"Varnish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to climb a steep hill, thickly covered with a very pricklesome heather, and black slimy bogs, wherein the varnish of my patent-leather shoes did soon become totally dimmed. So, being gravely incommoded by the shortness of my wind, I entrusted my musket to an under-keeper, begging him to inform me of the early approach ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... sometimes required to give to ground glass surfaces a temporary transparency. This is to be done by using a film of oil of the same refractive index as the glass. Cornu has employed a varnish consisting of a mixture of turpentine and oil of cloves, but the yellow-brown colour of the latter is often a disadvantage. It will be found that a mixture of nut oil and oil of bitter almonds, or of bromo-napthalene and acetone, can be made of only ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... unpleasant. They would be horrid to meet and horrid to think of. We fear it must be owned that Enoch Arden is this kind of person. A dirty sailor who did not go home to his wife is not an agreeable being: a varnish must be put on him to make him shine. It is true that he acts rightly; that he is very good. But such is human nature that it finds a little tameness in mere morality. Mere virtue belongs to a charity school-girl, and has ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... For Sikhs to attempt what they carried through, even under such splendid leadership as Ranjoor Singh's, was to defy the very nth degree of odds. To have tried to tell the tale otherwise than in Hira Singh's own words would have been to varnish gold. Amid the echoes of the roar of the guns in Flanders, the world is inclined to overlook India's share in it all and the stout proud loyalty of Indian hearts. May this tribute to the gallant Indian gentlemen who came to fight our battles serve to remind its readers that they who give ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... the white paint, the crimson plush, the brown varnish of mahogany tops. The white wood packing-case under the bed-place had remained unopened for three years now, as though Captain Whalley had felt that, after the Fair Maid was gone, there could be no abiding-place on earth for his affections. His hands rested ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... philosophical. The light ticking of a French clock on the mantel, supported by a young shepherdess of bronze complexion and great symmetry of limb, was the only sound that disturbed the Christmas-like peace of the apartment,—a peace which held the odors of evergreens, new toys, cedar-boxes, glue, and varnish in an harmonious combination ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the people and the rivers. The casual visitor would always envy him who lived in the Norwegian cottage fragrant with its deal boards into which he loved to stick his flies when they had to be dried, or retouched with varnish or whipping, and where somewhere outside he could keep his rods in security and order when they were put together say in June, and kept ready till they were packed up for the voyage home when the season ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... or fiery-coloured tinsel, whilst the glass itself, at the back, is painted very thinly with a paint composed of well washed and dried fish-scales, reduced to an impalpable powder, mixed with a little pure, refined mastic, or other colourless varnish. This gives a good imitation of phosphorescence, as well as a slight pearliness, whilst the tinsel, seen through the paint and the curious milkiness of the ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... you away, my boy. I was a model of discretion. I give you my word that it is all right. And she's a dear little soul, Frankie. You're not worthy to varnish those pretty patent leathers of hers. You know you're not. And by Jove, Frankie, if you had stayed with me yesterday I should never have forgiven you—no, never! I'll resign in her favour. I will. But in no one else's, and if ever I hear of your going wrong, my boy, ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... flanges, couplings, carburetors, lamps, lanterns, fog horns, pumps, check valves, steering wheels, galley stoves, fire buckets, hand grenades, handspikes, shaftings, lubricants, wire coils, rope, sea chests, life preservers, spar varnish, copper paint, pulleys, ensigns, twine, clasp knives, boat hooks, chronometers, ship clocks, rubber boots, fur caps, splicing compounds, friction tape, cement, wrenches, hinges, screws, oakum, oars, anchors—it was no wonder that ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... work; the chief aim of which will be to shew this extraordinary people in their proper colours, not as their own moral maxims would represent them, but as they really are—to divest the court of the tinsel and the tawdry varnish with which, like the palaces of the Emperor, the missionaries have found it expedient to cover it in their writings; and to endeavour to draw such a sketch of the manners, the state of society, the language, literature and fine arts, the ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... sticking out, and Oswald went ahead to show him where to put it. Close by the door, inside his room, was the lovely, yawning new trunk. Oswald must of been afraid one of the table legs would spear it and mar its fair varnish. He raised one hand to halt the table, then closed the trunk tenderly, snapped the lock, and moved it over into the corner, beyond ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... the linen awnings, stretched under the glazed roof, there filtered a bright white light, while the open doorways, communicating with the garden gallery, admitted moist gusts of quivering freshness. For a moment Claude drew breath in that atmosphere which was already tainted with a vague smell of varnish and the odour of the musk with which the women present perfumed themselves. At a glance he took stock of the pictures on the walls: a huge massacre scene in front of him, streaming with carmine; a colossal, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... compared with those existing between the others. By daylight they were wont to walk together, and to sit together. At night, they would desist together, and rest together. Really it was a case of harmony in language and concord in ideas, of the consistency of varnish or of glue, (a close friendship), when at this unexpected juncture there came this girl, Hseh Pao-ch'ai, who, though not very much older in years (than the others), was, nevertheless, in manner so correct, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Their glorifying God cannot have been very deep-seated, or they would have better learned the lesson of the miracle. Amazement was but a poor result. No emotion is more transient or less fruitful than gaping astonishment; and that, with a little varnish of acknowledgment of God's power, which led to nothing, was all the fruit of Christ's mighty work. Let us hope that the healed man carried his unseen blessing in a faithful and grateful heart, and consecrated his restored strength to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... evidences of his eternal activities, and indeed of other people's! They were divided into three classes,—those contracted in the society of Joanna when she took him out-of-doors: such as sand, water, mud, grass stains, paint, lime, putty, or varnish; those derived from visits to his sisters at their occupations: such as ink, paints, lead pencils, paste, glue, and mucilage; those amassed in his stays with Ellen in the kitchen: sugar, molasses, spice, pudding sauce, black currants, raisins, dough, ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... admitting the truth of what indeed there was no gainsaying, we contended that the indestructibility of the glaze, tested as it had been with aquafortis by Rossi himself, proved the genuineness of its antiquity—it proved nothing but that we had something still to learn! The nola varnish was light as a soap-bubble, but this on the Ryton was thick and substantial. How he wished we had been to stay another week to have taught us the difference! and how we wished him gone, lest he should make some new revelations of a kindred ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... The general built a comfortable house of a single story, with one sitting room, but many chambers; its materials were of the most durable kind of cypress; but it received no coat either of paint or varnish. Here his friends were received with a hearty welcome and good cheer, and the stranger with kind hospitality. His planting interest was judiciously managed, and his property increased yearly. In the summer months he made excursions, into the upper country almost every year, for ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... of the former, and their exposure to the open air, break up the coating of oil and dirt with which they are enveloped, and render it more pervious to the matter of perspiration, than the thinner, but not less tenacious varnish which covers the surface of the sedentary. On the whole, therefore, I regard bathing and thorough cleansing of the skin, as of nearly equal importance in all the varied circumstances of age, ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... not at all pleasant. The house had been new painted, and smelt of varnish and turpentine, and a large streak of white paint inflicted itself on the back of the old boy's fur-collared surtout. The dinner was not good: and the three most odious men in all London— old Hawkshaw, whose cough and accompaniments are fit to make any man uncomfortable; old ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Soldani of Siena, was shewn about fifteen others: the surfaces of which were glazed black, like a sort of varnish;—resisted acids;—and were too hard to be scratched with the point of ...
— Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times • Edward King
... heavens since I began to observe and study their habits. Not a star has waxed, not a star has waned to my knowledge. Not a planet has season-cracked or shown any of the injurious effects of our rigorous climate. Not a star has ripened prematurely or fallen off the trees. The varnish on the very oldest stars I find on close and critical examination to be in splendid condition. They will all no doubt wear as long as we need them, and wink on long after we ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Varnish-tree, Koelreuteria paniculata. A medium-sized tree of good character, producing a profusion of golden-yellow flowers in July; should ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... immediately to the house of Mr. Supple, and knocked at the door, which had a wicket in the middle, faced with a net-work of iron. Through this a servant having viewed me for some time, demanded to know my business. I told him my business was with Mr. Supple, and that I came from Mr. O'Varnish. He examined my appearance once more, then went away, returned in a few minutes, and said his master was busy, and could not be seen. Although I was a little mortified at my disappointment, I was ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... of painting in oil, for which the Van Eycks are commonly known, was not literally that of mixing colours with oil, which was occasionally done before their day. It was the combining oil with resin, so as to produce at once a good varnish, and avoid the necessity of drying pictures in the sun, a bright thought, which may stand in the same rank with the construction, by James Watt, of that valve which rendered practicable the application of steam to machinery. The thought, occasioned by the cracking of a picture in tempera ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... readily made the catastrophe of Sir Condy's history more dramatic and more pathetic, if he thought it allowable to varnish the plain round tale of faithful Thady. He lays it before the English reader as a specimen of manners and characters, which are, perhaps, unknown in England. Indeed, the domestic habits of no nation in Europe were less known to the English ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... an arresting ornamentation of blobs and bulbs upon the joints and legs. Apparently the piece had then been placed in the hands of some person of infinite leisure equipped with a pot of ocherous paint, varnish, and a set of flexible combs. This person had first painted the article, then, I fancy, smeared it with varnish, and then sat down to work with the combs to streak and comb the varnish into a weird imitation of the grain of some nightmare timber. The washhandstand ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... powerful style and the original turn given by them to ideas.' Here, for the benefit of the philistine, insert a panegyric on Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, and Buffon. Hold forth upon the inexorable French language; show how it spreads a varnish, as it were, over thought. Let fall a few aphorisms, such as—'A great writer in France is invariably a great man; he writes in a language which compels him to think; it is otherwise in other countries'—and so on, and so on. Then, to prove your case, draw a comparison between ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... cities, exercise-grounds, and an infinity of other such things," and that he was an inveterate experimentalist in technical matters. His favourite method in wall-painting was to lay in his compositions in fresco and finish them a secco with a mixture of yolk of egg and liquid varnish. This, says Vasari, was with the view of protecting the painting from damp; but in course of time the parts executed with this vehicle scaled away, so that the great secret he hoped to have discovered turned out a failure. In 1463 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... pad just the right size to go under it. You must always put a pad or something of the kind under everything you use on the table; under the doilies, you know, we put squares of felt, and under the big dinner-cloth a large piece of double Canton flannel; if we did not, the varnish on the table-top would be spoiled in no time. Now let us get ...
