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Costume   /kɑstˈum/  /kˈɑstum/   Listen
Costume

noun
1.
The attire worn in a play or at a fancy dress ball.
2.
Unusual or period attire not characteristic of or appropriate to the time and place.
3.
The prevalent fashion of dress (including accessories and hair style as well as garments).
4.
The attire characteristic of a country or a time or a social class.



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"Costume" Quotes from Famous Books



... young, tall, dark-skinned, with a black, pointed beard. He wore his national costume and over it many necklaces of strange stones, and of jewels more strange. He sat on a papier-mache throne with gilded elephants for supports, and in his hand held a crystal globe. His head was all but hidden ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis

... was always devoted, for in it, and in that cross which was made in the likeness of that whereon Our Lord had suffered, and on His wounds he rested all the hope of his salvation; and he commanded them to attire him in the costume of the Order of Santiago, whereof he was a Commander, that he might die in it; and on the Sunday, one hour before the dawn, he rendered up his soul to God; and there finished all his troubles without seeing any ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens

... Lady Russell called both the girls forward, and in especial introduced Ermengarde to several friends of her own. Some of these ladies knew her mother, and they looked kindly at Ermie, and only whispered together behind her back about the extraordinary costume the poor little girl was ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... House Cleaning. For twenty-five years she had done it. For twenty-five years she had hated it—being an intelligent woman. For twenty-five years, towel swathed about her head, skirt pinned back, sleeves rolled up—the costume dedicated to house cleaning since the days of What's-Her-Name mother of Lemuel (see Proverbs)—Mrs. Brewster had gone through the ceremony twice ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... hoof-beats of a horse behind me. I stopped, and looking over my shoulder saw a rider approaching me in the costume of an Indian chief. A red mask covered his face. A crest of eagle feathers circled the edge of his cap. Without a word he rode on at my side. I knew not then that he was the man Josiah Curtis—nor could I at any time have sworn ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... met her in the summer, when one's heart lies round at ease, As it were in tennis costume, and a man's not hard to please, Yet I think that any season to have met her was to love, While her tones, unspoiled, unstudied, had the softness of ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... imagination by yet more sacred remembrances—had been of late surveyed by British eyes, and described by recent travellers. Had I, therefore, attempted the difficult task of substituting manners of my own invention, instead of the genuine costume of the East, almost every traveller I met who had extended his route beyond what was anciently called "The Grand Tour," had acquired a right, by ocular inspection, to chastise me for my presumption. Every member of the Travellers' Club who could pretend to have thrown his ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... of the Beggars' medals, with the motto, 'Fideles au roy jusqu'a la besace,' while a loose surcoat of gray frieze cloth, over a tawny leather doublet, with wide slashed underclothes completed his costume. [1] ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... and Dolly were really doing their best. So was their mother, Lady Chetwynd Lyle; she allowed no "eligible" to escape her hawk-like observation, and on this particular evening she was in all her glory, for there was to be a costume ball at the Gezireh Palace Hotel,—a superb affair, organized by the proprietors for the amusement of their paying guests, who certainly paid well,—even stiffly. Owing to the preparations that were going on for this festivity, the lounge, with its sumptuous ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... young and healthy living creature on earth appreciates. So long as our young men are genuinely manly, good, strong, and courageous, I am not inclined to find fault with them, even if they happen to trip and fall into slight extravagances in the matter of costume. The creature who lives to dress I abhor, the sane and sound man who fulfils his life-duties gallantly and who is not above pleasing himself and others by means of reasonable adornments I like and even respect warmly. The philosophers may growl as they chose, but I contend ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... was a little seething of unrest. Mrs. Bloomer had put forth a new costume that shocked the feminine world, though they were complaining of the weight of heavy skirts and the various devices for distending them. Lucretia Mott and some other really fine women were advocating the wider education of the sex. Women were being brought to the fore as teachers in schools, ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... gravity at this characterization of old Sandy, with his ridiculous air of importance, his long blue coat, and his loud plaid trousers. That suit would make a great costume for a masquerade. He would borrow it some time,—there was nothing in the ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... outcry of "Papa, papa!" Oliver leaped up, half laughing, half screaming, and kicking his little bare legs with glee as his father took him in his arms; Arthur came running in, clad in the very airiest costume possible; and Letitia appeared sedately a minute or two afterwards having stopped to put on her warm scarlet dressing-gown, and to take off her nightcap—under the most exciting circumstances, Titia was such ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... established of late throughout the city. Lasting all day, this annual carnival of play is shared by school children, working girls and boys, and young men and women. In the morning the children play and perform their costume dances. In the afternoon the fields are given up to athletic sports of older children, and in the evening young men and women, of all nationalities, many wearing their old-world peasant dresses, revive the plays and the dances of their native lands. Tens of thousands view the beautiful ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... Her costume, worthy of her face, was extremely magnificent; it consisted of a robe of gold-and-silver brocade, and a mantle of nacarat velvet, lined with vair. Her head-dress was a sort of hennin, with two high points; and pearls of splendid lustre made it bright and luminous as a crescent moon. Her ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... now it became Ranjoor Singh's policy to know nothing whatever about them. The Afghans provided us with rations and sent us one of their own doctors dressed in the uniform of a tram-car conductor, and their highest official in those parts, whose rank I could not guess because he was arrayed in the costume of a city of London policeman, asked innumerable questions, first of Ranjoor Singh and then of each of us individually. But we conferred together, and stuck to one point, that we knew nothing. Ranjoor Singh did not know better than we. The more he asked the more dumb we became ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy

... that spot; that then he would ask her to sit down, and that while she was so seated he would tell her everything. At the present moment he had on his head a Scotch cap with a grouse's feather in it, and he was dressed in a velvet shooting-jacket and dark knickerbockers; and was certainly, in this costume, as handsome a man as any woman would wish to see. And there was, too, a look of breeding about him which had come to him, no doubt, from the royal Finns of old, which ever served him in great stead. He was, indeed, only Phineas Finn, and was ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... floated the white fleur-de-lised pennon. He looked for a soldier to conduct him to the tent of M. de Beaufort. Then, while his eye was wandering over the plain, turning on all sides, he saw a white form appear behind the scented myrtles. This figure was clothed in the costume of an officer; it held in its hand a broken sword; it advanced slowly towards Athos, who, stopping short and fixing his eyes upon it, neither spoke nor moved, but wished to open his arms, because in this silent officer he had already recognized Raoul. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... in the driver's seat. As a passenger he carried Regina Mortlake. She looked very stunning in her lurid aviation costume, and her handsome face was as calm as chiseled marble. Her nervousness only displayed itself by a constant tapping ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham

... snuff-boxes and little old-fashioned bibelots on all the tables, and an embroidery frame, of course, in one of the windows, near it a basket filled with bright coloured silks. The miniatures were, almost all, portraits of de Courvals of every age and in every possible costume: shepherdesses, court ladies of the time of Louis XV, La Belle Ferronniere with the jewel on her forehead, men in armour with fine, strongly marked faces; they must have been a handsome race. It is a pity there is no son to carry on the name. One daughter-in-law ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington

... "The costume of your Sisterhood would be pretty in a gondola," Beechy answered. And again that coldness fell upon me which I always feel at a reminder, intentional or unintentional, of the future. But the chill was gone in a moment—lost in the luminous air, which had a strange brilliancy, ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... long hotel piazza were half a dozen groups of strangers, summer visitors, evidently in a state of suppressed curiosity and amusement. They fell silent as the disconsolate vehicle came to a halt, and Arthur Asham, the Harvard brother, in irreproachable morning costume and perfect form, moved forward to ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... apart from the crowd, just under the shadow of the tree, or in some favourite corner where you can smoke, and contemplate the motley guests, formed into calm and solemn groups, who wish to hold no communion with the Giaour. There is ample food here for the observer of character, costume and pretension: the tradesman, the mechanic, the soldier, the gentleman, the dandy, the grave old man, looking wise on the past and dimly on the future: the hadge, in his green turban, vain of his journey to Mecca, and drawing a long bow ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... comparatively insignificant as that of dress. But who can prize too highly the reverence for authority, the sweet feminine modesty, the domestic harmony, which are expressed in this sisterly uniformity of costume? All this might have been spurious in the case just cited, and this harmonious effect at only after an infinite amount of petty squabbling and rebellion; but such unworthy skepticism is rebuked by my faithful Memory, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... animated beings who composed its crew and passengers. The former, as already stated, were dark-skinned men, scantily clad,—in fact, almost naked, since a single pair of white cotton drawers constituted the complete costume of each. ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various

... Neenah found this dress for me—aren't these baggy trousers funny? She rifled the late Mr. Wyckholme's wardrobe. This costume once adorned a sultana, I'm told. It is a most priceless treasure. I wore it to-night because I was much less conspicuous as a sultana than I might have been had I gone to the ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... at the door was answered instantly by a young maid in Alsatian costume. Her fresh complexion and her long eyelashes, lowered demurely at the sight of the tall officer, caused Lieut. D'Hubert, who was accessible to esthetic impressions, to relax the cold, severe gravity of his face. At the same time ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... evidence in the city hall, at the Government palace in Melacanan [1] and at the army headquarters, and they always appeared, too, in the cock-pit, in the market, in all processions, and in the Chinese shops. Dressed in this official costume with the tasseled cane, Captain Tiago was to be found everywhere, arranging, ordering, and putting in disorder, everything with which he had anything to do—and all with wonderful activity and ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... to the elevator, the door opened and the Knight went in and began to pull off his coat, when he looked around and saw a woman on the plush upholstered seat of the elevator, leaning against the wall with her head on her hand. She was dressed in ball costume, with one of those white Oxford tie dresses cut low in the instep, which looked, in the mussed and bedraggled condition in which she had escaped from the exposition ball, very much to the Knight like a Knight shirt. The astonished pinery man stopped pulling ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... the elbows. A gourd was slung over his shoulder and a pistol was hanging at his belt, his hand grasped a gun, the butt of which rested in a leathern pocket fastened to his saddle-bow—in short, he wore the complete costume of a brigand in a melodrama, or of the middle-class Corsican on his travels. Miss Nevil's attention was first attracted by the woman's remarkable beauty. She seemed about twenty years of age; she was ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee

... His hands were those of an indefatigable worker,—large, thick, square, and wrinkled with deep furrows. His chest was of seemingly indestructible muscularity. He never relinquished his peddler's costume,—thick, hobnailed shoes; blue stockings knit by his wife and hidden by leather gaiters; bottle-green velveteen trousers; a checked waistcoat, from which depended the brass key of his silver watch by an iron chain which long usage had polished till it shone like steel; ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... unwillingly into the hedge to costume herself while the two boys invested their fists with the ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... of pleazheh, seh." The clerk began his usual shifting of costume. "Yesseh! I assu' you, Doctah, that is a p'oposition moze enti'ly to my satizfagtion; faw I am suffe'ing faw a smoke, and deztitute of a ciga'ette! I am aztonizh' 'ow I did that, to egshauz them unconsciouzly, in fact." He received the advertisement ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... card tables, drinking, laughing and playing, were the wealthy patrons of the place, and mingling with them, the girls, all of exceptional grace and beauty, dressed in glittering evening costume; but not one eclipsed the radiant creature who stood with flushed cheeks and shining eyes hesitating on ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright

... you know," said Miriam, as if in explanation of Donatello's and her own costume. "Do you remember how merrily we spent the ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... guard of twenty men armed with long guns and pistols, and dressed in the costume which the Greeks have assumed since they have again become a nation. You may imagine there was something startling and ominous," said Haidee, shaking her head and turning pale at the mere remembrance of the scene, "in this long file of slaves and women only half-aroused ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... he exchanged his Scottish costume (of a shirt and nothing else) for attire of a more European nature; after which he pulled tight the waistcoat over his ample stomach, sprinkled himself with eau-de-Cologne, tucked his papers under his arm, took his fur cap, and ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... paint the "Horse Fair" and other similar pictures, which have brought her much into the company of men, she has found it wise to dress in male costume. A laughable incident is related of this mode of dress. One day when she returned from the country, she found a messenger awaiting to announce to her the sudden illness of one of her young friends. Rosa did not wait to change her male attire, but hastened to the bedside of the young lady. ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... enacted in houses that appear to be really haunted are generally very simple and insignificant, not to say dull and commonplace. The ghosts are quite unpretentious and go to no expense in the matter of staging or costume. They are clad as they were when, sometimes many years ago, they led their quiet, unadventurous life within their own home. We find in one case an old woman, with a thin grey shawl meekly folded over her breast, who bends at night over the sleeping occupants of her old ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... puny execution,—behold Charles the Fifth's day; another, yet the same; behold Chatham's, Hampden's, Bayard's, Alfred's, Scipio's, Pericles's day,—day of all that are born of women. The difference of circumstance is merely costume. I am tasting the self-same life,—its sweetness, its greatness, its pain, which I so admire in other men. Do not foolishly ask of the inscrutable, obliterated past what it cannot tell,—the details of that nature, of that day, called ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... dangled far below the hands, and an extra length of pantaloons turned up to the knees; the whole figure surmounted by a knit-woollen cap, resembling an inverted wash-basin; coarse brogans completed the costume. Just pause a moment, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... above the doorway Cynegius came forth—Cynegius, the Emperor's delegate; a stout man of middle height, with a shrewd round head and a lawyer's face. State dignitaries, Consuls and Prefects had, at this date, ceased to wear the costume that had marked the patricians of old Rome—a woollen toga that fell in broad and dignified folds from the shoulders; a long, close-fitting robe had taken its place, of purple silk brocade with gold flowers. On the envoy's shoulder blazed the badge of the highest ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... girl of seventeen can make. She was in what she called her uniform, a short dress made of dark print, cut lower in the neck than a street dress. It had elbow sleeves, and a bit of white braid stitched on their bands and around the square neck set off the little costume charmingly. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... thus in miner's garb, Mr. Neverbend could not be said to look the part he filled. He was a stout, reddish-faced gentleman, with round shoulders and huge whiskers, he was nearly bald, and wore spectacles, and in the costume in which he now appeared he did not seem to be at his ease. Indeed, all his air of command, all his personal dignity and dictatorial tone, left him as soon as he found himself metamorphosed into a fat pseudo- miner. He was like a cock whose feathers had been trailed ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... first meeting must be awkward in any case, and she was one of those energetic people who, when there is a disagreeable thing to be done, do it, and get it over at once. So she strengthened her mind by adding a touch of severity to her costume, and sat herself down in the drawing room with a book on her lap when the morning came, well nerved for the interview. Her heart began to beat unpleasantly when he rang, and she heard him in the hall, doubtless inquiring ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... humble board, the frugal repast of the peasants who sheltered her. Her general attire has been the most common dress, of a materiel called buse, made of worsted, and worn by the poorest of the peasantry. A mantle of the same coarse stuff, with a hood, completed her costume. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various

... though it took me a long two hours to get from there to Paris, for the road was blocked with commissariat waggons and guns of the artillery reserve, which was going north to Marmont and Mortier. You cannot conceive the excitement which my appearance in such a costume made in Paris, and when I came to the Rue de Rivoli I should think I had a quarter of a mile of folk riding or running behind me. Word had got about from the dragoons (two of whom had come with ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... imitate. Is there not some virtue in such non-emulation, or is it but the spirit of a deadened race? Yet this rather sombre and unattractive apparel is found more among the peon class; the Indian girl in some parts of Mexico—as at Tehuantepec—wears a handsome native costume, derived from Aztec days, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... by Mohammed el Mukni, the sultan of Fezzan, from whose protection and friendship the greatest advantages were anticipated. By the express advice of the bashaw, the English travellers assumed the moorish costume, with the character of Moslem. Mr. Ritchie's name was converted into Yusuf al Ritchie; Captain Lyon called himself Said Ben Abdallah; and Belford, a ship-wright, who had entered into their service, took ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... and the shops to shine with lamps along the tree-beshadowed thorough-fares of Otto's capital, when the Countess started on her high emprise. She was jocund at heart; pleasure and interest had winged her beauty, and she knew it. She paused before the glowing jeweller's; she remarked and praised a costume in the milliner's window; and when she reached the lime-tree walk, with its high, umbrageous arches and stir of passers-by in the dim alleys, she took her place upon a bench and began to dally with the ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... he sometimes thought that would be the best way of combating his growing inclination for males. And he thinks that he might have brought himself to indulge freely in purely sexual pleasure with women if he made their first acquaintance in a male costume, as debardeuses, Cherubino, court-pages, young halberdiers, as it is only when so clothed that women on the stage or in the ball-room have ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... a mind to take Ellsworth by surprise. Will they admit a gentleman in travelling costume, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... miles south of the one where I was still remembered. This committed me to a solitary and somewhat lengthy tramp; but the night was mild and starry, and I marched into it with a high stomach; for this was to be no costume crime, and yet I should have Raffles at my elbow all the night. Long before I reached my destination, indeed, he stood in wait for me on the white highway, and ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... McTeague knew so well. She wore a pair of new gloves. Mrs. Sieppe had on lisle-thread mits, and carried two bananas and an orange in a net reticule. "For Owgooste," she confided to him. Owgooste was in a Fauntleroy "costume" very much too small for him. Already he ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... Hedge's dress was the quaintest costume that the law—of society—allowed. It was a sage-green velvet, made out of one of Miss Grandiere's own old-fashioned gowns, and decorated all around the bottom of the skirt, the belt, the sleeves and the neck with ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... well-tailored light gray suit, a lavender silk tie - and she was a lady among the boorish and bourgeois women of her town. For on the point of dress the artistic Hollanders, as soon as they discard their quaint old national costume, are probably the most tasteless people in the world, and of these the women of a North Dutch provincial town are probably even the very ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... have got a costume, Bishop, and that's a fact," replied the actor; "but it's hardly in his line, ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... conversing in low, eager tones that proved "something was up." He felt somewhat grieved that he was not their confidant, since these girls and their loyal affection for him constituted the chief joy of his life. When he put on his regulation fishing costume and carried his expensive rod and reel, his landing net and creel to the brook for a day's sport, he could no longer induce one of his girls to accompany him. Even Patsy pleaded laughingly that she had certain "fish to fry" that ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne

... himself in the Sabbath morning costume of the Canal Street importing house dray chauffeur—frock coat, striped trousers, patent leathers, gilded trace chain across front of vest, and wing collar, rolled-brim derby and butterfly bow from Schonstein's (between ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... life, in those days, counted for little; fortune, honour, national existence hung in the balance; the game was one in which the heads of kings and queens and great statesmen were the stakes,—yet the players could not get out of their stiff and constrained costume, out of their artificial and fantastic figments of thought, out of their conceits and affectations of language. They carried it, with all their sagacity, with all their intensity of purpose, to the council-board, and the judgment-seat. They ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... sun-down, however, the sharp eyes of the black-boys detected some of them actually trying to stalk the whites, using green boughs for screens. So the Brothers taking with them Scrutton and the four black-boys, started in chase. They were in camp costume, that is to say, shirt and belt, and all in excellent condition and wind, and now a hunt commenced, which perhaps stands alone in the annals of nature warfare. On being detected the natives again decamped, but this time closely pursued. The party could at any time overtake ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... of people from all parts of the world, each dressed in his and her natural costume, every style of dress and every color under the sun. And the milds of bazars, little booths about ten feet square but all runnin' over with the richest embroideries, silken fabrics, gold, silver, amber and everything else ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... throat and wrists. The girdle was of braided violet silk, the ends weighted with amethyst and emerald ornaments. A white mantle of silk and wool, trimmed with fur of the black squirrel, and fastened under the chin with a gold button, and an embroidered alms-purse, completed the costume. The other ladies of the party were attired as carefully, and the dress of the men was as rich and brilliant as that of the women. They passed through the wavering light and shadow of the woodlands like a covey of ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... at last: and Rosalie Murray was transmuted into Lady Ashby. Most splendidly beautiful she looked in her bridal costume. Upon her return from church, after the ceremony, she came flying into the schoolroom, flushed with excitement, and laughing, half in mirth, and half in reckless desperation, as ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... from Major Gunthorpe's Notes on Criminal Tribes. [189] They usually travel about with small pals or tents, taking their wives, children, buffaloes and dogs with them. The men are well set up and tall. Their costume is something like that worn by professional gymnasts, consisting of light and short reddish-brown drawers (chaddi), a waistband with fringe at either end (katchhe), and a sheet thrown over the shoulders. The Naik or headman ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... years more to serve, and, on being told that any service he could render the State would be taken into account and to his credit, he gave Chip a minute and detailed description of his costume, manner of doing business, and brought up many interesting reminiscenses, which ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton

... with our inner consciousness are these purely arbitrary codes of propriety in costume, that we have such extremes as Kipling shows us in his remote Himalayan forests,—a white man thousands of miles from his kind, who "dressed for dinner every night to preserve his self-respect." No doubt a perfectly sincere conviction, and one sunk deep in the highbred British breast, but ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... from his carriage, in the foreground of that fictitious summary of their domestic existence which hostesses are pleased to offer to their guests on ceremonial occasions, and in which they shew a great regard for accuracy of costume and setting, Swann was amused to discover the heirs and successors of Balzac's 'tigers'—now 'grooms'—. who normally followed their mistress when she walked abroad, but now, hatted and booted, were posted out of doors, in front of the ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... wonder what sort of person the newcomer could be. Wo Cheng was keen of wit. To many he refused entrance. But he was also a keen trader. All manner of men and women came to him; some for a permanent change of costume, some for a night's exchange only. Peasants, grown suddenly and strangely rich, bearing passports and tickets for other lands, came to buy the cast-off finery of the one time nobility. Russian, Japanese, American soldiers and officers ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell

... seem more strange than the tartans of Scotch Highlanders were to the Greeks. The king's guard, he told us, is composed of men from the mountain regions of Greece, who dress in the ancient military costume of that section. The uniforms of the regular Greek soldiers are very similar to those worn by the soldiers of our own country. The officers we met were handsome men and especially well uniformed. The well-to-do and middle class Athenian people whom ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... o'clock, Mrs. Tulliver had on her visiting costume. Maggie was frowning, and twisting her shoulders, that she might, if possible, shrink away from the prickliest of tuckers; while her mother was saying, "Don't, Maggie, my dear—don't look so ugly!" Tom's cheeks were looking very red against ...
— Tom and Maggie Tulliver • Anonymous

... and strong for my years. I had left off wearing my dress of the skins of birds, having substituted one of the seaman's shirts, which I had found in the chest. This, however, was the whole of my costume, and although, had it been longer it would have been more correct, still, as I had no other companion but Nero, it was not necessary to be so very particular, as if I had been in society. During these three years, I think I had read the Bible and Prayer-book, and my Natural History book, ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... scattered and searched the studio for materials with which to create for him a costume for the mask, the ghost came limping up to the young man who had seated himself again wearily on the throne, ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... steps forth from behind the stove, in the costume of a Travelling Scholar.) Why such a noise? What are my ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... teaching, she was famous in the neighbourhood for the excellence of her cooking. Her only worry in that department was her seeming lack of success in training her daughters up to her elevation. She is usually sent for when important visitors come to Dashfontein, and would then don her best costume of coloured German print, and carry down with her the spotless apron which Mrs. V. gave her the preceding New Year; and in spite of her advancing years, she would cause Anna, and every other upstart at the homestead, instinctively ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... doomed to pay an annual visit to the house of his victim, who is said to have predicted the extinction of the family, which has literally been fulfilled. This strange visitor is always attired in the costume of the early Stuart period, and the trappings of his horse are of a most uncouth description; the evening of his arrival ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... Bolshevism by overtaxing them with our frenzied purchasing or that it is absurd to send to a friend in a steam-heated apartment in a prohibition republic a bright little picture card of a gentleman in Georgian costume drinking ale by a roaring fire of logs. None in his senses, I say, would emit such sophistries, for Christmas is a law unto itself and is not conducted by card-index. Even the postmen and shopgirls, severe though their labors, would not have matters altered. There ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... sword-scabbard of yellow leather, the insignia of a German General of the Guards, a helmet winged with the Prussian eagle." A truly pious rig-out forsooth, in which to go and kneel before the tomb of Christ! They say that, in order to judge of the effect of this costume, William II has posed for his photograph ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... Hatzfeld estate to be present at my concert, and was waiting in a boarded compartment dignified by the name of box, for me to come out after the audience had left; the young lady came up to me once more in travelling costume after Damrosch's dinner and attempted by kindly and sympathetic assurances somewhat to assuage my evident anxiety respecting the future. I thanked her once more by letter for her sympathy after my return to Vienna, to which she replied ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... sank lower. She only wondered miserably if her mother, seeing a piece of inexpensive goods of almost any shade, and finding a pattern easy to manage, would make up what she thought would do quite well for the Indian Drill costume. Then her thoughts returned to the shoes. Perhaps after all they wouldn't fit! She was enabled by that emancipating thought to turn a happier face to her father and ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake

... forward and sidewise, whose legs were bent, and his body in a limp, helpless state, which called forth all the strength of the others to keep him from subsiding in a heap upon the snow. He seemed to be young, heavily bearded, and, as far as his costume could be seen in the yellow glare, he wore high boots and a pea-jacket; while his companions, one of whom was a keen-faced man, with clean-shaved face and a dark moustache, the other rather French-looking from his shortly cropped beard, wore ulsters ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... stammered awkwardly. "The truth is, I didn't know you were here, Mrs. Bunting. Please excuse my costume. My gas-stove has gone wrong, or, rather, that shilling-in-the-slot arrangement has done so. So I came down to see if you had a gas-stove. I am going to ask you to allow me to use it to-night for an important experiment ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... the back of the hall the grand staircase ascended by a double flight. The design was undoubtedly Vanbrugh's,—an architect who, beyond all others, sought the effect of grandeur less in space than in proportion; but Vanbrugh's designs need the relief of costume and movement, and the forms of a more pompous generation, in the bravery of velvets and laces, glancing amid those gilded columns, or descending with stately tread those broad palatial stairs. His halls and chambers are so made for ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "confusion worse confounded;" everything topsy-turvy. Mrs. DeSmythe on couch; Madam Sateene and she looking over lace samples, of which they have a great number. Madam in "swell" street costume.) ...
— The Sweet Girl Graduates • Rea Woodman

... was so severe for Palestine that snow fell. Her house was furnished with 'carpets,' or rather 'cushions' or 'pillows,' which are more important pieces of furniture where people recline on divans than where they sit on chairs. Her own costume is that of a rich woman. 'Purple and fine linen' are tokens of wealth, and she is woman enough to like to wear these. There is nothing unbecoming in assuming the style of living appropriate to one's position. Her children and herself thus share in the advantages ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... arrived, he poured a glass tumbler half full and consumed it eagerly while his eyes scanned the room in search of the girl. He couldn't see her in the dim swirl of color. Had she arrived? Perhaps she was wearing a different costume than she had the night before. If ...
— A Bottle of Old Wine • Richard O. Lewis

... "I like you that way, immensely. I was a bit surprised, that's all. You see, I thought, of course, that you would select an evening gown of some sort—something, you know, that would fit your social position—your place in the world. In this costume, the beauty of ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... their way to show friendliness to their guests. Johnny nearly cried over the parting, and would have bartered his hopes of the hereafter to have been allowed to accompany the boys, while Tommy, clothed again in his native costume and in his right mind, preceded them for two miles in his canoe to show them a blind, side trail which they were to take. When they turned to take their last look at him, the Seminole was standing in his canoe, leaning on his long pole and looking ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... of Japan from the rest of the world, so conducive to introspection, has been highly favourable to the development of Teaism. Our home and habits, costume and cuisine, porcelain, lacquer, painting—our very literature—all have been subject to its influence. No student of Japanese culture could ever ignore its presence. It has permeated the elegance of noble boudoirs, and entered the abode of the humble. Our peasants have ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura

... images of any pattern in earth or heaven? We should hardly think so, since the object of this prohibition is rather to prevent idolatry than to discourage the gratification of taste. "Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them." The Jews did have emblematic observances, costume, and works of art. Yet, on the other hand, the Jews possessed something resembling the drama, and that out of which the dramatic institutions of all nations have sprung. The question, then, why the Jews had no drama proper, and still preserved the semblance ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... for the performance was modeled after Enriquez's previous costume, with the addition of a few fripperies of silver and stamped leather out of compliment to Consuelo, and even with a faint hope that it might appease Chu Chu. She certainly looked beautiful in her glittering accoutrements, set off by her jet-black shining coat. With an air of demure abstraction ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... followed a half dozen more of the Blossom Festival crowd, Barbara and Bronson Vandeman among them. Ina paid no attention to any one, standing there, her height increased by the long, straight lines of the costume, her bisque doll features given a strange, pallid dignity by the raw magnificence of its crusted purple and crimson and green and gold embroidery and ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... as he sat under the late blooming roses in the afternoon sunshine of the autumn of western France, appeared to the casual eye one of the most noble seigneurs and the most enlightened in the world. He affected a costume already semiecclesiastic as a token of his ultimate intention to enter holy orders. It seemed indeed as if the great soldier who had ridden into Orleans with Dunois and the Maid had begun to lay aside his earthly glories and seek ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... recalling a wild boar somehow; and by his side towered an awful mature, white female with rapacious nostrils and a cheaply ill-omened stare in her enormous eyes. She was disguised in some semi-oriental, vulgar, fancy costume. She resembled a low-class medium or one of those women who tell fortunes by cards for half a crown. And yet she was striking. A professional sorceress from the slums. It was incomprehensible. There was something awful in the thought that she was the last reflection of the world of ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... flower. The syringas scented the air. The golden sunlight filled the theatre with light and warmth. But two persons were present, except myself. Seated on one of the white marble steps for the audience, was an Arles mother with a royal face, in the quaintly beautiful costume the women of all classes still affect, and she had spread her mantle over the shoulders of a girl of fourteen, sick, with face of the purest alabaster, and of features as fine as were ever traced for ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... vaulted compartments (?) with the pictures of the prophets, of the apostles, and of Christ in gold. The master of the house, or rather the builder, or perhaps the founder, [Greek: ho ktetor], and his wife are also painted there in a costume very much the same as is worn to-day, but with a very strange head-ornament, from which we may conclude that he was one of the most distinguished of the imperial staff, for this ornament looks almost like a duke's biretta ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... curtly refused to share her pennies with the conductor. When she was at last persuaded to yield, an embarrassing five minutes was consumed in searching for the required amount in the nooks and crannies of her costume where, for safe-keeping, she had cached her fund. One penny was in her shoe, another in her stocking, two in the lining of her hat, and one in the large and dilapidated chatelaine bag which dangled at ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... of him, one sitting on each side of him. Reilly, who looked on with amazement, now strongly blended with pity—for the malady of the unhappy ecclesiastic could no longer be mistaken—Reilly, we say, was addressed by an intelligent-looking individual, with some portion of the clerical costume about him. ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... title. On the Wednesday they proceeded up Loch Fyne; at Tarbut her majesty gazed with long and deep interest upon the glorious scenery. The royal party landed at Inverary, where the Duke of Argyll and the Campbells paid feudal homage, the clansmen assembling in their national costume. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... be a dandified simplicity in dress, is exemplified every day by our friends the Quakers, who adorn their beautiful brown Saxony coats with little inside velvet collars and fancy silk buttons, and even the severe order of sporting costume adopted by our friend Mr. Sponge is not devoid of capability in the way of tasteful adaptation. This Mr. Sponge chiefly showed in promoting a resemblance between his neck-cloths and waistcoats. Thus, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... suffrage automobile or a section in the parades on Labor Day, Columbus Day, etc.; a pilgrimage to Worcester on the anniversary of the First National Woman's Rights Convention, led by Miss Florence Luscomb in old-fashioned costume, in Lucy Stone's carriage; the running of propaganda films in the moving pictures and the placing of 100,000 brightly painted tin Blue Birds in conspicuous places throughout the State, each bird bearing ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... in his hand, stood by his side; over his shoulder he had thrown the fresh-severed skin of the poor bear, and on his head, with the curls descending to his waist, was one of the wigs of the supercargo Von Stroom. Such was the gravity of the black's appearance in this strange costume (for in every other respect he was naked), that, at any other time, Philip would have been induced to laugh heartily; but his feelings were now too acute. He rose upon his feet, and stood by the side of the Hottentot, who still continued immovable, but certainly without the slightest ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... the shirt by which Hercules was inflamed." She has written in the margin: "Every fever burns I believe; but Bozzy could think only on Nessus' dirty shirt, or Dr. Johnson's." In another marginal note she disclaims that attention to the Doctor's costume for which Boswell gives her credit, when, after relating how he had been called into a shop by Johnson to assist in the choice of a pair of silver buckles, he adds: "Probably this alteration in dress had been suggested by Mrs. Thrale, by associating with whom ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... deter Setna from his purpose. This act is a complete tale by itself, and belongs to a time some generations before Setna; it is here supposed to belong to the time of Amenhotep III., in the details of costume adopted for illustration. The third act is Setna's struggle as a rival magician to Na.nefer.ka.ptah, from which he finally comes off victorious by his brother's use of a talisman, and so secures possession of the coveted magic book. The fourth ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie

... room in answer to my invitation and closed the door behind her. She was dressed in her golfing costume, a plain white shirtwaist—blouse, she would have called it—a short, dark skirt and stout boots. The light garden hat was set upon her dark hair and her cheeks were flushed from rapid walking. The hat and ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... particolored (the Spirit was a Scotch girl and wore the tartan), the effect of de-materializing was capitally given by the Spirit's standing just inside the slightly parted curtains, and then allowing the whole outer costume, even to the head-dress, to fall swiftly to the floor. Perhaps the best effect in this line, that I have seen, was on one occasion when a Spirit had retired within the folds of the curtain, but apparently immediately reappeared again at the opening; she had been ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... the great bang, when the thick tangled ringlets spread over the old man's shoulders and reached down below his waist. To further gratify my curiosity, the chief put on a portion of his fantastic regalia, and executed a medicine dance. The doctor then dressed me in his wildest and most barbaric costume, when by special request I imitated his performance, in a manner ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden

... Her tender, fair skin must have appeared striking amongst all the brown faces, but the will and caprice of Russian officers demanded respect, and so no one appeared to know that there was an English lady in the troop wearing the costume of a rajah. Besides, the march was not a long one. The hunting-camp was only about 150 miles from Simla, situated below Kalka. On the next morning the column arrived before Simla and found that Jutogh, the high-lying British ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann



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