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Toilette

noun
1.
The act of dressing and preparing yourself.  Synonym: toilet.



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"Toilette" Quotes from Famous Books



... same emotions as, no doubt, a traveler fainting with thirst in a desert would experience upon descrying a watery oasis in the midst of the burning sands. Long before the sun arose, I leapt from my couch, and having made a hasty toilette, I sallied out into the bleak, frosty air. It revived me at once, and brought new courage into my heart. Looking at the whitened expanse of lawn where last night I had seen the two women running, I could detect no sign of footmarks in the snow. The whole lawn presented an unbroken surface of sparkling ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... directly," I continued. "Meanwhile, I dare say you would like to arrange your toilette ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... morn or noon, the guide rows bareheaded: Shoes, flannel shirt, and kersey trousers make His brief toilette: at night, or in the rain, He dons a surcoat which he doffs at morn: A paddle in the right hand, or an oar, And in the left, a gun, his needful arms. By turns we praised the stature of our guides, Their rival strength ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... was very glad to land, for somehow on board ship one never seemed to be able to finish one's toilette with the degree of niceness necessary, a lurch of the ship very often caused an utter derangement, a rolling sea made it a matter of great difficulty even to wash one's face, and as for tidying the hair that had been given up, and those who did not wear caps enclosed their rough curls in nets. ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... kindly with the lady, and what was deficient by nature was supplied by art, for she was one of those who always paid the most scrupulous attention to their toilette. If we were to describe her as fat, fair, and forty, we should certainly wrong her. Fair and forty she undoubtedly was, but fat she certainly was not. There was a slight tendency to embonpoint, but this was relieved ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... salad, with mayonnaise dressing, salted almonds, and, instead of the plain pudding that John liked, was a pie of which he was still more fond, capped by black coffee, all of which articles, except the last-named, were prepared by the hostess, who, in faultless toilette, with remarkably brilliant color, smilingly welcomed her husband and his guests to the half-past six dinner. When they had gone to the theatre, and the mother had talked to her two sons of the day's school ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... political emancipation. These were determined to snatch the royal prerogatives from him if he were unworthy of respect and squandered too much public money on his follies. It enraged them to hear that he spent hours on his own toilette, and starched his wife's fine ruffs as if he were her tire-woman. They were angry when they were told that their King regarded his functions so lightly that he gave audiences to ambassadors with a basketful of puppies ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... and now, at 12 o'clock, while the barometer stood at 25.920, the attached thermometer was at 108 deg.. Our Cheyennes had learned that with the Arapaho village were about twenty lodges of their own, including their own families; they therefore immediately commenced making their toilette. After bathing in the river, they invested themselves in some handsome calico shirts, which I afterwards learned they had stolen from my own men, and spent some time in arranging their hair and painting themselves ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... all invited that evening to supper with our commanding officer and his wife—who had been with him for a few days. A fresh breeze stirred the trees at sunset, and, after slight attention to our toilette, we dropped by twos and threes into the neighborhood of the major's tent. A little back from the rows of other tents, a few fine oaks made a temple in front, worthy even of its presiding genius, Grace Fanning—but I am not going to rhapsodize. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... of it by the waggon ladder, struggling under the weight of the last great basketful of stones and sandy earth. He dumped that down by the graveside, and went to the waggon and removed all stains of toil, and then set about making the last toilette of the beautiful woman who had so loved that everything that touched her should be pure, and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... further bidding—he hurried his toilette, and flew to the room that Hamilton enjoyed to himself. Hamilton was up. An open Bible lay near him, which ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... into the twilight loneliness. It had seemed just lately, however, as if Charlotte was growing a little weary of the gorgeous spectacle—the ever-changing, ever-splendid diorama of West End life. She no longer exclaimed at the sight of each exceptional toilette; she no longer smiled admiringly on the thoroughbred horses champing their bits in the immediate neighbourhood of her bonnet; she no longer gave a little cry of delight when the big drags came slowly along the crowded ranks, the steel bars shining ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... nights it's correct to carry a little darling Old Testament, bound in velvet or satin to match or contrast with one's toilette, and generally with jewels on the cover; and the Old Testament is quite often mentioned at dinner just now, people pretending they've been reading it, and so on. A propos, Mrs. Golding-Newman, one of the latest climbers, excused herself for being late at dinner somewhere the other ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various

... before sundown, it was part of my toilette to examine my feet and see that they were clear of chegoes. Now and then a nest would escape the scrutiny, and then I had to smart for it a day or two after. A chegoe once lit upon the back of my hand; wishful to see how he worked, I allowed him to take possession. He ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... of three sheets of paper, being a history of the evening I parted with you. But how expect you should read a letter of three mortal sheets of paper? I will tell you. Divide it into six doses of half a sheet each, and every day, when the toilette begins, take a dose, that is to say, read half a sheet. By this means, it will have the only merit its length and dulness can aspire to, that of assisting your coiffeuse to procure you six good naps of sleep. I will even allow you twelve days to get through it, holding you rigorously ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... which she executed the shawl-dance suggested to Madame de Stael the dance-scene in "Corinne." It is said that great care was bestowed upon her education; but as it is also stated that long hours were passed at the toilette, that she was the pet of all her mother's friends, who, as proud of her daughter's beauty as she was of her own, took her constantly to the theatre and public assemblies, little time could have been devoted to systematic instruction. There is no mention made throughout her life of any ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... little difficulty in describing the toilette of the native, that of the men being limited to the one covering of the head, the body being entirely nude. It is curious to observe among these wild savages the consummate vanity displayed in their head-dresses. Every tribe has a distinct ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... I had never seen a gentleman attired in a colored shirt, a spotless white collar and bosom being one of those "notions" that "Boston," and consequently New England "folks," entertained of the becoming in a gentleman's toilette. Mrs. Cass had laughingly forewarned me that not only calico shirts but patch-work pillow-cases were an indispensable part of a travelling equipment; and, thanks to the taste and skill of some tidy little Frenchwoman, I found our divan-pillows all accommodated ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... sideways in the low coil of her soft ashen hair. On the dazzling fairness of her neck lay a single unset emerald depending from a fine gold chain. Clavering stared at her helplessly. . . . It was evident she had not made her toilette with an eye to ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... it disguised her figure as completely as it covered her toilette. She nodded her satisfaction, and accepted the veil which she had desired to complete her disguise, a thing of Spanish lace, black and ample, like a mantilla. But before donning it she delayed one minute more before ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... for either thing: to stay in the night splendor longer, or to go in. It ended in their going in. Outside, the moon wheeled on in her long southerly circuit, the stars trembled in their infinite depths, and the mountains abided in awful might. Within was a piano tinkle of gay music, and demi-toilette, and demi-festival,—the poor, abridged reproduction of city revelry in the inadequate parlor of an unpretending mountain-house, on ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... hair was dressed with large ornamental pins and artificial flowers, as for an evening party. We met them out walking later in the evening, with light shawls or visites on their shoulders, no bonnets, and large fans in their hands. This toilette was fully accounted for by the heat, the thermometer being at 80 deg. in the shade. Many of the younger women were very pretty, and pleasing ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter

... of the parade of dress, and passed as many hours daily at his toilette as an elderly coquette. A tenth part of his day was spent in the brushing of his teeth and the oiling of his hair, which was curling and brown, and which he did not like to conceal under a periwig, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of a fallacious local saddler, a leather pad was made for me with rings to fasten on my bundle; and I thoughtfully completed my kit and arranged my toilette. By way of armoury and utensils, I took a revolver, a little spirit-lamp and pan, a lantern and some halfpenny candles, a jack-knife and a large leather flask. The main cargo consisted of two entire changes of warm clothing—besides my travelling ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... forty-eight minutes; conversation with the family, chiefly literary, and about the housekeeping, one hour and four minutes; sleep, three hours and fifteen minutes (at the end of the month, when the Magazine is complete, I own I take eight minutes more); and the rest for the toilette and the world. Well, I say, the Roundabout Paper Day being come, and the subject long since settled in my mind, an excellent subject—a most telling, lively, and popular subject—I go to breakfast determined to finish that meal in 9 3/4 minutes, as usual, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... is L. aromatica, a little gem, which throws up an indefinite number of short spikes, each crowned with a greenish yellow triangular sort of cup, deliciously scented. I am acquainted with no flower that excites such enthusiasm among ladies who fancy Messrs. Liberty's style of toilette; sad experience tells me that ten commandments or twenty will not restrain them from appropriating it. L. cruenta is almost as tempting. As for L. leucanthe, an exquisite combination of pale green and snow white, it ranks with L. Skinneri alba ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle

... of islands was one of those where the people showed the most intelligence. They were already great cultivators of the toilette. A Samoan beau glistened from the head to the hips with sweet-scented oil, and was tastefully tattooed from the hips to the knees; he wore a bandage of red leaves oiled and shining, a head-dress formed of a pearly disk of nautilus-shell, and a string ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... resign his situation. Dr. Coronet begged to recommend his son, the Rev. Augustus Granville Coronet. The Duke of St. James now got on rapidly, and also found sufficient time for his boat, his tandem, and his toilette. ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... too a sentimental excess, as if dirt had been removed in very love. It is impossible to give you an idea of such a meticulous neatness. It was as if every morning that ship had been arduously explored with—with toothbrushes. Her very bowsprit three times a week had its toilette made with a cake of soap and a piece of soft flannel. Arrayed—I must say arrayed—arrayed artlessly in dazzling white paint as to wood and dark green as to ironwork the simple-minded distribution of these colours evoked the images of simple-minded ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... coquetry and dignity; she could sparkle and chill, allure and suppress in the same moment. Even here, rough and wild as her surroundings were, she gave much thought to her dress; to-night her blonde harmonious loveliness was properly framed in a toilette of mignonette greens, fresh from Paris. A moment later Reinaldo and Prudencia appeared, the former as splendid a caballero as ever, although wearing the chastened air of matrimony, the latter pre-maternally consequential. ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... and the house was quiet. But presently, as Sheridan sat staring angrily at the fire, the shuffling of a pair of slippers could be heard descending, and Mrs. Sheridan made her appearance, her oblique expression and the state of her toilette being those of a person who, after trying unsuccessfully to sleep on one side, has got up ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington

... into the Ball-Room when they think I'm fast asleep at home, And measure steps and skirts and things and mark what state folks keep at home; Watch the toilette of young Beauty on the very strictest Q.T. too, Evangelise the Army and keep sentries to their duty, too, On the Navy, and the Clergy, and the Schools, my wise eyes shoot lights, Sir. I'm awfully particular to regulate the footlights, Sir. I ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various

... off - the bed sailing, curtains and all, upon the sea - the child waking and finding himself at home; the corner of toilette might be worked in to look like ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... horsed, and rope-harnessed; yet, in the way of Allegories on the panels, all tawdry enough for the Wedding of Cupid and Psyche. Their shop-signs extremely laughable. Here some living at the Y Gue; some at Venus's Toilette; and others at the Sucking Cat. Their notions of Honour most preposterous. It was thought mighty dishonourable for any that was a Born Gentleman not to be in the Army, or in the King's Service, but no dishonour at all to keep ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... Percy was finishing his toilette, his host knocked at the door. "Are you ready?" he asked. "Elise was anxious to see the rooms before anybody arrived, so she and the girls are gone some ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... at this moment, and saluted Mr. Hammond with a haughty inclination of her beautiful head. She looked lovelier in her simple morning gown of pale blue cambric than in her more elaborate toilette of last evening; such purity of complexion, such lustrous eyes; the untarnished beauty of youth, breathing the delicate freshness of a newly-opened flower. She might be as scornful as she pleased, yet John Hammond could not withhold his admiration. He ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... mouth set sullenly as she went about her work—put out the shining satin dress, the jewels, the hairpins, the curling-irons, the various powders and cosmetics that were wanted for Lady Selina's toilette, and all the time there was ringing in her ears the piteous cry of a little Irish girl, clinging like a child to her only friend: "O Marie! dear Marie! do get her to let me stay—I'll do everything the doctor tells me—I'll make haste and get well—I'll give ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Mrs Durby having packed up the diamond ring in the careful manner which we have described in a previous chapter, essayed to get ready for her important journey to London on pawning purposes intent, but she found that there were so many little preparations to make, both in regard to her own toilette and to the arrangements of Mrs Tipps' establishment, in prospect of its being left without its first mate for a time, that a considerable period elapsed before she got her anchor tripped and herself ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... accompanied him out of contemptuous curiosity. She wore a stylish feather in her hat, and a boa round her throat, and earned thirty shillings a week, all told, as a school teacher. (Esther Ansell was in her class just now.) Probably her toilette had made old Hyams unpunctual. His arrival was the signal for the commencement of the proceedings, and the men hastened to assume ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... The toilette table was a simple table standing on four legs; there was nothing about it by which it could possibly be changed into a temporary hiding-place. There was not a closet or cupboard. Mademoiselle Stangerson kept ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux

... pincushion for the toilette table, Paul,' resumed his sister; 'one of those trifles which are insignificant to your sex in general, as it's very natural they should be—we have no business to expect they should be otherwise—but to which ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... has been forgotten! What an affliction! Mademoiselle's enchanting toilette is destroyed without the wreath, and nowhere ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott

... the prince, who had complete his toilette, appeared at the window, and was immediately saluted by the acclamations of all who composed the escort, and ten minutes afterwards, banners, scarfs, and feathers were fluttering and waving in the air, as the cavalcade ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... entry under materials (constitution, substance) ; entry for types of cloth and other materials for garments —> 225. Clothing. — N. clothing, investment; covering &c. 223; dress, raiment, drapery, costume, attire, guise, toilet, toilette, trim; habiliment; vesture, vestment; garment, garb, palliament|, apparel, wardrobe, wearing apparel, clothes, things; underclothes. array; tailoring, millinery; finery &c. (ornament) 847; full dress &c. (show) 882; garniture; theatrical properties. outfit, equipment, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... materials for a bowl of punch, to be compounded by Mr. Micawber; having provided a bottle of lavender-water, two wax-candles, a paper of mixed pins, and a pincushion, to assist Mrs. Micawber in her toilette at my dressing-table; having also caused the fire in my bedroom to be lighted for Mrs. Micawber's convenience; and having laid the cloth with my own hands, I awaited ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... returned Lord Chetwynde. "Your toilette and coiffure are now irreproachable; but even her power has its limits, and she could scarcely have turned the sallow, awkward girl into a lovely ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... pink, and from white to black, there never was any doubt as to where he was in the room, and every eye followed him. I was quite agitated when I saw his unmistakable figure approaching me, and when he began, in a high, squeaky voice (such as is adopted by masked people) to compliment me on my toilette, it was all I could do not to make a courtesy. I answered him, feeling very shy about tutoying him, as is the custom when ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... Rachel, nearly ready to advocate the boys making no toilette at any time; and the present was made to consume so much time that, urged by her, Fanny once more was obliged to summon her ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... appearance of respect for that lady, in her mistress's presence, and had even been scrupulous, to a troublesome extreme, in obeying the governess's orders; and by a studied show of attachment to Mrs. Harcourt, and much alacrity at her toilette, she had, as she flattered herself, secured a fresh ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... out. Mother has a great deal to arrange, and directions to give. We shall have to go in ten minutes. I must rush to the piano, though I am in rather an inconvenient toilette: I may as well accustom myself to play in it. I shall have to spend three hours this evening without any music. Well, to make up for it, I will occupy myself for the next ten minutes with an exercise for this obstinate fourth finger, though it is pretty dry. That weak finger has ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck

... politicians than that of the ambassador." She not only looked after the personal matters of Mme. Royale, but was practically entrusted with the entire management of her interests in Paris. From affairs of state and affairs of the heart to the daintiest articles of the toilette her versatile talent is called into requisition. Now it is a message to Louvois or the king, now a turn to be adroitly given to public opinion, now the selection of a perfume or a pair of gloves. "She watches everything, thinks of everything, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... and painful toilette that morning, and felt quite shy of one another as we sculled towards the pier, in much-creased blue suits, conventional collars, and brown boots. It was the first time for two years that I had seen Davies in anything approaching ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... such passages as this before me, that they are often torture to human minds, chiefly those of holy women and children. I knew a child who believed she had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, because she had, in her toilette, made an improper use of a pin. Dare not to rebuke me for adducing the diseased fancy of a child in a weighty matter of theology. "Despise not one of these little ones." Would the theologians were as near the truth in such matters as the children. Diseased fancy! ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... at his wife, who, overcome with fatigue, had sunk to sleep in a corner of the carriage. He compared, in spite of himself, the toilette of Louise and that of Emilie. Now on occasions of this kind the presence of a wife is singularly calculated to sharpen the unquenchable desires of a forbidden love. Moreover, the glances of the baron, directed alternately to his wife and to her friend, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... walk separating the river from Chateau Dianet, whither M. d'Orbec went on horseback, and Madame d'Auffray and M. Livret were driven. The portrait of Diane of Dianet was praised for the beauty of the dame, a soft-fleshed acutely featured person, a fresh-of-the-toilette face, of the configuration of head of the cat, relieved by a delicately aquiline nose; and it could only be the cat of fairy metamorphosis which should stand for that illustration: brows and chin ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... there are four Vermeers: The Toilette of Diana, the Head of a Young Girl, An Allegory of the New Testament, and the View of Delft. At the Rijks Museum, Amsterdam, there are four: The Milk Girl, The Reader, The Letter, and A Street in Delft. (This latter is the House in Delft, ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... vanity of a lengthy toilette to a natural anxiety to set herself right with Lucian, and appeared shortly in a ravishing costume fresh from Paris. Perhaps by arraying herself so smartly she wished to assure Denzil more particularly that she was a lady of too much taste to buy rabbit-skin ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... variation in the table talk. Mr. Linden suggested to Faith the propriety of philosophizing a little, as a preparative for the dissipation of the evening; and declared that for the purpose, he would promise to bring his toilette within as narrow bounds as ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... tenderness. 'If one could but put them up to auction,' she said flippantly, holding them up, 'how many German opera tickets I should get for nothing! I don't know what Agnes feels. As for me, I have neither nerve enough for the people, nor money enough for the toilette.' ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Count and Countess Hubert de Breville, bore one of the most ancient and noble names of Normandy. the Count, an old nobleman of aristocratic bearing, endeavored to accentuate by the artifices of his toilette his natural resemblance to King Henry IV, who, according to a legend, in which the family gloried, had caused the maternity of a de Breville lady whose husband, on account of his royal connection, had been made a Count ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... maintained under the disadvantage of an incompetent acquaintance with English. Instead of the khana tear hi, 'dinner is ready,' they will very unintentionally substitute an abrupt summons. I was much amused one day, when, being rather late at my toilette, a servant made his appearance at the door of my apartment, just as I was quitting it, and said, "You come to dinner." He had been sent to tell me that it was served, and had not the least idea that he had not delivered his ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... new frock in honour of the occasion, and as she donned the pretty demi-toilette of pale green gauze, Nan said it was the most becoming costume ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells

... back-apartment on the first floor; she led me into a room which was bed-and-sitting room combined. In one part of it stood several upholstered chairs with covers on, cluttered about a plain table. In the other part stood a bureau heaped with promiscuous toilette articles, and a huge, brass-knobbed bed with a spread of lace ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... were assisting at this Reading, as the phrase is, had related to them the manner in which Mrs. Gamp entered on her official duties in the sick chamber, they appeared to be assisting also at her toilette: as, for example, when "she put on a yellow nightcap of prodigious size, in shape resembling a cabbage, having previously divested herself of a row of bald old curls, which could scarcely be called false they were so innocent of anything approaching ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... Bill. To begin, we may safely assert that an artist's life—here in Rome, for instance—is about as independent a one as society will tolerate; its laws, as to shaving especially, he ignores, and caring very little for the Rules of the Toilette, as duly published by the—bon ton journals, uses his razor for mending lead-pencils, and permits his beard to enjoy long vacation rambles. Again: those who first set the example of long beards, Leonardo da Vinci, for example, who painted his own portrait with a full beard ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... dans la facon d'empeser les plastrons de chemises. Elle fait des plastrons monumentaux, luisants, dur comme l'albatre. Elle a des clients dans le beau monde et a l'etranger, jusqu'au Prince de BALEINES, qui lui confie ses chemises de grande toilette, celles qu'il porte au diner du Lor Maire, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various

... persuaded the proprietaire to prepare half-a-dozen crepes with all possible speed and send them piping-hot to his room in exchange for a promise of his influence in getting her on the free list of the Cinema. Then, in a glow of virtue, he returned to prepare his toilette for the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various

... this, though she heaved a huge sigh of relief when from crown to shoes the entire toilette of the ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... warmed a fine fresh breeze from the N.E. as we coasted from Boulogne, and to sail with it was a luxury all day. The first pleasure was the morning ablution, either by a wholesale dip under the waves, or a more particular toilette if the Rob Roy was ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... Dairy is the children's summer house, near which is a cottage with toilette rooms, closets, etc., for the use of ladies and children. Near by are a number of self-acting swings, and a little to the north is the Carrousel, a circular building, containing a number of hobby-horses, which are made to gallop around in a circle by the turning of a crank in the centre of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... bed to the dressing-table and began to loose her hair and brush it, holding back her head, shaking it, and bending forward, in the changeless gesture of that rite. She was so disturbed that she had unconsciously reversed the customary order of the toilette. After a moment Sophia slipped out of bed and, stepping with her bare feet to the chest of drawers, opened her work-box and deposited the fragment of Mr. Povey therein; she dropped the lid with an uncompromising ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... distress. With this tumult in her mind, it is no subject for surprise that Miss Fanny came home one night in a state of agitation from a concert and ball at Mrs Merdle's house, and on her sister affectionately trying to soothe her, pushed that sister away from the toilette-table at which she sat angrily trying to cry, and declared with a heaving bosom that she detested everybody, and she ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... Disbrowe's chamber, he cautiously opened it. A single glance showed him that the room was more exquisitely, more luxuriously furnished than that he had just quitted. Articles of feminine attire, of the richest kind, were hung against the walls, or disposed on the chairs. On one side stood the toilette-table, with its small mirror then in vogue, and all its equipage of silver flasks, filligree cassets, japan ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... toilette was over. Not exactly what you would call comfortable, but they had spent enough time over it. The Rector's underwear, at odds with the stringency encircling it, was all lumpy, and what looked like tumors could be seen standing out under the "Jew's" stockings. ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... she pauses in her toilette to admire the effect of the beautiful locks, for which she is indebted to her wealth rather than to nature, would shrink in horror from the glittering coils, could she know their whole story. We ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... a pocket with ten times that sum. She had thought for a moment of Cosmo Bertram when she had enjoyed her first half-hour of his amusing rattle; but she had been quickly undeceived—Bertram could not have added a chicken to her broth, a pair of gloves to her toilette; so she shut up the thing she called a heart, for lack of some fitter name, and cruised again through the ominous gold rings of her glasses round the salons, and hoped the growing taste for travel might send her some one for annexation ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... with the aid of one of the two maids who were traveling with her, was able to make a sufficiently effective toilette. At a few minutes before the time for luncheon, she walked down the corridor and recognized Von Behrling, who was sitting with his companions in ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... making my toilette, and insisted that I should allow her to place a few natural flowers in my hair, and to please her I consented to wear them. Laura looked very lovely in the costly dress purchased for the occasion; she also wore a set of diamond ornaments, which her father had presented ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... servitude. Your friends, the famous tailors, send me admirably-chosen costumes which please that sense in me which Titians and Vandycks do (I do not mean to be profane); but I only put them on as the monks do their frocks. Perhaps I am very unworthy of them; at least, I cannot talk toilette as you can with ardour a whole morning and every whole morning of your life. You will think I am laughing at you; indeed I am not. I envy your faculty of sitting, as I am sure you are sitting now, in a straw chair on the shore, with a group of ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... worn for EFFECT. A few feathers or teeth, a belt or band, a necklace made of the hollow stem of some plant, with a few coarse daubs of red or white paint, and a smearing of grease, complete the toilette of the boudoir or the ball-room. Like the scenery of a panorama, they are then seen to most advantage at a distance; for if approached too closely, they forcibly remind us of the truth of the expression of the poet, that "nature unadorned is adorned ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... you going with your hat on?" asked Gertrude, much bewildered, but still making an expeditious toilette. ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells

... our mouth was shut to all further interrogations by a copious supply of soap-suds, and now he became the tonsor only, and declares against the mode in which we have our hair cut: "They have cut your hair, Signor, a condannato—nobody adopts the toilette of the guillotine now; it should have been left to grow in front a la Plutus, or have been long at the sides a la Nazarene, which is the mode most of our Sicilian gentlemen prefer." We were about to rise, wash, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... Antoinette, "has Monsieur considered that the poor angel will need clothes and articles of toilette—and this ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... de Nugat, with a polite gesture toward the sky, "must have find these celestial combinations very bad for the toilette." ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... un beau dimanche de fte et de grand soleil, il m'arriva pour la promenade dans un tat de toilette tel que nous en fmes tous pouvants. Vous n'avez jamais rien rv de semblable. Des mains noires, des souliers sans cordons, de la boue jusque dans les cheveux, presque ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet

... evening meal upon his return from business, and partook of luxuries which her hand had prepared in the hope of eliciting some token of approbation—could he have seen the anxious care with which domestic duties were superintended, the attention paid to the toilette, the constant regard to his most casually expressed wishes, surely, surely he would have renounced for ever that cold, repulsive manner, and clasped to his bosom the gentle being whom he had so lately vowed to love ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... idea abroad that a man must live up to his station, that his house, his table, and his toilette, shall be in a ratio of equivalence, and equally imposing to the world. If this is in the Bible, the passage has eluded my inquiries. If it is not in the Bible, it is nowhere but in the heart of the fool. Throw aside this fancy. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... on detailing the employment so natural of her afternoon, eyes too brilliant, a smile too happy. She looked too youthful in her light toilette. Her feet trembled with too nervous an impatience. How could Alba not have felt that she was telling her an untruth? The undeceived child had the intuition that the visit to Fanny's father was only a pretext. It was not the first time that ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... radiant and sparkling. Her drenched clothes were an excuse for a new and ravishing toilette. She had never looked so beautiful before, and significant glances were exchanged between some of the guests, who believed that the expected proposal had already come. But those who were of the carriage party knew otherwise, and of Lord Algernon's disappointment. Lord ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... noise on the glass Natacha's door had opened cautiously, and she entered the sitting-room. On tiptoe she went quickly to the window and opened it. The man entered. The little light that by now was commencing to dawn was enough to show Rouletabille that Natacha still wore the toilette in which he had seen her that same evening at Krestowsky. As for the man, he tried in vain to identify him; he was only a dark mass wrapped in a mantle. He leaned over and kissed Natacha's hand. She said only one ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... be possible? am I agayn at Forest Hill? How strange, how joyfulle an Event, tho' brought about with Teares!—Can it be, that it is onlie a Month since I stoode at this Toilette as a Bride? and lay awake on that Bed, thinking of London? How long a Month! and oh! this present one will be alle ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... song to me, called "Adieu." It is pretty enough to sing when he plays the accompaniment, but otherwise I do not care for it. I sang it after dinner, and every one said it was charming, but I had the feeling that the ladies were more interested in my toilette than in Buelow's song. I don't blame them, for my dress is lovely (Worth called it "un reve"), but I fancy I look like a Corot autumn sunset reflected in a stagnant lily-pond. It is of light salmon-colored satin, with a tulle overskirt and clusters of water-lilies here and ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... Twemlow, dressing himself in his lodgings over the stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint James's, and hearing the horses at their toilette below, finds himself on the whole in a disadvantageous position as compared with the noble animals at livery. For whereas, on the one hand, he has no attendant to slap him soundingly and require him in gruff accents to come up and come over, still, on the other hand, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... think we met, mother?" said Julius, coming into her room, so soon as he had made his evening toilette, and finding there only his two younger brothers. "No other ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... inscrutable ways of Providence. In the vast dimness of the curtained drawing-room, the little man, resembling a black bolster, leaned towards a couch, his hat on his knees, and gesticulated with a fat hand at the elongated, gracefully-flowing lines of the clear Parisian toilette from which the half-amused, half-bored marquise listened with gracious languor. He was exulting and humble, proud and awed. The impossible had come to pass. Jean-Pierre Bacadou, the enraged republican farmer, had been to mass last Sunday—had proposed to entertain the visiting priests at the ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... excused for feeling so; for instead of the black alpaca, Camilla now wore a simple but effectively charming toilette such as 'Hugo's' created and sold to women for the rapture of men in summer twilights, and over the white dress was thrown a very rich pearl-tinted opera-cloak, which only partly concealed the curves of the shoulders, ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett

... wonderful. We have been married fifteen years, and still, when I hear her laugh come through that door, my soul turns from the gates of death and remembers the sun. Oh, how I love to see her go off to Mass every morning with her toilette nicely adjusted and her dainty prayer-book in her neatly gloved hand, for she's adorably religious, is my little Nonotte. You look surprised; did you then think ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... the house pondering these things in my mind, and, arriving there, heard the hall clock strike the quarter, from which I knew it was a quarter past six. We were to dine at seven that day, and, as I did not usually make an elaborate toilette, I knew I had plenty of time. I felt I could not go in for a few minutes; my brain seemed on fire. I turned to take a walk towards the park gates, when I heard a footstep, ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking

... her head displayed on a pike, would remember it was for them that her young life was given. Of all murderers, and of all victims, Charlotte Corday was the most composed. When the executioner came for the toilette, she borrowed his shears to cut off a lock of her hair. As the cart moved slowly through the raging streets, he said to her, "You must find the way long." "No," she answered, "I am not afraid of being late." They say that Vergniaud pronounced this epitaph: "She has killed us, but she has ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... and slice of bread and butter which was taken in bed, or when rising. While waiting for Madame Hochon, who notwithstanding her age went minutely through the ceremonies with which the duchesses of Louis XV.'s time performed their toilette, Joseph noticed Jean-Jacques Rouget planted squarely on his feet at the door of his house across the street. He naturally pointed him out to his mother, who was unable to recognize her brother, so little did he look like what he was ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... emotions got the better of her. Her hair fell into confusion again, and it seemed as if she would again be upset even at that early hour. Her husband gave her a smelling-bottle, and she slowly recommenced her toilette. ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford

... contemptuous indulgent pity at my weakness in disliking the dreary grandeur of the salon, wrote up to the milliner in Paris from whom my corbeille de mariage had come, to desire her to look out for me a maid of middle age, experienced in the toilette, and with so much refinement that she might on occasion serve ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... her different contemporaries. But that at this time she possessed real beauty is perfectly evident; for all that she denies it herself, and that, unlike most women, and nearly all French women, she scorned to enhance it by an elaborated toilette. Heine, though he never professed himself one of her personal adorers, compares the beauty of her head to that of the Venus of Milo, saying, "It bears the stamp of ideality, and recalls the noblest ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... therefore permissible that dealers in picture post-cards, or makers of moving picture. shows, come in with cameras at mealtimes or toilette hours, and photograph the lifted soupspoon, the purchased hair, or ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... soon better; but he had to keep his bed about a week. He bore his captivity, as he called it, pretty patiently, though he took great pains over his toilette, and had everything scented with eau-de-cologne. Nikolai Petrovitch used to read him the journals; Fenitchka waited on him as before, brought him lemonade, soup, boiled eggs, and tea; but she was overcome ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... were a baby in long clothes," answered Miss Henrietta Mayfield, a spinster of uncertain age; but the folks in the village, who always knew everything, declared she had not owned to a day over thirty-five for the last ten years. This, if true, was quite excusable, for Miss Henrietta's little toilette glass reflected a bright, pleasant, and remarkably ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... careless, she was a long time that evening over her toilette. Her neck was very sunburnt, and she lingered, doubtful whether to hide it with powder, or accept her gipsy colouring. She did accept it, for she saw that it gave her eyes, so like glacier ice, under their black lashes, and her hair, with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... been the ark of the testimony, the refuge of the weary, the dispenser of alms, the consoler of the sorrowful, the hope of the dying, the blessing of the dead. You are convenient now, wieldy in an election, effective when a gold ring is missing from the toilette cushion, admirable in your machinery, and astonishing in your persistency and power. But what have you done with these women? In what secret place, in what dungeon of darkness and despair, in what chains ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... a neighbour who had taken the Globe Theatre for the purpose of producing Offenbach's operas. Bouquets, stalls, rings, delighted me. I was not dissipated, but I loved the abnormal. I loved to spend as much on scent and toilette knick-knacks as would keep a poor man's family in affluence for ten months; and I smiled at the fashionable sunlight in the Park, the dusty cavalcades; and I loved to shock my friends by bowing to those whom I should not bow to; ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... was passing I had put on my silk hat and taken up my valise, and was standing before the glass (a la Francais) taking a final view of my toilette, and snapping off some imaginary dust and lint, as the two detectives stepped in, and after looking me well over went out, and I saw them no more. That proved to be the last ordeal through which I passed in Ireland. After being convinced ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... curling sticks or crimping pins; no rats or cats, cushions or frames, or skeletons of any sort, were there for the help of the rustic beauty; and neither did she need them. So you would have said if you had seen her when her toilette was done. The soft outlines of her figure were neither helped nor hidden by any artificial contrivances. Her abundant dark hair was in smooth bands and a luxuriant coil at the back of her head—woman's natural crown; and she looked nature-crowned when she had finished her work. ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... are all, as a rule, more elaborately embroidered, more adorned with fringes and tassels, than those of the men. In arranging her dress the Athenian lady is not bound by the rigid precepts of fashion. Every separate toilette is an opportunity for a thousand little niceties and coquetries which she understands exceedingly well. If there is the least excuse for an expedition outside the house, her ladyship's bevy of serving maids will have a serious time of it. While their mistress cools herself with a huge peacock-feather ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... of the drawers in the toilette table, and took out the pearl necklace. "I thought it would come to this," she said quietly. "Instead of paying the promissory note, Mr. Keller will have to take ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... in collapse for over an hour, and then, summoning my manhood, arose. On the previous evening the hot-water tap of my toilette had yielded only cold water. Not wishing to appear hypercritical, I had said nothing, but I had thought. I now casually turned on the cold-water tap and was scalded by nearly boiling water. The hot-water ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett

... toilette with trembling hands, nevertheless with no detail neglected. Her beautiful chestnut hair was softly parted and arranged in a mass of graceful curls at the back of the head. She wore a house-gown of white muslin ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton

... the fire, swinging her dogskin gloves in her hands. She wore a plain pearl grey walking dress and deerstalker hat with a single quill in it. The severe but immaculate simplicity of her toilette might have been designed to accentuate the barbarities of Blanche ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... large hobble-skirted lady in a confection of peach-coloured velvet, elaborately set off with leopard skin accessories, if one may use such a conveniently comprehensive word in describing an intricate feminine toilette. She lacked nothing that is to be found in a carefully detailed fashion-plate—in fact, she might be said to have something more than the average fashion-plate female possesses; in place of a vacant, expressionless stare she had character in her face. It must ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... lighting of the rooms, when Mrs. Smith, before commencing her own toilette, entered the apartment of her guest. Miss Incledon, who considered herself past the time of life for other than matronly decorations of the person, was laying out a handsome pelerine, and a tasteful cap, to wear with a ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... In the midst of his confusion a martial "hem!" was heard, and Mr. Jinks, who had been carefully adjusting his toilette, drew ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... dawn of morning the old "frau" came stumbling out of the bedroom, and sat down without ceremony in her big chair. Waiting till she thought that we had reached a sufficiently advanced stage in our toilette—and her idea of what that was must have been a strange one—she shouted out to her daughters that they could "com," and in they all came. Very glad were we when we had paid our bill, which was a heavy one, and were in the saddle once more, riding through the ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard



Words linked to "Toilette" :   dressing, eau de toilette, grooming, toilet



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