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Texture   Listen
noun
Texture  n.  
1.
The act or art of weaving. (R.)
2.
That which woven; a woven fabric; a web. "Others, apart far in the grassy dale, Or roughening waste, their humble texture weave."
3.
The disposition or connection of threads, filaments, or other slender bodies, interwoven; as, the texture of cloth or of a spider's web.
4.
The disposition of the several parts of any body in connection with each other, or the manner in which the constituent parts are united; structure; as, the texture of earthy substances or minerals; the texture of a plant or a bone; the texture of paper; a loose or compact texture.
5.
(Biol.) A tissue. See Tissue.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Texture" Quotes from Famous Books



... in the old man's face with shining eyes, but no tender, confident look returned her glance. The brown hand trembled between her two little white palms; the keen blue eyes were still bent fixedly upon the old woollen cap, as if studying its texture; but it was in a quiet and soothing tone that the ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards

... with observing the manner in which the flying-fish endeavours to escape from its enemies, the albicores and bonitoes. The flying-fish are not larger than a herring, and raise themselves into the air by means of two long fins, one on each side, not much unlike the wings of a bat in strength and texture. They are considered as good eating, and the sailors are always well pleased when they are met with in plenty. The bonito is about two feet long, of a greyish colour, finely streaked from head to tail; but the flesh is hard, dry, and disagreeably tasted. The albicore is generally five ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... the brain will bring about in the general value of existence. Modifications slow and subtle, but tremendous! The persevering will discover them. It will happen to the persevering that their whole lives are changed—texture and colour, too! Naught will happen to ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett

... open window. But the unfamiliar long S's, the close type, and the spelling of the musty old books wearied eye and mind. What he read, too, however far-fetched, or lively, or sententious, or gross, seemed either to be of the same texture as what had become his everyday experience, and so baffled him with its nearness, or else was only the meaningless ramblings of an idle pen. And this, he thought to himself, looking covertly up at the spruce clear-cut profile ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... later one of your companions drags out of the alforja something crumpled that resembles in general appearance and texture a rusted five-gallon coal-oil can that has been in a wreck. It is only imperceptibly less stiff and ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... came the cane from India, smooth and bright With Nature's varnish; severed into stripes That interlaced each other, these supplied, Of texture firm, a lattice-work that braced The new machine, and it became a chair. But restless was the chair; the back erect Distressed the weary loins that felt no ease; The slippery seat betrayed the sliding part ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... forms an alloy of a very peculiar nature. The copper and the tin both surrender their distinctive qualities, and unite to form a material of a very different physical character. The copper is tough and brown, the tin is no doubt silvery in hue, but soft and almost fibrous in texture. When the two metals are mixed together in the proportions I have stated, the alloy obtained is intensely hard and quite brittle being in both these respects utterly unlike either of the two ingredients of which it is composed. It does, however, resemble the tin in its whiteness, ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... of aerolites may also be taken as indications of the common origin and elementary texture of the planets, whether they are independently formed or have originally pertained to a former planet; for no hypothesis of telluric or selenic origin yet advanced, can stand against the weight of evidence against it. Their fragmentary ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... and when one is tired he mounts another, and before he gets home they are all exhausted. He is extremely fond of tennis, at which game it is the prettiest thing in the world to see him play, his fair skin glowing through a shirt of the finest texture." ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... with a cry of delight from Hesper; in proportion to whose increasing disgust for the pink robe, was her pleasure when she caught sight of Mary's colors, as she undid the parcel: when she lifted the dress on her arm for a first effect, she was enraptured with it—aerial in texture, of the hue of a smoky rose, deep, and cloudy with overlying folds, yet diaphanous, a darkness ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... sweet-scented. It is such a tractable, satisfactory wood to handle—a clean, docile, wholesome tree; burning without snapping or sputtering, easily worked up into stovewood, fine of grain, hard of texture, stately as a forest tree, comely and clean as a shade tree, glorious in autumn, a fountain of coolness in summer, sugar in its veins, gold in its foliage, warmth in its fibers, and health ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... series of secondary rocks, so called from the texture of some of its members, which appear to be made up of a mass ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... colour the paper may be slightly damper than it should be for key-block impressions, and a heavier pressure is necessary on the baren if the colour masses are large. If the baren is pressed lightly the colour will not completely cover the paper, but will leave a dry, granular texture. Occasionally this quality may be useful, but as a rule a smooth, evenly printed surface is best. It will be found that smooth, even printing is not obtained by loading the block with colour or paste, but by using the least possible quantity of ...
— Wood-Block Printing - A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice • F. Morley Fletcher

... texture of my heart, My reins, and every vital part: I'll praise thee, from whose hands I came A work of such a ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker

... the Italian tales of his time. He was employed frequently to paint scenes on panels, for the richly ornamented Venetian furniture. Giorgione was not without a bent to realism in his very idealism, and is said to have been the first Italian painter who 'imitated the real texture of stuffs and painted draperies from ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... had woven this smooth and finished texture out of the ravelled skein was naturally the first impression that I felt, on handing the manuscript back to Ezra Jennings. He modestly interrupted the first few words in which my sense of surprise expressed itself, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... in the most elegant, becoming, fashionable, and costly manner, their dress consisting of the finest lace, over white satin. Mrs. Beaumont's was point lace, and she was also distinguished by a long veil of the most exquisite texture, which added a tempered grace to beauty in its meridian. In the same landau appeared the charming brides'-maids, all in white, of course. Among these, Miss Hunter attracted particular attention, by the felicity ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... the mind's eye better than any elaborate description [65] —for the beauty of the place itself resides also in delicate touches. The book passes indeed, successively, through distinct, broadly conceived phases of scenery, which, becoming veritable parts of its texture, take hold on the reader, as if in an actual sojourn in the places described. Surrey—its genuine though almost suburban wildness, with the vicarage and the wonderful abode, above all, the ancient library of Mr. Wendover, all is admirably done, the landscape naturally ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater

... Lisardo, my small volumes of 'Heures,' or 'Missals,' as they are called; some of them in MS. and others in print—and what can be more delicate than the texture of the vellum leaves, or more perfect than the ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... he said; and showed her how he had just put in a billowy robe, buoyed out with the wind, and sweeping down from the shoulders of a stately figure in such free and graceful folds that she would have liked to take it in her hand and feel the silken texture; and then he told her how absorbing it was to study the mysteries of color and the differences of light. "There is enough in that to make one happy," he said. "It is thought by some that we will all come to the higher point with work and thought: but that is not my feeling; and whether ...
— A Little Pilgrim - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... the tediousness of those winter nights are included the narration of personal adventures passed through by the different hunters in their wild life. Tales of narrow escapes, of Indian fights, of desperate encounters with beasts of the forests; and through the rough texture of these narratives now and then appears a pathetic incident in which woman is the prominent figure. Sometimes it is a hunter's wife who is the heroine, and again the scene is laid in the home of the settler, where woman faces some dreadful danger for her loved ones, or endures extraordinary ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... resist considerable pressure. One might have taken this diving apparatus for a suit of armor, both supple and resisting. It formed trousers and waistcoat; the trousers were finished off with thick boots, weighted with heavy leaden soles. The texture of the waistcoat was held together by bands of copper, which crossed the chest, protecting it from the great pressure of the water and leaving the lungs free to act. The sleeves ended in gloves, which in no way ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... debate which had split the Presbyterian Church from end to end was quite as earnest and copious in New England. But owing to the freer habit of theological inquiry and the looser texture of organization among the Congregationalist churches, it made no organic schism beyond the setting up of a new theological seminary in Connecticut to offset what were deemed the "dangerous tendencies" of the New Haven theology. After a few years the party lines had faded ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... Switzerland. It is a mat plaited or woven of strips of bast, and was found at Robenhausen, having been preserved in a charred state.[2] Keller gives another example of a similar fabric of much finer texture in ...
— Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery • William Henry Holmes

... describe the beauties of the lovely laces, the time, patience, and labor given to them. We examined the exhibits in the Manufacturers' Building, Varied Industries, all foreign buildings. The work done by women in the Philippines, Porto Rico, Mexican and Alaskan exhibits was as fine in texture and as beautiful as imported laces. The work in every instance was as handsome as that shown at the Chicago World's Fair, but perhaps not ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... on the robe, save an edging of grey fur,—not even embroidery: and no other kind of trimming was known at that time. Agnes timidly felt the soft, fine texture. ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... with caution. Where there are hills, there is much rain, and the torrents pouring down into the intermediate spaces, seldom find so ready an outlet, as not to stagnate, till they have broken the texture of the ground. ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... in the air, Charging the very texture of the gray With something luminous and rare? The night goes out like an ill-parcelled fire, And, as one lights a candle, it is day. The extinguisher that fain would strut for spire On the formal little church ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley

... and long-continued infusion of gross blood, and perhaps even the monotonous pressure of rough, pitiless, degrading circumstances, may displace, eat out, rub off the delicacy of a soul, may change its texture to unnatural coarseness and scatter ashes for beauty, women do exist, victims rather than culprits, coarse against their nature, hard, material, grasping, the saddest sight humanity can see. Such a woman can accept coarse men. They may come courting on all fours, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... beauty of my cousin, or to the sweetness of her temper, during the short period of our intimacy. She looked as if she had been made out of a rainbow—all beauty and peace. My passion had the usual effects upon me—I could not sleep; I could not eat; I could not rest. It was the texture of my life to think of the time that must elapse before we could meet again. But I was a fool then, and not much ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... and approached slowly, a new consciousness dawning in his soul, a new light in his eyes. Of the style or texture of her gown, a filmy, gleaming mass of white, he knew absolutely nothing; he only knew that its clinging softness revealed in new beauty the rounded outlines of her form; that its snowy sheen set off the exquisite moulding of her neck ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... school they are lifting up the homes of the people. Some have pitied, others blamed, Harry for casting his lot with the colored people, but he knows that life's highest and best advantages do not depend on the color of the skin or texture of the hair. He has his reward in the improved condition of his pupils and the superb manhood and noble life which he has developed in his much ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... compared to a precious Ointment,[2] and when we are praised with Skill and Decency, tis indeed the most agreeable Perfume, but if too strongly admitted into a Brain of a less vigorous and happy Texture, twill, like too strong an Odour, overcome the Senses, and prove pernicious to those Nerves twas intended to refresh. A generous Mind is of all others the most sensible of Praise and Dispraise; and a noble Spirit is as much invigorated with its due Proportion of Honour ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... new fruit seedlings which appeared promising. However, I decided to propagate two new plums because they had borne several excellent crops. One of these is a very late plum of good quality, with flesh of peculiar crisp texture, which ripens after all the other plums, about a week before frost. It is a combination of the Wolf plum with the Kansas sand plum (Prunus Watsoni). The tree is of late dwarf habit but very productive, and its late season ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... only one day to work. While M. Lacaze sketched the views, we blasted with gunpowder more than half charcoal the Ma'dan el-Fayrz ("turquoise mine"), as the Arabs called it, on the right side of the Wady. The colour and texture were so unlike the true lapis Pharanitis that we began to suspect, and presently we ascertained from the few remaining fragments, it had been worked for copper,—the carbonates and the silicates ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... on the other hand, which might well be taken as a simian or vestigial character, is seldom met with in the Bantu, but is equally common among Europeans and Australian aboriginals and is found particularly developed in the Ainu of Japan. The texture also of the African's hair is less like that of the hair of the man-like apes than is the hair of the European. The proportions of the limbs of the Europeans seem, on the average, to be nearer to the ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen

... of texture in nature indicate coarse and fine-grained feelings and characters, and since black signifies power, and red ardor, therefore coarse black hair and skin signify great power of character of some kind, along with considerable tendency ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... moved contemplation, of tranquil ecstasy. But how rare a state it is for us poor creatures harassed by duty, by necessity, by the wicked world, by sin, by illness! It is the state which produces inward happiness; but alas! the foundation of existence, the common texture of our days, is made up of action, effort, struggle, and therefore dissonance. Perpetual conflict, interrupted by short and threatened truces—there is a true picture of ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... but (I suppose) useful picture. I have nowhere found it more horrible than in a story called The Secret Battle (METHUEN), written by Mr. A.P. HERBERT, whose initials are familiar to Punch readers under work of a lighter texture. This is an intimate study, inspired throughout by a cold fury of purpose that can be felt on every page, of the destruction of a young man's spirit in the insensate machinery of modern war. There is no other plot, no side ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various

... parts I did read, Mr. Bryant, as I expected, reasons admirably, and staggered me; but when I took up the poems called Rowley's again, I protest I cannot see the smallest air of antiquity but the old words. The whole texture is conceived on ideas of the present century. The liberal manner of thinking of a monk so long before the Reformation is as stupendous; and where he met with Ovid's Metamorphoses, eclogues, and plans of Greek tragedies, when even Caxton, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... aghast. His dream was returning and slowly enveloping him. Everything he saw was weaving itself into the texture of his vision. The chill of horror stole ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... to culture. The grains differ in size, weight, and colour; in being more or less downy at one end, in being smooth or wrinkled, in being either nearly globular, oval, or elongated; and finally in internal texture, being tender or hard, or even almost horny, and in the proportion of gluten ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... the force of the iron crag is abated in its time, like the strength of human sinews in old age." The everlasting mountains are doomed to decay as surely as the moth and worm. It seems that the shining texture of stars and suns must wax old, like a garment, and decay. If now youth is eager to master all knowledge, plunge into the thick of life's battle, forge some tool, enact some law, right some wrong, the time will speedily come when the man will sit down amid the ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... road—first up, then down—for a long half minute, and fetched a sighing breath of satisfaction. His eyes fell upon his feet, and, taken with an idea, he stepped back to the edge of the road and with a wisp of crabgrass wiped his shoes clean of the swamp mud, which was of a different color and texture from the soil of the upland. All his life Squire H. B. Gathers had been a careful, canny man, and he had need to be doubly careful on this summer morning. Having disposed of the mud on his feet, he settled his white straw hat down firmly upon his ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... Mr. S——'s new method, in which the solution of tan gradually penetrates the hides, and as it penetrates combines with it, producing a gradual change of colour that is very observable, till at last the colour of the hide is changed throughout, and it acquires a compact texture and marbled appearance, like that of a nutmeg: by this it plainly appears, that a precipitation also takes place in the action of tanning, although the hide is not dissolved, but merely swelled so ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... reflected lights on the boy's skin, the texture of which was darker than that of a mulatto, and had a dead, opaque look, lacking the golden glow of mulatto skin. The lad's hair showed little hint of Bantu ancestry and his feet were small. True, all this might betoken ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... and Annabel, dropping before it on the rug, took down her hair and began brushing it systematically. Annabel never, under any circumstances, neglected her hair. It was one of her chief attractions, and its soft, glossy texture ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs

... it were the flower of an exquisite womanhood, strong, tender, sweet, beautiful, had burst into bloom. Her very face was changed. The activities with which her days and nights were filled had quickened all her vital forces so that the very texture and colour of her skin radiated the bloom of vigorous mental and physical health. Yet withal there remained the same quick, wise sympathy, quicker, wiser than before war's poignant sorrows had disciplined her heart; the same far-seeing vision that anticipated problems and planned ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... be able to figure a little better the common texture of the life of a teacher or a housewife under Socialism. And incidentally I have glanced at the position a clever milliner or dressmaker would probably have under the altered conditions. The great mass of the employes in the distributing trade would obviously ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... but the platform of a station where two lines meet, offers, under such circumstances, so diverse and diverting a spectacle that we hardly regretted the delay. It is here that any one interested in physiognomy can best study and judge the masses, for it is as though the very texture from which France is woven were laid bare before him. This spectacle is constantly changing, constantly renewed, at times deeply moving. No face can be, or is, indifferent, in these days and one no longer feels himself ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard

... basket over her arm, stood looking at the strange sights, admiring the tall houses and the terraces of the cafes. She was pink and white, without the hard coppery roughness of the country women. Her features had the delicacy of an aristocratic and well cared for nun, the pale texture of milk and roses, lightened by the luminous reflection of her teeth and the timid glow of her eyes, under a ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... eager response among young poets, but rather as a literary than as an ethical doctrine. In Germany Dehmel, the most powerful personality among her recent poets, began as a disciple of Verlaine; in Italy, D'Annunzio wove esoteric symbols into the texture of the more than Nietzschean supermanliness of his supermen and superwomen. More significant than these, however, was the symbolism of what we call the Celtic school of poets in Ireland. For here both their artistic impressionism and their ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... more beautiful, "You," says Mr. Misty, turning to me, "like Amaranthia better than Chloris. I do not wonder at the preference, for the cause is evident: there is in man a perception of harmony, and a sensibility of perfection, which touches the finer fibres of the mental texture; and before reason can descend from her throne, to pass her sentence upon the things compared, drives us towards the object proportioned to our faculties, by an impulse gentle, yet irresistible; for the harmonick system of the Universe, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... have been in such a situation that they could form perfect crystals they are called spars, some of which possess a double refraction, as observed by Sir Isaac Newton. When these crystals are jumbled together or mixed with some colouring impurities it is termed marble, if its texture be equable and firm; if its texture be coarse and porous yet hard, it is called lime-stone; if its texture be very loose and porous it is termed chalk. In some rocks the shells remain almost unchanged and only covered, or bedded with lime-stone, which seems to have been dissolved and sunk down ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... comparatively recent times the term has been widened to include music in which there is one chief melody to which other portions of the musical texture are subordinate; e.g., the homophonic style of Chopin in whose works the chief melody, often in the upper voice, seems to float on underlying waves ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... early to have much data on the science and material resources this dead civilization possessed, but I recommend that every Corporation in Induscomm Cabal should place a technical party at Mars Equatorial as soon as possible. We shall now key in with the public spacecast. Note the texture and color range of the adornments and artifacts. I venture that these items will prove popular among you who can well afford such rare treasures. However, subtlety in acquiring them is suggested. While common clamor for Public ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro

... cottons, and the colours, both struck me as being exceedingly good; in texture, however, I did not conceive any of the cloths equal to similar stuffs which I had seen at home in manufacturing towns. One of the partners informed me that they supplied large quantities of goods to the markets both of India and of South America: the manufacturer's chief drawback, he said, ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... varieties of Yucca the mode of culture is not only similar but simple. They have long roots of a wiry texture. These denote that they require deep soil, light, and rather dry. Sandy loam, light vegetable soil, or marl and peat grow them well. Raised beds or borders, the higher parts of rockwork, or any open position, thoroughly drained, will not only be conducive to their health, but also ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... the splendour and glory of popular receptions and public appearances. I must confess that I could not get rid of that impression when I looked on Mr. Gladstone on that Monday night. A deadlier pallor than usual had settled on that face which always has all the beautiful shade, as well as the fine texture of smooth ivory. There was a drawn, wearied look about the usually large, open, brilliant eyes—that rapt and far-off gaze which is always Mr. Gladstone's expression when his mind and heart are full. There are two ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... different from the firmly-closed portals whence issued the golden speech of his son! He had a sly, sidelong look at times, whether of doubt or cunning, I could not always determine. His eyes, unlike his son's, were of a light blue, and hazy both in texture and expression. His hands were long-fingered and tremulous. He gave your hand a sharp squeeze, and the same instant abandoned it with indifference. I soon began to discover in him a tendency to patronize any one who ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... formed a cement, sufficiently strong to give coherence to the fibres; when greater solidity was required, a size made from bread or glue was employed. The two films being thus connected, were pressed, dried in the sun, beaten with a broad mallet, and then polished with a shell. This texture was cut into various sizes, according to the use for which it was intended, varying from thirteen to four fingers' breadth, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various

... was designed partly for warmth and partly for adornment. As the uses were distinct, the garments should be so. A close-fitting inner garment should supply all requisite warmth, and the outer dress should be as thin as possible, that it might drape itself into natural folds. Velvet, from its texture, was ill adapted for this. When worn, it should be in close fitting garments, and in dark colors only. It was ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various

... it, and it was Betty Vanderpoel, holding her whip in a clenched hand and showing to his eagerness such hunted face and eyes as were barely human. He caught her unsteadiness to support it, and felt her fingers clutch at the tweed of his coatsleeve and move there as if the mere feeling of its rough texture brought heavenly comfort to her and ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... his horse close by and a little apart from the crowds of weeping women who surrounded the soldiers of the dictator's escort. Suddenly he felt some one pluck him by the cloak, and turned quickly to see a young woman in the single tunic of a slave. Her dress, however, was of finer texture than that worn by most of her class, and seemed to bespeak a rich mistress and especial favour. She stood with her finger to her lips, her eyes great with the ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... and is the best of all wood for that purpose. Sometimes these towering upheavals of forestry were festooned and garlanded with vine-cables, and sometimes the masses of undergrowth were cocooned in another sort of vine of a delicate cobwebby texture—they call it the "supplejack," I think. Tree ferns everywhere—a stem fifteen feet high, with a graceful chalice of fern-fronds sprouting from its top—a lovely forest ornament. And there was a ten-foot reed with a flowing suit of what looked like yellow hair hanging from its upper end. I do not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... health, or in want of firm character to resist the inroads of certain vicious ideas in modern civilization, a change of woman's education from its too frequent namby-pamby character, into something calculated to give firmer mental and moral texture, would help, rather than hurt in this matter."—Majority Report submitted to Trustees of Cornell University on Mr. Sage's proposal to endow a college ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... specialist in polities and history he was accustomed to make up his mind on the basis of his own researches, and to change his judgments without embarrassment when new facts presented themselves. His literary style is characterized by precision, a close texture and frequently by suppressed emotion. He thinks on an international scale and with a profundity that often dwarfs associates who are by no means pygmies themselves. An unbending will, an alert conscience, stubborn courage, ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... was done in mahogany and sandalwood, with eight cabins, four to port and four to starboard. The bed-and table-linen were of the finest texture. From the centre of the ceiling hung a replica of the temple lamp in the Taj Mahal. The odour of coconut prevailed, delicately but abidingly; for, save for the occasioned pleasure junket, The Tigress was a copra carrier, ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... own way, and within its own limits, it is the most wonderful thing in the language. The people we read about are as real as the people we brush clothes with in the street,—nay, much more real; for we not only see their faces, and the fashion and texture of their garments, we know also what they think, how they express themselves, and with what eyes they look out on the world. Chaucer's art in this Prologue is simple perfection. He indulges in no irrelevant description, he airs no fine sentiments, he takes no special ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... England, is for the most part brew'd of chalky Water, which is almost every where in that County; and as the Soil is generally Chalk there, I am of opinion, that the Cellars being dug in that dry Soil contributes to the good keeping of their Drink, it being of a close texture, and of a drying quality, so as to dissipate Damps; for damp Cellars, we find by experience, are injurious to keeping Liquors, as well as destructive to the Casks. The Malt of this Country is of a pale Colour; and the best ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley

... the disagreeable sensation of making-up, it must be remembered that the use of some of the white powders eventually destroys the texture of the skin, rendering it rough and coarse. Rimmel, the celebrated perfumer, in his "Book of Perfumes," says that rouge, being composed of cochineal and saffron, is harmless, but that white cosmetics consist occasionally of deleterious ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... necessary to beautiful text, and these Gutenburg did not have. Gradually, however, as a result of repeated experiments, paper and ink that were of practical value were manufactured. China had long been successful in printing because of the fine texture of her paper. Italy, the home of the arts, caught up Gutenburg's invention and brought not only lettering but paper-making to a marvelous ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... imaginable hue were put into great machines where heavy squares of copper, set in powerful presses, stamped upon them various patterns or impressions. The designs engraved on the dies were imitations of the texture of every known sort of fancy leather. There was alligator, lizard skin, pigskin, snakeskin and sealskin; even grained leather was copied. So perfect was the likeness that it seemed impossible to tell the embossed and artificially made material ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett

... golden hair in fact, not merely in name; her eyes were an intense, bright blue; her complexion was exquisite, the delicate texture and perfect whiteness of her skin emphasized by the healthful coloring which came and went on her cheeks. Every one of the Vestals fell in love with her at ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... equally pleasing. What interests me most is that, when a child under nine, the flight of roses was light, slow, soft, close to my eyes, roses so large and brilliant and palpable that I tried to touch them; the scent was overpowering, the petals perfect, with leaves peeping here and there, texture and motion all natural. They would stay a long time before the sparks came, and they occupied a large area in black space. Then the sparks came slowly flying, and generally, not always, effaced the roses at once, and every effort ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... Crediton (the famous locality of the burning of Crediton Barns, in the Middle Ages) made kersies; and Totnes a stuff called "narrow pin-whites," which is, I believe, a coarse, loosely woven white material; Barnstaple and Torrington were noted for "bays," single and double (perhaps of the same texture as our modern baize), and for "frizados"; and Pilton, adjacent to Barnstaple, was notorious rather than celebrated for the making of cotton linings, so cheap and coarse a stuff that a popular "vae" or "woe" was locally pronounced ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... images in burned clay of the gods and of men, of which none but the Egyptians knew the allegorical meaning, stood in long rows on low wooden shelves. On the higher shelves were mummy bands and shrouds, some coarse, others of the very finest texture, wigs for the bald heads of shaven corpses, or woolen fillets, and simply or elaborately embroidered ribbons ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... to the end that the talkers may not have occasion to reflect on what is the effectual economic value of their traffic. And along with the make-believe of purposeful employment, and woven inextricably into its texture, there is commonly, if not invariably, a more or less appreciable element of purposeful effort ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... attempts upon his life, obliged him to confine himself to his convent, where he engaged in writing the history of the council of Trent, a work unequalled for the judicious disposition of the matter, and artful texture of the narration, commended by Dr. Burnet, as the completest model of historical writing, and celebrated by Mr. Wotton, as equivalent to any production of antiquity; in which the reader finds "liberty without licentiousness, piety without hypocrisy, freedom of speech without ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... height, and with body and limbs in as perfect proportion as the chisel of Phidias ever carved from marble. Even his long, black hair, which hung luxuriantly and loosely about his shoulders, was of softer texture than is the rule with his people. Several stained eagle feathers slanted upward and outward from the crown, and a double row of brilliant beads encircled his neck. A fine gold bracelet clasped his left wrist, and the deer-skin ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... Titian's picture above mentioned. While every stamen of the rose is given, because this was necessary to mark the flower, and while the curves and large characters of the leaves are rendered with exquisite fidelity, there is no vestige of particular texture, of moss, bloom, moisture, or any other accident—no dew-drops, nor flies, nor trickeries of any kind; nothing beyond the simple forms and hues of the flowers,—even those hues themselves being simplified and broadly rendered. The varieties of aquilegia have, in reality, a grayish and uncertain ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... never used a compass, he found no difficulty in determining the north at any time, as the woods were full of signs. For instance, the branches of trees had a general tendency to be less numerous and shorter on the north side, and the bark on the north side was usually finer in texture and of a smoother surface. Also moss was more often found on the north side of vertical trees. The tops of pine trees usually leant toward the southeast—but that that was not always a sure sign in all localities, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... treble, and quadruple pattern, feet and groups, logic and metre—harmonious in diversity: common to both, the task of artfully combining the prime elements of language into phrases that shall be musical in the mouth; the task of weaving their argument into a texture of committed phrases and of rounded periods—but this particularly binding in the case of prose: and, again common to both, the task of choosing apt, explicit, and communicative words. We begin to see now what ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... majestic pine formed a roof to our encampment. Dragging our provisions and blankets as near as possible to the stem of the tree, we covered them up with one of our oiled-cloths, which were somewhat similar in appearance and texture to the tarpaulings of seafaring men, though light in colour. Then we ran down to the lake, carried all our goods hastily to the same spot, covered them up in like manner, and finally dragged our boat as far up on the beach ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... colour and texture of hair in the Mandans; on the development of the beard among the North American Indians; on the great length of the hair in some ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... be likely to see, about 8:40 o'clock of the morning, a gentleman of remarkable presence approaching with no bird-like tread. This creature, clad in a suit of subfuse respectable weave, bearing in his hand a cane of stout timber with a right-angled hornblende grip, and upon his head a hat of rich texture, would probably also carry in one hand (the left) a leather case filled with valuable papers, and in the other hand (the right, which also held the cane) a cigarette, lit upon leaving the Grand Central subway station. This cigarette the ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... bent over the canvas and resumed the filling-in of the tiny squares. The whole design was in squares—the gradations of red and greens, the curves of the smallest buds—all was contrived in squares, with a result that mimicked a fragment of uncompromising Axminster carpet. Still, the fine texture of the wool, the regular and rapid grace of those fingers moving incessantly at back and front of the canvas, the gentle sound of the wool as it passed through the holes, and the intent, youthful earnestness of that lowered gaze, excused and invested with charm an activity which, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... nipping them back when they tried to blossom early, for they seem a bit crude compared with the other flowers. But now that frost is here, my feelings warm to them. I cannot criticize their color and texture, so grateful am I to them for not giving up. And when last night's cuttings have faded, I shall be very glad of a glowing mass of marigold beside my fireplace, and of the yellow stars of calendula, like ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... patterns which prevailed, as fashionable, when we left England, both striped and figured. They print their figured cloth by dipping the leaves in dye-stuffs of different colours, placing them as their fancy directs. Their cloth is of different texture of fineness, from a stuff of the same nature in quality as the slightest India paper, to a kind as durable as some of our cottons; but they will not bear water, and of course become troublesome and expensive. They are generally made up in bales, running about two yards broad, ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards

... Conservation Service (SCS), a U.S. Government agency, has probably put a soil auger into your very land or a plot close by. Its tests have been correlated and mapped; the soils underlying the maritime Northwest have been named and categorized by texture, depth, and ability to provide available moisture. The maps are precise and detailed enough to approximately locate a city or suburban lot. In 1987, when I was in the market for a new homestead, I first went to my county SCS office, mapped out locations where the soil was ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon

... evidently is their coating the work of different periods. I fancied that in some parts I could discern a mode of construction, in layers of brick and stone, similar to that of Roman buildings in our own country, while many of the bricks, from their texture and shape, appear also to be Roman. Tradition, if we follow that delusive guide, teaches us that we are contemplating a work of the middle of the eighth century, and of one of the sons of Charles Martel. If we follow William of Jumieges, the Chronicle of St. Vandrille, and William of Poitiers, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... knew that this was the Huntress, yet what was so strange about her? Why was she so steady in those changing gusts of wind, what was there that made her sails so shining and transparent, like the texture of a cloud? ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... endured it patiently but was glad when he let her go and she was in the saddle, a place where she felt more at home than in a man's arms with her face crushed against his shirt, turning to avoid its rough texture and uncomfortably conscious of the hardness of his lean breast. She decided not to speak to him again, for she was afraid he might break forth into those protestations of love that so ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... bombilla, or sucking tube, of the same metal. After this drink and a bite of chip, a strangely shaped, thin-necked bottle, made of sun-baked clay, is brought, and from it water is poured on the hands. The towels are spotlessly white and of the finest texture. They are hand-made, and are so delicately woven and embroidered that I found it difficult to accustom myself to use them. The beautifully fine lace called nandut (literally spider's web) is also here made by the Indian women, who have long been civilized. Some of ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... Of similar literary texture were a multitude of songs, of which many different ones related to the same hero. Hence in time there was a disposition on the part of the cleverer minstrels to combine them into a single narration, and to impart to the whole so composed something of an epic character. Thus arose the ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... ice-floe, looking very much like a regiment of hussars at a distance drawn up in line of battle. The duck is not so gaudy as her husband. She is quite contented in a full suit of mottled brown and olive gray, presenting a texture on the back somewhat similar to the canvas-back species of Chesapeake Bay. About half-past ten o'clock in the evening, Toolooah and I walked up to the crest of a ridge, north of camp, to see if there ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... different lights and darkness to find them. He did not know their ways of play, but well knew he should like them when he learned, and that their play would prove prettier than any he had ever known.... And this tall, still woman beside him—almost as tall as he, of rarest texture, and with a voice sensuously soft, having that quality of softness which distinguishes a charcoal from a graphite line—this woman seemed identified in some remoteness of mind with long-ago rainy ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... bore resemblance to the fantastic shapes of coral. The shells of the ears were so transparent to the light that in the sunshine they were rose-colored. The complexion, though sun-burned, showed a marvellous delicacy in the texture of the skin. If, as Buffon declared, love lies in touch, the softness of the girl's skin must have had the penetrating and inciting influence of the fragrance of daturas. The chest and indeed the whole body was alarmingly thin; but the feet and hands, of alluring delicacy, showed remarkable nervous ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... the girl's colouring and the extreme immobility of her expression. Now that the blood had, as it were, been drained away to the last drop, now that temples and nostrils had attained transparency, the fine texture of the skin and the beauty of the curves of lips and chin were visible to every eye. Only one hand, so the LEICHENFRAU babbled on, was convulsively closed, and could not be undone; and, as she spoke, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... also as regards the instinct of the hive-bee, already referred to. The distance at which the insects stand apart when they sweep their hemispheres and build their cells is 'organically remembered.' Man also carries with him the physical texture of his ancestry, as well as the inherited intellect bound up with it. The defects of intelligence during infancy and youth are probably less due to a lack of individual experience, than to the fact that in early life the cerebral organisation ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... brass spectacles, a flat nose, and two keen, restless monkey eyes. His hands, like those of many negroes of his age, were long and shrivelled, the palms wrinkled as the inside, of a turkey's foot and of the same color and texture. His two feet, always in evidence, rested on their heels, and were generally encased in carpet slippers—shoes being out of the question owing to his life-long habit of storing inside his own person the drainings of the decanters, an idiosyncrasy ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... was melancholy. I found something strangely sorrowful and submissive in the sleepers all about me, those men who had marched so far, who had left all the established texture of their lives behind them to come upon this mad campaign, this campaign that signified nothing and consumed everything, this mere fever of fighting. I saw how little and feeble is the life of man, a thing of chances, preposterously unable to find the will ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... opinion, would it contribute in the least to our mutual advantage and comfort if we were to besmear one another all over with butter and honey. At any rate, we must not judge of an Englishman's susceptibilities by our own, which, likewise, I trust, are of a far less sensitive texture than formerly. ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... been united in such a careful manner that he was able to handle it with as much ease and facility as if composed of a single sheet of paper of the tough texture of which our national issues are made. He seemed quite proud of his novel garment, so unique of its kind, and strode forward with the pompous tread of an Indian chief until he was within a few feet of where Ned sat, ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... gowns of unusual texture and design, which flowed in adroitly veiling lines about her too slim form. These immediately attracted the attention of Stefan, who coveted something equally original for Mary. He remarked on them to his hostess ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... is extremely dense, so is that of the kidney; the lungs, however, are of a much looser texture, and if compared with the kidneys are absolutely spongy. In the liver there is no forcing, no impelling power; in the lungs the blood is forced on by the pulse of the right ventricle, the necessary effect of whose impulse is the distension of the vessels and the pores ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... would appear in any unbecoming garb if liberty of dress were permitted to him at the opera.... If the check-takers are empowered to inspect and decide as to the propriety of the cut and colour of clothes, why should they not also be allowed to examine the texture? On the same principle, too, the cleanliness of opera-goers ought to be inquired into. No one whose hair is not properly brushed should be permitted to enter the stalls, and visitors to the pit should be ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... was alone this time. How like herself she looked, handsome and stately, in characteristic elegance of attire and manner both. Her white morning dress floated off in soft edges of lace from her white arms; a shawl of precious texture was gathered loosely about them; on her head, a gossamer web of some fancy manufacture fell off on either side, a mock covering for it. She came up to Daisy and kissed her, and then examined into her various arrangements, ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... maids-of-honour and ladies-in-waiting ushered Yuan Ch'un out of the chair, when what mainly attracted her eye in the park was the brilliant lustre of the flowered lamps of every colour, all of which were made of gauze or damask, and were beautiful in texture, and out of the common run; while on the upper side was a flat lantern with the inscription in four characters, "Regarded (by His Majesty's) benevolence and permeated by ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... figures with deep and mournful interest. There was one of a woman, apparently of the poorer classes, who had been overtaken by the deadly shower while endeavouring to save a young girl, probably her daughter; the coarse texture of their raiment is distinctly visible, and the smooth, rounded arms of the little maid may be discerned through the rent sleeves. Another stately figure, evidently a Roman matron, has gathered together her little ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... pure white, then pinkish, finally rusty; withered in color and texture; always turning pink or dark if exposed to ...
— Mushrooms of America, Edible and Poisonous • Anonymous

... you can see in the world around you, presents itself to your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colors variously shaded.[1] Some of these patches of color have an appearance of lines or texture within them, as a piece of cloth or silk has of threads, or an animal's skin shows texture of hairs: but whether this be the case or not, the first broad aspect of the thing is that of a patch of some definite color; and ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... victors bore, While storms vindictive intercept the store. The shrilling airs the vaulted roof rebounds, Reflecting to the queen the silver sounds. With grief renew'd the weeping fair descends; Their sovereign's step a virgin train attends: A veil, of richest texture wrought, she wears, And silent to the joyous hall repairs. There from the portal, with her mild command, Thus gently checks the minstrel's ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... and Saya Chone came in. Jack recognised him at once, for the delicate filmy veil of muslin which hung just before him was so slight in texture that he could see through it easily and make out all that went on in the light of the lamps. But the part of the room where he was a prisoner was unlighted, and the veil served to hide him sufficiently from anyone standing in the brighter part ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... beauteous things the maiden, With the spindle has accomplished, Spun and woven with her fingers; Dresses of the finest texture She in winter has upfolded, Bleached them in the days of spring-time, Dried them at the hour of noonday, For our couches finest linen, For our heads the softest pillows, For our ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... it may express the palpable substance and texture of objects that are but parts, if it fail in these first two rules, the colour of a picture is not good. With regard to the first, its agreeability. Is it a startling assertion to say, that this does not depend upon its naturalness? That it does so is a common opinion. Aware, however, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... finished it seemed to exhibit a trace of nearly everything a house should possess excepting chronology and paint. Mr. Petter had selected with a great deal of care the various woods of which his house was built, and he decidedly objected to conceal their hues and texture by monotonous paint. The descriptions that he had read of ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton

... opened their eyes widely, turned from me, faced me again with a little less of fear, and then came to me, not in dozens, but in hundreds, with open arms. They shouted and made signs, and walking excitedly by my side, they examined at will the texture of my clothes, and touched my boots with sticks to see whether the feet were encased or not. For the time I was their hero. When I walked into an inn business brightened immediately. Tea was at a premium, and only the richer class could afford nine cash instead of three to drink tea with ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... The texture of the outer garments should take into account this same quality of warmth; in other respects in selecting them personal taste is an excellent guide. Outfitters carry a variety of maternity garments; patterns for such garments are also sold by dealers, so that those who cannot afford the ready-made ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... for the jury,—he speaks like one who thinks more of his argument than of his audience; he forgets the faces before him, and is evidently poring over the images within. Though with a visage of the colour, and seemingly of the texture of granite, he blushes at a misplaced word, and is evidently sensitive to the error of a comma. No man ever spoke with effect who cannot hesitate without being overwhelmed, blunder without a blush, or be bewildered by his own impetuosity, without turning back to retrace. En avant is the precept ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... style, and texture, he wore, also, a pair of wide pantaloons—not always of precisely the proper length for the limbs of the wearer, but having invariably a broad waistband, coming up close under the arms, and answering the purpose of the modern vest. People ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... swoon had passed. She did not perceive me where I stood, ready to depart—she murmured something to herself in a low voice, and taking in her hand the falling tresses of her own hair she seemed to admire its color and texture, for she stroked it and restroked it and finally broke into a gay laugh—a laugh so out of all keeping with her surroundings, that it startled me more than her attempt ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... texture in the body formed of various elements, such as cells, fibers, blood-vessels, etc., interwoven ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... mellowed by time. There is nothing glaring, harsh, or abrupt in the harmony of tints. The blue sky above, and the green earth beneath, are in unison with a tone of coloring not unlike the brown of one of our own early winter landscapes. The travertine is also of a coarse grain and porous texture, not splintering into points and edges, but gradually corroding by natural decay. Stone of such a texture everywhere opens laps and nooks for the reception and formation of soil. Every grain of dust that is borne through the air by the lazy breeze of summer, instead of sliding from a glassy surface, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... concludes that the cleansing power of soap is largely or entirely to be explained by the power which it has of emulsifying oily substances, of wetting and penetrating into oily textures, and of lubricating texture and impurities so that these may be removed easily. It is thought that all these properties may be explained by taking into account the low cohesion of the soap solutions, and their strong attraction or affinity to oily matter, ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons

... the long thin yellow insect ran on to the sleeper's sock, carefully examined its texture, tasted it with its tail, and still not satisfied, proceeded to walk up one of the very wide open duck trouser legs, that must have been to it like the entrance to some grand tunnel, temptingly ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... nor The West wind sweeter thro' the Cyclades Than here and now; and from the altar of To-day The eloquent, quick tongues of flame uprise As fervid, if not unfaltering as of old, And life atones with speed and plenitude For coarser texture. Our poor present will, Far in the brooding future, make a past Full of the morning's music still, and starred With great tears shining on the eyelids' eaves Of our immortal faces yearning ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens

... Paul had asserted that all men resembled each other in the color of their skin and the texture of their hair, or even in their physiological make-up, he would have been at war with observation and critical investigation. But, having announced a wonderful truth in reference to the unity of the human race as based upon one ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... silly babe," the elder woman chid her, "were it not better for thee to have for husband a rich khawajah than a wretched painter of religious pictures? Thou wouldst wear fine Frankish clothes of wondrous texture and hats, I tell thee, hats with waving feathers. Thou wouldst sit at ease all day, with maids ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... ceiling over his head. It seemed to Midas that this bright yellow sunbeam was reflected in rather a singular way on the white covering of the bed. Looking more closely, what was his astonishment and delight, when he found that this linen fabric had been transmuted to what seemed a woven texture of the purest and brightest gold! The Golden Touch had come to him with the ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... silent as Banquo's ghost. Constance arose at sight of this fantastic figure, barked furiously and darted toward a pair of legs for which she seemed to share the irreverence of the liveried servants; but the texture of the blue stocking and the flesh which covered the tibia were rather too hard morsels for the dowager's teeth; she was obliged to give up the attack and content herself with impotent barks, while the old man, who would gladly have given a month's wages ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... night, like the ghosts of so many Titans. Among the Adirondacks one high peak caught the first glimmer of advancing day, while all the lower range remained a gigantic silhouette beneath the perceptibly paling stars. Over Canada the veil was still down, but he fancied he could detect a thinner texture ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... have grown together simultaneously in the same swamp, the peat is modified in its characters accordingly. Where, as may happen, grass succeeds moss, or moss succeeds grass, the different layers reveal their origin by their color and texture. At considerable depths, however, where the peat is very old, these differences ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson

... testamento. Testator testamentanto. Testify atesti. Testimonial atesto, rekomendo. Testy kolerema. Tetanus tetano. Tether ligilo. Text teksto. Textile teksa. Textual lauxteksta. Texture teksajxo. Thaler talero. Than ol. Thank danki. Thankfully danke. Thankfulness dankeco. Thankless sendanka. Thanks dankon. That tio. That (demon. adj.) tiu. That (rel. pron.) kiu. That (conjn.) ke. Thatch pajla tegmento. Thaw ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... these ropes were simply a web hung thereby some colossal member of his own species, for he could see its prey dangling here and there from the strands, in the shape of mighty shreds and rags that had a woven look about their texture and were no doubt the discarded skins of prodigious insects which had been caught and eaten. And then he ran along one of the ropes to make a closer inspection, but felt a smart sudden burn on the soles of his feet, accompanied by a paralyzing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... very fine and yet strong texture, with which nets are formed. One half of the net is laid over the plant-bed when certain winds foretell the coming of the insects, and as soon as these have covered the favourite plant, the top of the net, moved by a spring from either side, closes over and secures the swarm. ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)

... events in which a bewildering number of factors played their part. In sifting out a certain number of them, I want to make it clear that I do not pretend to have discovered more than a small minority of the most conspicuous threads in the complex texture of the fabric ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith

... he said constantly—for he carried his beads loose in his trousers' pockets that he might tell them as he walked the streets—transformed themselves into coronals of flowers of such vague unearthly texture that they seemed to him as hueless and odourless as they were nameless. He offered up each of his three daily chaplets that his soul might grow strong in each of the three theological virtues, in faith in the Father Who had created him, in hope in the Son Who had redeemed him and in love of ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... equally important temples of Greece, the earlier archaic representation of Demeter in the sanctuary of Eleusis, was replaced by a more beautiful image in the new style, with face and hands of ivory, having therefore, in tone and texture, some subtler likeness to women's flesh, and the closely enveloping drapery being constructed in daintily beaten plates of gold. Praxiteles seems to have been the first to bring into the region of a freer ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... about the size of oranges, used for chipping and making rough the nether millstone. Glazed pipes and earthenware used in smelting iron, show that iron was smelted in the remotest ages in Africa. These earthenware vessels, and fragments of others of a finer texture, were found in the delta of the Zambesi and in other parts in close association with fossil bones, which, on being touched by the tongue, showed as complete an absence of animal matter as the most ancient fossils known in Europe. They ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... Ghirlandajo's time that another painter had discovered the use of oil in mixing paints. Previously colours had been mixed in water with some gelatinous substance, such as the white and yolk of an egg, to give the paint a proper texture or consistency. This preparation was called "distemper," and frescoes were made by using this upon plaster while it was still wet. Plaster and colours dried together, and the painting became a part of the wall, not to be removed except by taking ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon

... her strong point. When she was a little flushed she looked all the better for it, and when she was pale it seemed to suit her none the worse. Hers was the sort of skin with a satiny texture that improves under bright sunshine or electric light; in fact the more brilliantly it was ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson

... is absurd, a wrap like that on such a night." And, while Phillis hesitated, he drew the shawl from her shoulders and hung it over his arm, and all the way his disengaged right hand rested on the folds, touching it softly from time to time, as though the mere feeling of the texture pleased him. ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... the grape be expressly forbidden by the laws of the Prophet Mohammed—occupied the center of the room. Around the walls were continuous sofas, or ottomans, so conducive to the enjoyment of a voluptuous indolence; the floor was spread with a carpet so thick that the feet sunk into the silky texture, as into newly fallen snow; and whichever way he turned Alessandro beheld his form reflected in vast mirrors set in magnificent frames. There were no windows on any side of this apartment; but there was a cupola fitted with stained glass on the roof, and Alessandro ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... ideas and customs of his time, and he played an honourable and acceptable part in that time; but his permanent interest lies not in his general conformity but in his incidental scepticism, in the fact that underlying the observances and recognised rules and limitations that give the texture of his life were the profoundest doubts, and that, stirred and disturbed by Plato, he saw fit to write them down. One may question if such scepticism is in itself unusual, whether any large proportion of great statesmen, great ecclesiastics and administrators ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... the four Evangelists, is thus curtly disposed of:—"Il se retira au desert. Beaucoup de monde l'y suivit. Grace a une extreme frugalite la troupe sainte y vecut; on crut naturellement voir en cela un miracle." This is all he has to say. But miracles are too closely interwoven with the whole texture of the Gospel history to be, as a whole, thus disposed of. He has, of course, to admit that miracles are so mixed up with it that mere exaggeration is not a sufficient account of them. But be bids us remember that the time was one of great credulity, of slackness ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... pleasant in flavour and odour, it may be considered wholesome; if, on the contrary, it have an offensive smell, a bitter, astringent, or styptic taste, or even if it leave an unpleasant flavour in the mouth, it should not be considered fit for food. The colour, figure, and texture of these vegetables do not afford any characters on which we can safely rely; yet it may be remarked, that in colour, the pure yellow, gold colour, bluish pale, dark or lustre brown, wine red, or the violet, belong to many that are esculent; whilst the pale or sulphur yellow, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various

... regularly, will have changed at the end of six months. It will be larger; it will have more flesh, more bone, more hair, etc. We want to get a name that will apply to any part of the body. No matter which part we examine through a microscope we find the same fine and beautiful texture, and to this we give a name similar to that given to fine, thin paper. We call it tissue—hair tissue, bone ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education

... complexity of life and emotion than to catch the fixed lineaments of outward aspect. To paint a policeman idly lounging at the street corner with such verisimilitude that we are pleased with the representation, admiring the solidity of the figure, the texture of the clothes, and the human aspect of the features, is so difficult that we loudly applaud the skill which enables an artist to imitate what in itself is uninteresting; and if the imitation be carried to a certain degree of verisimilitude the picture may be of immense value. ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... believe coined the epithet "apostolical" for his party because it was connected with everything in Spain which was most obnoxious to the British public. I remember one day his grievously shocking Palmer of Worcester, a man of an opposite texture, when a council in J.H.N.'s rooms had been called to consider some memorial or other to which Palmer wanted to collect the signatures of many, and particularly of dignified persons, but in which Froude wished to express the determined opinions of a few. Froude ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... with pride upon his bear-skins Which hung ready for the winter. Told his people all the marvels Of the Land-of-the-Pale-Faces; Of the ships with wings like sea-birds Wherein he had crossed the water;[M] Of the Pale-Face Weroanza[N] Whom he saw in her own country; Of her robes of silken texture, Of her wisdom and her power; Told them of her warlike people And their ships which breathed the lightning. How he pledged with them a friendship, Hoping they would come to teach him How to make his people mighty, How to make them strong in battle ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten

... her shawl which lay there by the hearth and looked at it; he stroked it, unfolded it, spread it out and looked at it again; he held it to his face; its whiteness and its tender texture were as flame to his sight and touch, the scarcely perceptible scent of it pierced him like a delicate pain. He gathered it up again in a heap and covered it with kisses. Then, because it made his longing for her insupportable, ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... for a moment, asking her quite an unimportant question, but nevertheless with a distinct object. As we stood there I placed my hand upon her shoulder—and upon the shawl. It was for that very reason—in order to feel the texture of the silk—that I ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... but held their minds riveted to other things. Just as the senses require sensible objects to stimulate them, so our powers of observation, recollection, and imagination do not work spontaneously, but are set in motion by the demands set up by current social occupations. The main texture of disposition is formed, independently of schooling, by such influences. What conscious, deliberate teaching can do is at most to free the capacities thus formed for fuller exercise, to purge them of some of their grossness, and to furnish objects which ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... best; when one could so easily get together the colors of an apple branch in early spring, that was not hard to do. Even Dr. Archie felt, each time he looked at her, a fresh consciousness. He recognized the fine texture of her mother's skin, with the difference that, when she reached across the table to give him a bunch of grapes, her arm was not only white, but somehow a little dazzling. She seemed to him taller, and freer ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... middle portion, pin-knots do not damage the timber. The massive body tapers more rapidly above than redwood, and is less eccentric than juniper, yet its general port resembles most the best specimens of the latter. The light cinnamon bark is thick and of shreddy-fibered texture, but so concretely compacted as to render the surface evenly ridged by very long, big bars of bark. These sweep obliquely down on the long spiral twist of swift water lines. The top is conic, the foliage is in compressed, flattened ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various



Words linked to "Texture" :   visual property, marbleizing, quality, coarse, fine, marbleising, beaux arts, marbleization, raggedness, composition, makeup, physical composition, constitution, smoothness, fine arts



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