DICTIONARY ONE.COM • More 'Polished' Quotes from Famous Books

... extraordinary attention. A vulgar laugh is detestable. I never saw much merit in writing rapidly. You will believe me when I tell you that I have been present at the production of more genuine wit and humour than almost any person of my time, and that it was revised and polished and arranged with a scrupulous care which overlooked nothing. I have not often seen fairer promises of excellence in this department than in your correspondent; but I tell you frankly that they will all be blighted and perish prematurely ...

— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... completion. As with one accord they went over to look at the Italian's finished work, and saw—no carving of archbishop's mitre, no sculpture of cardinal's hat (O mother, where were the day-dreams for your boy!), but a rough slab, in the centre of which was a raised heart of polished granite, and, beneath it, cut deep into the rock—which, although lying yesterday nearest the skies above The Gore, was in past aeons the foundation stone of ...

— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... of existence; the compound probably means One in whom every attribute has been extinguished; hence, absence of change, of sorrow, of gift, etc., or, eternal and highest joy. Lohitaksha is Red-eyed, from His eyes being of the hue of polished copper. Pratardana, according to Sankara, means the killer of all creatures. Others take it as implying one who destroys the cheerlessness of his worshippers. Prabhuta is One who is Great or Vast in consequence of Knowledge, Puissance, Energy, ...

— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... eldest boy, who had run on before, joined us just as we came up to the arbour, where a neat round table stood, having curious feet made out of the rough branches of a tree; the top had been polished, and painted with varnish, and looked very splendid indeed. But the quick eyes of Vea soon detected an ugly scar on the bright surface, as if some boy had been attempting to cut out a letter ...

— Bluff Crag - or, A Good Word Costs Nothing • Mrs. George Cupples

... upraised, linked arms, a sort of human trellis-work of black and white. Mino's Madonna at Fiesole: the relief turned and cut so as to look out of the chapel into the church, so that the Virgin's head, receiving the light like a glory on the pure, polished forehead, casts a nimbus of shadow round itself, while the saints are sucked into the background, their accessories only, staff and gridiron, allowed to assert themselves by a sharp shadow; a marvellous vision of white heavenly roses, their pointed buds and sharp ...

— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... that generous young creature, her feet scarcely touching the polished oak, her hair all unbound and rolling in waves down her back. Struck with sweet compunctions, she had broken from the hands of her maid, and left her with the blue ribbon fluttering in her hand, while she ran back ...

— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... reared by Kit until she reached eight years, when he took her to St. Louis and liberally provided for all her wants. She received as good an education as St. Louis could afford and was introduced to the refining influences of polished society. She married a Californian and removed with ...

— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... the brass paper knife reckless onto the polished mahogany desk top. "They ought to be, I will admit; but—oh, hang it all, if you're to be of any use in this beastly affair, I suppose you must be told the humiliating, ugly truth! They are not spooning. Robbie is very unhappy. ...

— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... above his eyes. A cloud of dust was rising from the London road and drifting off across the fields like smoke when the old ricks burn in damp weather—a long, broad-sheeted mist; and in it were bits of moving gold, shreds of bright colors vaguely seen, and silvery gleams like the glitter of polished metal in the sun. And as he looked the shifty wind came down out of the west again and whirled the cloud of dust away, and there he saw a long line of men upon horses coming at an easy canter up the highway. Just as he had made ...

— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... and her polished needles struck so violently against each other that you could hear them click. "My husband cannot be to blame for that; Toulan must have talked him into it, and he must have a reason for it; he must have a reason, and if it is only from ...

— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... seemed sincerely repentant and happy in their way, and after an affectionate embrace I took leave of them and travelled all night. I stopped at Chanteloup to see the monument of the taste and magnificence of the Duc de Choiseul, and spent twenty-four hours there. A gentlemanly and polished individual, who did not know me, and for whom I had no introduction, lodged me in a fine suite of rooms, gave me supper, and would only sit down to table with me after I had used all my powers of persuasion. The next day he treated me in the same way, gave me an excellent dinner, shewed me everything, ...

— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... "small-lipped" species—Onc. serratum, O. superbiens, and O. sculptum. This last is rarely seen. As with others of its class, the spike grows very long, twelve feet perhaps, if it were allowed to stretch. The flowers are small comparatively, clear bronze-brown, highly polished, so closely and daintily frilled round the edges that a fairy goffering-iron could not give more regular effects, and outlined by a narrow band of gold. Onc. serratum has a much larger bloom, but ...

— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle

... perfectly, answered her in French. When the three ladies had exhausted every form of dissimulation and of politeness, as a circuitous mode of expressing that the king's conduct was making the queen and the queen-mother pine away through sheer grief and vexation, and when, in the most guarded and polished phrases, they had fulminated every variety of imprecation against Mademoiselle de la Valliere, the queen-mother terminated her attack by an exclamation indicative of her own reflections and character. "Estos hijos!" said she to Molina—which ...

— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... requiring deference and conciliation. Could such incongruous materials coalesce? Ann Yearsley's suit, no doubt was urged with a zeal approaching to impetuosity, and not expressed in that measured language which propriety might have dictated; and any deficiency in which could not fail to offend her polished and powerful patroness. ...

— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... a singular picture on Van Buren's retina—that gaunt, savage being, hairy, wild of eye, instinct with hatred and malice, posing awkwardly, and the sun-lit barrel of polished steel, just before its yawning muzzle belched lead and a cloud and a ...

— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... hand Waves with an air the sleep-procuring wand; The glittering sandals to his feet applies, And to each heel the well-trimmed pinion ties. His ornaments with nicest art displayed, He seeks the apartment of the royal maid. The roof was all with polished ivory lined, 40 That, richly mixed, in clouds of tortoise shined. Three rooms, contiguous, in a range were placed, The midmost by the beauteous Herse graced; Her virgin sisters lodged on either side. Aglauros first the approaching god descried, And as he crossed her chamber, ...

— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... Allegheny County Court-House, in the Romanesque style, erected in 1884-88 at a cost of $2,500,000, is one of Henry H. Richardson's masterpieces. The Nixon Theater is a notable piece of architecture. The Post-Office and the Customs Office are housed in a large Government building of polished granite. ...

— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church

... got out of her clothes and into gingham morning things. She flung open windows everywhere. Downstairs once more she plunged into an orgy of cleaning. Dishes, table, stove, floor, rugs. She washed, scoured, swabbed, polished. By eight o'clock she had done the work that would ordinarily have taken until noon. The house was shining, orderly, and ...

— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... wondered what sympathies could draw two young men together of such opposite characters. On becoming acquainted with Beauclerc he found that, rake though he was, he possessed an ardent love of literature, an acute understanding, polished wit, innate gentility and high aristocratic breeding. He was, moreover, the only son of Lord Sidney Beauclerc and grandson of the Duke of St. Albans, and was thought in some particulars to have a resemblance to Charles the Second. These were high recommendations ...

— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... over to where his carefully polished and well-sharpened skates, strapped together, lay on a side table. Each look caused him to shrug his shoulders a bit. He could easily imagine he heard the delightful clang of steel runners cutting into that smooth sheet of new ice out at the mill pond; and the ...

— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson

... platform and looking at the illuminated clock at the end which told me that it was half-past eleven. I remember also my wondering whether I could get home before midnight. Then I remember the big motor, with its glaring head-lights and glitter of polished brass, waiting for me outside. It was my new thirty-horse- power Robur, which had only been delivered that day. I remember also asking Perkins, my chauffeur, how she had gone, and his saying that he ...

— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Charlemagne, and Europe took alarm. Henry and Francis both thrust in, each of them suggesting to the German electorial princes that he had claims of his own, and would make an emperor far more suitable than Charles. Henry polished up his German ancestry; Francis recalled that Germans and Frenchmen were both Franks, had been one mighty race under Charlemagne, and surely might become so once ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... was not deceived, but, understanding that the Persians had set out in pursuit, he called in his stragglers, massed his troops, and pitched his camp in a strong position. Day-dawn showed that he had judged aright, for the earliest rays of the sun were reflected from the polished breastplates and cuirasses of the Persians, who had drawn up at no great distance during the night. A combat followed in which the Persian and Saracenic horse attacked the Romans vigorously, and especially threatened the baggage, but were repulsed by the firmness and valor ...

— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... suffer by the change, but was deceived. Father Battista was an excellent man, highly educated, of polished manners, and capable of reasoning admirably, even profoundly, upon the duties of man. We entreated him to visit us frequently; he came once a month, and oftener when in his power to do so; he always brought us some book or other with the governor's permission, ...

— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico

... the shooting. An officer whom we fished up afterward explained to me that they had only recognized we were a German warship when they were quite close to us. The Frenchman behaved well, accepted battle and fought on, but was polished off by us with three broadsides. The whole fight with both ships lasted half an hour. The commander of the torpedo boat lost both legs by the first broadside. When he saw that part of his crew were leaping overboard, he cried ...

— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... romance of a sea life was driven out of him, and its stern realities were implanted. In less than three weeks there was not a cup, saucer, or plate in the ship that Watty had not washed; not a "brass" that he had not polished and re-polished; not a copper that he had not scraped; not an inch of the deck that he had not swabbed. But it must not be supposed that he groaned under this labour. Although reckless, hasty, and inconsiderate, he was not ...

— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne

... to the fifth story, wounded on every angle." Only sympathy and a poetic touchstone could bring out the essence and sweetness of a nature so unhappily disguised; but Sainte-Beuve, discarding with a single gesture her penitential mask and hood, finds Madame Desbordes-Valmore "polished, gracious, and even hospitable, investing everything with a certain attractive and artistic air, hiding her griefs under a natural grace, lighted even by gleams of merriment." The poor details of her life he contrives to lose under a purposed artlessness of narrative and a caressing superfluity ...

— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... kindly examined under the microscope, sliced and polished specimens of these concretions, and of the solid marl-rock, collected in various places between the Colorado and Santa Fe Bajada. In the greater number, Dr. Carpenter finds that the whole substance presents a tolerably uniform amorphous character, but ...

— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin

... Scarcely had the tea-pot been placed on the table than it began to slip off; had not the watchful captain quickly caught it, it would have fallen to the ground and bathed our feet with its contents. Nothing could stand on the polished table, and I sincerely pitied the captain that he had ...

— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... whilst I was writing this, also a joint letter from Hal and Blanche; I was so glad to get all three. As to clothes, I keep an old suit for the trenches; when I get out and have to go anywhere, I turn out quite smartly, excepting that my boots and leggings are "dubbed" with grease instead of being polished. When my old suit is done, my form will be encased in Government khaki garments with my badges of rank transferred, and that will keep me going to the ...

— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie

... there was to be a grand wedding festival among the colored gentry on a farm about 6 miles from Uncle Dick's residence. He was, of course called upon to officiate as master of ceremonies. He donned his long-tailed blue coat, having carefully polished the glittering gilt buttons; then raised his immense shirt collar, which he considered essential to his dignity, and, fiddle in hand, sallied forth alone. The younger folk had set out sometime before; but Uncle Dick was not to be hurried ...

— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... also marked by rapid and uniform progress in the English language. The sonorous, but cumbrous English of Milton had been greatly improved by Dryden; and we have seen, also, that the terse and somewhat crude diction of Dryden's earlier works had been polished and rendered more ...

— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... disorder of the barrack room, amidst men rising hastily that they might not be reported missing at the morning muster, which would shortly take place in the courtyard, Fandor-Vinson dressed quickly. He put on his sword-belt, ascertained that his servant had sufficiently polished the brass buttons on his tunic, his sabre, and other trappings. The adjutant ...

— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... them brighter than in Scotland? From the "bonny highland heather" of her lofty summits, to the modest lily of the vale, not a flower but has blushed with patriot blood. From the proud foaming crest of the Solway, to the calm, polished breast of Loch Katrine, not a river, not a lake, but has swelled with the life tide of freedom. Would you witness greatness? Contemplate a Wallace and a Bruce. They fought not for honors, for party, for conquest; 'twas for their country and their country's ...

— Standard Selections • Various

... valley, across the pale, rain-beaten grass of the moor, all the northern English detail vanished from his eyes. For one suffocating instant he saw nothing but a great picture gallery, its dimly storied walls and polished floor receding into the distance. In front Velazquez' 'Infanta,' and before it a figure bent over a canvas. Every line and tint stood out. He heard the light varying voice, caught the complex grace of the woman, the ...

— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Mead as he stepped from his room, freshly shaven and clad in black frock coat and vest, gray trousers and newly polished shoes. As he listened to Ellhorn's account of the sudden storm that was already shaking the little town from end to end, a yellow light flashed in his brown eyes and there came into them an intent, defiant look, the look of battle, like that in the ...

— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly

... that Sabina had lamented that handsome Julia was not looking well. But where is there another woman of your age with such a carriage, such unwrinkled features, so clear a brow, such deep kind eyes, such beautifully-polished arms—" ...

— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... alongside, and a muller for wine or beer; and hams and sides of bacon and strings on onions and bunches of herbs; much pewter, and a copper warming-pan, and brass candlesticks, and a grandfather clock; a cherrywood dresser and wheelback chairs polished with age; and a great scrubbed oaken table to seat a harvest-supper, planed from a single mighty plank. It was as clean as everything else in that good room, but all the scrubbing would not efface the circular ...

— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... but a refined and gentlemanly one, who cows you by his polite impertinence. He seldom indulged in harsh speech, never in personal violence—at least no instance of it was known to the students. He indulged in sneers and polished browbeating. A boy was never stupid—he lacked common intelligence; never a blockhead—his perceptions were very dull. His polite epithets were more cutting than good round ...

— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... Presently, presently, was the answer. Marcus himself aided the convalescent to dress; then having seated him in a great chair of rude wickerwork, used only on occasions such as this, left him to bask in a beam of sunshine. Before long, his meal was brought him, and with it a book, bound in polished wood and metal, which he found to be a Psalter. Herein, when he had eaten, he read for an hour or so, not, however, without much wandering of the thoughts. He had fallen into reverie, when his door opened, and there appeared ...

— Veranilda • George Gissing

... to Missouri, thence to Mississippi where he arrived in 1868. In 1878, he married Miss Josephine B. Wilson, of Cleveland, Ohio, a lady of most excellent parts and refined culture. A son, Roscoe Conklin, was born in 1879—a polished gentleman by birth, an educator by training, an orator and debater by choice, and a scholar by nature. Both wife and ...

— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... He drew the chair somewhat apart from the table, knowing better than to place his elbows on that sacred spread of polished mahogany. ...

— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... stoke-hold. We were all supplied with fishing-lines and hooks of three different sizes, and extra grog when getting steam up. The method of cleaning and polishing the engines and all bright work was very effectual, and did the stokers great credit; after having scoured and polished the steel and bright ironwork they were frosted, in imitation of hoar frost. A pot of hot tallow and white lead in which a clean piece of cotton waste was dipped, and the parts smeared evenly in line with the metal, and when this dried it was dabbed, or patted, with another clean piece ...

— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor

... gold, have their intrinsic value; but, if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their lustre: and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold. What a number of sins does the cheerful, easy, good-breeding of the French ...

— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... likewise; and Mayor for life—so to speak—of a new trading city, a nascent Genoa or Venice, on the shore of the Mediterranean. But the girl Nausicaa, as she sleeps in her "carved chamber," is "like the immortals in form and face;" and two handmaidens who sleep on each side of the polished door "have beauty ...

— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... scores in the end. But he is a Roman father, at best. He has little compassion and no tenderness; he is acute, brisk, and sensible; but he has (at least to me) neither grace nor wisdom; or, if he has, he keeps them under a polished metallic dish-cover, and only lifts it in private. I do not feel that the Headmaster has any religion, except the religion of all sensible men. In seeming to despise all sentiment, Kipling seems to me to throw aside several beautiful flowers, tied carelessly up in the same bundle. There ...

— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... secrets of George Eliot's heart are laid bare in these letters to the famous Methodist preacher, who was at that time her dearest friend. She is ever asking for advice and spiritual guidance, and confesses her faults with a candor that is rendered additionally attractive by reason of the polished language in which it is clothed. When quite a girl, George Eliot was known as pious and clever; and in the letters she wrote in 1839, when she was twenty years old, the cleverness has grown and expanded, although she is not so sure about her piety. She says that 'unstable as water thou shalt ...

— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... snapping in the wind. To the south of it plunged two long low-lying torpedo boats, flying the French tri-color, and still further to the north towered three magnificent hulls of the White Squadron. Vengeance was written on every curve and line, on each straining engine rod, and on each polished gun muzzle. ...

— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... was efficiency made insolent, in glass and chrome and polished steel, mirrors and windows and looming electronic clerical machines. Most of one wall was taken up by a TV monitor which gave a view of the spaceport; a vast open space lighted with blue-white mercury vapor lamps, and a chained-down skyscraper of a starship, littered ...

— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... was mixing the bread. It was a still, deep-breathing summer night, full of the smell of the hay fields. Sounds of laughter and splashing came up from the pasture, and when the moon rose rapidly above the bare rim of the prairie, the pond glittered like polished metal, and she could see the flash of white bodies as the boys ran about the edge, or jumped into the water. Alexandra watched the shimmering pool dreamily, but eventually her eyes went back to the sorghum patch south of the barn, where she ...

— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... to add insult to outrage, when the object of the outrage is the religion of Christ, is old in the blood of the northern barbarians; and Turgesius was merely setting the example, in his own rude and honest fashion, to the more polished but no less ridiculous assumption of ecclesiastical authority, which was to be witnessed in England, on the part of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. The power of the invader was so superior to whatever forces the neighboring Irish clans could muster, that no opposition was even attempted at first ...

— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... repeated several times with different sizes of tracers and different adjustments to enable the cutting tool to cut at different depths, until finally a steel letter in relief is produced, engraved the reverse of the pattern and very much smaller. After being hardened and polished, this is called a steel punch, and, when driven into a flat piece of copper, it produces what is known as a "strike" ...

— The Building of a Book • Various

... try," she said, and she walked to the piano which was screwed athwart the deck in front of the polished mahogany sheath of the steel mainmast. It was in her mind to play some lively excerpts from the light operas then in vogue, but the secret influences of the hour were stronger than her studied intent, and, ...

— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... must go back. I'll be lame all right, but it won't be the first time. I'm lame and sore now. I've polished that saddle so you could skate on it ...

— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... raiment, when he spoke, was his grey beard and uncut hair, they believed him. They did not ask too much of what they met, but polished and tallowed and scraped it to ...

— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... his lodgings on this dark errand about eleven o'clock P. M.; not that he meant to begin so soon: but he needed to reconnoitre. He carried his tools closely buttoned up under his loose roomy coat. It was in harmony with the general subtlety of his character, and his polished hatred of brutality, that by universal agreement his manners were distinguished for exquisite suavity: the tiger's heart was masked by the most insinuating and snaky refinement. All his acquaintances afterwards described his dissimulation as ...

— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... left breast a mark in the shape of a little white mole with which she was born, and she found it there enlarged by time. Then, with the same haste, she took off the girl's shoe, uncovered a snowy foot, smooth as polished marble, and found what she sought; for the two smaller toes of the right foot were joined together by a thin membrane, which the tender parents could not bring themselves to let the surgeon cut when ...

— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... the manner of the inhabitants of almost all the other islands in the South Sea. The lobe of their ears was pierced, or rather slit, and to such a length, that one of them stuck there a knife and some beads, which he had received from us; and the same person had two polished pearl-shells, and a bunch of human hair, loosely twisted, hanging about his neck, which was the only ornament we observed. The canoe they came in (which was the only one we saw), was not above ten feet long, and very ...

— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... chateau, and here the Marchioness had held the assemblies, that made part of the festivities of her nuptials. If the wand of a magician could have recalled the vanished groups, many of them vanished even from the earth! that once had passed over these polished mirrors, what a varied and contrasted picture would they have exhibited with the present! Now, instead of a blaze of lights, and a splendid and busy crowd, they reflected only the rays of the one glimmering lamp, which the Count held up, and which scarcely served to shew the ...

— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... the chapel, about a hundred and thirty feet in length, with the breadth proportionable; it is divided into three arches, upon two ranges of pillars of marble of this country, of divers colours, most in red streaks, handsome and polished. On the windows and walls are several pictures and images, after the manner of the Lutheran churches. The rooms in the castle are many, some of them large enough for the state of a Court, and most of those are two stories high, after the use of this country. The situation ...

— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... upon charcoal, it is absorbed. The sulphate fuses at first to a clear bead, which soon spreads, and is absorbed and converted while boiling into a hepatic mass. If this mass is taken out, placed upon a piece of polished silver and moistened with a little water, a black spot of sulphide of silver is left after washing off ...

— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous

... and despair. These enormous cruelties, which would have disgraced the arms of a Tartarian freebooter, were acted by the express command of Louis XIV. of France, who has been celebrated by so many venal pens, not only as the greatest monarch, but also as the most polished prince of Christendom. De Lorges advanced towards the Neckar against the prince of Baden, who lay encamped on the other side of the river; but in attempting to pass, he was twice repulsed with considerable ...

— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... the Marquis Trotti and the Abate Bucchetti is likewise particularly pleasing; especially to me, who am naturally desirous to live as much as possible among Italians of general knowledge, good taste, and polished manners, before I enter their country, where the language will be so very indispensable. Mean time I have stolen a day to visit my old acquaintance the English Austin Nuns at the Fossee, and found ...

— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... did her perfect work, and made the little lean body glistening white as polished marble, while the heavy hair hung limp like pale ...

— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... forth their wares upon rudely constructed tables, ready for the first purchaser. Some of the things were truly beautiful—pieces of rare old lace, chains and chains of many-colored beads, silver that was polished till it reflected dazzlingly the dancing firelight. There were rude tents set aside for the telling of fortunes, and somewhere further back in the camp the wild, sweet strains of a violin mingled with a ...

— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope

... of straw, when he might have the blue vault of heaven arching over him, and all God's stars for lamps, and for a bed a horse blanket stretched over an elastic couch of pine needles. There were two gaunt pines that had been dropping their polished spills for centuries, perhaps silently adding, year by year, another layer of aromatic springiness to poor Tom's bed. Flinging his tired body on this grateful couch, burying his head in the crushed sweet fern of his pillow with one deep-drawn sigh of pleasure,—there, haunted by no past and ...

— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... a rugged type of speaker who transcends and seemingly defies all rules of oratory. Such a man was the great Scottish preacher Chalmers, who was without polished elocution, grace, or manner, but who through his intellectual power and moral earnestness thrilled ...

— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser

... time communicated to Ayoket and his countrymen our intention of sending a party of our people to the northward in the spring; and Captain Lyon had displayed to him all the charms of a brightly-polished brass kettle, of greater magnitude than had, perhaps, ever entered into an Esquimaux imagination, as an inducement, among various others, for him to accompany the Kabloonas in their excursion. The prospect of such riches was a temptation almost irresistible; but ...

— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... condition, a few palaces, and three temples; one of the latter having a peristyle of twelve large Corinthian pillars, of which eleven were still erect. In one of these temples I found a fallen column of the finest polished Egyptian granite. Beside these, I found one of the city gates, formed of three arches, and ornamented with pilasters, in good preservation. The finest of the remains is a street adorned throughout its length with Corinthian columns ...

— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... "Then Brother Paul has polished off Catherine," thought the Boy, "and he won't waste much time over a sore heart. It behoves us to hurry up with our penitence." This seemed to be Nicholas's view as well. He was beginning again ...

— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... elegance of their movements, with a few dancing-masters to regulate and give the tone to the whole. Between this time and that I am now speaking of was an abyss. The education of those days instructed every one in grace, address, exercise, respect for bearing, graduated and delicate politeness, polished and decent gallantry. The difference, then, between the two periods is seen at a glance, without time lost in pointing ...

— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... us, the women in Viraginia cut their hair and let their nails grow. Some of them also practise with profit the gymnastic art, so that they can make beautiful use of teeth, nails, and heels. A nobler and more cleanly polished place is not to be seen than Viraginia, where everything is washed, cooked and cared for by the men, and there is nothing unbecoming but the ...

— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... shoulders, and kings and dog-drivers, old-timers and chechaquos, met on a common level. And it so happened, probably because saw-mills and house-space were scarce, that the saloons accommodated the gambling tables and the polished dance-house floors. And here, because he needs must bend to custom, Corliss's adaptation went on rapidly. And as Carthey, who appreciated him, soliloquized, "The best of it is he likes ...

— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... surface of a cast plate is polished the material is such that you can see through it, but if it is left rough it is impossible to see through it, although it will permit light to go through. The term applied to such glass ...

— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... of all that uninteresting accretion which he had inherited or copied, resolves itself, like that of any other man of genius, into those things which he really inaugurated. Underneath all his exterior of polished and polite rectitude there was in him a genuine fire of novelty; only that, like all the able men of his period, he disguised revolution under the name of evolution. He is only a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of ...

— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

... afresh with the help of a laborer and a boy. Then he stepped indoors, changed his clothes, and filled a traveling-bag. When this was done he went in search of the stableman. Natt was in his stable, whistling as he polished his harness. ...

— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... to me: "What an instrument, your body! single and perfectly distinct from everything else! What a tool in the hands of the Lord! Only God could have brought it to its shape. It feels as if his handgrasp, wearing you had polished you and hollowed you, hollowed this groove in your sides, grasped you under the breasts and brought you to the very quick of your form, subtler than ...

— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence

... old man with his "blast against women," his deep-set fiery eyes, his sovereign power to move and influence the people. He was absolutely a novel personage to Mary: their conversations are like a quick glancing of polished weapons—his, too heavy for her young brilliancy of speech and nature, crushing with ponderous force the light-flashing darts of question; but she, no way daunted, comprehending him, meeting full in the face ...

— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... and rocked. Suddenly a telegraph post seemed to come crashing through the window and the polished mahogany panels. The young man escaped it by leaping to one side. It caught Mr. Dunster, who had just risen to his feet, upon the forehead. There was a crash all around of splitting glass, a further shock. They were both thrown off their feet. The light was suddenly ...

— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... weighing some eighteen stone, an exceedingly florid countenance and good features, eyes full of quickness and shrewdness, but at the same time beaming with good nature. He wears white pantaloons, white frock, and white hat, and is, indeed, all white, with the exception of his polished Wellingtons and rubicund face. He carries a whip beneath his arm, which adds wonderfully to the knowingness of his appearance, which is rather more that of a gentleman who keeps an inn on the Newmarket road, "purely for the love of travellers, and the money which ...

— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... inferior characters speak a kind of provincial dialect or patois, called Prakrit—bearing the relation to Sanskrit that Italian bears to Latin, or that the spoken Latin of the age of Cicero bore to the highly polished Latin in which he delivered his Orations. Even the heroine of the drama is made to speak in the vernacular dialect. The hero, on the other hand, and all the higher male characters, speak in Sanskrit; and ...

— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... dinners, to the plain and discreet table of Madame Geoffrin, and to the little drawing room of Mademoiselle de L'Espinasse, all belonging to the great central state drawing-room, that is to say, to the French Academy, where each newly elected member appears to parade his style and obtain from a polished body his commission of master in the art of discourse. Such a public imposes on an author the obligation of being more a writer than a philosopher. The thinker is expected to concern himself with his sentences as much as with his ideas. He is not allowed to be a mere ...

— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... afternoon there was another chap who swung off just ahead of me, and I noticed him particularly because he was so different from anything you'd expect to drop off the four-sixteen. Tall and well-set-up, dressed like the mirror of fashion, smooth and polished—and followed by a valet, if you please, carrying his grips and a bag of golf clubs! Imagine a sight like that in Hambleton! I thought he'd made a mistake in his station, until I saw him walk right across the platform to where Adams, the baggage-master, was standing. ...

— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... the burgomaster. He was away and his servants permitted us to see the house. It was cleaning-day. Everything in the house was in keeping with the character of the village. But the kitchen! how shall I describe it? The polished marble floor, the dressers with glass doors like a bookcase, to keep the least particle of dust from the bright-polished utensils of brass and copper. The varnished mahogany handle of the brass spigot, lest the moisture of the hand in turning it should ...

— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... localities in Upper Egypt. The members of the race were not acquainted with the use of metals, but they were expert artificers in stone and clay. Stone was skilfully carved into vessels of different forms, and vases of clay were fashioned, with brightly polished surfaces. Sometimes the vases were simply coloured red and black, or adorned with patterns and pictures in incised white lines; at other times, and more especially in the later tombs, they were artistically decorated with representations of men ...

— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... then wept over the sliced ham, the potato salad, and the Saratoga chips, all of which she had brought home from a nearby delicacy shop in oily paper bags only an hour ago. She wandered disconsolately through the four rooms that had been her home for nearly six years. The dust lay thick on the polished wood and glass of the sideboard and glass closet in the dining-room; ashes and the ends of cigarettes filled half a dozen little receptacles here and there; a welter of newspapers had formed a great drift in a corner of the room, and the thick ...

— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... the fire lay a neatly done-up pack, and beside it a high-pommeled Mexican saddle, while the firelight gleamed on the polished barrels of a fine shotgun and rifle leaning ...

— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... driven away by them is manifestly untrue, for whoever comes to Jocelyn's remains. The beach at the foot of the bluff is almost a mile at its curve, and it is so smooth and hard that it glistens like polished marble when newly washed by the tide. It is true that you reach it from the top by a flight of eighty steps, but it was intended to have an elevator, like those near the Whirlpool at Niagara. In the mean ...

— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... her lover, descended from the cavaliers of Virginia. This writing was cut with a diamond, and the children knew not that the writing was their parents'. The little ones walked carefully over the polished floors; but there seemed nothing in all they saw to tell them they were welcome. They lifted the grand piano that maintained its station in one of the unoccupied rooms of the house; but the keys were yellow ...

— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... fine panelings and mosaics of many-colored woods from the Brazils, this study, secluded by its position at the head of the noble staircase, was not the least beautiful room. The floor and the walls were of rich-hued tiles, the arched ceiling was ribbed with polished woods to look like the scooped-out interior of a half-orange. Costly hangings muffled the noise of the outer world, and large shutters excluded, when necessary, the glare of the sun. The rays of Reason alone could not be shut out, and in this haunt of peace the young Catholic had ...

— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... diction of this opera, as it is somewhat improperly termed, being rather a dramatic poem, strongly indicate the taste of Charles the Second's reign, for what was ingenious, acute, and polished, in preference to the simplicity of the true sublime. The judgment of that age, as has been already noticed, is always to be referred rather to the head than to the heart; and a poem, written to ...

— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... Richard, when a boy, was a great reader of English poetry; but his exercises afforded no proof of his proficiency. In truth, he, as a boy, was quite careless about literary fame. I should suppose that his father, without any regular system, polished his taste, and supplied his memory with anecdotes about our best writers in our Augustan age. The grandfather, you know, lived familiarly with Swift. I have heard of him, as an excellent scholar. His boys in Ireland once performed a Greek play, ...

— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... have been brought to light. Idols, pitchers of clay, ornaments of copper, circular medals, arrowheads, and even mirrors of isinglass, in great numbers, have been found throughout the country. Some of the articles of pottery are skilfully wrought, and polished, glazed, and burned; inferior in no respects to those of ...

— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... on, "do not laugh at me when I tell you that I have evolved a whole kitchen philosophy of my own. I find the kitchen the shrine of our civilization, the focus of all that is comely in life. The ruddy shine of the stove is as beautiful as any sunset. A well-polished jug or spoon is as fair, as complete and beautiful, as any sonnet. The dish mop, properly rinsed and wrung and hung outside the back door to dry, is a whole sermon in itself. The stars never look so bright as they do from the kitchen door after the ice-box pan is emptied ...

— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... toes of his highly polished tan shoes to the sheen of his blond hair and the crown of his nobby straw hat, he looked like a well dressed and prosperous professional man. His dark gray suit with a thin thread of pale green in it, his silver-gray necktie, the gloves he carried in his left ...

— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.

... from that most delicate and graceful painting of Leda presenting her newborn to her husband, from which the room derives its name. This charming apartment opened upon the fragrant garden. Round the table of citrean wood, highly polished and delicately wrought with silver arabesques, were placed the three couches, which were yet more common at Pompeii than the semicircular seat that had grown lately into fashion at Rome: and on these couches ...

— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... in front. A reflection of her form upon the polished floor lent uncertainty to her stature, and gave her an appearance of walking on water. Those following were plainly her attendants. They were all veiled; while a white mantle fell from her left shoulder, its ends lost in the folds ...

— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... thickly carpeted corridor, which reminded me of one at Peterhof leading to the Empress's private apartments, until the baron saluted a sentry, passed him, and a little farther on knocked discreetly at a polished mahogany door, that of ...

— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... he drew from under the half-deck of the boat a heavy sporting-rifle, carrying about sixty balls to the pound, and sighted with "globe" or "peep" sights. Taking a polished gauge which hung at his watch-chain, he set the rear sight, and, cocking the piece, set the hair-trigger. Noiselessly raising the muzzle above the gunwale, he ran his eye along the sights. A whip-like ...

— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... set the room in order, for it was the sitting-room as well as the kitchen. She shook the mats out at the front-door and put them straight; the hearth-rug was a rabbit-skin. She dusted the clock and the ornaments on the mantelpiece, and she polished and rubbed ...

— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter

... was a child I used to visit my two great-aunts in Maryland. I loved to go to Aunt Mary's, but I dreaded Aunt Anne's. And the reason was this. Everything in Aunt Anne's house went by clock-work, and everything was polished and scrubbed and dusted within an inch of its life. When we arrived, we scraped our shoes before we kissed Aunt Anne, and when we departed, we felt that she literally swept us out—. We had hours for everything, and nobody thought of doing as she pleased. It was always as Aunt Anne pleased, ...

— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey

... little more 'progressive' than the laws of that institution allowed. After leaving Cambridge, he traveled over a large part of the Continent, which, besides increasing his knowledge of the world, brought still nearer perfection that easy carriage and polished manner which had already attracted ...

— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... of all that was required for the completion of this work, we see that the erection involved an extensive acquaintance with the mechanical arts, and of those, too, which indicate a high degree of advancement in the luxuries of polished life. Thus the generation born in the wilderness were instructed, and preserved from degenerating into mere shepherds, hunters, or warriors. The restless were occupied, and the work proved a bond of union for the whole people, ...

— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous

... half-way across the room on her stealthy path to the waistcoat. But silently as she came on with that cat-like tread, Mallalieu had just as silently drawn the revolver from beneath his pillow and turned its small muzzle on her. It had a highly polished barrel, that revolver, and Miss Pett suddenly caught a tiny scintillation of light on it—and she screamed. And as she screamed Mallalieu fired, and the scream died down to a queer choking sound ... and he fired again ...

— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher

... with fine steel files under a magnifying glass of the outer 'layer, on the chance of the existence of a better underneath. The ancients treated lustreless gems differently, placing them before doves, under the belief that they could be polished by being pecked and played ...

— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... here and there a star glimmering, but a host of shining ones, that God hath brought out of the darkness and covered over with an arch of His promises, where He has written, "They shall be mine in that day when I make up my jewels.' In that day, when we shall be permitted to see the polished gems in the keeping of the Holy One, we shall realize that no work for the Master has been done in vain. Here we toil amid the damp and fog and darkness, often underground, with no lamp save the promise of God, which is "a lamp to our feet, and a light to our path;" there we shall ...

— Why and how: a hand-book for the use of the W.C.T. unions in Canada • Addie Chisholm

... with its polished oak panelling and the chaste elegance of its electroliers, offered every inducement to a lover of comfort to linger. The fire glowed bright and red in the tiled fireplace, a silver clock on the mantelpiece ticked musically, and at his hand was a white-covered tray with a tiny silver teapot, ...

— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... of the turkey were polished off in the middle of the day; with every one declaring that it had been a great treat. Larry kept the two drumsticks as well as the wings of the gobbler. Possibly he might many a time feel a queer little sensation ...

— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne

... Rally had won back the Trophy for the land that gave it birth; it was time, they thought, for a Daleland dog, a Gray Dog of Kenmuir—the terms are practically synonymous—to bring it home again. And Tammas, that polished phrase-maker, was only expressing the feelings of every Dalesman in the room when, one night at the Arms, he declared of Owd Bob that "to ha' run was to ha' won." At which M'Adam sniggered audibly and winked at Red Wull. "To ha' run was to ha' one—lickin'; ...

— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... greatly upset our hero; for, however foolish be a madman's words, they may yet prove sufficient to sow doubt in the minds of saner individuals. He felt much as does a man who, shod with well-polished boots, has just stepped into a dirty, stinking puddle. He tried to put away from him the occurrence, and to expand, and to enjoy himself once more. Nay, he even took a hand at whist. But all was of no avail—matters kept going as awry as a badly-bent ...

— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... and came off in greater numbers than ever, and we were employed all day in boating and breaking out cargo, so that we had hardly time to eat. Our former second mate, who was determined to get liberty if it was to be had, dressed himself in a long coat and black hat, and polished his shoes, and went aft, and asked to go ashore. He could not have done a more imprudent thing; for he knew that no liberty would be given; and besides, sailors, however sure they may be of having liberty granted them, always go aft in their working clothes, to appear as though ...

— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... works are known to be from the pen of Mr. Kimball, he has been a voluminous author. The vigorous and polished style of his avowed compositions, is never attained but by long practice. He has been, we believe, a contributor to every volume of the Knickerbocker published since 1842. He printed in that excellent magazine his "Reminiscences ...

— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... I shall be very proud of instructing you.—Well for the present—but remember now, when you meet your antagonist, do every thing in a mild and agreeable manner.—Let your courage be as keen, but at the same time as polished, ...

— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... over-note to the clamour—an uncanny thing too—is the soft rustle-down of the tea itself—stacked in heaps, carried in baskets, dumped through chutes, rising and falling in the long troughs where it is polished, and disappearing at last into the heart of the firing-machine—always this insistent whisper of moving dead leaves. Steam-sieves sift it into grades, with jarrings and thumpings that make the floor ...

— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... know, has a very long beak: Not a crumb or drop could she gather Had she pecked at the plate every day in the week. But as for the Fox—sly old Father: With his tongue lapping soup at a scandalous rate, He licked up the last bit and polished ...

— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine

... port our decks were clean, our sails white, our masts well scraped; the brass-work about the quarter-deck was well polished, and the men looked tidy and clean. A few hours after our first whale had been secured alongside all this was changed. The cutting up of the huge carcass covered the decks with oil and blood, making them so ...

— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne

... the fresh clean skin, the well-kept teeth, the smooth polished nails, the spotless linen and the tasteful tie, the well-brushed clothing and the tidy boots, are all points of ...

— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... this main thoroughfare, they stopped before a rather mean-looking house with jalousie blinds to every window; a flight of steps before the green street-door; a shining white ornament on the rails on either side like a petrified pineapple, polished; a little oblong plate of the same material over the knocker whereon the name of 'Pawkins' was engraved; and four accidental pigs looking ...

— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... house for Finland, where a pastor is a great person. There were stables and cow-sheds, a granary, and quite a nice-sized one-storeyed wooden house. We marched into the salon—a specimen of every other drawing-room one meets; the wooden floor was painted ochre, and polished, before each window stood large indiarubber plants, and between the double windows was a layer of Iceland moss to keep out the draughts of winter, although at the time of our visit in July the thermometer ...

— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... in my pockets, in my hat when I lifted it from the ground, in my box of colors, in my polished shoes, standing in the mornings in front of my door, those little pious brochures, which she, no doubt, ...

— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... a treatise, entitled, 'The Art of English Poetry, alledges, that Sir Thomas Wyat the Elder, and Henry Earl of Surry were the two chieftains, who having travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and stately measures and stile of the Italian poetry, greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poetry, from what it had been before, and therefore may be justly called, The Reformers of our English Poetry and Stile.' Our noble author added to learning, wisdom, fortitude, munificence, and affability. Yet all these excellencies of character, ...

— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... reception, caused him to feel his inferiority more completely than the most elaborate arguments. Everything contributed to this effect. His own rough speech, contrasted with the soft persuasive accents of the other; his rude bearing, and Mr Chester's polished manner; the disorder and negligence of his ragged dress, and the elegant attire he saw before him; with all the unaccustomed luxuries and comforts of the room, and the silence that gave him leisure to observe these ...

— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... Jack to bed early and sat for a time in their room tinkering with the pistols. When the locks were working "right," as he put it, he polished ...

— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... Ducie, go down and shut the stable door, and lock it inside," continued Burr major in a lofty tone; "we don't want to be interrupted before we've polished ...

— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... himself Egmont was now furious against the prelate, and omitted no opportunity of expressing his aversion, both in his presence and behind his back. On one occasion, at least, his wrath exploded in something more than words. Exasperated by Granvelle's polished insolence in reply to his own violent language, he drew his dagger upon him in the presence of the Regent herself, "and," says a contemporary, "would certainly have sent the Cardinal into the next world had he not been forcibly restrained by the Prince of Orange and other persons present, ...

— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... still over sleeping stretches of open water; a line of white surf thunders on an empty beach, the shallow water foams on the reefs; and green islets scattered through the calm of noonday lie upon the level of a polished sea, like a handful of emeralds on a ...

— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... happened, during the very next week Diana received a visit from her cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Burritt of Petteridge Court. They arrived in their Daimler car, and lunched with the school. They were the very epitome of cultured and polished America, and the girls raved over them. After half an hour of their company, seven intermediates had determined to mould themselves absolutely on the lines of "Cousin Coralie", and to marry ...

— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... one hears making day and night hideous at summer-resorts; but when the "Merman" drew near, I realized afresh what it was to be the guest of a multi-millionaire. She was about fifty feet long, a vision of polished brass and shining, new-varnished cedar. She rammed her shoulder into the waves and flung them contemptuously to one side; her cabin was tight, dry as the saloon ...

— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... merely adapted to religious observances. They as well as the Malays compute time by lunations, but do not attempt to trace any relation or correspondence between these smaller measures and the solar revolution. Whilst more polished nations were multiplying mistakes and difficulties in their endeavours to ascertain the completion of the sun's course through the ecliptic, and in the meanwhile suffering their nominal seasons to become almost the reverse of nature, these people, without an idea of intercalation, ...

— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... coachman. Dave had never been in a home like this, and his eyes, unaccustomed to comfortable furnishings, appraised them as luxury. There were a piano and a phonograph; leather chairs; a fireplace with polished bricks that shone with the glow of burning coal; thick carpets, springy to the foot; painted pictures looking down out of gilt frames. And Mr. Duncan had said he was not rich! And there was more than that; there was an air, a spirit, ...

— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead

... bridal reception-room a gentleman with a stylishly-dressed lady on either arm, with whom he seems wholly absorbed. He is of middle height, peculiarly graceful in form and moulding, with that indescribable air of high breeding which marks the polished man of the world. His beautifully-formed head, delicate profile, fascinating sweetness of smile, and, above all, an eye which seemed to have an almost mesmeric power of attraction, were traits which distinguished one of the most celebrated men of ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... that variety and richness of resources which give to tone-creations the splendor of color, which is one of the great charms of instrumental music, Spohr is inferior only to Wagner among modern symphonists. Spohr's more pretentious works are a singular union of meagerness of idea with the most polished richness of manner; but, in imagination and thought, he is far the inferior of those whose knowledge of treating the orchestra and contrapuntal skill could not compare with his. There are more vigor and originality in one of Schubert's greater ...

— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... search was for his boots, but these had been taken out, as he supposed, to be polished. He would put on his breeches and wait for his boots. He cast his eye on the pile of clothes, but the breeches were not there. Then he looked on the floor, and in all the corners of the room, and then on the bed and under the bed—but in vain. 'What the d——l has become of my breeches!' said ...

— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... of the box consisted of woods of about four inches square, all polished. Among these were mahogany of five different sorts, tulip-wood, satin-wood, cam-wood, bar-wood, fustic, black and yellow ebony, palm-tree, mangrove, calabash, and date. There were seven woods of which the native names were remembered: three of these, Tumiah, ...

— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... difficulty descried; the rains which clouded mountains and valleys bring with them; the dust which is inherent to and follows the contention between these forces; the rivers which are great or small in volume; the fishes disporting themselves on the surface or at the bottom of these waters; the polished pebbles of various colours which are collected on the washed sands at bottom of rivers surrounded by floating plants beneath the surface of the water; the stars at diverse heights above us; and in the same manner other innumerable effects to which ...

— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci

... on a dampened cheese cloth wiped over the varnish and polished with a dry cheese cloth will pick up all the dust, remove the grease, smoked or blued spots, cover scratches and restore the original ...

— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... prominent and in a sense logical candidate was William H. Seward. As Governor and then Senator of New York, as a polished and philosophic orator, as a man whose anti-slavery and constitutional principles were well understood,—he was easily in the popular estimate the foremost man of the party. Lincoln was in comparison obscure; his fame rested mainly on his achievements as a popular debater; ...

— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... to the forms of courtesy, as for that chivalrous courage which, only two short years afterward, induced him to throw away his life on the plains of Abraham. Duncan, in turning his eyes from the malign expression of Magua, suffered them to rest with pleasure on the smiling and polished features, and the noble military air, ...

— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... thick and fast upon her—a regular hotchpotch; she had only to stretch out her hand and seize what she needed. It was simpler than the five-times multiplication-table, and did not need to be learnt. But all the same she was not idle: she polished away at her flimflams, bringing them nearer and nearer probability, never, thanks to her sound memory, contradicting herself or making a slip, and always able to begin again from ...

— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... hung With black; a spacious scaffold, too, o'erspread With sable cloth, was raised above the floor, And in the middle of the scaffold stood A dreadful sable block! upon it lay A naked, polished axe:—the hall was full Of cruel people, crowding round the scaffold Who, with a horrid thirst for human blood, Seemed ...

— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... succeeded, and the dogs lost the trail; but the hunter, coming up, passed by chance near the stump, when out bounded the fox, his cunning availing him less than he deserved. On another occasion the fox took to the public road, and stepped with great care and precision into a sleigh-track. The hard, polished snow took no imprint of the light foot, and the scent was no doubt less than it would have been on a rougher surface. Maybe, also, the rogue had considered the chances of another sleigh coming along, before the hound, ...

— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... room at the Elms vagrant breezes entered, loitered, and drifted out again, leaving behind them scents of sun-warmed flowers. The light there was soft and green. The comfortable chairs invited rest; the polished rosewood table, the bright piano shining in the brightest corner, the smooth old floor in whose rug the colours had long ceased to trouble, the general air of much used comfort, ...

— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... first taken over to America because the white man could not work under the tropical heats, and because the native Indian would not work. The latter people has been, or soon will be, exterminated—polished off the face of creation, as the Americans say—which fate must, I should say, in the long run attend all non- working people. As the soil of the world is required for increasing population, the non-working people must go. And so the Indians ...

— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... coast. Without changing his position he kept his eyes upon the beautiful white yacht as she drew swiftly near, and came opposite to Coralio. Then, sitting upright, he saw her float steadily past and on. Scarcely a mile of sea had separated her from the shore. He had seen the frequent flash of her polished brass work and the stripes of her deck-awnings—so much, and no more. Like a ship on a magic lantern slide the Idalia had crossed the illuminated circle of the consul's little world, and was gone. Save for the tiny cloud of smoke that was left hanging over the brim of the sea, ...

— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... informed by Mrs. Steel, the author of The Potter's Thumb and other stories of Indian life, that, in watching an Indian conjurer, she generally, or frequently, detects his method. She says that the conjurer often begins by whirling rapidly before the eyes of the spectators a small polished skull of a monkey, and she is inclined to think that the spectators who look at this are, in some way, more easily deluded. These facts are mentioned that I may not seem unaware of what can be said to impugn the accuracy of the descriptions of the Fire Rite, ...

— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... part of the furniture of the Why Not? for generations of landlords, and served perhaps to pass time for cavaliers of the Civil Wars. All was of oak, black and polished, board, dice-boxes, and men, but round the edge ran a Latin inscription inlaid in light wood, which I read on that first evening, but did not understand till Mr. Glennie translated it to me. I had cause to remember it afterwards, so I shall set it down here in Latin for ...

— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... never again to send him to General Belknap. I inquired his reason, and he explained that he had been treated with a rudeness and discourtesy he had never seen displayed by any officer to a soldier. Colonel Audenried was one of the most polished gentlemen in the army, noted for his personal bearing and deportment, and I had some trouble to impress on him the patience necessary for the occasion, but I promised on future occasions to send some other or go myself. Things went on from bad to worse, till in 1870 I received from Mr. ...

— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... could hear the Kid Next Door moving about getting ready for bed and humming "Every Little Movement Has a Meaning of Its Own" very lightly, under his breath. He polished his shoes briskly, and Gertie smiled there in the darkness of her own room in sympathy. Poor kid, he had ...

— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... five approximate valves. The valves are either moderately thick and translucent, or very thin and transparent; and hence, though themselves colourless, they are often coloured by the underlying corium. Their surfaces are either smooth and polished, or striated, or furrowed, and sometimes pectinated. They are not subject to disintegration; they are generally naked, except on the borders, where they are coated, and held together by membrane; in L. fascicularis, ...

— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin

... 'ell—two yellow boys," from which he drew his own deductions. Then he proceeded to examine the portmanteau, which he found unlocked. He could hardly restrain his joy when he found lying underneath the things Wyck's famous ebony stick. It was beautifully mounted and polished and its numerous notches were carefully cut. The temptation was too great to resist and Hal calmly appropriated it, slipping it down the leg of his trousers, then he staggered out of the yard down a lane towards the creek. When he was well out of sight ...

— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... in streams, in rushes, in eager struggle for his body; would swarm countless, persistent, ferocious and greedy—till there would remain nothing but the white gleam of bleaching bones in the long grass; in the long grass that would shoot its feathery heads between the bare and polished ribs. There would be that only left of him; nobody would miss him; no one would ...

— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... shot down during daylight, and no one had as yet been brought to justice for the murder. "You mind's Muster Bingham, Muster Flory; eh? He's gone, and sorra a soul knows anything about it. It's I'd be sorry to think you'd be polished off that way." Again the man in the mask made signs that he was ...

— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... and manners are found more fitting for it and finished, than those of persons who have from their cradles associated with families of the highest distinction, and possessed all the advantages of a polished and liberal education. The heroine has, in all situations, an abundant store of money, jewels, and clothes, supplied no one knows when, how, or by whom; and these, with her musical instruments, drawing materials, &c. accompany her into every reverse of situation, in a manner perfectly incomprehensible, ...

— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various

... managing of canoes, snaring and killing birds and beasts, in patience of fatigue, and even of hunger; in short, in all they most value themselves upon, or to which they affix the idea of personal merit, the only merit that commands consideration amongst them. They are not yet polished enough to admire any other. By this means, however, he perfectly reigns amongst them, with a power the greater, for the submission to it not only being voluntary, but the effect of his acknowledged superiority, in those points that with them alone ...

— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard

... palace, amid marbles and bronzes, statues and pictures, and all that cunning brain and cunning hand, when wedded to the high instinct of beauty, can produce. The furniture is of the very richest, and kept with the most fastidious cleanliness. The floors of precious wood are polished like mirrors. The rooms have every appliance for the ease of the luxurious inmates. Everywhere you see, not mere brute wealth, but taste, purity, and comfort. There is no lack of intellect either:—wise and learned books fill the library shelves; maps and scientific ...

— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... not forget this, next day when the battle raged. RANDOLPH, Bruce's valiant Nephew, rode, with the small body of men he commanded, into such a host of the English, all shining in polished armour in the sunlight, that they seemed to be swallowed up and lost, as if they had plunged into the sea. But, they fought so well, and did such dreadful execution, that the English staggered. Then came Bruce himself upon them, with all ...

— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... factor to be reckoned with, this creature of girlish laughter and high purpose; a woman to the tips of her polished finger nails. Yet Broome had by no means decided that ...

— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... partly cut into the desired shape in the native ledge, broken or prised loose, and afterwards scraped into form. Paint was excavated with the ubiquitous digging-stick, and rubbed fine on stones with water or grease. For polished stonework the material was pecked by blows, ground with other stones, and smoothed with fine material. Sawing was done by means of sand or with a thin piece of harder stuff. Boring was effected with the sand- drill; the hardest rocks ...

— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... man appeared on deck, emerging from somewhere. He had changed his clothes—he now presented himself in a smart tweed suit, Homburg hat, polished shoes, gloves, walking cane. Baxter signed to him to ...

— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... not wear such a corslet as had been crushed into his shoulder at Gaza, but put on a breastplate of thick quilted linen, girt with a broad leather belt, guarded with a crust of finely-worked metal, and holding a light, sharp sword. He had a polished steel helmet, a long spear in his right hand, and a shield on his left arm; and thus he went forth to meet Darius, who came in the midst of 200 chariots, armed with scythes, and fifteen trained elephants. He had so many troops that he intended to close the wings of his army in upon the Greeks, fold ...

— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the front door and the street. Elsie was close behind. She slid down the banister after him, her chubby legs held stiffly out at each side, and the buttons on her jacket making a long zigzag scratch under her, as she shot down the dark, polished rail. ...

— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston

... hand in charge of the foot he had crossed on his knee, just as now, to keep it from a slip along his lawn-tennis flannels! How well she could remember the tennis-shoe, with its ribbed rubber sole, in place of that highly-polished calf thing! And she could remember every word they said, there ...

— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... regaining their liberty than to continue the struggle to the bitter end—the murderer; cheerful and complacent over the verdict of manslaughter; the professional garotter, in whose estimation human life is of no value, troubled only at being so foolish as to be caught; the polished thief and the skilled housebreaker, every one of them sound in wind and limb, intent only on their schemes and "dodges" to extract the sting from their punishment, or in planning new and more heinous crimes, and all longing for the time when they and society could cry ...

— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... beggars, was to be found the author of The Wanderer, the man, whose remarks in life might have assisted the statesman, whose ideas of virtue might have enlightened the moralist, whose eloquence might have influenced senates, and whose delicacy might have polished courts. His distresses, however afflictive, never dejected him. In his lowest sphere he wanted not spirit to assert the natural dignity of wit, and was always ready to repress that insolence, which superiority of fortune ...

— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... underlying character. The true period of the re-formation of the deposit was, I can have no doubt, that of the boulder-clay. I observed that the septaria and larger masses of shale which the bed contains, bear, on roughly-polished surfaces, in the line of their larger axes, the mysterious groovings and scratchings of this period,—marks which I have never yet known to fail in their chronological evidence. It may be mentioned, too, simply as a fact, though ...

— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... ancient observation by his fathers garnered, each As a pebble worn and polished in the current of ...

— California, Romantic and Resourceful • John F. Davis

... he saw in the next few moments drew an exclamation of amazement from him. Never had he seen a cabin like this on the Three Rivers. It was thirty feet long if an inch, and at least eight feet wide. The walls and ceiling were of polished cedar; the floor was of cedar closely matched. It was the exquisite finish and craftsmanship of the woodwork that caught his eyes first. Then his astonished senses seized upon the other things. Under his feet was a soft rug of dark green ...

— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... she made up the fire, and cleared the table of the tea things, packing up the cups and plates and saucers in the neat and noiseless manner which was particularly her own, preparatory to carrying them all on a tray out to the little scullery adjoining the kitchen, which with its well polished saucepans, kettles, and crockery was quite a smart feature of her ...

— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... the vulgar, mind a tail is visible. The outrageous philosopher declares vehemently that no beast of the field or the forest would own such a tail. (His meaning is, that he discerns the sign of the animal slinking under the garb of the stately polished creature. I have all the difficulty in the world to keep him back and let me pursue my course.) These philosophers are a bad-mannered body. Either in opposition, or in the support of them, I maintain simply that the blinking sentimentalist ...

— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... from Lee to the enemy. Without the aid of glasses now, he saw the great columns in blue advancing, preceded by a tremendous fire of artillery that filled the air with bursting shells. The infantry themselves were advancing with the bayonet, the sunlight gleaming on the polished metal. As far as he could see the ring of fire and steel extended. One heavy column was advancing toward the very lawn on ...

— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... we shall be light; if we are light we shall shine, and if we shine we shall attract. Certainly men and women with the light of Christ in them will draw others to them, just as many an eye that cannot look undazzled upon the sun can look upon it mirrored upon some polished surface. A painter will fling upon his canvas a scene that you and I, with our purblind eyes, have looked at hundreds of times, and seen no beauty; but when we gaze on the picture, then we know how fair it is. There is an attractive ...

— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... a jaguar," repeated the child, defiantly; "not a bison, because of its hump, nor a camel either. Why, those great spotted cats had their balls to amuse them, and polished ivory bones as well; and the brown bear climbed his pole, and eat buns; no one's mother left it in the dark before the fire, with no one to tell it tales, and only a kettle to talk to a person;" and Fluff curled herself up on her stool with an ...

— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... the last he could give, for, faint from loss of blood, the effort was too great; he overreached himself, stumbled and fell prone upon the polished floor. The moment before, his enemies were retiring, but at the sight of the fallen officer one of the men raised a joyous shout, and half a dozen charged back ...

— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... together with the cheerful animation expressed in their countenances, to the general effect of the picture. Then the proud display of all the panoplies of the court; the rich waving plumage of the crests; the lustre of the burnished shields and polished armour, together with the neighing of the spirited charger that caracolled the lists, and the warlike strains that at intervals floated on the air, powerfully tended to strike the imagination and inspire the heart to deeds of ...

— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... such as springs, according to Julius Schmidt, from the seas of "Serenity and Humors." Barbicane also noticed large craters, without any interior cones, which shed a bluish tint similar to the reflection of a sheet of steel freshly polished. These colors belonged really to the lunar disc, and did not result, as some astronomers say, either from the imperfection in the objective of the glasses or from the interposition of the ...

— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... squirrel managed to jump from the top of one of the bed-posts to the cord, cut off an ear, and let it drop to the floor. He then jumped down, got a good grip of the heavy ear, carried it to the top of one of the slippery, polished bed-posts, seated himself comfortably, and, holding it well balanced, deliberately pried out one kernel at a time with his long chisel teeth, ate the soft, sweet germ, and dropped the hard part of the kernel. In this masterly way, working at high speed, he demolished several ears a day, ...

— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir

... that is required for the works that adorn your walls; and we have luckily in our age—tho it may not be a literary age—masters of prose and masters of verse. No prose more winning has ever been written than that of Cardinal Newman; no verse finer, more polished, more melodious has ever been written than that of ...

— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser

... glass surface may be more or less polished by holding it for a moment against the revolving disc. Exact means of polishing will be described later on. Meanwhile this simple method will be found both quick and convenient, and is often quite sufficient ...

— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... order under Henri IV. the delights of peace began to be felt; a mundane society, polished and pleasure-loving, began to be constituted, and before many years had passed the influence of women and of the salon appeared in literature. Should such a society be permitted to remain oblivious ...

— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... after the boat in which Arthur was being piloted to the shore, under the guidance of the manager of Miles' Hotel, had left the side of the vessel, Mrs. Carr's steam-launch shot up alongside of them, its brass-work gleaming in the sunlight like polished gold. On the deck, near the little wheel, stood Mrs. Carr herself, and by her side, her martial cloak around her, lay Miss Terry, still as ...

— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... on the expedition of 1741, and the rough adventurers seemed almost to worship the Dane's memory. Later came Ismyloff, chief factor of the Russian fur posts in Oonalaska, attended by a retinue of thirty native canoes, very suave as to manners, very polished and pompous when he was not too convivial, but very chary of any information to the English, whose charts he examined with keenest interest, giving them to understand that the Empress of Russia had first claim to all those parts of the country, rising, quaffing a glass and bowing profoundly ...

— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... afterward that the house was somehow exactly like Miss Minchin. It was respectable and well furnished, but everything in it was ugly; and the very armchairs seemed to have hard bones in them. In the hall everything was hard and polished—even the red cheeks of the moon face on the tall clock in the corner had a severe varnished look. The drawing room into which they were ushered was covered by a carpet with a square pattern upon it, the chairs were ...

— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... the silken disorder in the studio, arrested here and there as the firelight gleamed on bits of armour—on polished corselet and helmet and the tall hilts of swords. Then she looked upward where the high canvas loomed a vast expanse of gray, untouched except for the brushed-in outlines of men in ...

— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... form of versification in which the noblest English poetry has since been couched. This was also taken from Italy, where it had appeared only in the century. Surrey's versions of some of the Psalms, and those of his contemporary, Sir Thomas Wyatt, are the most polished of the many similar attempts made at that time, among which was the ...

— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... is usually "a beautifully polished, wedge-shaped piece of greenstone," says a writer in the Cornhill Magazine, 50-517. It isn't: it's likely to be of almost any kind of stone, but we call attention to the skill with which some of them have been made. Of course this writer says ...

— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... with letters. The man who had written a volume of masterpieces in six months, during the remainder of his life rarely found courage for any more sustained effort than a song. And the nature of the songs is itself characteristic of these idle later years; for they are often as polished and elaborate as his earlier works were frank, and headlong, and colloquial; and this sort of verbal elaboration in short flights is, for a man of literary turn, simply the most agreeable of pastimes. The change in manner coincides exactly ...

— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... we took a long walk inland, across the hills, and I said to Merrick what I could of his book. Unluckily there wasn't much to say. The essays were judicious, polished and cultivated; but they lacked the freshness and audacity of his youthful work. I tried to conceal my opinion behind the usual generalisations, but he broke through these feints with a quick thrust to ...

— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... north and south porticoes, and two ambulatories, the one a little eastward, the other westward from the said cross-aisle, and running parallel therewith. The floor of the whole is paved with marble, but under the cupola and within the rail of the altar with fine porphyry, polished and ...

— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales

... This pyramid, polished and elaborately engraved, towered some ninety feet above the floor. It was pierced by numbers of openings, like the entrances to galleries; and up the smooth face nearest the entrance to the hall, a stairway about ten feet wide ...

— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... end of the avenue. Through these they beheld the waiting yellow chaise which had brought Andre-Louis. From near at hand came the creak of other wheels, the beat of other hooves, and now another vehicle came in sight, and drew to a stand-still beside the yellow chaise—a handsome equipage with polished mahogany panels on which the gold and azure of armorial bearings flashed brilliantly in the sunlight. A footman swung to earth to throw wide the gates; but in that moment the lady who occupied the carriage, perceiving Aline, waved to her and issued ...

— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... the spiritual ruin of all participators in this rivalry. Have the white, polished, glistening boards ever been the road to heaven? Who at the flash of those chandeliers hath kindled a torch for eternity? From the table spread at the close of that excited and besweated scene, who went home to say ...

— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... and polished gossips," said he, "how well they contrived to introduce nature into art! Everything artificial seemed so natural to them. They even feel by a kind of clockwork, which seems to go better than the heart itself. Those pretty sentiments, ...

— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of yourself and of your sweet-voiced poet! I have a strong instrument here both well rounded and well polished, which will pierce your enclosure and penetrate ...

— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... whose careers were studied there was actually one who ended as the wife of the town's richest banker—that is, one who bagged the best catch in the whole community. This woman had begun as a domestic servant, and abandoned that harsh and dreary life to enter a brothel. Her experiences there polished and civilized her, and in her old age she was a grande dame of great dignity. Much of the sympathy wasted upon women of the ancient profession is grounded upon an error as to their own attitude toward it. An educated woman, hearing that a frail sister ...

— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... months ago, I wrote to tell you of the hopes it was mine to conceive, and to ask your opinion of her I loved, how did you answer me? With doubts, with depreciation, with covert and polished scorn, of the very woman whom, with a deliberate treachery, you afterwards wrested from my worshipping and adoring love. That letter I garbled. I made the doubts you expressed of my happiness seem doubts of your own. I changed the dates—I made the letter itself appear written, not on ...

— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... time later when he reached Stirling's house, and was left to wait a few minutes in a very artistically-furnished room. Its floor was of polished parquetry with a few fine skins from British Columbia spread upon it here and there, and the dainty, spindle-legged chairs, the little tables, the cabinets and the Watteau figures were, he fancied, either ...

— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... generally scores in the end. But he is a Roman father, at best. He has little compassion and no tenderness; he is acute, brisk, and sensible; but he has (at least to me) neither grace nor wisdom; or, if he has, he keeps them under a polished metallic dish-cover, and only lifts it in private. I do not feel that the Headmaster has any religion, except the religion of all sensible men. In seeming to despise all sentiment, Kipling seems to ...

— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Victorian respectability, and love of talking with Vivien about what is not so respectable. One wishes, at times, that the "Morte d'Arthur" had remained a lonely and flawless fragment, as noble as Homer, as polished as Sophocles. But then we must have missed, with many other admirable things, the ...

— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang

... tomb-chambers where every wall is thus inlaid to the extent of one quarter of its surface. The preliminary work being done, the whole was covered with a thin coat of fine plaster mixed with white of egg, which hid the mud-wash or the piecing, and prepared a level and polished surface for the pencil of the artist. In chambers, or parts of chambers, which have been left unfinished, and even in the quarries, we constantly find sketches of intended bas-reliefs, outlined in red or black ink. The copy was generally executed upon a small scale, then squared ...

— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... through gratifying her curiosity; but perhaps in the larger number of instances it is acquired by accident. Her eye smarts or itches; and without thinking, she rubs it with a finger covered with the Magical Ointment. In a Breton variant, however, a certain stone, perfectly polished, and in the form of an egg, is given to the woman to rub the fairy child's eyes. In order to test its virtue she applies it to her own right eye, thus obtaining the faculty of seeing the elves when they rendered themselves invisible to ordinary sight. Sometimes, ...

— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... his thoughts. He knew at last what it was that had lurked, formless and undesignated, these many days in the background of his dreams. The picture rose in his mind now of Celia as the mistress of a yacht. He could see her reclining in a low easy-chair upon the polished deck, with the big white sails billowing behind her, and the sun shining upon the deep blue waves, and glistening through the splash of spray in the air, and weaving a halo of glowing gold about her fair head. Ah, how the tender visions ...

— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... neat in fresh clothing of grey with white gaiters, bands playing at the head of their regiments—not a straggler, but every man in his place, stepping jauntily as if on parade, though it had marched twenty miles or more—in open column, with the rays of the declining sun flaming on polished bayonets, the brigade moved down the hard smooth pike, and wheeled on to the camping-ground. Jackson's men, by thousands, had gathered on either side of the road ...

— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... wood," which being brought, I sought me a clever carpenter and sitting by him showed him how to make the saddle-tree, portraying for him the fashion thereof in ink on the wood. Then I took wool and teased it and made felt of it, and, covering the saddle-tree with leather, stuffed it and polished it and attached the girth and stirrup leathers; after which I fetched a blacksmith and described to him the fashion of the stirrups and bridle-bit. So he forged a fine pair of stirrups and a bit, and filed them smooth and tinned[FN45] them. Moreover, I made fast to them fringes ...

— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... hand on the nearest of the shining bars of brass, and slowly she polished it with her open palm. She obviously found it difficult to go ...

— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... to the somewhat cellar-like interior. Cut off from the main room were three smaller rooms, including the kitchen, from which Aunt Lucy passed back and forth with massive tread. The table was no polished mahogany, but was built of rough pine boards, and along it stood long benches instead of chairs. For her "white folks" Aunt Lucy spread a cloth at one end of this long table, placing also in order the few pieces of china and silver that had ...

— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... also took some time to do because it had to be polished, and the gatherings and ruffles were bothersome, but still it was done presently, and also the gingham apron, which was easier. The handkerchiefs were only play, but they had to be carefully folded, so the edges would be even. ...

— A Little Housekeeping Book for a Little Girl - Margaret's Saturday Mornings • Caroline French Benton

... Helen's son developed and matured, becoming more and more a thorough Cardross, sound to the core, and yet polished outside in a manner which had not been the lot of any of the earlier generation, save the minister. Also, he had a certain winning way with him—a power of suiting himself to every body, and pleasing every body— which even his mother, who only pleased ...

— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... ushered into a splendid library, where he was told the ladies would attend him. Before they entered, they allowed him time to examine its costly furniture, its glittering book-cases, bird-cages, globes, and reading-stands, all shining with burnished gilding; its polished plaster casts of the nine muses, which stood in nine recesses about the room, draperied with blue net, looped up with artificial roses; and its fine cut-steel Grecian stove, on each side of which ...

— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... outcasts are now led unto the blessed privileges of the Gospel; these stones become children of Abraham; while the Jews, who enjoyed so good a portion in the former dispensation, are cast out. In this case, as in that of the Samaritan, it is easy so to turn the polished instrument in the light, that it shall throw off bright glimpses of great evangelic facts and doctrines. Perhaps the Lord, in constructing it, kept this capability in view; but we must take the parable as ...

— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... to support a kind of classic pediment, which was decorated in the middle by a large triple window in a boldly carved frame, and in each of its smaller angles by a glazed circular aperture. A large white door, furnished with a highly-polished brass knocker, presented itself to the rural-looking road, with which it was connected by a spacious pathway, paved with worn and cracked, but very clean, bricks. Behind it there were meadows and orchards, a barn and ...

— The Europeans • Henry James

... already mature. To get some of that pollen, with which the gnat presently covers himself, transferred to the minute pistillate florets waiting for it in a distant chamber is, of course, Jack's whole aim in enticing visitors within his polished walls; but what means are provided for their escape? Their efforts to crawl upward over the slippery surface only land them weak and discouraged where they started. The projecting ledge overhead prevents them from using their wings; the passage between the ledge ...

— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... man, and the mates and sailors were also civil and obliging. In fact, as a general rule, in every ship that I embarked in, I was far from finding seamen so rough and uncivil as travellers often represent them to be. Their manners are certainly not the most polished in the world, neither are they extraordinarily attentive or delicate, but their hearts ...

— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... Christians." It was the sight of the cross rather than the words which had arrested the attacks of the peasants. Indeed, the words of the Genoese were scarce understood by them, so widely did their own patois differ from the language of polished Italy. ...

— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... for her, River View Cottage was abandoned entirely to the care of Mrs. Mugby and Susan Trott, and the trim house had a desolate look in the dismal autumn days, and the darkening winter twilights, carefully as it was kept by Mrs. Mugby, who aired the rooms, and dusted and polished the furniture every day, as industriously as if she had been certain of ...

— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... proceedings have taken place, were adopted by the Wesleyan Conference in June, 1860. Now, whatever other changes may have taken place, I still adhere to the people of my youth, who were the early instruments of all the religious instruction I received until I attained manhood. Whether they are a polished and learned or a despised people, I still am not ashamed of them, nor of the humblest of their advocates or professors. I stand before you without a blush, in the immediate connection, and identified with that people. The resolutions that were adopted by the Conference, in pursuance ...

— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... and dark in battle meet Lochlin and Innis-fail. chief mixes his strokes with chief, and man with man; steel clanging sounds on steel. Helmets are cleft on high. Blood bursts and smokes around. Strings murmur on the polished yews. Darts rush along the sky, spears fall like the circles of light which gild the face of night. As the noise of the troubled ocean when roll the waves on high, as the last peal of thunder in heaven, such is the din of war. Though Cormac's hundred bards were there to give the fight ...

— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... feet below, at the foot of the rocks, began the snow, whose steep, roof-like slope, exaggerated into an almost vertical angle, curved down in a long white field, broken far away by rocks and polished, round ...

— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... a tall, handsome young man, not yet nineteen years of age, and in his appearance there certainly was something savoring of the air supposed to mark the F. F. V's. His manners were polished in the extreme, possessing, perhaps, a little too much hauteur, and impressing the beholder with the idea that he could, if he chose, be very cold and overbearing. His forehead, high and intellectually formed, ...

— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... good many tastes, and sentiments, and opinions, which it may well be questioned, whether they contributed most to the happiness or unhappiness of the pupil, in her future life. Frank Dutton, then a handsome, though far from polished young sea-lieutenant, interfered with the arrangement, by making Martha Ray his wife, when she was two-and-twenty. This match was suitable, in all respects, with the important exception of the educations and characters of the parties. Still, as a woman may well be more refined, and in some ...

— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... well-known and popular book; and his stories of dogs are certainly extraordinary enough to have invoked Boz's ridicule. We are told of the French poodle, who after rolling himself in the mud of the Seine, would rub himself against any well-polished boots that he noticed, and would thus bring custom to his master, who was a shoe black on the Pont Neuf. He was taken to London by an English purchaser, but in a few days disappeared, and was discovered pursuing his old trade on the Bridge. Other dogs, we were told, after being transported ...

— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald

... dusted; the wild displacement of volumes that should have gone in series betrayed the hand of the zealous though inexpert librarian. The old curtains had been cleaned, the antimacassars over the backs of chairs and sofa had been freshly washed, the floor polished. Not a greasy novel or a straggling garment defiled the spotlessness of the room, which, but for the row of birds and the books, looked as if it subserved no human purpose. A crazy whatnot, imitation lacquer and bamboo, ...

— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... which is judged at its close.[160] The description is full of details of great interest and instructiveness, but we can only have time at present for the essential thing being taught. The Spirit takes John into a wilderness. To the Spirit's eye wherever wickedness has sway, whether vulgar or polished, political or commercial, cunning or ...

— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon

... the feeble, fluctuating candlelight, the latter seemed endowed with some peculiar and emphatically weird life—their glistening, polished surfaces threw a dozen and one fantastic but oddly human shadows on the boards, as at the same time they appeared in bewildering alternation to ...

— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... went on all the time in the usual clockwork fashion observed on board ship, 'quarters' and 'divisions' and all the rest; all of the men and boys belonging to the ship's company being polished up quite as smartly as the brasswork and drilled to the highest state ...

— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... appears to have been utterly lost; but little is known of his proceedings for the next year and a-half. He was seen occasionally haunting the billiard tables and gambling houses in London and Paris, where his polished manners and prepossessing appearance gave him many advantages, in carrying on his designs against those inexperienced victims who were unfortunate enough to attract his notice. But he was evidently liable to great reverses of fortune ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... such a one must have seen and heard and read many and diverse books and writings, and know all languages and have frequented kings' Courts and associated with great men and beheld and taken part in worldly affairs; and finally he must be of gentle birth, courteous and sedate, polished, humorous, polite, witty, and have in his composition honey, and sugar, and salt, and a good presence and a witty manner of reasoning; moreover he must be also a lover and ever make a show and pretence of ...

— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... uncarpeted but well-polished oak stair, knocked at the father's door, and entered one by one, each dropping her curtsey, and, though the eldest was five-and-twenty, neither speaking nor sitting till they were greeted with a hearty, "Come, my young maids, sit you ...

— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... mantel-shelf. There was a spinet in one corner; a set of shelves filled with shining cups and saucers between the low white-curtained windows; while a fire from huge logs filled the chimney place and threw a dancing light over the polished floor, half hidden by a thick home-spun carpet, and as was the custom of the time, lighted candles had been set between the drawn white curtains to guide any ...

— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... have retained the card, but turned it in with the case. Mrs. Howard, in discussing with me the lack of honor in so abusing a great favor, became very angry; she said: "Lincoln was vulgar, not a polished man; he sat with legs crossed while talking to me." Young and inexperienced as I was, I was so forcibly struck with the shallowness of pretended culture that I have many times told the ...

— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith

... room, wainscotted all over in panels, with a square moulding at the top, which served for a cornice. The ceiling was ornamented with plaster reliefs. The windows looked out, on one side into the court, on the other upon the park. The floor was black and polished like a mirror, with bits of carpet here and there, and a rug before the curious, old-fashioned grate, where a little fire was burning and a small kettle boiling fiercely on the top of it. The tea-tray was already on ...

— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... with hoods, snuffers, and trays had to be brightened; and next, there were the small brass kettles in which she boiled the milk for coffee, to be polished inside and out. However, we did not dread the kettles much, unless burned, for there was always a spoon in the bottom to help to gather the scrapings, of which we were ...

— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... Trent who sat there in thoughtful and absorbed silence. He was leaning a little back in a comfortably upholstered chair, with his eyes fixed on a certain empty spot upon the table. The few inches of polished mahogany seemed to him—empty of all significance in themselves—to be reflecting in some mysterious manner certain scenes in his life which were now very rarely brought back to him. The event of to-day he knew to be the culmination of a success as rapid ...

— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... much taken up about dress, and as fond of vying with each other in finery as in other countries; they paint themselves with vermilion very often; they deck themselves with bracelets made of the ribs of deer, which are bent by the means of boiling water, and when polished, look as fine as ivory; they wear necklaces like the women, and sometimes have a fan in their hand; they clip off the hair from the crown of the head, and there place a piece of swan's skin with the down on; to a few hairs that they leave ...

— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... small and shaped like a short, pointed beak, the cheek-bones high, while the chin indicates remarkable determination. Magnificent black hair streams down her back. It is as full as a wave, as lustrous as polished obsidian. ...

— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... here seemed more than usually rich in botanical novelties for, besides the Murrayana tree, we found a most beautiful Leucopogon allied to L. rotundifolius of Brown, with small heart-shaped leaves polished on the upper side and striated on the lower, so as to resemble the most delicate shell-work.* Piper discovered, on examining the ground where we had repulsed the Darling tribes, that they had left ...

— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... years the stones had suffered change as countless feet, scuffing and pressing against once rough edges, had smoothed the bits of rock, burnishing their surfaces until the light of the setting sun now reflected from them as from polished mosaic. ...

— Alarm Clock • Everett B. Cole

... ascent was cut by four great steps in the cliff, as lofty as the heights of two men, and glittering like polished alabaster. ...

— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... sure attendant upon want, With scanty offals, and small acid tiff (Wretched repast!) my meagre corps sustain: Then solitary walk or doze at home In garret vile, and with a warming puff. Regale chilled fingers, or from tube as black As winter chimney, or well polished jet ...

— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... impossible now for two elephants to go abreast as it was when Josephus wrote his lively description of the engagement that ensued; of the shouts of the men echoing among the mountains, and the glitter of the rising sun upon the polished accoutrements. It was summer, for they excited the elephants with the blood of the grape and the mulberry. The road is to this day defined by true tokens of antiquity, such as lines of stones covered with hoary lichen, old cisterns, especially a noble one called the Beer el Kott, with here and ...

— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... Mogilewsky were busily putting Room 18 to rights, when a small boy, in an elaborate sailor costume, appeared before them. He was spotlessly clean and the handkerchief in the pocket of his blouse was dazzling in its white abundance. Upon his brow, soap-polished until it shone, there lay two smooth and sticky curves of auburn hair, and on his face there played a smile of happy ...

— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... which was lighted by a large French window opening upon a balcony, commanded an excellent view of the Thames Embankment. The floor was polished to a degree of brightness, almost painful. The distempered walls, save for a severe and solitary etching of a former Commissioner, were nude in all their unloveliness. A heavy deal table (upon which rested a blotting-pad, a pewter ...

— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... a small point, as the weight of the fencer is behind the point of the rapier. And the point can be yet more pointed because the politics of the city, when I was there, included several men with a taste and talent for such polished intercourse; including especially two men whose experience and culture would have been remarkable in any community in the world; the American Consul and the Military ...

— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... manuscripts he burned from time to time, would, in the case of most men, represent the ceaseless labour of a long life. And the corpus is not great by reason of haste or want of finish. He has recorded more than once how it was ever his habit to let his work be polished to the utmost before putting it in type. The citations with which his pages bristle proclaim him to be a reader almost as voracious and catholic as Burton; and Naude, with the watchfulness of the hostile critic in his heart and the bookworm's knowledge ...

— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... feet. After the granite enters the ground, there the treasure begins. I know it is there, for I have been a miner all my life, and know geology as well as though I had gotten it out of books. The granite ridge is rich in quartz and in tourmalines. I got some out and had them cut and polished, and they are the finest ever found in Maine. This secrecy is necessary, due to the fact that a partner who went back on me has tried to wrest the secret from me, also the fact that I must wait until I can buy the land the ridge is ...

— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle

... dear to me since childhood. Then I thought your clusters were the beautiful polished images of ...

— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes

... the open doorway she saw him sitting by the reading lamp with his newspaper. She knew that he looked on the first page only, and from the expression on his face doubted if he saw a word of the print before him. When she had polished the last plate she went in and patted his shoulder. He looked up at her with troubled eyes and the girl stooped and lightly kissed his cheek above ...

— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long

... high in the dark sky, and her beams were flung across the polished oak floor of Berthe's bedroom, through the great window with the stone balcony, when the girl, who had gone to sleep with her lover's name upon her lips in prayer, awoke with a sudden start, and sat up in her bed. An unbearable dread was upon her; and yet she was unable to utter a cry, she ...

— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... before dawn on the fateful winter morning; she could run no risks of being late. She polished off all her house-work, wondering anxiously if any of her classmates would oversleep herself, yet at heart confident that all were as eager as she. Still there was always that troublesome small-pox——! She breathed a prayer that God would keep all the little girls ...

— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... not a breath of air; it was one of those crisp, still autumn days, when the sheeny sea looks as cold and hard as polished steel. ...

— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... World. He examined the statue and said, "It is of very recent origin, and a most decided humbug.... Very short exposure of the statue would suffice to obliterate all trace of tool-marks, and also to roughen the polished surfaces, but these are still quite perfect, and hence the giant must have been very recently buried.... I am surprised that any scientific observers should not have at once detected the unmistakable evidence against ...

— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... and agreeable. In crises Louise developed considerable character, in strong contrast with her usual assumption of well-bred composure. That the girl was insincere in little things and cultivated a polished manner to conceal her real feelings, is undeniable; but in spite of this she might be relied upon to prove ...

— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... betrays the residence of a refined woman, however poor she may be. A well worn but neatly darned carpet covered the floor. The chairs, with their white rush bottoms, were without stain or dust. A mahogany breakfast-table, polished like a mirror, stood beneath a pretty looking-glass, whose guilt frame shone through a net-work of golden tissue-paper. Curtains of snow-white cotton, starched till they looked clear and bright as linen, were looped back from the windows, with knots ...

— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... his own age, was tall, though slender, exquisitely shaped; her hair was auburn, and in such plenty, that the barbarity of dress had not been able to prevent it from shading both sides of her forehead, which was high and polished; the contour of her face was oval; her nose very little raised into the aquiline form, that contributed to the spirit and dignity of her aspect; her mouth was small; her lips plump, juicy, and delicious, her teeth ...

— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... purchased a letter-card; held his pen a while as he polished the glimmering idea that now had taken form; ...

— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... and petulantly at table, contradicted aggressively, and on two occasions gave Captain North the lie; but we had carefully avoided noticing his manner, and acted as though he were still the high bred, polished gentleman who had sailed with us ...

— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... The film had gathered over those deep blue orbs, and her emaciated form lay white as polished marble stretched out on her little cradle, around which were gathered sympathizing friends, watching the feeble lamp of life as it burned flickering in its socket. The grandmother and aunt had been summoned from an adjoining village, where ...

— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... peculiar combination, in polished copper, of triple glasses fixed to the sill of a second-story window in the house directly opposite. The device is in common use in Philadelphia and Baltimore, but here in New York it must be classed as an exotic. Its very name ...

— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... itself upon her brain, so that she could long afterwards recall it when she wished—the nearly level sunbeams falling across the trees and turning their bark fiery red, the gleam of water, and the figures of the men plodding slowly downhill with their loads. Their faces glowed like polished copper in the searching light, their overalls were ragged and stained, and one stumbled and lurched wildly down a slope with a rattle of rolling stones. Then she glanced at Thirlwell, who stood close by, watching her with a ...

— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... every lad in town, being tailor-made, of the latest cut and the finest fabric. His ties and his socks, a generous portion of the latter displayed by the up-rolled bottoms of his trousers, were always of a vivid hue and usually of silk. His highly-polished russet shoes were scarcely browner than the tips of two fingers of his right hand, which outside of school hours were constantly dallying with a cigarette. He had rings and scarf pins, and a gold watch with a handsome seal fob. His face was pale ...

— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... raising his hand in salute. He was a dark, swarthy fellow, with glittering eyes and rather flat features. He wore the moustache of the trooper, and had permitted his chin whiskers to grow. The crossed sabres of the cavalry and the letter and number of the troop and regiment, all brilliantly polished, adorned his forage-cap, and his undress uniform was scrupulously neat and well-fitting. The moment he turned, ...

— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... havoc he had made and the insults he had put on the Spanish coasts might goad Santa Cruz to come out and fight him. For three days he lay off Cascaes, in sight of Lisbon, threatening an attack and sending polished taunts to the Spanish admiral. He offered to convoy him to England if his course lay that way; he took prizes under his very nose; with his fleet in loose order he sailed up to the very entrance of the harbor; but, though seven galleys lay on their oars watching him from the mouth of the ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... the leather with dry flannel, apply the egg with a soft sponge. Where the leather is rubbed or decayed, rub a little paste with the finger into the parts affected, to fill up the broken grain, otherwise the glair would sink in and turn it black. To produce a polished surface, a hot iron must be rubbed over the leather. The following is, however, an easier, if not a better, method. Purchase some "bookbinders' varnish," which may be had at any colour shop; clean the leather well, as before; if necessary, ...

— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various

... chiefly of Tacks and the kitchen carving knife. The former was seated on the floor laboriously engineering the latter in an endeavor to produce a large arrow-pierced heart on the polished panel of ...

— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh

... fighting for his life; that when a man is at death-grips with a tiger he may be pardoned if he strikes without considering whether he is going to spoil the skin or not; and that on the whole you cannot throttle snakes in a graceful attitude. Men fought then with bludgeons; they fight now with dainty polished daggers, dipped in cold, colourless poison of sarcasm. Perhaps there was less malice in the rougher old way than ...

— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... contrast to the gay brilliant self-asserting women he met in society as some white marble-lidded Psyche, standing on her pedestal, amid a group of glowing Venetian Venuses! He had seen riper complexions, and more rounded symmetry; and had smiled and bowed at graceful polished persiflage, more witty than aught that ever crossed her quiet, daintily carved lips; but though he had admired many lovely women of genius and culture, that pale girl, striving to hide her grieved countenance against his ...

— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... Two years afterwards he defended McConnell, the murderer, and in 1868, defended Mrs. Victor, in one of the most remarkable poisoning cases ever brought into court. His argument in the latter case was a masterpiece of legal acumen, forcible exposition, and polished speech. Mr. Palmer began the practice of law in Cleveland in the firm of Palmer & Austin. Afterwards he was associated with R. B. Dennis, Esq., and at present he is senior in the firm ...

— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... possess other well- marked secondary sexual characters. Blind beetles, which cannot of course behold each other's beauty, never, as I hear from Mr. Waterhouse, jun., exhibit bright colours, though they often have polished coats; but the explanation of their obscurity may be that they generally inhabit caves and ...

— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... chapbook. No-one here to hear. Tonight deftly amid wild drink and talk, to pierce the polished mail of his mind. What then? A jester at the court of his master, indulged and disesteemed, winning a clement master's praise. Why had they chosen all that part? Not wholly for the smooth caress. For them too history ...

— Ulysses • James Joyce

... author has, in truth, two distinct characters: the literary, formed by the habits of his study; the personal, by the habits of his situation. GRAY, cold, effeminate, and timid in his personal, was lofty and awful in his literary character. We see men of polished manners and bland affections, who, in grasping a pen, are thrusting a poniard; while others in domestic life with the simplicity of children and the feebleness of nervous affections, can shake the senate or the bar with the vehemence of their eloquence and the intrepidity of their ...

— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... sometimes crumbled to sand, and in this state form the beds of rivers and of the sea, chiefly composed of siliceous materials. Sometimes the fragments are broken without being pulverised by their fall, and assume the form of pebbles, which gradually become rounded and polished. ...

— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet