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Bauble   Listen
noun
Bauble  n.  
1.
A trifling piece of finery; a gewgaw; that which is gay and showy without real value; a cheap, showy plaything. "The ineffective bauble of an Indian pagod."
2.
The fool's club. (Obs.) "A fool's bauble was a short stick with a head ornamented with an ass's ears fantastically carved upon it."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bauble" Quotes from Famous Books



... the—cauldron of gluttony base. India surrenders her pearls; and what mean they to thee? That thy wife decked with sea-spoils adorning her breast and her head On the couch of a stranger lies lifting adulterous legs? The emerald green, the glass bauble, what mean they to thee? Or the fire of the ruby? Except that pure chastity shine From the depth of the jewels: in garments of woven wind clad Our brides might as well take their stand, their game naked to stalk, As seek it in ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... for notoriety jumps on to the platform as a lecturer. He may have been "Perhaps a soldier full of 'cute ways, and fearless like his Pa! Stake your dollar sudden and quick to boom. Seeking a bauble reputation even at the Commons mouth." Or he may have been an aristocratic stowaway in a troop-ship, for instance, and become the hero in the pages of our new English-Americanised Press paying for and ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... design were not too multifarious and extensive, I should wish that our painters would attempt the dissolution of the parliament by Cromwell[3]. The point of time may be chosen when Cromwell, looking round the Pandaemonium with contempt, ordered the bauble to be taken away; and Harrison laid hands on the Speaker to drag ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... ease her pain. And she, weary of life—life made suddenly hideous to her; all her foolish vanities killed, her delight in herself, her belief in her friend, her faith in her husband. The gilding all stripped from the bauble which till then had made her happy. How possible! Nay, was it possible longer to ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... about your empty houses? Your Parliament House? Bah! It's a bauble shop. While your members are fighting amongst themselves like cats and dogs, the country is going ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... better still when you do lay hands on him," said I, wresting my eyes from the yellow dead face of the foreign scoundrel. The moon shone full upon his high forehead, his shrivelled lips, dank in their death agony, and on the bauble with the sacred device that he wore always in his tie. I recovered my property from the shrunken fingers, and so turned away with a harder heart than I ever had before or since for any ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... and taking the wig-block for your head they came up to the bed and politely wished you good morning. You took no notice, so one of them proceeded to give you a gentle shake, and the bauble fell and rolled along the floor. I roared with laughter at the sight ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... "I am making crowns and scratching them out again—usurping the gentle pastime of their most Christian Majesties, the confederation. A pretty bauble is a crown, indeed—at a distance. It is a fine thing to wear one—in a dream. But to possess one in the real, and to wear it day by day with the eternal fear of laying it down and forgetting where you put it, or that others plot to steal it, or that you wear it dishonestly—Well, ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... supped the self-same cup, To-night must lay our friendship by; Your wrath has burned your judgment up, Hot breath has blown the ashes high. You say that you are wronged—ah, well, I count that friendship poor, at best A bauble, a mere bagatelle, That cannot stand so ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... he; to another, "Thou art an adulterer;" to a third, "Thou art a drunkard and a glutton;" "And thou an extortioner," to a fourth. He commanded a soldier to seize the mace. "What shall we do with this bauble? Here, take it away. It is you," said he, addressing himself to the house, "that have forced me upon this. I have sought the Lord night and day, that he would rather slay me than put me upon this work." Having commanded the soldiers to clear the hall, he himself went out ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... the branches. I saw him that chanted it. I saw his fool's bauble. I knew his old grief. I knew that old greenwood and the shadow that haunted it,— My fool, my lost jester, my Shadow-of-a-Leaf! And "why," I said, "why, all this while, have you left me so Luckless in melody, lonely in mirth?" "Oh, why," he sang, "why has this world then bereft me so Soon of my ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes

... he has managed to get it cleaned; but, faith, I am the greatest scoundrel in the world, if you would ever have put it on. In a word, it cost you one hundred and forty louis d'ors, and seeing he offered me one hundred and fifty for it; 'My master,' said I, 'has no occasion for this tinselled bauble to distinguish him at the ball; and, although he was pretty full of cash when I left him, how know I in what situation he may be upon my return? there is no certainty at play.' To be brief, Sir, I got ten louis d'ors for it more than it cost you: this you see is all clear profit: I will ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... there will be found little intricate or really expensive work upon it. Strength, substance, durability, should all enter into its composition; and without these elements, a house of this appearance is a mere bauble, not fit to stand upon the premises of any ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... correct the popular American point of view, but there are still millions of honest and intelligent people in the United States who, when they read that an American girl is going to be married to an Englishman, pity her from their hearts in the belief that, for the sake of a coronet or some such bauble, she is selling herself to become ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... see a large purple bruise on his forehead, and a heavy iron poker lying on the floor beside him. The diamond cuff-button was also gone from his right cuff, but the rays of the morning sun, coming through the east windows, shone on the other glittering bauble, still in ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry

... circulating novelists, adieu! Long envious cords my black portmanteau tighten; Billiards, begone! avaunt, illegal loo! Farewell old Ocean's bauble, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... less deplored thee, ne'er forgot. Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, Children not thine have trod my nursery floor; And where the gardener Robin, day by day, Drew me to school along the public way, Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapped In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capped, 'Tis now become a history little known, That once we called the pastoral house our own. Short-lived possession! but the record fair That memory keeps, of all thy kindness there, Still outlives many a storm ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... to mean it. I have at Itri a whole armory Full of such weapons. When you paint the portrait Of Barbarossa, it will be of use. You have not been rewarded as you should be For painting the Gonzaga. Throw this bauble Into the scale, and make the balance equal. Till then suspend it in your studio; You ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... start of revengeful indignation, young Attila the Hun turned to the boy emperor: "I will be no man's hostage," he cried. "Freely I came, freely will I go! Come down from thy bauble of a chair and thou and I will try, even in your circus yonder, which is the better boy, and which should rightly be hostage for ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks

... concluded, "the old man's game is the bauble title. Berthe Louison's must be some studied revenge. She is above all blackmail. I know already half the story of this clouded past. Madame Alixe Delavigne must yield up the other half, bit by bit. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... subsequent assassination. Lorenzino de' Medici, the Florentine Brutus of the sixteenth century, is the hero of the tragedy. Some of his relatives, however, must first appear upon the scene before he enters with a patriot's knife concealed beneath a court-fool's bauble. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... bumpkin and a wanton city dame. Amid all these, and more acceptable than almost the whole put together, was the all-licensed fool, the Gracioso of the Spanish drama, who, with his cap fashioned into the resemblance of a coxcomb, and his bauble, a truncheon terminated by a carved figure wearing a fool's cap, in his hand, went, came, and returned, mingling in every scene of the piece, and interrupting the business, without having any share himself ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... over the hills this morning, I have lost a golden clasp, with three diamonds, that fastened my gorget, and I would ask you, should you meet with such a bauble in your ramblings, to carry it to the Lady Margaret of Threlkeld, who will see that ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... holds surprises even for those who live at the bottom of a moat. For very early this morning a bauble fell into the moat that Cyclops himself couldn't digest. The old cynic was found floating, scarred belly upwards, on the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various

... themselves of the quality of these critiques; and this I think a matter of justice to those who might otherwise have been led astray by them—more than this I cannot consent to do. I should have but a hound's office if I had to tear the tabard from every Rouge Sanglier of the arts—with bell and bauble ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... gold, and stretch forth a hand to grasp the treasure What a blazonry is this for a galleon! Here is the humbler Portuguese; and yet is he not without a wealthy look. I have often fancied there were true Brazilian diamonds in this kingly bauble. Yonder crucifix, which you see hanging in pious proximity to my state-room door, is a specimen of the sort I mean." Wilder turned his head, to throw a look on the valuable emblem, that was really suspended from the bulkhead, within a few inches ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... many-handed as a cuttlefish, Who, making Himself feared through what He does, Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar To what is quiet and hath happy life; 145 Next looks down here, and out of very spite Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real, These good things to match those as hips do grapes. 'Tis solace making baubles, aye, and sport. Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books 150 Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle: Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped, Wrote thereon, he knows what, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... would they do with their new bauble, liberty, fraternity and equality? The centre of the stage was occupied by a struggling mass of kings, fighting not only for their crowns but for the very clothes on their backs! There were poets in fine frenzy declaiming; grenadiers firing muzzle-loaders; priests invoking the wrath of God; ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... in surprise. "Why should you wish to possess this bauble? It can be of no use to you in the life you are about to enter, even if the rules of our order would permit you to retain it, which you know ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... who prefer to see anything in a poem except its poetry, and who treat all tulips and roses as if they were cabbages for the pot of didactic morality. Yet it is surprising that after all that the author said, and with the lovely poem shaking the bauble of its fool's cap at them, there can still be commentators who see nothing in Peer Gynt but the "awful interest of the universal problems with which it deals." This obsession of the critic to discover "problems" ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... perish'd worth, Who bade the conqueror go forth, And launch'd that thunderbolt of war On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar; Who, born to guide such high emprise, For Britain's weal was early wise; Alas! to whom the Almighty gave, For Britain's sins, an early grave! —His worth, who in his mightiest hour A bauble held the pride of power, Spurn'd at the sordid lust of pelf, And served his Albion for herself; Who, when the frantic crowd amain Strain'd at subjection's bursting rein, O'er their wild mood full conquest gain'd, The pride he would ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... was being read, the president, a timorous man, who perceived the agency of Robespierre in the advice of Petion, had quietly removed from his head the repudiated bonnet rouge, and the members of the society, one after another, followed his example. Robespierre alone, who had never adopted this bauble of the fashion, and with whom Petion had concerted his letter, mounted the tribune, and said, "I, in common with the major of Paris, respect every thing that bears the image of liberty; but we have a sign which recalls ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... his own weapon above his head, and then rested his arms upon its broad hilt, despondingly. "But where is that king? Men speak of my most gentle kinsman Sir John Comyn, called the Red—bah! The sceptre were the same jewelled bauble in his impotent hand as in his sapient uncle's; a gem, a toy, forsooth, the loan of crafty Edward. No! the Red Comyn is no king for Scotland; and who is there besides? The rightful heir—a cold, dull-blooded ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... Nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite: Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age: 280 Pleased with this bauble still, as that before; Till, tired, he sleeps, and life's poor play ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... which cloisters, chapters, vicars have assigned and communicated (by a legal contract and sale) all masses and good works, etc., both for the living and the dead. This is not only altogether a human bauble, without the Word of God, entirely unnecessary and not commanded, but also contrary to the chief article, Of Redemption. Therefore it is in no way ...
— The Smalcald Articles • Martin Luther

... due observance of thy sovereign seat, Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply Thy well-weighed words. In struggling with misfortunes Lies the true proof of virtue: On smooth seas, How many bauble-boats dare set their sails, And make an equal way with firmer vessels! But let the tempest once enrage that sea, And then behold the strong-ribbed argosie, Bounding between the ocean and the air, Like Perseus mounted on his Pegasus. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... exploration of their country. When he was on his death-bed, in 1869, the empty title of knighthood was conferred upon him. As he could not enjoy the tardy honour, his widow, who lived until 1887, was graciously allowed to wear the bauble. ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc

... be heir of the Aylwins; I don't want my uncle's property,' I retorted. 'Nor do I want the other bauble prizes of the Aylwins.' ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... that that eminent author, Mr. HENRY ARTHUR JONES, has written a play called The Bauble Shop, in which he has introduced the room of the Prime Minister in the House of Commons as one of his most striking tableaux. I have not yet had the advantage of seeing what I feel sure must be an admirable comedy, but in justice ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various

... be said to maintain the power which can engrave a seal, and crush a mass of obdurate metal like wax before it; draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as gossamer, and lift a ship of war like a bauble in the air; to embroider muslin, forge anchors, cut steel into ribands, and impel itself against the opposition of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various

... thing to remember about the city. When I am tired, he says, and the plot of which I am hero, villain and Greek chorus suddenly vanish from my mind, I pause and look at something behind plate glass. A bauble catches my eye. Long minutes, half hours pass. There is a marvelous plentitude of baubles to look at. Machines digging, excavations, ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... The real Court Fool was in reality a fool by birth, while a Jester was a pretended fool. The former was dressed in "a parti-colored dress, including a cowl, which ended in a cock's-head, and was winged with a couple of long ears; he, moreover, carried in his hand a stick called his bauble, terminating either in an inflated bladder or some other ludicrous object, to be employed in slapping ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.

... hurtful and pernicious to others; or rather a thing of very precious use, that will not suffer itself to be purchased at an under rate; in the hand of some 'tis a sceptre, in that of others a fool's bauble. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... chief honours; but the bauble perishes with him; while the courage, the energy and the perseverance of Mr. Dease and his colleague will ever be a subject of admiration to those who peruse the narrative ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... shall satiate man's desires, Propell'd by Hope's unconquerable fires? Vain each bright bauble by ambition prized; Unwon, 'tis worshipp'd—but possess'd, despised. Yet all defect with virtue shines allied, His mightiest impulse genius owes to pride. From conquer'd science graced with glorious spoils, He still dares on, demands sublimer toils; And, had not Nature check'd his ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... fashionable Arthur, with his Harvard accent and his ignorance of affairs, as an unmitigated ass. He had overlooked the excellent natural mind which false education and foolish associations had tricked out in the motley, bells and bauble of "culture"; and so, he had taken no pains to cozen artistically. Also, as he thought greediness the strongest and hardiest passion in all human beings, because it was so in himself, he had not the ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... the old garb of a gentleman. He had telegraphed two hundred miles for a great box of chocolates for Ygerne; he had sent a message twice that distance for his first bejewelled present for her. Nothing in Lebarge was to be considered; the golden bauble which came in answer to his message, a delicate necklace pendant glorious with pearls, cost him three hundred ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... state business, he has by no means an air of artificial authority. There is at times an aspiring elevation, an enthusiastic rapture in his expectations of attaining the crown, and at others a gloating expression of sullen delight, as if he already clenched the bauble, and held it in his grasp. The courtship scene with Lady Anne is an admirable exhibition of smooth and smiling villainy. The progress of wily adulation, of encroaching humility, is finely marked by his ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... a malignant scowl on his face, put his heel on the bauble which had cost him a hundred guineas, crushed it into powder, and flung himself out of the room. Then Gladys, with a low, faint, shuddering cry, threw herself upon the couch, and gave way to the floodtide of her grief and humiliation and ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... "Bauble" Being a Check (to Cover the Cost of a Certain Book) Which Allison Returned in a Frame With a Few Comments of ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock

... profligate experience of capitals, the sage is saddened with the knowledge that comeliness, at best, is but an exquisite hypocrisy. I have striven also, vainly, for contentment in the luxuries of voluptuous living. The talisman of Epicurus has evaded my grasp—the glittering bauble![5] The ravishing ideal JOY, has been to me not as the statue to Pygmalion: I have grovelled down in adoration at its feet, and have found it the same immobile, relentless, unresponsive image. Youth is yet mine, but it is a youth hoary in desolation. Centuries ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... idly, still doubting his senses, and waiting impatiently for the secret of his delicious dinner. "But, mother, what has this brass bauble to do with the dumplings, these wonderful pork dumplings, the ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman

... living pageant which passes before it. As the pale astronomer sits in his study with sunken eyes and thin fingers, and weighs Uranus or Neptune as in a balance, so there are meek, slight women who have weighed all which this planetary life can offer, and hold it like a bauble in the palm of their slender hands. This was one of them. Fortune had left her, sorrow had baptized her; the routine of labor and the loneliness of almost friendless city-life were before her. Yet, as I looked upon her tranquil face, gradually ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... gimcrack, trinket, toy, plaything, knickknack, kickshaws, gewgaw, bauble; skill, readiness, aptitude, proficiency, dexterity, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... half-heartedly decline a suggested course, then lightly accept from sheer ennui, and "life," as I have read in a quite meritorious poem, "is never the same again." It was thus I now toyed there with my fate in my hands, as might a child have toyed with a bauble. I mean to say, I was looking ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... very pretty," replied Sylvius Hogg, trying the bauble on the tip of his little finger. "Lay it aside, Mr. Benett, and let us look ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne

... respected as a captain by the whole gang since my dubbing you so? But it is the shadow only, it seems; and you will knock a man down for affronting you who calls you captain! Might not a man as reasonably tell a minister of state, Sir, you have given me the shadow only? The ribbon or the bauble that you gave me implies that I have either signalised myself, by some great action, for the benefit and glory of my country, or at least that I am descended from those who have done so. I know myself to be a scoundrel, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... no Omi, who for the sake of a jewelled coronet had caused the death of Prince Okusaka, as related above, had the temerity to wear the coronet, sixteen years subsequently, when he presided at a banquet given in honour of envoys from China; and the beauty of the bauble having thus been noised abroad, Ne no Omi was required to show it at the palace. It was immediately recognized by the Empress, sister of the ill-starred prince, and Ne no Omi, having confessed his crime, was put to death, all the members of his uji being reduced to ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... scabbard of the sword which yet remains, the sword itself having been taken away, according to report, by Oliver Cromwell. Did that unscrupulous Protector(?) take away the "Pavoise" at the same time, or order his Ironsides to "remove that bauble?"—and how came he to spare the helmet, jupon, gauntlets, shield, and scabbard? I have strong doubts of his being the purloiner of the sword. The late Mr. Stothard, who mentions the report, does not quote his authority. ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various

... fellows from afar to feast. Ill-omened bird—his carrion-cries were vain! Again our veteran eagles plumed their wings, And forth he fled from Montezuma's shores— A dastard flight—betraying unto death Him whom he dazzled with a bauble crown. Just retribution followed swift and sure— Germania's eagles plucked him at Sedan. A gloomy month wore off, and then the news That Lee, emboldened by his late success, Had poured his legions upon Northern soil, Rung through the camps, and thrilled the mighty ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... difference! Just some silly girl braided 'em up to look sweet for some silly boy. An' maybe he kissed her fur it. I dunno. Annyhow she lost this bauble, an' looking round I found it on the little knoll where maybe she sat to do ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... wild grant, their all, their freedom pass, And sell his country for a bit of glass. Or grant this barbarous right, let Spain and France, In slavery bred, as purchasers advance; Let them, whilst Conscience is at distance hurl'd, With some gay bauble buy a golden world: An Englishman, in charter'd freedom born, Shall spurn the slavish merchandise, shall scorn 50 To take from others, through base private views, What he himself would rather die, than lose. Happy the ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... storms, and with a hand Trembling, as if eternity were hung In balance on his conduct of a pin? Nor envies he aught more their idle sport, Who pant with application misapplied To trivial toys, and, pushing ivory balls Across the velvet level, feel a joy Akin to rapture, when the bauble finds Its destined goal of difficult access. Nor deems he wiser him, who gives his noon To Miss, the Mercer's plague, from shop to shop Wandering, and littering with unfolded silks The polished counter, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... one-piece garment, with large earrings, heavy metal armlets above the elbow and at wrists. The chain about the waist, from which hung a knife, for protection and domestic purposes, is descendent from the savage's cord and ancestor to that lovely bauble, the chatelaine of later days, with its attached ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank

... told:—Warner, having received his daughter and her husband, gives a party at which Lady, and afterwards Lord Norwold, are present. Here Warner's anxiety to obtain the bracelet is explained. He reminds his lordship that he once accused his elder brother of stealing that very bauble; and the consequence was, that the accused disappeared, and was never after heard of. Warner avows himself to be that brother, but declines disturbing the rights or property of his lordship, if he will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various

... with a rattle as of musketry; far below she could hear the awful booming of the Atlantic breakers. The gusts that drove against the high house seemed ready to tear it from its foothold of rock and whirl it inland; or was it the sea itself that was rising in its thunderous power to sweep away this bauble from the face of the mighty cliffs? And then the wild and desolate morning that followed! Through the bewilderment of the running water on the panes she looked abroad on the tempest-riven sea—a slate-colored waste of hurrying waves with wind-swept ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... a free woman," he exclaimed. "Yea, and thou shalt be the mother of free children: for the first time I go to Altdorf I will resist the edict, which enjoins me and my countrymen to pay homage to the senseless bauble which the German governor hath ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... not stifle our grief then. We cannot go to sleep upon our mother's arms, and forget it all. There is no charm to hold our spirits within the walls of this home, the earth. Our thoughts crave more than this. Our souls reach out over the grave, and cry for something after! No bauble will assuage this bitterness. It is spiritual and stern, and we must have a word from heaven-a promise from one who is able to fulfill. We look around us, and find that Father, and his vary nature contains the promise that we need. And as the child in his ignorance ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin

... Boy who now his words can freely sound, And with a steadier footstep prints the ground, Places in playfellows his chief delight, Quarrels, shakes hands, and cares not wrong or right: Sway'd by each fav'rite bauble's short-liv'd pow'r, In smiles, in tears, all humours ev'ry hour. Imberbus juvenis, tandem custode remoto, Gaudet equis canibusque et aprici gramine campi; Cereus in vitium flecti, monitoribus asper, Utilium ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace

... smiled; but now she understood that it was really intended the chain was to be an offering to my wife, she no longer wished to change its destination. She examined the bauble a few ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... merely an episode in her policy, which was to fascinate Antony—Antony who had called her to account for having aided his enemies in their war against him. And what was an eighty thousand pound bauble in the high affairs of State? "She was at the age when a woman's beauty is at its prime, and she was also of the best judgment. So she furnished herself with a world of gifts, stores of gold and silver, and ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... sea rising, and at last he gave the order to weigh anchor. Often is the story told in Algiers how the great Emperor, who would fain hold Europe in the palm of his hand, sadly took the crown from off his head and casting it into the sea said, "Go, bauble: let some more fortunate prince ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... congratulate you on the award of the medal. The queer position in which I was placed prevents me from being able to congratulate MYSELF on having any finger in the pie, but I am quite sure there was no member of the Council who felt more strongly than myself that what honour the bauble could confer was most fully won, and no more than your just deserts; or who rejoiced more when the thing was settled in ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... twins down a peg with the community; for Blake would gossip around freely, after the manner of detectives, and within a week the town would be laughing at them in its sleeve for offering a gaudy reward for a bauble which they either never possessed or hadn't lost. Tom was very well satisfied ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... lashes, her rich brunette complexion, her delicate red lips cut in fine lines, and the gleam of her teeth as she smiled. She had a string of opaque white, wax-like beads around the neck of her dress, and the contrast of the pearly whiteness of the bauble with the creamy whiteness and softness of her throat was marked with much finish. Her figure was hardly of medium height, and, despite the suppleness of youth, as "plump as a partridge," according to the familiar saying. The clear ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... by night in anxious thought I raise This wasted arm to rest my sleepless head, My jewelled bracelet, sullied by the tears That trickle from my eyes in scalding streams, Slips towards my elbow from my shrivelled wrist. Oft I replace the bauble, but in vain; So easily it spans the fleshless limb That e'en the rough and corrugated skin, Scarred by the bow-string, will not ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... friends would scarcely have recognized them. Margaret was a fat, jolly Falstaff, stuffed out to immense proportions. Edith was entirely disguised as a jester and enjoyed her own quips immensely when she tapped a visitor on the shoulder with her bauble and said, "Good morrow, fair maid, art ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed

... countrymen in India with respect to their apartments, which look more like an upholsterer's show-rooms or splendid ornament-shops than drawing-rooms or parlours. There is scarcely space enough to turn in them without fracturing some frail and costly bauble. Where a garden is over-planted the whole place is darkened, the ground is green and slimy, the grass thin, sickly and straggling, and the trees and shrubs deficient ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... of a bauble of silver and lapis lazuli, was reared a tower of silence between these brothers as high as fifteen years is long. Large affairs for their joint unraveling lay ahead, dramatic in their magnitude. The Union Square Family Theater was very presently to become first a tawdry, then a discarded ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... friend in the world. A most dangerous thing to be on good terms with the heirs to the crown. Makes the temporary incumbent of the bauble ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... dwelt our name is heard no more; Children not thine have trod my nursery floor; And where the gardener Robin, day by day, Drew me to school along the public way, Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapt In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capped, 'Tis now become a history little known, That once we call'd the pastoral house[337-3] our own. Shortlived possession! but the record fair, That memory keeps of all thy kindness there, Still outlives many ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... experiments be artificial flies to hang in the air by themselves, dancing balls, an egg-shell that shall climb up to the top of a spear, fiery-breathing gores, poeta noster professeth not to make. Placeat sibi quinque licebit. What's a fool but his bauble? Deep-reaching wits, here is no deep stream for you to angle in. Moralisers, you that wrest a never-meant meaning out of everything, applying all things to the present time, keep your attention for the common stage; ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... He bethought himself of the beautiful necklace of Harmonia, wife of Cadmus, which he had brought with him in his flight from Thebes. Without loss of time he presented himself before the wife of Amphiaraus, and held up to her admiring gaze the glittering bauble, promising that if she revealed the hiding-place of her husband and induced him to join the expedition, the necklace should be hers. Eriphyle, unable to withstand the tempting bait, accepted the bribe, and thus Amphiaraus was compelled to join the army. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... The 'prettiest bauble' possible, as he called Strawberry Hill, 'set in enamelled meadows in filigree hedges,' was surrounded by 'dowagers as plenty as flounders;' such was Walpole's assertion. As he sat in his library, scented by caraway, heliotropes, or pots of tuberose, or orange-trees in ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... Saint George of merry England, worth a dozen of your Saint George of Cappadocia, I neither thought nor cared about the matter," answered Hereward. "And I know your Valour drank a mighty draught yourself out of my head-piece; not this silver bauble, but my steel-cap, which is twice as ample. By the same token, that whereas before you were giving orders to fall back, you were a changed man when you had cleared your throat of the dust, and cried, 'Bide the other brunt, my brave and stout ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... carry her away. It was the sea that had first showed her this land and its golden hopes; it was the sea that ought to hide from her its fearful remembrances. The sea it was that had twice spared her life in extremities; the sea it was that might now if it chose, take back the bauble that it ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... off the cream of other men's wits, pick the choice flowers of their tilled gardens, to set out our own sterile plots. We weave the same web still, twist the same rope again and again; or, if it be a new invention, 'tis but some bauble or toy, which idle fellows write, for ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston

... of which Olivier had made dark and solemn study. Extravagant and lavish, he spent money as fast as he gained it; he threw away all chances of eminence and career. In the midst of the direst plots of his villany or the most energetic pursuit of his art, the poorest excitement, the veriest bauble would draw him aside. His heart was with Falri in the sty, his fancy with Aladdin in the palace. To make a show was his darling object; he loved to create effect by his person, his talk, his dress, as well as by his talents. Living from hand to mouth, crimes through which it is ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... earth below the level of humanity, "and to change the image of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man." There was abundant proof of this in the tabernacle of our Lady of Remedies above the great altar of the Cathedral. There sits enthroned this cast-off bauble of some nursery, emblazoned with jewels enough to supply the means to educate the whole population of Mexico. To this piece of dilapidated wood and plaster of Paris are conceded attributes of God Almighty: to grant rain in times of drought; health in times of pestilence; ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... heart he started out to explore the valley, but scarce a dozen steps had he taken when the glistening of a jewelled bauble lying on the sward caught ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... fair than theirs? Does the sun shine less often, have the flowers less fragrance, does sleep come less sweetly to you than to them? Nature has been very good, very generous to you, Viva. Be content with her gifts. What you lack is only a thing of man's invention—a quibble, a bauble, a Pharisee's phylactery. Look at the river-lilies that drift yonder—how white they are, how their leaves enclose and caress them, how the water buoys them up and plays with them! Well, are they not better off ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... some glittering bauble, he seemed fascinated by the sun. The western sky was marked by a thin reef of cloud; dull gold, it momentarily brightened to burnished gold, and then ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... character. As the most brilliant diamond will look like common glass on the rough red hand of a cook, while common glass will simulate the richness of the real gem on the delicate white finger of a daintily-bred woman, so the emblem of salvation seemed a mere bauble and toy on the breast of the Archbishop, while it assumed its most reverent and sacred aspect as worn by Felix Bonpre. Yet judged by mere outward appearance, there could be no doubt as to which was the finer-looking man of the two. The Cardinal, thin and pale, with shadows of thought ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... night winds gently slip adown. No charm of color, nor of change, nor glow Of blue noon sky, thy carven work doth show; Let dusk bees visit it—or sip the breath From thy chill marble buds." Then, Lilith saith, "Eblis hath wroughten noblest on this earth." He answered quick, "Poor bauble, little worth To Lilith! Ope thy slighted husk, reveal The miracle thy rough rind ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier

... He laughed as much as lords in general laugh, said it was a whimsical accident, and paid me a number of polite compliments and thanks; treated the watch as a trinket which, as he recollected, had not cost him more than three hundred guineas; but the bauble had been often admired, he was partial to it, and was very ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... forgotten in the variety of events and stronger sensations that had succeeded. Mike's message, accompanied by the box itself, however, recalled them, and Maud fancied that the major, considering himself to be in some dangerous emergency, had sent her the bauble in order that she might learn what that secret was. Possibly he meant her to communicate it to others. Persons in our heroine's situation feel, more than they reason; and it is possible Maud might have come to some other conclusion had she been at leisure, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... down her kerchief to expose her beautiful bare neck, whereupon he draws from the box a diamond collar and clasps it about her throat with a pretty speech. And truly this was a gift worthy of a princess, the most beautiful bauble I have ever seen, and must have cost him all he had of me ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... me tell you, when you fill my cloak, you are wrapped in a general's cassock. Five hundred men are there without, and I was this morning one of the chief leaders. My fool's cap was a casque, and my bauble a truncheon. Well, we shall see what good they will make by exchanging a fool for a wise man. Truly, I fear they will lose in valour what they may gain in discretion. And so farewell, master, and be ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... and I meant it in good faith. He should have the lady, too; that precious holding of the old manse without whom my father's acres would be but a bauble to ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... the existence of St. George, the patron of England? Upon such, assuredly, as an acute critic or skillful pleader might easily scatter to the winds; the belief of prejudiced or credulous witnesses, the unwritten record of empty pageants and bauble decorations. On the side of scepticism might be exhibited a powerful array of suspicious legends and exploded acts. Yet, after all, what Catholic is there but would count it a profaneness to question the ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... lord. [She goes back to the tower and addresses the Beadle] Take away that bauble, Joseph. Wait for me wherever you find yourself most comfortable in the neighborhood. [The Beadle withdraws. She notices Collins for the first time]. Hullo, Bill: youve got em all on too. Go and hunt up a drink ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... not, Ralf? Then should he have a free gift of my bauble," responded the jester, shaking on high that badge, surmounted with the golden head of an ass, and jingling with bells. "How now, friend Wry-mouth? 'Tis long since thou wert here! This house hath well-nigh been forced to its ghostly weapons for lack of thy substantial ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... more signs of her new-built virtue and obedience.' Katharine now entering with the two ladies, he continued: 'See where she comes, and brings your froward wives as prisoners to her womanly persuasion. Katharine, that cap of yours does not become you; off with that bauble, and throw it under foot.' Katharine instantly took off her cap, and threw it down. 'Lord!' said Hortensio's wife, 'may I never have a cause to sigh till I am brought to such a silly pass!' And Bianca, she too said: 'Fie, what foolish duty call you this?' On this Bianca's husband said to her: 'I ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... authorities proceeded to survey the lands, without waiting to have the treaty examined; and Governor Troup called upon the legislature to "stand to your arms," and wrote to the Secretary of War that "President Adams makes the Union tremble on a bauble." In a sober report to the legislature it was urged that the time was rapidly approaching when the ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart

... ignore it. Just as it would be absurd to ignore the extra filip which your presence, or your part in the business, adds to this, Leonetta's first affair. For what is a man to her, after all? Another feather in her cap,—another bauble! She has left school and her maiden's vanity,—we'll call it self-esteem,—bids her at once try to confirm the high claims she rightly thinks her beauty and her sex entitle her to make upon the world. She wants to win her first crown as May Queen. No deeper passion is involved. And ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... He went out again to stop them. And he saw a pirate snatch up a glittering tiara and place it on his head with a roaring oath. He saw another snatch the bauble off; and in a breath the pirates were at each other's throats; cutlases flashed and a savage fight began at the moment the women stole in to see the mysterious place, and one of their number ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle



Words linked to "Bauble" :   adornment, novelty, trinket, wand, gaud, fallal, trinketry, scepter, bangle, gewgaw



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