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Revel   Listen
noun
Revel  n.  A feast with loose and noisy jollity; riotous festivity or merrymaking; a carousal. "This day in mirth and revel to dispend." "Some men ruin... their bodies by incessant revels."
Master of the revels, Revel master. Same as Lord of misrule, under Lord.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Revel" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Aye, verily," quoth Lob, "and what is worse, 'Tis here my grand-dam oft doth come to curse, And haunteth it with spiteful toads and bats, With serpents fell, with ewts and clawful cats. Here doth she revel hold o' moony nights, With grave-rank ghouls and moaning spectral sprites; And ... Saints! what's that? A hook-winged bat? Not so; perchance, within its hairy body fell Is man or maid transformed by magic spell. O, brothers, heedful be, and careful tread Lest magic gin should ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... if you ever get a furlough from business, you go down to Mount Vernon and revel in memories of the father of his country. If you go, hunt up a negro with a hair lip, that is a servant there, and who used to be Washington's body servant, unless he is a liar, and tell him I sent you and he won't ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck

... my enemies all round, and shaken hands with the Marquis by proxy, while Puddleham has been man enough to maintain the dignity of his indignation. The truth is, that the possession of a grievance is the one state of human blessedness. As long as the chapel was there, malgre moi, I could revel in my wrong. It turns out now that I can send poor Puddleham adrift to-morrow, and he immediately becomes the hero of the hour. I wish your brother-in-law had not been so officious in finding it ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... was greedy of information and book learning, and in this narrow dim dwelling, literally stacked with books, papers, and pamphlets of all kinds, and partially given over to the mysteries of the printing press, seldom worked save at dead of night, Cuthbert's expanding mind could revel to its ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... West, that her next lover may bring together the Gallery at Madrid, and show to the world how the Master towers above all; and in their intimacy they revel, he and she, in this knowledge; and he knows the ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... along the way, keeping time with their oars; they recount their exploits, the slaves whom they have captured, and the men whom they have killed in war. The vessel is laden with wine and pitarrillas. When they reach the village, they exchange invitations with the inhabitants, and hold a great revel. After this they lay aside their white robes, and strip the bejuco bands from their arms and necks; the mourning ends, and they begin to eat rice again, and to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various

... and Miss Gwynne were left together at a distance from the revel. They stood awhile, looking on, and talking over the day. Rowland said it had been most successful. Indeed he felt that all had been pleased; none more than himself, for had not everyone congratulated him, and above all, had not Miss Gwynne been even ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... we will share equally, but his house Shall be the Queen's, and his whom she shall wed. Yet, if not so inclined, ye rather chuse That he should live and occupy entire His patrimony, then, no longer, here Assembled, let us revel at his cost, But let us all with spousal gifts produced From our respective treasures, woo the Queen, Leaving her in full freedom to espouse 460 Who proffers most, and whom the fates ordain. He ceased; the assembly silent sat and mute. Then rose Amphinomus amid them all, Offspring renown'd of Nisus, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... (intemperance) 954. treat; refreshment, regale; feast; delice [Fr.]; dainty &c 394; bonne bouche [Fr.]. source of pleasure &c 829; happiness &c (mental enjoyment) 827. V. feel pleasure, experience pleasure, receive pleasure; enjoy, relish; luxuriate in, revel in, riot in, bask in, swim in, drink up, eat up, wallow in; feast on; gloat over, float on; smack the lips. live on the fat of the land, live in comfort &c adv.; bask in the sunshine, faire ses choux gras [Fr.]. give pleasure &c 829. Adj. enjoying &c v.; luxurious, voluptuous, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... too, it was customary to begin a drinking-bout with small cups, and resort to larger ones later on, a process which must be familiar to all readers of Chinese novels, wherein, toward the close of the revel, the half-drunken hero invariably calls for more capacious goblets. Neither does the ordinary Chinaman approve of a short allowance of wine at his banquets, as witness the following story, translated from ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... softest down, 'Twas a place to revel, to smother, to drown In a bliss inferr'd by the Poet; For if Ignorance be indeed a bliss, What blessed ignorance equals this, To sleep—and ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... Return (give back) redoni. Return (come back) reveni. Return, to make a raporti. Return (report) raporto. Return, in reciproke. Reunion rekunigo. Re-unite rekunigi. Reveal malkasxi. Revel festenego. Revenge revengxo. Revenue rento, enspezo. Revere respektegi. Reverence, to make a riverenci. Reverence respektegi. Reverence (salutation) riverenco. Reverie revado. Reverse renversi. Reverse (a ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... evident that he gloated on this idea that the body of the lady of the feathers was forever useless for good, and even powerless to do much effective evil. He seemed to revel in the notion that she was simply a thing powerless, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... number of celebrated persons who satisfied their sexual desire by making martyrs of their victims, up to complete butchery. The most atrocious types of this kind are perhaps assassins such as "Jack the Ripper," who lie in wait for their victims like cats, pounce on them, revel in their terror, assassinate them by inches, and wallow voluptuously in ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... has been getting a shade the worse of it in the literature on this subject, for he, himself, is hardly literary in his habits, and has not been able to tell his own story. The world has heard much of the jolly Jack Tars who spend in a few days' revel in waterside dives the whole proceeds of a year's cruise; but it has heard less of the shrewd schemes which are devised for fleecing poor Jack, and applied by every one with whom he comes in contact, from the ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... body was of imperial purple, glossy and soft as velvet; its eyes shone like the diamonds of Golconda; its wings were of the color of the deep blue skies of Damascus, sprinkled with glittering stars; its motions were swift and graceful beyond all others, and it seemed to revel in the bliss of the dewy roses and honeysuckles, with a zest which made Adakar only repine the more, that he had lost the capacity of enjoyment by abusing the bounties ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... end of Fitzjohn's Avenue once lived that ever popular Academician, the late Mr. John Pettie. Mr. Pettie was a vigorous draughtsman and a beautiful colourist, and many of his portraits are very fine. He seemed to revel in painting a red coat—an object to many painters as maddening as it is to the infuriated bull. On one "Show Sunday" before the sending-in day of the Royal Academy, at which he exhibited, I recollect admiring a portrait of Mr. Lamb, the celebrated golfer, in his ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... glow worms, and delighted with the dewy fragrance of the garden, and delighted with the soft, balmy stillness of the night. She was one of those who revel in Nature, and all that she said was evidently the overflow of a rapturous happiness, curiously contrasting with the ordinary set remarks of admiration, or falsely sentimental outbursts too much in vogue. But Leslie Cunningham found that the child-likeness was not only in manner, but that ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... could pay his creditors, and have a small amount over, sufficient to live upon economically and genteelly. But you would rather enjoy splendor, and are not particular about living honorably. You will undoubtedly sell your property, and go to Paris, to revel in luxury and pleasure, while your defrauded creditors may, through you come to poverty and want.—Baron, I now see that your wife did well to bring about my removal. I should have, above all things, given you the unwelcome advice to sustain your honor unblemished, and dispose ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... sixth of January the festival in honor of the return of Isis from Phenicia was celebrated in Memphis. Kenkenes left the revel in mid-afternoon and crossed the Nile to the hills. He found no content away from his block of stone—no happiness before it. But he wandered back to the seclusion of the niche that he might be moody and sad of eye in ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... Indians. Nearby, scattered over the bluffs, were the teepees of Little Crow's band, forming the Sioux village of Kaposia. In 1846, Little Crow, their belligerent chieftain, was shot by his own brother, in a drunken revel. He survived the wound, but apparently alarmed at the influence of these modern harpies over himself and his people, he visited Fort Snelling and begged a missionary for his village. The United States agent stationed there forwarded this petition to Lac-qui-Parle with the suggestion that Dr. Williamson ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell

... wordlessly happy. And presently she covered the baby's face, and they went back to sit before the great fireplace, where the kettle bubbled cheerfully and the crackling blaze sent forth its challenge to the bevy of frost sprites that held high revel outside. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... clear out the whole office singlehanded. His body ached to do something, to rush out and revel in violence. All the indignities of his life enraged him.... Could he ask the cashier privately for an advance? No, the cashier was no good, no damn good: he wouldn't give an advance.... He knew where he would meet the boys: Leonard and O'Halloran ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... of Olaf Triggvison was scarcely remarked by the Norwegians, who were at that time holding high revel in celebration of their victory. But had Earl Hakon of Lade been able to look into the future, and see the disasters that awaited him at the hands of this fair haired young viking, he would surely ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... week I shall be in Nubia. Some year we must all make this voyage; you would revel in it. Kiss my darlings ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... lady attired to represent a hot cross-bun. Then he was lost in the crowd, and the Colonel's eyes, in which for a moment a spark of wonder had burned, grew old and tired again. As he stood there alone, with youth and recklessness gamboling before him, he realized somberly that for him this revel was ended. How he would have enjoyed it once! But never, never again. His straight, soldierly back bent with weariness; he jerked back his shoulders, but they slipped forward, forward, and he let them stay. How little the fair faces interested him; how stupidly ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston

... a moonlit garden. Up on that hillside I understood very clearly that I, who had been as careless of women as any monk, had fallen wildly in love with a child of half my age. I was loath to admit it, though for weeks the conclusion had been forcing itself on me. Not that I didn't revel in my madness, but that it seemed too hopeless a business, and I had no use for barren philandering. But, seated on a rock munching chocolate and biscuits, I faced up to the fact and resolved to trust my ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... coral-hung barberry-bushes, or of fallen leaves and snow-drifts. The wildness of the road, now exchanged for elegant modern cultivation, was its great charm to us. We stopped at the Cove Brook to hear the cat-birds sing, and at Mingo's Beach to revel in the sudden surprise of the open sea, and to listen to the chant of the waves, always stronger and grander there than anywhere along the shore. We passed under dark wooded cliffs out into sunny openings, the last of which ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... The room was dark, dirty, vile, noisy, and poisoned by sewage odours, as rooms unfortunately are very apt to be. At the end of the rice planting there is a holiday for two days, when many offerings are made to Inari, the god of rice farmers; and the holiday-makers kept up their revel all night, and drums, stationary and peripatetic, were constantly beaten in such a way as to ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... going to that blessed retreat familiarly known as 'Murray's den,' where, secure from feminine intrusion, as if in the cool cloisters of Coutloumoussi, I surrender my happy soul to science and cigars, and revel in complete forgetfulness of that awful curse which Jove hurled against all mankind, because of ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... their heads, under pretence of being cut by the sword that was never drawn: nor need I say any thing of the more formidable attack of sturdy chairmen, armed with poles; by a slight stroke of which, the pride of Ned Revel's face was at once laid flat, and that effected in an instant, which its most mortal foe had for years assayed in vain. I shall pass over the accidents that attended attempts to scale windows, and endeavours to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... we have talked, too, of that Carian shepherd who spent his damp nights upon the hills, gazing as I do on the lustrous planet! Who will revel with her amid those old superstitions? Who, from our own unlegended woods, will evoke their yet undetected, haunting spirits? Who peer with her in prying scrutiny into nature's laws, and challenge the whispers of poetry from the voiceless throat of matter? Who laugh merrily over the stupid guesswork ...
— The Man In The Reservoir • Charles Fenno Hoffman

... Heaven, or grot of Omar—anything old, lovely, and devil-sacred—the air chokingly odorous, near a fountain some brazen demon—Moloch or Baal—buried in roses, over everything roses, bounty of flowers, a very harvest-home of Chloris, Flora in revel; and smooth youths bearing cups for some twenty others, all garlanded, besides those on the marble stage; and on the stage itself a scene of dancing girls, Sevillian, Neapolitan, Algerian, mixed with masked Satyrs, which made Hogarth ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... of Hals at his best it is necessary to visit Holland, for we have but little here. The "Laughing Cavalier" in the Wallace Collection is perhaps his best picture in a public gallery in England. But the Haarlem Museum is a temple dedicated to his fame, and there you may revel in his lusty powers. ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... listened to the first part of the letter like a man suddenly roused out of a dream. For the first time since the Revolution had begun, the horror of it and the meaning of it were brought home to him. He had been so long expatriated, had loitered so long in the primrose path of daily sleep and nightly revel, had fallen so far, that he little realised how the fiery wheels of Death were spinning in France, or how black was the torment of her people. His face turned scarlet as the thing came home to him now. He dropped his head in his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... artists, I suppose that Sir Edward Burne-Jones has inspired more poetry than any other. A whole school of Oxford poets emerged from his fascinating palette, and he is the subject of perhaps the most exquisite of all the Poems and Ballads—the 'Dedication'—which forms the colophon to that revel of rhymes. I sometimes think that is why his art is out of fashion with modern painters, who may inspire dealers, but would never inspire poets. For who could write a sonnet on some uncompromising pieces of realism by Mr. ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... first place the news of the thousand guilders had, of course, to be told to the father. Such tidings as that surely could not harm him. Then while Gretel was diligently obeying her mother's injunction to "clean the place fresh as a new brewing," Hans and the dame sallied forth to revel in the purchasing ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... was of a kind in which newspapers revel. Cunningham was a well-known character, several times a millionaire. His death even by illness would have been worth a column. But the horrible and grewsome way of his taking off, the mystery surrounding it, the absence of any apparent motive unless it were revenge, all whetted the appetite of ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... envy on the finery and expenses of other young men: he therefore believed, that happiness was now in his power, since he could obtain all of which he had hitherto been accustomed to regret the want. He resolved to give a loose to his desires, to revel in enjoyment, and feel pain or uneasiness ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... story of his renown to pay him their respects in person, and listen courteously and gravely to his opinions, his discrimination stood him in no better stead, for as soon as he possibly could he bent the conference towards a sailor's revel, and astonished his stately visitants by singing the spiciest songs, and sometimes even by a Terpsichorean display in full costume; for he was excessively proud of his accomplishments in this line, and implicitly believed that the shaking ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... harbor, their prows boring into the gale, their crude hulls rising and falling, tossing and plunging, tugging like living things at their hempen cables. The snow fell upon them, changing them into phantoms, all seemingly eager to join in the mad revel of the storm. And the lights at the mastheads, swooping now downward, now upward, now from side to side, dappled the troubled waters with sickly gold. A desert of marshes behind it, a limitless sea before it, gave to this brave old city an isolation ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... sobriety of so long date; For who could bear to hear the glasses ring In concert clear—the chairman's ready toast— The pops of out-drawn corks—the "hip hurrah!" The eloquence of claret—and the songs, Which often through the noisy revel break, When a man—might his quietus make With a full bottle? Who would sober be, Or sip weak coffee through the live-long night; But that the dread of being laid upon That stretcher by policemen borne, on which The reveller reclines,—puzzles me much, And makes me rather tipple ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various

... light ladies of the ballet and the opera who enticed Monsieur Alphonse to revel night after night at the gaming-table, or at interminable suppers! How ill he had been looking these last few weeks! He had grown quite thin, and the great gentle eyes had acquired a piercing, restless look. What would she not give to be able to ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various

... Salem ascended, Each wilderness path we shall see; Now thoughts of each difficult journey A sweet meditation shall be. On death, on the grave and its terrors And storms we shall gaze from above And freed from all cares we shall revel (?) In transports ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... buried in his corn-kiln, the other under the gate of his farmyard. Well, the moujik died, and never said a word about the money to any one. One day there was a festival in the village. A fiddler was on his way to the revel when, all of a sudden, he sank into the earth—sank right through and tumbled into hell, lighting exactly there where the rich moujik ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... the revel To the prison-cell my sight, For intenser hate of evil, For a keener sense of right, Shaking off thy dust, I thank thee, City of the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... I saw many things which had escaped my notice before. I have made acquaintance with the taste of all sorts of new fruits while here, more than in our former journey; but this is to be explained by the proximity of the Botanical Gardens. I expected to revel in fruit all through the tropics, but, except at Tahiti, we have not done so at all. There is one great merit in tropical fruit, which is, that however hot the sun may be, when plucked from the tree it is always icy cold; ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... mending or patching, or giving Betty a music lesson, or helping Mary to hang clean curtains in the drawing-room. It was delightful to nestle back against the cushions and study one by one the dainty appointments of the room, and revel in the unaccustomed sense of space. Imagine just for a moment—imagine possessing such a home of one's own! The house, with its treasures of beautiful and artistic furnishings, which represented the lifelong gatherings ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... cursing, tippling, breaking the Sabbath, idleness, overcharges by the merchants, and the "loose and sinful habit of riding from town to town, men and women together, under pretence of going to lectures, but really to drink and revel in taverns." The law forbidding the keeping of Christmas Day had to be repealed in 1681. Mrs. Randolph, when attending Mr. Willard's preaching at the South Church, was observed "to make a curtsey" at the name of Jesus "even in prayer time"; and the colony was threatened with ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... princely revel was a mysterious young foreign nobleman, known by the name of the Duc de Septimominorelli, and reputed to be ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... winds, when for days at a time the Pacific is as smooth as a lake; but in the rivers, from Mallacoota Inlet, which is a few miles over the Victorian boundary, to the Tweed River on the north, the stranger may fairly revel, not only in the delights of splendid fishing, but in the charms of beautiful scenery. He needs no guide, will be put to but little expense, for the country hotel accommodation is good and cheap; and, should he visit some of the northern ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... numbers of those, who in reading seek no more than to be cheated in a similar way. Indeed, to acknowledge a disagreeable fact, there is a very great deal of reading in our day that is simply a substitute for the potations and "heavy-handed revel" of our Saxon ancestors. In both cases it is a spurious exaltation of feeling that is sought; in both cases those who for a moment seem to themselves larks ascending to meet the sun ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... hid riot, Change, This revel of quick-cued mumming, This never truly being, This evermore becoming, This spinner's ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... nor revel; Lent or carnival alone were vain; Sin and sainthood—Help me, little brother, With your largo ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman

... with his sonorous call, The grasshopper chirped along, The dormice came out of their underground hole, The squirrels peeped over their pine-tree wall, To list to the revel song. ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins

... the League, always quicksighted to their own interests, soon connected themselves with the new settlers, and formed commercial alliances, which were recognized and protected by the Teutonic knights. Elbing, Dantzic, Revel, and Riga, were thus added to the League—cities, which, from their situation, were admirably calculated to obtain and forward the produce of the interior parts of ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... who dwell 'mid rural shades, Of life's great struggles. Poverty and want In direst forms, are never seen, where bloom And verdure revel, but within the dark And loathesome cellars of the crowded town, ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... days in our showy barracks we began to quarrel with luxury. What had private soldiers to do with the desks of law-givers? Why should we be allowed to revel longer in the dining-rooms of Washington hotels, partaking the admirable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... is called the son of Revel; Planted in the ground when little, With a plough they ploughed the region, Like an ant, away they cast him Close to Kaleva's great well-spring, There where Osmo's field is sloping; There the tender plant sprang upward, And the green shoot mounted quickly. 150 Up a little tree ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... emotional influence of spring, and many of those who feel that influence most keenly will give up the task. And then comes Chaucer with his few touches, his "blissful briddes" and "fressche flowres," and tells us how "full is my heart of revel and solace," and behold! the passage breathes to the reader's heart the very spirit of ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... waters followed him. Even now—as old Betty Donithorne, formerly the housekeeper at Buckland Abbey, told me,—if the warrior hears the drum which hangs in the hall of the abbey, and which accompanied him round the world, he rises and has a revel. ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... every side of the vibrating walls. In some epochs spirits as hardy as Raynal's, and wits as quick as Riviere's, would have fled then and there to the nearest public, and told over cups how they had heard the dames of Beaurepaire, long since dead, holding their revel, and the conscious old devil's nest of a chateau quivering to ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... noble Venetians have a little suite of apartments in some out-of-the-way corner, near the grand piazza, of which their families are totally ignorant. To these they skulk in the dusk, and revel undisturbed with the companions of their pleasures. Jealousy itself cannot discover the alleys, the winding passages, the unsuspected doors, by which these retreats are accessible. Many an unhappy lover, whose mistress ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... and untidy in the last degree. He eked out his sentences with "hum" and "hah;" he cleared his throat, and flourished his pocket-handkerchief, and sucked his orange; he rounded his periods with "you know what I mean" and "all that kind of thing," and seemed actually to revel in an anti-climax—"I think the hon. member's proposal an outrageous violation of constitutional propriety, a daring departure from traditional policy, and, in short, a great mistake." It taxed all the skill of the reporters' gallery to trim his speeches ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... Mulgrave and Staithes, and on the further side of the bay you see tiny Runswick's red roofs, one above the other, on the face of the cliff. Here it is always cool and pleasant in the hottest weather, and from the broad shadows cast by the precipices above one can revel in the sunny land- and sea-scapes without that fishy odour so unavoidable in the villages. When the sun is beginning to climb down the sky in the direction of Hinderwell, and everything is bathed in a glorious golden light, the ferryman will row you across ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home

... which they tend the sick, or gather round The dying; and a slender, steady beam Comes from the little chamber, in the roof Where, with a feverous crimson on her cheek, The solitary damsel, dying, too, Plies the quick needle till the stars grow pale. There, close beside the haunts of revel, stand The blank, unlighted windows, where the poor, In hunger and in darkness, wake till morn. There, drowsily, on the half-conscious ear Of the dull watchman, pacing on the wharf, Falls the soft ripple of the waves that strike On the moored bark; but guiltier listeners Are nigh, the prowlers ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... house which had been prepared for their reception, they found a splendid breakfast awaiting them, to which they did as ample justice as a celebrated traveller to that which welcomed him at New York, although they did not, like him, revel to satiety, by plunging into ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... that my life was passed without excess. In such a home as mine, that would have been impossible. The frequent brawl, the wassail-bowl and drunken revel were almost of nightly occurrence; and I was fast sinking into the mere robber and inebriate, when an event occurred which rescued me for a time from the abyss on the brink of which I ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... again, "like a re-appearing star." There is something very provocative to the imagination in this circumstance. What can have been the motive of such a seclusion? was it in the personal character of the king, and did he shut himself up to meditate on high matters, or to revel in physical indulgence? or, possibly, to live his own simple life, untrammelled by the irksome exterior of greatness? or was it merely a trick of kingcraft, in order to deify himself in the superstition of his people, by the awfulness of an invisible presence ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... brethren o' the mystic level May hing their head in woefu' bevel, While by their nose the tears will revel, Like ony bead; Death's gien the lodge an unco devel, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... the emigrants, who assembled to receive their respective portions, without a blessing being asked, and thanks being offered by the pious Brewster, who, with a spirit of gratitude too often unknown to those who revel in abundance, praised God for having permitted them 'to suck out of the fullness of the sea, and for the treasures sunk in the sand.' While such an example of holy trust, and patient submission to the will of God, was set by the leading men of ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... laughing, ever-brilliant eyes, These things men may not know, But something in your radiance lies, That, centuries ago, Lit up my life in one wild blaze Of infinite desire To revel in your golden rays, Or in ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.

... sea-shaft to its base, as a telescope conducts the mortal gaze to revel in the stars. Merman and mermaid, nereid and triton, were there, rejoicing in the sunbeams thus poured upon them through this subtle conduit of ocean, as do the motes of summer in her rays; but soon these disappeared, a motley crowd, confused and joyous, leaving the vision free to pierce ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... I got as far as the manor house, being fool enough to risk my neck for another sight of her. God help me, Jack! I had it. They have scraped together all the Tory riff-raff this side of the river—Falconnet and the others—and are holding high revel at Appleby. Since it is still our true-blue borderland, they are scant enough of women of their own kidney, and I saw Madge dancing like any light o' love with every ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... These were all blended in an inextricable clamor. With the unrefined eminently, and in a considerable degree with the most refined, noise is one of the essential elements of festivity. A thousand men were making all the noise they could in this midnight revel. Probably never before, since the dawn of creation, had the banks of the Alabama echoed with such a clamor as in this great carouse, which had so suddenly burst forth from the silence of ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... the sea-blue swallow-wort, and there The pale-hued maidenhair, with parsley green And vagrant marsh-flowers; and a revel rare In the pool's midst the water-nymphs were seen To hold, those maidens of unslumbrous eyes Whom the ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus

... the "dressed-stone mansion," etc. But I found out then, and never have forgotten since, that we never read the dull explanatory surroundings of marvelously exciting things when we have no occasion to suppose that some irresponsible scribbler is trying to defraud us; we skip all that, and hasten to revel in the blood-curdling particulars and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... her face Made milk-white paths, whereon the gods might trace To Jove's high court. He thus replied: "The rites In which Love's beauteous empress most delights, 300 Are banquets, Doric music, midnight revel, Plays, masks, and all that stern age counteth evil. Thee as a holy idiot doth she scorn; For thou, in vowing chastity, hast sworn To rob her name and honour, and thereby Committ'st a sin far worse than perjury, Even sacrilege against ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... would be "Coffee Chat" or "Gossip." The entertainment is of German origin, and was adopted to fit the fiction that the stronger sex, of whom the lateness of the hour captures many a willing or unwilling victim, do not revel in tea. ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan {60} Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables. . .but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then! 'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve My bath must needs be left behind, alas! {70} One block, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... least a year in New York. I'm going to work among the poorest and most unpleasant, because I want to become self-reliant. Then I shall go back home. Think of a trained nurse let loose in some of those outports! I should just revel in it. I am an heiress worth five hundred dollars a year of my own. That would keep a lot of people up there. You see, ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... through four stages of meditation[487]. Then his whole mind and even his body is permeated with a feeling of purity and peace. He concentrates his thoughts and is able to apply them to such great matters as he may select. He may revel in the enjoyment of supernatural powers, for we cannot deny that the oldest documents which we possess credit the sage with miraculous gifts, though they attach little importance to them, or he may follow the train of thought ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... picked from the jar, another flagon tossed down and the revel went on. This was a usual occurrence before and after the conflict with the Nor'-Westers. But the night that I climbed the stairs of the main warehouse and, mustering up assurance, stepped into the hall as if I belonged to the fort, or the fort belonged to me, there was a different ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... the reptile shall extend their wanderings over the smooth cheek, and revel on the lips, whose red once rivalled that of the ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... east and west] I should not have suspected this passage of ambiguity or obscurity, had I not found my opinion of it differing from that of the learned critic [Warburton]. I construe it thus, This heavy-headed revel makes us traduced east and west, and ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... least telling her what she meant to do? There had of late been something about Diana that called for this consideration. She had grown so quiet and pale. Her gay laughter was seldom heard, and though she still sat about with Bellew a great deal, no one ever heard them talking much. They seemed to revel in silence. It was not difficult to divine what spell was upon them, and April was more glad than ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... according to the testimony of Sarah Ingersoll, on one occasion came to herself, and manifested the symptoms of a restored moral consciousness: but it was a temporary gleam, a lucid interval; and she passed back into darkness, continuing, as before, to revel in falsehood, and scatter destruction around her. With this single exception, there is not the slightest appearance of compunction or reflection among them. On the contrary, they seem to have been in a frivolous, sportive, gay frame of thought and spirits. There is, perhaps, in this view ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... recreant son. Wealth and honors were his and an English wife, a haughty woman of half-noble family, who completed the work of alienation. Traitorous deed, kindred and race were all forgotten, and when the joy-bells rang for the birth of an heir there was revel in the magnificent ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley

... leaping and wildly dancing in circles: these young men clear the way; and it is unsafe to pass near them, for they whirl about as if moved by frenzy .... When I first saw such a band of dancers, I could imagine myself watching some old Dionysiac revel;—their furious gyrations certainly realized Greek accounts of the antique sacred frenzy. There were, indeed, no Greek heads; but the bronzed lithe figures, naked save for loin-cloth and sandals, and most sculpturesquely muscled, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... an honorable calling, and a welcome from friend and kinsman awaiting him when he went East again, to revel in the life of the cities, but the man who followed him silently to the sleeping-room had nothing but a half-instinctive assurance that the future could not well be harder or more lonely than the past had been. Still, farmer Winston was a man of courage with a quiet ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... is listening to it, the sound of a hoof on a lonely road in the great woods is the footstep of cities to him coming through the trees, and the low, chocking sound of a cartwheel in the still and radiant valley throngs his being like an opera. All sights and echoes and thoughts and feelings revel in it. It is music for the smoke, rapt and beautiful, rising from the chimneys at his feet. A sheet of water—making heaven out of nothing—is beautiful to the dullest man, because he cannot analyse it, ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... magnificence and pomp are generally more associated with Roman Catholic than with Protestant Courts, the Tudors were exceptions to the rule. Under Queen Elizabeth, Hampton Court saw again something of the brilliancy and pageantry in which her father had delighted. Here Her Majesty held high revel at Christmas on more than one occasion—"if ye would know what we do here," wrote one in attendance to a friend, in 1592, "we play at tables, dance—and keep Christmas". Elizabeth had been brought to Hampton Court shortly after the marriage of her sister ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold

... inhabitants—for all this. Nature peopled it in the beginning with Fairies, Knooks, Ryls and Nymphs. As long as the Forest stands it will be a home, a refuge and a playground to these sweet immortals, who revel undisturbed in its depths. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum

... who, conscious that they were liable to suspicion, if they were not guilty of accession to a riot likely to be strictly inquired into, glided about with an humble and dismayed aspect, like men whose spirits being exhausted in the revel and the dangers of a desperate debauch over-night, are nerve-shaken, timorous, and ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Each compartment is large enough to contain four or five kilogrammes of roots, so that the little rodent finds himself at the end of the season the proprietor of about fifteen kilogrammes of food in reserve. He would have enough to enable him to revel in abundance if he were able to reckon without his neighbours. This diligent animal has in fact one terrible parasite. This is Man, who will not allow him to enjoy in peace the fruits of his long labour and economy. In ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... But if a villain stained with crime That holy hill presume to climb, The giants in their fury sweep From the hill top the wretch asleep. There loud and long is heard the roar Of elephants on Pampa's shore, Who near Matanga's dwelling stray And in those waters bathe and play. A while they revel by the flood, Their temples stained with streams like blood, Then wander far away dispersed, Dark as huge clouds before they burst. But ere they part they drink their fill Of bright pure water from the rill, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... 'Tis night for revel, set apart To reillume the darkened heart, And rout the hosts of Dole. 'Tis night when Goblin, Elf, and Fay, Come dancing in their best array To prank and royster on the way, And ease the ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley

... the tongue that bids this general joy! Can they be friends of Antony, who revel When Antony's in danger? Hide, for shame, You Romans, your great grandsires' images, For fear their souls should animate their marbles, To blush at ...
— All for Love • John Dryden

... perspicacious reader! You, madam, who being so daintily feminine, cannot be supposed to revel in the joys of hog-flesh, flesh of ox, sheep, bird or fish, no matter how excellent well cooked; and you, honourable sir, who, being comfortably replete of such, seated before your groaning board at duly frequent and regular intervals, masticate in duty to yourself and digestion, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... be studied. We do not forget, in saying this, his angel with the flaming torch, strong and beautiful and of unearthly presence, nor the shadowy, half-portrayed figures which dart and flit across his easel; but as we may understand the power of Titian from his portraits, yet never revel in it fully until we look upon "The Presentation" or "The Assumption"—never comprehend the painter's joy or his divine rest in endeavor until the achievement lies before us—we must speak of Hunt only from the work to which he has devoted himself, and not do him the injustice to predict dramas ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... The high revel had gone on with jest, and laugh, and song, with play, too, and some purses were empty that before had been none too well filled. Through it all Edmonson, the life of the party, kept the control over himself that many had lost. There was no credit due to him for the fact that ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... item interesting to our friends who revel in syntax and prosody. Any machine or apparatus for lifting has been called a "jack" since the days of Shakespeare. The jack was the bearer of bundles, a lifter, a puller, a worker. Any coarse bit of mechanism ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... resolute, and looking almost sick with anxiety. He had just been on board the steamer; there were two hundred and fifty wounded men just arrived, and the ball must end. Not that there was anything for us to do, but the revel was mis-timed, and must be ended; it was wicked to be dancing with such a ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... King from the time when the latter came to the throne and young Guildford, then twenty, was one of the gayest, bravest, most loyal spirits about it. Always as ready for a real battle as a mimic one; as clever at writing plays for the King's amusement as at acting in them; as good in a revel as at a piece of diplomacy; it is not much wonder that his knighthood in 1512 should but have been the prelude to a ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... round trips per day. That would be twenty million a day gross for a small ship not intended for passenger service. When we get ships built ... and the extras...." The money-man went into a financial revel of his own. ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... canals; just when a poor, breadless fellow might get a job in the big bone-yard and fertilising factory, out on the railroad track; and as for the levee, with its ships and schooners and sailors, how he could revel in them! The wondrous ships, the pretty little schooners, where the foreign-looking sailors lay on long moonlight nights, singing to their guitars and telling great stories,—all these things and more could Titee tell of. He had been down to the Gulf, and out on its treacherous ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar

... long revel of drinking, gambling, and excitement. No one had slept in the reservation town—for no one had dared. Bawling, singing, and shouting, the jollier element had shamed the coyotes from the land. Half a thousand camp fires had flared ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... the passions may revel unfettered, And the heart never speak but in truth; And the intellect, wholly unlettered, Be bright with the freedom ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... Alas! there is no sound [Sound of soft music heard from within. To rouse him short of thunder. Hark! the lute— The lyre—the timbrel; the lascivious tinklings Of lulling instruments, the softening voices 30 Of women, and of beings less than women, Must chime in to the echo of his revel, While the great King of all we know of earth Lolls crowned with roses, and his diadem Lies negligently by to be caught up By the first manly hand which dares to snatch it. Lo, where they come! already I ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... Albion's isle there dwelt a youth, Who ne in Virtue's ways did take delight; But spent his days in riot most uncouth, And vexed with mirth the drowsy ear of Night. Ah me! in sooth he was a shameless wight, Sore given to revel and ungodly glee;[n] Few earthly things found favour in his sight[o] Save concubines and carnal companie, And flaunting wassailers of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... went round, The precincts of that classic ground; And when bent on a tearing spree, Filled full of grog and jollity, The bacchanalian rant they made Would please even old Anacreon's shade, While o'er them the athletic charms Of the stern hostess's bare arms, Struck terror and kept order in The revel's hottest, wildest din! For cash or credit bartered she, The prime ingredients of a spree; And he stood always above par Who never stone threw at the bar; And when a man had spent his all, She chalked the balance on the wall. Figures or letters she ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett

... independent and belligerent attitude. The Shad had a certain adroit and devious imagination, but the practical mind was Macnooder. His point of view was purely economic. Hickey might plan the daring manoeuvre which made the conquest of the clapper possible, and revel in the faculty's amazement at the sudden silence of the tyrant will. Macnooder would have proceeded to capitalize this imagination by fabricating clapper watch charms and selling them at auction prices. The Gutter Pup might organize the sporting club in memory of the lamented ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... new, they quite detest the present; They revel in a pre-Columbian morn; Just dare to say America is pleasant, And die beneath the ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... Orange. I had a nice desk and window-nook to myself; Edward C. kindly help'd me at my handwriting and composition, and, (the signal event of my life up to that time,) subscribed for me to a big circulating library. For a time I now revel'd in romance-reading of all kinds; first, the "Arabian Nights," all the volumes, an amazing treat. Then, with sorties in very many other directions, took in Walter Scott's novels, one after another, and his poetry, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... a moment, strode over to the window. It was still as black as a pocket outside, for dawn was not due for some hours yet, and against the darkness the flames still danced their nightly revel. He shook his fist at them and then broke into a harsh laugh as the thought of Dacre Wynne came to him again. Dash the fellow! He was always, in some way or another, intruding upon his privacy, whether it was mental or otherwise. Then, as he looked, it seemed ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... reader! The lifeboat, close reefed, flies to the rescue on the wings of the storm into the furious seas which revel and rage on the Goodwins. Her fifteen men dauntlessly face the wild smother. She sinks ponderously in the trough of a great roller, and the anchor fluke is driven right through her bottom and holds her to the place—for hold her it would, long enough to let the breakers tear every living ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor

... Egypt and Asia, that combination of indolence and energy, of the calmest languor with the fiercest passions, ... disposed them to embrace with eagerness the tranquil but exciting duties of religious seclusion." Yes, here are the angels of Ducis in real flesh and blood. They revel in the wildest eccentricities with none to molest or make afraid, always excepting the black demons from the spiritual world. One dwells in a cave in the bowels of the earth; one lies on the sand beneath a blazing sun; one has shut himself forever from the sight of man ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... reason I should not take that delightful sail up the river with her, and there was every reason why I should. I sought out a secluded spot on deck and there, comparatively free from observation, we let our thoughts revel ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell

... we revel in the pleasant propulsion of the maelstrom's rim, unaware that every instant brings us closer to dangers, escape from which would demand herculean effort. Irresponsible emotions are, like those of the novel and the stage, when intensified ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... I'll bring her down! I'll wreathe that lofty brow with shame! I'll strike her through her lover! To save him at the stake she'll yield! I'll revel in her charms, and then—then what? Ha! ha! As a reward for her condescensions, I'll burn him alive! Ha! ha! Fool, she'll be to think I'd let a rival live, when her heart was his!" * ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison

... the day," said one of the fishermen's wives to a neighbour as he passed them—the fact being that he had not yet recovered from his second revel in the pipes so soon after the exhaustion of his morning's duty, and was, in consequence, more ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... several feeding their young, but, as their nests are built high in the pines, they are very difficult to find, or, if found, to examine. Our birdlets have superb powers of flight, and actually seem to revel in hurling themselves down a precipice or across a chasm with a recklessness that makes the observer's blood run cold. Sometimes they will dart out in the air from a steep mountain side, sing a ditty much like the goldfinch's, then circle back to their ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... suppose) when the most aesthetic of souls will forget the snow of lilies, and the down of a butterfly's wing, to revel in the grosser joys of, say, a beefsteak. One cannot rhapsodize upon the beauties of a sunset, or contemplate the pale witchery of the moon with any real degree of poetic fervor, or any degree of comfort, while hunger gnaws at one's vitals, for comfort ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... and novelties, the main features of a revel in an Inn of Court were always much the same. Some member of the society conspicuous for rank or wit of style, or for a combination of these qualities, was elected King of the Revel, and until the close of the long frolic he was despot and sole master of the position—so long as he did not disregard ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... They will further add that after the accession of the Stuarts the building art gradually declined, with only a few flashes of brilliant light in the works of Inigo Jones and Wren. The Commonwealth was prudish in art as in manners, and the Restoration was a reign of revel and wild license. The social worlds of William and Mary and of Queen Anne, stiff, starched, and formal, left their impress upon the buildings of their day, which were mostly of a domestic character. The Free Classic of the Georgian reigns ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... fruitful fields. Every fresh comfort you realize around you will add to your happiness; every improvement within-doors or without will raise a sensation of gratitude and delight in your mind, to which those that revel in the habitual enjoyment of luxury, and even of the commonest advantages of civilization, must in a great degree be strangers. My pass-words are, 'Hope! Resolution! ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... buzz of idle chatter, the shuffling of feet, the banging of doors, and the ringing of bells. Music and dancing enlivened the inmates when their day's toil was over and time had to be killed. Thus, within, one could find anxious deliberation and warm debate; without, noisy revel and vulgar brawl. "Fate's a fiddler; life's ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... royal London, in luxuriant May, While lamps yet twinkled, dawning crept the day. Home from the hell the pale-eyed gamester steals; Home from the ball flash jaded Beauty's wheels; From fields suburban rolls the early cart; As rests the Revel, so awakes the Mart." ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... Temple of Parbuttee, from one of the windows of which the last of the Peishwas had seen his forces routed on the plains of Kirkee below; a review of native troops; a reception in the city characterized by the usual fireworks, triumphal arches, crowded streets and revel ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins



Words linked to "Revel" :   carouse, have a good time, racket, binge, fete, booze-up, use, wassail, expend, tear, whoopee, have a ball, whoop it up, make whoopie, toot, revelry, delight, make merry, wallow, celebrate, enjoy, drunken revelry, carousal, bout, orgy, riot, jollification, saturnalia



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