"Coif" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... detracting naught from the graceful ease of her carriage. Her thick, glossy hair, vying in its rich blackness with the raven's wing, was laid in smooth bands upon her stately brow, and gathered up behind in a careless knot, confined with a bodkin of massive gold. The hood or coif, formed of curiously twisted black and golden threads, which she wore in compliance with the Scottish custom, that thus made the distinction between the matron and the maiden, took not from the peculiarly graceful ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... of the desert, kissed by a Coptic sun. The tones of the skin are in harmony with the faultless modelling of the head. The black and abundant hair descends in heavy masses beside the throat, like the coif of the statues at Memphis, and carries out magnificently the general severity of form. The forehead is full, broad, and swelling about the temples, illuminated by surfaces which catch the light, and ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... in her deep mourning—her husband was killed in the rebellion of 1916. Her widow's bonnet is a soft silky guipure lace placed on her head like a Red Cross worker's coif. On the breast of her black gown there hangs a large dull silver cross. Beggars and flower-sellers greet her by name. It is said that a large part of her popularity is due to her work in obtaining ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... auspicious start, the following societies, most of them of national scope; Alpha Omega Alpha, in the Medical School; Tau Sigma Delta, in Architecture; Phi Lambda Upsilon, in Chemistry; the Order of the Coif, and also the Woolsack, in the Law School; Phi Sigma, in Science; Pi Delta Epsilon, in Journalism; Iota Sigma Pi for women specializing in chemistry; and Phi Alpha Tau for students in oratory. Analogous to these distinctions are the annual appointments to the editorial ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... equals, except in attractiveness to a Burgundian crossbow man; for one was very tall, the other short, and by one of those anomalies which society, however primitive, speedily establishes, the long one held up the little one's tail. The tall one wore a plain linen coif on her head, a little grogram cloak over her shoulders, a grey kirtle, and a short farthingale or petticoat of bright red cloth, and feet and legs quite bare, though her arms were veiled in tight ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... square, whence they might have a view of the pageant. The grave, square-bearded, broadclothed burghers, and their portly dames in velvet and three-piled taffeta, looked down from every post of vantage, while here and there a pretty, timid face peeping out from a Puritan coif made good the old claim, that Taunton excelled in beautiful women as well as in gallant men. The side-walks were crowded with the commoner folk—old white-bearded wool-workers, stern-faced matrons, country lasses with their shawls over their heads, and swarms of children, who cried out with ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... stands, my friend, in yonder pool, An engine called a Ducking Stool; By legal power commanded down, The joy, and terror of the town. If jarring females kindle strife, Give language foul, or lug the coif: If noisy dames should once begin To drive the house with horrid din, Away! you cry, you'll grace the stool We'll teach you how your tongue to rule. Down in the deep the stool descends, But here, at first, we miss our ends, She mounts again, and rages more ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... longing to see her, yet not daring even to ask for her? And when she came down at last, was she the less lovely in his eyes because she came, not flaunting with bare bosom, in tawdry finery and paint, but shrouded close in coif and pinner, hiding from all the world beauty which was there still, but was meant for one alone, and that only if God willed, in God's good time? And was there no faltering of their voices, no light in their eyes, no trembling ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... which is a picturesque variation of the popular coif, manifestly improves this type of face, and makes the nose ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... four cakes of bread, besides meat." They then went to bed, but the king watched all night in prayer. When day dawned the king went to mass, then to table, and from thence to the Thing. The weather was such as Gudbrand desired. Now the bishop stood up in his choir-robes, with bishop's coif upon his head, and bishop's staff in his hands. He spoke to the bondes of the true faith, told the many wonderful acts of God, and ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... him the hand that he had kissed. The tail of her coif fell almost to her feet; her body in the fresh sunlight was all cased in purple velvet, only the lawn of her undershirt showed, white and tremulous at her wrists and her neck; and, fair and contrasted with the gold of her hair, her face came out of its abstraction, to ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... How pretty she was, in the coif that framed her face! How large her blue eyes looked! They really were so, but a touch of excitement made them seem larger still. Above all, she had an enchanting smile, a smile of such kindness that we at once felt at ease and sure of obtaining what we wanted. She spoke ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... dame! she scoured, and sorted, and swept, in her kitchen, with the least possible violence to the ear; yet all was tight and right there: hot and black came the coffee ever at the due moment; and the speechless Lieschen herself looked out on you, from under her clean white coif with its lappets, through her clean withered face and wrinkles, with a look of helpful intelligence, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... The dining in pairs, the expulsion from hall for misconduct, and the locking out of chambers were old customs also kept up. The judges of Common Pleas retained the title of knight, and the Fratres Servientes of the Templars arose again in the character of learned serjeants-at-law, the coif of the modern serjeant being the linen coif of the old Freres Serjens of the Temple. The coif was never, as some suppose, intended to hide the tonsure of priests practising law contrary to ecclesiastical prohibition. The old ceremony of creating ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... that, to despatch his people's business, he went into the Paris garden, clad in camlet coat and linsey surcoat without sleeves, a mantle of black taffety round his neck, hair right well combed and without coif, and on his head a hat with white peacock's plumes. And he had carpets laid for us to sit round about him. And all the people who had business before him set themselves standing around him; and then he had their business despatched in the manner I told you of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... send us, we mortals bear perforce, although we suffer; for they are much stronger than we. But now I will teach you clearly, telling you the names of men who have great power and honour here and are chief among the people, guarding our city's coif of towers by their wisdom and true judgements: there is wise Triptolemus and Dioclus and Polyxeinus and blameless Eumolpus and Dolichus and our own brave father. All these have wives who manage in the house, and no one of them, so soon as she ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... recite in the soft, liquid Gaelic the Confiteor; and then raise themselves erect, pull up their black cloaks or brown shawls with the airs and dignity of a young barrister about to address the jury, arrange the coif of shawl or hood of cloak around their heads, and then tell you—nothing! God bless them, innocent souls! No need for these elaborate preparations. Yet what contrition, what sorrow, what love they pour forth over some simple imperfections, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... in the morning, having just then had a division On adjournment, which was rejected by the ministry by above 80 to 70. The Speaker, who had spoken well against the clause, was so misrepresented by the Attorney-general, that there was danger of a skimmington between the great wig and the coif, the former having given a flat lie to the latter. Mr. Fox I am told, outdid himself for spirit, and severity on the Chancellor and the lawyers. I say I am told; for I was content with having been beat twice, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... singing to his lute. Her hands are clasped, not in prayer, but in an agony of love and apprehension. She turns from the crucifix to gaze at him; and we see how the interview will end: for an aged female attendant, in coif and scapulary, leans over to extinguish the candles. We see, too, what its consequence will be; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... rout, that morning tide, Had sought the chapel of St. Bride. Her troth Tombea's Mary gave 480 To Norman, heir of Armandave. And, issuing from the Gothic arch, The bridal now resumed their march. In rude, but glad procession, came Bonneted sire and coif-clad dame; 485 And plaided youth, with jest and jeer, Which snooden maiden would not hear: And children, that, unwitting why, Lent the gay shout their shrilly cry; And minstrels, that in measures vied 490 Before ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... higher attributes—my wit, my sympathy, my charming affectations, my underlying strength of character (a lion clothed in rose-leaves—what?), my genius for the divinest of the arts. I think I shall lay myself at the feet of Donna Susanna. The rest of the sex"—his gesture put them from him—"may coif St. Catherine." ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... driver cracked his giant whip, and, turning on the box-seat, spoke to a figure that sat beside him. It was a woman in loose black garments, with a starched white coif like a Dutchwoman's kapje, covered with a floating black veil. At her side dangled and clashed a long rosary of brown wooden beads, with a copper crucifix attached. There were two other women in the big waggon, dressed in the same way. They were Roman Catholic nuns—Sisters of Mercy coming up ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... who had put on her black coif and taken her basket, "I want only three francs. You keep the rest; it'll ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... without lavishness, and if he had the air of a great lord, it was rather derived from the distinction of his face and carriage. He was without arms, and bareheaded save for the gold coif he always wore, which seemed to accentuate the lustrous blackness of his hair. His face was impassive, and the glance as that of a man rather weary of ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... the lips, which gave the countenance an exceeding naivete. Her skin was a warm, rich nut-brown, an especial charm in these regions, and her movements had that grace which suggests perfect symmetry of limb. The poor girl's costume, a coif for the back hair, a cloth imperfectly covering the bosom, and a petticoat of hides, made no great mystery of forms: equally rude were her ornaments; an armlet and pewter earrings, the work of some blacksmith, a necklace of white porcelain beads, and sundry talismans in cases ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... from I know not; but many there were, like myself, who noted it. The far end of the hall was dim and dark; but yet we saw her clear as she moved forward. Upon her face was a shining such as I have seen upon none other. She wore the simple peasant dress of her class, with the coif upon her head; yet it seemed to me—ay, and to others too—as though she was habited in rich apparel. Perchance it was that when one had seen her face, one could no longer think upon her raiment. If a queen—if an angel—if ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... impossible to find; and though the becoming and fanciful costume in which she was decked could not heighten her natural charms, it certainly displayed them to advantage. Upon her smooth and beautiful brow sat a gilt crown, while her dark and luxuriant hair, covered behind with a scarlet coif, embroidered with gold; and tied with yellow, white, and crimson ribands, but otherwise wholly unconfirmed, swept down almost to the ground. Slight and fragile, her figure was of such just proportion that every movement and gesture ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... stocking itself—a wearifu' process, but considered by Hortense Gerard, and by her ancestresses before her for long generations back, as one of the first "duties of a woman." She herself had had a needle, cotton, and a fearfully torn stocking put into her hand while she yet wore a child's coif on her little black head; her "hauts faits" in the darning line had been exhibited to company ere she was six years old; and when she first discovered that Caroline was profoundly ignorant of this most essential of attainments, she could have ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... old woman, in her Breton costume, shrouded in her coif (a sort of hooded mantle of black cloth), accompanied by Brigaut, appalled Sylvie; she fancied she saw death. She slowly went down the stairs, listened to the front door closing behind them, and came face to face with her brother, who exclaimed: ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... still more potent aids to convalescence on board the Burlington Castle. A band of devoted female nurses tended the sick; and amongst them, demurely clad in a black dress, her now sad white face half hidden under an immense coif, was one who answered to the name ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... the ground. By then Sir Tristram waxed more fresher than Sir Marhaus, and better winded and bigger; and with a mighty stroke he smote Sir Marhaus upon the helm such a buffet that it went through his helm, and through the coif of steel, and through the brain-pan, and the sword stuck so fast in the helm and in his brain-pan that Sir Tristram pulled thrice at his sword or ever he might pull it out from his head; and there Marhaus fell down on his knees, the edge of Tristram's sword left in his brain-pan. And suddenly ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... 169. So called, perhaps, from kekruphalos, an ornament for the head, being a coif, band, or fillet of network for the hair called in Latin 'reticulum,' by which name her office is denoted. The handmaid, whose duty it was to attend to the hair, held the highest rank in ancient ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... call him Serjeant; what is there in a coif? Those canvas-sleeves protective from ink, when he was a law-chit—a Chittyling, (let the leathern apron be apocryphal) do more 'specially plead to the Jury Court of old memory. The costume (will he agnize it?) was as of a desk-fellow or ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb |
