"Circassian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... window in it that I got to know Thrums. On Saturday nights, when the Auld Licht young men came into the square dressed and washed to look at the young women errand-going, and to laugh some time afterward to each other, it presented a glare of light; and here even came the cheap jacks and the Fair Circassian, and the showman, who, besides playing "The Mountain Maid and the Shepherd's Bride," exhibited part of the tall of Balaam's ass, the helm of Noah's ark, and the tartan plaid in which Flora McDonald wrapped Prince Charlie. More select entertainment, such as Shuffle ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... in various attitudes, taken by an itinerant photographer; there too hung a photograph of Fenitchka herself, which was an absolute failure; it was an eyeless face wearing a forced smile, in a dingy frame, nothing more could be made out; while above Fenitchka, General Yermolov, in a Circassian cloak, scowled menacingly upon the Caucasian mountains in the distance, from beneath a little silk shoe for pins which fell right ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... central panel the escutcheon of the gallant French monarch. Up a little flight of marble steps, guarded by its hand-rail of heavy metal, shod with crimson velvet, one reaches the elevator. This pretty enclosure of iron and glass, of classic detail in the period of Henry II., of Circassian walnut trim, with crotch panels, has more the aspect of boudoir than elevator. The deep seat is of walnut, upholstered with fat cushions of crimson velvet edged in dull gold galloon. Over the seat ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... and his bowler hat: he looked with satisfaction on the four large fiaschi of Chianti which stood in front of him in a row, two on each side of a bottle of whiskey; he said it reminded him of a slim fair Circassian guarded by four corpulent eunuchs. Hayward in order to put the rest of them at their ease had clothed himself in a tweed suit and a Trinity Hall tie. He looked grotesquely British. The others were elaborately ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... him his licks. They a' bide in the caravan. You can stand on the wheel and keek in. They had herrings wi' the rans to their tea. I cut a hole in Jerusalem and Back, and there was no Jerusalem there. The man as ocht Jerusalem greets because the Fair Circassian winna take him. He is biding a' night wi' Blinder. He likes a dram in ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... in the gilded walls, behind a grated opening, were Inche Kitega, the Sultan's beautiful Circassian wife, and the women of the court. We could see their black eyes as they peered curiously down. It was only when the Dato Mentri, or Prime Minister, stood up and asked his people if they wished the young Tunku to be their future lord that we could hear ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... man's word for payment—he was a good man and a genial host. In talking, in entertaining, he was lavish, too; he would sometimes chatter away over the samovar till his listeners pricked up their ears, especially when he began telling them about Petersburg, about the Circassian steppes, or even about foreign parts; and he liked getting a little drunk with a good companion, but not disgracefully so, more for the sake of company, as his guests used to say of him. He was a great favourite with merchants ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... a 'princess' does she?" returned the man, grinning again at Ruth in an offensive way. "Well, I have managed a South Sea Island chief, a pair of Circassian twins, and a bunch of Eskimos, in my time. I guess I know how to act in the presence of Injun royalty. Trot ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... regiment of wood and hill In bright detachment stand. Behold! Whose multitudes are these? The children of whose turbaned seas, Or what Circassian land? ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... transactions of this sort were completely out of the question as long as the plague was raging. I only succeeded in seeing one white slave who was for sale but on this one the owner affected to set an immense value, and raised my expectations to a high pitch by saying that the girl was Circassian, and was “fair as the full moon.” After a good deal of delay I was at last led into a room, at the farther end of which was that mass of white linen which indicates an Eastern woman. She was bid to uncover her face, and I presently saw that, though very far from ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... comprising Muscat in Arabia, and Zanzibar in Africa, into two separate states, giving the former, or Muscat, to his eldest son, Sayyid (Prince) Suweni, whilst the latter was bequeathed to his favourite, the second son, Sayyid Majid, now styled Sultan. Sultan Majid was born of a Circassian woman, and in consequence is very light in complexion; and, taking much after the inclinations of his father, is likely to become as great a favourite as was the old Imaum. Zanzibar island is the seat of government, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... of London, had fitted out a vessel laden with goods for the coast of Circassia. On attempting to land her cargo she was seized by a Russian man-of-war and confiscated, first, on the ground of the violation of the blockade, to which the Russian government had subjected the whole of the Circassian coast; and, secondly, for an alleged violation of the custom-house regulations established by the same authority in the ports of that country. This proceeding of the Russian government was generally denounced as unjustifiable; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Persians, says their "blood is now highly refined by frequent intermixtures with the Georgians and Circassians, two nations which surpass all the world in personal beauty. There is hardly a man of rank in Persia who is not born of a Georgian or Circassian mother." He adds that they inherit their beauty, "not from their ancestors, for without the above mixture, the men of rank in Persia, who are descendants of the Tartars, would be extremely ugly." (2. These quotations ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... correctly adhering to the "period" that had been selected. The library was possibly more furnished than the rest of the house; but even here the touch of a magician's wand might have produced the bookcases of Circassian walnut ready filled with evenly matched, leather bound, finely tooled volumes. It would have been a relief to see a few shabby, old-calf folios, a few more common and every-day, in cloth ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... she, this woman of beauty and mystery? It was rumoured that she was a Circassian Princess, "the heroine of strange romances." She was living luxuriously in a fine house in the most fashionable quarter of Paris, in company with two German "Barons"—one, the Baron von Embs, who claimed to be her cousin; the other, Baron von Schenk, who appeared to play ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... a moment that this slender page was a girl in disguise. The splendid build and the strange expression of untamed energy in the admirably regular features were the unmistakable characteristics of the Circassian type. This so-called Georgi could be none other but a child of the Caucasian Mountains; and Tchajawadse also, as his name showed, was a scion of those old Caucasian dynastic houses which in days of yore had played a role in that mountain ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... say there is a good deal that is Oriental on the other side. There, I am sure, we should be sitting on very precious carpets, and eating sweetmeats with golden spoons, while some fair young Circassian slave sang wild melodies and played upon a rare ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... covering them with paper so that the edges should not cut. I would go to sleep at night with my short, dampened hair twisted around these contrivances, and in the morning comb it out and admire it as it stood about my head in a bushy mass, like the Circassian girl's at the circus. ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... conceived by Correggio. Where the painter found their models may be questioned but not answered; for he has made them of a different fashion from the race of mortals: no court of Roman emperor or Turkish sultan, though stocked with the flowers of Bithynian and Circassian youth, have seen their like. Mozart's Cherubino seems to have sat for all of them. At any rate they incarnate the very spirit ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... voyage, and creating a profitable traffic in gold, dried fish, and corn. They had also become infamous for their freebooting practices. From every coast they stole men, women, and children, thereby maintaining a considerable slave-trade, the relic of which endures to our time in the traffic for Circassian women. Minos, King of Crete, tried to suppress these piracies. His attempts to obtain the dominion of the Mediterranean were imitated in succession by the Lydians, Thracians, Rhodians, the latter being the inventors of the first maritime code, subsequently incorporated ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... robbers on the road," he said. "Northward, through the Circassian Gates, or eastward it's all the same. There's a man in a room across the way who was stripped stark naked and beaten because they thought he might have money in his clothes. When he reached this place without a stitch on him he still had all his money ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... pink Circassian—perfect in colour and shape, with glorious topaz eyes. But the extraordinary thing about him was a gift that he had for changing his colour. Thus my uncle, an old Anglo-Indian who always drank a bottle of Madeira after dinner, declared ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various
... Circassian and Georgian girls are still sold in Constantinople by their parents, but not publicly. The great slave marts we have all read so much about—where tender young girls were stripped for inspection, and criticised and discussed just as if they were horses at an agricultural ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... looked at us through its folds; in an instant after, the covering was removed, and a pair of brilliant, dark eyes shed their lustre upon us. Nowadays a white slave is seldom found in the market, the Russians protecting the Circassian and the Georgian, and the French and English the Greek. When they do appear, they are generally disposed of at a high price. [Sidenote: GEORGIAN SLAVE.] This beautiful captive, who proved to be a Georgian, was neither bashful nor timid. She saluted us with smiles, severing ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... exchequer smiles broadly enough. Of course this argument is chiefly for those who have the time and not the money; for by time we mean play time, time which is money lost if you don't play. The garden that gives the most joy, "Joyous Gard," as Sir Launcelot named his, is not to be bought, like a Circassian slave; it must be brought up, like a daughter. How much of life they can miss who can buy whatever they want whenever they ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... the most notorious international spy in the world—a protean individual with aliases, professions, and experiences sufficient for an entire jail full of criminals. His father was a German Jew; his mother a Circassian girl; he was educated in Germany, France, Italy, and England. He has been a member of the socialist group in the Reichstag under one name, a member of the British Parliament under another; he did dirty work for Abdul Hamid; dirtier ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... the innocence of youth, and brought from her mountain home, near the Caucasus, to pant beneath the influence of a warmer sun, a Circassian maiden pined. One day, oppressed by the heat, the Circassian stole to a window overlooking the Straits, and strove to catch the freshness of the wind that passed, cooled, from the surface of the sea. While she stood ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... pale now, but yellowish green, like a corpse, with sunken eyes under leaden lids and a sharp, pinched nose—still reddish—above his dishevelled whiskers. He lay dressed in his invariable Caucasian coat, with the cartridge pockets on the breast, and blue Circassian trousers. A Cossack cap with a crimson crown covered his forehead to his very eyebrows. In one hand Tchertop-hanov held his hunting whip, in the other an embroidered tobacco pouch—Masha's last gift to him. On a table near the bed stood an empty spirit bottle, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... teeth as white as pearls, and as even as possible; rather a wide, but very prettily shaped mouth; fine nose; cheeks oval and richly tinted; fine black eyes filbert shaped, and delicately-pencilled eyebrows, perfectly Circassian; a small white forehead, and shining black hair in braids: the expression of her smile was the most simple and innocent imaginable, and the total absence of anything like thought or intellect, made her face a perfect reflection ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... with all the appliances of wealth, the taste of my parents never did run much on dress; and I often felt mortified at my inferiority to others in this respect. Such articles were then much dearer, and more in vogue than at the present day, and a blue Circassian formed my entire stock of gala dresses, and went the rounds of all the children's parties I attended; my mother seemed to think, (with respect to me, at least,) that as long as a dress was clean and in good repair, there was ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... country to perpetual servitude, under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been the state of Egypt above five hundred years. The most illustrious sultans of the Baharite and Borgite dynasties [102] were themselves promoted from the Tartar and Circassian bands; and the four-and-twenty beys, or military chiefs, have ever been succeeded, not by their sons, but by their servants. They produce the great charter of their liberties, the treaty of Selim the First with the republic: [103] and the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... was a little round fat fellow, with beardless face, and small hands and feet. Zaida was a beautiful Circassian, her eyelids painted with kool, her teeth blackened with betel, her nails reddened with henna. On perceiving Hussein Pacha, the eunuch fell upon his knees; Zaida raised her head. The dey's eyes flashed, and he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... race that have retained in greatest perfection the original traits,—I do not see how we are to avoid the conclusion that this Caucasian type was the type of Adamic man. Adam, the father of mankind, was no squalid savage of doubtful humanity, but a noble specimen of man; and Eve a soft Circassian beauty, but exquisitely lovely beyond ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... the devil can a fellow with a mustache not stronger that a Circassian's eyebrow read such ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... fury that seems to belong only to Slavs and Mohammedans—fatalists—the Russians hurled themselves against the powerful batteries and got to close quarters with the enemy. For nearly twenty minutes a wild, surging sea of clashing steel—bayonets, swords, lances and Circassian daggers—wielded by fiery mountaineers and steady, cool, well-disciplined Teutons, roared and flowed around the big guns, which towered over the lashing waves like islands in a stormy ocean. A railway collision would ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... agreeable young informant used to discourse, in our evenings in the Lazaretto at Malta, very eloquently about the beauty of his wife, whom he had left behind him at Cairo—her brown hair, her brilliant complexion, and her blue eyes. It is this Circassian blood, I suppose, to which the Turkish aristocracy that governs Egypt must be indebted for the fairness of their skin. Ibrahim Pasha, riding by in his barouche, looked like a bluff jolly-faced English dragoon officer, with ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... build, such as the Argonauts might have sailed in when questing for the Golden Fleece; for the graceful caiques rowed by boatmen in zouaves of crimson and gold, in the sterns of which the flower of Circassian beauty in gossamer veils reclined on divans and carpets from the most famous looms of Persia and Bokhara. These visions touched him not: he was crossing into Asia Minor, a country of which he knew nothing, and his attention was divided ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... accepted an invitation to spend a few days with me. He repaid me for this attention with much agreeable conversation and many anecdotes of Russia, Germany (where he was educated), and Poland. He possesses a character of extreme interest to me, as being a Circassian, or descendant of that people, who are the local representatives of the Circassian race. He was very fair in complexion, and possessed a fine, manly, tall, and well-proportioned figure, and a beautiful ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... other liberty, peace of mind, affluence, social enjoyments, honorable distinctions. Strange to say, the only hesitation was on the part of Frances. Dr. Burney was transported out of himself with delight. Not such are the raptures of a Circassian father who has sold his pretty daughter well to a Turkish slave-merchant. Yet Dr. Burney was an amiable man, a man of good abilities, a man who had seen much of the world. But he seems to have thought that going to court was like going to heaven; ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... were acted in a contemporary play. One went to Persia to convert the Shah and bring him in on the side of the Christian nations against the Ottomans. On the way he discovered coffee! His younger brother, who accompanied him, remained in Persia and married a Circassian princess. The elder, after being taken prisoner by the Turks, was liberated by the efforts of James I and then imprisoned in the Tower by the same King for his interference in the Levant trade. Ruined in pocket and with a broken heart he sold Wiston ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... were exhausted long before she had seen half of it. She tried to make her own personal choice between the dull, soft, dark colors and carved Circassian walnut furniture in the dining-room, and the sharp contrast of the reception hall, where the sunlight flooded a rosy-latticed paper, an old white Colonial mantel and fiddle-backed chairs, and struck dazzling gleams from the brass fire-dogs and irons. The drawing-room had its own ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... "Nothing can be more unlike the Mongol type than the pure Circassian I have before me,—yet let me see the slipper. I want to be sure ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... giant steer, as big as sixteen every-day oxen; the smallest horse in the world, a fairy beast, thoughtfully doing sums in the sand with his miniature forepaw; the fat lady, very bored and warm; the fair Circassian, who lured audiences into a hot theater with tinsel decorations like a Christmas-tree and hundreds of colored lights. There were other sights; but Jonkheer Brederode said these were the only ones for ladies, and hurried us ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... I was lying down upon my mat when I suddenly heard guns firing in all directions, drums beating, and the customary signs of either an arrival or departure of a trading party. Presently a messenger arrived from Koorshid Aga, the Circassian, to announce the departure of Mahommed's party without me, and my vakeel appeared with a message from the same people, that if I followed on their road (my proposed route) they would fire upon me and my party, as they would allow no English spies in ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... was luxury, but grown assured of itself, and gazing down upon itself with aristocratic disdain. And after a while this began to penetrate the vulgarest mind, and to fill it with awe; one cannot remain long in an apartment which is trimmed and furnished in rarest Circassian walnut, and "papered" with hand-embroidered silk cloth, without feeling some excitement—even though there be no one to mention that the furniture has cost eight thousand dollars per room, and that the wall covering has been imported ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... been partly made familiar substantially through other channels. They continued: "That night Khartoum was delivered into the hands of the rebels. It fell through the treachery of the accursed Farig Pasha, the Circassian, who opened the gate. May he never reach Paradise! May Shaytan take possession of his soul! But it was Kismet. The gate was called Bouri'; it was on the Blue Nile. We were on guard near, but did not see what was going on. We were attacked and fought desperately at the gate. Twelve of our staff ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... Morocco and the Khedive of Egypt. Not only do the Mahommedans of Asia continue the practice—they have tried to transplant their ideal paradise into Europe. Turkey, decayed and rotten, with its black eunuchs and its Circassian slave girls, stands as an object-lesson to the ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... of Mithra was held in Rome on the 8th day before the Kalends of January, being also the day of the Circassian games, which were sacred to the Sun. (See ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... Gosse[23] quotes Croxall's own description of his poetry, as designed "to set off the dry and insipid stuff" of the age with "a whole piece of rich and glowing scarlet." His two pieces "The Vision," 1715, and "The Fair Circassian," 1720, though written in the couplet, exhibit a rosiness of color and a luxuriance of imagery manifestly learned from Spenser. In 1713 he had published under the pseudonym of Nestor Ironside, "An Original Canto of Spenser," ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... way. 'Twas all a hurry in Redcleugh as well as a sort of fright among us in the hall, every one whispering and wondering and questioning all to no end; for from that night we never knew more of her home or kindred, save that it was suspected she was a Circassian, and had left a noble home for the love she bore to master. Nor was she ever inquired after by her friends, except once, when a great eastern lord, as they said, came in a strange equipage to see her; but her ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... Poddle continued, now released from the necessity of commanding his feelings, in so far as the protection of his hair was concerned, "was fancy; the Circassian Beauty was fascination; the Female Sampson was the hallugination of sky-blue tights; but the Mexican Sword Swallower," he murmured, ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... and love. "Come, faded belles, who would your youth renew, And learn the wonders of Olympian dew; Restore the roses that begin to faint, Nor think celestial washes vulgar paint; Your former features, airs, and arts assume, Circassian virtues, with Circassian bloom. Come, battered beaux, whose locks are turned to gray, And crop Discretion's lying badge away; Read where they vend these smart engaging things, These flaxen frontlets with elastic springs; No female eye the fair deception sees, ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... after the Crimea," [Footnote: Ibid.] But while condemning with the greatest energy the Turkish barbarities in Bulgaria, he warned his constituents against overlooking atrocities committed elsewhere, "for there was not one pin to choose between Circassian ruffians on the one side and Montenegrin ruffians on the other." To those who "were carried away by their belief that the conflict was one between the present and the past, and between Christianity and Islamism, and declared that ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... was pitched on the side of Tarki; over it hangs the fortress of Bournaya, behind which the sun was sinking. Sheltered by a cliff was the house of the Shamkhal, then the town on a steep declivity, surrounded by the camp, and to the east the immeasurable steppe of the Caspian sea. Tartar Beks, Circassian Princes, Kazaks from the various rivers of gigantic Russia, hostages from different mountains, mingled with the officers. Uniforms, tchoukhas, coats of chain-mail, were picturesquely mingled; singing and music rang through the camp, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... Tour through the Upper Provinces of Hindustan, 1804-14, by A. D. Ann Deane (1823). Walter Scott introduces more than one of the stories about the Begum into The Surgeon's Daughter (1827), e.g.: "But not to be interred alive under your seat, like the Circassian of whom you were jealous," said Middlemas, shuddering (vol. 48, Black's ed. of the novels, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... daggers, pieces of mail, shields, pipes, rings, seals, and other ancient articles. He demands enormous prices, but generally takes about one-third of what he first asks. I have spent several hours in his curiosity shop, bargaining for turquoise rings, carbuncles, Persian amulets, and Circassian daggers. While looking over some old swords the other day, I noticed one of exquisite temper, but with a shorter blade than usual. The point had apparently been snapped off in fight, but owing to the excellence of the ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... be so fond of him,' said the ingenuous young lady. She had to thank Nevil for a Circassian dress and pearls, which he had sent to her by the hands of Mrs. Culling—a pretty present to a girl in the nursery, she thought, and in fact she chose to be a little wounded by the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "You must mean Circassian or English walnut, which is the same thing. It grows abundantly in France. You are wrong in calling it French walnut, though, because there ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... pride of the "antique" connoisseur; its fruit beloved by birds and squirrels; its juice, the secret of the cherry cordial. Even that foreigner, the Persian "English" walnut, of Carpathian strains, is pushing north into Canada and the East Coast region. Its wood, too, under the name of "Circassian," is ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... graceful and subtle Arab, the Hebrew with his black cap and anxious countenance; the Armenian Christian, with his dark flowing robes, and mild demeanour, and serene visage. Here strutted the lively, affected, and superfine Persian; and there the Circassian stalked with his long hair and chain cuirass. The fair Georgian jostled the ebony form of the merchant of Dongola ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... attracted by the Giant City's motley activities. On the street, as in the salon, his magnetic power compelled recognition, and he stepped through the midst of the crowd as a Circassian blade cleaves water. ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... tightly in one another, so that Agatha could not even strengthen herself in the bold projects she was about to communicate, by stealing her own into her husband's hand. However, she placed herself on the floor at his feet, in the attitude of a Circassian beauty; or—she accidentally thought—not ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... from home, and that during his absence, a lad, in breathless haste, as if dispatched by the principal, entered the shop, stating that Sir. Money wanted a wig which was in the window, with some combs and hair-brushes, for the Gentleman's inspection, and also a pot of his Circassian cream. The bait ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... above all, perhaps—such is the theatric taste of this people—the countless varieties of lineament and costume observable among the warlike bands lounging and parading about their streets and gardens. The capital wore the semblance of some enormous masquerade. Circassian noblemen in complete mail, and wild Bashkirs with bows and arrows, were there. All ages, as well as countries, seemed to have sent their representatives to stalk as victors amidst the nation which but yesterday had claimed glory above the dreams of antiquity, and the ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... is a circle of stone bearing, without date, the name of "Sultan Selim Khan el-Fatih," who first laid out the pilgrim-route along the Red Sea shore. Inside the dark cool porch a large inscription bears the name "El-Ashraf Kansur (sic)[EN137] El-Ghori," the last but one of the Circassian Mamluk kings of Egypt, who was defeated and slain by the Turkish conqueror near Aleppo in A.D. 1501. Above it stand two stone shields dated A.H. 992 ( A.D. 1583—1584). In the southern wall of the courtyard is the mosque, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... heavy mahogany bureaus with glass knobs had their day, with plain net curtains and old-fashioned woven rugs. But all these were in the guest-rooms now, and in her own bedroom Mrs. White had a complete set of Circassian walnut, heavily carved, and ornamented with cunningly inset panels of rattan. On the beds were covers of Oriental cottons, and the window-curtains showed the same elementary designs ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... miles off, where I found a horse ready for me to attend a review of the military cadets. It was a very interesting sight, 3000 boys in heavy marching order with eight guns, a small body of light horse, and a small body of Circassian Horse, forming a complete little army. Their marching and evolutions were most excellent, no troops can move better than these boys. The Emperor and his staff rode so as to cut the column off three times, then they passed in review three times before him, ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... the floor, soft and thick, which Lucy told him was a genuine Smyrna. There was a leopard skin, with stuffed head and red, gaping jaws. There were two handsome overstuffed leather chairs, and the bedroom set was Circassian walnut, so ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... the body of the people are unaffected, so long will it be corruption in high places, varying in form, not in matter. Egypt is usurped by the family of the Sandjeh of Salonique, and (by our folly) we have added a ring of Circassian pashas. The whole lot should go; they are as much strangers as we would be. Before we began muddling we had only to deal with the Salonique family; now we have added the ring, who say, 'We are Egypt.' We have ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... Norseman of old. But who was the maker of the blade? It was some eight inches long, with a sharp edge on one side, a sharp crooked pick on the other; of the finest steel, inlaid with strange characters in gold, the work probably of some Circassian, Tartar, or Persian; such a battle-axe as Rustum or Zohrab may have wielded in fight upon the banks of Oxus; one of those magic weapons, brought, men knew not how, out of the magic East, which were hereditary in many a Norse family and sung of in ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... whose fine qualities of soul shine so brightly in this morally stifling atmosphere that one forgets her errors in a mastering impulse of love and pity. There is no more pathetic history in this arid and heartless age than that of Mlle. Aisse, the beautiful Circassian, with the lustrous, dark, Oriental eyes, who was brought from Constantinople in infancy by the French envoy, and left as a precious heritage to Mme. de Ferriol, the intriguing sister of Mme. de Tencin, and ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... for them, but of commonplace affairs—the elder women of infantile sufferings, the girls of the songs they had heard on Saturday at the Aldgate Empire or of the shocking taste in feathers of more favored rivals. But here and there a black-eyed daughter of Poland or a fair-haired Circassian edged away discreetly from the company and was as warily followed by the necessary male. The dirty street caught snatches of music-hall melodies. Windows were opened above and wit exchanged. A voice, that of a young girl evidently, asked what ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... Golden Fleece? I do not know, nor care. The old Hellenes said that it hung in Colchis, which we call the Circassian coast, nailed to a beech tree in the war-god's wood; and that it was the fleece of the wondrous ram, who bore Phrixus and Helle across the Euxine Sea. For Phrixus and Helle were the children of the cloud nymph, ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... to the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, where, in a painted wooden shed, a most beautiful Circassian slave, miraculously rescued from some abominable seraglio in Constantinople, sold pen'orths of "galette du gymnase." On her raven hair she wore a silk turban all over sequins, silver and gold, with a yashmak that fell down behind, leaving her adorable face exposed: ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the countess, Mary saw him welcomed like an idolized being before whose cheering influence all frowns and clouds must disappear. When he entered, the smile resumed its seat on the languid features of Lady Tinemouth; Miss Egerton's eye lighted up to keener archness; Lady Sara's Circassian orbs floated in pleasure; and for Mary herself, her breast heaved, her cheeks glowed, her hands trembled, a quick sigh fluttered in her bosom; and whilst she remained in his presence, she believed that happiness had lost its usual evanescent property, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... uncertain what to do; but already Rinaldo was too near to be escaped. He advanced menacingly to the Circassian king, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Ipshir Mustapha Pasha was originally a Circassian slave, and said to have been a tribesman and near relation of the famous Abaza. During the revolutions which distracted the minority of Mohammed, he became grand-vizir for a few months, (Oct. 1654-May ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... Eve, and who every morning now stood behind her chair at breakfast, familiarly joining in and gathering what she chose of the conversation. Erect as a palm-tree, slender, queenly, with her thin and clearly cut features, and her head like that of some Circassian carved in black marble, she had a kinship of picturesqueness with Luigi, and could meet him more nearly on his own ground than another, for her voice was as sweet as his, and he was only less dark than she. Breakfast ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... downstairs in the drawing room is all right, but I like to have this one handy, so that I can play whenever the spirit moves me. This is my bedroom," she continued, pushing aside the silken curtains that separated the two rooms. The girls exclaimed over the Circassian walnut furniture and could not decide as to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... and who might well have served as a bodyguard to the proudest of Eastern monarchs. This splendid troop consisted of five hundred men and each horse which it contained was worth an earl's ransom. The riders were Georgian and Circassian slaves in the very prime of life. Their helmets and hauberks were formed of steel rings, so bright that they shone like silver; their vestures were of the gayest colours, and some of cloth of gold or silver; the sashes were twisted ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... name hints at a Circassian origin and a tyrannical disposition. Ostrovsky frequently gives to the persons in his plays names that suggest ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... view upon the counter, did indeed present a spectacle of indecision not quite compatible with unalloyed happiness, but the light cloud passed. The lovely specimen oftenest chosen, oftenest rejected, and finally abided by, was of Circassian descent, possessing as much boldness of beauty as was reconcilable with extreme feebleness of mouth, and combining a sky-blue silk pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers, and a black velvet hat: which this fair stranger to our northern shores would seem to have founded on ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... English barber and chiropodist, is usually credited with the discovery of vaccination. The doubtful honor, however, belongs in reality to an old Circassian woman who, according to the historian Le Duc, in the year 1672 startled Constantinople with the announcement that the Virgin Mary had revealed to her an unfailing ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... really go to Paris and Naples, some to Calcutta, there is a sort of legal fiction that such an assumption is steadily taking root. Yet, unhappily, that ugly barrier of languages interferes. Schamyl, the Circassian chief, though much of a savage, is not so wanting in taste and discernment as to be backward in reading any book of yours or mine. Doubtless he yearns to read it. But then, you see, that infernal Tchirkass ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... perceiving some slight demur to the announcement at mine host's end of the table. We had scarce time to recover from this unexpected sally of the count, when a young notabilite, a poet of the romantic school of France, whose face was very pale, who wore a Circassian profusion of black hair over his shoulders, a satin waistcoat over his breast, and Byron-tie (noeud Byron) round his neck—permitted his muse to say something flattering to us across the table about Shakspeare. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... spent the night, and were sadly infested by midges. Next day we went up the river in the boat, passing the city of Asso, which stands on its banks in the midst of a forest. I here found one Nicholas Capella, of Modena, who commanded in these parts, and a Circassian woman named Martha, who had been the slave of a person of Genoa, but was now married. This Martha received me with much kindness, and with her I staid two days. Phasis is a city of Mingrelia, subject to prince Bendian, whose dominions extend only about three days ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... Nyuta. "I could not believe my eyes! When he began declaring his passion and—just imagine!—put his arms round my waist, I should not have recognised him. And you know he has a way with him! When he told me he was in love with me, there was something brutal in his face, like a Circassian." ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... in a restaurant of Circassian walnut and velvet carpets, with cocktails, and eggs elaborate with truffles and French pastry. Then, afterward, they would stop at a confectioner's, or at a cafe where there was dancing, for tea. They all danced in a perfection of slow graceful ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and black slaves in every variety of costume and colour; veiled ladies from Constantinople; cattle and buffaloes ruminating in the pastures; Arab horses clothed in the most sumptuous trappings of velvet and gold; caiques filled with Armenian and Circassian young women, seated under the shade or playing with their children, some of the most ravishing beauty, form a scene of variety and interest probably unique in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... know, Ali was a rebel against the Porte. So I concluded I had better get off while I could. But I'll do Monsieur Tebelen the justice to say that he loaded me with presents,—diamonds, ten thousand talari, one thousand gold coins, a beautiful Greek girl for groom, a little Circassian for a mistress, and an Arab horse! Yes, Ali Tebelen, pacha of Janina, is too little known; he needs an historian. It is only in the East one meets with such iron souls, who can nurse a vengeance twenty years and accomplish it some fine morning. He had the most magnificent white beard that ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... slightly engraved, horn handle, silver and brass mounts. Red velvet scabbard. Probably Circassian or Cossack. ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker
... Turkish, Circassian, and Slavic Mohammedans are concerned, their interests are bound up with those of the Sultan. They do not distinguish between the Caliphate and the Sultanat. Their ruler is the Imam-ul-Mussilmin, their law is the Sheraat, their country is the Dar-Islam; and when they are fighting for ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... regard the movement as a national one, and directed as much against foreign control and interference as against Tewfik, against whom they have no ground of complaint, whatever. On the part of the army and its generals, the trouble has arisen solely on account of the favouritism shown to Circassian officers. ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... reappeared, but transformed by the magic influence of the drug, made monstrous or fairylike, intensified or turned to voluptuous languors, through which the Ouled Nail floated like a syren, promising ecstasies unknown even in Baghdad, where the pale Circassian lifts her lustrous eyes, in which the palms were heavy with dates of solid gold, and the streams were ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... wield the nut-brown lance and the blade with bright glance. He drove at Kanmakan, saying, "Woe to thee! Knewest thou to whom these herds belong thou hadst not done this deed. Know that they are the goods of the band Grecian, the champions of the ocean and the troop Circassian; and this troop containeth none but valiant wights numbering an hundred knights, who have cast off the allegiance of every Sultan. But there hath been stolen from them a noble stallion, and they have vowed not to return hence without him." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Berserker, who harried the Russian armed line of the Terek with bloody and destructive raids before and during the reign of the great Caucasian hero Shamyl. He was finally overtaken and surrounded by a large Russian force on the summit of a high hill near the river Terek, called the Circassian Gora. Finding it impossible to escape, he and his men slaughtered their horses, built a breastwork of their bodies, and behind this bloody half-living wall fought until they were literally annihilated. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... sight of them excites my ire. I never saw such a useless, expensive set. I hate (there is no other word for it) these Arabs; and I like the Blacks—patient, enduring, and friendly, as much as the Arab is cowardly, cruel, and effeminate. All the misery is due to these Arab and Circassian Pashas and authorities. I would not stay a day here for these wretched creatures, but I would give my life ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... is not regularly put up for sale and bartered for, like the Oriental houris; but she is none the less an article of merchandise, to be paid for by him who would aspire to her hand. She has no more freedom in the choice of her husband than has the Circassian slave." ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... for the life of your son and your own. Also, the freedom of the six Circassian slaves whom you house now at Beni Hassan, ready to bring to your palace. Also, for these slaves two hundred Turkish pounds apiece. Also, your written word that you will bring no more slaves into ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... huntsman and head kennelman, a gray, wrinkled old man with hair cut straight over his forehead, Ukrainian fashion, a long bent whip in his hand, and that look of independence and scorn of everything that is only seen in huntsmen. He doffed his Circassian cap to his master and looked at him scornfully. This scorn was not offensive to his master. Nicholas knew that this Daniel, disdainful of everybody and who considered himself above them, was all the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... distinguished Scottish historical painter, born at Edinburgh, many of his paintings being on national subjects; he was a friend of Scott, who patronised his work, and in succession to Wilkie, president of the Royal Scottish Academy; painted "Circassian Captives" and "Slave-Market at ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... muttered hastily his last dire rumours. Five hundred Circassian cavalry were coming. The mountains were now infested with the dread Albanian irregulars, Coleman had thought in his daylight tramp that he had appreciated the noble distances, but he found that he knew nothing of their nobility ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... Gubb circled the tent. He saw Mr. Dorgan and Syrilla enter it. Himself hidden in a clump of bushes, he saw Mr. Lonergan, the Living Skeleton; Mr. Hoxie, the Strong Man; Major Ching, the Chinese Giant; General Thumb, the Dwarf; Princess Zozo, the Serpent Charmer; Maggie, the Circassian Girl; and the rest of the side-show employees enter the tent. Then he removed his Number Eight mustache and put it in his pocket, and balanced his mirror against a twig. Mr. ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... along the northern slopes of the Caucasus, between the Caspian and the northern shores of the Black Sea, as far as the Straits of Yenikale; its subdivisions are Lesghian, Kistian, and Circassian, each with its dialects. Formerly the Circassians numbered about 500,000, but large numbers of them emigrated to European Turkey, where they were dexterously planted by the government to impede the social progress of their Bulgarian ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... personage of a gallant and fiery bearing, clad in a surcoat white as snow, with a white streamer for a crest. He seemed more bent on having the way cleared before him than anxious about the manner of it; so couching his lance as he came, while Sacripant did the like with his, he dashed upon the Circassian with such violence as to cast him on the ground; and though his own horse slipped at the same time, he had it up again in an instant with his spurs; and so, continuing his way, was a mile off before the Saracen recovered ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... friend and others from his tribe have bought wives. Remember that beautiful Circassian girl?" the Tartar continued without raising or lowering ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the ladies of the party, not having completed their purchases at the bazaars, went out upon a shopping excursion, and passing near the Nubian slave-market, were induced to enter. Christians are not admitted to the place in which Circassian women are sold, and can only obtain entrance by assuming the Turkish dress and character. My friends were highly interested in one woman, who sat apart from the rest, apparently plunged into the deepest melancholy; the others manifested little sorrow at their condition, ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... great personages inquired; but all in vain. A few knew, and told Lord Minchampstead, who told Mark, in confidence, that he had been heard of last in the Circassian Mountains about Christmas 1854; but since then all ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... June 1.-Bishop Newton's Life. Pratt's "Fair Circassian." Cumberland's "Anecdotes ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... their greatest delights; this being an Irish stew compounded of lamprey-milt, pike-livers, flamingo-tongues, and the tiny, tasty brains of pheasants and peacocks; eaten while viewing the floor-show of strip-teasing Circassian girls or—Galba's invention, this—elephants walking tight-rope. Grand, Wes. No meals like that at the supermarket; no shows like that ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang
... head doubtfully and said slowly that we really ought to have put in the shafts, not Circassian, but Peasant or Siskin; and uncertainly, as though expecting I should change my mind, took the reins in his gloves, stood up, thought a moment, and ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... none of those pathetic scenes which poets and romance writers are so fond of describing when, for instance, the rich traders of Dirbend offer to the highest bidder miracles of loveliness, to be the sport of lust and luxury, beautiful Circassian and Georgian maidens, whose cheeks burn with shame at the bold rude gaze of the men, and whose eyes overflow with tears when their new masters address them. There was nothing of the sort in this place. ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... Council was composed of seven eminent Freaks—Sim Boles, the Double-Jointed Wonder; Bony Perkins, the Ossified Man; Duffer Leech, the Man with the Phenomenal Skull; Miss Tilly Boles, the Beautiful Mermaid of the Southern Sea; Mrs. Smock, the Bearded Circassian Beauty; Mr. Billy O'Fake, the Wild Man from Borneo, and the President of the Brotherhood, Runty, the Dwarf. These ladies and gentlemen were the leaders, nay, the fathers and mothers of the organization, distinguished for their sagacity, ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and I will add (since there is an aesthetics in all things), is much more handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian to behold. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... El-Serujah, in order to have the whole matter exactly laid before her, and then took counsel with her most trusty female slaves. She chose, and in a moment rejected, this means and that; at length, Melechsalah, an old and cunning Circassian, spoke. ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... had eaten, I went and saw the castle, some mosques, public places, and other things that were curious. Next day I dressed myself handsomely, and ordered some of the finest and richest of my bales to be selected, and carried by my slaves to the Circassian bezestein [Footnote: A bezestcin is a public place, where silk; stuffs and other precious things are exposed to sale.], whither I went myself. I no sooner got thither than I was surrounded by brokers and criers who had heard of my arrival. I gave patterns of my stuffs to several of the criers, who ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... same amount of space, but it is divided into two bedrooms. But the left has a sitting-room and bedroom, with a bathroom between the two. It seems selfish in me to have so much room, but Mrs. Gray insists that I need it and wishes me to be thoroughly comfortable. She wanted me to have circassian walnut bedroom furniture, but I chose oak. I don't wish my rooms to suggest luxury. It wouldn't seem in touch with the spirit ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... German EMPEROR with the CZAR of Russia? It was the hour of the mid-day meal. The EMPEROR, at the head of his Wyborg Regiment, had performed prodigies of valour. Mounted on his fiery Tchinovick (a Circassian mustang) he had ridden into the heart of the hostile position, and with one stroke of his Pen (a sort of Russian scimetar with a jewelled hilt) he had captured a convoy containing three thousand Versts (a sort of condensed food), intended for the consumption of the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various |