— A Little Housekeeping Book for a Little Girl - Margaret's Saturday Mornings • Caroline French Benton
... Ellen Robinson, putting a hard, investigating finger on the foot-board. "Well, it does seem sort of smooth. But I never thought my cane-seat chairs were much. Guess I'll have to get 'em out and varnish 'em. What's ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... season is, legislatively, "open." Jonathan is "busy." I am "busy." We know that, if April passes, there is still May and June, and so, if at the end of April, or early May, we do at last pick up our rods,—all new-bedight with red silk windings, and shiny with fresh varnish,—it is not alone the call of the trout that decides us, but another call which is to me at least more imperious, because, if we neglect it now, there is no May and June in which to heed it. It is the ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... rises like a sea beach, and on the pebbles men are patching and pitching old barges which have been hauled up on the bank. A skiff partly drawn up on the beach rocks as the current strives to work it loose, and up the varnish of the side glides a flickering light reflected from the wavelets. A fleet of such skiffs are waiting for hire by the bridge; the waterman cleaning them with a parti-coloured mop spies me eyeing his vessels, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... were still, and the Dunottar Castle lay at anchor a mile or two from the African coast and off the town of Attra. The heat, which in motion had been hard enough to bear, was positively stifling now. The sun burned down upon the glassy sea and the white deck till the varnish on the rails cracked and blistered, and the sweat streamed like water from the faces of the labouring seamen. Below at the ship's side half a dozen surf boats were waiting, manned by Kru boys, who alone seemed perfectly comfortable, and cheerful as usual. All around ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... skin varnish," he remarked under his breath, "waterproof and so adhesive that it resists pulling off even with a knife without taking ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... or two with Judy," she answered, and when the words were spoken in the doorway she laid her hand in the rector's and mounted, with his scrupulous assistance, over the red wheel to the shining black seat of the gig, which smelt of leather and varnish. After he had taken his place beside her he tucked in the laprobe carefully at the corners, rearranged the position of his overcoat at her back, and suggested that she should put the bottle of cough syrup in the ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... could be achieved by Beans alone, unaided by any Bunker, was here concentrated; a melodeon that groaned to his touch, with the startling effect of a voice from a long-closed tomb; a centre-table, luminous with varnish; gilded chairs in formal array; portraits in gilded frames; and best of all, a "whatnot," a thing to fit a corner, having many shelves and each shelf loaded with fascinating objects that maddened one because they must not be touched. Varnished pine-cones, flint arrow-heads, statuettes set on worsted ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... showed Mrs. Carriswood that he meant to keep an eye on his twenty odd thousand dollars, he strolled at her side. To Miss Van Harlem he scarcely said three words. In fact, he said exactly three words, uttered as Miss Margaret's silken skirts swung too near a pot of varnish. They were "Look out, miss!" and at the same second, Tommy (who was in advance, with really no call to know of the danger), turned on his heel and whisked the skirts away, turning back to pick up the ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... and name: In one short view subjected to our eye Gods, emperors, heroes, sages, beauties, lie. With sharpened sight pale antiquaries pore, The inscription value, but the rust adore. This the blue varnish, that the green endears, The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years! To gain Pescennius one employs his schemes, One grasps a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams. Poor Vadius, long with learned spleen devoured, Can taste no pleasure since his shield was scoured; And Curio, restless by the fair ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... "You mustn't be surprised at what I am. You may think it's dreadful... even wicked. But at least don't expect anything like you've ever known before. Fifteen years with only cocoa-palms and naked savages... the Boston varnish rubs off one. But I'm going to try to behave. I expect to feel quite at home... I have pictures of all of you, and a picture of the house... I even have father's keys, to let ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair
... should prefer to be buried in a white pine coffin; but that might be painful to my family; and I should not like to afflict them in any way. It may, therefore, be of dark wood; but be sure to have it entirely plain, without varnish or inscription. Have it made by some poor neighbor, and pay him the usual price of a handsome one; for I merely wish to leave a testimony against vain show on such occasions." He appeared to be rather indifferent where he was buried; but ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... her man's dress, had much to fear. Brutality, furious hatred, vengeance, might severally incite the cowards to degrade her before she perished, to sully what they were about to burn. Besides, they might be tempted to varnish their infamy by a "reason of state," according to the notions of the day—by depriving her of her virginity they would undoubtedly destroy that secret power of which the English entertained such great dread, who perhaps might recover ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... April. The night was dark; there was not a star to be seen; and a drizzling rain, falling at intervals, made me very uncomfortable. But my chief anxiety was concerning the balloon, which, in spite of the varnish with which it was defended, began to grow rather heavy with the moisture. I therefore set my assistants to working, and in about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently inflated. I attached the car and put all my implements ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... twine no wreath for me, Or twine it of the cypress-tree! Too lively glow the lilies' light, The varnish'd holly 's all too bright, The mayflower and the eglantine May shade a brow less sad than mine; But, lady, weave no wreath for me, Or ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Flint's chauffeur opened the door of the big limousine, in front of the huge Renaissance pile that Waldron's millions had raised on land which had cost him more than as though he had covered it with double eagles; and Flint himself ascended the steps of Pentelican marble. The limousine, its varnish and silver-plate flashing in the bright spring sun, stood by the curb, purring softly to itself with all six cylinders, a thing of matchless beauty and rare cost. The chauffeur, on the driver's seat, did not even bother to shut off the gas, but let ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... taste of any one who will turn up his nose at castor-oil or quinine and yet meekly swallow a chrysalis with varnish on ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... maple trees empty, and the air filled with hoarse plaints, the rumbling speech of the railroad. She was homesick and fearful, as they mounted the steps to the new house and pushed open the shining oak door that stuck and smelled of varnish. The next morning Lane whisked off on a trolley to the A. and P. offices, while Isabelle walked around the house, which faced the main northern artery of Torso. From the western veranda she could see the roof of the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... or any single affection (as the Schooles rather confined then defined zeale) neither yet any mixt affection (as the later, rather compounded then comprehended the nature of it) but an hot temper, higher degree or intension of them all. As varnish is no one color, but that which gives glosse & lustre to all; So the opposites of zeale, key-coldnes and lukewarmnesse, which by the Law of contraries must bee of the same nature, are no affections, but ...
