"Ebony" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the house, which, at that time, belonged to the Bradshaw family. The house is of a much earlier date, though, than that, and was once, undoubtedly, a royal residence; for in a fine old oak room, the carved panelling of which was as black as ebony, the ceiling was all wrought with the roses and the fleur-de-lys. The kitchen and bar-room were both made out of an old banqueting-hall, immensely lofty, and with a very fine carved ceiling, and stone-mullioned windows, of capital style and preservation. The staircase was one ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,— "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, 45 Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore: Tell me what thy lordly name is on the ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... plump body is closely clad in blue brocaded satin. The fit is scrupulous, yet no woman's figure is revealed. You are decorously shapeless. Your satin trousers even are lined with fur. Your hair is stiff and lustrous as polished ebony, bound at the neck in an adamantine knot, in which dull ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... elves, who conducted her into the middle of a high mountain, where the little people lived. Here everything was of a very small size, but more fine and elegant than can be told. The mother of the child lay in a bed made of ebony, studded with pearls, the counterpane was embroidered with gold, the cradle was of ivory, and the bathing-tub of gold. So the maid stood godmother, and was then for going home, but the elves begged her to stay at least ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... covered with tawny leopard skins, lay stretched on a couch of carven ebony in the library of the villa, of which the windows overlooked the great central courtyard. He was a tall man, spare, with black, sombre eyes, a high nose, and a wiry black beard, close clipped. His hands, long and white and nervous, held a scroll which he kept ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... was just sufficient light struggling through the clouds to make Panley Common visible as a black expanse, against the lightest tone of which a piece of ebony would have appeared pale. Not a human being was stirring within a mile of Moncrief House, the chimneys of which, ghostly white on the side next the moon, threw long shadows on the silver-gray slates. The stillness had ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... crossed a spacious court, surrounded by an open gallery which communicated with many magnificent apartments, all on the same floor. At the end of this court there was a dais richly furnished, with a couch in the middle, supported by four columns of ebony, enriched with diamonds and pearls of an extraordinary size, and covered with red satin, relieved by a bordering of Indian gold. In the middle of the court there was a large basin lined with white marble, and full of the finest transparent water, which rushed from ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... and golden candelabra, of Eastern figure, were in various stations about—and there was the couch, too—bridal couch—of an Indian model, and low, and sculptured of solid ebony, with a pall-like canopy above. In each of the angles of the chamber stood on end a gigantic sarcophagus of black granite, from the tombs of the kings over against Luxor, with their aged lids full of immemorial sculpture. But in the draping of the apartment lay, alas! the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... lends such proficiency as to baffle discovery and rob the game of its uncertainty as surely as the player is robbed of his money. It is, of course, vital that the confederate case-keeper be able to interpret the dealer's signs perfectly in order to move the sliding ebony disks to correspond, else trouble will accrue at the completion of the hand when the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... somehow help it to 'go' with the Chippendale), and Cheswardine had politely but firmly declined, there had been a certain coolness and quite six tears. Vera had caused it to be understood that even if Cheswardine was NOT interested in music, even if he did hate music and did call the Broadwood ebony grand ugly, that was no reason why she should be deprived of a pretty and original music-stool that would keep her music tidy and that would be HERS. As for it not going with the Chippendale, that was simply an ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... strange he does not find some nice girl to marry," left a disquieting effect. Ann had only that day suggested the same idea, and Bob had laughed to her about it the previous evening. Even Aunt Timmie, the ebony font of wisdom, had but recently looked slyly at her, remarking: "'Foh long we's gwine to have a weddin' in a private cyar!" (Aunt Timmie had never seen a private car, but it typified her idea of grandeur). She now ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... said Fouquet, as he quietly rose from his chair, and went to his large ebony bureau inlaid ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the lofty windows, intercepting the superabundant light, and diffusing tints resembling the ruddy, soft, and melancholy hues of autumnal foliage; while these hues were further deepened by a richly carved ceiling of ebony, which, not reflecting but absorbing light, allayed the sunny radiance beneath, and imparted a sombre yet brilliant effect to the pictured walls, and glossy draperies, of the spacious apartment. Above the rich and lofty mantelpiece hung one of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... silken fins, and golden scales' light Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow: There saw the swan his neck of arched snow, And oar'd himself along with majesty; Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show Beneath the waves like Afric's ebony, And on his ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... was in Barnaool the doctor left me writing, and went out for a promenade. In half an hour he returned accompanied by a tall, well-formed man with a brunette complexion, and hair and mustache black as ebony. His dress was Russian, but the face ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... up the walls, and the shelves held a multitude of fine bindings. There were good rugs on the parquet door, but no ornaments anywhere, save three. On the carved mantelpiece stood two of the old soapstone birds which they used to find at Zimbabwe, and between, on an ebony stand, a half moon of alabaster, curiously carved with zodiacal figures. My host had altered his scheme of furnishing, ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... Colbert, who detained the envoy of D'Artagnan, placed in the hands of that messenger a letter from himself for D'Artagnan, and a small coffer of ebony inlaid with gold, which was not very voluminous in appearance, but which, without doubt, was very heavy, as a guard of five men was given to the messenger, to assist him in carrying it. These people arrived before the place which D'Artagnan was besieging toward daybreak, and ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... him was an unusually large man, and bestrode an enormous horse. The two were as if they had been carved from ebony, as they stood silent and absolutely still, outlined sharply against the dazzlingly ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... Scipio, nodding cheerfully, while the stained-glass windows flung flecks of red and blue on his honest ebony features. "An' Cai Tamblyn all de while no better'n a fool. 'Him,' he'd sneer, not playin' up, but pullin' his cross face. Dat's a lesson if ebber dere was one. Cai Tamblyn left with fifty, an' me with three time fifty. 'To my faithful servant, Scipio Johnson. ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the greatest wonder and the liveliest curiosity to know how the skin of the shoulder obtained the elasticity requisite to exhibit such a phenomenon. On the top of the cylinder was a beautifully polished ebony pedestal, about two inches high on one side, tapering away to nothing at the other, so that whatever might be placed thereon, would lie at an angle of forty-five degrees. This pedestal did duty for a neck; and upon it was placed a thing which, viewed as a whole, resembled ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... very great space indeed because it was all space, and the roof was the ebony of limitless space from which the stars swung flaming, held by invisible ties, and the soil beneath his feet was a dust of atoms and the little beginnings of life. And long before the bishop bared his face again, he knew that he was to ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... case. A cigarette was the one thing for which Desmond craved. He took one and lit it. Strangwise sat down on the other side of a curiously carved ebony table, his big automatic ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... she hath sett so manie Trays full of Spearmint, Peppermint, Camomiles, and Poppie-heads in the blue Chamber to dry, that she will not care to move them, nor have the Window opened lest they shoulde be blown aboute. I wish I had turned the Key on my ebony Cabinett. ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... is a boudoir upholstered in light gray silk damask, with bouquets of flowers. This is Madame Desvarennes's favorite room. A splendid Erard piano occupies one side of the apartment. Facing it is a sideboard in sculptured ebony, enriched with bronze, by Gouthieres. There are only two pictures on the walls: "The Departure of the Newly Married Couple," exquisitely painted by Lancret; and "The Prediction," an adorable work by Watteau, ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... dedicate this mark of attention—(obsequio). Their graceful attractions well deserve any trouble that may have been taken to please them. Their bodies are graceful as the palms of the desert; their hair black as ebony, or golden as the rays of the sun, gracefully waves over their delicate shoulders; their glances are like the peaceful light of the moon. The Mexican ladies are not so white as the Europeans, but their whiteness is more agreeable ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... afternoon touched the silver scrollwork of the bed, and the silver frame of one large mirror, and fell on her folded hands and on the glister of their rings. Her head leaned backward against the high carved ebony of her chair. Her face was stern and bitterly cold, as that of Maria Theresa when she ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... want to have two hundred negroes to carry out my notions of the patriarachal life properly. Negroes, you see, are like a sort of family ready grown, and there are no inquisitive public prosecutors out there to interfere with you. That investment in ebony ought to mean three or four million francs in ten years' time. If I am successful, no one will ask me who I am. I shall be Mr. Four Millions, an American citizen. I shall be fifty years old by then, and sound and hearty still; I shall enjoy life after ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... with a spear in her hand, and sometimes with a pat{)e}ra, as if she were about to sacrifice: on some medals she has a peacock at her feet, and sometimes holds the Palladium. Homer represents her in a chariot adorned with gems, having wheels of ebony, nails of silver, and horses with reins of gold, though more commonly her chariot is drawn by peacocks, her favourite birds. The most obvious and striking character of Juno, and that which we are apt to imbibe the most early of any, ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... disposed to all the world; and at stem and stern stood, erect and silent, the white-clothed figure of a boy from the Soudan. Lithe, graceful forms supported long necks and straight-featured faces, black as if carved out of smooth ebony, and contrasting strangely with the white turbans of stiff linen twisted deftly into a high crest above the brows. Swiftly the little boat ran on for a mile or two against wind, with its three silent and motionless occupants; then one boy turned, and ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... it hath bay Windowes transparant as baricadoes, and the cleere stores toward the South north, are as lustrous as Ebony: and yet complainest thou of obstruction? Mal. I am not mad sir Topas, I say to you this house ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... 29 deg. N. we fell in with a Dutch ship from the Mauritius, having gone there to cut timber, which seemed a bastard ebony. Contrary to their expectation, they found there the lamentable wreck of four ships come from Bantam and the Moluccas, which had gone to pieces on the rocks. The goods and men of two of these were totally lost, most of the goods of the third were ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... the stairs, and turning, we entered a large front room. There were bedrooms at the back of the house, to be let to patrons of the establishment. At the opposite end of the front room from the windows was the ever-present idolatrous shrine. On either side of the room were elegantly-carved ebony chairs, with marble or agate panels. Rich Chinese pictures decorated the walls. Toward the back of the room hung the sign, '283 Licensed Eating House.' There was a large table in the centre of the room. Toward ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... anxiously out into the darkness. They could see nothing strange. The great trunks of the trees, with the long silvery moss of whitish hue, were glistening in the light of the still blazing fire. All the space between was gloomy and black as ebony. They could hear nothing that sounded strange. There was not a breath of air stirring, so that the trees were still and silent, as if asleep. Only up among their leaves and high tops, the tree-frogs (Hyloidea) and cicadas kept up their continuous music. Amid their numerous and varied ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... and were not about for breakfast until well past eight o'clock, when they found Doc Bird grinning like an ebony monkey. ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... haze. It looked like the ghost of a slight-formed man, hatless and coatless, and for a moment I saw at its upper extremity the dull flash as of a human face in the gloom, before the shadow leaped out far into the night. Splash! When my startled eyes looked down upon the glancing, waving ebony, I thought I could trace a white coruscation of foam spreading out into the darkness, instantly to dissipate and be lost for ever. I did not then know what form it was that swilled down below the glistening current. Had I known that it was Ginx's Baby I should perhaps ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... stripes run to and fro, of jewels so great, so rare, each might adorn a crown or ransom its wearer at need; and upon it stand the three kings curiously counterfeited, two in solid silver, richly gilt; these be bareheaded; but he of Aethiop ebony, and beareth a golden crown; and in the midst our blessed Lady, in virgin silver, with Christ in her arms; and at the corners, in golden branches, four goodly waxen tapers do burn night and day. Holy eyes have watched and renewed that light ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... college could not have found white men in all America to fill its professors' chairs. What a burning shame that the trustees should have been mean enough to rob Mr. L—— of his law student, and the Boston bar of its ebony ornament." I was never at the Boston bar, and therefore could not have been its ebony ornament. The imagination of the editors supplied them with the fact, and that ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... of this steamboat was a negro woman, very neatly dressed, with a very good-looking negro child, about nine months old, in her arms. It was of the darkest ebony in colour, and its dress rather surprised me. It was a chali frock, of a neat fawn coloured pattern, with fine muslin trousers edged with Valenciennes lace at the bottom; and very pretty did its little tiny black feet look, relieved by ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the attention of Vinicius was turned to other objects; namely, to wonderful slave women who were waiting for the bathers. Two of them, Africans, resembling noble statues of ebony, began to anoint their bodies with delicate perfumes from Arabia; others, Phrygians, skilled in hairdressing, held in their hands, which were bending and flexible as serpents, combs and mirrors of polished steel; ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... much to look at, dat's sho'," replied Big Abel, his face shining like polished ebony, "en I ain' much to look at needer, but dey'll have ter recollect de way we all wuz befo' we runned away; dey'll have ter recollect you in yo' fine shuts en fancy waistcoats, en dey'll have ter recollect me in yo' ole uns. Sakes alive! I kin see dat one er yourn wid de little ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... beat a little stick with all their might against a thick stem of bamboo; while others sang, or rather howled, at their highest and loudest pitch. Then two of the ebony beauties stepped forward, and began to move slowly to and fro on a small space of ground, half lifting their arms, and turning their hands, first outwards, and then towards their sides. Next, one of the men made his debut. He tripped ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... away with her foot, leaps up, and pulls the bell-rope. In answer to its sound three young, slender negresses enter; they are as if carved of ebony, and are dressed from head to foot in red satin; each one has a rope in ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... earth." And turning earthward they all wept again. And the gods tore white clouds out of the sky and draped them about the body of Morning Zai and bore him forth from his valley behind the hills, and muffled the mountain peaks with snow, and beat upon their summits with drum sticks carved of ebony, playing the dirge of the gods. And the echoes rolled about the passes and the winds howled, because the faith of the olden days was gone, and with it had sped the soul of Morning Zai. So through the mountain passes the gods came at night bearing Their dead father. ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... of the Mediterranean can be perfectly imitated by taking a cast of a coral branch and filling in the mold with celluloid of the same color and hardness. The clear luster of amber, the dead black of ebony, the cloudiness of onyx, the opalescence of alabaster, the glow of carnelian—once confined to the selfish enjoyment of the rich—are now within the reach of every one, thanks to this chameleon material. Mosaics may be multiplied ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... one could tell. He remained on the bridge night and day, clad from head to foot in oil-skin garments, facing the furious blast as if it were his native air, watching every motion of his vessel, and gazing intently into the world of ebony ahead as if trying to ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... party, with the exception of a couple of creole French gentlemen, was composed of my own countrymen; and little was here to remind one of a strange land, save the plates of clear ice sparkling on the table, and the faces of ebony shining behind our chairs. ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... herald who had come from Crete. Into one vessel they placed as many balls as there were noble youths in the city, and into the other as many as there were maidens; and all the balls were white save only seven in each vessel, and those were black as ebony. ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... molten metal, lent a weird and wondrous effect to the straight, regular, rigid features,—daintily cut as those of Pallas, and quite as pallid. The delicate and high arch of the eyebrows was black as ebony, and in conjunction with the long jetty lashes formed a very singular contrast to the shining white tresses, which lay piled like freshly fallen snow-drift above them. The brow was full, round, smooth, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... even the manner in which her lofty and noble saloons are arranged display an elegance of conception, there is a chasteness which pervades the whole, the furniture as Well as the decorations of the room are either of white or ebony and gold, preserving that degree of keeping which is inseparable from ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... supervision, were in the pan, and she hurried to set out the breakfast things. They were just beginning breakfast when the sound of hoofs was heard and Billy rode into the clearing on his own pony, with evident signs of perturbation on his ebony face. ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... perhaps natural to her circumstances and needs no further excuse. Her worst detractors never denied her a good heart, and an ear open to the lament of misery. In her hand she carried a cane of fine ebony, and altogether appeared a radiant vision of a fine woman in the purlieus of Britain Street. She paused and looked about ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... transformed to classic outline, and the nectar it contained to ambrosia. And what a famous little cook she was! Surely such flaky biscuit could never have been made by other hands. Bob suddenly became surprisingly interested in kitchens and all that they contained. The glint of tin pans, the dull ebony of the stove, iridescent suds foaming fresh and hot,—all these took on a strange and homely beauty quite novel in its charm. He had never dreamed before what an ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... Whereas he hath not one that seemeth not In work, in height, in posture on the ground, A hut, a peasant's dingy shed, to mine. And all his excellent woods, metals, and stones, The things he's filched out of the earth's old pockets And hoised up into walls and domes; the gold, Ebony, agate stairs, wainscots of jade, The windows of jargoon, and heavenly lofts Of marble, all the stuff he takes to be wealth, Reckons like savage mud and wattle against The matter of my building.'—And the king, Gloating upon the white sheen of that palace, And weeping like a girl ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... own room. She was sitting at a small ebony writing desk, jotting down a few thoughts in her diary When her sister entered, but now arose and drew forth a luxurious arm-chair for the ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... his ebony bulk from the chair in which he still shifted the iron pig from gloved ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... queer-looking dried vegetables, oysters strung necklace-wise on rings of bamboo, eggs preserved in a kind of brown mold, strange brown nuts and sweetmeats were displayed; there were drugs-shops with wondrous gold and ebony fret work, temples with ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... grey, mysterious depths haunts me like music. I don't know what it is. I have loved many a girl, from the northern with arsenic complexion, china-blue eyes, and canary-coloured hair, to the divine image cut in ebony, as some one piously and prettily says, but I doubt that I have felt quite in this way before. Yet she is not clever, as she says, and is only a poor shop-girl, her surname Affleck—that quaint, plebeian name with its curious associations! I must not forget to ask Merton ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... ever!" muttered Venters. He followed the sorrel into the narrowing split between the walls, and presently had to desist because he could not see a foot in advance. As he went back toward the open Wrangle jumped out of an ebony shadow of cliff and like a thunderbolt shot huge and black past him down into the starlit glade. Deciding that all attempts to catch Wrangle at night would be useless, Venters repaired to the shelving rock where he had hidden saddle and blanket, and ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... his shoes were veritable ebony mirrors, that eventful evening? Or that his ears were clean, even to the very recesses under the lobes? And when such a thing occurs, you may be sure that Solomon in all his glory was arrayed no more ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... join in his praise. His ears are not strongly enough tuned to drink in the execrations of the spoiler and the oppressor as the sweetest music. It is not enough that one half of the human species (the images of God carved in ebony, as old Fuller calls them) shout his name as a champion and a saviour through vast burning zones, and moisten their parched lips with the gush of gratitude for deliverance from chains—he must have a Prime-Minister drink his health at a Cabinet-dinner for aiding to rivet on those of his country ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... that combination of lovely scenery and execrable architecture which is so specially characteristic of a German spa. As for the drawing-room scene, I cannot regard it as in any way a success. The heavy ebony doors are entirely out of keeping with the satin panels; the silk hangings and festoons of black and yellow are quite meaningless in their position and consequently quite ugly; the carpet is out of all colour relation with the rest of the room, and the table-cover ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... the small pocket-knife used by Sir Walter when he was a boy. We were shown the presents given to him from all parts of the kingdom, and from abroad, including an ebony suite of furniture presented to him by King George IV. There were many portraits and busts of himself, and his wife and children, including a marble bust of himself by Chantrey, the great sculptor, carved in the year 1820. The other portraits ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... listlessly. Her hair sweeping against her cheek was ebony on snow, so white she was; while under her blue eyes were dark rings, like the smears of an inky finger. M. Etienne let fall the bracelet he was holding, staring at her oblivious of aught else, his brows knotted in distress, his face afire with love and sympathy. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... three o'clock, gray and chill. There had been a good deal of snow, and, except where it was brushed away from the foot-path, it lay white and unbroken, the black trunks of the trees among it looking like pillars of ebony in the ivory-paved courts of a temple. Up in the sky winter was passing with all his somber train, the clouds flying rapidly in great grotesque masses, and seeming to touch the tops of the trees like a gloomy, ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... snake. The pipe was not over large, for all its wealth of ornamentation. Barndale had hung over it when he smoked it first with the care of an affectionate nurse over a baby. It had rewarded his cares by colouring magnificently until it had grown a deep equable ebony everywhere. Not a trace of burn or scratch defaced its surface, and no touch of its first beauty was destroyed by use. Apart from its memories, Barndale would not have sold that pipe except at some astounding figure, which nobody would ever have been likely ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... the rare and weird sight of a black from Abyssinia whose splendid ebony hide has been tattooed in white. Furthermore, a young girl of scarcely fourteen summers will astound you by entering the cage of the ferocious beasts, whose terrible roarings reach you here! The programme ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... which—in its ebony and tortoise-shell frame—hung in a corner of the dining-room, had hitherto possessed no special interest for us, and would probably never have been dealt with at all but for a revolt of the girls against a succession of books on sport, ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... shed a flickering, ghostly light. There were no paintings—some grim carvings of skulls, skeletons, and serpents, pleasantly wreathed the room—neither were there seats nor tables—nothing but a huge ebony caldron at the upper end of the apartment, over which a grinning skeleton on wires, with a scythe in one hand of bone, and an hour-glass in the other, kept watch and ward. Opposite this cheerful-looking guardian, was a ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... northern breeze playing through it and at the head thereof rose a mansion towering from the dust and hanging from the necks of the clouds. Its whole length was of sixty cubits whereas its breadth was of twenty ells; its gate was of ebony inlaid with ivory and plated with plates of yellow brass while athwart the doorway hung a curtain of sendal and over it was a chandelier of gold fed with oil of 'Iraki violets which brightened all that quarter with its light. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... not forced, as a mere theorist would compel us, to pursue any particular one to the exclusion of the others. In all we may find our way to some mystic monument of eternal law, or pluck garlands from some new-budded bough of moral truth. The romance is like a portal of ebony inlaid with ivory,—another gate of dreams,—swinging softly open into regions of illimitable wisdom. But some pause on the threshold, unused to such large liberty; and these cry out, in the words of a well-known critic, "It begins in ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... its massive walls the lords of the castle were accustomed to reside. The apartments were either hung with heavy tapestry, which displayed, in gigantic proportions, the combats of the Scots and Danes, or panelled with polished oak, rivalling ebony in its glossy blackness, inlaid with solid silver. Heavy draperies of damask fell from the ceiling to the floor at every window, a pleasant guard, indeed, from the constant winds which found entrance through ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... swiftly, and carried it, flaring red, through the door into the corridor. We followed him. There in the flickering light of the lamp was the machine sure enough, squat, ugly, and askew; a thing of brass, ebony, ivory, and translucent glimmering quartz. Solid to the touch—for I put out my hand and felt the rail of it—and with brown spots and smears upon the ivory, and bits of grass and moss upon the lower parts, and ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... uncle Dick go on a voyage to the remoter islands of the Eastern seas, and their adventures are told in a truthful and vastly interesting fashion. The descriptions of Mr. Ebony, their black comrade, and of the scenes of savage life, are full ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... ushered in through a wide hall, and, passing half along its length, they turned to the right, and found themselves in the presence of Sir Arthur Ashby. He was a very pompous looking man of middle age, with reddish mustache, and long side whiskers. He was seated on an easy chair beside an ebony table. Opposite ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... where his boat-house stood a road swept windingly to his house through a garden of luxuriant verdure. Mango and limes, breadfruit and cocoanut, pomme de Cythere, orange and papaws, banana and alligator-pear, candlenut and chestnut, mulberry and sandalwood, tou, the bastard ebony, and rosewood, the rose-apple with purple tasseled flowers and delicious fruit, the pistachio and the badamier, scores of shrubs and bushes and magnificent tree-ferns, all on a tangled sward of white ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... flowers. There was the old-fashioned square piano in its carven case, and cabinets from China or East India; also a lacquered Japanese screen, marble-topped tables of filigreed teek, brackets of inlaid ebony. Curios there were galore. Some paintings there were, and these rocked softly upon the gently-heaving walls. As for the velvet carpet, it was a bed of gigantic roses that might easily put to the blush the prime of ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... one side to another, addressing himself first to this auditor and then to that, his words bursting forth from beneath his white moustache with such an impetus of hearty breath that it seemed as if all opposing arguments must be blown quite away. Meanwhile he flourished in the air an ebony walking-stick, with much vigor of gesticulation, and narrowly missing, as it appeared, the pates of his listeners. He was clad in evening dress, though the rest of the company was, for the most part, in mufti; and he was an exceedingly fine-looking old gentleman. At the first glance, ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... of the ship's spars were projected as dusky shadows against the Milky Way. Now, the sea was ablaze with opaline light, and the yards and sails were painted in faint tints of blue on a background of ebony. The metamorphosis was sudden and wonderful beyond description! The polar aurora seemed to have left its home in the higher regions of the atmosphere and descended in a sheet of vivid electrical fire upon the ocean. As we stood, silent with amazement, upon the quarter-deck, this sheet of bluish ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... had the chance of trying a more attractive subject. There, on the top of a rough wooden case, which evidently contained the machinery, was the wonderful clock. The dial was crowned by a glass pedestal placed on rock-work in carved ebony; and on the top of the pedestal sat the inevitable figure of Time, with his everlasting scythe in his hand. Below the dial was a little platform, and at either end of it rose two miniature sentry-boxes, with closed doors. Externally, this was all that appeared, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... yet a lustrous expression; to increase its apparent size, and to apply the force of contrast to the white of the eye. Together with the eyelids, the Hebrew women colored the eyebrows, the point aimed at being twofold—to curve them into a beautiful arch of brilliant ebony—and, at the same time, to make the inner ends meet ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... and hastily asking questions concerning her hotel, while a fantastic crowd surged round all three. Brown, skurrying men in torn bagging, the muscles of whose bare, hairless legs seemed carved in dark oak; shining black men whose faces were ebony under the ivory white of their turbans; pale, patient Kabyles of the plains bent under great sacks of flour which drained through ill-sewn seams and floated on the air in white smoke, making every one sneeze as the crowd swarmed past. Large grey ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... order of the Isocarpous sympetalae has but a single common representative in the United States; viz., the persimmon (Diospyros) (Fig. 117, E). This belongs to the family Ebenaceae, to which also belongs the ebony a member of the same genus as the persimmon, and ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... them away in the crate saying to the Porter, "Take up thy basket and follow me." He did so and went after her till she came to a fair mansion fronted by a spacious court, a tall, fine place to which columns gave strength and grace: and the gate thereof had two leaves of ebony inlaid with plates of red gold. The lady stopped at the door and, turning her face veil sideways, knocked softly with her knuckles whilst the Porter stood behind her, thinking of naught save her beauty and loveliness. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the little armoury. Two ancient tapestry-covered settees, in which the ravages of moth and worm had been met by a skilful repair of chisel and needle, a heavy table of oak, with carved sides as black as ebony, and a few old, straight-backed chairs, were ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... gradual and regular approach of these fires, till at last they are confined within a circle of about two miles; they are then driven by the same means into a space made by the erection of immense logs of ebony and other strong wood, bound together by cane, and of the shape (in miniature) of the longitudinal section of a funnel, towards which they rush with the greatest fury, amidst the most horrid yells on the approach of fire, of which they stand in the greatest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... frequent explosions of inconsequent laughter was not, of course, to be expected in such a sober-minded person; but he was, I think, a little too sedate for a black, for, although his face would shine on warm days like polished ebony, it did not smile. Everyone in the house conspired to keep up the fiction of Nepomucino's importance; they had, in fact, conspired so long and so well, that it had very nearly ceased to be a fiction. Everybody addressed him with grave respect. Not a syllable of ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... purposes devoting his attention to the raising of useful crops and plants on his estate. The forests and jungles of the tropics abound in products of an useful character, the luxurious and spontaneous growth of nature, such as ebony, sandal wood, &c.; but these must be sought for by a different class of settlers; and the mahogany cutter of Honduras, the teak-feller of India, the gatherer of elastic gums, can scarcely be ranked with the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... Brindle, Ebony, Speckle, and Bess, Shaking their horns in the evening wind, Cropping the buttercups out of the grass— But who was it ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... said the professor, becoming more enthusiastic, "surrounded by statues and works of art in marble, bronze, ebony, ivory, and gold, stood the crowning glory of the Parthenon, the famous colossal statue of the goddess Athena Parthenos, Athena the Virgin, forty feet in height, made of ivory and gold under the direction of Phidias. The Caryatides as ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... antagonists; they say that all the discourse hitherto made by me imports little to them, and that it serves their turn; that they have demonstrated in one instance, and in such manner and figure as pleases them best—namely, in a board and in a ball of ebony—that one when put into the water sinks to the bottom, and that the other stays to swim on the top; and the matter being the same, and the two bodies differing in nothing but in figure, they affirm that with all perspicuity they have demonstrated and sensibly ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... even when a low, half-strangled cry came to them across the water, out of the blackness that brooded upon the harbor, did any of the four give sign of excitement. The Babu started, and rose to his feet shivering; the others still squatted, mute and motionless as statues of ebony, neither by gesture nor murmur betraying their consciousness that at any moment, by tocsin from the fort, a thousand fierce and relentless warriors might be launched like ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... if he was to see President Renshaw before he went to lunch. A few minutes later, he stood in the hall, a distinguished and old-fashioned figure, with his silk hat, his long cape, and his gold-headed ebony cane. Lena Harpster was there, dusting an antique chair of ecclesiastical design that looked as if it had been imported from the ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... weakness. His pulse was beating feebly and his face was ashen. Wilson stooped to place his hands upon his shoulders, when he caught sight of that which had doubtless led the stranger to undertake the strain of opening the safe—a black ebony box, from which protruded through the opened cover the golden head of a small, quaint image peering out like some fat spider from its web. In falling the head had snapped open so that from the interior of the thing a tiny roll of parchment ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... choristers of Italy poured forth their melodious tones in presence of Batuschca and his cardinals—on the ice of the Neva, what time the long train of stately priests, with their noble beards and their flowing robes of crimson and gold, with their ebony and ivory staves, stalked along, chanting their Sclavonian litanies in advance of the mighty Emperor of the North and his Priberjensky guard of giants, towards the orifice through which the river, running below in its swiftness, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... actually happen. From the summits of the distant Alps ran filmy lines of ebony that knotted themselves on to the crests of the pines beside them. There were so many no eye could follow them. They flew and darted everywhere, dropping like needles from the sky itself, sewing the tent of darkness on to ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... slackness being noted immediately, and the backward one marked accordingly. I had hardly reached the deck when I was confronted by a negro, the biggest I ever saw in, my life. He looked me up and down for a moment, then opening his ebony features in a wide smile, he said, "Great snakes! why, here's a sailor man for sure! Guess thet's so, ain't it, Johnny?" I said "yes" very curtly, for I hardly liked his patronizing air; but he snapped me up short with "yes, SIR, when yew speak to me, yew blank lime-juicer. ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... I'm going to back him." At eleven o'clock on the following morning the visitor appeared. He walked with a gold-headed, ebony cane and dressed in a fashion of earlier days. He was alert and keen; his mind had no difficulty in concentrating on his subject. It appeared that he had all particulars at his fingers' ends, and he went back into the history of the Grey Room as far as Sir Walter was ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... on the group of observers, and well knows when the 'sun is up' by the stir which takes place amongst the astronomers; or by noticing the master working out his latitude with a pencil on the ebony bar of his quadrant or on the edge of the hammock railing,—though, if he be one of your modern, neat-handed navigators, he carries his look-book for this purpose. In one way or other the latitude is computed as soon as the master is satisfied the sun has reached ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... all alive, as if there were light under it, as well as over it, and was, unmistakably, red. She made more fun of it than anybody else, but at heart she loved her hair, and would not have exchanged it for paley-gold or ebony tresses. Bud had fastened his chubby hands in it to steady himself on his perch, as she ran, and pulled some of it loose from her comb. A thick curl strayed over her arm, bare almost to the shoulder, as was the warm-weather custom of young ladies of that time. She drew it around before ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... magnificent bier, with a brocade cover. Boris could not imagine how any human being could sleep in such a catafalque. Under the baldachin hovered a gilded Cupid, spotted and faded, with his arrow aimed at the bed. In the corners stood carved cupboards, damascened with ebony and mother-of-pearl. Veroshka opened a press and put her little face inside, and a musty, dusty smell came from the shelves, laden with old-fashioned caftans and embroidered uniforms ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... received her guests in a banquet-hall all ebony and gold, and was not seated permanently on a throne with a diamond crown screwed into her head as we used so fondly ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... pursue the subject of woods beyond the few kinds mentioned. Woods such as ebony, sandalwood, cherry, brier, box, pear-tree, lancewood, and many others, are all good for the carver, but are better fitted for special purposes and small work. As this book is concerned more with the art of carving than its application, it will save confusion if we accept yellow pine as our ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... old lady waving at him her ebony crook, "do not run away, young gentleman. I see that you admire my garden. Pray step inside and look ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... commotion. I again sought to exert my lungs, but could deliver no louder note than a moan. The agony of mind I was under lest a shark should seize me I cannot express, and my strained eyeballs would come from the tall shadow of the ship to the the sea about me in a wild searching of the liquid ebony of it for the sparkling configuration of the most abhorred of all fish. I could have sworn that hours elapsed before they lowered a boat from the ship, that seemed to grow fainter and fainter every ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... sees a sort of minute circus, in the form of a half-moon, containing a table with an ugly red-and-white striped cloth. There the Eucharist, which must be preceded by confession, is celebrated. The pulpit is of rosewood, inlaid with ivory and ebony, and in what is called the "haikal-screen" there are some fine specimens of ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... until he came this wild license of behaviour would continue. At last the natives became silent and parted to the right and left as Tahori, the head man, his fat body shining with coconut oil, and carrying an ebony-wood club in his hand, stood in front of the white man and eyed him up and down. The scrutiny seemed satisfactory. He stretched out his huge, naked arm, and shook Probyn's hand, uttering his one word of Samoan—"TALOFA!" [Lit., "My ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... Large electrum flagons, blue glass amphoras, tortoise-shell spoons, and small round loaves were crowded between the double row of pearl-bordered plates; bunches of grapes with their leaves had been rolled round ivory vine-stocks after the fashion of the thyrsus; blocks of snow were melting on ebony trays, and lemons, pomegranates, gourds, and watermelons formed hillocks beneath the lofty silver plate; boars with open jaws were wallowing in the dust of spices; hares, covered with their fur, appeared to be bounding amid the flowers; there were shells filled with forcemeat; the pastry had ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... and coco-nut are readily grown, as well as sago, red-pepper, tobacco and cotton. The only important exports, however, are cajeput oil, a sudorific distilled from the leaves of the Melaleuca Cajuputi or white-wood tree; and timber. The native flora is rich, and teak, ebony and canari trees are especially abundant; the fauna, which is similarly varied, includes the babirusa, which occurs in this island only of the Moluccas. The population is about 15,000. The villages on the sea-coast are inhabited by a Malayan population, and the northern ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the sly, but never before had they seen her bring home such a prize. Usually she found only crumpled things like old bits of wrinkled brown paper which she called "specimens." This one was marvellously beautiful. It had a dainty, slender stalk of ebony black, and its hundred tiny leaves quivered like a shower of green water-drops in the air. There was actual joy in ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... The variegated tiles of the quadrangle were nearly covered now. A flight of wide, low steps led to the main entrance of the palace, and there a high seat of enamelled ebony had been placed. In it Pilate sat, in his hand the staff of office. Beside him were his assessors, members of his suite, and Calcol, a centurion. On one of the steps Caiaphas stood, near him the elders of the college. Below was the Christ, ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... Susan herself came into the room. She still limped a little, leaning on an ebony stick ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... I. and Charles X. used it as their dining-room. Louis Philippe restored the ceiling. The Flemish tapestry represents royal hunting scenes. In the centre of chimney-piece fresco by Primaticcio, Mars and Venus. The ebony cabinets are of the 15 and 16 cents. Furniture covered with very remarkable Beauvais tapestry. Salon de Louis XIII. The small Venetian looking-glass, one of the earliest manufactured, and the ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... aeroplanes, if you like," she returned, gaily, and held up the two ebony canes which had been hidden by the tall grass. They told the story of Mercy Curtis' look of pain, but once she had had to hobble on crutches and, as she pluckily declared, canes were "miles better ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... tinted marqueterie and old rose upholsterings (he had succumbed to it in the first freshness of his innocence) as a base, he had added Boule cabinets and modern Indian tables in carved open-work to Adams cabinets and Renaissance tables in ebony inlaid with engraved ivory, and eighteenth-century gilded bergere chairs to old oak and Chippendale. Cloisonne and Sevres stood side by side on the same shelf. He had an Aubusson carpet in the middle of the floor, and his Bokhara rugs at intervals down ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... modern times directs all its rage ad gulam; and the only inducement to study is erudito luxu, to please the palate, and satisfy the stomach. Even my friend Ebony, the northern light, has cast off the anchorite, and sings ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... probationer at a special service. The year of probation having come to an end, she is again presented to the bishop, and is set apart as a deaconess by the laying on of hands. This time the habit is changed from gray to blue, and a black ebony cross, with one of gold inlaid, ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... of so many of the British birds, according to their biographers, are harsh and disagreeable; even the nightingale has an ugly, guttural "chuck." The missel-thrush has a harsh scream; the jay a note like "wrack," "wrack;" the fieldfare a rasping chatter; the blackbird, which is our robin cut in ebony, will sometimes crow like a cock and cackle like a hen; the flocks of starlings make a noise like a steam saw-mill; the white-throat has a disagreeable note; the swift a discordant scream; and the bunting a harsh song. Among our song-birds, on the contrary, it is ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... aside from the Cathedral there are few public buildings worth seeing. But one thing they have here always beautiful, and that is the luxuriant tropical vegetation, beautiful blossoming trees and shrubs, and the multitude of flowers, tall palms, bamboo, ebony, log-wood, mangoes, oranges, lemons, bread fruit, custard apples, and forty or fifty varieties of bananas, from little ones, not much more than a mouthful, to them eighteen or twenty inches long. Josiah enjoyed his walk, finding many things to emulate when he got back to Jonesville. ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... that he would never reach his father's. It was a year's journey from the city where he was to any country inhabited only by Mussulmans; the quickest passage for him would be to go to the Isle of Ebony, whence he might easily transport himself to the Isles of the Children of Khaledan: a ship sailed from the port every year to Ebony, and he might take that opportunity of returning to those islands. 'The ship departed,' ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... moved a little fearfully to a corner cupboard which was hung in the angle to the right of the projecting fireplace, over a shelf on which stood a large copper tea-urn. That corner cupboard, of oak inlaid with maple and ebony in a simple border pattern, was typical of the room. It was of a piece with the deep green "flock" wall paper, and the tea-urn, and the rocking-chairs with their antimacassars, and the harmonium in rosewood with a Chinese paper-mache ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... picture arrives at that pitch, While the lights are still light, and the shadows, though rich. More transparent than ebony shutters, Never minding what Black-Arted critics may say, Stop the biting, and pour the green blind away, As you please, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... long into the shadows. Then he looked up. The ragged ramparts far above frowned bold and black at a few cold stars, and the blue of its sky was without the usual velvety brightness. How far it was up to that corrugated rim! All of a sudden Bostil hated this vast ebony pit. ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... this, Colbert, detaining D'Artagnan's envoy, placed in the hands of that messenger a letter from himself, and a small coffer of ebony inlaid with gold, not very important in appearance, but which, without doubt, was very heavy, as a guard of five men was given to the messenger, to assist him in carrying it. These people arrived before the place which D'Artagnan ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... due regard for rheumatic limbs he slowly settled himself on a bench and folded his hands over the top of an ebony cane preparatory to answering the youngster's question. His inquisitor, however, was, at the moment, being hauled from beneath a brass railing by the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... everywhere cross and intersect, they form an intricate pattern on the surface, After watching the weasel dance for some minutes, I stepped up to the mound, whereupon the animals became alarmed and rushed pell-mell into the burrows, but only to reappear in a few seconds, thrusting up their long ebony-black necks and flat grey-capped heads, snarling chattering at me, ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... friends had lived together, Pons had exchanged a good clock for a better one, till at last he possessed a timepiece in Boule's first and best manner, for Boule had two manners, as Raphael had three. In the first he combined ebony and copper; in the second—contrary to his convictions—he sacrificed to tortoise-shell inlaid work. In spite of Pons' learned dissertations, Schmucke never could see the slightest difference between the magnificent clock in Boule's first ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... Duke of Wellington, presented by his son, and in the corresponding position on the north side one of the Duke of Marlborough, presented by the Earl of Cadogan. The stalls are of stained oak. The altar is of oak, with walnut panels and ebony shafts. The reredos is lined by beautiful glass mosaics, and the semi-dome is mosaic work to match. This sounds a mere catalogue, but it is quite impossible to give any idea of this singularly richly-decorated ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... youth came as usual and lay down to sleep. But no sooner had he shut his eyes than Parmetella arose, took a steel which she had provided, and lighting the tinder applied a match; then taking the candle, she raised the coverlet, and beheld the ebony turned to ivory, and the coal to chalk. And whilst she stood gazing with open mouth, and contemplating the most beautiful pencilling that Nature had ever given upon the canvas of Wonder, the youth awoke, and began to reproach Parmetella, saying, "Ah, woe is me! for your prying ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... continued to keep up a deafening sound while they were being conducted into the presence of his majesty, who wore a bright red cloak, and a hat quite resembling that of a Beadle. In complexion his majesty was a shade darker than ebony, and as to figure, he was as stalwarth a sovereign, though perhaps not as clean a one, as could be found in all the kingdoms round about: in short, if his majesty was none of the cleanest, he at least wore a contented air, which is rare with kings. And as he sat on his ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... the native states of our Indian Empire, and its inhabitants number about three millions. Many of them are artistic and dexterous craftsmen, who make fine boxes and caskets inlaid with ivory, mother-of-pearl, and ebony; beautifully chased weapons; tankards, bowls, and vases of beaten silver with panthers and elephants on the sides, chasing one another through the jungle. The saddlery and leather work of all kinds cannot be surpassed, ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... cut up in the form of small rolls, which are dried in the shade. There are also the mulberry, the clove, the nutmeg, the camphor, and pepper-trees; in fact all the spice-trees and all the tropical fruits. The forests contain some valuable kinds of wood, ebony, iron-wood, teak, famous for its strength and employed from the most ancient times in costly buildings, and the Calilaban laurel, which yields an aromatic essential oil that is highly prized. At this period ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... and was something like a big cask cut in half, with its curved wooden ceiling, and its stave-like wooden panels. A coating of shiny, brown tar covered the walls; in places, especially over the stove, it was black as ebony. The furniture consisted of a table, two chairs, a chest which served as a bed, and near the chest a white wooden box with two shelves. On these two shelves lay linen, caps, handkerchiefs, women's dresses, and men's jackets, all smelling somewhat of fish. In one corner ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... story is begun; this time it is some strophe from the "Gerusalemme," to which a passing gondolier may chant the answering strain—for this is the very poem of the people, echoing familiarly from lip to lip, and tales from the Tasso are not seldom wrought into the ebony carvings of their barks. Meanwhile the younger men and maidens, on a neighboring fondamenta, keep step to the music of some strolling player who lives, content, on the trifling ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... five or six beautiful children, having at last perceived our arrival, left their play to welcome and kiss their father. A lovely vision of youth and beauty also made its appearance—one of those slender girls of the South, a woman of fifteen years old, with her dark eyelashes and her streaming ebony hair; slaves of all ages—mulattoes and quadroon girls, old negroes and boy negroes, all calling together—"Eh! Massa Courtenay, kill plenty bear, dare say; now plenty grease for ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... most abundant. About here grows a species of cacao (Herrania purpurea) differing from the cultivated species (Theobroma cacao). Amongst the larger trees is the "cortess," having a wood as hard as ebony, and at the end of March entirely covered with brilliant yellow flowers, unrelieved by any green, the tree casting its leaves before flowering. The great yellow domes may be distinguished amongst the dark green forest at the distance of five or six miles. Near ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... through an opening in the sarcophagus, it seems as if one saw the daughter of Theodosius, seated on her golden chair, erect in her gown studded with stones and embroidered with scenes from the Old Testament; her beautiful, cruel face preserved hard and black with aromatic plants, and her ebony hands immovable on her knees. For thirteen centuries she retained this funereal majesty, until one day a child passed a candle through the opening of the grave and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... tales, and incidents of the tales, in the "Thousand and One Nights" were current in Europe in the 12th century— imported by the Moors of Spain, and by European travellers, pilgrims, and minstrels from the East. Thus the Arabian tale of the Ebony (or Enchanted) Horse is virtually identical with the Hispano-French romance of Cleomades and Claremonde; that of Prince Kamar al Zaman is fairly represented by the romance of Peter of Provence and the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... us and without the flood washing us away. No man could do this but I, and the eldest son of my body. Him has the god decreed to excel in art, and I have seen the perfections of the work of his hands in every kind of rare stone, in gold and silver, in ivory and ebony." Now since Mertisen and his son were the chief artists of their day, it is more than probable that they were employed to decorate their king's funerary chapel. So that in all probability the XIth ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... Whitelocke presented a clock of the new make, to hang by the wall, set in ebony, with rich studs of silver. To "la Belle Comtesse," the Lady Jane Ruthven and other ladies, he presented English gloves, ribbons, silk stockings, and the like, which are ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... took a step or two into the half light of the shady place, and stopped short face to face with Frank, at whom for the first few moments he stood staring without the slightest sign of recognition in his countenance, while the youth resembled an ebony carving more than ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... double file of lights. Those around the monument illuminated its gigantic bases and the feet of the sculptured groups. Further up, the vaulted spaces were so locked in shadow that they had the black density of ebony. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... straws to buoy his new hopes; whether he was so recently away from Lana's dark eyes that the encouragement in them lingered with him, he was not sure. He felt, however, that the Senator's eyes did seem a little less hard than the polished ebony they had resembled. ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... Louisiana, beauties from Mississippi, and enslavers from Virginia, accompanied by their mothers, their fathers, their troops of younger brothers and sisters, and their black servants. There were nurses and valets and maids of all shades from ebony to cream-colour, and of all varieties of picturesqueness. All day the immense piazzas were crowded with promenaders, sitters, talkers, fancy-workers, servants attired in rainbow hues and apparently enjoying their ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... It does not readily absorb foreign matter. Much used by turners and for all parts of musical instruments, for handles on whips and fancy articles, draught-boards, engraving blocks, cabinet work, etc. The wood is often dyed black and sold as ebony; works well and stands well. Most abundant in the lower Mississippi Valley and Gulf States, but occurring eastward to Massachusetts ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... laurel, both for valor and gallantry, and for his wealth and courage, as will yet be made known. The robe that he wore was of yellow satin embroidered in black with palm-trees, with clusters of fruit on them. His shield had a field of solid silver plates edged with gold. His lance was of ebony, and twenty palmos long; and instead of an iron head, a colic-stone, [13] so splendid to the sight and so well made that, however beautiful may be that of a painter, it cannot equal it. It was enclosed in a case of solid gold, a thing of inestimable value for its efficacy and its ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... you may see her presiding over her little court in the Miyazaki mansion, with its mixture of tinsel and dust. The Bourbonian features, the lofty white wig, the elephantine form, the rustling taffeta, and the ebony stick with its ivory handle, leads one's thoughts backwards to the days of Richardson ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... left—for the cave had split it in two, lay the solid vein of coal, shining in the light, and throwing back splinters of ebony, to Clay more ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... beautiful young woman, wearing a wonderful lantern crown, sat on an ebony throne. On each side of the throne stood a tall soldier, clad in scarlet and holding a long ebony staff surmounted by a round lantern ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... he ran the car into a lane, slipped off the motor coat, and from his pocket whipped out the little metal insignia case—and in another moment a diamond-shaped gray seal was neatly affixed to the black ebony rim of the steering wheel. He smiled ironically. It was necessary, quite necessary that the police should have no doubt as to who had been in Doyle's house with Connie Myers that night, or to whom they had ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Rushbrook's villa at Los Osos! More than that, on close examination it proved to be the very same furniture, arranged as she remembered to have arranged it, even to the flowers and grasses, now, alas! faded and withered on the walls. There could be no mistake. There was the open ebony escritoire with the satin blotter open, and its leaves still bearing the marks of her own handwriting. So complete to her mind was the idea of her own tenancy in this bachelor's mansion, that she looked around with a half indignant alarm ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... his companion, an extremely tall, thin man, throw various pieces of money upon certain stakes, which were deposited by the bystanders on different parts of the table; or, which was more often the case, with a silver rake with a long ebony handle, sweep into a large inclosure near him the scattered sums. This inclosure was called the bank, and the mysterious ceremony in which these persons were assisting was the celebrated game of rouge-et-noir. A deep silence was strictly observed by those who immediately surrounded the table; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Caucasus. They sunk without any memorable effort, under the arms of Cyrus; followed in distant wars the standard of the great king, and presented him every fifth year with one hundred boys, and as many virgins, the fairest produce of the land. [76] Yet he accepted this gift like the gold and ebony of India, the frankincense of the Arabs, or the negroes and ivory of Aethiopia: the Colchians were not subject to the dominion of a satrap, and they continued to enjoy the name as well as substance of national independence. [77] After the fall of the Persian ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... haunters were those who came strictly on business,—plasterers and sculptors, who found wet clay ready to their needs. Great golden and rufous bees blundered down and gouged out bucketsful of mud; while slender-bodied, dainty, ebony wasps, after much fastidious picking of place, would detach a tiny bit of the whitest clay, place it in their snuff-box holder, clean their feet and antennae, run their rapier in and out and ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... polish confined to things having variety in their internal construction; they operate equally in things of homogeneous structure. It is the polished ebony or jet which gives the true blank, the material darkness. It is the polished steel that shines keen and remorseless and cold, like that human justice whose symbol it is. And in the polished diamond the distinctive purity is most evident; while from it, ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... after a mile of cultivation, fall and recede in succession the sea-beach of old in lengthy parallel waves, overgrown densely with forest grass and marsh reeds. On the spines of these land-swells flourish ebony, calabash, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... brass-tipped claw feet? And the little spindle-legged tables with their burdens of books, vases, and pictures? And the tinkly little old piano? And the carved mahogany davenport? And the sewing-table, ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl, that stood always by the south window? And the quaint old engravings and colored prints? All these were gone. Instead of the threadbare Brussels carpet patterned with huge bouquets of flowers, there ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... form and habits, was the little female, who, holding in her hand a small old-fashioned ebony rod, which might have passed for a divining wand, confronted Julian on the top of the flight of steps which led down the rock from the Castle court. We ought to observe, that as Julian's manner to the unfortunate girl had been always gentle, and free from those ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... bride took to her husband upon her marriage. In the 17th century Boulle and his imitators glorified the marriage-coffer until it became a gorgeous casket, almost indeed a sarcophagus, inlaid with ivory and ebony and precious woods, and enriched with ormolu, supported upon a stand of equal magnificence. The Italian marriage-chests (cassone) were also of a richness which was never attempted in England. The main characteristics of English domestic chests ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various |
