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Festal   Listen
adjective
Festal  adj.  Of or pertaining to a holiday or a feast; joyous; festive. "You bless with choicer wine the festal day."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Festal" Quotes from Famous Books



... possible, during his long stay at Bergen. He was not accused, and if there had been a chance he would have been accused, of dereliction. No doubt he pushed through the work of the theatre doggedly, but certainly not in a convivial spirit. The Norwegians are a hospitable and festal people, and there is no question that the manager of the theatre would have unusual opportunities of being jolly with his friends. But it does not appear that Ibsen made friends; if so, they were few, and they were ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... often formed. I have heard men give as a reason for disliking some one, that he had forgotten to pay half a cab-fare. So in Roth's case, I never got over a most ordinary experience. He and two other young students and myself, having to celebrate some festal occasion, had ordered a good luncheon at a restaurant. To me with my limited means this was a great extravagance, but I could not refuse to join. Roth, to my great surprise and, I may add, being very fond ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... starveling at a palace gate Sees curtained gleams from banquet-litten halls, Hears song out-ringing from the festal walls, Scents viands that shall princely palates sate, Yet in the outer gloom may only wait, Crouched in the cold, thrice-thankful for some least Mean morsel flung him from the plenteous feast— Poor bondman to the ball and chain of Fate! So, lonely ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner

... called up by those words is sufficiently definite and demands no amplification. To them, is no prettier sight possible than the broad campus dotted with buildings, and the knots of daintily-dressed girls moving slowly to and fro along the winding paths. The Meadow City always puts on her most festal array in honor of the occasion; the very heavens seem to watch for that week, and to provide for it the finest moon of the ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray

... the veldt-side, but we felt we couldn't stop, On this, our England's crowning festal day; We're the men of Magersfontein, we're the men of Spion Kop, Colenso,—we're the men who had to pay. We're the men who paid the blood-price. Shall the grave be all our gain? You owe us. Long and heavy is the score. Then ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service

... from within, that caused her to take deep breaths of the smoky air. She but half heard what was being said to her: she wished that the train would go, and at the same time she had a sudden, surprising, and fierce longing to stay. She had been able to eat scarcely a mouthful of that festal dinner which Bridget had spent the afternoon in preparing, comprised wholly of forbidden dishes of her childhood, for which Bridget and Aunt Mary were justly famed. Such is the irony of life. Visions of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... or that party hold the reins of government, on whichever side happens to be most advantageous to the immediate social and financial whim. The people are the grapes crushed into wine for their rulers' drinking; and the King is merely the wine-cup on the festal board. If he once begins to be something more than that cup, there will be an end ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... high over the stars in the sky, Where the white swan sails undefiled, So high 'tis beyond any mortal eye Save that of the dreaming child!— The church that you spoke of! So then it is there We shall ride in festal procession, As ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen

... departure, and a kind of saturnalia prevailed at Hyde Lodge—a saturnalia which terminated with the breaking-up ball: and who among the crowd of fair young dancers so bright as Charlotte Halliday, dressed in the schoolgirl's festal robes of cloud-like muslin, and with her white throat set off by a black ribbon ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... from right and left the CHORUS, consisting of women of Argos, young and old, in festal dress. ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides

... exceeding loveliness on Saturday evening, when she had been arrayed in the festal robe which she herself was to wear at the ball, and the memory ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... church plainly originated in a rude adaptation of the forest trees, with all their boughs, to a festal or solemn arcade; as the bands about the cleft pillars still indicate the green withes that tied them. No one can walk in a road cut through pine woods, without being struck with the architectural appearance of the grove, especially in winter, when the barrenness of all other ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... of it where one could see as many as five big cafes in a resplendent row. That evening I strolled into one of them. It was by no means full. It looked deserted, in fact, festal and overlighted, but cheerful. The wonderful street was distinctly cold (it was an evening of carnival), I was very idle, and I was feeling a little lonely. So I ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... Since the added years entail Much that is bitter,—joy Flies out of ken, desire doth fail, The longed-for moments cloy. But when the troublous life, Be it less or more, is past, With power to end the strife Comes rescuing Death at last. Lo! the dark bridegroom waits! No festal choir Shall grace his destined hour, ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... damaged auction-stock down in the front cellar, at actual cost-price. This, they are to understand, implies their Employer's hearty wish of a Merry Christmas to them; and is a sign that, in the grand spirit of the festal season, he can even forget and forgive those unnatural leaner entry-clerks who are always whining for more than their allotted $7 a week. The President of the great railroad corporation, in the very middle of ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various

... Paschal Lamb, it is incumbent upon us to partake also of the sweet festal bread; in other words, while embracing the faith of the Passover, we are to maintain the true doctrine of the Gospel, illustrating it by the godly example of our own lives. We should live an eternal Easter life, as it were, to carry out Paul's analogy, a life wherein we, as justified, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... heard without, Already ere the morning light was full, The din of preparation, and the hum Of voices gathering in the upper tiers; Yet had we seen so often in our thoughts The picture of this strange and cruel death, Its festal horror, and its bloody pomp, The nearness scarcely moved us, and our hands Met in ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman

... severest of all. Excessive toleration had never been one of this gentleman's weaknesses, and he now, for no very definite reasons, looked upon Anton as a traitor to himself and the firm. He was in the habit of keeping his birth-day in a most festal manner, surrounded by all his friends, and, knowing this, Anton had purposely refused an invitation of Herr von Zernitz; yet, when the day came, Fink and he were not included among the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... wish to hear the village drum, a great huehuetl. This musical instrument is a reminder of the olden times; it is not found everywhere, but a number of indian towns possess one, which is kept to be played on festal occasions. The one as Los Reyes was some three feet or so in height, a hollow cylinder of wood with a membrane stretched across the upper end; it was painted blue. A chair of state was placed for me ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... crest, Raising my rampired deg. walls of gold as transparent as glass, deg.19 Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest: 20 For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, When a great illumination surprises a festal night— Outlining round and round Rome's dome deg. from space to spire) deg.23 Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... which were sung in honor of the gods. But it was alleged, that, as no part of the animal was made a burnt-offering, as no altar was provided to receive the blood, and as the previous oblation of salt cakes, and the concluding ceremony of libations, were carefully omitted, these festal meetings did not involve the guests in the guilt, or penalty, of an illegal sacrifice. [53] Whatever might be the truth of the facts, or the merit of the distinction, [54] these vain pretences were swept away by the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... his house bright and warm for the reception of his beloved. He had a strong apprehension of the probable fate of poor Daniel Robson; he had a warm sympathy with the miserable distress of the wife and daughter; but still at the back of his mind his spirits danced as if this was to them a festal occasion. He had even taken unconscious pleasure in Phoebe's suspicious looks and tones, as he had hurried and superintended her in her operations. A fire blazed cheerily in the parlour, almost dazzling to the travellers brought in from the darkness and the rain; ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell

... possibly, like the fabled dragon's teeth, spring up into a harvest of armed men to hurl him from his throne. With a sigh of resignation, therefore, he summoned Arima, and, resigning himself into that functionary's hands, submitted to be conducted to the bath, and afterwards attired in the festal garments prepared for the occasion. The bath of warm, delicately perfumed water he found to be so wonderfully refreshing that upon emerging from it all sensation of fatigue had vanished; and by the time that he was completely arrayed for the banquet he felt perfectly prepared to do both himself and ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... festal occasion, when the King was present, a reward was offered, as usual, to any person who would ascend and attend to the weather-vane. A sailor agreed to do it, and ascended in the way I have told you, until he came to the ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... behind her flying brown robes one night; we woke to a skurry of snow next morning; and it was winter. Down-town, along the sidewalks, the merchants set lines of poles, covered them with evergreen, and ran streamers of green overhead to encourage the festal shopping. Salvation Army Santa Clauses stamped their feet and rang bells on the corners, and pink-faced children fixed their noses immovably to display-windows. For them, the season of seasons, the time ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington

... other watering-places for twenty or thirty miles. The ballroom had been decorated by a committee of ladies; the costumes, it was anticipated, would be dazzling beyond measure. No disappointment was felt when the festal hour arrived, but the very keen emotion attendant upon the ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... and takes hold of his nose and drags him into the shed. Sometimes they make the bridegroom kneel down and pay reverence to a shoe as a joke. They do not observe the custom of the pangat or formal festal assembly, which is usual among Hindu castes; according to this, none can begin to eat until all the guests have assembled, when they all sit down at once. Among the Maheshris the guests sit down as they come in, and are served and take ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... furnished clothing as well as food; for the pioneers could not afford to pay from 15 to 25 cents a yard for calico, and from 25 to 75 cents for gingham.* Some persons indulged in homespun cloth for Sunday and festal occasions, but the common outside garments were made of dressed deerskins. Parley P. Pratt, in his autobiography, speaks of passing through a settlement where "some families were entirely dressed in skins, without any other clothing, including ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... way to the Aniline Dye, a nut headed Swozzie, who could get into Matteawan without Credentials, moved down the Line of Distinguished Guests asking for Autographs. His Example was followed by 150 other Shropshires, so that for the next 30 Minutes the Festal Chamber resembled the Auditing Department ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade

... into the hall stepped lightly The old Baron's lovely daughter Margaretta,—and her father Nodded kindly as she entered. Hiddigeigei's suffering face too Showed delight as cats express it. She had changed her festal white robe For a garment of black velvet. On her long and golden tresses, A black cap sat most coquettish, 'Neath which her blue eyes were smiling With a matron-like expression; To the girdle was attached the Bunch of keys ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... is but little left of that shining city, and yet, as I lay dreaming in the grass-grown theatre, it seemed to be a festal day, and there among the excited and noisy throng of holiday-makers, just for a moment I caught sight of the aediles in their white tunics, and then, far away, the terrified face of a little child, frightened at the hideous masks ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... busy hands bake bread, cake and pastry, spreads forth to the community an influence that is priceless, a largesse not of festal day, holy day, or holiday, but thrice daily, wholesome and welcome as spring's first sunbeam and precious to every home so blessed, ever growing and radiating. May this book help in that growth and ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson

... ordinary houses, is a concession (on the part even of the jerriest of builders) to the aesthetic sense. We get the decorated frieze in architecture in obedience to the same demand, though originally a necessary feature of lintel construction, as we have seen, from the days of the festal garland hung around the eaves of the classic house, to its perpetuation in stone in so many varieties.* The carved garland depending in a series of graceful curves, or contrasted with pendants, ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane

... incidents, and of unflagging interest from beginning to end,—partly warlike and partly monastic, describing the adventures of knights and monks. It deals with wizards, harpers, dwarfs, priests, warriors, and noble dames. It sings of love and wassailings, of gentle ladies' tears, of castles and festal halls, of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... protest. We need not complain very loudly that while remonstrating against the restless intrepidity of the rationalists of his generation, he passed over the central truth, namely that the full and ever festal life is found in active freedom of curiosity and search taking significance, motive, force, from a warm inner pulse of human love and sympathy. It was not given to Rousseau to see all this, but it was given to him to see the side of it for which the most powerful of the men living with ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... "ordinary," or prescribed, books, "two books of Cicero's Letters will be read on festal days"; and "the Greek Grammar of Theodorus Gaza will be explained at the expense of the ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton

... of a dinner table appalled her. She was so tired, and her attention was so fixed on the complicated processes going on uncertainly in the kitchen, that her brain reeled over the vast quantity of knives and forks and plates and glasses needed to convey food to twenty mouths on a festal occasion. They persistently eluded her attempts to marshal them into order. She discovered that she had put forks for the soup—that in some inexplicable way at the plate destined for an important guest there was a large kitchen spoon of iron—a wild sort of whimsical humor ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... of full protection and endorsement in whatever they might do: on the other a mob of assorted foreigners, ignorant, resentful of the law, which seemed only a huge mechanism of injustice manipulated by their oppressors, inflamed by the heavy potations of a festal night carried over into the next day, and, because of the criminally lax enforcement of the law, tacitly permitted to go armed. Who had started the clash was uncertain and, perhaps in essentials, immaterial; so perfectly and fatefully had the stage been set for ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... bound that a merrier party never left a churchyard, even after a funeral, nor a merrier set ever sat down to a festal board, than that which gathered to greet the hospitality of Israel Wurm. In the course of the evening, an old Scotch gardener gave it as his opinion that the "miser was fey." (When a man suddenly changes his character, as when a spendthrift becomes saving, or a niggard generous, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... to be the sole regent of the babe's destiny. It was she who took it to its baptism;—not the festal ceremony which had pleased Sybilla's childish fancy with visions of christening robes and cakes, but the beautiful and simple "naming" of Elspie's own church. She stood before the minister, holding the desolate babe in ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... rapid succession, and Time, the great Physician, heals our wounds. Once again 'tis Christmas Eve, and in a certain city church the Rector lingers for a while to see that all is in readiness for the festal morning. Loving hands have decorated the neat little church. Beautiful it looks, with its evergreen holly and ivy, and red berries, and white sparkling frost crystals, and pure white carnations on the altar. All is ...
— Irish Ned - The Winnipeg Newsy • Samuel Fea

... this growth in a spiritual conception of religion went, as was natural, a growth in scepticism. There was a sceptical as well as a believing school, such as finds its expression in the festal Dirge of King Antef of the Eleventh dynasty. Here we read in Canon ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... Zwinger [Footnote: This is the name by which the famous Dresden Art Galleries are known.—Editor.] with all due pomp and ceremony. In honour of this event I, in collaboration with Mendelssohn, was commanded to compose a festal song, and to conduct the gala performance. I had written a simple song for male voices of modest design, whereas to Mendelssohn had been assigned the more complicated task of interweaving the National Anthem ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... anthems of our festal days, Whose ravishing division held apart The lips of listening throngs in sweet amaze, Moved in all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... present carols were substituted, by those enemies of innocent mirth, the Puritans, for the original carols, which were festal chansons for enlivening the merriment of the Christmas celebrity; and not such religious songs as are current at this day, with the common people, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various

... love him: though to hall and bower He gathered revellers from far and near, He knew them flatterers of the festal hour; The heartless parasites of present cheer. Yea, none did love him—not his lemans dear - But pomp and power alone are woman's care, And where these are light Eros finds a feere; Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare, And Mammon wins ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... the Protestant Episcopal church in the diocese of New York, and who had been appointed chaplain to the senate. From the church Washington retired to his residence, under the conduct of a committee appointed for that purpose. The people spent the remainder of the day in festal enjoyments, and closed it ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... the leaf-strewn earth; while a horned and long-tailed gentleman (in whom I recognized the fiendish musician erst seen by Tam O'Shanter) tuned his fiddle, and summoned the whole motley rout to a dance, before partaking of the festal cheer. So they joined hands in a circle, whirling round so swiftly, so madly, and so merrily, in time and tune with the Satanic music, that their separate incongruities were blended all together, and they became a kind of entanglement ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... likeness to him both in person and manner, and Ellen Carley thought that it was impossible for the world to contain a more disagreeable pair. These were the guests who consumed great quantities of Ellen's pies and puddings, and who sat under her festal garlands of holly and laurel. She had been especially careful to hang no scrap of mistletoe, which might have afforded Mr. Whitelaw an excuse for a practical display of his gallantry; a fact which did not escape the playful observation of his ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... morning when our story properly opens, Mr. and Mrs. Burton Jerrold and their son Grey, a well grown lad of fourteen, left their home on Beacon street, and with crowds of other city people took the train for the country, to keep the festal day. ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... in my carriage. The weather was lovely. The Champs-Elysees was full of people. It was like the first smile of spring. Everything about me had a festal air. I never knew before that a ray of sunshine could contain so much ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils

... their lives would moments so full of sweetness and splendor come to them. They were all the sweeter because blended with the homely duties that fell to Antonia's hands. As she went about ordering the breakfast, and giving to the table a festal air, Dare thought of the old Homeric heroes, and the daughters of the kings who ministered to their wants. The bravest of them had done no greater deeds of personal valor than had been done by the little band of American pioneers and hunters with whom he had ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... his home instead of at the lady's. Otherwise he could not be present, for Kenminster had a character for bleakness, and he was never allowed to travel in an English winter. Besides, he had set his heart on giving one grand festal day to his tenantry, who had never had a day of rejoicing since his great-uncle came ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... These two revellers had drained deep the cup of "Election-day" excitement. They had twirled all the arrows, bought all the jewelry, inspected all the colored eggs, blown at all the spirometers, and tasted all the egg-pop which the festal day required. These delights exhausted, they looked round for other worlds to conquer, saw Madam Delia at her tent-door, ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... A Festal Ode A Festal Ode Complimenting an Officer The Value of Friendship The Response to a Festal Ode An Ode of Congratulation An Ode on the ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... for; his wife's winter suit—a present by her transforming imagination—already in the house; the Christmas turkey for the janitor of the children's school subscribed to—sometimes he had wished himself the janitor!—and all the small demands that drain the purse at the festal season carefully counted up and allowed for. There was no lien on this unexpected sum just received. The reel and the line, and the flies and such, would have to wait until another time, to be sure; but no one could realize what it would be to him to come home and find that blessed ...
— The Blossoming Rod • Mary Stewart Cutting

... polished breast, Only, can feel the fire of love, Pure as the flames that brightly rest In bosoms of the realms above. Yes! often in the rudest form, A heart may be, more clear and bright Than ever lent the loveliest charm To goddess of the Festal light. Come, hear a story of the time, When this wide land was one green bower, The roving Red man's Eden-chine, Where bloomed the wildest flower. The great ships brought a wondrous race, One evening o'er the ocean beach; ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley

... Gifts precede him, bells proclaim him, Every mouth delights to name him; Wet, and cold, and wind, and dark Make him but the warmer mark; And yet he comes not one-embodied, Universal's the blithe godhead, And in every festal house Presence hath ubiquitous. Curtains, those snug room-enfolders, Hang upon his million shoulders, And he has a million eyes Of fire, and eats a million pies, And is very merry and wise; Very wise and very merry, And loves a kiss beneath the berry. ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various

... thou dare To join that festal throng; Listen and mark what gentle air First stirred the tide of song; 'Tis not, "the Saviour born in David's home, To Whom for power and health ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble

... warrior, in his undress, that is, without his panoply of armour and arms, in the long flowing robe affected by his Norman kindred at the festal board. She, with the comely robe which had superseded the gunna or gown, and the couvrechef (whence our word kerchief) on ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... the second week of June, when Butsey White had gone to a festal spread in Cheyenne Baxter's rooms, Dink sat cheerlessly over the Latin page, ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... lamps. Amidst the swinging of censers by the priests the bride and bridegroom joined hands and received the bishop's blessing. The little mermaid dressed in silk and gold stood holding the bride's train, but her ears were deaf to the festal strains, her eyes saw nothing of the sacred ceremony; she was thinking of her coming death and of all that she had ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... did not suffer his desire of pleasing to vitiate his integrity. It was his established maxim, that a promise is never to be broken; nor was it without long reluctance that he once suffered himself to be drawn away from a festal engagement by ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... gondolas of the nobles, waiting before their palaces, had glided into position as the procession swept down toward the Piazza—each gondola showing the colors of its casa, each fluttering a silken streamer in honor of Cyprus, each bearing its freight of crimson-garbed Senators and ladies in festal array. ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... lighted up with festal splendor; in the midst of it, and in the centre of the stage a table richly set out, at which eight generals are sitting, among whom are OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI, TERZKY, and MARADAS. Right and left of this, but further back, two other tables, at each of which six persons are ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... does only on two or three occasions, he finds Shakespeare only a half man, and that it would take Plato and Manu and Moses and Jesus to complete him. Shakespeare, he says, rested with the symbol, with the festal beauty of the world, and did not take the final step, and explore the essence of things, and ask, "Whence? What? and Whither?" He was not wise for himself; he did not lead a beautiful, saintly life, but ate, and drank, and reveled, and affiliated with all manner of persons, and ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... Greek poetry and characteristic of the philological source whence it sprang, in which the poet more or less arbitrarily interwove the description of his own feelings, predominantly sensuous, with epic shreds from the cycle of Greek legend. Festal lays were diligently and artfully manufactured; in general, owing to the want of spontaneous poetical invention, the occasional poem preponderated and especially the epigram, of which the Alexandrians produced ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... has never been known even in this festal environment. The richest of the land vied with one another in making the affair a vast financial success. The ever gallant Tommy Dare left the scene twenty times for the mere privilege of paying his way in and out that many times over at ten dollars each way. The doll which Senator Defew ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs

... seemed to rattle as they heaved painfully under the gems clasped round it: and her face had not so much as the faintest tinge of hectic, but was utterly colourless—worse, it was wan, ghastly. A distressing sight to look upon, was she, as she stood there; she and the festal attire were so completely at variance. She came forward, before the servants ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... after, Hercules made prisoner a maiden named Iole, in Lydia, after gaining a great victory. Landing in the island of Euboea, he was going to make a great sacrifice to Jupiter, and sent home to Deianira for a festal garment to wear at it. She was afraid he was falling in love with Iole, and steeped the garment in the preparation she had made from Nessus's blood. No sooner did Hercules put it on, than his veins were filled with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... might symbolically be represented as having travelled—what silence! what solemn solitude! Open a door in advance that should do the same figurative office for the future—suddenly what a jubilation! what a tumult of festal greetings! ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... hopes that your highness had found recreation as well as glory in Belgium. During my sojourn at the court of Philip, I supported with patience the somewhat ceremonious gravity of the Escurial, in the belief that your highness was enjoying meanwhile those festal enlivenments, which none more fully understand ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... with them all, for the eye, however, a range too great for me to follow, since, as their professional undress was a turn-out positively self-consistent, so their household, or more responsibly public, or altogether festal, array played through the varied essentials of fluted coif and folded kerchief and sober skirt and tense, dark, displayed stocking and clicking wooden slipper, to say nothing of long gold ear-drop or solid short-hung pectoral cross, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... had progressed so far that the great golden crosses could be erected. Securely fastened with strong ropes they lay at the foot of the scaffolding ready to be drawn up into place, and standing about in a half circle were missioners, pupils, and workmen. The Apostolic Prefect, dressed in festal robes, and attended by the small acolytes, Willy Brown and the Chinese Joseph, had blessed the crosses. Then at a signal the workmen pulled the ropes and, as they rose on high, the clear, piping voices of the boys rang out ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman

... period, and not the less honoured that he condescended to no flattery and attuned his lyre to no sentiment but what would find an echo in every noble heart; he excelled in every department of lyric poetry, hymns to the gods, the praises of heroes, paeans of victory, choral songs, festal songs and dirges, but of these only a few remain, his Epinikia, a collection of triumphal odes in celebration of the successes achieved at the great national games of Greece; he was not only esteemed the greatest of lyric poets by his countrymen, but is without a ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... to the Queen of May On this our festal day! Gay flowers we'll bring, Sweet blossoms of spring, To crown ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... coffee-houses also have their own festal seasons. These coincide in general with the festivals of the church. But every quarter has its patron saint, the saint of the local church or of the local holy well, whose feast is celebrated by a three-day panayiri. The street is dressed with flags and ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... at him in some wonder, "here was the daintiest festal ever devised: delicate youths and exquisite maidens footing it to pipe and cymbal as blithely as if they would never ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... and a part of their due for the toils of the harvest, and complied with by their masters perhaps more through regards of interest than inclination; for should they refuse them the pleasures of this much-expected time, this festal night, the youth especially, of both sexes would decline serving them for the future, and employ their labors for others, who would promise them the rustic joys of the harvest-supper, mirth and music, dance and song. ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... at length one Sabbath morning—deep-voiced church-bells shook the air— While in festal garb the church-folk wandered to their house of prayer, Reached their ears a hollow thunder from the glaciers overhead, And huge blocks of ice came crashing downward to the river's bed, And in silence, Wrathful silence, Down the seething stream ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... in Christchurch, from which an enterprising baby might easily have escaped. I dare say as we get more civilized out there, we shall build ourselves handsome prisons and penitentiaries; but in those early days a story was current of a certain jailor who let all his captives out on some festal occasion, using the tremendous threat, that whoever had not returned by eight o'clock should ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... journey before, of three days by coach, or a week with our own horse. A few days' rest, and then six or eight hours more took us to New York, where we found the water fountains opened; the Croton had been brought in that summer. Did it not seem all very fit and festal to us? For we ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... liberal people, to promote Christian Union, held in Syracuse, she made an address. All denominations took part on the occasion and listened to her with respectful attention. In New York, woman's voice was first heard on the Nation's great festal day. In 1853, Mary Vaughan gave the fourth of July oration at Speedsville, Emily Clarke at Watkins, Amelia Bloomer at Hartford, and Antoinette Brown at South Butler. Everything on these occasions was conducted as usual: the grand procession to the grove, or town hall, the military escort, reading ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... came in from the outer darkness, white with snow, and shook their mantles and jerkins in the guard chamber within the entrance archway, after which their leaders repaired to the bathroom—for, in their way, the Norman warriors were luxurious—and afterwards, perfumed and anointed, donned the festal robes in which they hoped to dazzle the eyes of the fair, if such were to be found in the ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... emeralds, the green note of which was more dimly repeated, at other points of her apparel, in embroidery, in enamel, in satin, in substances and textures vaguely rich. Her head, extremely fair and exquisitely festal, was like a happy fancy, a notion of the antique, on an old precious medal, some silver coin of the Renaissance; while her slim lightness and brightness, her gaiety, her expression, her decision, contributed to an effect that might have been felt by a poet as half mythological and half conventional. ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... Raleigh himself. As Raleigh returned to sleep on board the 'War Sprite,' the town of Cadiz was all ablaze with lamps, tapers, and tar barrels, while there came faintly out to the ears of the English sailors a murmur of wild festal music. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... last days of January the Casino was in an uproar. A number of mechanics, painters, and florists were busy transforming the rooms and corridors, even the veranda, with its adjoining conservatory, into a suite of daintily decorated festal halls. Numerous booths and tents were being erected, and all other preparations were made worthily to receive Prince Carnival, whose coming was timed for ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... dead mother in the state chamber of Greifenstein, and frightened menials were trembling under the weight of the tall dead man whose snowy beard blew about in such fantastic waves before the draught of every opened door. As he went up the steps of the festal drinking-hall wherein the last students' feast of the year was to be celebrated, and over which he himself was to preside, three women were met together in distant Sigmundskron, repeating the service for the dead, before the smouldering embers ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... semicircular arcade of the main entrance are two reclining figures. On the right is Bacchus, with his grapes and wineskin,—a magnificently "pickled" Bacchus! On the left a woman is listening to the strains of festal music. (p. 32.) Each of the pedestals before the false windows at the ends of the arcade supports a figure of Flora with garlands of flowers. On the ground below the two Floras are two of the most delightful pieces of all the Exposition sculpture. One is a little Pan, pipes in hand, sitting on a ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... summit of our most exquisite enjoyments, and feel it a charm beyond all the gayety through which it keeps breathing its undertone. In the present case, it was worth a heavier sigh, to reflect that such a festal achievement,—the production of so much art, skill, fancy, invention, and perfect taste,—the growth of all the ages, which appeared to have been ripening for this hour, since man first began to eat and to moisten his food with wine,—must lavish its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... of the church. As you enter upon a season of special religious activity, you also enter upon a season which society is wont to devote largely to pleasure. Ere another communion season shall have come round, the season for evening entertainments and festal gatherings, will be at its height. From the nature of circumstances you will be called upon to participate in these more or less; and it is at these points that the temptation to conformity to the world will be most likely ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.

... Royalty honoured it; the greatest of the land were proud to count themselves among the guests; the retainers, messengers, and company of the two great houses were so numerous that in the west end of the town the streets wore indeed quite a festal air, with the passing to and fro of servants and gentlefolk with favours ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... have sustained no farther injury than has resulted from the insertion of a large brass chandelier into each of their abaci, each chandelier carrying a sublime wax candle two inches thick, fastened with wire to the wall above. The due arrangement of these appendages, previous to festal days, can only be effected from a ladder set against the angle of the abacus; and ten minutes before I wrote this sentence, I had the privilege of watching the candlelighter at his work, knocking his ladder about the heads ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... and comprehensive work contains a "liberal education" in the selection, cooking, and serving of food. It is for the novice and expert alike, and the many illustrations (including pictures of utensils, tables for every sort of meal, decorations for festal occasions, dishes ready for serving, etc.) are ...
— Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties - With Fifty Illustrations of Original Dishes • Janet McKenzie Hill

... the Conqueror of the Earth, With royal pomps and pageantries and rites of festal mirth Was set to celebrate the day—the white day—of ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland

... the lights of the candles in the chandeliers shone over the furniture, the hangings, and the flowers, the rooms wore the festal air that gives to Parisian luxury the appearance of a dream; and Lucien felt indefinable stirrings of hope and gratified vanity and pleasure at the thought that he was the master of the house. But how and by whom the magic wand had been waved he no longer sought to ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... him for the greater part of block, when, their progress bringing them in sight of Miss Amy Rennsdale's place of residence their attention was directed to a group of men bearing festal burdens—encased violins, a shrouded harp and other beckoning shapes. There were signs, too, that most of "those invited" intended to miss no moment of this party; guests already indoors watched from the windows the approach of the ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... play; Enkindle incense, shed the victim's gore; Heaven has watch'd o'er Numida, And brings him safe from far Hispania's shore. Now, returning, he bestows On each, dear comrade all the love he can; But to Lamia most he owes, By whose sweet side he grew from boy to man. Note we in our calendar This festal day with whitest mark from Crete: Let it flow, the old wine-jar, And ply to Salian time your restless feet. Damalis tosses off her wine, But Bassus sure must prove her match to-night. Give us roses all to twine, And parsley green, and lilies deathly white. Every melting eye will ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... is engaged, between the obligations of his royalty and his inclinations for pleasure, we have a vivid insight of the cogitation of the poet, whether to take a part in the hazardous activity which they were preparing, or to remain in the seclusion and festal repose of which he was then in possession. The Assyrian is as much Lord Byron as Childe Harold was, and bears his lineaments in as clear a likeness, as a voluptuary unsated could do those of the emaciated victim of satiety. Over the whole drama, and especially in some of the speeches of ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... this home shows us a festal scene. A dinner was given in honor of Jesus. It was only a few days before his death. Here, again, the sisters appear, each true to her own character. Martha is serving, as she always is; and again Mary is at Jesus' feet. This time she is showing her wonderful ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... noticing the Berlin Geographical Society, says, "It does not give prizes, nor publish a journal, but confines itself to its meetings, which, agreeably to the custom of the country, are concluded by a jovial banquet." Thus, we are not alone in our festal predilections, and were all meetings of our public societies terminated like those of the Fellows of Berlin, science would become more popular, and the lovers of good living be gainers. Still, we recommend the fellows to keep out of their after-dinner conversations, all such topics ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various

... heroine of the festal occasion in question, felt completely overpowered by the royal society in which she found herself, and when seated at the meal next to the King, was absolutely unable to articulate any reply at all to the observations he addressed ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... simple and tragical—of that order in which in society the most horrible incidents occur without a sound, without a gesture, amid phrases of conventionality and in a festal framework! Two of the spectators, at least, besides Julien, understood its importance-Ardea and Hafner. For neither the one nor the other had failed to notice the relations between Madame Steno and Maitland, much less her position with regard to ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... moment, and tried again: "Is it not pleasant, though sad, Mrs. Frump, to think of the friends whom we knew many, many years ago, who no longer live to greet us on this festal day?" The speaker alluded ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... the hall the crowd filled it to its furthest corners. Moreover no common man was present there, but rather every noble and head-priest in Egypt, and with them their wives and daughters, so that all the dim courts shone with gold and precious gems set upon festal garments. While I was waiting old Bakenkhonsu hobbled towards me, the crowd making way for him, and I could see that there was laughter ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... chosen guests of Odin Daily ply the trade of war; From the fields of festal fight Swift they ride in gleaming arms, And gaily, at the board of gods, Quaff the cup of sparkling ale And eat ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... their music moves no more Beneath light domes to tune the festal train, Nor at the moony eves along the shore To brim with fairy forms that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... Imperial Winter Palace at St. Petersburg. Of the influential personages, who, by reason of their official position or their personal relations to the ruling house, were summoned to advise and determine the destiny of the Tsar's Empire, scarcely one was absent. But it was no festal occasion that had called them here; for all faces wore an expression of deep seriousness, amounting in certain cases to one of grave anxiety. The conversation, carried on in undertones, was of ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... correspondents "don't do a thing to" the English language. One of them invariably refers to the social lights of his vicinity as "our prominent socialists," and describes some individual as "happening to an accident." To another, every festal occasion is "a bower of beauty and a scene of fairyland." Blue-penciling they resent, and one of them wrote to complain that a descriptive effort of his had been "much altered and deranged." The paper also publishes portraits of children and young women, and it is ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... salon were gathered many personages with whom the reader is familiar, all in festal attire—the Count of Monte-Cristo and his beloved wife Mercedes, their friends Maximilian and Valentine Morrel, Esperance, Mlle. Louise d' Armilly and M. and Madame Albert de Morcerf. Many noble relatives of the groom were also present, to say nothing of hosts ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg



Words linked to "Festal" :   joyous, gay, festive, merry



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