— A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale - In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich • Samuel Ward
... and white-washing and a lining with matchboard had completely transformed the three floors of the mill, a liberal allowance of a dark stain and varnish giving the finishing touches, so that in what had been a remarkably short space of time the ramshackle old mill had become a very respectable-looking observatory, only waiting for the scientific apparatus, which had to ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... wire. Both of these materials possess the disadvantage of being hygroscopic, that is, of readily absorbing moisture. This disadvantage is overcome in many cases by saturating the coil after it is wound in some melted insulating compound, such as wax or varnish or asphaltum, which will solidify on cooling. Where the coils are to be so saturated the best practice is to place them in a vacuum chamber and exhaust the air, after which the hot insulating compound is admitted and is thus drawn into the innermost ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... if subdued, sparkle, an added touch of the best gloss or varnish characterized this vehicle, and seemed to distinguish it from all the others, as though by some happy extravagance—like that which marks out the real 'work of art' from the ordinary 'picture'—it were designated as the typical car, the very ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... your father has sent up a man to varnish the parlor floor, and we have to get the chairs and things out of his ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... and pawned the hat off his head—it was a new one; then for a halfpenny he bought a sheet of brown paper and twisted it into a workman's cap; he bought the brushes and a little paint and a little varnish, and then he was without a penny again. He went to a wheelwright's and begged the loan of a small valueless worm-eaten board he saw kicking about, telling him what it was for. The wealthy wheelwright eyed him with scorn. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... examining began upon the brass work on the right-hand side of the keyhole, and extended for about four inches, where it had scratched the varnish ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Commentaries) his language strongly reminds us. We observe that the very simplicity which Quintilian sought in vain from a lifelong rhetorical training is present unsought in Frontinus; a clear proof that it is the occupation of life and the nature of the man, not the varnish of artistic culture, however elaborately laid on, that determines the main characteristics of ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... that unpainted wood is not only "natural" but strictly genuine and more interesting than paint, Jack replied that "natural" things are not always beautiful; that paint, which makes no pretense of being anything but paint, is as genuine as shellac or varnish, and that if the object is to be interesting, the bark, the knots, the worm-holes, and, if possible, the worms themselves should be displayed. "Besides," said he, "if we decide on hard wood, who shall choose ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... but you may manage with any other or even a stiff feather. When the glaze softens, as glue would do, brush over your meat with it, it will give the lacking brown; or, if you have a ham or tongue you wish to decorate you may "varnish" it, as it were, with the melted glaze; then when cold beat some fresh butter to a white cream, and with a kitchen syringe, if you have one, a stiff paper funnel if you have not, trace any design you please on the glazed surface; this makes a very ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... becomes necessary to deceive 'em, same as we use to do when I was an apprentice in London, when master would put a body in a pine coffin, all flourished off with paint and varnish, and ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... live here?" whispered Sarah, when they had been led through spotless corridors, glistening with varnish and covered with bright linoleum, into orderly rooms stiffly furnished and showing no signs of use and out again on to the porch tiled in red and ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... Spaniards, gicaras, made of a species of gourd, or rather a fruit resembling it, and growing on a low tree, which fruit they cut in two, each one furnishing two dishes; the inside is scooped out, and a durable varnish given it by means of a mineral earth, of different bright colours, generally red. On the outside they paint flowers, and some of them are also gilded. They are extremely pretty, very durable and ingenious. The beautiful ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... perplexed silence, while Mr. Skale crossed the room and took a violin from its case. The golden varnish of its ribs and back gleamed in the lamplight, and when the clergyman drew the bow across the strings to tune it, smooth, mellow sounds, soft and resonant as bells, filled the room. Evidently he knew how to handle the instrument. ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... into doors, frames, windows, and shutters, without paint or varnish, and wooden houses, unmounted, without paint ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... Lake's cold, commercial genius, his craft and egotism, were frustrated occasionally by his temper, which, I am afraid, with all its external varnish, was of the sort which is styled diabolical. People said also, what is true of most terrorists, that he was himself quite capable of being frightened; and also, that he lied with too fertile an audacity: and, like a man with too many bills afloat, forgot his endorsements occasionally, and did not ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... meaning Craven realized that she would not have much pity for Lady Sellingworth in misfortune. But Lady Sellingworth was cruel, too, had been cruel to him. And he saw humanity without tenderness, teeth and claws at work, barbarity coming to its own through the varnish. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... than yourself; at that time I did not understand my nature; it was revealed to me in the antechamber! I became a man! I came out matured; but you were no longer in the warm lands; as a man I was ashamed to go as I did. I was in want of boots, of clothes, of the whole human varnish that makes a man perceptible. I took my way—I tell it to you, but you will not put it in any book—I took my way to the cake woman—I hid myself behind her; the woman didn't think how much she concealed. I went out first in the evening; ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... cramped and chilly, he went stiffly indoors, through the hot, bright halls, that smelled of varnish and matting, to ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... First Lieutenant were rummaging through the drawers of the knee-hole table in search of an ancient recipe of the former's for manufacturing varnish of a peculiar excellence wherewith to beautify ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... save money on your easel, don't save on the construction and strength of it, but on the finish. Let the polish and varnish go, but get a well-made easel with solid wood. The heavier it is, the less easily it packs away, to be sure, but the more steadily it ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... drugs from Arabia or India. Even for the incense which burned upon the innumerable altars of Roman Catholic Europe, merchants had to seek the materials in the Levant. For many of the more refined handicrafts, artists had to seek their best material from Eastern traders: such as shellac for varnish, or mastic for artists' colours (gamboge from Cambodia, ultramarine from lapis lazuli); while it was often necessary, under mediaeval circumstances, to have resort to the musk or opopanax of the East to counteract the odours resulting from the bad sanitary habits ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... their own way, they are content to give and take; and, these terms once accepted, it is a point of honor and tact with them not to let a creature see the irksome part of the bargain is not as delicious as the other. One coat of their own varnish goes over the smooth and the rough, the bitter ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... more desprit variety he hed picked up in Washinton and Baltimore, I felt that it wuz indeed well with us. He wuz talkin ez a Dimokrat to Dimokrats; and it wuz appreciated. Strippin off all uv the disguise he hed bin a wearin for four years,—washin off, in rage and whisky, the varnish and putty with wich he hed shined up his dullness, and filled up the cracks and cavities wich hed alluz troubled him,—he stood forth ez we knowd him—Androo Johnson! How he did froth and foam! How he did lash his late associates! and how those Dimokrats ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... of public amusements are most attractive. She believed that if she could familiarize his mind with the real gold and clear diamond flash of pure home pleasures, and those which are enjoyed in good society, he would eventually become disgusted with gilt, varnish, and paste. If Laura had been a very plain girl, she might have seconded Mrs. Arnot's efforts to the utmost without any unpleasant results, even if no good ones had followed; and it may well be doubted whether any of the latter would have ensued. Haldane's disease was too ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... the pilgrims found themselves in the Ssu Ha Li Country, where everything was red—red walls, red tiles, red varnish on doors and furniture. Sixty li from this place was the Flaming Mountain, which lay ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... and not of words, looked at him and said nothing. He was perhaps noticing that the dishonest boy had grown into a dishonest man. Monastic religion is like a varnish, it only serves to bring out the true colour, and is powerless to alter it by more than a shade. Those who have lived in religious communities know that human nature is the same there as in the world—that a man who is not straightforward may grow in ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... construction of buildings. They will provide themselves also with a certain amount of propolis, a kind of resin with which they will seal all the crevices in the new dwelling, strengthen weak places, varnish the walls, and exclude the light; for the bees love to work in almost total obscurity, guiding themselves with their many-faceted eyes, or with their antennae perhaps, the seat, it would seem, of an unknown sense that fathoms ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the destructive ravages of the white ant, but its hardness and acrid sap, which blisters the hands of those employed about it, are objections to its general use. I am not aware of the natives procuring a varnish from this tree. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... "Symonne de Byrtonne," and, in still others, the whole of the short-verse pieces, "Songe to Aella" and "The Accounte of W. Canynge's Feast." These scraps of vellum are described as about six inches square, smeared with glue or brown varnish, or stained with ochre, to give them an appearance of age. Thomas Warton had seen one of them, and pronounced it a clumsy forgery; the script not of the fifteenth century, but unmistakably modern. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Gustavus Adolphus attempted, without success, to form a regiment of Laplanders. Grotius says of these arctic tribes, arma arcus et pharetra, sed adversus feras, (Annal. l. iv. p. 236;) and attempts, after the manner of Tacitus, to varnish with ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... wilderness on the 23rd. They passed the ruins of two small towns, burnt by the Foulahs, and the fire had been so intense as to vitrify the walls of several huts, which at a distance appeared as if coloured with red varnish. The coffle crossed the river Wonda, where fish were seen in great abundance. Karfa now placed the guides and young men in the front, the women and slaves in the centre, and the free men in the rear, and in this order they proceeded through a woody beautiful country, abounding with partridges, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... shield, such as the natives use on the Belyando, carefully put away upon a sort of scaffold of bark, and covered with bark. The shield was made of very light wood, the face being rounded, and having been covered with a dark varnish like japan; for which the surface had been made rough by crossed lines, resembling those made on the first coat of plaster. It was evident, from the marks on this shield, that the clubs were frequently used as missiles.[*] Each man of the tribe ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... carpetless corridor, which brought us to the foot of the grand staircase: and a magnificent staircase it was, ornate with twisted balusters and hung with fine pictures, mostly by old Dutch masters. But no carpet covered the broad steps, and the pictures were perishing in their frames for lack of varnish. I had halted to stare up at a big Hondecoeter that hung in the sunlight over the first short flight of stairs—an elaborate "Parliament of Fowls"—when the girl turned the handle of a door to my ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... diameters are to be measured, are laid off accurately on the upper edge, and then marked in lines perpendicular to it on the sides and lower edges of the profile. An iron strip is attached to the upper edge to prevent warping, and the whole is well coated with shellac varnish, to keep it from ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... less highly finished, who yet spoke "right on," in a strong, forcible, and really eloquent way, giving the grain of the wood without the varnish. They contended very seriously and sensibly, that although the working men of England and Scotland had many things to complain of, and many things to be reformed, yet their condition was world-wide different from ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... notwithstanding her avowal of a few minutes before, Daisy only grimaced in return. He was generally regarded as somewhat formidable, this gruff, square-shouldered doctor, with his iron-grey hair and black moustache, and keenly critical eyes. There was no varnish in his curt speech, no dissimulation in any of his dealings. It was said of him that he never sugared his pills. But his popularity was wide-spread nevertheless. His help was sought in a thousand ways outside his profession. To see his strong face melt into a smile was ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... OCCIDENTALE.—The cashew nut tree, cultivated in the West Indies and other tropical countries. The stem furnishes a milky juice, which becomes hard and black when dry, and is used as a varnish. It also secretes a gum, like gum arabic. The nut or fruit contains a black, acrid, caustic oil, injurious to the lips and tongue of those who attempt to crack the nut with their teeth; it becomes innocuous and wholesome when roasted, but this process must be carefully conducted, ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... in again; "there is a coat of St. Petersburg varnish upon it; no amount of washing will make it come clean. You may whisper as much as you like, Mr. Paklin, but you won't get anything out ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... one?" She laid her hand on a closed door, drawing the while nearer and nearer to the fire. "What a perfectly beautiful oak chest! That's genuine! One can see it at a glance. The lovely elbow-grease polish can never be imitated. So different from the faked-up, over-carved things glittering with varnish that one sees so often nowadays. What a shame to keep it hidden away ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... There was his name cut on the beam, John Carville. It may seem absurd to you people, but do you know, I realized then, as I looked up and saw my father's name on that beam, nearly smothered with countless coats of varnish, I realized how a young man of family feels, a Cecil, say, a Talbot or a Churchill, when he sees his ancestors' names in the history books. My father had done something, he was something. I don't know anyone who can better that title: a builder ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... a sort of Black Varnish, the making of which is still a secret in the hands of the manufacturers, so far as ...
— The Author's Printing and Publishing Assistant • Frederick Saunders
... prescription counter. That pill-wrangler couldn't tell the difference between an auger-hole riffle-board and a porous plaster if there wasn't a label on the box. Jeeminnetticus!' says Hadds, 'when he mixes coffin varnish for a man you'd think he was scramblin' eggs. Come on, Washy,' he says, 'while you got the price. ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... Fleet, with a thin haze of smoke hovering above their raking funnels. Beyond them, line upon line, in a kind of sullen majesty, lay the Battleships. Seen thus in peace-time, a thousand glistening points of burnished metal, the white of the awnings, smooth surfaces of enamel, varnish and gold-leaf would have caught the liquid sunlight and concealed the menace of ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... than a Launcelot or a Hotspur,—is as evidently the mainspring of Henry's enterprise and life as of the contract between King Philip and King John. The supple and shameless egotism of the churchmen on whose political sophistries he relies for external support is needed rather to varnish his project than to reassure his conscience. Like Frederic the Great before his first Silesian war, the future conqueror of Agincourt has practically made up his mind before he seeks to find as good reason or as plausible excuse as were likewise to suffice the ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... coat of philanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes, why should I not say to him, 'Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper; be good-natured and modest; have that grace; and never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is spite at home.' Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it,—else ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... neutral tint suited her well. As she stood by the window, listening gravely to them, the homely face and waiting figure came into full relief. Nature had made the woman in a freak of rare sincerity. There were no reflected lights about her; no gloss on her skin, no glitter in her eyes, no varnish on her soul. Simple and dark and pure, there she was, for God and her master to conquer and understand. Her flesh was cold and colourless,—there were no surface tints on it,—it warmed sometimes slowly from far within; her voice, quiet,—out of her heart; her hair, the only beauty ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... made of sycamore wood of proper shape. Upon this draw the design with a pencil, trace over the pencil-marks with Indian ink and a fine crow-quill; then fill in the ground with Indian ink and a camel's-hair brush. After two or three days, varnish with ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown
... course, a means of creating variations in the printed intensity of etched lines. After a plate has etched for a certain time—depending on the artist's inclination—it may be removed from the acid and some of its lines covered with a stop-out varnish, similar in texture and acid resistance to the basic ground. The plate is then put back in the acid and the remaining lines etched more deeply. This can be repeated any number of times, giving a wide range of intensity to the ...
— Rembrandt's Etching Technique: An Example • Peter Morse
... magic, betray an almost torpidity or vacancy of expression! The attitude is equally unnatural and ungraceful. Another defect, to my eye, in Gerard's portraits, is, the quantity of flaunting colour and glare of varnish with ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... as a suggestion to PHOTO, that if he wishes to use collodion pictures for the purpose of dissolving views, he should first copy them in the camera as transparent objects so as to reverse the light and shade, then varnish them with DR. DIAMOND'S solution of amber in chloroform, when they will bear the application of transparent colours ground in varnish, such as are used for painting ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... appear in the paint on wooden articles, this usually indicates that the varnish has cracked. If this is the case, the article can easily be prepared for a fresh coat by sponging it over with strong ammonia water, and two or three minutes later scraping off the varnish with the broad end of a spatula before the ammonia ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... marauding progenitors, men whose sum of delights lay in working the violent death of some creature—wild beast or human, it mattered little which—warmed in the veins of the young man now, at the prospect of slaughter. The varnish of civilization melted from his surface; one saw in him only the historic fierce, blood-letting islander, true son of the men who for thirty years murdered one another by tens of thousands all over England, nominally for a York or a Lancaster, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... Suffolk; thirdly, to Lady Anne Powlet, daughter of John, fourth Marquis of Winchester. The lady here mentioned was the second or third wife; probably the latter.] and other great ladies,) eating of bread and butter, and drinking ale. I to my coach, which is silvered over, but no varnish yet laid on, so I put it in a way of doing; and my self about other business, and particularly to see Sir W. Coventry, with whom I talked a good while to my great content: and so to other places, among others, to my tailor's; and then to the belt-maker's, ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... Milan in 312, the churches were crowded with converts and inquirers of all sorts. A church which claims to be universal cannot pick and choose like a petty sect, but must receive all comers. Now these were mostly heathens with the thinnest possible varnish of Christianity, and Arianism enabled them to use the language of Christians without giving up their heathen ways of thinking. In other words, the world was ready to accept the gospel as a sublime monotheism, and the Lord's ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... not to drop one single word that can directly or indirectly be construed as fishing for applause. Be your character what it will, it will be known; and nobody will take it upon your own word. Never imagine that anything you can say yourself will varnish your defects, or add lustre to your perfections! but, on the contrary, it may, and nine times in ten, will, make the former more glaring and the latter obscure. If you are silent upon your own subject, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... walls were faded and dingy; what though the great beams in the dining-room were dirty and the carpets in the halls bedraggled, and the onyx gapping in great cracks upon the warped walls of the office; what though the paint had faded and the varnish cracked all over the house! To Margaret Mueller and also to the eldest Miss Morton, who only managed to breathe below her locket when they were under the stars, it was a dream of marble halls, and the frowsy Freddie Kollander and ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... I could trust. I cannot tell how soon they may find reason to change their minds on the subject. Their satisfaction may only be that they have not tried to rub the varnish off the gilding so much as I, and therefore the gilding itself still shines ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... infinite variety of lumber. There were views, like and unlike, of a multitude of places; and there was one little picture-room devoted to a few of the regular sticky old Saints, with sinews like whipcord, hair like Neptune's, wrinkles like tattooing, and such coats of varnish that every holy personage served for a fly-trap, and became what is now called in the vulgar tongue a Catch-em-alive O. Of these pictorial acquisitions Mr Meagles spoke in the usual manner. He was no judge, he said, except of what pleased himself; he had picked them up, dirt-cheap, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... missionaries to the fact that they alone, of all the natives of the New World, possessed a literature written in "letters and characters," preserved in volumes neatly bound, the paper manufactured from the bark of a tree and sized with a durable white varnish.[5-] ...
— The Books of Chilan Balam, the Prophetic and Historic Records of the Mayas of Yucatan • Daniel G. Brinton
... the time-honored answers Mother Church keeps for her uneasy children,—and seemed to be busy with the "Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes," and the "Dispute sur les Ceremonies Chinoises." It was not yet the time for them to announce pompously their radical theories as new and true. A thin varnish of decorum and orthodoxy overspread everything; but one may see the shadow of the coming Regence in Regnard's works. He and gentlemen like him went to mass in the morning, and to pleasure for the rest of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... the atmosphere—no contrivances of ventilation to cleanse away the stench of bad tobacco-smoke and brandy-flavored human breath with which the room reeked all night long. Here, in short, was vice wholly undisguised; recklessly showing itself to every eye, without the varnish of beauty, without the tinsel of wit, without even so much as the flavor of cleanliness to recommend it. Were all beholders instinctively overcome by horror at the sight? Far from it. The Snuggery was crammed to its last benches every night; ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... Brodie out of his chair and lit on his eye. We dug him out of the sand and put him back where he belonged, and he immediately departed into another dreamless but jumpy slumber. At this juncture somebody sold Dick six tickets at a dollar per for a ball that had been given over a month ago by the Varnish Makers' Union, K. of L., No. 229. Upon learning that he had been bunked, Dick became very dignified, and said he would remember the fellow perfectly, and that the day would come when they would ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... superintended the work and schemed how to scamp it, where possible, using mud where mortar was specified, mortar where there ought to have been cement, sheet zinc where they were supposed to put sheet lead, boiled oil instead of varnish, and three coats of paint where five were paid for. In fact, scamping the work was with this man a kind of mania. It grieved him to see anything done properly. Even when it was more economical to do a thing well, he insisted from force of habit ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... new person? How, when a lovely girl enters, the men all straighten their ties and the women moisten their lips? How, when the new person is a self-made man, with his newness so apparent that he seems to exhale the odor of varnish and gilt—how all repose vanishes, and whatever of crudity there is anywhere suddenly makes itself known, and rushes forth to meet the wave of self-boasting which sweeps all before it when ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... enable him to take temporary charge of the shed in his absence. But when he noticed the manner in which Azuma-zi hung about the monster he became suspicious. He dimly perceived his assistant was "up to something," and connecting him with the anointing of the coils with oil that had rotted the varnish in one place, he issued an edict, shouted above the confusion of the machinery, "Don't 'ee go nigh that big dynamo any more, Pooh-bah, or a'll take thy skin off!" Besides, if it pleased Azuma-zi to be near the big machine, it was plain sense and decency ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... better than gutta-percha, and one inverted within another forms, when travelling, an admirable lid-box for the protection of glass bottles, rods, &c. On the Continent wooden dishes coated with shellac varnish are almost ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... red-bearded personage who scorned honest work and yet contrived to dress so well? Everyone liked him, despite his borrowing propensities. He was so infernally pleasant, and always on the spot. He had a lovely varnish of culture; it was more than varnish; it was a veneer, a patina, an enamel: weather-proof stuff. He could talk most plausibly—art, music, society gossip—everything you please; everything except scandal. No bitter word was known to pass his lips. He sympathized with all our ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... villages and towns, represents the highest civilization: the best Southern gentleman, that lord of plantations, that cotton, tobacco and slavemonger, at the best is somewhat polished, varnished; the varnish covers all kinds of barbarity and of rottenness. It is to be regretted that our army contains officers modelled on the Southern pattern, to whom human rights and civilization are as distasteful as they are to any high-toned ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... forty pillars of brilliant glass, of great strength and of the most exquisite workmanship, in regard to shape, cutting, and engravings; sweetly delicate and richly variegated colours, and the most brilliant polish! They are, moreover, invisibly incrusted with a certain transparent varnish in order to render the insulation still more complete; and that otherwise, properly assisted, we may have, in even the most unfavourable weather, abundance of the ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... empty nothings, for here you venture but your persons, there the varnish of your persons, your discretions; why 'tis a monstrous thing to marry at all, especially as now 'tis made; me thinks a man, an understanding man, is more wise to me, and of a nobler tie, than all these trinkets; what do we get by women, but our senses, which is the rankest part ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... his small chamber! For that chamber, kindly Handmaiden, is his. He is the Prophet it was made for; and the only Prophet conceivable as long as present. And when he takes departure, why, the void must follow, a long hiatus, darkness, and stacked-up furniture, and the scent of varnish within ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... instrument always. Why do I use no chin-rest? I use no chin-rest on my Guadagnini simply because I cannot find one to fit my chin. One should use a chin-rest to prevent perspiration from marring the varnish. My Rocca violin is an interesting instance of wood worn in ridges by the stubble on a ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... keel, London gathers on March afternoons to wait for the return of the practising crews, and to watch the blue-scarved oarsmen in and out of the boathouses and the balcony windows. There is somewhere an air of the sea-side about that stretch of gravel and open river bank; it is the sunshine on the varnish of the boats, perhaps, or a smell of tar in the wind, or of salt from the weeds that the tides leave dry; or is it the banjo of the occasional nigger blacked to get pence from the waiting crowd? On a September day a ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... air cells, and the boat is therefore unserviceable. The general character of the materials of which inflated boats are constructed precludes any effectual repairs, as the intense heat of the sun decomposes the varnish with which the canvas is covered; it first becomes soft and adhesive, and then changes to a substance like tar, which does not consolidate with a lower temperature. Adjusted the ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... superior to every other species of candle. This candle is nearly translucent, and can be made to exhibit the wick, when the candle is held up between the eye and the light, while the surface is as glossy as polished wax or varnish. The principal ingredient is lard; and the value of this manufacture can be hardly exaggerated. Taking durability into account, it can be made as cheap as any other candle; and there exists no single element of comfort, convenience, profit, and economy, in which this article has not the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... breadth, five thousand feet in depth in its centre, and which gradually trended all around towards the sides. Such a depression would form a scarce appreciable inequality on the surface of even a three feet globe; in a twelve inch globe it might be represented by the abrasion of a small patch of the varnish; nor would it have in nature one sixth the depth, or one sixteenth the area, of the bed of the Atlantic Ocean. Let us suppose further, that it had been produced by an equable sinking of the surface, prolonged for forty ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... Ayr presented nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a cloudy and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery and causes a woeful diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we see. Much of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly direction. We reached Ayr in the midst of hopeless ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... said Dulberry; "why, God bless me, how you varnish the matter! To hear you talk,—one would suppose these ministers of ours were so many lambs, and met for nothing but to kiss and sing psalms. I tell you, they never meet but to plot against us and our liberties. And as to conspirators, if you come to that, I know ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... have that arm," exclaimed Solling, when the first burst of admiration had passed. "When I bleach it and touch it up with varnish, it wild be a superb specimen. I'll take ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... that none of the propeller blades had been broken, yet such was a fact. They were scratched and nicked, but a coat of varnish would soon remedy ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... of the symbol-choosing phantasy of the individual ("raw," i.e., not covered for publicity with a premeditated varnish) bears traces of the things that closely concern the person in question. ("Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh"—even without premeditation.) If we now start from a spiritual product which ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... warr'd for more than life; So with their pleasures they beguiled the heart, Then with their logic they allay'd the smart; They proved (so thought I then) with reasons strong, That no man's feelings ever lead him wrong: And thus I went, as on the varnish'd ice, The smooth career of unbelief and vice. Oft would the youths, with sprightly speech and bold, Their witty tales of naughty priests unfold; 'Twas all a craft,' they said, 'a cunning trade; Not she the ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... this neglect, for were he able to revisit this earth no one would touch more whimsically than he upon the fads and the foibles of contemporary life; but it's a great pity that in the popular craze about the new writers, all redolent with the varnish of novelty, we should consign to the dust of unused shelves the works of Charles Lamb. All that he wrote which the world remembers is in Elia and his many letters—those incomparable epistles in which he quizzed his friends and revealed ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... the classical scholar. In the flush of aureal light tinging their pearly glimmering armor are the radiant, graceful, frolicsome inhabitants of the sea. The glutinous or oily exudation that covers them is a brilliant varnish. Their lustrous colors, variety of crystalline tints and beautiful markings and spots, attract the eye of the artist even in the fish-market; but when glowing with full life, lively, nimble, playful, surely the most graceful living ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... fins. Not every blimp, that is to say, but the pattern approved and required of contractors by the Navy Department. These fins are made of wood and light steel tubing, reinforced with wire, covered with aeroplane linen rubber painted and finished with varnish. ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... as by it the meat is subject to the action of creosote, a volatile oil produced by the combustion of the sawdust, which is powerfully antiseptic. The process also furnishing a thin covering of a resinous varnish, excludes the air not only from the muscle but also from the fat; thus effectually preventing the meat from becoming rusted; and the principal reasons for condemning the practice of removing the ribs from the flitches ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... and mankind—all that had to be reformed; and till that was done all outward reform would but have left them, at best, in brute ease and peace, to that soulless degradation, which (as in the Byzantine empire of old, and seeming in the Chinese empire of to-day) hides the reality of barbarism under a varnish of civilisation. Men had to be awakened; to be taught to think for themselves, act for themselves, to dare and suffer side by side for their country and for their children; in a word, to arise ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... of the varnish of yesterday's veneering, since you like it," said he; "suffice it for the Tumble-Bugs that they come of a race that rolled their fragrant spheres down the solemn aisles of antiquity, and left their imperishable ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bleeding shattered frame! The "Phaeton" of whom Saint-Saens sings is not the arrogant son of Phoebus. Whatever the composer may protest, it is the low, open-wheeled carriage that he is describing. He shows it to us coursing through the Bois de Boulogne on a bright spring morning. The new varnish of the charming vehicle gleams smartly, the light, rubber-tired wheels revolve swiftly, the silver-shod harnesses glisten in the sunny air. But, alas, the ponies are frightened by something, doubtlessly the red dress of a singer of the Opera ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... painted, with the few colors that she could procure, a pattern of flowers of every kind that she was familiar with,—blue roses and green lilies having the preference, as making more show than their humbler sisters. This, when finished, she covered with a thick coat of varnish, thus making a very good substitute for the more ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... splendors of other lands, even of India, Egypt, and the East, seemed almost vulgar beside this country that had somehow held itself aloof, unstained and clean. The civilization of its little towns seemed but a coated varnish that an hour's sun would melt away; the railway, crawling along the flanks of the great range, but a ribbon of old iron pinned on that, with the first shiver of those giant sides, would ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... "Five gallons black varnish, one shilling and threepence a gallon, six-and-threepence," said Tweedie, raising his voice a little; ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... remember the evening when it came! What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame, When the wondrous boa was opened that had come from over seas, With its smell of mastic-varnish and its ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... be ready for the first fall. Bobby had been to Edentown and bought a little toy affair, the best she could get there, and Frances Martin had sent home for her big, comfortable Vermont-made sled that made up in dependability what it lacked in varnish and polish. Counting Betty's, this gave them ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... doors; and when you hear the drum, And the vile squeaking of the wry-neck'd fife,[66] Clamber not you up to the casements then, Nor thrust your head into the public street, To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces: But stop my house's ears, I mean my casements; Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter My sober house.—By Jacob's staff I swear, I have no mind of feasting forth to-night: But I will go.—Go you before me, sirrah; ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... when he was at last coaxed into approaching the house. It was late in September, and a day of perfect calm. As we looked from the broad piazza, there was a glassy smoothness over all the bay, and the hills were coated with a film, or rather a mere varnish, inconceivably thin, of haze more delicate than any other climate in America can show. Over the water there were white gulls flying, lazy and low; schools of young mackerel displayed their white sides above the surface; and it seemed as if ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... all material, perfect or imperfect; we cannot afford to select. We must cover knots and imperfections with composition and pass them on. We must use the cheapest glue, and save an infinitesimal sum in the length of our dowels; we must varnish instead of polishing, or "the other man" will get the better of us. If we did not do these things our furniture would be better, but "the other man" would sell more, because he could sell ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... an askant look and careless demeanour. A table well spread with fine-looking artificial flowers and viands may be nice for the eye, but who can satisfy his hunger and thirst with them? Thus it is with your altiloquent talkers, Miss Bunting. They give you, as a rule, only the tinsel, the varnish, the superficial, which vanishes into thin nothing under your analysis of thought or ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... in such disagreeably close proximity, we had of course a perfect view of the French frigate, and a most superb craft she certainly was. A bran-new ship, to all appearance: she seemed to have been at sea scarcely long enough to wash the varnish off her teak and mahogany deck-fittings. The planks of her deck were almost snow-white, and some little taste and trouble appeared to have been expended in a successful effort to impart a graceful effect to ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood |
