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Crystal   Listen
noun
Crystal  n.  
1.
(Chem. & Min.) The regular form which a substance tends to assume in solidifying, through the inherent power of cohesive attraction. It is bounded by plane surfaces, symmetrically arranged, and each species of crystal has fixed axial ratios. See Crystallization.
2.
The material of quartz, in crystallization transparent or nearly so, and either colorless or slightly tinged with gray, or the like; called also rock crystal. Ornamental vessels are made of it. Cf. Smoky quartz, Pebble; also Brazilian pebble, under Brazilian.
3.
A species of glass, more perfect in its composition and manufacture than common glass, and often cut into ornamental forms. See Flint glass.
4.
The glass over the dial of a watch case.
5.
Anything resembling crystal, as clear water, etc. "The blue crystal of the seas."
Blood crystal. See under Blood.
Compound crystal. See under Compound.
Iceland crystal, a transparent variety of calcite, or crystallized calcium carbonate, brought from Iceland, and used in certain optical instruments, as the polariscope.
Rock crystal, or Mountain crystal, any transparent crystal of quartz, particularly of limpid or colorless quartz.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Crystal" Quotes from Famous Books



... a cloud", "like a dream". Do these make the meaning clearer? Explain. Are these comparisons apt? Show the fitness of "silvery", "crystal deep", "asleep". ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education

... the shape of a flat Apple In purest crystal set He lifted from the hook where it was ticking ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare

... 4th September a whale-boat manned by natives dragged us down the green lane of the anchorage and round the spouting promontory. On the shore level it was a hot, breathless, and yet crystal morning; but high overhead the hills of Atuona were all cowled in cloud, and the ocean-river of the trades streamed without pause. As we crawled from under the immediate shelter of the land, we reached at last the limit of their influence. The ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 1879. The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved. Charles Dickens and Evans, Crystal ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... with all her fair endowments, I did not think that in all the knowne world it could be paralel'd. For so many goodly groves of trees: dainty fine round rising hillocks: delicate faire large plaines: sweete crystal fountains, and clear running streams, that twine in fine meanders through the meads, making so sweet a murmuring noise to heare, as would even lull the senses with delight asleep, so pleasantly doe they glide upon ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... "They are both here, life and death, at our beck! I can take you to my heart, one instant the tides divide, then they close above us, and you are mine for ever and ever and only,—sealed mine beneath all this crystal sphere of the waters! We hear the gentle lapping of the ripples on the shore, we hear the tones of evening-bells swim out and melt above us, we hear the oar shake off its shower of tinkling drops,—up the jewel-strewn ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... soul of mine! Soul, soul, soul of throe! Thy soul, my soul, two souls entwine, And sing thy lauds in crystal wine! ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... beheld my companions die one after another. There was a frightful cavern in the rock, through which flowed a river. To this, in a fit of desperation, I resolved to trust myself. I went to work and made a long raft. I loaded it with bales of rich stuffs, and large pieces of rock crystal, of which the mountain was in a great measure formed. I went on board the raft, and the current carried me along. I was carried in darkness during many days, and at last fell asleep. When I awoke, I found ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall

... rendered it utterly untillable. He was sure that by the terms of his deed, which his father had from its vendor, Squire Bates, his line included the Moses' tables on which Purdee had built so fallacious a repute of holiness. He looked once more at the paper—"thence from Crystal Spring with Purdee's line north seven hundred poles to a stake in ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... of Taylor's Hill the Mother Partridge led her brood; down toward the crystal brook that by some strange whim was called Mud Creek. Her little ones were one day old but already quick on foot, and she was taking them for the ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton

... press lent itself to the Great Inconsistency. It was as clear as crystal to the journal on one side of the Avenue that the country was going to the dogs unless the SPIRIT of the Fathers once more reanimated the public; it was equally clear to the journal on the other side of the Avenue that only a rigid adherence to the LETTER ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... glas? What makes that thin incrustation of ice over the trunk and every twig which has been attracting my admiration these three days? It was as if each tree was dressed in a tight-fitting suit of crystal when the sun succeeded in ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... of the Covenant, and with more respect than the cottage of Romulus. Centuries have not been able to enfeeble the veneration and the love with which this trophy of the love of God for his creatures has been surrounded. This cradle, this sacred monument, reposes in a shrine of crystal, mounted on a stand of silver enamelled with gold and precious stones, the splendid offering of Philip IV., King of Spain. This shrine is preserved in a brazen coffer, and is only exposed for veneration—on the grand altar, once a ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... bearing the name of the sovereign for whose use they were sealed. Besides stuffs and mats, the furniture comprised chairs, beds, stools, an enormous number of vases, some in coarse pottery for common use, others in choice stone such as diorite, granite, or rock crystal very finely worked, on the fragments of all of which may be read cut in outline the names and preamble of the Pharaoh to whom the object belonged. The ceremonial of the funerary offering and its significance was already fully developed at this early period; this can be gathered by the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... buildings sent back the burning rays of the almost vertical sun. Thus fired and scorched, we could not help gazing with a somewhat envious glance into some of the Moorish-looking houses, not unlike the model of the Alhambra or the Pompeian house at the Crystal Palace, only not quite so fine as the former, with bananas growing in the centre of their court-yards, and fountains throwing up cool jets of water, and shady corridors and alcoves, the widespreading ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... beauty of the scene claimed her attention, and she fairly held her breath as she looked about her. The great oval room was lighted only by wax candles in crystal chandeliers and candelabra. This made a soft, mellow radiance quite different from gas or electricity. On one side of the room long French windows opened on to the terrace, through which came the scent of roses and the sound of plashing fountains. On the other side, ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells

... equipped with a special lens ground out of rock crystal. This lens lets in ultra-violet light which the ordinary lens shuts out, and X-ray film is especially sensitive to ultra-violet light. In order to be sure that we get enough illumination, I will set up these two ultra-violet floodlights to illumine ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... side the pavilion were placed folding couches of rosy silk, and in the corner, draped with rich blue hangings, glimmered the lady's bed, its fair white linen half revealed. Two embroidered pillows were at the foot, and on a little table beside it a crystal ball on a ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... coming on. Billy opened one eye, then the other, and hastily scanned the sky in either direction for an aeroplane, but the sky was as clear as crystal without a speck, and the ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... say that would be a good idea," added Christy, as he took in the plan. "The water is as clear as crystal here, and you can see the bottom as plainly as though nothing came between your ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic

... with noise instead of conversation, and a tumult of obstructive defendants, who impeded, by their want of skill, the very convenience which they were purposed to facilitate. How different the surrounding scene! A table covered with flowers, bright with fanciful crystal, and porcelain that had belonged to sovereigns, who had given a name to its color or its form. As for those present, all seemed grace and gentleness, from the radiant daughters of the house to the noiseless attendants that anticipated all his wants, ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... down upon him as if she hardly heard; beneath the bright adornment of tints, the lovely face—it was a very proud face—had become icy cold; the violet eyes were hard as shining crystal. To Mr. Heatherbloom that slender figure, tensely poised, seemed at once overwhelmingly near and inexpressibly remote. He started to lean on an iron picket but changed his mind and stood rather too stiffly, without support. Before ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... gray,—no beard, no mustache. He was dressed with the scrupulous cleanliness of a sober citizen,—a high white neckcloth, with a large old-fashioned pin, containing a little knot of hair covered with glass or crystal, and bordered with a black framework, in which were inscribed letters,—evidently a mourning pin, hallowed to the memory of lost spouse or child,—a man who, in England, might be the mayor of a cathedral town, at least the town-clerk. He seemed suffering from ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... atmosphere, now very warm, was laden with the perfume of flowers. In the valley resounded the ceaseless whirr of the cicalas, answering one another from shore to shore; the mountains reechoed with innumerable sounds; the whole country seemed to vibrate like crystal. We passed among myriads of Japanese junks, gliding softly, wafted by imperceptible breezes on the smooth water; their motion could hardly be heard, and their white sails, stretched out on yards, fell languidly in a thousand ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... on the west head of the bay, Crystal Head, where the meridional altitude of the sun was observed and sights for the chronometers taken; in the evening we ascended its summit and by a bearing of the land of Cape Bougainville the survey was connected ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... sky, even our mastheads were lost to view, and our horizon was such as tear-blinded eyes may see. The grey mist drove by us like a rain. Every woollen filament of our garments, every hair of our heads and faces, was jewelled with a crystal globule. The shrouds were wet with moisture; it dripped from our rigging overhead; and on the underside of our booms drops of water took shape in long swaying lines, which were detached and flung to the deck in mimic showers at each surge of the schooner. I was aware of a pent, stifled feeling. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... "here is another, thrust into the Cabinet for being so disagreeable a fellow, who ought to have been engaged in making fireworks for Crystal Palace fetes." ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... approach this;[2136] compared with the court, it seems provincial. It is said that a hundred thousand roses are required to make an ounce of the unique perfume used by Persian kings; such is this drawing-room, the frail vial of crystal and gold containing the substance of a human vegetation. To fill it, a great aristocracy had to be transplanted to a hot-house and become sterile in fruit and flowers, and then, in the royal alembic, its pure sap is concentrated ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... filled with birds of various colors. In the centre of the raft rose an immense tent, or rather, not to hide the feasters, only the roof of a tent, made of Syrian purple, resting on silver columns; under it were gleaming, like suns, tables prepared for the guests, loaded with Alexandrian glass, crystal, and vessels simply beyond price,—the plunder of Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. The raft, which because of plants accumulated on it had the appearance of an island and a garden, was joined by cords of gold and purple to boats shaped like fish, swans, mews, and ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... and sensibility. He is the unfelled tree, not the timber framed into the ship of state or carved into ecclesiastic grace. He lives as Nature lives, putting on the splendor of green when the air is sunny, and of crystal when the blasts sweep by; and while his roots reach down into the earth, there rises nothing above him but the heavens. Past experience shows that he may be harsh, prejudiced, and unhappy; but it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... center was a beautiful lake, its ice cold water well stocked with the finny tribe of speckled mountain trout, the delight of the angler. The park was inclosed by mountains of great height and grandeur, their rocky slopes were dotted with spruce, pine, and cottonwood, and capped with ages of crystal snow, presenting a sight more pleasing to the eye than the Falls of Niagara, and a perfect haven for an Indian ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young

... was March 14th, we played upon the Crystal Palace Grounds, which are located at Sydenham, one of the most popular residence districts of the great city and within plain sight of the magnificent Palace of Crystal, that is one of the many famous places of interest with which London abounds. Here another large and enthusiastic ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... as crystal," she asserted gleefully. "I have proof of every statement, and the finale can't go very wrong with such knowledge in my possession. To-night, unless all signs fail, will prove a warm night— warm enough to scorch these dreadful, murderous tools ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... hat off, and stood staring at me with a mixed look of reverence, incredulity, and astonishment—but not for long. For before I could say amen, yours truly, or anything, that entire body of water shot upward five hundred feet into the air, as smooth as a column of crystal, curled over in broad green cataracts, falling outward with a jar and thunder like the explosion of a thousand subterranean cannon, then surging and swirling back to the centre, one steaming, writhing mass of ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... these questions, was summarized in a walk I had a little while ago with a friend along the Thames Embankment, from Blackfriars Bridge to Westminster. We had dined together and we went there because we thought that with a fitful moon and clouds adrift, on a night when the air was a crystal air that gladdened and brightened, that crescent of great buildings and steely, soft-hurrying water must needs be altogether beautiful. And indeed it was beautiful; the mysteries and mounting masses of the buildings to the right of us, the blurs of this coloured light ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... in no magic cave, it is true, but I was in a sort of crystal palace of great extent, with here and there beautiful creepers running along rods up the sides and across close to the roof, while my trees were not laden with what looked like bits of coloured glass, but the loveliest of fruit, ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... this too requires skilled workmen and extreme care. The water is evaporated and the sugar crystallized in the vacuum pans, the size crystal depending upon the temperature at which the liquid is boiled. It takes a lower temperature to form a small crystal and a higher one to form a large crystal. An expert who takes the temperature of the boiling sugar regulates what we call fine-grain or coarse-grain ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... others; what he in particular knew of it was that he seemed to stand in it up to his neck. He moved about in it and it made no plash; he floated, he noiselessly swam in it, and they were all together, for that matter, like fishes in a crystal pool. The effect of the place, the beauty of the scene, had probably much to do with it; the golden grace of the high rooms, chambers of art in themselves, took care, as an influence, of the general manner, and made people bland without making ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... being tutored by Mlle. Luci in the sensational philosophy of Locke, "nothing in the intellect which does not come through the senses"—a queer theme for a man of the sword to study. But, thirty years earlier, the Regent d'Orleans had made crystal- gazing fashionable, and stories of ghosts and second-sight in the highest circles were popular. Mesmer had not yet appeared, to give a fresh start to the old savage practice of hypnotism; Cagliostro was not ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... deliberately down the corridor illuminated between leaf and blossom walls. A grotesque lump of crystal leered at him from the heart of a tharsala lilly bed. The intricate carving of a devilish nonhuman set of features was a work of alien art. Tendrils of smoke curled from the thing's flat nostrils, and Hume sniffed the scent of a narcotic he recognized. He smiled. Such measures might ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton

... stonier, where sorb and myrtle fall away, but lentisk and rosemary still cling to the face of the rock—the head and shoulders of some new mountain ever coming into view; how he emerged, at last, where there were mountains all around; below, the green sea; above, the crystal solitudes of heaven; and, down in that green sea, the slumbering Siren islands: the three which stand together, and the one which swam to meet them, but has always remained half-way. These, and other reminiscences, beguile the time till the storm has passed, and ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... flooding the landscape with a brilliance not surpassed in the crystal atmosphere of Denver. The snow capped summit of the Cima di Rosso was fit to be a peak in Olympus, a silver throned height where the gods sat in council. The brooding pines perched on the hillside beyond the Orlegna looked like a company of gigantic birds with folded wings. ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... this great bed of state; a death-bed situated in the heart of the greatest temple of desire ever built in all the world. He who had been master there, who had set in order those miles of stately columns, those seas of glittering gilt and crystal, he who had been magician, builder, creator, perverter, debaser—he, Louis of France, the Grand Monarque, now lay suffering like any ordinary human ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... for a few days at Fort Harmar, where the Muskingum pays its tribute to the Ohio, built by the Federal government to hold the territory which Clark had won. And leaving that hospitable place we took up our journey once more in the very miracle-time of the spring. The sunlight was like amber-crystal, the tall cottonwoods growing by the water-side flaunted a proud glory of green, the hills behind them that formed the first great swells of the sea of the wilderness were clothed in a thousand sheens and shaded by the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... across England, from Whitby in Yorkshire, to Lyme in Dorsetshire, and is known as Lias. Famous it is, as some readers may know, for holding the bones of extinct monsters—Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs, such as the unlearned may behold in the lake at the Crystal Palace. On this rock lie the rich cheese pastures, and the best tracts of the famous "hunting ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley

... at the maestro's windows. 'Hark! it is her voice,' he said, and drew up his clenched fists with rage, as if pumping. 'Cold as ice! Not a flaw. She is a lantern with no light in it—crystal, if you like. Hark now at Irma, the stork-neck. Aie! what a long way it is from your throat to your head, Mademoiselle Irma! You were reared upon lemons. The split hair of your mural crown is not thinner than that voice of yours. It ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... brewing, textiles, clothing; chemicals, pharmaceuticals, machinery, transportation equipment, glass and crystal; software ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... judge this sensible woman of forty-three, that she had fallen in love with Paul in the most unreprehensible way in the world; and if a woman of that age cannot fall in love with a boy sweetly motherwise, what is the good of her? She longed to prove that her polyhedral crystal of a paragon radiated pure light from every one of his innumerable facets. It was a matter of intense joy to turn him round and find each facet pure. There was also much pity in her heart, such ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... diameter, the goldbeaters' skin being covered in fabric and the car being suspended by four bands which encircled the balloon envelope. In October of 1907, 'Nulli Secundus II.' made a trial flight from Farnborough to London and was anchored at the Crystal Palace. The wind sprung up and took the vessel away from its mooring ropes, wrecking it after the ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... approached the great master-lever, protected by its bell of glass. (At least it looked like glass, for it was crystal clear and reflected gleamingly the blue light from the nearby coils). He tapped it experimentally ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst

... sign of it; it is as clear as crystal, except that there may be a little sediment ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... whip-hand of the day, and then you may loiter as you choose. If it is hot, you may bathe in the chill waters of those tarns that lie bare to the eye of heaven in the hollows of the hills—tarns with names of beauty and waters of such crystal purity as Killarney knows not. And at night we will come through the clouds down the wild course of Rosset Ghyll and sup and sleep in the hotel hard by Dungeon Ghyll, or, perchance, having the day well in hand, we will push on by Blea Tarn and Yewdale to Coniston, ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... as sleet; but as it was, they waited till they fell, and then froze instantly. Thus every limb, and branch, and twig, and every delicate, perennial frondage of fir and hemlock, gathered an ever-increasing adornment of clearest crystal. And thus it was that the rabbit in the fir thicket slept dry through the storm, the branches above him having been transformed into a roof ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... in Paradise, Uttered by one who, bravely dying here, In the true faith was living in that sphere Where the celestial cross of sacrifice Spread its protecting arms athwart the skies; And set thereon, like jewels crystal clear, The souls magnanimous, that knew not fear, Flashed their effulgence on his dazzled eyes. Ah me! how dark the discipline of pain, Were not the suffering followed by the sense Of infinite rest and infinite release! This is our consolation; and again A great soul cries to us in our suspense, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... July, also bears them. Often this ice formation assumes exquisite feathery, whimsical forms, bursting the bark asunder where an astonishing quantity of sap gushes forth and freezes. Indeed, so much sap sometimes goes to the making of this crystal flower, that it would seem as if an extra reservoir in the soil must pump some up to supply it ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... the young knights came forth at Richmond, in the splendid tournament which immediately succeeded Henry's coronation, "assuming the name and devices of the knights or scholars of Pallas, clothed in garments of green velvet, carrying a crystal shield, on which was pourtrayed the goddess Minerva, and had the bases and barbs of their horses embroidered with roses and pomegranates of gold; those of Diana were decorated with the bramble-bush, displayed ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... them in a plantain-thatched hovel on the banks of the Niger, and forgotten while I read them that the thermometer was 110 deg. in the shade. I have found them in the hands of a learned pundit on the banks of the Ganges, whom they were seducing into dreams of dewy pastures and crystal rills. And one of the pleasantest evenings I ever remember to have spent, was, by the help of the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," as I sat at a supper of rice milk, after a day of fire on the eastern branch of the Nile, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... the antique shop, a great gray cat rose and stretched itself, then walked ponderously down to the water's edge. It was "Grandpa." Georgina, laughing a little shakily because of recent tears, raised her prism to put a rainbow around the cat's tail, unknowing that but for him the crystal pendant would now be hanging from an antique lamp instead of from the ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... whispered one of them, "that the waters of this lake now so muddy, were once as clear as crystal; and that it was only after they were consecrated to the devil, that they became as ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... and down from fair plateaus, and their breath was fresh and cool with promise to one who faced them, eager in his hope, for they brought the virgin sweetness of the Land of the Whispering Hills. By streams, clear as crystal, he passed with a swinging stride, this lean young man in the buckskins of the forest traveller, over meadows soft in their green carpets, through woodlands whose flecked sunshine quivered and shook on the young moss beneath, and ever his face was lifted to the west with ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... nearly useless. I had the greatest difficulty in holding the flask, or in eating snow for refreshment, and could hardly get my hands to my mouth for the masses of ice which had formed upon my whiskers, and which were gradually developed into a long crystal beard, hanging half way to my waist. Icicles likewise had formed about my eyes and eyebrows, which I frequently had to break off, and my hair had frozen into a solid block of ice. After the loss of my hat, my hair ...
— A Night in the Snow - or, A Struggle for Life • Rev. E. Donald Carr

... that the Princess Salome who has Mexican opals in her teeth, and red eyebrows and green hair, and curious rock-crystal breasts? ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... added Natty. The Shakers were called upon in their beautiful valley and neat village at Lebanon; good dinners were eaten at friendly tables in Albany; and gay were the times they had in Ballston and Saratoga. Thence to the Lake George region, its wooded heights, islands, crystal lakes, silent shores. For a while they lingered with delight, then turned back for the dark, still caverns in the heart of Glens Fall. These caverns were, Natty said, "Two little holes for us to hide in." He added, "Falls on two sides of us, and the river above and below!—it would be worth ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips

... on to the city to the north of the Olive tree, 'What then wilt thou see there?' [say they. And I say]' The Leg and the Thigh,' 'What wouldst thou say unto them?' [say they.] 'Let me see rejoicings in the land of the Fenkhu' [I reply]. 'What will they give thee? [say they]. 'A fiery flame and a crystal tablet' [I reply]. 'What wilt thou do therewith?' [say they]. 'Bury them by the furrow of M[a][a]at as Things for the night' [I reply]. 'What wilt thou find by the furrow of M[a][a]at?' [say they]. 'A sceptre of flint called Giver of Air' [I reply]. 'What wilt thou do with the fiery ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge

... was not confined to mere form—such as towering peaks and mighty precipices—for there were lakelets and ponds here and there up among the crystal heights, from which rivulets trickled, streams brawled, ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... hand was known In Heaven by many a tower'd structure high;— Nor was his name unheard or unador'd In ancient Greece; and in the Ausonian land Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell From Heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o'er the crystal battlements; from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day; and with the setting sun Dropt from the zenith like a falling star On Lemnos, the AEgean isle: thus ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... alone and could glance about us. There was a tiger in papier-mache on the glass case that covered the low counter—a grave, kind-eyed tiger that waggled his head in a methodical manner; there were several crystal spheres, a china hand holding magic cards, a stock of magic fish-bowls in various sizes, and an immodest magic hat that shamelessly displayed its springs. On the floor were magic mirrors; one to draw you out long and thin, ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... direction at right angles to my path. She came along singing and dancing, happy as a child, though she seemed almost a woman. In her hands—now in one, now in another—she carried a small globe, bright and clear as the purest crystal. This seemed at once her plaything and her greatest treasure. At one moment, you would have thought her utterly careless of it, and at another, overwhelmed with anxiety for its safety. But I believe she was taking care of it all the time, perhaps not least when least ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... captive, war o'erthrown, They shall o'er Europe, shall o'er earth extend Empire that seas alone and skies confine, And glory that shall strike the crystal stars." ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor

... think better of it, and take some lunch with them. I couldn't resist that, of course; so down I went; and there she displayed the full extent of her innocence. I must be sure to come to Thurso Castle the next time I was in Caithness, and Upper Norwood (whence she would take me all over the Crystal Palace) when I was near London; and (most complete of all) she offered to call on us in Edinburgh! Wasn't it delicious?—she is a girl of sixteen or seventeen, too, and the latter I think. I never yet saw a girl so innocent ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that, perfectly! The motives are clear as crystal!... Madame de Vibray was ruined, and really committed suicide because—you will pardon me, I am sure—because the Bourse transactions you advised were not successful.... She poisoned herself, and went to Jacques Dollon's studio to die: perhaps she felt for him a secret attachment! Fate ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... this sense the client was often made to feel very distinctly that he was "sitting below the salt." While the mellowest Setine or Falernian wine was poured into the patron's own jewelled goblet of gold or silver or crystal, his client might be drinking from thick glass or earthenware the poorer stuff grown on the Sabine Hills. The fish presented to Silius and his "brother" noble might be a choice turbot, and the bird might be pheasant, ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... the glass of Nantz, without the coffee, "made racy with the third part of the least drop of creme de citron, crystal clear." ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... the day was not wholly profane, in which we have given heed to some natural object. The fall of snowflakes in a still air, preserving to each crystal its perfect form; the blowing of sleet over a wide sheet of water, and over plains; the waving rye-fields; the mimic waving of acres of houstonia, whose innumerable florets whiten and ripple before the eye; the ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... erect, looking to the Master, and your respiratory organs will be above the poison. If we are to be in Christ when we are in Ephesus, we need to keep ourselves separate and faithful, and to keep ourselves in Christ. If the diver comes out of the diving-bell he is drowned. If he keeps inside its crystal walls he may be on the bottom of the ocean, but he is dry and safe. Keep in the fortress by loyal faith, by humble realisation of His presence, by continual effort, and 'nothing shall by any means harm you,' but 'your lives shall be holy, being ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... ocean. And God said—"Pompeii did I bury and conceal from men through seventeen centuries: this city I will bury, but not conceal. She shall be a monument to men of my mysterious anger; set in azure light through generations to come: for I will enshrine her in a crystal dome of my tropic seas." This city, therefore, like a mighty galleon with all her apparel mounted, streamers flying, and tackling perfect, seems floating along the noiseless depths of ocean: and oftentimes in glassy calms, through the translucid ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... Milton," and also in his edition of the Poetical Works. Generally speaking, it may be said that Milton's conception of the universe is Ptolemaic, that for him sun and moon and planets revolve around the central earth, rapt by the revolution of the crystal spheres in which, sphere enveloping sphere, they are successively located. But the light which had broken in upon him from the discoveries of Galileo has led him to introduce features not irreconcilable with the solar centre and ethereal infinity of Copernicus; so that "the ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... express his own sentiments—disgust with the present condition of Russia, and admiration for the culture of Europe and the practical inventive power of America. Potugin says that he had just visited the exposition at the Crystal Palace in London, and that he reflected that "our dear mother, Holy Russia, could go and hide herself in the lower regions, without disarranging a single nail in the place." Not a single thing in the whole vast exhibition had been invented by a Russian. Even the Sandwich ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... destroy it. His characteristic was extreme accuracy, which particularly fitted him for giving that precision to the science of crystallography which it had not hitherto attained. By the invention of the goniometer which bears his name, he was enabled to measure the angle formed by the faces of a crystal by means of the reflected images of bright objects seen in them. We bought a goniometer, and Dr. Wollaston, who often dined with us, taught Somerville and me how to use it, by measuring the angles of many of our crystals during the evening. I learnt a great deal on a variety of subjects ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... hill, engulfed his fat body. Falk wondered as he had before now done many times, How much does he know? What's he thinking? What's he want?...The river, at high tide, very gently lapped the side of the old wall. Its colour to-night was pure crystal green, the banks and the hills smoky grey behind it. Tiny pink clouds ran in little fleets across the sky, chasing one another in and out between the streamers of smoke that rose from the tranquil chimneys. Seatown was at rest this evening, scarcely ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... fair division, and the mule trade was lively with the lumbermen and the merchants in Tucson. With the proceeds of their adventure the lumbermen added many comforts and luxuries to their camp at the Canoa on the Santa Cruz, and travelers reveled in crystal and whisky. ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston

... be the heavens with black, yield day to night! Comets, importing change of times and states, Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky; And with them scourge the bad ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... (Vol. vii., p. 478.).—When the tomb of Childeric, father of Clovis, was opened in 1653, there were found, besides the skeletons of his horse and page, his arms, crystal orb, &c., {536} "more than three hundred little bees of the purest gold, their wings being inlaid with a red ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various

... Uncle Jap, meditatively. "I risked everything I'd got. Man," he leant across the gaily decorated table, with its crystal, its pink shades, its pretty flowers, and compelled his host to meet his flaming eyes,—"man, I risked my wife's love and respect. And," he drew a deep breath, "by God, I was justified. I got there. If I hadn't," the fire died down in his mild ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... Strasbourg. The lady was here the guest of the sumptuous, vain, credulous, but honourable Cardinal Rohan, by this time a man of fifty, and the fanatical adorer of Cagliostro, with his philosopher's stone, his crystal gazers, his seeresses, his Egyptian mysteries, and his powers of healing diseases, and creating ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... the ice that freezes in the ditches appears of a dark colour, because it lies without intervening water on the dead brown leaves. Their tint shows through the translucent crystal, but near the edge of the ice three white lines or bands run round. If by any chance the ice gets broken or upturned, these white bands are seen to be caused by flanges projecting from the under ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... was, and a clever one. His wealth could not be counted; his warriors were innumerable. There were forty times forty towns in his kingdom, and in each one of these towns there were ten palaces with silver doors and golden ceilings and magnificent crystal windows. ...
— Folk Tales from the Russian • Various

... of their sentiments and folklore, superstitions, symbolism, mysticism, use in protection, prevention, religion and divination, crystal gazing, birth-stones, lucky stones and talismans, ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz

... cabalistically hung curtains. I cast a look at the Rumford grate; its black cold bars "grinned most horrible and ghastly." A sympathy was instantly established between them and my nasal organ, for I found a drop of pure crystal pendant from its extremity. Here, thought I, is an admirable question for "The Plain Why and Because." Why does a drop of water hang from the nose on a frosty morning? Because the natural heat of the body sends up vapour into the head, and that being ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various

... valleys, fare ye well! Through you Johanna never more may stray! For, ay, Johanna bids you now farewell. Ye meads which I have watered, and ye trees Which I have planted, still in beauty bloom! Farewell ye grottos, and ye crystal springs! Sweet echo, vocal spirit of the vale. Who sang'st responsive to my simple strain, Johanna goes, and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... population, hot, tired and thirsty. And then it pleases me to reflect that every house down there at the mountain's foot is in direct communication with this vast basin of shining water. The people have but to stretch forth their hands and replenish their vessels again and again. This crystal reservoir far up the slopes is really a part of the furniture of each of those homes. Have not I myself been down there in the dust and heat on such a day as this? Have not I myself been parched and thirsty? And have I not thought wistfully of the reservoir far up the slopes? And have I not ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham

... natural law, alternated from this wonderful cupboard, very regularly, to another, or sister cupboard, also presided over by the good old maternal nut-cracker, wherein the energetic pill lived in its little pasteboard house next door to the crystal palace of smooth, insinuating castor oil; and passionate fiery essence of peppermint grew hot with indignation at the proximity of plebeian rhubarb and squills. In the present case he quietly took his anti-bilious globule: ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... sight was that buffet. A crystal pyramid under the blaze of the candles, brilliant with glasses and decanters, white and glittering as snow in the sunshine. I took up a glass as fragile as a flower, careful not to hold it too tightly lest I should break ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... business. Hence the rapid growth of the suburban towns up and down the river, from Richmond and Staines on the west, to Erith and Gravesend on the east, and the hives of population which have settled on the high grounds south of the Thames, in the neighbourhood of Norwood and the Crystal Palace, rapidly spreading over the Surrey Downs, from Wimbledon to Guildford, and from Bromley to Croydon, Epsom, and Dorking. And now that the towns on the south and south-east coast can be reached by city ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... exquisite perfumes. The floor of this amphitheatre consisted of a great basin of rock, partly filled with fine white sand brought down from the uplands during countless generations by the flow of the stream, the basin being brimful of crystal-clear water which came pouring and plashing into it from above over a series of miniature cataracts, the lowest of which, about twelve feet high, impinged upon a small ledge of rock which projected into the basin for the space of ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... a weird symmetry, a thrilling uniformity, a wizard propriety in these her works. Not a dead branch—not a withered leaf—not a stray pebble—not a patch of the brown earth was anywhere visible. The crystal water welled up against the clean granite, or the unblemished moss, with a sharpness of outline that delighted ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... improved. Some Considerations concerning the same. An Accompt of some Sanative Waters in Herefordshire. A farther Accompt of the Vitriolate Water mention'd Numb. 18. together with some other particulars touching Waters. Inquiries for Turky. An Observation about Optick Glasses made of Rock-Crystal, communicated from Italy. A Relation of the Use of the Grain of Kermes for Coloration, from France. An Accompt of some Books lately publisht, vid. 1. PINAX Rerum Naturalium BRITANNICARUM, continens VEGETABILIA, ANIMALIA ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... and given up to pillage. The statues of the gods, the gold and silver, the turquoise and lapis lazuli, the vases, censers, jars, goblets, amphorae, the stores of ivory, ebony, cinnamon, frankincense, fine linen, crystal, jasper, alabaster, embroidery, with which the piety of kings had enriched the temples—especially the Great Temple of Phthah—during fifteen or twenty centuries, were ruthlessly carried off by the conquerors, who destined them either for the adornment of ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... clearing; a field of fern and some patches of grass breaking the forest, which, almost clear of thicket and undergrowth, was a charming place for deer. The soil, thin sand overlying humus, suggested rich crops of ground-nuts; its surface was everywhere cut by nullahs, now dry, and by brooks, running crystal streams; these, when deep, are crossed by tree-trunks, the Brazilian "pingela." After twenty minutes or so we left the "picada" (foot-path) and struck into a thin bush, till we had walked ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... An optical laser works by bouncing photons back and forth between two mirrors, one totally reflective and one partially reflective. If the lasing material (usually a crystal) has the right properties, photons scattering off the atoms in the crystal will excite cascades of more photons, all in lockstep. Eventually the beam will escape through the partially-reflective mirror. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... (excalibar) that never struck in vain. A furious combat ensued, and the king was defeated; but Child Rowland spared his life on condition that he would free his sister, Burd Ellen, and his two brothers, who were lying in a trance in a corner of the hall. The king then produced a small crystal phial containing a bright red liquor, with which he anointed the lips, nostrils, ears and finger tips of the two brothers, who thereupon awoke as from a profound sleep, and all four returned in triumph to "merry Carlisle." The Rev. Mr. ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier

... gooseflesh her would die down as surely as a ringing crystal tumbler, had she closed her ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... crabs they tossed to it. As the tide grew lower, they gathered a mess of mussels—huge fellows, five and six inches long and bearded like patriarchs. Then, while Billy wandered in a vain search for abalones, Saxon lay and dabbled in the crystal-clear water of a roak-pool, dipping up handfuls of glistening jewels—ground bits of shell and pebble of flashing rose and blue and green and violet. Billy came back and lay beside her, lazying in the sea-cool sunshine, and together they ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... receive dots and dashes from spark wireless telegraph stations and hear spoken words and music from wireless telephone stations with a crystal detector receiving set such as described in Chapter III, you can get stations that are much farther away and hear them better with a vacuum tube detector ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins

... of the fathomless mine My tireless arm doth play; Where the rocks ne'er saw the sun's decline, Or the dawn of the glorious day. I bring earth's glittering jewels up From the hidden cave below; And I make the fountain's granite cup With a crystal ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... home, where hearts are warm and true, And love's lamp brightly burns, And sparkles Hermon's pearly dew On childhood's crystal urns. ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... took over each glass, and the way he followed either Miss A—— or me all about the house, holding a tumbler in one hand, and a long, clean glass-cloth in the other, calling upon us to admire the polish of the crystal. To clean two tumblers would be a good day's work for him. From Monday to Saturday (when the dray returned), this state of things went on. Of course I had taken the precaution of having a good supply of bread made beforehand, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... Vikramaditya. When his eyes were somewhat recovered from the dazzling vision, and he could gaze unblinking at the wondrous throne, he beheld that it was resplendent with thirty-two graven images, and adorned with a multitude of jewels: rubies and diamonds, pearls and jasper, crystal and coral ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... quiet and peaceful there, the only sound being the low lapping of the blue, tranquil water, clear as crystal in the morning light. She was engrossed in her book, for it was a new one by her favourite author, while he, standing motionless, watched her and saw that, though she had grown slightly older, she was full of girlish charm. ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... to think that I was the boy who met him that day by Queen Margaret's burn, where the rowans are, and busked a fly for him, and stood watching, while his lithe figure rose and fell as he cast and hinted back from the crystal waters of Noran-side. ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie

... Wilmot's kidney Books reviewed Calendar, horticultural —— agricultural Cedar and Deodar Celery, Cole's Crystal White Cineraria, culture of Conifers hurt by frost, by Mr. Cheetham Deodar and Cedar Drainage, land Emigration, Hursthouse on Fire at Windsor Castle Fish spawn Flax Flowers, select florist, by Mr. Edwards Fruits, names of —— to ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various

... dining room was a table decorated with a model houseboat made of crystal candy. There were flowers, fruits and candies on the table, which was ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... and when at length I fell asleep, I was dreaming of fountains and lakes and sparkling streams and draughts of crystal water. I awoke to find my mouth parched with thirst, and on lifting the bamboo, I discovered that every drop had been drained. I felt sure that unless we could fall in with land death must be our portion—at least, for my own part, I believed I could not ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... silent sea of pines How silently! Around thee, and above, Deep is the sky, and black: transpicuous, deep, An ebon mass! Methinks thou piercest it As with a wedge! But when I look again, 10 It seems thy own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity. O dread and silent form! I gaz'd upon thee, Till thou, still present to my bodily eye, Did'st vanish from my thought. Entranc'd in pray'r, 15 I worshipp'd the INVISIBLE alone. Yet thou, meantime, wast working on my soul, E'en like some deep enchanting melody, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... the remotest chance that she also . . . ? His brain refused to complete such a question. The thing was unthinkable. But in any case his own duty stood out crystal clear. When he had mastered his anger sufficiently to risk speech, he and she must come to terms upon this thorny subject once for all. And he must take his stand upon the bare rock of principle. Let her brand him bourgeois, Covenanter, ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... a spirit deep, and crystal-clear; Calmly beneath her earnest face it lies, Free without boldness, meek without a fear, Quicker to look than speak its sympathies; Far down into her large and patient eyes I gaze, deep-drinking of the infinite, As, in the mid-watch of a clear, still ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... that these bodies act on polarized light in the manner of a crystal. Those that M. Lehmann terms semi-liquid still present traces of polyhedric delimitation, but with the peaks and angles rounded by surface-tension, while the others tend to a strictly spherical form. The optical examination of the first-named bodies is very ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare

... soul is meek, Thee with the welcome Snowdrop I compare; That child of winter, prompting thoughts that climb 10 From desolation toward the genial prime; Or with the Moon conquering earth's misty air, And filling more and more with crystal light As pensive ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson

... dour Austrian princess and to stifle slander. Still a mere girl, she was in full command of all the moves in woman's strategy. There was no school like that of Venice for the display of tact and fascination. To be sure, she was living in a crystal palace, but she was perfectly ready to repair all damages. Bianca was severely upon her guard, and her conduct was perfectly correct in ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... of the world is not fully discovered by the Europeans. The soil is sandy and barren, the air healthful and temperate, but not a little subject to hurricanes, thunder and lightning. There are some silver mines, turquoise, emeralds, crystal, &c. The natives are naturally good and civil, governed by a captain named Casich, whom they choose themselves. They are given to idolatry, and some adore the sun, others believe in a God, and some of them have no religion ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown

... the British Museum there is a book containing a facsimile of the whole of this tapestry (printed in colours, for the Society of Antiquaries), where the reader may see it almost as well as at Bayeux; just as, at the Crystal Palace, we may examine the modelling of Ghiberti's gates, with greater facility than by standing in the ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... surprise! In the very heart of the flower stood a little Prince, fair and transparent as crystal. On his shoulders were a pair of delicate wings, and he was small, every bit as small as Thumbelina. He was the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... and the Sedleys for bridesmaids, and Dick Ashbridge for a groom's-man. Cousin Ward, brought all the way from town to represent the bride's relations, was crying as if she were about to lose an only daughter. For Granny, she would not shed one bright, crystal tear on any account; besides, she was ever in state at Larks' Hall to welcome home, the happy couple. Ah, well, they were all happy couples in ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler



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