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More "Symmetry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... higher forms of vitality. Even the leaves of the same tree are said to differ, each one from all the rest. And can it be good for the soul of a man "with a biography of his own like to no one else's," to subject itself without thought to the opinions and ways of others: not to grow into symmetry, but to be moulded down ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... proficient with the bows and arrows, or in hurling the javelin, I was equipped with a strong spear. My mistress was skilful to admiration with the arrow and javelin; she never missed her aim that I knew, and she certainly never appeared to such advantage as she did at this hunting-party. Her activity, her symmetry of limb, and her courage, her skill with her weapons, all won the heart of the old king; and I believe that his strong attachment to her arose more from her possession of the above qualities than from ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... then a gray, who seemed to have a strong objection to being led, and who held back and dragged at his rein in a most provoking manner; and lastly, by the side of a brown hack that I fancied I had seen before, a beautiful black horse, the very impersonation of strength, symmetry, courage, speed, and all that a horse ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... one bit of knowledge would more than any other illuminate the problem, I think we may give the answer without hesitation. The greatest advance that we can foresee will be made when it is found possible to connect the geometrical phenomena of development with the chemical. The geometrical symmetry of living things is the key to a knowledge of their regularity, and the forces which cause it. In the symmetry of the dividing cell the basis of that resemblance we call Heredity is contained. To imitate the morphological phenomena of life we have to devise ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... look of apprehension sat oddly on her small features, which had an air of neat symmetry somehow suggestive of being set in order every morning by the housemaid. Some one (there were rumors that it was her cousin) had once said that Paula Fetherel would have been very pretty if she hadn't looked so like a moral axiom ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... more often they appear as in figure 181. The unequal pair appears in each figure at s. In the metaphase (fig. 182) it is the last to come into the equatorial plate, possibly because of its lack of symmetry. The smaller component of this pair is always directed toward the equator of the spindle. Figure 183 shows a small tangential section of a spindle in metaphase, containing the unequal pair and one equal pair. In figure 184 a polar view of a metaphase is shown, the unequal ...
— Studies in Spermatogenesis (Part 1 of 2) • Nettie Maria Stevens
... of Salem, with a form of great symmetry, possesses a countenance not only beautiful, but entirely intellectual—the most so of any you have met with either here or elsewhere; it is of the Italian model; and should have basked beneath an Italian sky. She is very easy, graceful and modest in her deportment, and dresses 'rich not gaudy;' ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... floor evidently implied a lower order beneath. This basement, seven and a half metres in depth, now buried, was in Perrault's scheme designed to be exposed by a fosse of some fifteen to twenty metres in width, and the whole elevation and symmetry of the wing would have immensely gained by the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... anxious for the denouement. And so Shakspeare, careless of future fame, frequently displays a singular disparity between the parts. He has so much of detail in the first two acts, that in order to preserve the symmetry, five or six more would be necessary. Thus conclusions are hurried, when, as works of art, they should ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... you behold the picture of Julius Caesar, do you see with your eyes any more than some colours and figures, with a certain symmetry and composition of ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... extravagant or unwarrantable inflections which will mar the expression of the thought should be permitted, but it is quite desirable to gradually extend the range of the inflections, if one still maintains in the practice that common sense which will leave the expression in perfect symmetry when the extra effort made for inflection shall have been withdrawn. Though it is sometimes desirable to exaggerate one element, even to the sacrifice of others, it is never necessary to introduce false notes, the effect of which may remain as a limitation ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... porcelain; but there were ever roses in her cheeks, for she was strong by nature, and her health was perfect. She was somewhat short of stature, as were all the Hotspurs, and her feet and hands and ears were small and delicate. But though short, she seemed to lack nothing in symmetry, and certainly lacked nothing in strength. She could ride or walk the whole day, and had no feeling that such vigour of body was a possession of which a young lady should be ashamed. Such as she was, she was the acknowledged beauty of the county; and at Carlisle, where ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... due to the muscular exactions required; he had a sickening fear that the scowl that marked his brow was destined to form a perpetual alliance with the smirk at the corner of his nose, forever destroying the symmetry of his face. If one who has not the proper facial construction will but attempt the feat of holding a monocle in place for unbroken hours, he may come to appreciate at least one of the ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... fellow on the other side of the legs is prepared in exactly the same manner; and the second trestle is a duplicate of the first, with the exception that the directions of the struts are reversed relatively to the C piece, to preserve the symmetry—which, however, ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... picture will be blended and melted into one harmonious whole,—when all the now disjointed stones in the temple will be seen to fit into their appointed place, giving unity, and compactness, and symmetry, to all the building. ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... upon it. "Its lines," says Miss Jekyll, "fill one with the satisfaction caused by a thing that is exactly right, and with admiration for the art and skill of a true artist." These homely tongs are fashioned with a fine eye for symmetry, and, indeed, for beauty of design and perfect fitness for the intended purpose. The ends which were to pick up the coal are shaped like two little hands, while "the edges have slight mouldings and even a low bead enrichment. The circular flat on the side away from the ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... renewed quest of that favorite pabulum more delectable than rowen clover, the splintered cribbings from the legs of a certain pine bench, which, up to date, he has lowered about three inches—a process in which he has considered average rather than symmetry, or the comfort of the too trusting visitor who happens to be unaware of ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... indomitable ferocity, with jaws fitted to pin down the bull, for man's brutal sport? But if we give up the principle in one case; if we do not admit that the variations of the primeval dog were intentionally guided in order, for instance, that the greyhound, that perfect image of symmetry and vigor, might be formed; no shadow of reason can be assigned for the belief that variations, alike in nature and the results of the same general laws, which have been the groundwork through natural selection of the most perfectly ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... the curves of the leg, and destroyed all firmness and dignity of gait. Far better was the fashion of the middle ages, when the trouser became a real pantaloon—a pantalon collant, as modern artists call it, and when the full symmetry of the limb was displayed to the utmost advantage. This was, no doubt, the acme of perfection that the garment in question was capable of; and it is to be lamented that the mode has not kept its position in society more universally. For all purposes of ceremonial ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... thy thrilling voice, Nor see thy winning face; That once would gleam like morning's beam, In mental pride and grace: Thy form of matchless symmetry, In sweet perfection cast— Is now the star of memory That fades not with ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... to injury and contumely gave to her perfect symmetry of person, a timid eye, a retiring manner, and spread upon her face a placid sweetness, a pale serenity indicating sense, which no wise connoisseur in female charms would have exchanged for all the sparkling eyes and florid tints ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... roofs, and glazed at both ends, are better placed North and South,—that is, with the ends facing these points,—as nearly as a due regard to the positions of other buildings in the vicinity, and the general symmetry and apportionment of the grounds will permit. Each side of the roof will thus receive an equal amount of sun-light. For span-roofed Green-houses the rule is not so arbitrary, the glass not being lined with foliage, ...
— Woodward's Graperies and Horticultural Buildings • George E. Woodward
... saw that a collision with the Indian was unavoidable, and without the least hesitation prepared himself for it. The savage was a Miami—a brawny, muscular warrior, fully six feet in height, of matchless symmetry and formidable strength. When the combatants were perhaps a dozen yards apart, he raised his tomahawk over his head, and poising it a moment, hurled it, with a most deadly force, full at the head of the hunter. The latter had not expected such a demonstration as this, but had ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... of the plateau, they are dowered with the grandeur and repose of mountains, together with the finely chiseled carving and modeling of man's temples and palaces, and often, to a considerable extent, with their symmetry. Some, closely observed, look like ruins; but even these stand plumb and true, and show architectural forms loaded with lines strictly regular and decorative, and all are arrayed in colors that storms and time seem ...
— The Grand Canon of the Colorado • John Muir
... of many animals, but nowhere did he see an indication of any woven fabric, indicating that in that respect at least the Ho-don were still low in the scale of evolution, and yet the proportions and symmetry of the corridors and apartments bespoke a degree ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... most important of all, the ear-tufts. The tufts between the toes and the flexibility of the tail are other important points. The shape of head, eyes, and body are also carefully noted. A short-haired cat is judged first for color, then for eyes, head, symmetry, and ears. ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... faith, but as it is heretical and erroneous, though he suffer much tribulation for it, he continues obstinate, and not to be convinced. He flutters up and down like a butterfly in a garden, and while he is pruning of his peruke takes occasion to contemplate his legs and the symmetry of his breeches. He is part of the furniture of the rooms, and serves for a walking picture, a moving piece of arras. His business is only to be seen, and he performs it with admirable industry, placing himself ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... who is generally cautious in his statements, says that the greyhound within the last fifty years, that is before the commencement of the present century, "assumed a somewhat different character from that which he once possessed. He is now distinguished by a beautiful symmetry of form, of which he could not once boast, and he has even superior speed to that which he formerly exhibited. He is no longer used to struggle with deer, but contends with his fellows over a shorter and speedier course." An able writer (1/84. In the 'Encyclop. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... The site of its nest is usually some low bank by the roadside, near a wood. In a slight excavation, with a partially concealed entrance, the exquisite structure is placed. Horse and cow hair are plentifully used, imparting to the interior of the nest great symmetry and ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... and perhaps that is a distinction more enviable, because less envied, than the 'palmy state' of beauty. Her prettiness is of the prettiest kind—that of which the chief character is youthfulness. A short but pleasing figure, all grace and symmetry, a fair blooming face, beaming with intelligence and good-humour; the prettiest little feet and the whitest hands in the world;—such is ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... honest, not for fear of the laws, but because he hath observed how unseemly an article it maketh in the day-book or ledger when a sum is set down lost or missing; it being his pride to make these books to agree and to tally, the one side with the other, with a sort of architectural symmetry and correspondence. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... she exclaimed. "Never did I see an arm and hand of such lovely hue and such exquisite symmetry. I would willingly have made the journey from Rome to ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... passion and the energy of contest, no judgment, however experienced, could venture to anticipate the result of the battle, or name the person likely to be victorious. Indeed it was surprising how the natural sagacity of these men threw their attitudes and movements into scientific form and symmetry. Kelly raised his cudgel, and placed it transversely in the air, between himself and his opponent; Grimes instantly placed his against it—both weapons thus forming a St. Andrew's cross—whilst the men themselves stood foot to foot, calm and collected. Nothing could be ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... a memorial from the president of one of the Boards, who said he was moved by a dream to make the request. We may suppose that his real motives were a wish to do Justice to the merits of Tsze- zo, and to restore the symmetry of the tablets in ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... whichever way he was viewed. Even his thumbs and fingers were nearer square than round; and his very neck, which was bare, though a black silk kerchief was tied loosely round the throat, had a sort of pentagon look about it, that defied all symmetry or grace. His stature was just six feet and an inch, when he straightened himself; as he did from time to time, seemingly with a desire to relieve a very inveterate stoop in his shoulders; though it was an inch or two less in the position he most affected. His hair was dark, and his skin had got ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... ideas, seeds, reasons, shadows, stirring up our minds, that by this good they may be united and made one." Others will have beauty to be the perfection of the whole composition, [4475]"caused out of the congruous symmetry, measure, order and manner of parts, and that comeliness which proceeds from this beauty is called grace, and from thence all fair things are gracious." For grace and beauty are so wonderfully annexed, [4476]"so sweetly and gently win our souls, and strongly allure, that ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... fashion of the times, a fashion not abandoned till the fifth century and in Sparta not till later. The appearance of the hair over the forehead and temples should be noticed. It is arranged symmetrically in flat spiral curls, five curls on each side. Symmetry in the disposition of the front hair is constant in early Greek sculpture, and some scheme or other of spiral ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... shrinking from the touch. And then I saw the improbability, I might say the impossibility, of finding in any ready-made-clothing store, a dress which would fit the twisted form. One must be made on purpose; one which would set at defiance all rules of symmetry; and how to have it completed to-morrow, even late in the day to-morrow? Where should I go to have such an order filled by the time I desired it? And I believed from what I had seen of Matty that the non-fulfilment or postponement of my hasty, ill-considered ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... that is, not being of the circumference most coveted, but too thick, they have been whittled down in bulk. A prime Malacca cane is, of course, a natural stem, and it is a nice point to have a slight irregularity in its symmetry as evidence of this. The delicious spotting of a Malacca cane is due to the action of the sun upon it in drying. As the stems are dried in sheaves, those most richly splotched are the ones that have been at the outside of the ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... be discovered; cut the cheese across, and every slice brings to view cells and partitions, and seeds and embryos, arranged with an unvarying regularity, which would be past belief if we did not know from experience, how far beyond all that the mind can conceive, is the symmetry with which the works of Nature ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... decaying tree,—in rendering his barren plants fruitful. He has recourse to it even when merely desirous of ascertaining the variety of pear or apple which some thriving sapling, slow in bearing, is yet to produce. Selecting some bough which may be conveniently lopped away without destroying the symmetry of the tree, he draws his knife across the bark, and inflicts on it a wound, from which, though death may not ensue for some two or three twelvemonths, it cannot ultimately recover. Next spring the wounded branch ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the ordinary size of women, gave her the appearance of extreme youth, insomuch, that although she was near eighteen, she might have passed for four years younger. Her figure, hands, and feet, were formed upon a model of exquisite symmetry with the size and lightness of her person, so that Titania herself could scarce have found a more fitting representative. Her hair was a dark shade of the colour usually termed flaxen, whose clustering ringlets suited admirably with her fair complexion, and with the ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... Unless methodically arranged, even with a very small library, a volume is often difficult to turn to when desired for immediate consultation, requiring tedious search, especially if the volumes are arranged upon the shelves with respect to size and outward symmetry. This may be avoided by the use of small bookcases and ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... excellent masonry, its good (although crude) carving, its old-time sculpturing of dreadful-looking animals at either end, its decorative triumphal arches, its masses of memorial tablets (which I could not read), its seven arches of beautiful simplicity and symmetry and perfect proportion, it would have been a credit to any civilized country in the world. I noticed that, in addition to cementing, the stones and pillars forming the sides of the roadway were also dovetailed. Among the works of public interest with which successive emperors ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... grow to truth, and they will grow to symmetry; give them leave to ripen, and they ...
— Heart's-ease • Phillips Brooks
... in boys just bursting into manhood; for he was already as conspicuous for the thinness of his flanks, and the shapely hollow of his back, as for the depth and roundness of his chest, the breadth of his shoulders, and the symmetry of his limbs. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... incendiary bombing, no saltlick, wandering stream or struggling bush enlivened this prairie. There was not even an odd conformation, a higher clump here or there, a dead patch to relieve the unimaginative symmetry. I have read of men going mad in solitary confinement from looking at the same unchanging walls; well, here was a solitary cell hundreds of miles in area and its power to destroy the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... for thee, at the orchestra,—they no longer jeer and wink, when, with a fierce fondness, thou dost caress thy Familiar, that plains, and wails, and chides, and growls, under thy remorseless hand. They understand now how irregular is ever the symmetry of real genius. The inequalities in its surface make the moon luminous to man. Giovanni Paisiello, Maestro di Capella, if thy gentle soul could know envy, thou must sicken to see thy Elfrida and thy Pirro laid aside, and all Naples ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... There was feasting, for the hunters had brought in an antelope and a zebra as trophies of their skill, and gallons of the weak native beer were consumed. As the warriors danced in the firelight, Tarzan was again impressed by the symmetry of their figures and the regularity of their features—the flat noses and thick lips of the typical West Coast savage were entirely missing. In repose the faces of the men were intelligent and dignified, those of ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sentence—art which must be divined, if the sentence is to be understood! If there is a misunderstanding about its TEMPO, for instance, the sentence itself is misunderstood! That one must not be doubtful about the rhythm-determining syllables, that one should feel the breaking of the too-rigid symmetry as intentional and as a charm, that one should lend a fine and patient ear to every STACCATO and every RUBATO, that one should divine the sense in the sequence of the vowels and diphthongs, and how delicately and richly they can be tinted and retinted in the order of their arrangement—who ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the plains are the regions where people dwell in greatest numbers. The plains in the two great land masses of the Old World and the New have the same inverse or right- and left-handed symmetry as the mountains. In the north the vast stretches from the Mackenzie River to the Gulf of Mexico correspond to the plains of Siberia and Russia from the Lena to the Black Sea. Both regions have a vast sweep of monotonous tundras at the ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... the Falls, beneath an aged pine, reclined a well- guarded, sorrowful, but haughty band. Their fine symmetry, noble height, and free carriage, were especially attractive. They were all young warriors, whose white paint presented emblems of peace: their plumes were from the beautiful white crane of the sunny forest, which designated the southern land ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... beautiful relic, one is led almost instinctively to believe that it was used as a plummet, for the purpose of determining the perpendicular to the horizon [for building purposes?]; . . . when we consider its symmetry of form, the contrast of colors brought out by the process of grinding and polishing, and the delicate drilling of the hole through a material (syenite) so liable to fracture, we are free to say it affords an exhibition of the lapidary's skill superior to anything yet furnished ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... wide and grass-grown streets, Whose symmetry was not for solitude, There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seat's Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood Of Este, which for many an age made good Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood Of petty power impelled, of those who wore The wreath ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of Providence, are handed down to us, and from us, in the same course and order. Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts,—wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old or ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... John," he observed, hitching the sea-lion skin into symmetry, "whether it is sink ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... night that differed entirely from those we endured when going up. There was a concert party on board, and a cavalry major who possessed some tomato soup. That night the sky was superb with stars. Taurus rose, with Aldebaran as red as fire; then Castor and Pollux calm in their symmetry, with the Pleiades above like a shattered diamond. Then glittering Orion slowly swung above the horizon. In the middle of the night there was a crash of musketry, and a sudden uproar. The major appeared, speaking Hindustani ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... a present of a beautiful black setter puppy, from an unknown hand. He bred and cherished him, and the memory of Black York is still fresh in his country; not only for his perfect symmetry, his silky, raven black hair, but for his gentle, submissive disposition. He was a nervous dog when young, for even a loud word alarmed him, which, combined with his mysterious arrival, and an involuntary affection, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... to add to this collection a meditation upon Empedocles of Agrigentum and the Reign of Hatred.[1] But it was somewhat too long, and its inclusion would have impaired the symmetry of the volume. ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... hear a fiddle, are forced to turn over on their backs and howl; some are unmoved by music. So some men are tortured by every violation of symmetry, while some cannot discern a straight line. I belong to the former class, and my Butler belongs to the latter. He WOULD lay the table in a way which almost gave me a crick in neck, and certainly dislocated ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... the sooner for making a will. Have I the air of a man in a consumption?"—and the sturdy sportsman glanced complacently at the strength and symmetry of his manly limbs. "Come, Phil, let's go to the stables. Now, Robert, I will show you what is better worth seeing than those miserable flower-beds." So saying, Mr. Beaufort led the way to the courtyard at the back of the cottage. Catherine and Sidney ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... out, the aspect of the heavens differs in small detail; but generally it may be laid down that the opposite portions of the sky, whether in the Milky Way itself, or in those regions distant from it, show a marked degree of symmetry. The proper motions of stars in corresponding portions of the sky reveal the same kind of harmony, a harmony which may even be extended to the various colours of the stars. The stellar system, which we see disposed all around ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... articles which had been often used with effect in the past. Among them was one which had been out in the campaigns of 1689 (Dundee's), 1715 (Mar's), and in 1745-6. It was of Spanish manufacture, and remarkable for the length and symmetry of its blade, in consequence of which it received the sobriquet of Rangaire Riabhach.[B] In his failure to find the keys of the arms depository, he bethought him to make a confident and enlist the sympathies of an elderly lady, who had been a member ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... young lady lying asleep, chemised with her hair[FN12] as she were the full moon rising[FN13] over the Eastern horizon, with flower-white brow and shining hair-paring and cheeks like blood-red anemones and dainty moles thereon. He was amazed at her as she lay in her beauty and loveliness, her symmetry and grace, and he recked no more of death. So he went up to her, trembling in every nerve and, shuddering with pleasure, kissed her on the right cheek; whereupon she awoke forthright and opened her eyes, and seeing the Prince standing at her head, said to him, "Who art thou and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... badly ordered for humanity is a self-evident truth of which the observant scarcely need reminding. It is equally obvious, from the exquisite order and symmetry of animal and vegetable life, that Providence is not to blame for the colossal mess into which civilization has managed to lead ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... of the sea in which we had our centre. Since we remained always in the centre, and since we constantly were moving in some direction, we looked upon many circles. But all circles looked alike. No tufted islets, gray headlands, nor glistening patches of white canvas ever marred the symmetry of that unbroken curve. Clouds came and went, rising up over the rim of the circle, flowing across the space of it, and spilling away and down across the ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... the North, the East, and the South. They were followed by sixteen hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel amusement of the amphitheatre. The wealth of Asia, the arms and ensigns of so many conquered nations, and the magnificent plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen, were disposed in exact symmetry or artful disorder. The ambassadors of the most remote parts of the earth, of Aethiopia, Arabia, Persia, Bactriana, India, and China, all remarkable by their rich or singular dresses, displayed the fame and power of the Roman emperor, who exposed likewise to the public view the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... more formal greatness in the high square Gothic Foscari, just below it, one of the noblest creations of the fifteenth century, a masterpiece of symmetry and majesty. Dedicated to-day to official uses—it is the property of the State—it looks conscious of the consideration it enjoys, and is one of the few great houses within our range whose old age strikes us as robust and painless. It is visibly ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... much otherwise of their own condition, that they paint the Devil White. Nor is Blackness inconsistent with Beauty, which even to our European Eyes consists not so much in Colour, as an Advantageous Stature, a Comely Symmetry of the parts of the Body, and Good Features in the Face. So that I see not why Blackness should be thought such a Curse to the Negroes, unless perhaps it be, that being wont to go Naked in those Hot Climates, the Colour of their Skin does probably, according to the Doctrine ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... think, be owned, that upon the whole, London is neither so handsomely nor so well built as Berlin is; but then it certainly has far more fine squares. Of these there are many that in real magnificence and beautiful symmetry far surpass our Gens d'Armes Markt, our Denhoschen and William's Place. The squares or quadrangular places contain the best and most beautiful buildings of London; a spacious street, next to the houses, goes all round them, and within that there is generally a round ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... most beautiful brunette in the world; her eyes were large, lively, and sparkling; her looks sweet and modest; her nose was of a just proportion and without a fault; her mouth small, her lips of a vermilion red, and charmingly agreeable symmetry; in a word, all the features of her face were perfectly regular. It is not therefore surprising that Aladdin, who had never seen, and was a stranger to, so many charms, was dazzled. With all these perfections the Princess had so delicate a shape, so majestic an air, that the ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the Plain might have remarked that the heavens above them did not altogether fit in with their own high civilisation and social habits. They would be right. Oddly enough, however, when symmetry was eventually restored, it was not the heavens that had been obliged to adapt themselves. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... quantity or degree.] Equality — N. equality, parity, coextension^, symmetry, balance, poise; evenness, monotony, level. equivalence; equipollence^, equipoise, equilibrium, equiponderance^; par, quits, a wash; not a pin to choose; distinction without a difference, six of one and half a dozen of the other; tweedle dee and tweedle dum [Lat.]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... solemn in their light, a serenity in his smile, a grandeur on his brow, that I had never marked till then! Was that the same man I had recoiled from as the sneering cynic, shuddered at as the audacious traitor, or wept over as the cowering outcast? How little the nobleness of aspect depends on symmetry of feature, or the mere proportions of form! What dignity robes the man who is ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the Maker held earth incomplete, Till man was formed, and placed upon the sod, The perfect, living image of his God, All landscape scenes were lacking in my sight, Wherein the human figure had no part. In that, all lines of symmetry did meet - All hues of beauty mingle. So I brought Enthusiasm in abundance, thought, Much study, and some talent, day by day, To help me in my efforts to portray The wond'rous power, majesty and grace Stamped on some form, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... about being aesthetic or wisely epicurean. The truth of it is brought home to us occasionally in one of those fine symbolical intuitions which are the true stuff of poetry, because they reveal the organic unity and symmetry of all existence. I am alluding to the sense of cloying and restlessness which comes to most of us (save when tired or convalescent) after a very few days or even hours shut up in quite the finest real gardens; and to that instinct, impelling ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... fair arm, of loveliest symmetry, Supports the fairer brow in thought reclining, While gleams with diamond fires thy poniard nigh In quick reflection of the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... problems it is fair to give examples where her methods have been wholly and entirely successful. The man who does not know one tree or shrub from another cannot travel in trains, motor-cars, or afoot without remarking the neatness, symmetry, and the flourishing condition of the forests. In these matters Germany so far surpasses us that we may be said to be merely in a kindergarten stage of development. As early as 1783 a German traveller, Johann David ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... perceived; the great epos or rhapsody, the form and meaning of the entire composition,—which is a work of Art in no other sense than a poem is one, except that it uses, instead of speech, musical forms, of greater variety and symmetry,—are not at all understood. Nor is the subtile and irresistible coherence in successions of clear sunny melody, in which Mozart so abounds, in any great degree understood, even by some who call themselves artists. They think ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... adaptation of the ant-eater to its position and to its few and simple wants. To those who have not studied "the works of the Lord," it may appear uncouth and unattractive. Compared with a dog, it is stupid; and alongside of a lion, it is slow. It has not the symmetry of the horse, nor the beautiful markings of the zebra and leopard. But its Creator has given it the instincts, the form, the muscular powers, and the colours which best answer its purpose. And no one can say that it is ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... generally journalists. Few of the balloons in use twenty-five years ago would hold more than twenty thousand cubic feet of gas. Of the large balloons the Buffalo became widely known on account of its size and the number of notable voyages it made. Capacity, symmetry, lightness and staying quality considered, it was probably the best balloon ever built in America. When fully inflated it contained ninety-one thousand cubic feet of gas, and would carry up a dozen passengers. It was the Buffalo which on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... nothing of symmetry and much of convenience; never to remove an anomaly merely because it is an anomaly; never to innovate except when some grievance is felt; never to innovate except so far as to get rid of the grievance; never to lay down any proposition of wider extent than the particular case for which it ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... was necessary to save the party—nay, that was a slip; we should say, to save the family; this is not a parable. Yet Numa loved his wife. She bore him a boy and a girl, twins; and as her son grew in physical, intellectual, and moral symmetry, he indulged the hope that—the ambition and pride of all the various Grandissimes now centering in this lawful son, and all strife being lulled—he should yet see this Honore right the wrongs ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... things of weight; his eyes, small but with no Chinese slant, never varied in expression; his nose was slender and not at all inclined to flatness; and if his mouth had not been disfigured by the immoderate use of tobacco and buyo, which, when chewed and gathered in one cheek, marred the symmetry of his features, we would say that he might properly have considered himself a handsome man and have passed for such. Yet in spite of this bad habit he kept marvelously white both his natural teeth and also the two which the dentist furnished ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... dwelt on "the far-famed harbour of Dublin, the rival of our London in commerce," and told of ships of merchandise that sailed from Britanny to Irish ports, and of the busy wine trade with Poitou. Ireland alone broke the symmetry of an empire that bordered the Atlantic from the Hebrides to Spain, and the fame of empire had its attractions for the heirs of the Norman conquerors. Patriotic and courtly historians remembered that their king was representative ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... of motion and of look, the smooth And swimming majesty of step and tread, The symmetry of form and feature, set The soul afloat, even like delicious airs Of flute ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... true-blue-slightly- imbricated-with-red-flag coalition rose whose deep globular head with ornate decorative calyx retains its perfect exhibition-cross-question- hostile-amendment symmetry of form without blueing or burning in the hottest Westminster sun. Its smiling peach and cerise endearments terminating in black scarlet shell-shaped waxy Berlin ultimata are carried on an admirably rigid peduncle. Equally vigorous in all parts of Europe. Superbly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... for a brief while through some great country like England or Russia may jot down a few of the impressions which come home to him, making no pretense at completeness or symmetry of description. So, one who has journeyed like a hasty traveler over some passages in that vast tract of years which we describe as the classic and Christian civilizations, notes down in the following ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... girl of fourteen. It often happens that fruits borne on the same stem are different in color and taste; so these two sisters were different in personal appearance and character. Nature seems to have presided in a special manner over the moulding of Aloysia's exquisite frame. The symmetry of her person, hand and foot of charming delicacy, azure eye and rosy cheek, garlanded with nature's golden tresses, and the sweet expression of innocence in her features, would suggest her at once ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... a broad band at the waist; and the slight drapery set off, rather than concealed, the rich contours of a form of mature but admirable symmetry. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... shadowy outline of this ship, he supposed it to be some packet, or cotton-droger, standing for her port on the northern shore. But a few minutes removed the veil, and with it the error of this notion. A seaman could no longer mistake the craft. Her length, her square and massive hamper, with the symmetry of her spars, and the long, straight outline of the hull, left no doubt that it was a cruiser, with her hammocks unstowed. Mulford now cheerfully announced to his companions, that the ship they so plainly saw, scarcely a gun-shot distant from them, was the sloop-of-war which had already ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... one was of "Jackson's patent enema machines, as patronised by the nobility (either sex) when travelling"; another of "Mrs. Rodd's anatomical ladies' stays (which ensure the wearer a figure of astonishing symmetry";) and another of a "Brilliant burlesque ballad, 'Get along, Rosey,' sung with the most positive triumph ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... first volume of poems in 1870, he left only his House of Life incomplete; but amongst the readers who then offered spontaneous tribute to that series of sonnets, and still treasured it as a work of all but faultless symmetry, built up by aid of a blended inspiration caught equally from Shakspeare and from Dante, with a superadded psychical quality peculiar to its author, there were many, even amongst the friendliest in sympathy, who heard of the completed sequence with a sense of doubt. Such ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... for his "Christ in the Garden of Olives." His dark hair clustered thickly on his shoulders, and was thrown back in disorder, as by the weary hand of the laborer when the sweat and toil of the day is over. The long untrimmed beard grew with a natural symmetry that disclosed the graceful curve of the lip, and the contour of the cheek; there was still the noble outline of the nose, the fair and delicate complexion, the pensive and now sunken eye. His shirt, thrown open on the chest, displayed his muscular though attenuated frame, which ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... temple depends on symmetry, the principles of which must be most carefully observed by the architect. They are due to proportion, in Greek [Greek: analogia]. Proportion is a correspondence among the measures of the members of an entire work, and of the whole ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... wisdom. The book revered above all others by the most thoughtful men, of all shades of belief. It is striking how the parts of this stupendous conception fit and hold together. There is a mature symmetry about the whole scheme. For instance, the changes in the light of sun and moon run parallel with the changes in growth and in the healthfulness and longer lives of man. Increased light removes both disease and its cause, and gives new life ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... Portuguese settlement on the north-west coast of Timor. A Portuguese naval officer boarded us in the outer roads, and piloted us through a narrow channel to the inner roads. It is a wretched-looking place; and the houses, small, dirty, and ruinous, were scattered without any order or symmetry in all directions. Van Graoul, who could speak Portuguese, landed with me, as I wished to pay my respects to the Governor. On each side of the town were two half-ruinous forts, on which were mounted some old iron guns of small calibre. The sentinels were but a ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... gallery, roofed, once doubtless level, now gently and gracefully undulating so that it seemed about to fall from off the wall to which it was attached. But the walls had also subsided with the gallery, so that the whole still showed a symmetry that was pleasing to the eye. Above the gallery and across the front of the building had been painted the legend HOTEL DU LION D'OR, and a dim weatherbeaten shield above the doorway still bore the trace of a rampant lion. It seemed ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... a harmonious line! Colour does not uplift me so much as outline, proportion, symmetry and all the wonderful properties of form. Look at this little statue. Pancaldi's right: it's the work of a great artist. The legs are both slender and muscular; the whole figure gives an impression of buoyancy and speed. It is very well done. There's only one fault, a very slight one: perhaps ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... from destruction by the organist Fourcade playing upon it the Marseillaise. The case, the pulpit, and the lovely screen of the sanctuary are of walnut wood from the forest of Ste. Baume. Few parts of any church present such an admirable combination of beauty, elegance, and symmetry as this sanctuary, by a Flemish monk, Frre Louis, in 1692. Round the screen are 20 sculptured panels, each bearing within a wreath a representation in relief of one of the incidents in the life of some ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... the ruins of the Forum are the three marble columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux near the Basilica Julia. They are the only prominent objects on the south-west side of the Forum, and at once arrest the eye by their matchless symmetry and grace. Time has dealt very hardly with them, battering their shapely columns and rich Corinthian capitals, and discolouring their pure white Pentelic marble. But it has not succeeded in destroying their wonderful beauty; and the russet hues with which they have been stained by the long lapse ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... seized a broken piece of wood, and plunged into the stream. Worn down by exhaustion and famine, her nerveless arm failed her, and she sank beneath the waves. Her body, like a bronze statue of marvelous symmetry, was soon after found washed upon the shore. As faithful chroniclers, we must declare, though with a blush, that the English cut off her head, and set it upon a pole in their streets, a trophy ghastly, bloody, revolting. ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... tender human look with which the moon smiles upon the earth,—all this is education of a higher and altogether more real kind than it is possible to receive within the walls of a school; and lacking this, nothing shall have power to develop the faculties of the soul in symmetry and completeness. Hence a philosopher has said there are ten thousand chances to one that genius, talent, and virtue shall issue from a farmhouse rather than from a palace. The daily intercourse with Nature ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... beautiful as a son of the morning, and radiant as the god of day. She passed her hands softly over his dark, brown locks, over the contour of his cheeks and chin with a kind of lingering, mesmerizing touch, which seemed to delight in tracing the lineaments of symmetry and grace. ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... theories a public refutation, and bring back those who do not think, as well as those who do, from the world of dreams to the world of reality. It is hoped, therefore, that any apparent want of artistic unity or symmetry in the essay will be pardoned for the sake of the end the author ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... theories were mere reproductions of Ptolemy's, and to his mistakes they added wilder though less important confusions or inventions of their own. The result of all this, by the tenth century A.D., was a geography, based not on knowledge, but on ideas of symmetry. It was a scheme fit for the ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... astonished. "How foolish! Reason for a moment—any presentation of this matter calls for the highest ability; it involves sifting of evidence; symmetry of arrangement; cohesiveness of method, logic of argument, persuasiveness of advocacy, subtleties of acumen, charms of eloquence—all the elements of ...
— The Angel of Lonesome Hill • Frederick Landis
... is remarkable for its symmetry and for its uniform size. When ripe, the fruit is not easily distinguished from some varieties of scarlet plums. It is hardy, early, and yields abundantly: but the fruit is employed principally for pickling and preserving; its small size rendering it of ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... north-eastern third; while warm waters bring corals to its southern shores. South America has warm waters and corals on the north-east, and cold waters and glaciers only on its narrowing southern end. If the symmetry that is so noticeable in geological history had extended to climate as well, many geographical features might now present likenesses instead of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... irreproachable strategy, they approached an inclined plane on the quay which descended to the shore, and which permitted cab-drivers arriving from Passy to come to the river and water their horses. This inclined plane was suppressed later on, for the sake of symmetry; horses may die of thirst, but the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Thornton Chase was perfect in its artificiality. It sloped down towards Richmond Park in a series of stately terraces with box-hedge borders trimmed so evenly that not a twig or leaf offended against the canons of symmetry. They were groomed like a racehorse. Centred in a square of barbered lawn was a fountain where Neptune drove his chariot of sea-horses. The Apollo Belvedere, the Capitoline Venus, Minerva, and Flora had their niches against a greenhouse of which ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... of quantity or degree.] Equality — N. equality, parity, coextension^, symmetry, balance, poise; evenness, monotony, level. equivalence; equipollence^, equipoise, equilibrium, equiponderance^; par, quits, a wash; not a pin to choose; distinction without a difference, six of one and half a dozen of the other; tweedle ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... symmetry of the two opening similes, making the eagle the subject of the sentence in the first, the kid in the second, an awkwardness which the Latin is able to avoid by its power of distinguishing cases by inflexion. I trust, however, that it will not offend ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... empty, and alone, and clamor to know the way. And sometimes deep, sweet, hollow voices answer in murmurs, which I feel rather than hear; but I cannot interpret them, I cannot compass their sounds. And sometimes gigantic formless shadows overcloud me. I know they have forms of wondrous symmetry and beauty, but they are so grand that my vision does not reach their outline, and I cannot comprehend them. I know that I am dominant of the physical creation on this earth, but at those times I feel that these great and mighty essences, whose world ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... inquiry, what one bit of knowledge would more than any other illuminate the problem, I think we may give the answer without hesitation. The greatest advance that we can foresee will be made when it is found possible to connect the geometrical phenomena of development with the chemical. The geometrical symmetry of living things is the key to a knowledge of their regularity, and the forces which cause it. In the symmetry of the dividing cell the basis of that resemblance we call Heredity is contained. To imitate the morphological ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... his skill in seizing the romantic aspects of the commonplace. In one of his talks with his son he said that a novelist must beware of an excess of lyric enthusiasm; he himself sought for emotion, and emotion escaped when human proportions were exceeded. Balance, order, reserve, symmetry, sobriety,—these are the qualities he was ever praising. The real, the truthful, the sincere,—this is what ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... and planned Madrid is very well indeed. It has not the symmetry which forethought gave the topography of Washington, or the beauty which afterthought has given Paris. But it makes you think a little of Washington, and a great deal of Paris, though a great deal more yet of Rome. It is Renaissance so far as architecture ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... in the most agreeable Light: In short, she seems to have designed the Head as the Cupola to the most glorious of her Works; and when we load it with such a Pile of supernumerary Ornaments, we destroy the Symmetry of the human Figure, and foolishly contrive to call off the Eye from great and real Beauties, to childish Gewgaws, Ribbands, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... fragment of the palace is the Banqueting-House of Inigo Jones, from which Charles I. passed to execution. Built in the dawn of the style of Wren, it is one of the most grandiose examples of that style, and is perfect alike in symmetry and proportion. That it has no entrance apparent at first sight is due to the fact that it was only intended as a portion of a larger building. In the same way we must remember that the appearance of two stories externally, while the whole is one room, is due ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... direction of greater naturalness. He has broken the severity of the line, which the lace handkerchief and the hands scarcely stayed in the first picture, by placing the philosopher's hat upon his knees, he has attenuated the symmetry of the picture-frames on the walls, and has omitted the black curtain which drops through the earlier picture. And all these alterations seemed to me like so many leaks through which the eternal something of the first design ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... beautiful Greek girl entered the chamber, voluptuous as her mistress in carriage and demeanor, and all too slightly robed for modesty, in garments that displayed far more than they concealed of her rare symmetry. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... actually forming small windows; and of a sudden by fine thin silks lightly overshadowing (the fretwork) just as if there were, after all, secret doors. The whole walls were in addition traced, with no regard to symmetry, with outlines of the shapes of curios and nick-nacks in imitation of lutes, double-edged swords, hanging bottles and the like, the whole number of which, though (apparently) suspended on the walls, were all however on a same level with the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... no murmur of cattle-bells from mountain pastures now, nothing stirring through the magic aisles where the matched columns of beech and pine towered in the perfect symmetry ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... emotional outpouring; and, as far back as there are any historical records, we find traces of such activity. For many centuries these rude cries of savage races were far removed from anything like artistic design, but the advance towards coherence and symmetry was always the result of free experimentation—hence vitally connected with the emotions and mental processes of all human effort. One of the most significant of the many sayings attributed to Daniel Webster is that "Sovereignty rests with the people"; ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... as we have said, the cathedral of the diocese, has been much admired for its true symmetry and exact proportion, as well as for the ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... invaded and stifled vigorous trees; in the remoter portions of the park briers barred the road and made walking almost impossible. This disorder was not destitute of charm, and at an epoch when landscape gardening consisted chiefly in straight alleys, and in giving to nature a cold and monotonous symmetry, one's eye rested with pleasure on these neglected clumps, on these waters which had taken a different course to that which art had assigned to them, on ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and expression—and however successfully—still a verbal description can never convey a true notion of personal charms; and personal charms Fanny had, decidedly; not that she was strictly beautiful, but, at times, nevertheless, eclipsing beauty far more regular, and throwing symmetry into the shade, by some charm which even they whom it ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... steal forward with the lightest, freest action imaginable.' If he was but all right,' continued Sponge, with a shake of the head, 'he would be worth any money, for he has the strength of a dray-horse, with the symmetry and action ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... in his stead. So she went forth one night from her pavilion, intending for that in which was her husband King Ma'aruf; and it chanced by decree of the Decreer and His written destiny, that Ma'aruf lay that night with one of his concubines; a damsel endowed with beauty and loveliness, symmetry and a stature all grace. And it was his wont, of the excellence of his piety, that, when he was minded to have to lie with a woman, he would doff the enchanted seal-ring from his finger, in reverence to the Holy ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... the same proofs. Some employ only concentric circles, others use eccentric and epicyclic ones, with which, however, they do not fully attain the desired end. They could not even discover nor compute the main thing—namely, the form of the universe and the symmetry of its parts. It was with them as if some should, from different places, take hands, feet, head, and other parts of the body, which, although very beautiful, were not drawn in their proper relations, and, without making them in any way ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Norwegians, and their invariable companions, as many dogs, leading and tormenting four rein-deer down the mountains; and for two hours, along the narrow road of descent, we watched the whole troop enlarging from the indistinctness of black-beetles to the symmetry and size of men and animals. When they had reached the plain on which the small village was built, they shouted and beckoned to us; and although we made all possible haste, they seemed to fancy their excited feelings sluggish, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... called in question; nor is it injustice to assert, that the minute and analytical spirit of a grammarian is not the best qualification for the profound feeling, the comprehensive conception of an harmonious whole. The most exquisite anatomist may be no judge of the symmetry of the human frame; and we would take the opinion of Chantrey or Westmacott on the proportions and general beauty of a form, rather than that of Mr. ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... a novelty Not high in general estimation; 'Twould serve ye in an epigram— But turn we once more to our dame. Enchanting, but unwittingly, At table she was sitting by The brilliant Nina Voronskoi, The Neva's Cleopatra, and None the conviction could withstand That Nina's marble symmetry, Though dazzling its effulgence white, Could not ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... The book suggests, moreover, a critical position—which is, that gallantry and Virginia have so far been regrettably sacrificed to chivalry and Poictesme in the career of Mr. Cabell's imagination. Not only the symmetry expected of that career demands something different; so does its success with the gallantries of Lichfield. In spite of all Mr. Cabell's accumulation of erudite allusions the atmosphere of his Poictesme often turns thin and leaves his characters gasping for vital breath; nor ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... disease—I have now to speak of the means by which the mind and body are to be preserved, a higher theme than the other. The good is the beautiful, and the beautiful is the symmetrical, and there is no greater or fairer symmetry than that of body and soul, as the contrary is the greatest of deformities. A leg or an arm too long or too short is at once ugly and unserviceable, and the same is true if body and soul are disproportionate. ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... only in that they bring order into what at first seems the chaos of our surroundings, but in that they are themselves beautiful in their spaciousness and their simplicity. We cannot pause here to consider the physiological facts which make us admire symmetry, but it is fundamental in our appreciation of music, poetry, and the plastic arts. From the sciences, likewise, we derive the satisfaction of symmetry on a magnificent scale. There is beauty as of a great symphony in the sweep and movement of the solar system. There is a quiet and infinite ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... are authors who are as pointless as they are inexhaustible in their literary resources. They measure knowledge by bulk, as it lies in the rude block, without symmetry, without design. How many commentators are there on the classics, how many on Holy Scripture, from whom we rise up, wondering at the learning which has passed before us, and wondering why it passed! How many writers are there of Ecclesiastical history, such as ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... or four savages, speedily followed by others, amounting in all to twelve, besides their chief, who was in the advance, crossed the threshold, and, without uttering a word, either of anger or salutation, squatted themselves upon the floor. They were stout, athletic warriors, the perfect symmetry of whose persons could not be concealed even by the hideous war-paint with which they were thickly streaked—inspiring anything but confidence in the honesty or friendliness of their intentions. The head of each was shaved and painted as well as his person, and only on the extreme ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... along a sort of giant's causeway, the pavement of which was the heads of basaltic columns, all fitting together in the most beautiful symmetry; and, turning round the precipice to our right hand, found ourselves at the entrance of the great cave. The sea was too stormy to allow us to enter it, as is often done in boats, we had therefore to clamber along one of its ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... of the hardest stones, and wrought with admirable symmetry and polish, surpassing any thing we could readily conceive of in the humbler arts of the present Indian tribes; and the question arises, whether they are not the works of their seemingly extinct progenitors?—of that people of the same race, (but more directly allied ...
— Some Observations on the Ethnography and Archaeology of the American Aborigines • Samuel George Morton
... unwritten laws of the cuisine that Prudence was never to be disturbed when engaged in this delicate operation. She maintained that it destroyed the symmetry of the peel, and I dare say she was right. Consequently she looked at me reproachfully as I entered, and bent again more assiduously to her work. I was much flustered by the ill omen, but I knew that if I hesitated ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... the standard. But the hero is drawn with grand and striking proportions, and perhaps seems the larger, that the bones of his individuality stand out in undue prominence; the author lacking that balance of powers which is requisite, to produce the symmetry and roundness met with in the higher forms of Nature. And he knew not, apparently, how to express the hero's greatness in word, but by making him bethump the stage with tempestuous verbiage; which, to be sure, is not the style of greatness at all, but only of one trying to be great, and trying ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... bronze torch-holders as high as turrets. Here too stand, and have stood for centuries, cyca palms with fresh green plumes, their numerous stalks curving with a heavy symmetry, like the branches of massive candelabra. The temple, which is open along its entire length, is dark and mysterious, with touches of gilding in distant corners melting away into the gloom. In the very remotest part are seated ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... sofa, with her head tipped well back for red lips and white teeth to capture the slip of ice sliding to them from the bottom of the long tumbler, he thought her the very perfection of innocent freedom and symmetry. ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... remains of a temple once beautiful but now destroyed. They hold no relation to any high religious purpose, because they have no intelligent relation to God. Christian ethics begin with our relations to God as supreme, and they embrace the present life and the world to come. The symmetry of the divine precept, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself," finds no counterpart in the false religions of the world. Nowhere else, not even in Buddhism, is found the perfect law of love. The great secret of power ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... went steadily on in its accustomed track; each succeeding year found James Dutton growing in wealth and importance; and his daughter in sparkling, catching comeliness—although certainly not in the refinement of manner which gives a quickening life and grace to personal symmetry and beauty. James Dutton remained firm in his theory of the worthlessness of education beyond what, in a narrow acceptation of the term, was absolutely 'necessary;' and Anne Dutton, although now heiress to very ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... Papacy in the zenith of its power and renown is partly new and partly old. When we consider the papal theory, as it floated before the mind of a Gregory VII or an Innocent III, it produces in us the same impression of symmetry, logical consistency and completeness, which we experience on entering for the first time one of the great medieval churches. But when once we have grasped the design of the architect, we shall usually find that he has conformed in some respects to unmeaning ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... simple. The lower country consists of clay-slate and sandstone, containing fossils, very closely related to, but not identical with, those found in the Silurian formations of Europe; the hills are formed of white granular quartz rock. The strata of the latter are frequently arched with perfect symmetry, and the appearance of some of the masses is in consequence most singular. Pernety has devoted several pages to the description of a Hill of Ruins, the successive strata of which he has justly compared to the seats ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... are so fine that he may be said to be a model of symmetry in ornithology. On each wing he has a bright yellow spot, and his rump, belly and half the tail are of the same colour. All the rest of the body is black. His beak is the colour of sulphur, but it fades in death, and requires the same operation as the bill of the toucan to make it ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... received a present of a beautiful black setter puppy, from an unknown hand. He bred and cherished him, and the memory of Black York is still fresh in his country; not only for his perfect symmetry, his silky, raven black hair, but for his gentle, submissive disposition. He was a nervous dog when young, for even a loud word alarmed him, which, combined with his mysterious arrival, and an involuntary affection, induced his ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... wore court-mourning from economy, and forgot to take it off when the court did. A handsome snuff-box, often changed, and a ring, were part of the costume of a well-dressed man; and it was usual to wear two watches, probably from an excessive effort after symmetry; while it is intimated by the satirist that clean lace cuffs were sometimes sewn upon a dirty shirt.[Footnote: Babeau, Paris, 214. Fashion plates in various books. For evening dress, suits all of black were beginning to come in towards 1789. In the street ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... motive usually starts at the bottom and grows continuously to the top, with the base, whether a mass of leafage, a vase, or other unit of ornament, well defined and the crowning unit strong and rich. The central axis can be actual or merely evidenced by the symmetry of the sides, preferably actual. To prevent an effect of absolute perpendicular division or of stringiness, this axis, between its base and crown, is divided either by knots of ornament, concentrated masses, ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 06, June 1895 - Renaissance Panels from Perugia • Various
... whole can only be fused into the necessary unity by passing through a single understanding. These conditions were sufficiently secured by the preliminary processes just described. Nor was there any risk that a measure should lose its symmetry in the process of passing through the Council. The Council was composed of men capable, on the one hand, of judging of the expediency of the general policy involved, and willing, on the other hand, to trust ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... provides, it is true, a large central area conveniently near the altar; but the provision of a chancel or altar-space necessitates the grafting on the plan of a feature borrowed from the ordinary basilica, which, as at San Vitale, breaks the symmetry of the design. At Santa Sophia, the basilican chancel forms an indissoluble part of a centralised plan; but this feat is beyond the reach of an ordinary architect. Even at San Vitale the planning is highly complicated, and must be due to an ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson
... I entered the bridechamber, I looked for the cabinet and found it even as the ape had described it. Then I went in to the bride and marvelled at her beauty and grace and symmetry, for indeed they were such as no tongue can set forth. So I rejoiced in her with an exceeding joy; and in the middle of the night, when she slept, I rose and taking the keys, opened the cabinet. Then I took the knife and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... or fruit is rare to us, because shy or difficult of growth, or perhaps unsymmetrical. The fine Rhode Island Greening apple is unpopular because the young tree is crooked, while the leather-skinned and punk-fleshed Ben Davis is a model of symmetry and rapidity of growth. Our glorious tulip tree of the woods, because of its relative difficulty in transplanting, has had to be insisted upon from the nurserymen by those who know its superb beauty. For the same reason this small charming maple, with the large, soft, ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... of approval from the warriors followed his words. Like the old Greeks, the Indians admired size, symmetry and strength, qualities so necessary to them in their daily lives, and Henry, as he stood there, wet with perspiration and breathing heavily, exemplified all that they considered best in man. Few of these ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... buildings erected on a line, flat constructions, long, cold rows, and the melancholy sadness of right angles. Not an unevenness of the ground, not a caprice in the architecture, not a fold. The ensemble was glacial, regular, hideous. Nothing oppresses the heart like symmetry. It is because symmetry is ennui, and ennui is at the very foundation of grief. Despair yawns. Something more terrible than a hell where one suffers may be imagined, and that is a hell where one is bored. If such a hell existed, that bit of the Boulevard de l'Hopital might ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... of Nature,' Variety and Unity must characterize every great work of art, as they mark every work of the Creator. Let us take any of the humblest things which He has made, a flower, for example: Unity, Order, Proportion, and Symmetry are in all its fragile leaves—the Great Over-Soul seems to have lingered lovingly over the elaboration of its idea, and stamped upon its fragrant leaves, perishing and trivial as they may seem, the secrets of Infinity! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... lovely girl—whose face possesses the crowning charm of expression, whose slightest movement reveals the supple symmetry of her figure—less lovely because she is blessed with a good appetite, and is not ashamed to acknowledge it? With a grace all her own, Cecilia dived under the bed, and produced a basket of jam tarts, ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... regular in form that they were puzzling. About fifty feet across and ten in altitude, they looked artificial in their symmetry—like great saucers set on the ocean floor bottom side up. They took on a dirty black hue as our light struck them, and glowed with a faint phosphorescence as they ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... depression robbed him of all the buoyant manhood that was his. Keeko had gone. Keeko. Keeko with her wonderful eyes, and the grace and symmetry of a youthful goddess. Yes, she had gone, and between them now lay that long winter night with all its manifold chances of disaster. With the break of spring he might look for her coming again. Yes, he might ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... apart from any real meaning or value. Such would be an academic exercise, or a technically correct but unconvincing ballad. It might possibly make some appeal to the intellect by by virtue of the "exhibition of balance and symmetry, the definiteness of plan and design, the vitality and proportion of organic growth,"[25] but this would not suffice to place it in the category of ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... be quite willing to show it to any one desirous of inspecting the same. Many persons have paid a visit to the spot where the discoveries have been made, and surprise is invariably expressed at the magnitude and beautiful symmetry ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... latter the monastic buildings. The precincts are entered by a gateway (P), at the extreme western extremity, giving admission to the lower ward. Here the barns, granaries, stables, shambles, workshops and workmen,s lodgings were placed, without any regard to symmetry, convenience being the only consideration. Advancing eastwards, we have before us the wall ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... back into its place. The sun and the open air had kissed pink into the cheek underneath the healthy brown. The curve of the girl's chin was full and firm. Her tall figure had all the grace of a normal being. Her face, sweet and serious, showed the symmetry of perfect and well-balanced faculties. She stood, as natural and as beautiful, as fit and seemly as the antelope upon the hill, as well poised and sure, her head as high and free, her hold upon life apparently as confident. The vision of her standing there caused ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... structure was built upon the first, and it was no less grave and majestic. There symmetry and proportion vied with beauty and variety of colors, which the brush usurped from nature. It was composed of twelve columns, made in imitation of jasper, with their pedestals, architraves, and flying cornices; and these were closed above ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... beauty: extremely fair and blooming, with fine features, light hair and eyes; his countenance not absolutely heavy, but inanimate, and to my taste insipid: finely made, not ungenteel, but without that easy air of the world which I prefer to the most exact symmetry without it. In short, he is what the country ladies in England call a sweet pretty man. He dresses well, has the finest horses and the handsomest liveries I have seen in Canada. His manner is civil but cold, ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... Clarendon is building for himself in the open country at the top of St. James's Street. It promises to be the finest house in town, and, although not covering so much ground as Whitehall, is judged far superior to that inchoate mass in its fine proportions and the perfect symmetry of its saloons and galleries. There is a garden a-making, projected by Mr. Evelyn, a great authority on trees and gardens. A crowd of fine company had assembled to see the newly finished hall and dining parlour, among them a fussy person, who came in attendance ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... the solar microscope brings before his eyes in a drop of water—things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each other, devouring each other—forms like naught ever beheld by the naked eye. As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were without order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they came round me and round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my head, crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... the traditional academic grove appeared in the report of the visiting Committee of that year, which recommended that "regard should be had, in making the selection, to the cleanliness, desirability, symmetry, and beauty of foliage of the trees to be planted" and observed that "the highway of thought, and intellectual development and progress, much of which is parched and rugged, should, as far as may be, be refreshed with fountains ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... which chiefly attract the attention of strangers, are 1. The Cathedral, which is partly in the Gothic style of architecture, and has two towers, ornamented with pilasters and statues, of very beautiful symmetry. 2. The Treasury, which adjoins to the palace of the viceroys: from this building, since the beginning of the 16th century, more than 270 millions sterling, in gold and silver coin, have been issued. 3. The Convents. 4. The Hospital, or rather the two united hospitals, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... and yellow moon Shone dimly through her form— 80 That form of faultless symmetry; The pearly and pellucid car Moved not the moonlight's line: 'Twas not an earthly pageant: Those who had looked upon the sight, 85 Passing all human glory, Saw not the yellow moon, Saw not the mortal scene, Heard not ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the three-thorned acacia, because the thorns consist of one long spine with two shorter ones projecting out of it, like little branches, near its base. This is said to display much of the elegance of the tropical acacia in the minute division and symmetry of its compound leaves. These are of a light and brilliant green and lie flat upon the branches, giving them a fan-like appearance such as we observe in ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... son stood side by side, Sara's first impression was that she had never seen two more beautiful people. They were both tall, and a kind of radiance seemed to envelope them—a glory imparted by the sheer force of perfect symmetry and health—and, in the case of the former of the two, there was an added charm in a certain little air of stateliness and distinction which ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... themselves, to think quickly and act promptly. Perhaps no emergency will arise in their lives in which the importance of such mental training shall be illustrated; but it is well to be prepared "for any fate," and the discipline which produces this virtue gives strength and symmetry to the ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... method or System, their work can hardly pretend; and yet they have a system,—which has only not been rounded into symmetry, by the singular circumstance that these seven writers "have written in entire independence of one another, and without concert or comparison." They avow a common purpose, however; for they "hope" that their ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... of greenery, and looked forward to her afternoon visit with the longing of a child. What charmed her most in this garden was the exquisite trimness of the lawn and flower beds. Not a single weed interfered with the symmetry of the plants. Helene spent her time there, calmly and restfully. The neatly laid out flower beds, and the network of ivy, the withered leaves of which were carefully removed by the gardener, could exercise no disturbing influence ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... the ninth hour on the morrow he comes, and fifty women around him, and he quite whole, without stain and without blemish; of equal age (the women), of equal form, of equal beauty, of equal fairness, of equal symmetry, of equal stature, with the dress of women of the fairies about them so that there was no means of knowing of one beyond the other of them. Little but men were suffocated around them. They separate ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... witness against myself, when they reviled me and abused me, and I told them the tale full and complete. But they would not excuse me and they all cried, 'Verily, thou deserves splitting or quartering;[FN143] thou who wouldst abandon this beauty and perfection and brilliancy and stature and symmetry and wouldst throw thyself upon a slave-girl black as char-coal; thou who wouldst leave this semblance which is like the splendours of moonlight and wouldst follow yon fulsome figure which resembleth the murks of night.' ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... was confined by a broad band at the waist; and the slight drapery set off, rather than concealed, the rich contours of a form of mature but admirable symmetry. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... corner of the land, and were incorporated with the very being of the nation. Then, as the mist of doubt and persecution which had covered Mary's throne cleared away, the intellect of England, in all its health, and vigour, and symmetry, stood revealed in the men and women of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... of most of the spectators was fixed upon the beautiful Deerfoot, which, putting out from the lower end of Southport Island opposite, was heading toward Squirrel. The picture had become familiar to all and they admired the grace and symmetry of the launch which had won the reputation of being the swiftest of its kind in those waters. It was known that she was owned by Alvin Landon, the son of a millionaire who had built a handsome bungalow on Southport, where he was expected to spend his vacation days, though, ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... garrison in turn to his own table, and entertaining his guests with agreeable and lively conversation. He himself was no sturdy warrior, worn with toil and hardships, but a figure of the most delicate symmetry, seemingly in all the freshness of youth, with a gentle and engaging aspect. He was no orator, but yet was fascinating in conversation, as we may partly learn from his letters. During this siege, as he perceived that the men, cooped up in such narrow limits and eating their food ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... shoulders without shrinking from the touch. And then I saw the improbability, I might say the impossibility, of finding in any ready-made-clothing store, a dress which would fit the twisted form. One must be made on purpose; one which would set at defiance all rules of symmetry; and how to have it completed to-morrow, even late in the day to-morrow? Where should I go to have such an order filled by the time I desired it? And I believed from what I had seen of Matty that the non-fulfilment or postponement of my hasty, ill-considered promise ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... Jonblat family. The ancestral mansion he inhabits was built by one of the ancient race called the T'noohh, who flourished there from the 10th to the 17th century, and artists had been brought for the purpose from Constantinople; the symmetry of the masonry is admirable, and consequently the shadows formed from it are particularly straight and sharp ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... and perplexed from the peculiarity of her situation, yet not wanting in courage when, it was to be called forth) an object well worthy of gaze and admiration. Her features thrown into broad light and shade by the candle which at times was half extinguished by the wind—her symmetry of form and the gracefulness and singularity of her attire—were matter of astonishment to Philip. Her head was without covering, and her long hair fell in plaits behind her shoulders; her stature was rather ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... originate in our love of the sex, and that we deem every object beautiful which is described by soft-waving lines, resembling those of the female neck and bosom. Her feet and arms, which were both bare, had a statue-like symmetry and marble-like whiteness; but it was on her expressive and lovely countenance, now lighted up by the glow of joyous feeling, that nature seemed to have exhausted her utmost skill. There was a fascinating mixture in the expression of superior intelligence and child-like simplicity; a soft, modest ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... be observed, to advantage, the surpassing beauty of the great dome, which dwarfs the towers and steeples of the surrounding churches almost into nothingness. The general aspect of the cathedral is said to resemble St. Peter's, at Rome, but the symmetry of the dome of the latter is acknowledged to be less beautiful than that ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... noted the men in the forecastle. Powerfully muscled though some of them were, there had been something wrong with all of them, an insufficient development here, an undue development there, a twist or a crook that destroyed symmetry, legs too short or too long, or too much sinew or bone exposed, or too little. Oofty-Oofty had been the only one whose lines were at all pleasing, while, in so far as they pleased, that far had they been ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... third year of Ch'ien- lung of the present dynasty. This was done in compliance with a memorial from the president of one of the Boards, who said he was moved by a dream to make the request. We may suppose that his real motives were a wish to do Justice to the merits of Tsze- zo, and to restore the symmetry of the tablets in the 'Hall ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... suggestive of incipient insanity. Her figure, clothed in a picturesque, if somewhat theatrical, adaptation of the costume of her comrades, was somewhat slight, but eminently graceful, while her hands and feet would have delighted a sculptor with their symmetry. Her voice was especially beautiful, being a full, rich, and ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... painful march through the Desert with one of the caravans, that a favourite she-camel foaled. At first it was my intention to leave the young one to its fate, as my camels had already suffered much; but, on examination, the creature showed such strength and symmetry that I resolved to bring it up. I therefore divided half of one of the loads between the other camels, and tied the foal upon the one which I had partly relieved for the purpose. We arrived safely at Cairo; and, as the little animal grew up, I had more than ever reason to be satisfied that I had ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... are like sculptured marble and her mouth is a trembling, curving Cupid's bow. (PETER, ASIDE: "What kind of a thing is that?") Her creamy skin is as fair and flawless as the petals of a white lily. Her voice is like the ripple of a woodland brook and her slender form is matchless in its symmetry. (DAN: "That's Valeria's way of putting it, but Uncle Roger says she don't show her feed much." FELICITY: "Dan! if Uncle Roger is vulgar you needn't be!") Her hands are like a poet's dreams. She dresses so nicely and looks so stylish in her clothes. Her favourite ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... maple-wood frames, brass candlesticks on the mantelpiece and no clock, self-coloured brown curtains across the windows (two windows opposite each other at either end of the long room), sundry rugs on the dark-stained floor, and so on! Not too much furniture, and not too much symmetry either. An agreeable and original higgledy-piggledyness! The room was lighted by a fairly large oil-lamp, with a paper shade hand-painted in a design of cupids—delightful personal design, rough, sketchy, adorable! She had certainly ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... the anthropoid apes, the convolutions being all present and the pattern of arrangement the same. The brain of the orang may be said to be like that of man in all respects except size and the greater symmetry of its convolutions, which are less complicated with minor convolutions than in man. In truth, the difference between the brains of man and the orang is almost insignificant as compared with the difference between those ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... help as her state of health would warrant. Though weak in body, in spirit she was strong and calm and self-reliant, with a clear, discriminating intellect, a keen sense of right, and a certain solidity and balanced symmetry of the spiritual nature which made her an appreciable power wherever she was known. Of Mariann, Grace Anna says, that if a flash of inspiration was required, it usually came from her. Taught by her love for others, and by a sensitiveness almost preternaturally ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... describe the style of architecture of the house inhabited by Militona, unless we designate it as the order composite. Its front was characterised by a total absence of symmetry; the walls, sadly out of the perpendicular, seemed about to fall, and would doubtless have done so but for the support of sundry iron curves and crosses, which held the bricks together, and of two adjacent houses of more solid construction. From the lower part of the ricketty ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... visible to his mind. Hemstead was an enthusiast in the highest form of art and human effort, and was developing, as the ruling motive of his life, a passion for moulding the more enduring material of character into moral symmetry and loveliness. Humanity in its most forbidding guise interested him, for his heart was warm and large and overflowed with a great pity for the victims of evil. In this respect he was like his Master, who had "compassion on the multitude." ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... in tweeds tailored on Fifth Avenue, a little portly, square-faced, confident, a trifle condescending, typified the East, Sandy was the West. A good horse is the incarnation of symmetry, grace and power. Sandy, erect in the saddle, lean and keen, matched all of Pronto's fitness. Man and mount both eminently belonged to the land, shimmering with sage, far-stretching to the mountains, a land that demanded ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... be about thirty. His countenance bore a look of boldness and dissipation, but was not without a symmetry of feature and the fine lines drawn by a taste and indulgence in humor that gave the redeeming touch. There was an odor of ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... mar the symmetry of the whole, as viewed from the front, but when, in the process of the town's improvement, a street was maliciously opened directly in the rear of the building, the whole establishment, with its comical little adjuncts, was a constant source of amusement to the passers-by. No matter. There were ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... any command over my feelings, my words, or writings—yet full of self-possession as to action and conduct.' After describing her sufferings from nervous susceptibility and mental depression, she continues: 'But the hand that writes this has lost nothing of the contour of health or the symmetry of youth. I am in possession of all the fame I ever hoped or ambitioned. I wear not the appearance of twenty years; I am now, as I generally am, sad ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... Inlarge his breed at once, and lessen The pains and labour of increasing, By changing them for other cares, As by his dry'd-up paps appears. 770 His body, that stupendous frame, Of all the world the anagram Is of two equal parts compact, In shape and symmetry exact, Of which the left and female side 775 Is to the manly right a bride; Both join'd together with such art, That nothing else but death can part. Those heav'nly attracts of yours, your eyes, And face, that all the world surprize, 780 That dazzle ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... He was looking in vain for a lady, equal in personal attraction to the idea he had formed of George Dolignan as a man, when suddenly there glided past him a most delightful vision! a lady whose beauty and symmetry took him by the eyes,—another look: "It can't be! Yes, it is!" Miss Haythorn! (not that he knew her name!) but ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... National Church; and though the glory of the second temple was far inferior to that which had flourished from 1639 till the battle of Dunbar, still it was a structure that, wanting the strength and the terrors, retained at least the form and symmetry, of the original model. Then came the insurrection in 1715, and David Deans's horror for the revival of the Popish and prelatical faction reconciled him greatly to the government of King George, although he grieved that that monarch might ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... political age or the poetic age in any special degree. It was equally poetic, political, industrial, artistic, practical, intellectual and devotional. And these qualities acted on a uniform conception of life with a real symmetry of purpose." ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... not so dusk; it gleamed more: as if the ray from a star had been shot through it. There was the same olive cheek; but it was not so tawny, for the dawn of the white blood had appeared in it. She gained in symmetry too, being taller than her red mother, while she preserved the soft, willowy motion of ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... other part. Of course we shall expect to find in them the enlargement or exaggeration of poetic license. But so doing we must recall the characteristics of their great author, who with all exaggeration preserves harmony and symmetry of parts, and harmony and correspondence in all settings and surroundings. With such views of what is fair and helpful in interpretation, I propose to proceed to a closer view of the first one hundred and fifty-two of what are known as the ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... works which, for the most part, have been carefully edited for American students, are commonly read in schools and colleges, and could be presumed to be familiar to most users of the Anthology. As the additional matter would thus have been largely useless, it seemed to me that the ideal gain in symmetry would be more than offset by the increased bulk and cost of the book, which was already large enough. I hold of course that anthologies have their use in the study of literary history; but it would be a mistake, in my judgment, for any student to take up a volume of selections without ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... get rid of the inferiority by making her a man. There may be some subtle physiological basis for such views—some strange quality of brain; for some who hold and advocate them are of those, who, having missed the symmetry and organic balance that harmonious development yields, have drifted into an hermaphroditic condition. One of this class, who was glad to have escaped the chains of matrimony, but knew the value and lamented the loss of ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... thoroughbred as Eclipse; then a gray, who seemed to have a strong objection to being led, and who held back and dragged at his rein in a most provoking manner; and lastly, by the side of a brown hack that I fancied I had seen before, a beautiful black horse, the very impersonation of strength, symmetry, courage, speed, and all that a horse ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... be the law of Life—of Life which does not care a button about being aesthetic or wisely epicurean. The truth of it is brought home to us occasionally in one of those fine symbolical intuitions which are the true stuff of poetry, because they reveal the organic unity and symmetry of all existence. I am alluding to the sense of cloying and restlessness which comes to most of us (save when tired or convalescent) after a very few days or even hours shut up in quite the finest real gardens; and to that instinct, impelling some of us to inquire about the ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... open, and when all the other conditions of growth are favourable, it grows harmoniously in all directions,—upward, outward, and all around. In other words, it is growing as a whole, growing, as it ought to grow, through every fibre of its being, and yet maintaining a perfect symmetry of form and the harmony of true proportion among its ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... been often used with effect in the past. Among them was one which had been out in the campaigns of 1689 (Dundee's), 1715 (Mar's), and in 1745-6. It was of Spanish manufacture, and remarkable for the length and symmetry of its blade, in consequence of which it received the sobriquet of Rangaire Riabhach.[B] In his failure to find the keys of the arms depository, he bethought him to make a confident and enlist the sympathies of an elderly lady, who had been a member of the family ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... appears on both sides of the body at once, as on both cheeks, or both arms, or both thighs. Its border shades into the surrounding skin, it is dotted with papules (or heads) filled with fluid, and its surface is clean and not greasy. As it spreads, the symmetry of distribution is lost. Among the morbid agencies producing this variety of eczema are the products of indigestion. Among the drugs producing it ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
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