is weak; And, feebly, tries she to sustain, Her falling horse, with silken rein. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... management of the elements, the control of which, as he had persuaded himself, had been committed to him. Let me read you a few sentences from this story, which is commonly bound up with the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' like a woollen lining to a silken mantle, but is full of stately wisdom in processions of paragraphs which sound as if they ought to have a grammatical drum-major to march before their ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... that she even turned cold all over and began to tremble. It seemed to her that she heard a faint tapping on the other side of the wall—like the noise a dog makes when scratching—and she began to stare at that wall. In the corner burned a shrine-lamp; the chamber was all hung with silken stuff.... Suddenly something began to move at that point, rose, opened.... And straight out of the wall, all black and long, stepped forth that dreadful man ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... (and girls too, we believe) at a very tender age. Some charming cousin, or a classmate of his sister, in the village school, weaves silken meshes around the throbbing heart of the young man in his teens. This is well. He is made better and happier by his boyish loves—for he generally has a succession of them, but they are seldom permanent. They are only beautiful ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... which nature so dreads. You shall see how good I will be this evening, and you shall read me everything you please, even to that 'Ancient Ecclesiastical History.' If you will only stay I will be your slave; and you shall rule me with a rod of iron or draw me with the silken cords of ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... bucket, that shone like burnished silver in the sunbeams, swinging on her arm, she stole out of the back door, and ran down a narrow lane, till she came to an open field, where the young corn was waving its silken tassels, and potato vines frolicking at its feet. The long, shining leaves of the young corn threw off the sunlight like polished steel, and Helen thought she had never seen anything so beautiful in all her life. She stopped and pulled off the soft, ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... passed on the way at which her heart did not flutter with the momentary fancy that he was there. Happy, in her eyes, the humblest slave upon whom the light of his dear looks fell!—In the barge immediately after the Princess sat FADLADEEN, with his silken curtains thrown widely apart, that all might have the benefit of his august presence, and with his head full of the speech he was to deliver to the King, "concerning FERAMORZ and literature and the Chabuk ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... married the following spring, Mr. Dayton fitting up 47 with all manner of sentimental and delightful appointments, and sending the bride and bridegroom out in it,—as a wedding present, he said, but in truth the car was a repository of wedding presents, for all the rugs and portieres and silken curtains and brass plaques and pretty pottery with which it was adorned, and the flower-stands and Japanese kakemonos, were to disembark at St. Helen's and help to decorate Elsie's new home. All went as was planned, and Clarence's life from that day to this had been, as Clover mischievously ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... pearl-powder, no carmine, no borrowed locks, no musk, or ambergris—but all those feeble helps of meretricious art excelled and superseded by their just originals in nature. It will not do to talk, as a romancer may, of velvet cheeks and silken tresses; or invoke, to the aid of our inadequate description, roses, and swans, and peaches, and lilies. Take the simple village beauty as she is. Did you ever look on prettier lips or sweeter eyes—more glossy natural curls ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... grandeur towers In purple ornaments of state! Ye scenes where virtue's sacred strain Bids the tragic Muse complain! Where satire treads the comic stage, To scourge and mend a venal age; 10 Where music pours the soft, melodious lay, And melting symphonies congenial play: Ye silken sons of ease, who dwell In flowery vales of peace, farewell! In vain the goddess of the myrtle grove Her charms ineffable displays; In vain she calls to happier realms of love, Which Spring's unfading bloom arrays; In vain her living roses blow, And ever-vernal pleasures ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... roll, therefore he went away to join Grant's army at Vicksburg. "What sacrifice! What folly!" said his pacifist neighbors—"to leave your wife and children for an idea, a mere sentiment; to put your life in peril for a striped silken rag." But he went. For thirteen dollars a month he marched and fought while his plow rusted in the shed and his cattle called to him ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... Cushat-Prinkly detested the whole system of afternoon tea. According to his theory of life a woman should lie on a divan or couch, talking with incomparable charm or looking unutterable thoughts, or merely silent as a thing to be looked on, and from behind a silken curtain a small Nubian page should silently bring in a tray with cups and dainties, to be accepted silently, as a matter of course, without drawn-out chatter about cream and sugar and hot water. If one's soul was really enslaved at one's mistress's feet how could one talk coherently ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... and stillness of the edifice, disturbed now and then by silken rustle and soft-shod foot were bewildering to Amarilly. She experienced a slight depression until the vibrating tones of the organ fell softly upon the air. The harmony grew more subdued, ceased, and was succeeded by another moment of solemn silence. Then a procession ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... in Egypt, had an Angora cat, of which he was extremely fond. It was entirely covered with long white silken hairs, and its tail formed a magnificent plume, which the animal elevated at pleasure over its body. Not one spot, not a single dark shade marred the dazzling whiteness of its coat. Its nose and lips were ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... the brave Hohe Wiwaste rode with her proud Chaske. She ruled like a queen in his bountiful tee, And the life of the twain was a jubilee Their wee ones climbed on the father's knee, And played with his plumes of the great Wanmdee. The silken threads of the happy years They wove into beautiful robes of love That the spirits wear in the lodge above; And time from the reel of the rolling spheres His silver threads with the raven wove; ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... family-rubbish, scrupulously saved by half a graveyard-full of female relations,—for the women-folk of the Wimples had been ever noted for their thrift,—a certain quaint garment had come down to Sally from her great-grandmother. It was a black "silken wonder," wherewith, no doubt, that traditionally dear, delightful creature was wont to astonish the streets, in the days of her vanity and frivolous vexation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... told "the very hairs of your head are all numbered"—so minute is GOD'S care for His people, so watchful is He over all that affects them. It is beautiful to see the fond love of a young mother as she passes her fingers through the silken locks of her darling child—her treasure and her delight; but she never counts those hairs. He only, who is the source of mother-love, does that! And shall not we, who are not our own, but bought with a price, gladly render to Him all ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... with all the honours and attentions which his love of distinction could desire. The good old duke, the friend of his father, ordered handsome apartments to be provided for him in the palace; the prince made him presents of costly attire, including perfumed silken hose (kindred elegancies to the Italian gloves of Queen Elizabeth); the princess and her mother-in-law were declared admirers of his poetry; the courtiers caressed the favourite of their masters; Tasso found literary society; ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... gentle Zephyr, trick'd with those perfumes That erst in Eden sweeten'd Adam's love, And stroke my bosom with thy silken fan: This shade, sun-proof,[21] is yet no proof for thee; Thy body, smoother than this waveless spring, And purer than the substance of the same, Can creep through that his lances cannot pierce: Thou, and thy sister, soft and sacred ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... took some of his friends, and I went with them, to see the body of a lusty fellow, a seaman, that was hanged for a robbery. It seems one Dillon, of a great family, was, after much endeavours to have saved him, hanged with a silken halter this Sessions, (of his own preparing,) not for honour only, but it being soft and sleek it do slip close and kills, that is, strangles presently: whereas, a stiff one do not come so close together, and so the party may live the longer before killed. But all ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... under bark on the trunks and main branches of the apple-tree, in crevices in nearby posts and fences, and sometimes in the ground. The pupae are the transformed larvae or worms that left the apple of the previous year, usually before it fell, and crawled down the tree to find a place to spin the silken brown cocoons in which they wrapped themselves to undergo ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... people. And, in this connection, let me say: If the argument against woman's preaching be, "Oh! it looks so awkward and singular to see a woman with a gown on in the pulpit" (for that's the whole gist of it), why, then, the same logic might as well disrobe the male priesthood of their silken ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... A silken Flax mention'd, an attempt to explicate the Phaenomena of it, with a conjecture at the cause of the ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... they wish their own good, they choose no other into the next primum mobile but of the ablest cudgel and football players? Which done as soon as said, your primum mobile, consisting of no other stuff, must of necessity be drawn forth into your nebulones and your galimofries; and so the silken purses of your Senate and prerogative being made of sows' ears, most of them blacksmiths, they will strike while the iron is hot, and beat your estates into hob-nails, mine host of the Bear being strategus, and king piper lord orator. Well, my lords, it might have ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... revelations do not tell very much; at any rate, the secrets he deals with have come to be things of common knowledge. Nor are his instructions upon the art of making-up to be accounted highly in these times. "Light-comedy calves," he tells us, "are made of ragged silken hose;" and what may be called "Othello's blacking," is to be composed of "burnt cork, pulverised and mixed with porter." Legs coming before the foot-lights must of course be improved by mechanical means, when nature has been unkind, or time has destroyed symmetry; but ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the stake was no longer as in the Italian dice-playing a trifle, became common, and as early as 639 a censorial edict was issued against them. Gauze fabrics, which displayed rather than concealed the figure, and silken clothing began to displace the old woollen dresses among women and even among men. Against the insane extravagance in the employment of foreign perfumery the sumptuary laws ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... and banners Of all achievements after all manners, And "Ay", said the Duke with a surly pride. The more was his comfort when he died At next year's end, in a velvet suit, With a gilt glove on his hand, his foot In a silken shoe for a leather boot, Petticoated like a herald, {70} In a chamber next to an ante-room, Where he breathed the breath of page and groom, What he called stink, and they, perfume: —They should have set him on red Berold Mad with pride, like fire to manage! They should have got his ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... reached to the top of his head was well atoned for by a white beard of prodigious size, which descended in waving curls over his breast, and reached to the towel with which his loins were girded, instead of the silken sash used by other persons ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... her unuttered will, her ocean-servants are in waiting: the daughters of Nereus are there singing their song, and Portunus, and Salacia, and the tiny charioteer of the dolphin, with a host of Tritons leaping through the billows. And one blows softly through his sounding sea-shell, another spreads a silken web against the sun, a third presents the mirror to the eyes of his mistress, while the others swim side by side below, drawing her chariot. Such was the escort of Venus as she ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... objective impressions of any hour of my existence, and of them the memory is startling to this day. I hear my mad knock at the double doors; they fly open in the middle, and it is like some sumptuous and solemn rite. A long slice of silken-legged lackey is seen on either hand; a very prelate of a butler bows a benediction from the sanctuary steps. I breathe more freely when I reach a book-lined library where a mere handful of men do not overflow the Persian ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... replied she, "wait till I am drunk and dead to the world; then steal a kiss of me, secretly and on such wise that I may not know thou hast kissed me." Then she rose and taking off her upper dress sat; in a thin shift of fine linen and a silken head kerchief.[FN109] At this passion inflamed Ghanim and he said to her, "O my lady, wilt thou not vouchsafe me what I asked of thee?" "By Allah," she replied, "that may not be thine, for there is written upon my trouser string[FN110] ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... door R., carrying a book and a little silken shawl. She gives book to Kate, and gently places the shawl ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... the dark corner, where his mother and Oonah slept, and where the latter, through the blessed influence of health, youth, and an innocent heart, had brighter dreams than attended many a couch whose downy pillows and silken hangings would more than purchase the fee-simple of any cabin in Ireland. There Andy, in a state of utter exhaustion from his fears, his race, and his thrashing, soon fell asleep, and the terrors of Dick the Devil gave place to the blessing of ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... is my body leaves my love, not I; My body moves away, but not my mind; For back to her my struggling fancies fly Like silken banners ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... dressed in a silken evening gown provided by Madam, she made her way alone down to the wine rooms. The scene that met her eye was beautiful and fascinating. The apartment was large and brilliantly lighted; the furniture, appointments and pictures were of the finest, with rare bits ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... bill any sooner." And within myself I said—"Pay the price of your luxury, pay for your name, pay for your ease, pay for the monopoly which you enjoy! The rich have invented judges and courts of law to secure their goods, and the guillotine—that candle in which so many lie in silk, under silken coverlets, there is remorse, and grinding of teeth beneath a smile, and those fantastical lions' jaws are gaping to set their fangs in ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... him. He boldly returned the scowl. He could hear the increasing din of a talk-party coming from above. When he reached the top floor he found a door open on a big room crowded with shrilly chattering people in florid clothes. There was a hint of brassware and paintings and silken Turkish rugs. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... determined that nothing in the world would persuade her to don the resplendent pyjamas. Then a glance at her own soaked and now steaming clothing gave her courage; and giggling softly to herself she got into the silken garments, which by dint of much turning up of hems and shortening of sleeves were given some semblance of a fit. Next came the dressing-gown, an eminently masculine affair of brown camel's hair, with red collar and cuffs, and when she had tied the girdle ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... possibility escape; at the same time he informing her, in the most courteous tones, that the protection of his army and of her own people rendered it necessary that she should accompany him on his march. He held her in silken chains, treating her with the utmost delicacy and deference. The princess had sufficient shrewdness to affect compliance with this arrangement. It certainly accomplished the desired effect. All strife between the natives and the Spaniards ceased, ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... shunned than courted the society of other men. Even as he expressed the thought, his eye alighted on the window of the room that looked upon the terrace; and, to his surprise and annoyance, he beheld it curtained with a silken hanging. It was like his luck, he thought; his privacy was gone, he could no longer brood and sigh unwatched, he could no longer suffer his discouragement to find a vent in words or soothe himself with sentimental whistling; and in the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to threaten her with his finger, but looked at her with much pleasure. Because such a girl he never saw before. Upon her head she had a silken red net, and a yellow jacket upon her body and the breeches ample round her hips and tighter above them, of which one little leg was of the same color as the cap (net) upon her head, the other had longwise stripes, with a richly covered little sword at ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... spreading rivers over the crater plain, and then these coalescing everything was shut out save the two summits: that of Cameroon close to me, and that of Clarence away on Fernando Po. These two stood out alone, like great island masses made of iron rising from a formless, silken sea. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... for these silken-coated slaues I passe not, It is to you good people, that I speake, Ouer whom (in time to come) I hope to raigne: For I am ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Patrol won the beautiful banner they own in open competition with other rival organizations. From that day, now far in the past, Stanhope Troop has been known as the Banner Boy Scouts. Its possession has always served as an inspiration to Paul and his many staunch comrades. Every time they see its silken folds unfurled at the head of their growing marching line they feel like renewing the vows to which they so willingly subscribed ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... heavily. The count, stupefied and contrite, acknowledged his injustice, took off the toll that he had wrongfully put on, and, not content with this reparation, sent to the church of Tournus a rich carpet of golden and silken tissue. In the middle of the eleventh century, Adhemar II., viscount of Limoges, had in his city a quarrel of quite a different sort with the monks of the abbey of St. Martial. The abbey had fallen into great looseness of discipline and morals; and the viscount had ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... lad fell in with the idea at once and the two men started work on him with water and the powdery stuff they had taken for red sand. They stripped him of his silken garment and smeared him from head to foot, Carr taking especial care to see that his upper body and face were thoroughly covered. Then, after using his own clothing to swab off the coating, they stepped back to view the result. ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... administrative net of a not very flexible nature encloses all, and keeps each member of the body politic pretty closely to the post allotted to him; but the belief in a common humanity, drawn perhaps rather from the traditions of the early, than from the practice of the modern church, runs like a silken thread through the iron tissue. One feels a little softened and sublimated when one passes from Hong-Kong, where the devil is worshipped in his naked deformity, to this place where he displays at least some of the feathers which he wore before he fell. So you ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... active nature, it is true, but something that might embrace a broader swing. The soft atmosphere had turned the edge of his physical energy, but his mind was eager and grasping. His history was that dear fallacy, that silken toga which many of us have wrapped about ourselves—the belief that a good score at college means immediate success out in the world. And he had worked desperately to finish his education, had taken care of horses and waited upon ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... Stamboul, the Turkish quarter, in one of those long caicks which are as it were the hackney coaches of Constantinople. The least oscillation is sufficient to upset these light barks, which are impelled with inconceivable rapidity by two or three fine light-looking Arnaouts, dressed in silken shirts. In two minutes, having traversed the Golden Horn, passing through an immense crowd of boats of every form, and ships of every nation, we disembarked upon a landing-place even more dangerous than the caick, on account of its slipperiness and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... with a proud swinging walk, and a metallic clashing kept rhythm to her swift steps. Her arms were fettered, each wrist bound with a jeweled bracelet and the bracelets linked together by a long, silver-gilt chain passed through a silken loop at her waist. From the loop swung a tiny golden padlock, but in the lock stood an even tinier key, signifying that she was a higher caste than her husband or consort, that her fettering was by choice and ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... little house not a stone's throw from the Palace, and near to the Aqueduct of the Falling Fountain. Once she was beautiful and tall and straight as a bamboo stem, but now she is in body no more than a piece of silken thread. Yet her face is like the evening sky after a rain. She is much alone, and only in the early mornings may I see her. She is cared for by an old woman of our people, and there she bides, and thinks strange thoughts, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... fresh and delicately as an apple orchard breaking to bloom, and besides making it quite spring in the room, discovered in herself a new evidence of the competency of Mr. David Dassonville to advise the way of riches. She looked fragile and expensive as she sat in her silken shawl, her dark hair lifted up in a half moon from her brow, her hands lying in her lap half-covered with the lace of her sleeves, white and perfect like twin flowers. He saw rings flashing on the one she lifted to motion to the maid to ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... city, the uproar of guns and clash of conflict, the quiet progress of the sloop was incredibly peaceful and withdrawn. Elim felt as if they had been detached from the familiar material existence and had been set afloat in a stream of silken shadows. The wind was behind them, the boom had been let far but, the old steersman drowsed at his post, and the youth had fallen instantly asleep in a ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... tormented himself with these sharp thorns of doubt,—and of hopes painful as doubts,—little did he think what a brave, loving spirit was hid under the silken vesture of Amelie de Repentigny, and how hard was her struggle to conceal from his eyes those tender regards, which, with over-delicacy, she accounted censurable because they were ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... unforgettable night in Nienne, the beauty which had whispered in his ear and drawn him close, the hair which had fallen like a silken tent about his cheeks ... ah, that had been the summit of his life, he would go down into darkness with her name on his lips ... But hell! What ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... nobody in the monastery could read, nor could they at that time find any one who understood the writing or the idiom; it was exceedingly ancient, and the letters evidently were most beautifully formed; the inscriptions or titles were written in gold, and encircled with ornaments; bound in oak with silken bands, which still retained their strength and beauty; so perfectly was the volume preserved. But they could not conceive what the book was about; at last, after much search and diligent inquiry, they found a very feeble ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... saw the poet, agitated with the holy emotions of a father, now almost unmanned, now rallying, spraying the hushed air with sweetness. They saw clergymen and a bishop, and the splendor of stained glass through which ushers tiptoed. And they heard the subdued rustling of skirts and the silken stir, and the great organ breathing over Eden, and a single artistically-modulated sob from the poet. A good many other things they heard and saw, especially those of the two clans who were bidden to the breakfast at Wayne's big and splendid house on the southwest corner of Seventy-ninth ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... to work, the clever little smiths soon fashioned a slender silken rope, and gave it to the messenger, saying that no strength could break it, and that the more it was strained the stronger ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... Angelicanarinella pressed the dank and rotten straw, which had been thrown down by the scowling, thick-lipped Ethiop for her repose—she, for whom attendant maidens had smoothed the Sybaritic sheet of finest texture, under the elaborately carved and sumptuously gilt canopy, the silken curtains, and the tassels of the ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... garden from the dense thicket that skirted the southern portion of the plantation. She laughed a hard, mocking laugh that sounded unnatural from such childish lips, as she saw a white hand hurriedly loop back the silken curtains of her father's window, and saw him bend tenderly over the golden-haired figure in the arm-chair. Suddenly the sound of her own name ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... at the idea, I sat still and thought of my dream, and the rain beat against the windows, and a draughty wind fluttered the tinselly decorations of last night. The floor was strewed with fragments of garments torn in the crush—paper and silken flowers, here a rosette, there a buckle, a satin bow, a tinsel spangle. Benches and tables were piled about the room, which was half dark; only to westward, through one window, was visible a paler gleam, which might by ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... colour Far too common, my hair was cut and curl'd very badly. I at last was thinking of dressing myself like the shop-boys, Who are accustom'd on Sundays to show off their persons up yonder, And round whose coats in summer half-silken tatters are hanging. But ere long I discover'd they only intended to fool me This was very annoying, my pride was offended, but more still Felt I deeply wounded that they so mistook the good feelings Which I cherish'd towards them, especially Minnie, the youngest. Well, I went last ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... whom he invested with that character, was honorably received in his passage through Antioch and Constantinople: he reached Sirmium after a long journey, and, at his first audience, respectfully unfolded the silken veil which covered the haughty epistle of his sovereign. Sapor, King of Kings, and Brother of the Sun and Moon, (such were the lofty titles affected by Oriental vanity,) expressed his satisfaction that his brother, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... within its impalpable folds, the breeze gathered strength and weight by imperceptible degrees, until the scarcely audible tinkle under the bows merged into the sound of a knife shearing through a tautly stretched silken web, with a musical fountain-like plashing at the cutwater and a crisp, gushing curl of the glassy wave under the lee bow as it broke and hurried past into our wake in a lacework of creamy swirling froth, gemmed with countless glittering foam-bubbles; while the log told ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... side door opening upon the driveway, and entered without waiting for admission. The room she stepped into was unlighted, except from the hall beyond, but crossing both she came into a delightful little apartment, softly illumined with lamps which shed a rosy light through their silken shades. A couple of logs burned on the brass andirons of the fireplace with an aromatic odor that suggested deep ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... saw there was nothing satisfactory to be learnt in this quarter. After breakfast he was walking with the Marquis through the modern apartments of the chateau; sliding over the well-waxed floors of silken saloons, amidst furniture rich in gilding and brocade; until they came to a long picture gallery, containing many portraits, some in oil and some ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... granite, chiselled by the hands of a great sculptor who at the same time was a great lover of equine perfection, swung about upon its captor, its eyes blazing, just a little quiver of the clean-cut nostrils showing the red satin of the skin lining them. The mane was like a tumbled silken skein, the ears dainty and small and keen pointed, the chest splendidly deep and strong; the forelegs small, so slender that to a man who did not know a horse they would have seemed fragile but only because they were all bone and ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... standing by the table folding up the silken cloak. ANNET sits watching her, on her knees lies a open parcel disclosing a woollen shawl. In a far corner of the room MAY is seated on a ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... quietly, "goes with gay trappings, and silken scarves, and feathered hats. Here, Samson, give this prisoner a decent headpiece ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... her spells shall not prevent. Hark! I can hear the drums! And ladies fair from silken tent Peep forth, and every eye is bent On the cavalcade ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo |
