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Symmetry   Listen
noun
Symmetry  n.  
1.
A due proportion of the several parts of a body to each other; adaptation of the form or dimensions of the several parts of a thing to each other; the union and conformity of the members of a work to the whole.
2.
(Biol.) The law of likeness; similarity of structure; regularity in form and arrangement; orderly and similar distribution of parts, such that an animal may be divided into parts which are structurally symmetrical. Note: Bilateral symmetry, or two-sidedness, in vertebrates, etc., is that in which the body can be divided into symmetrical halves by a vertical plane passing through the middle; radial symmetry, as in echinoderms, is that in which the individual parts are arranged symmetrically around a central axis; serial symmetry, or zonal symmetry, as in earthworms, is that in which the segments or metameres of the body are disposed in a zonal manner one after the other in a longitudinal axis. This last is sometimes called metamerism.
3.
(Bot.)
(a)
Equality in the number of parts of the successive circles in a flower.
(b)
Likeness in the form and size of floral organs of the same kind; regularity.
Axis of symmetry. (Geom.) See under Axis.
Respective symmetry, that disposition of parts in which only the opposite sides are equal to each other.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Symmetry" Quotes from Famous Books



... the north-west coast of Timor. A Portuguese naval officer boarded us in the outer roads, and piloted us through a narrow channel to the inner roads. It is a wretched-looking place; and the houses, small, dirty, and ruinous, were scattered without any order or symmetry in all directions. Van Graoul, who could speak Portuguese, landed with me, as I wished to pay my respects to the Governor. On each side of the town were two half-ruinous forts, on which were mounted some old iron guns of small calibre. ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... thrust forward to meet some obstacle, matched them in color; his thick curly hair was deep black, and his face looked as if tanned by the hot sun of some foreign land. Beside him Cain seemed almost small, although he was well above medium height. The symmetry of his whole form was very striking. He had a free, powerful gait. But his beardless face seemed, by contrast with the brown tint of his father's, almost like the face of a tender, lovely woman. He was neatly dressed in some light color, and since, like Fausch, he wore no hat, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... refreshing to turn from the thought of so much dead industry, as these multitudes of unread books will represent, to the inspiration of the buildings. They are the very epitome of Oxford. The classic symmetry of Gibbs' dome looks across at the soaring spire of the mediaeval University Church, while the Bodleian is one of the best examples of the Jacobean Gothic, which still held its own in Oxford when the classical style was triumphing elsewhere. Such contrasts are ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells

... anyone, if for instance, it exists not in real life but in a novel. Thus the adjective Beautiful implies an attitude of preference, but not an attitude of present or future turning to our purposes. There is even a significant lack of symmetry in the words employed (at all events in English, French and German) to distinguish what we like from what we dislike in the way of weather. For weather which makes us uncomfortable and hampers our comings and goings by rain, wind or mud, is described as bad; while ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee

... of it," she acknowledges, with a sort of complacency, "has always been my weak point." Thus whilst in many of her compositions, especially the shorter novels, the construction leaves little to be desired, Consuelo is only one among many instances in which all ordinary rules of symmetry and proportion are set at naught. Sometimes the leading idea assumed naturally and easily a perfect form; if simple, as in Andre and her pastorals, it usually did so; but if complex, she troubled herself little over the task of symmetrical arrangement. M. Maxime Du Camp ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of Providence, are handed down to us, and from us, in the same course and order. Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts,—wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... without character, and the acorns huge, straight, blunt, and unsightly. Round the southern door of the Florentine duomo runs a border of fig-leaves, each leaf modulated as if dew had just dried from off it—yet each alike, so as to secure the ordered symmetry of classical enrichment. But the Gothic fullness of thought is not therefore left without expression; at the edge of each leaf is an animal, first a cicala, then a lizard, then a bird, moth, serpent, snail—all different, and each wrought ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... chemically from the more commonly occurring gypsum in containing no water of crystallization, being anhydrous calcium sulphate, CaSO{4}. It crystallizes in the orthorhombic system, and has three directions of perfect cleavage parallel to the three planes of symmetry. It is not isomorphous with the orthorhombic barium and strontium sulphates, as might be expected from the chemical formulae. Distinctly developed crystals are somewhat rare, the mineral usually presenting ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... owner loved them. There was not a dead tree in the larch copse which dipped to the stream, and all its feathery tassels were sprinkled with tiny flecks of crimson and wondrous green. Great oaks dotted the meadows, each one perfect in symmetry. It seemed that the men who held this land cared for single trees. The sleek, tame cattle that rubbed their necks on the level hedge-top and gazed at him ruminatively were very different from the wild, long-horned ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... mind of a child, but they also show a perception of the most subtile feminine traits and a sympathy with the most delicate feminine tastes, seldom seen in our sex, and which exhibits the breadth and symmetry of Jefferson's organization. One of the most characteristic of these letters is in the possession of the Queen of England, to whom it was sent by his family, in answer to a request ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... barely fifteen hands, but he had the girth of a metropolitan dray-horse, his head was small in comparison with his immense neck, which curved down nobly to his wide back. His chest was broad and fine, and his shoulders models of symmetry and strength; he stood well and powerfully upon his legs, which were somewhat short. In a word, he was a gallant specimen of the genuine Irish cob, a species at one time not uncommon, but at the present ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... just as she wished. Well-frocked, looking her best, a woman is a dangerous animal; but throw her in contact with another of her sex who is but poorly clad, socially beneath her, and in training her inferior, and you may behold all the grace, all the symmetry of the cobra as it unwinds its beautiful, sinuous body before the ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... out of the purest Parian marble, just flushed with the glow of morn, and cut in those perfect lines of proportion which nature only bestows on a few chosen favorites at intervals to show the possibilities of feminine beauty, Amelie de Repentigny added a figure which, in its perfect symmetry, looked smaller than it really was, for she was a tall girl: it filled the eye and held fast the fancy with the charms of a thousand graces as she moved or stood, suggestive of the beauty of a tame fawn, that in all its movements preserves somewhat of the coyness and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... the neighbouring hills are ruins of towers, and as we proceeded down the valley for about three quarters of an hour, I saw many small grottos in the rocks on both sides, hewn in the rudest manner, and without any regularity or symmetry; the greater part seemed to have been originally formed by nature, and afterwards widened by human labour. Some of the largest which were near the ruined city had, perhaps, once served as habitations, the others were evidently sepulchres; but ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... not that the zoological school grows too fast, but that the others do not grow fast enough? This sounds invidious and perhaps somewhat boastful; but it is you and not I who have instituted the comparison. It strikes me you have not hit upon the best remedy for this want of balance. If symmetry is to be obtained by cutting down the most vigorous growth, it seems to me it would be better to have a little irregularity here and there. In stimulating, by every means in my power, the growth of the Museum and the means of education connected with it, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... Britain,—"that and nothing more"; the doings of Inigo Jones in his water-gates and arches, with two or three orders intermixed; and the late achievements of Mr. Nash along Regent Street,—with the church spire, which has the attractiveness and symmetry of an exaggerated marlin-spike, for a vanishing point,—are of themselves enough to show that the people here have no taste, and no feeling for this department of the Fine Arts, however much they may ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... as implicated in symmetry, but there are distinctly two kinds of beauty: the symmetrical and the unsymmetrical, the beauty of the temple and the beauty of the tree. Life is not more symmetrical than a tree, and the effort of art to give it balance and proportion is to make it as false in effect ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... sunshine and cloud, had served to mould the form of Ella Barnwell into one of peculiar beauty and grace. In height she was a little above five feet, had a full round bust, and limbs of that beautiful and airy symmetry, which ever give to their possessor an appearance of etherial lightness. Her complexion was sufficiently dark to entitle her to the appellation of brunette; though by many it would have been thought too light, perhaps, owing to the soft, rich transparency of her ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... to complete the dismal picture and to bring out the full symmetry between the end of Nicholas' reign and its ominous beginning: a medieval ritual murder trial after the pattern of the Velizh case. And a trial of this nature did not fail to come. In December, 1852, and in January, 1853, two Russian boys from among the lower classes disappeared in the city ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... did when he arrived at his palace was to conduct the princes into the principal apartments, who praised without affectation the beauty and symmetry of the rooms, and the richness of the furniture and ornaments. Afterward a magnificent repast was served up, and the emperor made them sit with him, which they at first refused; but finding it was his pleasure, ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... the tea-pot and the jar of honey, which Marthe had had for breakfast, on the tray; and, with her mania for tidying, obeying some mysterious principle of symmetry, settled her daughter-in-law's things and any piece of furniture in the room that had been moved from its place. This done, with her hands hanging before her, she looked round for an excuse to discontinue this irksome activity. Then, discovering ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... of dress, his prejudices subside, and he has no hesitation in pronouncing it very proper and graceful. They are remarkably fine limbed, and well built, the females especially, who are really models of the most complete symmetry; their hair and eyes, which unlike their skins, seldom vary from the original jet black of their native parents, bestow upon them the primary characteristics of the brunette. This people, unlike the generality of mixed ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... cottages, showing a great variety of beautiful designs, cosey, vine-clad and picturesque, environed by gardens and lawns, have been added to the architectural display of the village. Order, symmetry and cleanliness, have become the established law ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... trees, and bridges and rivers, which they call landscapes, and little figures here and there; and all this, although it may appear good to some eyes, is in truth done without reasonableness or art, without symmetry or proportion, without care in selecting or rejecting, and finally, without any substance or verve; and in spite of all this, painting in some other parts is worse than it is in Flanders. Neither do I speak ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various

... interesting, and he will be quite willing to show it to any one desirous of inspecting the same. Many persons have paid a visit to the spot where the discoveries have been made, and surprise is invariably expressed at the magnitude and beautiful symmetry of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... this head, when Roderic approached. While he was yet at a distance, he appeared graceful and gay, as the messenger of the God that grasps the lightning in his hand. His stature was above the common size. His limbs were formed with perfect symmetry; the fall of his shoulders was graceful, and the whole contour of his body was regular and pleasing. Such was the general effect of his shape, that though his advance was hesitating and respectful, it was impossible to contemplate his person ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... but erect and strong and stately; every muscle fresh and alive, from the crown of the steady head, to the sole of the emancipated foot,—and yet not heavy and clumsy, as one fancies barefooted women must be, but inheriting symmetry and grace from the Portuguese or Moorish blood. I have looked through the crowded halls of Saratoga in vain for one such figure as I have again and again seen descending those steep mountain-paths with a bundle of firewood on the head, or ascending ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... their forefathers. There are quaint and ingenious devices for fastening the necklaces, and part of the charm of the primitive handiwork is its individual character, shown in a certain roughness and want of rigid symmetry. ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... column has an arch above and an arch below, forming a double internal cavity. The parts are symmetrically arranged on either side of the longitudinal axis of the body. In the Mollusks, also, the parts are arranged according to a bilateral symmetry on either side of the body, but the body has but one cavity, and is a soft, concentrated mass, without a distinct individualization of parts. In the Articulates there is but one cavity, and the parts are here again arranged on either side of the longitudinal axis, but in these animals ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... and unmutilated condition as possible; that the grave should have its full and unimpaired tribute,—a complete and just carcass. Nor is he only careful to provide for the body's entireness, but for its accommodation and ornament. He orders the fashion of its clothes, and designs the symmetry of its dwelling. Its vanity has an innocent survival in him. He is bedmaker to the dead. The pillows which he lays never rumple. The day of interment is the theatre in which he displays the mysteries of his art. It is hard to describe what he is, or rather to tell what he is not, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... to Ananta, my friend and I were soon before the glory of Agra, the Taj Mahal. White marble dazzling in the sun, it stands a vision of pure symmetry. The perfect setting is dark cypress, glossy lawn, and tranquil lagoon. The interior is exquisite with lacelike carvings inlaid with semiprecious stones. Delicate wreaths and scrolls emerge intricately from marbles, brown and violet. Illumination from the ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... whole spirit of the mistress of these rooms pervaded the drawing-room where Augustine awaited her. She tried to divine her rival's character from the aspect of the scattered objects; but there was here something as impenetrable in the disorder as in the symmetry, and to the simple-minded young wife all was a sealed letter. All that she could discern was that, as a woman, the Duchess was a superior person. Then a ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac

... view—from the north, for instance, or from the network of narrow streets to the south. It may be contended that the central tower is not quite lofty enough compared with the two western towers for perfect symmetry of outline; that, seen from certain aspects, it is rather square and box-like in appearance; that from no point of view are the western towers satisfactory. But the minster produces its great effect by its enormous bulk and dignity, its ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock

... verbal description can never convey a true notion of personal charms; and personal charms Fanny had, decidedly; not that she was strictly beautiful, but, at times, nevertheless, eclipsing beauty far more regular, and throwing symmetry into the shade, by some charm which even they whom it ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... One could never quite be angry at this fellow nor in tune with him. Leidesdorff, with his cherubic grin, his plump, comfortable body, the close-cropped hair, side whiskers and moustache, framing and embellishing his round face with an ornate symmetry, was like a bearded cupid. Hull handed him the latest dispatch. "Nothing since then, confound it!" ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... organist Fourcade playing upon it the Marseillaise. The case, the pulpit, and the lovely screen of the sanctuary are of walnut wood from the forest of Ste. Baume. Few parts of any church present such an admirable combination of beauty, elegance, and symmetry as this sanctuary, by a Flemish monk, Frre Louis, in 1692. Round the screen are 20 sculptured panels, each bearing within a wreath a representation in relief of one of the incidents in the life of some celebrated ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... she did so was full of quiet, stately grace, and the admiring glance with which Hermon, a tall, black-bearded young man, watched it, showed that he knew how to value the exquisite symmetry of her figure. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... years old acquired such powers of contortion that he was fit to rank as an infant phenomenon. But the usual result followed: the little limbs became deformed, and had to be put in irons, by means of which they regained that symmetry with which nature had at first endowed them. Three years afterwards, in March, 1794, John Kemble was acting Macbeth at Drury Lane; and, in the "cauldron scene," he engaged some children to personate the supernatural beings summoned by the witches from that weird vessel. Little Edmund with his irons ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving

... handbook of the principles of arrangement, with brief comment on the periods of design which have most influenced printing. Treats of harmony, balance, proportion, and rhythm; motion; symmetry and variety; ornament, esthetic and symbolic. 37 illustrations; 46 ...
— Word Study and English Grammar - A Primer of Information about Words, Their Relations and Their Uses • Frederick W. Hamilton

... social aspect of thought colours the poetry, the romance, the literature, the art, and the philosophy of the Victorian Age. Literature has been the gainer thereby in originality and in force. It has been the loser in symmetry, in ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... skin was dark, but never sallow; her colour was not bright, but always clear and transparent; her hair curled naturally round her head, and the heavy curls fell upon her neck and shoulders; she was rather under the middle height, but the symmetry of her figure was so perfect, that no one would have called her too short. She had high animal spirits, and was always happy and good humoured; was very fond of amusement of every kind, and able to ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... Defoe is before its time by a hundred years; nothing can be found in the realm of the English prose short-story to approach it in symmetry until the Ettrick Shepherd commenced ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... remarkable for his great strength, discipline, and courage. 7. This gigantic man, we are told, was eight feet and a half high; he had strength corresponding to his size, being not more remarkable for the magnitude than the symmetry of his person. His wife's bracelet usually served him for a thumb ring, and his strength was so great that he was able to draw a carriage which two oxen could not move. He could strike out the teeth of a horse with a blow of his fist, and break its thigh with a kick. 8. His diet was ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... France; and the poor devastated North looks on half enviously, inclined to think that "Paris forgets us!"—in the joy of the lost ones found. But Paris knows very well that there are difficulties ahead, and that the French love of symmetry and logic will have to make substantial concessions here and there to the local situation. There are a number of institutions, for instance, which have grown up and covered the country since 1871, which cannot be easily fitted to the ordinary ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... watercourse, and sneaking under the shadowing border of a belt of jungle, is to understand his cunning and craftiness. His attitude, when he is crouching for the final bound, is the embodiment of suppleness and strength. All his actions are graceful, and half display and half conceal beneath their symmetry and elegance the tremendous power and deadly ferocity that lurks beneath. For a short distance he is possessed of great speed, and with a few short agile bounds he generally manages to overtake his prey. If baffled in his first attack, he retires growling to lie in wait for ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... usual, and in a lower tone. To those who had seen her before the fatal visit of the stranger from Mannheim, it was the wreck of the woman that now appeared instead of the woman herself. And yet there was the old charm still surviving through it all; the grandeur of the head and eyes, the delicate symmetry of the features, the unsought grace of every movement—in a word, the unconquerable beauty which suffering cannot destroy, and which time itself is powerless to wear out. Lady Janet advanced, and took her with hearty ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... uncapped in a cart by his side, who should I see approach, in a phaeton and pair, but Hector Mowbray? And by his side—! Yes!—Olivia! The beauteous Olivia! no longer a child, but tall, straight, perfectly formed; every limb in the most captivating symmetry, every feature in the full bloom of youth; intelligence in every look, grace in every motion, sweetness in every smile! Attracted by curiosity, her brother arrested his course, drew up, and placed the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... after that attachment to the silver-skinned of creation, the fair, the rapturous; even to them! So by this see ye not Boolp will yearn in his soul for another spouse? Now, O ye well-matched pair! what a chance were this, knew ye but a damsel of the mountains, exquisite in symmetry, a moon to enrapture the imagination of Boolp, and in the nature of things herit his possessions! for Boolp is an old ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... teased, and kissed. Both physically and mentally, she was very fine-wrought. Her bones were small; her body and limbs were slender, but beautifully fashioned. She was supple and vigorous. Grace is a product of brain as well as an effect of bodily symmetry: Grace had the quality on both counts. She answered to one's conception of Mahomet's houris, assuming that the conception is not of a fat person. Her head was small, but well proportioned,—compact as to the forehead, ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne

... covered with copses of oak saplings, ashes and other trees, as green and straight as might be. Besides which, the plain, which was shut in on all sides save that on which the ladies had entered, was full of firs, cypresses, and bay-trees, with here and there a pine, in order and symmetry so meet and excellent as had they been planted by an artist, the best that might be found in that kind; wherethrough, even when the sun was in the zenith, scarce a ray of light might reach the ground, which was all one lawn of the finest turf, pranked with the hyacinth and divers other ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... of quantity or degree.] Equality — N. equality, parity, coextension^, symmetry, balance, poise; evenness, monotony, level. equivalence; equipollence^, equipoise, equilibrium, equiponderance^; par, quits, a wash; not a pin to choose; distinction without a difference, six of one and half a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... looked at it. It was small compared with the great machine that had just brought them east, but of the same swift type. It was a thing of graceful beauty even on the ground, its long curving streamlines giving it wonderful symmetry. They stood in thoughtful silence for a minute—the young men eager to hear the verdict of their prospective backer. Morey, always rather slow of speech, took an unusually long time ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... the uncertain hand she held out, and looked at her. The slim Rilla of four years ago had rounded out into symmetry. He had left a school girl, and he found a woman—a woman with wonderful eyes and a dented lip, and rose-bloom cheek—a woman altogether beautiful and ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... suppose that even the wild cats of the country would find it impossible to make their way. Above this impassable jungle rises here and there the palm, or the gigantic ceyba or cotton-tree, but more often trees of far less beauty, thinly scattered and with few branches, disposed without symmetry, and at ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... paved court are bronze torch-holders as high as turrets. Here, too, stand, and have stood for centuries, cyca palms with fresh, green plumes, their numerous stalks curving with a heavy symmetry, like the branches of massive candelabra. The temple, which is open along its entire length, is dark and mysterious, with touches of gilding in distant corners melting away into the gloom. In the very remotest part are seated idols, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti

... here) are trained to active labor from childhood; and what traveller has not seen, on foreign mountain-paths, long rows of maidens ascending and descending the difficult ways, bearing heavy burdens on their heads, and winning by the exercise such a superb symmetry and grace of figure as were a new wonder of the world to Cisatlantic eyes? Among the higher classes, physical exercises take the place of these things. Miss Beecher glowingly describes a Russian female seminary in which nine hundred girls of the noblest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... a party of English to see the Coliseum, but the moon was as English as the party, and gave a faint and feeble light. Still, with this dim moon it was inconceivably grand. The exquisite symmetry of the building appears better, and its vast dimensions are more developed by night. I long to see it with an Italian sky and full moon; but not with a parcel of chattering girls, who only ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... is a harmonious line! Colour does not uplift me so much as outline, proportion, symmetry and all the wonderful properties of form. Look at this little statue. Pancaldi's right: it's the work of a great artist. The legs are both slender and muscular; the whole figure gives an impression ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... many of their traditions connected with their new home which extended back far beyond the conquest of Mexico, it is thought by historians that this tradition alludes to some other war in which they took part against their oppressors. They were remarkable for their size and symmetry of form of their men; but like all the race, they made slaves of their women, imposing every burden from the cultivation of their fields to the duties of the household—the carrying of heavy burdens and the securing of fuel for winter. These labors served to disfigure and make ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... man about thirty-six years of age. His figure, though broadly developed, was not wanting in symmetry. Like most men who distinguish themselves above their fellows, he was of medium height; his chest and shoulders were broad, and his neck short,—a characteristic of those whose hearts are near their heads; his hair was black, thick, and fine; his ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... themselves; all had straight-set eyes, with no hint of the slant often found among the Indians of the Amazon headwaters; and the cheek bones of all were fairly low. Their average stature was a little under six feet, and most of them had an athletic symmetry of physique. Their feet, McKay ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... slightly suggestive of incipient insanity. Her figure, clothed in a picturesque, if somewhat theatrical, adaptation of the costume of her comrades, was somewhat slight, but eminently graceful, while her hands and feet would have delighted a sculptor with their symmetry. Her voice was especially beautiful, being a full, rich, ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... besides their chief, who was in the advance, crossed the threshold, and, without uttering a word, either of anger or salutation, squatted themselves upon the floor. They were stout, athletic warriors, the perfect symmetry of whose persons could not be concealed even by the hideous war-paint with which they were thickly streaked—inspiring anything but confidence in the honesty or friendliness of their intentions. The head of each was shaved and painted as well as his person, and only ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson

... is badly ordered for humanity is a self-evident truth of which the observant scarcely need reminding. It is equally obvious, from the exquisite order and symmetry of animal and vegetable life, that Providence is not to blame for the colossal mess into which civilization has managed to lead ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst

... than the model, let it be agreed beforehand that you pay me nothing." When they heard this, the noblemen made a great stir, crying out that I was promising too much. Among them was an eminent philosopher, who spoke out in my favour: "From the fine physiognomy and bodily symmetry which I observed in this young man, I predict that he will accomplish what he says, and think that he will even go beyond it." The Pope put in: "And this is my opinion also." Then he called his chamberlain, Messer Traiano, and ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... with German problems it is fair to give examples where her methods have been wholly and entirely successful. The man who does not know one tree or shrub from another cannot travel in trains, motor-cars, or afoot without remarking the neatness, symmetry, and the flourishing condition of the forests. In these matters Germany so far surpasses us that we may be said to be merely in a kindergarten stage of development. As early as 1783 a German traveller, Johann David Schoepf, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... placed on a great soul when to that soul is given a fit dwelling-place; alike in that noble carriage and commanding dignity, exercising a mesmeric influence and a hidden power which could not be repressed, upon all who came within its charm; alike in the remarkable combination and symmetry of their intellectual attributes, all brought up to the same equal level, no faculty of the mind overlapping any other—all so equal, so well developed, the judgment, the reason, the memory, the fancy, that you are almost disposed to deny them greatness, ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... the palace is the Banqueting-House of Inigo Jones, from which Charles I. passed to execution. Built in the dawn of the style of Wren, it is one of the most grandiose examples of that style, and is perfect alike in symmetry and proportion. That it has no entrance apparent at first sight is due to the fact that it was only intended as a portion of a larger building. In the same way we must remember that the appearance of two stories externally, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... hope in their Maker. No, there is no building on nothing. Every lie has a substratum of truth. In fact, look closer, and is not a lie only a distorted truth?—a truth torn from its connections, its features twisted out of all symmetry, its outlines ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... like a spark of fire burning upon her white bosom. Her dress of white tissue was looped up to enable her to walk with more freedom. She was accompanied by two female attendants, and about her sported a little hound decorated with bells, probably the small Italian hound of exquisite symmetry which was a parlor favorite and pet among the fashionable dames of ancient times. James closes his description by a ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... lang or ye fill that chair, Cossie, my man!" she said at length,—but not with the smile of play, rather with the look of admonition, as if it was the boy's first duty to grow in breadth in order to fill the chair, and restore the symmetry of the world. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... that perhaps this aspect of the rhythm might be rendered plainer if I calculated the data into two-day averages; and the result, as shown in Chart 10, is extremely satisfactory. Here we can at once perceive the wonderful and almost geometric symmetry of the monthly rhythm; indeed, if the third maximum were one unit higher, if the first minimum were one unit lower, and if the lines joining the second minimum and third maximum, and the fourth maximum and fourth minimum, were straight instead of being ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... rectangles are preferred to others, and that the popular choice falls upon what the art theorists have long known as the "golden section", a rectangle with a width about sixty-two per cent, of its length. Also, however much you may like symmetry, you would scarcely suppose that it could make much difference where, on a horizontal line, a little cross line should be erected; and yet nearly every one, on being tested, will agree that the middle is the best point. These are merely a ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... darts for the egg, and pierces it; personal history begins. But what mysterious shaping force is it that repeats in the individual the history of the race, supervises the orderly division of the cells, by degrees directs the symmetry, sets aside the skeleton and digestive ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... its primitive integrity was called in question; nor is it injustice to assert, that the minute and analytical spirit of a grammarian is not the best qualification for the profound feeling, the comprehensive conception of an harmonious whole. The most exquisite anatomist may be no judge of the symmetry of the human frame; and we would take the opinion of Chantrey or Westmacott on the proportions and general beauty of a form, rather than that of Mr. Brodie ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... with parts answerable to each other; they transferred these ideas to their gardens; they turned their trees into pillars, pyramids, and obelisks; they formed their hedges into so many green walls, and fashioned their walks into squares, triangles, and other mathematical figures, with exactness and symmetry; and they thought, if they were not imitating, they were at least improving nature, and teaching her to know her business. But nature has at last escaped from their discipline and their fetters; and our gardens, if nothing ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... mirror, perceived that an agitated hand had disturbed the symmetry of his sleek black hair, brushed without a parting away from the forehead over his head. Hastily he smoothed ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... Gadara—not so very far removed from Jesus in space of time—has a good deal to say about flowers, but not at all in the same sense as Jesus, not with any feeling such as his for the immortal hand and eye that planned their symmetry, and their colours and sweetness. St. Paul is conspicuously a man of the town—"a citizen of no mean city" (Acts 21:39), and he dismisses the animals abruptly (1 Cor. 9:9); he has hardly an allusion to the familiar and homely aspects of Nature, so frequent and so pleasant ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover

... tall and slight, youthfully undeveloped, yet with the grace of personal symmetry, high breeding, and military training, upright without stiffness, with a command and dexterity of movement which prevented the sword and spurs from being the annoyance to his pew-mates that country awkwardness ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... darlings. His eyes were long, brown in colour, and were made beautiful by the perfect arch of the perfect eyebrow. But perhaps the glory of the face was due more to the finished moulding and fine symmetry of the nose and mouth than to his other features. On his short upper lip he had a moustache as well formed as his eyebrows, but he wore no other beard. The form of his chin too was perfect, but it lacked that sweetness and softness of expression, indicative of softness of heart, which ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... long uninhabited ruins of this older group of abodes, we will pass through the Christian village, which has thus sprung up at Hopedale as at all the other stations. It consists of irregular groups of little log houses, planted with little attempt at symmetry. Their Eskimo owners have no idea of a street. Perhaps some day the conception may occur to them as they read in their Bibles of "the street which was called straight." Nor do they need any words in ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe

... the expense of gilding the existing temple, which cost more than twelve thousand talents. Its columns are of Pentelic marble, exquisitely proportioned, which I myself saw at Athens; but at Rome they were again cut and polished, by which process they did not gain so much in gloss as they lost in symmetry, for they now appear too slender. However, if any one who wonders at the expense of the temple in the Capitol were to see the splendour of any one portico, hall, or chamber in the house of Domitian, he would certainly be led ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... give 10-1/2 inches for head and neck, 25 for trunk, and 31-1/2 for fork, what should another give, of 6 feet, or any other height? The approximation of a man's actual measurement to this rule of three determines his pretensions in the way of symmetry; and the inventor of the shibboleth has found it so far to answer, that a figure coming near the rule invariably pleases the eye, and gives the assurance of a handsome man. Independently of this advantage, a man of such proportions has great strength, and is able to withstand the fatigue of violent ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various

... speech of compliment and an ample gift. The two Iroquois were present, seated with a seeming imperturbability, but great anxiety of heart; and when at length they comprehended that their lives were safe, one of them, a man of great size and symmetry, rose and addressed Montmagny:— ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... of this American town—and there were thousands like it—its architectural squalor, its animal unconsciousness, shocked her after four years in lands where colour, symmetry and good taste are indigenous and beauty ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... immersed, which aim at making every citizen a full member of his nation. Like all ideals it was far easier to conceive and to respect than to foresee or to secure the necessary means to put it into effect. Perhaps the perfect symmetry of the plan, the over-sanguine hopes of the man who framed it, have even proved some hindrance to its rapid spread. It has seemed, like Dante's polity in the De Monarchia, to take its place rather among the utopias than the practical schemes of reform, and when men saw the infinite ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... may be virtuous and cold, but she is not blind, and Nature has not been so unkind to me that the sight of me should inspire her with horror. I can at least hope to produce the same happy effect as a fine statue or picture, which attracts and charms the eye by its symmetry, or its beautiful and harmonious colouring. Then, kneeling at her feet, I can softly whisper some of those persuasive words that no woman can listen to unmoved—accompanied by such passionately ardent ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... features of the whole presentation of the Tropes, especially as given by Sextus, is their mosaic character, stamping them not as the work of one person, but as a growth, and also an agglutinous growth, lacking very decidedly the symmetry of thought that the work of one ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick

... reading of the Statutes at large! Might there be with advantage (or not) some subdivision into sections, with headings, etc? Also, here and there, some condensation of the excerpts given—condensation into narrative where too longwinded? Item, for symmetry's sake (were there nothing else) is not some outline of spiritual England a little to be expected? Or will that come piece-meal as we proceed? Hint, then, somewhere to that effect? Also remember a little that there was an Europe ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... ingenious and beautiful finale in the whole literature of opera. Fast upon each other follow no fewer than eight independent pieces of music, each a perfect delineation of the quickly changing moods and situations of the comedy, yet each built up on the lines of musical symmetry, and developing a musical theme which, though it passes from mouth to mouth, appears each time to belong peculiarly to the person uttering it. The Countess throws herself upon the mercy of the Count, ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... in form that they were puzzling. About fifty feet across and ten in altitude, they looked artificial in their symmetry—like great saucers set on the ocean floor bottom side up. They took on a dirty black hue as our light struck them, and glowed with a faint phosphorescence as they stretched away into ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... which he set out, are grown up to be large trees. When leaved out, they have the most beautiful tops, with the most perfect symmetry that could be imagined. They make splendid shade for the road. In summer weather, when the rays of the sun were very hot, thousands have enjoyed walking under their protecting boughs. The poor horses and cattle that travel that road alike enjoy the benefit of ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin

... and yellow moon Shone dimly through her form— 80 That form of faultless symmetry; The pearly and pellucid car Moved not the moonlight's line: 'Twas not an earthly pageant: Those who had looked upon the sight, 85 Passing all human glory, Saw not the yellow moon, Saw not the mortal scene, Heard not ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... of children's maid in the family. She was of decided piety, and never known to be absent from morning and evening worship; it seems, besides, that she is young, comely, and very agreeable, indeed, to the mere, secular eye her symmetry had been remarkable, but indeed female graces are seldom long lived; she is not now, it seems, in the respectable gentleman's family alluded to, and her friends are anxious to see her, but cannot. So the idle story goes, but we hesitate not to say that it originates ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... which once adorned it. Its rickety wooden pews are blackened with extreme old age, and covered with curiously-cut patterns and cyphers. The place is so dark that it is difficult to read the inscriptions on many of the mouldering monuments, fixed together without order or symmetry on the walls. Outside are some Saxon arches, oddly built of black slate-stone; and the window-mouldings are ornamented with rough carving, which at once proclaims its own antiquity. But it is in the tower that the interest attached to the church chiefly centres. Square, thick, and of no extraordinary ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... or dray as those of the eighteenth century. We can not point anywhere to horses produced by breeding that are the equals of the horses of the days of chivalry. They lack not only in vigor and hardihood, but in intelligence. As the perfect symmetry of development by the course of nature has been destroyed by man the intelligence of the animal lessened. Whenever the hand of man has touched his equine friend it has ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... appeared to be about thirty. His countenance bore a look of boldness and dissipation, but was not without a symmetry of feature and the fine lines drawn by a taste and indulgence in humor that gave the redeeming touch. There was an odor of ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... last, but in some sort first, since it has been taken for the imperial insignia, comes the chrysanthemum. The symmetry of its shape well fits it to symbolize the completeness of perfection which the Mikado, the son of heaven, mundanely represents. It typifies, too, the fullness of the year; for it marks, as it were, the golden wedding of the spring, ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... mesoderm." In consequence of these considerable variations arising in the course of the gastrulation, the primitive uni-axial form of the archigastrula in the amphioxus has already become tri-axial, and thus the two-sidedness, or bilateral symmetry, of the vertebrate body has already been determined. This has been transmitted from the amphioxus to all the other modified ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel

... stained the long flanks. The horse had been running. His mane and tail were laced and knotted to keep their length out of reach of grasping cactus and brush. Clumsy home-made leather shields covered the front of his forelegs and ran up well to his wide breast. What otherwise would have been muscular symmetry of limb was marred by many a scar and many a lump. He was lean, gaunt, worn, a huge machine of muscle and bone, beautiful only in head and mane, a weight-carrier, a horse strong and fierce like the desert ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... opened for the Carnival balls and other festivals sanctioned by religion. It is a square edifice, with light Gothic towers at the corners, displaying little ornamental sculpture, but nevertheless a taste and symmetry, in all its details, which are very rare in Spanish architecture. The interior is a single vast hall, with a groined roof, resting on six pillars of exquisite beauty. They are sixty feet high, and fluted spirally from top to bottom, like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... found at his bedside Lygia—Lygia, whom he had most injured, watching alone, while the others had gone to rest. Gradually in his pagan head the idea began to hatch with difficulty that at the side of naked beauty, confident and proud of Greek and Roman symmetry, there is another in the world, new, immensely pure, in which a soul resides. As the days went by, Vinicius was thrilled to the very depths of his soul by the consciousness that Lygia was learning to love him. With that revelation ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... still habited in the primitive night-jacket which had displayed the symmetry of her figure on the previous night, and further ornamented with a beaver bonnet of some antiquity, which she wore, with much ease and lightness, on the top ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... to throw them; that the table itself had become so glossy that things slipped about or fell off whenever he moved them; and that no matter where he left his pipes, he always found them ranged with exact symmetry on the mantel-shelf. (If he could have known the affectionate terror with which those delicate white old fingers touched the brown, fragrant, masculine things! There were four of the pipes, Zuleika, Haidee, Nourmahal, and Scheherezade; the fellows used to ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards

... points will be strong in build, and at the same time light and active; they will have symmetry at once and pace; a bright, beaming expression; ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon

... the number twenty appeared to him to have properties no other number had possessed, especially in the reappearance of the zero, a figure which peculiarly attracted him by its symmetry. His despair was ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson

... one that attains great proportions and beautiful symmetry is yonder giant oak or elm that grows in the open. It needs room to breathe and grow. It grows better if it is segregated from the crowded forest. The giant tree is not the one that grows in ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter

... vested in the person holding the prebend, and the parish, with the neighbouring dependent parish of Knighton, is exempted from the jurisdiction of the Arch-deacon of Leicester. The inside of the church is handsome; the nave and side aisles are supported by gothic arches, whose beauty and symmetry are not concealed by aukward galleries. The organ was erected ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts

... who came in noiselessly at the open door. This new-comer was a young man, hardly yet arrived at the dignity of young manhood; he might have been eighteen, but he was really older than his years. His figure was well developed, with broad shoulders and slim hips, showing great muscular power and the symmetry of beauty as well. The face matched the figure; it was strong and fine, full of intelligence and life, and bearing no trace of boyish wilfulness. If wilfulness was there, which I think, it was rather the considered and consistent wilfulness of a man. As he came in at the open door, Esther's ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... way of symmetry, was another piece of furniture, somewhat similar in shape, where the countess kept her books, papers, and jewels. Antique chairs covered with damask, a large and greenish mirror, made in Venice, and richly framed in a sort of rolling toilet-table, completed the furnishings of the ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac

... hotel rising among the red blooms of the warm spring woods of Nebraska, or whitened with Canadian snows near the eternal noise of Niagara. And before touching on this solid and simple pattern itself, I may remark that the same system of symmetry runs through all the details of the interior. As one hotel is like another hotel, so one hotel floor is like another hotel floor. If the passage outside your bedroom door, or hallway as it is called, contains, let us say, a small table with a green vase and a stuffed flamingo, or some ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... workmanship is adequate to his conception. His satisfied gaze proclaims his success. A skilful bath-attendant has a certain aesthetic pleasure in his occupation. The bodies he polishes become to some extent his own workmanship, and he feels responsible for their symmetry or deformity. He experiences a degree of triumph in contemplating a beautiful form, which has grown more airily light and beautiful under his hands. He is a great connoisseur of bodies, and could pick you out the finest specimens with as ready ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... his task, and indecision slew him. It has been said that Hamlet could have been happy had he remained in ignorance of his duty, or had he boldly obeyed the vision which called him to action. It was because he knew more than he had the courage to do that a discord arose, which destroyed the symmetry and sanity of his mind. His madness grew out of the breach between his enlarged and haunting sense of right and his faltering ability to face and fulfill it. Thus also the tragedy of this young ruler's life grew out of the fact that the new aspiration made ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... lumber, stone and hardware, without system, and start to erect the building without carefully prepared plans, the building would lack symmetry and strength, and ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter

... number of conceptions which, from the beginning no doubt, slumbered in mysterious germ in the human brain—the idea of rectitude, the straight line, the right angle, the vertical line, of which Nature furnishes no example, even symmetry, which, if you consider it well, is less explicable still. They employed symmetry with a consummate mastery, understanding as well as we do all the effect that is to be obtained by the repetition of like objects placed ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... vigorous trees; in the remoter portions of the park briers barred the road and made walking almost impossible. This disorder was not destitute of charm, and at an epoch when landscape gardening consisted chiefly in straight alleys, and in giving to nature a cold and monotonous symmetry, one's eye rested with pleasure on these neglected clumps, on these waters which had taken a different course to that which art had assigned to them, on ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... with Hawthorne's usual moral earnestness of purpose, and is expressed in his easiest and most flexible style. Nevertheless this work has not the suppressed intensity, completeness of outline, and artistic symmetry possessed by The Scarlet Letter. The chief defects of The Marble Faun are a vagueness of form, a distracting variety of scene, and a lack of the convincing power of reality. The continued popularity of this romance, however, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... Proceeding on the assumption that she had not, he lifted his eyes and searched the air. Was it possible that the book, though thrown from the window, had never reached the ground? The branches of an old and stalwart maple, now almost divested of leaves, extended in rough symmetry above him, and one big limb, reaching out toward the house, came close to Laura's windows. Triumph shown again from the shrewd countenance of the sleuth: Laura must have slid the ledger along a wire into a hollow branch. However, no wire was to be seen—and the shrewd ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... the sleeves tight, with the second or over sleeves, that, loose and large, hung pendent and sweeping even to the ground; and the gown, velvet of cramousin, trimmed with ermine,—made a costume not less graceful than magnificent, and which, where compressed, set off the exquisite symmetry of a form still youthful, and where flowing added majesty to a beauty naturally rather soft and feminine than proud and stately. As she approached her children, she looked rather like their sister than their mother, as if Time, at least, shrunk from visiting ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... little green box on four wheels, with a low place like a wine-bin for two behind, and an elevated perch for one in front, drawn by an immense brown horse, displaying great symmetry of bone. An hostler stood near, holding by the bridle another immense horse—apparently a near relative of the animal in the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... on the same stem are different in color and taste; so these two sisters were different in personal appearance and character. Nature seems to have presided in a special manner over the moulding of Aloysia's exquisite frame. The symmetry of her person, hand and foot of charming delicacy, azure eye and rosy cheek, garlanded with nature's golden tresses, and the sweet expression of innocence in her features, would suggest her at once as a model for one of Raphael's Madonnas. ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... to chronicle the day's events. Perhaps by putting a statement of them on paper he could rid himself of their all too potent influence. But his thought was tumultuous, words refused to come in proper order and sequence; and Julius abhorred that erasures should mar the symmetry of his pages. Impatiently he pushed the diary from him. Clearly it, like the City of God, was ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... recognized as final, and respected wherever it is met. But there must also be some last economy, in which provision is formally made for any interest whatsoever that may assert itself. This is the realm of {79} good-will, or, as I shall call it for the sake of symmetry, the universal system of interests. I shall so construe these economies as to make the broader or more inclusive ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry

... was a symmetry and elegance, as well as strength and agility, in the person of Jacob Hall, which was much admired by the ladies, who regarded him as a due composition of Hercules and Adonis. The open-hearted Duchess of Cleveland was said to have been in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... with it, and on every new occasion its exquisite beauty and lofty grandeur enhanced our admiration. We also saw the Motee Musjid, the Pearl Mosque as it is called, built of marble, and called the Pearl Mosque, as I suppose, on account of its beauty and symmetry; the grand tomb of Akbar at Secundra, six miles from Agra; and other objects of interest. I am not to attempt a description of these world-famed buildings of Agra. They have been often described, and by none perhaps better than ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... and of look, the smooth And swimming majesty of step and tread, The symmetry of form and feature, set The soul afloat, even like delicious airs Of flute ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... hapless girl; and, after watching a moment, with a troubled eye, the fruitless efforts and wasting strength of the young man, she calmly rose to her feet, exhibiting, as she stood upright in the boat, with the spray dashing over her marble forehead and long flowing hair, in the faultless symmetry of her person, the beautiful cast of her features, and the touching eloquence of her speaking countenance, a figure which might well serve as a subject for the pencil ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... rising in successive tiers from the water's edge, I do not believe our England in those days could show; and it deserved its site, being amply classical in design, with a facade that, discarding mere ornament, expressed its proportion and symmetry in bold straight lines, prolonged by the terraces on which tall rows of pointed yews stood sentinel. Right English though it was, it bore (as my father used to say of our best English poetry) the stamp of great Italian ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... pleasure. Gradually the other couples stood aside, so that Liza and Sally were left alone. They paced it carefully, watching each other's steps, and as if by instinct performing corresponding movements, so as to make the whole a thing of symmetry. ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham

... therefore had not that influence with his tribe which the former possessed. Still, he performed his quantum of mischief, and yet lives to play his part in the great drama of Indian life. An Apache Indian is rather small in stature, but everything about him denotes symmetry and strength. His limbs are almost straight, and their muscles are as hard as iron. The elasticity of his movements, when in the least excited, shows a high degree of physical training. His coal-black eye exhibits an amount of treachery rarely seen elsewhere, proving the truth ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... Pantheon at Rome is small, compared with the later monuments of the Caesars. The traveler is always disappointed in contemplating their remains, so far as size is concerned. But it is their matchless proportions, their severe symmetry, the grandeur of effect, the undying beauty, the graceful form which impress us, and make us feel that they are perfect. By the side of the Colosseum they are insignificant in magnitude. They do not cover acres like the baths of Caracalla. Yet who has copied the ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord



Words linked to "Symmetry" :   bilaterality, symmetrize, anisotropy, proportion, spatial property, geometrical regularity, counterbalance, asymmetry, symmetrise, equipoise, bilateral symmetry, math, natural philosophy, space-reflection symmetry, spatiality, mathematics, equilibrium, property, isotropy, maths, mirror symmetry, regularity, disproportion, correspondence, radial symmetry, symmetric



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