"Massiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... walls of the temple of the sun in Cuzco, with their circular form and curve inward, from the ground upward, are most imposing. Some of the gates without lintels are beautiful, and the geometric patterns in the walls extremely effective. The same objection to over-massiveness might not apply here as in Mexico, owing ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... a grate confiscation." The heather, of two kinds, is brilliantly purple, and the Royal fern grows everywhere in profusion, its terra-cotta bloom often towering six feet high. The mountains are effectively arranged, and imposing by their massiveness, height, and rugged grandeur. Some of the roads are tolerable, those made by Mr. Balfour being by far the best. Others are execrable and dangerous in the extreme, and in winter must be almost impassable. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... everywhere been regarded as abodes of spirits or deities, and therefore sacred. Their height and massiveness invested them with dignity (even as now they appeal mightily to the imagination), and their lofty summits and rugged sides were full of danger and mystery. Sacred mountains are found in North America, Bengal, Africa, and elsewhere. Naturally they are often abodes of gods of rain; they are feared ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... in the angry sorrow of Joris. It partook of his own magnitude. Standing in front of him, it was impossible for Captain Hyde not to be sensible of the difference between his own slight, nervous frame, and the fair, strong massiveness of Van Heemskirk; and, in a dim way, he comprehended that this physical difference was only the outward and visible sign of a mental and moral one quite ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... of the place was papered in olive and bronze tints of imitation leather. A shining bar of counterfeit massiveness extended down the side of the room. Behind it a great mahogany-appearing sideboard reached the ceiling. Upon its shelves rested pyramids of shimmering glasses that were never disturbed. Mirrors set in the face of the ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... Cathedral of Ulm is a noble ecclesiastical edifice; uniting simplicity and purity with massiveness of composition. Few cathedrals are more uniform in the style of their architecture. It seems to be, to borrow technical language, all of a piece. Near it, forming the foreground of the Munich print, are a chapel and a house surrounded by trees. The ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... a fascination for the antiquary, and does not fail to impress even the most casual person who wanders into the churchyard and enters the spacious porch. The solemn massiveness of the Norman nave, the unusual effect of the coloured paintings above the arches, and the carved stone effigies of knights whose names are almost forgotten, carry one away from the familiar impressions of a present-day Yorkshire town, and almost ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... material of these figures is marble, its coolness and massiveness suiting the growing severity of Greek thought, yet they have their reminiscences of work in bronze, in a certain slimness and tenuity, a certain dainty lightness of poise in their grouping, which [264] remains in the ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... Homer's epics. All the great works of literature and philosophy were well known to him. Thus he brought to bear on his music a mind singularly well equipped in every direction. He was, too, essentially a Teuton, with all the German massiveness of conception and depth of soul. A lesser man must have fallen before the prospect of attempting such a colossal reform. What was that reform in its essentials? It was this—to compose opera in which the idea of the drama was made the ruling ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... to 670 Washington Street, immediately in the rear of the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute, is of brick, with sandstone trimmings, six stories high, and 100 feet square. Its most striking architectural features exteriorly are massiveness, combined with grace and beauty ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... Spenser's, Alva's or Farina's, is more heroic than that of Richard Grenville, as it stands in Prince's "Worthies of Devon;" of a Spanish type, perhaps (or more truly speaking, a Cornish), rather than an English, with just enough of the British element in it to give delicacy to its massiveness. The forehead and whole brain are of extraordinary loftiness, and perfectly upright; the nose long, aquiline, and delicately pointed; the mouth fringed with a short silky beard, small and ripe, yet firm as granite, with just pout enough of the lower lip to give hint of that capacity ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... caryatides, standing on round massive pedestals. The building was not high as a castle or cathedral; it was a dwelling-place, and had but one floor, and resembled a ruin to my eyes because of the extreme antiquity of its appearance, the weather-worn condition and massiveness of the sculptured surfaces, and the masses of ancient ivy covering it in places. On the central portion of the building rested a great dome-shaped roof, resembling ground glass of a pale reddish tint, producing ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... The massiveness and vastness of these temples demonstrate the power of the religious instinct in man, even when that instinct is most perverted. With all their grossness and crudity, these shrines reveal a wealth of imagination and an artistic inventiveness, which ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... obvious and remarkable. It reveals itself in all the productions of man—his architecture, his sculpture, his painting, and his poetry. Oriental architecture is characterized by the boldness and massiveness of all its parts, and the monotonous uniformity of all its features. This is but the expression, in a material form, of that shadowy feeling of infinity, and unity, and immobility which an unbroken continent of vast deserts and continuous lofty mountain chains would naturally inspire. The simple ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... selective adaptation to the new distribution of employments will set in, especially if the habitat or the fauna with which the group is in contact is such as to call for a considerable exercise of the sturdier virtues. The habitual pursuit of large game requires more of the manly qualities of massiveness, agility, and ferocity, and it can therefore scarcely fail to hasten and widen the differentiation of functions between the sexes. And so soon as the group comes into hostile contact with other groups, the divergence of function will take on the developed form of a distinction between ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... Zorn, a portrait striking in its reality. It represents Miss Maja von Heyne wearing a collar of skins. She could represent the Maja of Ibsen's epilogue, When We Dreamers Awake; Maja, the companion of the bear hunter, Ulfheim. As etched, we miss the massiveness, the rich, vivid colour, yet it is ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... the episodes, it may just be said in a word that they are appropriate, and instead of retarding the movement of the piece, as has sometimes been alleged, they serve to give it breadth and massiveness of effect. Of course, there will always be found those who think them too long, just as there are those whose narrowness of view constrains them to wish the Introductions away. If the poet's conception of Marmion be fully considered, it ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... are the copper-coloured or rather the cinnamon-coloured complexion, along with the high cheek-bones and small deep-set eyes, the straight black hair and absence or scantiness of beard. With regard to stature, length of limbs, massiveness of frame, and shape of skull, considerable divergencies may be noticed among the various American tribes, as indeed is also the case among the members of the white race in Europe, and of other races. With regard to culture the ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... The extraordinary massiveness of the ark was imposing. Towering ominously on its platform, which was so arranged that when the waters came they should lift the structure from its cradle and set it afloat without any other launching, it seemed in itself a prophecy of ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... fore-shoulders, he seemed to justify the most extravagant tales of pioneer and huntsman. His hind-quarters were trim and fine-lined, built apparently for speed, smooth-haired, and of a grayish lion-color. But his fore-shoulders, mounting to an enormous hump, were of an elephantine massiveness, and clothed in a dense, curling, golden-brown growth of matted hair. His mighty head was carried low, almost to the level of his knees, on a neck of colossal strength, which was draped, together with the forelegs down to the knees, in ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... specimens of humanity than the Europeans. With the exception of two tall, bony Scindians, they were all Seedies, or negroes, and there was not one among them that might not have served as a model for a Hercules. Their huge bodies presented an appearance of massiveness and immense strength; and the enormous muscles had even more than the prominence we find in some statues, but so seldom meet with in men of these effeminate times. These particulars were the more easily noted, as their style of costume, in the daytime at least, approached very closely to nudity. ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... sumptuous palace-building; and for no purpose was the early Renaissance style better adapted than for the erection of dwelling-houses that should match the free and worldly splendour of those times. The just medium between mediaeval massiveness and classic simplicity was attained in countless buildings beautiful and various beyond description. Bologna is full of them; and Urbino, in the Ducal Palace, contains one specimen unexampled in extent ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... than thirty. She was very dark, with plenteous and untidy black hair, thick eyebrows, and a slight moustache. Her eyes were very vivacious, and her gestures, despite that bulk, quick and graceful. She was happy; her ideals were satisfied; it was probably happiness that had made her stout. Her massiveness was apparently no grief to her; she had fallen into the carelessness which is too often the pitfall of women who, being ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... out from among them and forming a sheltering roof with their boughs, showing for how long a period they must have been deserted. There were churches too, which we discovered to be such by their construction and the massiveness of their walls; many of them of considerable size, and built of well-burnt bricks. Altogether we were struck by the elegance and substantial appearance of the different buildings, so superior to those of modern architecture, and which convinced us that we were standing ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... variety. The Electric Tower, designed by Mr. Howard, the central point in the scheme of architecture, its background of columns and its airy perforated walls and circular cupola with the Goddess of Light above, combined massiveness with lightness. Other buildings were strikingly quaint and pleasing, especially those suggesting the old Southern Missions. All blended into the general scheme with scarcely a discord. This harmony was not accidental, but resulted from combined effort, each architect working ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... Gothic-fashioned principals, each of which cost 100 pounds, and it is panelled above with stained timber. But we don't care very much for the roof. No doubt it is fine; but the whole of the wood work seems too, heavy and much too dark. There is a cimmerian massiveness about it; and on a dull day it looks quite bewildering. If it were stained in a lighter colour its proportions would come out better, and much of that gigantic gloom which now shadows it would be removed. There are canopied stands ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... whom the matron was preparing to devote to him stood shrinking with a trepidation which she could not conceal at sight of his strange massiveness, with his rust-gold hair coming down toward his thick yellow brows and mocking blue eyes in a dense bang, and his jaw squaring itself under the rather insolent smile of his full mouth. The matron felt that her victim ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of the collective body. The test of survival is obedience to a law defined in the joint interest of all, and control is vested in the rational capacity to represent this interest and conduct it to a safe and profitable issue. The strength of life thus organized lies in its massiveness, in its effective plenitude. When such units wage war on one another, this strength is wasted; and the very same principle that strength shall prevail, tends to the extension of the organization until it shall embrace ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... was grim, his face, with its beak of a nose and aggressive chin beneath the flaming whiskers, and his whole magnificent body gave the impression of resolve and repressed action. Rainey fancied whimsically that he could hear a dynamo purring inside of the giant's massiveness. He had seen him in open rage when he had first denounced Honest Simms, but the serious ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... space beneath them, and a small circular window inserted above. It may be mentioned here that the pointed arch has generally been adopted in the new work, to distinguish it from the old, but the characteristic massiveness and predominant scale of the original has been preserved throughout the restoration. A practical illustration of these principles will be seen in The Porch, as an ingenious compromise between the older and newer types of architecture which are brought together in the main fabric. It is ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... many subjects for his pencil. Mountains, forests, rocks, lakes, rivers, cataracts, all in perfection. But he must be bold as a lion in colouring, or he will make nothing of it. There is a clearness of atmosphere, a strength of chiaro oscuro, a massiveness in the foliage, and a brilliance of contrast, that must make a colourist of any one who has an eye. He must have courage to dip his pencil in shadows black as night, and light that might blind an eagle. As I presume my young ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... corresponding, presumably, with Secchi's third and fourth orders of stars with banded spectra. Whether, in the interim, they should display spectra of the Sirian or of the solar type was made to depend on their greater or less massiveness.[1381] But the relation actually existing perhaps inverts that contemplated by Ritter. Certainly, the evidence collected by Mr. Maunder in 1891 strongly supports the opinion that the average solar star is a weightier body than the average ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... Cathedral, its high spire piercing the skies in which rooks are for ever circling and calling. The time-worn stone, at a little distance delicate as lacework, is transformed at different hours of the day into shifting shades of colour, varying from grey to purple: the massiveness of the great nave and transepts contrasts impressively with the gradual tapering of the spire, rising so high above turret and clerestory that it at last becomes a mere line against the ether. In morning, ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... Hiram is another relic discovered at the village of Hunaneh on the road from Safed to Tyre; it recalls the days of David. Hiram was King of Tyre in the time of David. The tomb is a limestone structure of extraordinary massiveness Unfortunately the Mosque of Omar stands on the site of Solomon's Temple and there is no hope of digging there. As for the palace of Solomon, it should be easy to find the foundations, for Jerusalem has been rebuilt several times upon the ruins of earlier ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... the long avenue rolled concealed its beauty to the unaccustomed eye, showing only more bare trees and sodden stretches of brown grass. The house itself, as it loomed up out of the thickening rain-mist, appalled Tembarom by its size and gloomily gray massiveness. Before it was spread a broad terrace of stone, guarded by more griffins of even more disdainful aspect than those watching over the gates. The stone noses held themselves rigidly in the air as the reporter of the up-town society page passed with Mr. Palford ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that the quantity of plate I had seen—a portion of which at this moment felt preternaturally heavy in my pockets—must have been three times greater than any the governor ever possessed, and that various pieces were of a size and massiveness I had never before seen in the establishment. In vain I bethought myself that I had seen and recognised the well-known door-plate, and that the area from which I entered was immediately under; in vain I argued ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... helpless rage. Then rushing to the window of his apartment, he looked down on one of the most stately prospects that the palaces of the earth can offer. From the long monotonous architectural lines of the Hradschin, imposing from its massiveness and its imperial situation, and with the dome and minarets of the cathedral clustering behind them, the eye swept across the fertile valley, through which the rapid, yellow Moldau courses, to the opposite line of cliffs crested with the half imaginary fortress-palaces ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of one of the many little teahouses improvised in this courtyard. We are on a terrace at the top of the great steps, up which the crowd continues to flock, and at the foot of a portico which stands erect with the rigid massiveness of a colossus against the dark night sky; at the foot also of a monster, who stares down upon us, with his big stony eyes, his cruel ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... all, or nearly all, centres in the catastrophe, there being only so much of detail and range as is needful to the evolving of this. Thus the thing neither has nor admits any thing like the complexity and variety, the breadth, freedom, and massiveness, of Shakespeare's workmanship. There is timber enough and life enough in one of his dramas to make four or five Sophoclean tragedies; and one of these might almost be cut out of Hamlet without being missed. Take, for instance, the Oedipus at Colonos of Sophocles and King ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... overhead, that rays down glorifying light, they would not be much to look at or talk about. The tree has a gnarled, grotesque trunk which divides into insignificant branches, bearing leaves mean in shape, harsh in texture, with a silvery underside. It gives but a quivering shade and has no massiveness, nor symmetry. Ay! but there are olives on the branches. And so the beauty of the humble tree is in what it grows for man's good. After all, it is the outcome in fruitfulness which is the main thing about us. God's meaning, in all ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... heavier lines. He had the wolfhound's fleetness, but with it much of the massy solidity of the bloodhound. His chest was immensely deep, his fore legs, haunches, and thighs enormously powerful. And the wrinkled massiveness of his head, like the breadth of his black saddle, gave him the appearance of great ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... his burning glance, they lie steeped in color, gorgeous, tremulous, passionate, rosy red dropping away into pale gold, emeralds dim and sullen where they ripple down towards the darkness, dusky browns and broad reaches of blue-black massiveness, till the silent starlight wraps the scene with blessing, and the earth sitteth still and ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... thoughtful look. Over the vessel's bubbling wake he could see the whole head of the Inlet deep in winter snows,—a white world, coldly aloof in its grandeur. It was beautiful, full of the majesty of serene distances, of great heights. It stood forth clothed with the dignity of massiveness, of permanence. It was as it had been for centuries, calm and untroubled, unmoved by floods and slides, by fires and slow glacial changes. Yes, it was beautiful and Hollister looked a long time, for he was not sure he would see it again. He had a canoe and a tent cached in that ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... then in the thirty-fifth year of his age. In truth, he was a goodly man—a very Saul among his people. His height I should think very nearly midway between six and seven feet. He was not fat, but the breadth and massiveness of his chest and limbs was extraordinary. His figure was very finely proportioned, and his movements free and active. His face was somewhat broad, with good features, and his voice peculiarly soft and pleasing. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... the spires of a tuft of grass do, at the same time that they have a law of propriety and regularity among themselves. The tall spire is of such admirable proportion that it does not seem gigantic; and, indeed, the effect of the whole edifice is of beauty rather than weight and massiveness. Perhaps the bright, balmy sunshine in which we saw it contributed to give it a tender glory, and to soften ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... fastened to the lower ones. Part of the brooding expression of these great houses comes, even when they have not fallen into decay, from their look of having outlived their original use. Their extraordinary largeness and massiveness are a satire on their present fate. They weren't built with such a thickness of wall and depth of embrasure, such a solidity of staircase and superfluity of stone, simply to afford an economical winter residence to English and American families. ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... height of the column, exclusive of the statue, is 124 feet. The masonry, (executed by Mr. Nowell, of Pimlico,) deserves especial notice. Its neatness and finish are truly astonishing, and the solidity and massiveness of the material ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... division between chancel and nave is felt much less at Witney than in the other two churches; for the great thirteenth century tower and spire, resting upon massive piers joined by pointed arches, throw a considerable portion of their weight upon nave and transept arcades, whose exceptional massiveness gives unity to the whole design. In the fifteenth century, however, the rebuilders of the aisleless church of Minster Lovell, between Witney and Burford, solved the problem by removing the supports of their square central tower from the angles of the crossing ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson
... predicting where he would come out. Finally they brought us to a black, oaken door with a great, black lock on it, and bolts at the top and bottom; it was near the end of a corridor, in the oldest wing of the building. The door, in addition to its native massiveness, was studded with great nails, and there were bands of iron or steel crossing it horizontally. When we proposed to enter, our friends informed us that this door had been closed one hundred and eighty ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... noticed the ease with which he got the big trunk to his shoulder, and her eyes glowed as they glanced over the graceful massiveness of the man. But Bill did not see that. He was ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... jagged peaks towering dizzily into the misty vault of heaven, quaintly situated valleys so masked by timber and brushwood that one came across them only by accident. There is something in the naked face of Nature, in the sheer magnificence of incredible heights and the marvellous massiveness of big timber that somehow dwarfs man into insignificance and makes him realise the puniness of his strength. There was something in the scenes now opening up before the rangers that subdued them and beat them into silence. There was beauty in the sight, the soft eternal beauty of an unravished ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... proportions and dignified simplicity. In the general architectural scheme of the Exposition it forms one end of the main group of palaces, at the other end of which is set the Palace of Fine Arts. Machinery Hall, with its severe massiveness and solidity, is a balance to the poetry and spirituality ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... out only those that could give him light on this question can have been of the least interest to his rough common sense. Now, as it happened, he could be under no mistake, after his arrival in London, as to the strength and massiveness of that current of opinion which had set in for a re-seating of the secluded members. Since the first restoration of the Rump in May 1659, Prynne had been keeping the case of the secluded members perpetually before the public in pamphlets; and Prynne, more than any other man, had created the ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... described, by one who saw below the surface, as a perfectly beautiful woman in an absolutely plain shell; and no man had as yet looked beneath the shell, and seen the woman in her perfection. She would have made earth heaven for a blind lover who, not having eyes for the plainness of her face or the massiveness of her figure, might have drawn nearer, and apprehended the wonder of her as a woman, experiencing the wealth of tenderness of which she was capable, the blessed comfort of the shelter of her love, ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... happiness as evanescent too," observed Hilda, sighing; "and beautiful art hardly less so! I do not love to think that this dull stone, merely by its massiveness, will last infinitely longer than any picture, in spite of the spiritual life that ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... it. He is the 'Rock of thy strength' and the 'God of thy salvation.' Rock is the grand Old Testament name of God, expressing in a pregnant metaphor both what He is in Himself and what in relation to those who trust Him. It speaks of stability, elevation, massiveness, and of defence and security. The parallel title sets Him forth as the Giver of salvation; and both names set in clear light the sinful ingratitude of forgetting God, and force home the question: 'Do ye thus requite the Lord, oh foolish people ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... along at her will through the garden. Moving from enclosure to enclosure of box, she came, before she knew it, to the house itself. It loomed up before her a pale massiveness, with no lights in any of the windows, but on the back porch sat the owner. He sat in a high-back chair, with his head tilted back, and his eyes were closed and he seemed to be asleep, but Sarah ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... feelings. Yet the latter on the whole come off victorious. The Robbers is a tragedy that will long find readers to astonish, and, with all its faults, to move. It stands, in our imagination, like some ancient rugged pile of a barbarous age; irregular, fantastic, useless; but grand in its height and massiveness and black frowning strength. It will long remain a singular monument of the early genius and early fortune ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... development. Here my German philosophy enabled me to grasp a subtle and delicate spirit of beauty, which passed, I fear, over the heads of the rest of the youthful audience. His ideas of the correspondence of Egyptian architecture to the stupendous massiveness of Pantheism and the appalling grandeur of its ideas, were clear enough to me, who had copied Hermes Trismegistus and read with deepest feeling the Orphic and Chaldean oracles. The ideas had not only been long familiar to me, but formed my very life and the subject of the ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... be seen from the ridge of a cathedral roof, where the eaves have for their immediate background the pavement of the streets below; only this cathedral was 9,000 feet high. Now, any one standing at the foot of the Wetterhorn may admire their stupendous massiveness and steepness; but, to feel their influence enter in the very marrow of one's bones, it is necessary to stand at the summit, and to fancy the one little slide down the short ice-slope, to be followed apparently by a ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... unfinished block of masonry. It is here that the Eugubine tables, plates of brass with Umbrian and Roman incised characters, are shown. The Palazzo de' Consoli has higher architectural qualities, and is indeed unique among Italian palaces for the combination of massiveness with lightness in a situation of unprecedented boldness. Rising from enormous substructures morticed into the solid hill-side, it rears its vast rectangular bulk to a giddy height above the town; airy loggias imposed on great ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... Australian has very small legs: thus reminding us of the chimpanzee and the gorilla, which present no great contrasts in size between the hind and fore limbs. But in the European, the greater length and massiveness of the legs have become marked—the fore and hind limbs are more heterogeneous. Again, the greater ratio which the cranial bones bear to the facial bones illustrates the same truth. Among the vertebrata in general, progress ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... size. The architecture is singular from its being a mixture of the Gothic and Greek. It appears the most ponderous load that ever was laid on the shoulders of poor mother earth. There is nothing light in its structure to relieve the massiveness of the building, and in this respect it forms a striking contrast to the Cathedral of Milan which appears the work of Sylphs. The outside of this Duomo of Florence is decorated and incrusted with black and white marble, which increases ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... stand just inside the west door of the church we are struck by the length of ritual nave, about 200 feet, the flatness of the roofs, and the massiveness of the arcading dividing the nave from the aisles; for, though the four western bays on the north side and five on the south are Early English in date, there is none of that lightness and grace that we are accustomed to associate with work of this period, no detached shafts of Purbeck marble such ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... may be; 'foam that passed away', strictly literal; and the whole line descriptive of the reality with a degree of accuracy which I know not any other verse, in the range of poetry, that altogether equals. For most people have not a distinct idea of the clumsiness and massiveness of a large wave. The word 'wave' is used too generally of ripples and breakers, and bendings in light drapery or grass: it does not by itself convey a perfect image. But the word 'mound' is heavy, large, dark, definite; there is no mistaking the kind ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... nose—conscientious, hardworking, and all that. But what magnificent hair she had! Abundant, long, thick, of a tawny colour. It had the sheen of precious metals. She wore it plaited tightly into one single tress hanging girlishly down her back and its end reached down to her waist. The massiveness of it surprised you. On my word it reminded one of a club. Her face was big, comely, of an unruffled expression. She had a good complexion, and her blue eyes were so pale that she appeared to look at the world with the empty white ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... known, but not less certain, that Latium also, while inferior to Etruria in the copiousness and massiveness of its art, was not inferior in artistic taste and practical skill. Evidently the establishment of the Romans in Campania which took place about the beginning of the fifth century, the conversion of the town of Cales into a Latin community, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... appreciate the contrast between the bow heads in Plates III. and IV., and those in Plates V. and VI. It is in the two 'cello bow heads that the greatest resemblance is seen. But even here one can easily note the unwonted massiveness, almost amounting to clumsiness, in that of Dodd; while the Tourte is full of lightness, strength and vigour. There is more or less of sluggishness observable in most of the preceding bows, but the ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... heaps of rubbish, and disjointed masses of building, up which slowly winded a narrow and steep path, such as is made amongst ancient ruins by the rare passage of those who occasionally visit them, was calculated, when contrasted with the grey and solid massiveness of the towers and curtains which yet stood uninjured, to remind them of their victory over the stronghold of their enemies, and how they had bound nobles and princes with fetters ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... of 'Mistress Inger' is not veracious or convincing or even plausible; and the play lacks the broad simplicity of story to be found in the later 'Vikings,' a saga-like drama, a tale of blood and fate, which recalls Wagnerian opera in its primitive massiveness, in the vigor of its legend, in its tragic pathos, and in its full-blooded characters larger than life and yet pitifully human. Power again there is in a third drama dealing with the historic past of Norway, the 'Pretenders' (1864), which has a savage ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... Durham is in any way disappointing, the interior more than compensates for its shortcomings. The general impression on entering the church is one of simple dignity and solemnity. The great massiveness of the structure and absence of elaborate ornament no doubt contribute to this feeling. The pious builders of old have certainly contrived to stamp on their work their own feeling of awe in the presence of the All-Powerful ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate
... we may even come to regard what, from a purely formal point of view, is unlovely, as a thing of the most extreme beauty. Even the roughness in such direct revelations of strength, may come to be regarded as elements of the beautiful. And where massiveness of effect does not suffice to retrieve a work of art from its essential crudities, we may still come to accept it as beautiful, as it were, in intention, and for what comes to be regarded as its essence, namely, the idea or ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... almost to massiveness. An iron-grey beard and a mustache that completely hid the mouth covered the lower part of his face. His eyes were a pale blue, and a little watery; here and there upon his face were moth spots. But the enormous breadth ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Horse, Mr. Mount, who had grown too old for service, but had been pensioned and was more fond of fine stories than ever, added to his importance as a gentleman of quality by describing the banquets at the Towers, the richness of the food, the endless courses, the massiveness of the gold plate, the rareness of the wines, and the magnificence of the costumes ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... heavy steering oar, finding it difficult even in that moment of suspense to suppress a smile at the expression of terror on Alphonse's black face, I stood up, awed by the solemn massiveness of the vast bulk towering above me, now barely thirty feet away. For the first time I realized fully the desperation of my task, and my heart sank. But the gesticulations of the wrathful guard could no longer be ignored, and, smothering an exclamation of disgust at my momentary ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... in sight of the castle they were struck by the vastness and massiveness of the building, at the entrance to which sparkling fountains played in {223} the midst of luxuriant and park-like gardens. Here the king's daughters, Chalciope and Medea, who were walking in the grounds of the palace, met them. The former, to her great joy, recognized ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... had arrived, in thunders and lightnings, riding the wings of the storm, directing the gigantic, labouring Elsinore in all her intricate massiveness, commanding the wisps of humans to his will, which was the will ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... lodges are in exceedingly good taste; and the plantations laid out by Mr. Hornor, are equally pleasing, whilst their verdure relieves the massiveness of the building; and in the engraving, the artist has caught a glimpse of the lattice-work which encloses the gardens and conservatories attached to the splendid suite of rooms. The front is enclosed by handsome iron rails, tastefully painted in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various
... safety seemed to be the Inner Sanctuary of Nagaya, . . it was untouched by the flames, and its Titanic pillars of brass and bronze suggested, in their very massiveness, a nearly impregnable harbor of refuge. The King had fled thither, and now stood, like a statue of undaunted gloomy amazement, beside Lysia, who on her part appeared literally frozen with terror. Her ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... that she seemed to be letting bandits into the house; and when she saw that Sylvia was following with deep appreciation she passed on to the Tower Scene, giving to the minor chords a quality of massiveness. Her expression changed oddly. There was color in her cheeks and a stancher adjustment of the lines of her face. She suggested a good woman struggling through flames to achieve safety. When she played from Il Trovatore you did not think of a ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... eye should in all cases be dark and not too deeply set. NECK—Well placed in the shoulders and nicely arched, of moderate length and yet powerful and free from throatiness. SHOULDERS—Well laid back and as free from massiveness as possible, though there is a decided tendency in this variety to such a fault. LEGS—Straight and well covered with coat. The bone should show quality and yet be fairly abundant. FEET—Compact and hound-like. BODY—Should show great power, ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... we followed one of them doubtfully, till it opened out upon the light. The houses on each side were divided only by a pace or two, and communicated with one another, here and there, by arched passages. They looked very ancient, and may have been inhabited by Etruscan princes, judging from the massiveness of some of the foundation stones. The present inhabitants, nevertheless, are by no means princely,—shabby men, and the careworn wives and mothers of the people,—one of whom was guiding a child in leading-strings through these antique alleys, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Durham. It is true that Durham Cathedral stands upon a noble cliff overhanging a ravine, while Reading Abbey stood upon a small and irregular hill which hardly showed above the flat plains of the river meadows, but in massiveness of structure and in type of architecture Reading seems to have resembled Durham more nearly than any other of our great monuments, and to emphasise its parallelism to Durham is perhaps the best way to make the modern reader ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... This is false, not to any of the particular schools of architecture about which professors can read in libraries, but to the inmost instinctive idea of architecture itself. A Norman capital can be heavy because the Norman column is thick, and the whole thing expresses an elephantine massiveness and repose. And a Gothic column can be slender, because its strength is energy; and is expressed in its line, which shoots upwards like the life of a tree, like the jet of a fountain or even like the rush of a rocket. But ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... was too keen a man not to know the meaning of that reply, and there was a certain massiveness in Lydgate's manner and tone, corresponding with his physique, which if he repelled your advances in the first instance seemed to put ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... erected by Peter de Rupibus in the early part of the thirteenth century. In its more mature and elaborate work it shows a considerable advance on the simplest form of Early English, though the apparently low elevation, and massiveness of the piers and lower arcading, are obviously not free from Norman influences. It is divided into five bays by alternate circular and octagonal piers, the dwarfed appearance of which is relieved by triple vaulting shafts on the north and ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... been used to carry lintels, the stone columns on either side of the entrance to the Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae were used for decorative and not for structural purposes. On the other hand columns of great massiveness tapering upwards had been used long before in Egypt; and though there is evidence against it, it still seems probable that the suggestion of the shaft of the Doric column may have come from Egypt. We first find it in Greece in the seventh century B. C. at the period when Psammetichus ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... ruins—columns, temples, shrines, and the palaces of kings, varied with patches of green bush. Of course, the roofs of these buildings had long since fallen into decay and vanished, but owing to the extreme massiveness of the style of building, and to the hardness and durability of the rock employed, most of the party walls and great ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... of Handel suggests to most people the sound of music unsurpassed in massiveness and dignity, and the familiar portraits of the composer present us with a man whose external appearance was no less massive and dignified than his music. Countless anecdotes point him out to us as a well-known figure ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... from their remains, they could have possessed no great architectural beauty, though they may not have lacked a certain grandeur. In the dead level of Babylonia, an elevation even of 100 or 150 feet must have been impressive; and the plain massiveness of the structures no doubt added to their grand effect on the beholder. But there was singularly little in the buildings, architecturally viewed, to please the eye or gratify the sense of beauty. No edifices in the world —not even the Pyramids—are ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... the Grand Plaza, the centre of the city, the buildings increase in size, style, and finish. The ordinary material is adobe, not only because it is cheap, but also because it best resists earthquake shocks. Fear of a terremoto has likewise led to a massiveness in construction which is slightly ludicrous when we see the poverty which it protects; the walls are often two or three feet thick. The ground floor is occupied by servants, whose rooms—small enough to be called niches—surround the paved ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... gone through, in the most matter-of-fact way, between my companion and the commander of the strong post which was on guard, we entered the mighty precincts, and the gates closed behind us. I had then time to marvel at the massiveness of the structure—the immense blocks of stone, so typical of the colossal empire under which it was constructed. Passing through a long series of narrow passages, gloomy and sad, impervious to all ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... aggregate to be used depends upon the massiveness of the structure, its purpose, and whether or not it is reinforced. It is seldom that aggregate larger than will pass a 3-in. ring is used and this only in very massive work. The more usual size is 2 ins. For reinforced concrete 1 ins. is about ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... as the gaze could reach, the columns marched, oppressively ordered, appallingly mathematical. From their massiveness distilled a sense of power, mysterious, mechanical yet—living; something priestly, hierophantic—as though they ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... be true, or it is not beautiful, any more than a painted wanton is beautiful, any more than a sky-scraper is beautiful that is intrinsically and structurally light and that has a false massiveness of pillars plastered on outside. The true sky-scraper is beautiful—and this is the reluctant admission of a man who dislikes humanity-festering cities. The true sky-scraper is beautiful, and it is beautiful in so far as it is true. In its construction it is light and airy, ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... porch, whose antique massiveness harmonized with the building, for the straggling branches shot out in all directions, and its coarse blossoms, then in season, seemed to have drank up all the red paint as it vanished from the clapboards. Long, uncut grass, set thick with dandelions, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... decided to construct a group of buildings on the park. The architecture adopted for all four structures was Romanesque in style; granite was used for wall work, and darker stone for ornamentation. The plans accepted exhibited less massiveness than the original Romanesque, and showed a tendency towards the lightness and delicacy of finish ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... the Mound Builders are noticeable for their solidity and massiveness. We see this illustrated in the great walls of Fort Ancient. Some of our scholars think this is a distinguishing feature of the Mound Builders' work. It seems to us that it is difficult to make this a distinguishing ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... Parker reappeared. He came down the room humming a tune and apparently quite pleased with himself. I took the opportunity of studying his personal appearance a little more closely. He was not tall, but he was distinctly fat. He had a large double chin, but a certain freshness of complexion and massiveness about his forehead relieved his face from any suspicion of grossness. He had a large and humorous mouth, delightful eyes and plentiful eyebrows. His iron-gray hair was brushed carefully back from his forehead. ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... takes the man out of paint to put him in flesh and blood. He looks down with wide-open eyes, swelling nostrils, firm mouth, and massive chin. The noble brow, dome-like and expanded, relieves the massiveness of his face; and the whole countenance and figure express the repose of a powerful and passionate nature schooled into balance and symmetry: altogether the presentment of a great man, who felt that he could move the world and had found the pou ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... space uncurtailed for the awkward gambols of that very German goblin, Hans Klapper, on the long, slumberous, northern nights. Whole quarryfuls of wrought stone had been piled along the streets and around the squares, and were now grown, in truth, like nature's self again, in their rough, time-worn massiveness, with weeds and wild flowers where their decay accumulated, blossoming, always the same, beyond people's memories, every summer, as the storks came back to their platforms on the remote chimney-tops. Without, all was as it had been on the ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... many other marvels besides its size. First, there is the massiveness of the blocks of which it is composed. The basement stones are in many cases thirty feet long by five feet high, and four or five wide: they must contain from six hundred to seven hundred and fifty cubic feet each, ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... also admits a portion of the transept. Flanking the nave, on either hand, is a row of seven columns, supporting six arches. It is scarcely possible for the most casual observer not to be struck, immediately upon entering the building, with the extreme massiveness and solidity of the piers. They are for the most part square, and only varied with a semi-cylindrical shaft attached to each of the four sides. Similar piers are to be found in many of the village churches upon the coasts of Sussex and Surrey, the part of our island ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... genuine childlike awe and wonder inspired by the contemplation of the noble grandeur of nature, or with the calmer and more gentle sense of the beautiful produced by the less imposing aspects of the surrounding scenery. On the one hand crag and beetling cliff sweeping in rugged and colossal massiveness above dark waves of pine and fir, far into the keen and clear blue air; the huge mantle of snow, so cumulus-like in its brightness, thrown in many a solid fold over ice-sculptured crest and shoulders; the dark cathedral-like ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... force. The firmer the foundations, and the loftier the superstructure, the surer it was to be ultimately carried away, and to carry away with it all that the mere popular outburst would have spared.—The massiveness of the obstacle increased the spread of the ruin. Few Asiatic kingdoms would be overthrown with less effort, and perish with less public injury, than the monarchy of the Bourbons, if it is to fall. Yet, your monarchy is firmer. It is less a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... time," he said—"truly a delightful time. All this morning I have been in contact with noble thoughts. My child, can you realize, even dimly, what it is to dip into those mines of wealth—those mines of illimitable wisdom and greatness and strength and power? Oh, the massiveness of the intellects of the old classic writers! Their lofty ideas with regard to time and eternity—where can their like ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... wrote. The style evinces, for the first time in his piano music, the striking orchestral character of his thought—yet the writing is not, paradoxical as it may seem, unpianistic. The suggestion of orchestral relationships is contained in the massiveness of the harmonic texture, and in the cumulative effect of the climaxes and crescendi. He conveys an impression of extended tone-spaces, of a largeness, complexity, and solidity of structure, which are peculiar ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... as a Hindoo goddess, and strikingly similar in general massiveness of structure and proportion to the common reproduction of such deities, sat Madame Le Mois. She went on with her usual occupation; she was dipping fresh-cut salad leaves into great bowls of water as quietly as if only ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... and fell with a plash as of molten silver, breaking the image of the moon into a thousand morsels, fusing again into one, as the ripples of laughter die into the still face of joy. The sleeping woods, in undefined massiveness; the water that flowed in its sleep; and, above all, the enchantress moon, which had cast them all, with her pale eye, into the charmed slumber, sank into my soul, and I felt as if I had died in a dream, ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... river. From the river the mass of buildings poised dramatically on that individual bluff is a sharp note of beauty. On the quadrangle, that is the city side, this note is lost, and the rough stone buildings, though dignified, have a tough, square-bodied look. Yet the massiveness of the whole grouping about the great space of grass and gravel terraces certainly gives a large air. They form the adequate wings and ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... its lovely prototypes in Shakespeare, As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream. With all the pastorals Time ambles. But, on the other hand, Tennyson's piece is not a match for either of those Shakespearean works, in massiveness of dramatic signification or in the element of opportunity for the art of acting. Character, poetry, philosophy, humour, and suggestion it contains; but it contains no single scene in which its persons can amply put forth their full histrionic powers with ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... central tower rises to the height of two hundred feet in square massiveness, and from this point springs a slender and graceful spire to another hundred feet, so that next to Salisbury, the great archetype of this special class of ecclesiastical architecture, it is the tallest spire in ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... with pointed arches supported by piers, double, and on the side looking toward Mecca quintuple arcades, has a great dignity of sombre simplicity. Not grace, not a light elegance of soaring beauty, but massiveness and heavy strength are distinguishing features of this mosque. Even the octagonal basin and its protecting cupola that stands in the middle of the court lack the charm that belongs to so many of the fountains of Cairo. There are ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... directly across the Canyon, is the Bright Angel Gorge, with a full view of Zoroaster, Brahma and Deva Temples. To the right, the nearest promontory is Yaki Point. Below the point, its continuation terminates in a butte of great massiveness, which has been named O'Neill Butte, after the Arizona pioneer who was slain during the charge of the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill. Beyond Yaki Point, in the far-away east, two other great promontories arrest the attention. ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... fountain, and it would have flowed as clearly and sweetly through a new wood conduit of to-day as through the polished golden channel which lay there for it. She must love, and love the best, and if only the best had been younger, fitter! Would not the steady massiveness of Goethe's nature have been splendidly adorned by the arabesques and intricately graceful woof of Bettine's? Now it was spring flowers on an old brow, with all the sweetness, but not the freshness, of youth. The imperial Goethe, supreme ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... is some color in the throngs who surge along the colonnades to look into the court of honor. A portion of the great space is now accommodating huge shattered cannon and air craft of the enemy, their massiveness suggesting, as the little glittering medals are pinned upon the soldiers' breasts, that it is not so easy to be a ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... at length discovered a wall before me. It ran up and down and on either hand endlessly into the night. It was solid, black, terrible in its frowning massiveness. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... did nothing of the sort," retorted the General. "I trust I am not so lacking in manners. I merely remarked its beauty and quaintness and massiveness and general artistry. My host expressed pleasure at my appreciation of its qualities and volunteered the information that it was a little thing he had picked up in a curio shop on Regent Street, London, ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... emphasized the obscurity. It shone through colored panes and drew thick shadows on the floor and on sections of the divans. The heaps of cushions were colorless, and had a strange look of unyielding massiveness, as if they were blocks of some hard material. Osman stood beside one of ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... Scores, if not hundreds, of statues, each of which was a masterpiece, are spoilt; great quantities of carving are defaced; quite half the glass is irremediably broken; the whole of the interior non-structural decoration is destroyed. But the massiveness of the Cathedral has withstood German shrapnel. The place will never be the same again, or nearly the same. Nevertheless, ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... the great buildings of the alien city jutted up in the gray light of this gray world; their massiveness seemed only ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... it with Gothic churches. It is more an external work than the Gothic churches are, and is not so made out of the dim, awful, mysterious, grotesque, intricate nature of man. But it is beautiful and grand. I love its remote distances, and wide, clear spaces, its airy massiveness; its noble arches, its sky-like dome, which, I think, should be all over light, with ground-glass, instead of being dark, with only ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... us lies Carrowmore, with its labyrinth of cromlechs and stone circles, a very city of dead years. There is something awe-inspiring in the mere massiveness of these piled and ordered stones, the visible boundaries of invisible thoughts; that awe is deepened by the feeling of the tremendous power lavished in bringing them here, setting them up in their ordered groups, and piling the crowns of the cromlechs on other ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... the massiveness of the Roman Past, all matters that we handle or dream of nowadays look ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fittest, no doubt—all the frailer samples dropt, sorted out by death)—as if to show how the earth and woods, the attrition of storms and elements, and the exigencies of life at first hand, can train and fashion men, indeed chiefs, in heroic massiveness, imperturbability, muscle, and that last and highest beauty consisting of strength—the full exploitation and fruitage of a human identity, not from the culmination-points of "culture" and artificial civilization, but tallying our race, as it were, with giant, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... his ax, he became a different man. All the good cheer fled out of his face; his curly brown beard seemed to stand out about his head like snakes, and the massiveness of his body was reflected in the battle-fury of his face. He needed no blows to rouse him into madness; but with the ax swinging like a reed about him, he came rushing at Brian, a giant come to earth from of old time. His men on the tower set up a ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... before, she remarked upon the massiveness of the walls and the straightness of the ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... first word, she went and sat down under the porch, at Hollingsworth's feet, entirely contented and happy. What charm was there in his rude massiveness that so attracted and soothed this shadow-like girl? It appeared to me, who have always been curious in such matters, that Priscilla's vague and seemingly causeless flow of felicitous feeling was that with which love blesses inexperienced hearts, before they begin to suspect what ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... these stones were of a polygonal shape, though in a few instances they were rectangular, while in all cases they were fitted together with the most consummate accuracy of workmanship, which, together with their great massiveness, has enabled much of this masonry to endure to the present day. Cortona, Volterra, Fiesole, and other towns exhibit instances of this walling. The temples, palaces, or dwelling-houses which went to make up the cities so fortified ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... is very symmetrical and impressive. In the preservation of its pyramidal purpose it is scarcely inferior to that most consummate work, the tower of St. Stephen's in Vienna. It is composed of three superimposed structures, gradually diminishing in solidity and massiveness from the square base to the high-springing octagonal spire, garlanded with thorny crowns. It is balanced at the south end of the facade by the pretty cupola and lantern of the Mozarabic Chapel, the work of the ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... the Mission type is preferred, the overhang of the top is very narrow; the legs are straight and heavy, and of even size from top to bottom; and the table top is thick and nearly as broad as it is long. Such furniture has the appearance of massiveness; it is easily ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... look down the hazy candle-lit vista of the nave and see the congregation as ranks and ranks of dim faces and vaguely apprehended clothes, ranks that rose with a peculiar deep and spacious rustle to sing, and sang with a massiveness of effect she knew in no other music. Certain hymns in particular seemed to bear her up and carry her into another larger, more wonderful world: "Heart's Abode, Celestial Salem" for example, a world of luminous spiritualized sensuousness. Of such a ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... a natural cliff (say of the Vaucluse order) rather than an effort of human or even of Roman labour. It is the biggest thing at Orange—it is bigger than all Orange put together—and its permanent massiveness makes light of the shrunken city. The face it presents to the town—the top of it garnished with two rows of brackets perforated with holes to receive the staves of the velarium—bears the traces of more than one tier ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... spectacular decorations of gilded wood have destroyed the architectural value and real beauty of the Cathedral's interior. Yet in the dim light, which is the light of its every-day life, the great height of the church and its sombre massiveness ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose |
