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noun
Brilliant  n.  
1.
A diamond or other gem of the finest cut, formed into faces and facets, so as to reflect and refract the light, by which it is rendered more brilliant. It has at the middle, or top, a principal face, called the table, which is surrounded by a number of sloping facets forming a bizet; below, it has a small face or collet, parallel to the table, connected with the girdle by a pavilion of elongated facets. It is thus distinguished from the rose diamond, which is entirely covered with facets on the surface, and is flat below. "This snuffbox on the hinge see brilliants shine."
2.
(Print.) The smallest size of type used in England printing. Note: This line is printed in the type called Brilliant.
3.
A kind of cotton goods, figured on the weaving.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Brilliant" Quotes from Famous Books



... be the most brilliant royal ceremony ever held in any city in Fairyland, and I hope you will try to get ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum

... (fl. 119 B.C.) entered public life as a pleader, and thus laid the foundation of his brilliant career; but he was through life greater as a judicial than as a deliberative orator. He was indefatigable in preparing his case, and made every point tell. He was a great master of the pathetic, and knew the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... dreamed some dazzling dreams as he sat there on the bench under the Belltown chestnuts. Passers-by, if they noticed him at all, saw merely a rather small, poorly clad boy, with a great many freckles, a square jaw and shrewd, level-gazing grey eyes. But this same lad was mapping out a very brilliant future for himself as people passed him heedlessly by. He would get out West, somehow or other, some time or other, and make a fortune. Then, perhaps, he would go back to Upton for a visit and shine in his splendour before all his old neighbours. It all ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... led to his brilliant conception, in 1891, of hysteria. He defined it, with good reasons given, as "a disease of the hypnotic stratum." Hardly had he done so when the wonderfully ingenious observations of Binet, and especially of Janet in France, gave to this view the completest ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... about it, and turn on so many side-lights. And then his sentences! If his character novels were all wrong one could read him forever for the mere beauty of his sentences. He never lets his phrases run away with him. They are never dull and never too brilliant. He subjects them to the general tone of his sentence and has his whole paragraph partake of the same predominating color. You are never startled, never surprised, never thrilled or never enraptured; always delighted by that masterly prose ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... confident that he has the truth on his side will ever evade coming to the light; for he is not ashamed to profess and vindicate the truth; and though it should be scrutinized to the utmost, yet he knows that thereby, like gold passing through the fire, it shall become more brilliant. Even the man who is diffident with respect to his doctrines, yet having an honest disposition, never objects to be brought to the light; for he considers that no greater favor could be shown him than that his errors be overthrown, and he be led into the paths of truth. But the ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente

... all attempts to capture, if, in the course of the engagements, Lupin always preserved his superiority, the Englishman had, nevertheless, thanks to his formidable tenacity, recovered the Jewish lamp, just as he had recovered the blue diamond. Perhaps, this time, the result was less brilliant, especially from the point of view of the public, since Shears was obliged to suppress the circumstances in which the Jewish lamp had been discovered and to proclaim that he did not know the culprit's name. But, as between ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... his regiment left for India the last time. The captain was not rich, but he had enough. It happened too that he was a clean honest gentleman who had made a reputation for efficiency and gallantry in the army. If he was not brilliant, he was at least thorough. Lady Farquhar was quite willing to back his suit so far ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... more complete victory during the war. General Moore's strategy was brilliant in conception and daring in execution; but no strategy, however brilliant, and no courage however daring, would have availed anything had not North Carolina been prepared to put promptly in the field troops with the ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... sailors on the fishing-smacks were many unfamiliar and wild-looking Cuban and Spanish types—men with hard, dark faces, lighted up by fierce, brilliant black eyes, who looked as if they would have been in their proper sphere fighting under a black flag, on the Spanish Main, in the good old days of the bucaneers. But hard and fierce as many of them looked, ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... Laurier to the front. Hitherto he had been considered, especially in Ontario, as a man of brilliant promise, but not yet of the stature of veterans like Blake and Mackenzie and Cartwright. But now an occasion had come which summoned all his latent powers, and henceforth his place in the first rank was unquestioned. It was an issue peculiarly fitted to bring out his deepest feelings, his passion ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton

... marsh, which I could not cross. This marsh is covered with fine grass, in black alluvial soil, in which is growing a new kind of lily, with a large broad heart-shaped leaf a foot or more across; the blossoms are six inches high, resemble a tulip in shape, and are of a deep brilliant rose colour; the seeds are contained in a vessel resembling the rose of a watering-pot, with the end of each egg-shaped seed showing from the holes, and the colour of this is a bright yellow. The marsh is studded with a great number ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart

... up! That's the way of your intellectual fool, the Universe over. He takes up a position, and he's going to be the most brilliant, delightful, engaging and invincible of gay delicious creatures defending that position you can possibly imagine. And even when the case is not so bad as that, there still remains the quality. We "take up our ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... opinion of such ignorance with a little lift of her pointed chin. "Colonel Henderson," she goes on, "is perhaps the ablest and most brilliant attorney in Virginyah. He is connected with the ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... from. Far below her she found six great glowing balls suspended in the air. The central and largest one was white, and reminded her of the sun. Around it were arranged, like the five points of a star, the other five brilliant balls; one being rose colored, one violet, one yellow, one blue and one orange. This splendid group of colored suns sent rays darting in every direction, and as the horse and buggy—with Dorothy and Zeb—sank steadily downward and came nearer ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.

... scandal, never such a rain of pamphlets and lampoons on one side and the other. One has only to glance at the contemporary portraits of Furetiere to see that he was not the man to yield a point; his wrinkled face looks the very mirror of sarcastic obstinacy and brilliant ill-nature. The Academy, in solemn session, appointed Regnier Desmarais, their secretary, to wait on the Chancellor to demand the cancelling of Furetiere's privilege. But the Abbe had powerful friends also, and ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... butterfly? Now I come to think of it, I hardly know whether to refer it to the lepidoptera or not. At all events, it is a striking example of the manner in which natural and sexual selection, continued through a series of epochs, can evolve the most brilliant and graceful combinations of tint and plumage, by simple survival of the ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang

... in determining the freshness and wholesomeness of foods, especially meats, poultry, fish, vegetables, and fruits. Avoid all highly colored bottled or canned fruits or vegetables; pure preserved fruits, jams, jellies, or relishes may have a good bright color, but never have the brilliant reds and greens so often shown in the artificially colored products.[4] The same is true of canned peas, beans, or Brussels sprouts; here the natural product is a dull, rather dingy green, and all bright green samples must be suspected. Foreign articles of this class ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various

... strange faces, his vagrant eye suddenly fell upon a familiar one—two, three familiar ones—and his flagging interest sprang to life. There approached, side by side, J. Pinkney Hare, who, though few knew it, might prove the brilliant hero of the night's proceedings; the child, little Jenny Something, who had spent yesterday at the Carstairs house, leading strangers to think that she was somebody else; and Miss Carstairs herself, a fair flower in that moving ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... did I look towards the ship then! So long as she did not break up I was safe because there were water and provisions in plenty on board. And how I thanked my God for the adamant bulwarks of coral that protected my ark from the fury of the treacherous seas! As the weather became calmer, and a brilliant moon had risen, I decided to swim back to the ship, and bring some food ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... conversation very artfully, intending to proceed by a gentle transition from Charlotte's love affairs to her own; but the conversation was drifting away from the subject into a discussion upon literature, and the brilliant young essayist whose first adventurous flights seemed grand as the soaring of Theban eagle to this tender and admiring watcher of his ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... number of concert tours to various foreign countries with his wife, his own works forming generally a part of the program. It is told of one of these journeys that at some court or other where they were graciously received, the amiable prince, after complimenting the brilliant young pianist upon the solidity of her work, continued, "And is your husband also musical?" At that time Mr. Schumann was the husband of Clara Wieck, rather than Clara Wieck the wife ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews

... their ills and got as intoxicated with it as with champagne. For her gros bebees, if they were really in want of it, she would do anything. She would flout a star-covered general, box the ears of a brilliant aid, send killing missiles of slang at a dandy of a regiment de famille, and refuse point-blank a Russian grand duke; but to "mes enfants," as she was given to calling the rough tigers and grisly veterans ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... and had reached a position of deserved prominence and influence. But he was learned in the law, and regardful of his position as a just and discriminating judge. Though then a young man with a brilliant future before him, he had sworn to do justice to Andrew Johnson "according to the Constitution and law," and his verdict of "Not Guilty" was given with the same deliberate emphasis that characterized all his utterances on ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... his taste and manners polished to a degree so unusual, that he soon became the ornament of every circle in which he moved. His talents, now ripe and cultivated, were not only of a high, but also of a striking and brilliant character—much too commanding and powerful, as every one said, to be permitted to sink into the obscurity ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... Above the wash of the sea there rose a roar of voices. They were giving her the homage of a queen. He listened to the frantic cheering, and again it was Rosa Mundi, splendid and brilliant, who filled his thoughts as she filled the thoughts of all ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... the sweeping grandeur of a determination that lightly assumed the corruptibility of our Press, sent a smile circling among the ladies and gentlemen. The youth who had wished to throw the fair unknown a dozen bouquets, caught himself frowning at this brilliant prospect for her, which was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... be our effort to go on in the path we have entered, and as a guarantee of the future, we may point to the array of live and brilliant talent which has brought so many encomiums on our Magazine. The able political articles which have given it so much reputation will be continued in each issue, and in this number is commenced a new Serial by Richard R. Kimball, the eminent author of the 'Under-Currents of Wall Street,' 'St. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... boy, and many declared that he had a future before him, if only he kept away from the one curse of his father's life, rum. But as he hated the very word drink, there seemed to be little danger that he would be apt to follow in the footsteps of the brilliant man who had fallen so early in life, and left a ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... the hand of the white man, an emigrant with his family came thither from the East in search of a spot whereon to make his home. One bright spring day his white-topped wagon entered a prairie richer in its verdure and more brilliant in its flowers, than any that had yet met his eyes. At night-fall it halted beside a clump of trees not far from a creek. On this site a log-cabin soon rose and sent its smoke curling through the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... among the trees on both sides, but no Indians could be seen, so we had reason to hope that we had completely distanced them. Among the numberless shrubs which adorned the shores were wild plantains and fig-trees, decked with flowers of brilliant and beautiful colours, which grew on the creepers, festooning the boughs, and often hanging down in long lines into the water. Birds of all sorts, and of magnificent plumage, flew amid the branches, or stood ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... foremost it is German science which must regain its superiority in unwearying and brilliant research in order to vindicate our birthright. On the one hand, we must extend the theory of the perceptive faculty; on the other, we must increase man's dominion over Nature by exploring her hidden secrets, and thus make ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... raised her hand. Chonita stood in the door-way. She was quite beautiful enough to plant thorns where she listed. Her tall supple figure was clothed in white, and over her gold hair—lurid and brilliant, but without a tinge of red—she wore a white lace mantilla. Her straight narrow brows and heavy lashes were black; but her skin was more purely white than her gown. Her nose was finely cut, the arch almost indiscernible, and she had the most sculptured mouth I ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... whatever owes us, is Debtor; and whomever or whatever we owe, is Creditor."—Marsh cor. "Declaring the curricle was his, and he should have in it whom he chose."—A. Ross cor. "The fact is, Burke is the only one of all the host of brilliant contemporaries, whom we can rank as a first-rate orator."—Knickerb. cor. "Thus you see, how naturally the Fribbles and the Daffodils have produced the Messalinas of our time."—Dr. Brown cor. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... thus fixing forever, on the community tributary to the road, the burden of paying a revenue on just double the value of all the stock which it had been found necessary to issue to build the highway. Even at this price Mr. Hill is supposed to have made a brilliant bargain. ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... I am forced to do so. You did not expect to appear at any large assemblies while you were in Brittany, and you have brought no ball-dress with you. You have nothing ready which it would be proper for you to wear at such a brilliant reunion; for the de Tremazans are so rich that everything will be upon the most splendid and costly scale. Mademoiselle Bertha de Merrivale cannot be present upon such an occasion, unless she is attired in a manner that befits her rank and ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... are subject to constant sanitary inspection and all unsanitary buildings are destroyed. Safety appliances and all protecting apparatus are painted in brilliant red. There has been a constant study of the workman's house, since the eighteenth century. In 1840 the company had one hundred workmen's houses; in 1912 two thousand five hundred, and in addition to this ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

... created it. Verily this is easy with God: and this is written lest ye immoderately grieve for the good which escapeth you, or rejoice for that which happeneth unto you." They might fall in battle, but it was so decreed, and at the resurrection they would appear with their "wounds brilliant as vermilion, and odorous as musk." Since the primary principle of Calvinism is a foundation principle of Pantheism, Socialism, Stoicism, and Mahometanism, Calvinists may well question whether they have not been building upon the sand, ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace

... Incomparably more brilliant, more splendid, eloquent, accomplished than his rival, the great St. John could be as selfish as Oxford was, and could act the double part as skilfully as ambidextrous Churchill. He whose talk was always ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... over six feet in height, with an enormously large head, a broad, bold forehead, large, aquiline nose, huge mouth, and broad, heavy chin. His eyes were small, but very brilliant, and, when under excitement, flashed like fire, although his demeanor was like that of ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... and widespread success; it was actively taken up by a professor at Paris, societies were formed for its propagation, journals and hundreds of books were published in it; its adherents were estimated at a million. But its success, though brilliant, was short-lived. In 1889, when the third Volapuek Congress was held, it was at the height of its success, but thereafter dissension arose, and its reputation suddenly collapsed. No one now speaks Volapuek; it is regarded as a hideous monstrosity, even by those ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... gathered an immense army from all parts of his dominion, and for weeks his subjects were busy making preparations for war. At length he started for Persia in command of a splendid army. After gaining some brilliant victories he forced the Persian king to ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren

... would, before entering one of these poor, unpainted huts expect to find the cheerful and brilliant interior that greets his eyes. Let us enter one of the houses, that ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... the third year of his reign. On this occasion, all his nobles assemble, bringing great gifts, which he repays with princely rewards. Being myself present on this occasion, I beheld most incredible riches, to my amazement, in gold, pearls, precious stones, and many brilliant vanities. I saw this festival celebrated at Mandoa, where the Mogul has a most spacious house or palace, larger than any I ever beheld, in which the many beautiful vaults and arches evince the exquisite skill of his artists in architecture. At Agra he has a palace, in which are two large ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... was not altogether sorry at first to notice the improvement in his spirits, though my sentiments changed when, a little later in the evening, the girl opposite left her place and came over to us. She greeted Mr. Bundercombe with the most brilliant of smiles and he held her hand quite as long as was necessary. He presented me and I learned that her name was ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... brilliant with sunlight, and the glare of the snow hurt his eyes. He went to the store to get some glasses to protect them, and he bought some laudanum to make him sleep that night, if he should be wakeful again. It was sixty miles to Haha Bay, but the road on the frozen river was good, and he could do a ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... not so much embarrass her, but once or twice she was nearly thrown off her beam-ends by men and boys shouting, 'Wot's the matter with yer anyway? Can't yer get a husband?' and such-like brilliant relevancies. Although she flushed at some of these sallies, she stuck to her guns with a pluck that won her friends. In one of the pauses a choleric old man gesticulated with ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... literature, nor dig in far-off fields for the hidden waters of alien sciences. The great practitioners are generally those who concentrate all their powers on their business. If there are here and there brilliant exceptions, it is only in virtue of extraordinary gifts, and industry to ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... while she painted in vivid colours the aim of education, in raising the status of women, and extending their spheres not only of influence in the occult manner which had hitherto been their way of working through others, but in an open manner, which compelled attention; and she dwelt on certain brilliant achievements of women, and of others which stood before them, and towards which their education, passing out of the old grooves, was preparing them to take their place among men, and temper their harshness and indifference to suffering with the laws of mercy and ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... Gaskell. Mrs. Gaskell has perhaps done more than any woman of this century, not confessedly devoted to our cause, to elevate the condition of her sex, and disseminate liberal ideas as to their needs and culture. The first part of her career was one of those brilliant successes which startle us into surprise and admiration. It was checked midway by the publication of her life of Charlotte Bronte, the best and noblest of her works. Checked, because condemned, in that instance, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... The second, or more brilliant-looking part of courage, the courageous act itself (like Roosevelt's when he is shot), which everybody notices, is easy. The real ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... friendly shelter of the rushes which line the banks, and watch the animals come down to drink, all unconscious of my presence. I took several photographs of scenes of this kind, but unfortunately many of the negatives were spoiled. Often, too, on a brilliant moonlight night have I sat on a rock out in the middle of the stream, near a favourite drinking place, waiting for a shot at whatever fortune might send my way. How exasperating it was, when the wind changed at the critical moment, and gave me away to the rhino or other ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson

... contemporary, and of various other critical authorities, French and English. But in terse and epigrammatic expression of fundamental or pseudo-classical principles of poetic composition and criticism the 'Essay' is amazingly brilliant, and it shows Pope already a consummate master of the couplet. The reputation which it brought him was very properly increased by the publication the next year of the admirable mock-epic 'The Rape of the Lock,' which Pope soon improved, against Addison's advice, by the delightful ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... deep: the diameter of the pit one quarter of a mile: the contents a mass of (not boiling, for what could the temperature be!) restless, seething, molten, red-hot lava, rising from the centre and spreading to the sides, where its waves broke against the walls like ocean billows, being a most brilliant red in colour! Flames and yet not flames. Now and then geysers of fire would burst through the surface, shoot into the air and fall back again. The sight was to some people too awful for prolonged contemplation, myself feeling relieved as from a threat ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... village itself has undergone some alterations. Though belonging to a part of the country occasionally accused of being "unenterprising," it had not proved insensible to the general movement felt throughout the republic, in those halcyon days of brilliant speculation, which commenced with the promise of good fortune to all, and ended by bringing poverty to many, and disgrace to others. A rail-road now runs through the principal street, and the new depot, a large, uncouth building, stands conspicuous ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... wooden benches rose, packed with women in brilliant holiday dress, with men gorgeous in silver and velvet, with children decked in lace and gilt chains. The air was filled with the starched rustle of white coiffes and stiff collarettes; a low, incessant clatter of sabots sounded from gallery to arena; gusts of breathless whispering passed like ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... You may also refresh your general ideas upon the subjects, and run through the details of the few very brief and sprightly anecdotes which you are going to repeat; and also have in readiness one or two brilliant phrases or striking words which you will use upon occasion. Further than this it is dangerous to make much preparation. If you commit to memory long speeches with the design of delivering them, your conversation will become formal, ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman

... amounted to about fifteen thousand castellanos de oro. Pizarro and his followers are now in the greatest distress, and require a supply of provisions, with a reinforcement of brave recruits. Unless these are promptly raised, we shall be wholly ruined, and our glorious enterprise, from which the most brilliant results have been justly anticipated, will fall to the ground. An exact account will be kept of our expenses, that each may share the profits of the discovery in proportion to the amount of his contribution towards the outfit. ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... mother the regent a long account, alternately ingenuous and eloquent, in which the details are set forth with all the complacency of a brave young man who is speaking of the first great affair in which he has been engaged and in which he did himself honor. The victory of Melegnano was the most brilliant day in the annals of this reign. Old Marshal Trivulzio, who had taken part in seventeen battles, said that this was a strife of giants, beside which all the rest were but child's play. On the very battle-field, "before making and creating knights ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... black-garbed assembly the blue dress shone out as though it would attract everything to itself. "She's very pretty," thought Maggie, who was more conscious of her shabby clothes than ever. But her chief feeling was of surprise that so brilliant a bird had been able to penetrate into the chapel at all. "She must be a stranger just come out of curiosity." Then the girl's eyes suddenly met Maggie's and held them; the brilliant creature smiled and Maggie smiled in return. She looked ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... large house—a long structure which sent out gleams of light—Ancliffe opened a door and pulled Allie into a hallway, dark near at hand, but brilliant at the other end. He drew her along this passage, striding slower now and unsteadily. He turned into another hall lighted by lamps. Music and gaiety seemed to sweep stunningly into Allie's face. But Allie saw only one person there—a Negress. As Ancliffe ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... shadow now, but there was a glow-worm light in her beautiful eyes that seemed faintly to illuminate her whole face. He sank down on the sofa at her side, no longer the brilliant and ambitious politician, but, it seemed to him, as hopelessly a dreaming, inexperienced boy as when he had given her the name that now was all he could think of, and the only word that rose to ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte

... messenger of war and woe, but rather as an object of scientific curiosity. [Footnote: This was the "Great Comet of 1680.". Dr. B. A. Gould writes me: "It appeared in December, 1680, and was visible until the latter part of February, 1681, being especially brilliant in January." It was said to be the largest ever seen. By observations upon it, Newton demonstrated the regular revolutions of comets around the sun. "No comet," it is said, "has threatened the earth with a nearer approach than that of 1680."—Winthrop on Comets, Lecture ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... listen, whatever he said she would stop her ears, but always the story fascinated her, held her, eyes widened on the figure by the stove. He had sat huddled in his chair, gnomelike, his face contorting with the emotions of the story, his own brilliant eyes fixed on the round, red mouth of the stove. The reflection of this scarlet circle was hideously noticeable ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... that story is reported to strangers who have no knowledge of the children's social antecedents, how much beyond the mere facts of imitation and personification do they get from it? And how much the more is this true when we examine those complex games of the nursery which show the brilliant fancy for situation and drama ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin

... lavishly described in the newspapers. On this last night the audience was largely of the fashionable political world. Carriages drove up one after another and deposited well-dressed persons who might have been expected that night to appear at certain brilliant social functions, and who had come to hear ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... of August. Warsaw the brilliant, Warsaw the Beautiful, the best beloved of her adoring people, had fallen. Torn by bombs, wrecked by great shells, devastated by hordes of alien invaders, ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston

... however promising of personal renown, would unquestionably have been rejected. The leader who had kept the main object so steadfastly in view throughout the Valley campaign would never have overlooked the expressed wishes of the Commander-in-Chief. Longstreet, however, brilliant fighting soldier as he was, appears to have misconceived the duties of a detached force. He was already prejudiced in favour of a movement against Suffolk. Before he left for his new command, he had suggested to Lee that one army corps only should remain on the Rappahannock, while ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... to get was that oppressive effect of genius, heavily looming. Not a hint had he caught of her high levity, of her look when the bright devil of comedy possessed her, not a flash of her fiery quality, of her eyes' sudden gold, and the ways of her delicate, her brilliant mouth, its fine, deliberate sweep, its darting tilt, like ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair

... of the Pleiad. He was of an illustrious family, but, cut off from a brilliant public career by ill health and deafness, he sought consolation in letters. He even preceded Ronsard in inaugurating the literary reform, issuing the manifesto of the new movement, his Dfense et Illustration de la ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield

... garlands, yet you felt at Henley somehow in the presence of inexhaustible numbers, drawing themselves from a society ultimately, if not immediately, vaster. It was rather dreadful perhaps to reflect that if all that brilliant expanse of fashion and beauty had been engulfed in the hidden Thames it could have been instantly replaced by as much more, not once ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... five hundred pounds. Mrs. Hogarth acted in conformity to his wishes, but after her death the painting was purchased by Messrs. Boydell, and exhibited in the Shakspeare Gallery. The colouring, though not brilliant, is harmonious and natural: the attitude, drawing, etc. may be generally conceived by the print. I am much inclined to think, that if some of those who have been most severe in their censures, had consulted ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... Lorenzo and Balthazar themselves, who of all men should most have shrunk from it. The most critical element in the general harmony of the play is the character of Bell'-Imperia. Kyd's women are his weak point, and this heroine is no brilliant exception. We certainly do not fall in love with her. But his sense of what is needed for the right tragic effect carries him through successfully in essential matters. Were Bell'-Imperia weak, irresolute, had she the feeble constancy of Massinger's ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... of Saint-Patrice, has some stained glass windows of the greatest beauty. They are of the XVIth century, which was the most brilliant period of painting ...
— Rouen, It's History and Monuments - A Guide to Strangers • Theodore Licquet

... correlated parts and organs, we must call in the aid of survival of the fittest. Without that potent selective agent, our conception of the becoming of life is a mere chaos; order and organisation are utterly inexplicable save by the brilliant illuminating ray of ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... spread through the crowd, and in the delirious joy that followed there was much disorder which the Germans scarcely tried to suppress. They were stunned by the catastrophe. The Crown Prince a prisoner! Von Hindenburg a prisoner! By what miracle of strategy had General Wood achieved this brilliant coup? ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett

... see what we shall see," was the queen's enigmatical rejoinder. She swept to her chariot, and with her brilliant train, ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... the key-note of that fierce and angry final denunciation. 'Yes, Lady Hilda had certainly hit the right nail on the head,' Arthur Berkeley said to himself more than once: 'A wonderful woman, truly, that beautiful, stately, uncompromising, brilliant, and still ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... positively brilliant in her remarks, when a lady sent back her bonnet twice on the ground that it was not becoming, said, "Remember you have your ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

... themselves as heroes in very unheroic situations, and Lashmar was one of them. Because his business with Dymchurch and with Constance would be distinctly disagreeable, and yet he was facing it without hesitation, his conscience praised him aloud. Nothing less than brilliant issue could be the reward ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... acquired, we cannot fail to pay the tribute of unequivocal regret to the departed memory of genius, which, had it been rightly organized, would have made that intellect, which has since become the victim of frenzy and despair, a most brilliant ornament to society. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... a very handsome woman of perhaps forty-two or forty-three years. She was slightly above the medium height, with a magnificently proportioned figure. Her hair was coal-black, with a tendency to curl; her eyes were of the same color, very large and brilliant, and rendered peculiarly expressive by the long raven lashes which shaded them. Her complexion was a pale olive, clear and smooth as satin; her features were somewhat irregular, but singularly pleasing when she was animated; her cheeks slightly tinted, her lips a vivid scarlet, ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... get Ronnie to take things seriously. The fact was: he took himself so seriously, that he was obliged to compensate by taking everything and everybody else rather lightly. No doubt this arrangement of relative values, made for success. Ronnie's success had been very rapid, and very brilliant. He accepted it with the unconscious modesty of the true artist; his work meaning immeasurably more to him than that which his work brought him, either in ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay

... beautiful colours, and would tolerate no drab and saffron papers in her house; so the walls were covered with a rich soft blue; the cushions on the wicker chairs rang the changes from rose to yellow; a brilliant Japanese screen stood in one corner, and a wire stand before the open grate held a number of flowering plants. A young fellow of seventeen or eighteen was seated at one end of the table employed in arranging ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... and when at last the girls doffed crown and helmet, they confided to one another the firm opinion that the success of the piece was in a great measure owing to their talent, their exertions, and went gaily home predicting for themselves careers as brilliant as ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... throughout the continent, of considering the rock-crystal as sacred; whether it be that it has been transmitted from tribe to tribe, or that the native was everywhere inclined to pick up a shining stone, and to consider it endowed with peculiar virtues. From the absence of brilliant ores, or precious stones, in the bags and dillis of the natives, I concluded, that neither precious stones nor brilliant metallic substances existed in the country where they lived. Those with whom we came in contact, generally admired our gold and silver chains and watches ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... to do, but it was an instance of which I have met many, of a very distinguished and brilliant gentleman taking himself too seriously. At another rather solemn function of this kind I performed the same at the request of the management, but with another protest from ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... while the ship appeared to be steaming through a sheet of liquid fire, so brilliant was the phosphorescence of the water, there came, without the slightest warning, the most dazzling flash of lightning Frobisher had ever beheld, followed almost on the instant by a deafening peal of thunder, indicating ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... a loud haw! haw! haw! at this tremendous witticism. It was not much of a witticism, perhaps, after all, when duly considered, but it answered the purpose as well as the very best, and produced as much pleasure as the most brilliant repartee, in the most fashionable circles. We must take people as ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... prophet was sure, rest on a definite fact, done in a definite place, at a definite time. Isaiah knew the place, but what was to be done, or when it was to be done, he knew not. You and I ought to be wiser. History has taught us that Jesus Christ fulfils the visioned good that inspired the prophet's brilliant words. We might say, with allowable licence, that 'this mountain,' in which the Lord does the great things that this song magnifies, is not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... for the purpose of being introduced to George Colman "the Younger." The party, besides the host and hostess, consisted of Mr. Harris and Sir William Chatterton. Colman that evening was unusually brilliant, anticipating, by apt quotation and pointed remark, almost everything that Curran would have said. One comment of Curran's, however, made a deep impression on all present. Speaking of Lord Byron's 'Fare thee well, and if for ever,' he observed that ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... midst of the throne shall be their Shepherd.' The Old Testament Psalmist and the New Testament Seer have fallen upon the same image to describe death and the future, but with how different a use! The one paints a grim picture, all sunless and full of shadow; the other dips his pencil in brilliant colours, and suffuses his canvas with a glow as of molten sunlight. The difference between the two is partly due to the progress of revelation and the light cast on life and immortality by Christ through the Gospel. But it is much more due to the fact that the two writers ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... heard this often made bold to say to one another that he "didn't act like it," and this opinion was shared by the sheriff who futilely sought some information from him touching the lair of the horse-thieves, looking to brilliant exploits of capture. Such details as he could secure were so uncertain and contradictory as to render him suspicious that the truth ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... breathing room in Europe. It is in that humble hovel that he now dwells with his scanty train of faithful followers; He whom I have seen in the palace of the Caesars, receiving the homage and the worship of the most brilliant court in the world; He whom I have seen sitting covered, whilst eight Kings stood before him with their hats in their hands. It is over this little tribe alone, not exceeding the population of a village, that Napoleon the Great is now doomed ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... for yourself then you can stand before him and ask him whether he despises you or not," Zalika had said to her son on that memorable night when he had protested against breaking his word to his father. Now the first step toward this brilliant ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... interesting, and very brilliant is this account of the Prince of Wales. His visits to the United States and to India are well ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... was something that could be felt as well as seen—it pressed down upon one with a cold, clammy touch. Gazing into the hollow blackness, all sorts of imaginable shapes seemed to start forth from vacancy—brilliant colors, stars, prisms, and dancing lights. What boy, lying awake at night, has not amused or terrified himself by peopling the spaces around his bed with these ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... was a brilliant success; and we left it to drive to Paddington to see the boy off. He had dropped a few pounds over the Derby but made the most of it up by a plunge on the last race: "and what with your standing me a dinner, I'm all up on the day's working and that cheerful I could kiss the guard." He wasn't ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... groves, and in woods, according to some preferring a rather poor gravelly soil. It attains its typical form usually under these conditions in groves or rather open woods where the soil is poor. It is a handsome and striking plant because of the usually brilliant coloring of the cap in contrast with the white stems and gills, and the usually white scales on the surface. It usually ranges from 10—15 cm. high, and the cap from 8—12 cm. broad, while the stem is 1—1.5 cm. in thickness, or the plant ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... of battle and recover all the trophies again, then all the forces which he has sacrificed in obtaining them become sheer gain for us, and our former defeat becomes a stepping-stone to a greater triumph. The most brilliant feats which with victory the enemy would have so highly prized that the loss of forces which they cost would have been disregarded, leave nothing now behind but regret at the sacrifice entailed. Such is the alteration ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... carpet, once the pride of the great drawing-room, but the velvet pile had disappeared beneath the arched insteps and high heels of lovely belles and haughty beaux, and the scarlet feathers and peacock plumes that originally glowed on the brilliant buff ground, were ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... the earth below, and as the water is of a more crystal purity, and the sky perhaps bluer, so do all colours and all sounds have a purity and vividness and intensity beyond that of other places. I see it in the yellows of hawkweed, rock-rose, and birds'-foot-trefoil, in the innumerable specks of brilliant colour—blue and white and rose—of milk-wort and squinancy-wort, and in the large flowers of the dwarf thistle, glowing purple in its green setting; and I hear it in every bird-sound, in the trivial songs of yellow-hammer ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... of it brought on a return of fever; and while Jasper was increasing his malady by arguing with his apprehensions, luckily for Poole, Uncle Sam came in. Uncle Sam, a sagacious old tradesman, no sooner clapped eyes on the brilliant Losely than he conceived for him a distrustful repugnance, similar to that with which an experienced gander may regard a fox in colloquy with its gosling. He had already learned enough of his godson's ways and chosen society to be assured ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and the fairies trembled and crouched lower in their hiding-places, and I do not know what might have happened to them if just then a party of boys and girls had not entered the wood. When the children saw the trees all aglow with brilliant colors they clapped their hands and shouted for joy, and immediately began to pick great bunches to take home. "The leaves are as lovely as the flowers!" cried they, in their delight. Their pleasure banished the anger from King Frost's heart and the frown ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... 'to meet John Lefolle', but John Lefolle did not know he was to meet Winifred Glamorys. He did not even know he was himself the meeting-point of all the brilliant and beautiful persons, assembled in the publisher's Saturday Salon, for although a youthful minor poet, he was modest and lovable. Perhaps his Oxford tutorship was sobering. At any rate his head remained unturned by ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various

... and magnificence made Elsie open her eyes! She thought herself in heaven. A beautiful garden lay before her, filled with trees and bushes laden with fruit; birds were sitting on the branches, more brightly coloured than the most brilliant butterflies, and decked with feathers of gold and silver. And the birds were not shy, but allowed the children to take them in their hands at pleasure. In the midst of the garden stood the dwelling-house, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... pretty church we had seen by moonlight. Close by is a large, roomy mansion, which belonged to Marshal Sebastiani. He was a native of Olmeta, and, from an obscure origin, arriving at high rank as well as great wealth, partly, I understood, through a brilliant marriage, bought a large property in the neighbourhood, which has been recently sold for 150,000 francs to a French Directeur. I went over the château: to the original mansion the marshal had added a handsome ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... the perseverance that had carried him farther than any European traveller had penetrated before him, we continued our route over a most beautiful park of verdant grass, diversified by splendid tamarind trees, the dark foliage of which afforded harbour for great numbers of the brilliant yellow-breasted pigeon. We shortly ascended a rocky mountain by a stony and difficult pass, and upon arrival at the summit, about 800 feet above the Nile, which lay in front at about two miles' distance, we halted to enjoy ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... me, but I had just identified a landmark, and knew the clubhouse to be less than a mile away. So I made another brilliant sally. "I am coming to ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... side of the clypeus, and sprinkled with erect black hairs. Thorax: the posterior margin of the prothorax with a line of silvery pubescence; the metathorax with a short light-brown pubescence at the apex, and thinly clothed with black hairs; wings dark brown, with a brilliant violet iridescence. Abdomen ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various

... trade of the carver in ivory was that of the porcelain-maker. The walls of the palaces and temples of Babylonia and Assyria were adorned with glazed and enamelled tiles on which figures and other designs were drawn in brilliant colors; they were then covered with a metallic glaze and fired. Babylonia, in fact, seems to have been the original home of the enamelled tile and therewith of the manufacture of porcelain. It was a land of clay and not of stone, and while it thus became necessary ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce

... preoccupied at such times. When he grew older he would walk the length of Olive Street, look into face after face of acquaintances, not a quiver of recognition in his eyes. But most probably the next week he would win a brilliant case in the Supreme Court. And so now, indifferent to the amusement of some about him, he stood staring after Virginia and Clarence. Where had he seen Colfax's face before he came West? Ah, he knew. Many, many years before ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... great race upon a brilliant day of summer. Alban had accompanied her to the enclosure and feasted his eyes upon that rainbow scene, so amazing in its beauty, so bewildering in its glow of color that it stood, to his untrained imagination, ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton

... had devoted herself, in the pride of youthful beauty, to the most secluded retirement, through romantic attachment for one who had appeared to return her love with at least an equal fervour. Her father's house—her own opening and brilliant prospects—her numerous family connexions and "troops of friends,"—she had deserted all for him, in her generous confidence in his future kindness. "His people had become her people, and his God, her God!" ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore

... was eager and brilliant, and nothing seemed able to stay him. At times, however, he was given to dreaming, and lived through whole days in the classroom quite unconscious of what was going on around him. He worked mechanically, living in a strange world of his own creation, ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... July 6th, 1415, there was great excitement in the city of Constance. For the last half-year the city had presented a brilliant and gorgeous scene. The great Catholic Council of Constance had met at last. From all parts of the Western World distinguished men had come. The streets were a blaze of colour. The Cardinals rode by in their scarlet hats; the monks in their ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... white-satin lining my long-sighted eyes enable me to decipher the name of Hunt and Roskell; and it does not need any long sight to observe the solid breadth of the gold band bracelet, set with large, dull turquoises and little points of brilliant light, which is its occupant. As I note this phenomenon, my heart burns within me—yea, burns even more hotly than my nose. For father keeps Algy very tight, and I know that he has only three hundred pounds ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... could so far forget Plato and Chrysippus and Aristotle, as to sit thus having your ears tickled with a feather. If you want amusements, are there not a thousand things worth seeing and hearing? Can you not hear classical music performed at the great festivals? Are there not lofty tragedy and brilliant comedy,—things that have been deemed worthy of state recognition? My friend, you have a long reckoning to settle with men of learning, if you would not be repudiated altogether, and expelled from the congregation of the wise. I think your best course will be a point-blank ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... every sense; the perfume of the shrubs, of those even that have recently been burnt, and the tints and tones of the landscape, accord with the soft sounds. The light red tints of the ANTHISTIRIA, the brilliant green of the MIMOSA, the white stems of the EUCALYPTUS, and the deep grey shadows of early morning, still slumbering about the woods, are blended and contrasted in the most pleasing harmony. The forms ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... of hurried footsteps, and a young girl ran by the black tent, and spoke gayly to the woman. From the resemblance of the maiden to the worker on the hippopotamus, Timokles had no doubt she was his sister. But when the girl, turning her brilliant, laughing face toward Timokles, first saw him, her dark eyes dilated with a ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford

... merit of his own, a merit of the second order, it is true; but he did, in fact, in this fashion, on the days when his wife held receptions, hold receptions also on his own account. He had his special set who appreciated him, listened to him, and bestowed on him more attention than they did on his brilliant partner. ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... same family, and is often multiple, there being a combination of thickened yellow patches of skin and projecting tumours, some of which may attain a considerable size (Figs. 48 and 49). On section, the tumour tissue presents a brilliant orange or saffron colour. ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... easily enjoyed; above all, they must have what is unexpected and new. Accustomed to the struggle, the crosses, and the monotony of practical life, they require rapid emotions, startling passages—truths or errors brilliant enough to rouse them up, and to plunge them at once, as if by violence, into the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from the marshes, Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its odor. Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes and their fetlocks, While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and ponderous saddles, Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of crimson, Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with blossoms. Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders Unto the milkmaid's hand; whilst loud and in regular cadence Into the sounding pails ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow

... thing we're trying to do here in a small way," he said to Father Rowley at lunch, "is what the Jesuits are doing at Farm Street. My two assistant priests are both rather brilliant young people, and I'm always on the look out to get more young men of ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... white light of broad day began slowly to fade. Tones of gray came upon the fields, and the shadows were of lead. In this more sombre atmosphere the fires built by the troops down in the far end of the orchard grew more brilliant, becoming spots of crimson colour ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... fog poet's pen or artist's pencil was that aristocratic old warrior, as he sat there gazing upon the rich woodlands warmed by the glorious autumn sun, thinking over by-gone days—days when he had loitered by some fair one's side in many a brilliant assembly, or when his nerves were steady and his voice all powerful, leading the charge on many a well-fought field. How long he might have remained ruminating on things of the past it is impossible to say; the retrospect might have continued much longer had not his attention been arrested ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... first thing Sabre spoke of to Nona when, a fortnight later, she came down and he went up to her at Northrepps in the afternoon. Its brilliant gallantry, rendered so vivid to him by the intimacy with which he could see that thrice attractive figure engaged in its performance, stirred him most deeply. He had by heart every line of its official record in the ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... canned peaches; in the course of a brilliant career of forty years we have never seen only six cans of peaches that were worth the powder to blast them open. A man that will invent a can opener that will split open one of these pale, sickly, hard hearted canned peaches, that swim around in a pint of slippery elm juice in a tin can, has got ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... Angelico in this collection, from which something of the heavenly purity, the sweetness, and the tenderness of this great and gentle master may be learned. It is a picture of the Last Judgment. Unfortunately, it has been much injured by time and by neglect; its brilliant colors have sunk and become dim,—those pure, clear colors which give to Fra Angelico's panel pictures the brilliancy of a missal illumination, and which reflect the purity and the clearness of his tranquil ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... produced by some one, it can be that it is a thickening dull thing, a visibly weakening thing, a prettily cherished thing, a large awkward thing, a large dreary thing, a large boisterous thing, a large thing, a small thing, a tiny thing, an agreeable thing. One making something is making a vigorous brilliant completed ragged covered thing. One making something is making a completed, heavy, brilliant, vigorous, ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein

... Hearing these words of the monarch, the Brahmana said, 'So be it!' Thereupon, the king became highly pleased and assigned unto him apartments that were white as swans or the beams of the moon. And in the room intended for the sacrificial fire, the king placed a brilliant seat especially constructed for him. And the food and other things that were offered unto the Brahmana were of the same excellent kind. And casting aside idleness and all sense of self-importance, the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... from the storeroom into the common room beyond, the scene was a noisy and brilliant one. Half a score of gayly-attired savages were talking in guttural tones, gesticulating, and pointing, demanding ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon

... opening presented a brilliant appearance. The floor had been given up to the ladies, who were in full evening dress. At the hour appointed the doors behind the throne were opened to admit the suite from Rideau Hall. The ladies were still dressed in deep mourning for the Princess ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various

... question was, how was some sort of head to be provided? The Allies had taken control of the far-eastern provinces, but, if their object was to be carried through and German designs frustrated, it was necessary to push at once their control to the Urals and, if possible, beyond. The brilliant feats of the Czechs had temporarily thrown the Terrorist forces into confusion, but with wealthy, helpless Russia as their prize cupidity alone would be sufficient to excite them to renewed effort. To be effective, Allied help and activity must ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... opened it, imagine their surprise to find Grater untied and standing directly in their path. Before they could retreat, they heard soft padded feet and on turning around found Jeremiah staring intently at them, his eyes a brilliant green. ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo

... almanac, it was the last day but one of the old year, midwinter, a time of frost and snow, and surely these brilliant oleanders, these great scarlet geraniums, these bright hedges of the many-colored Lantana were but a fairy scene which might vanish any moment and leave the trees bare and the flowers withered. But when we entered ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve

... never been bored by his own society before; he had rather liked to dine alone, to smoke his cigarette with the evening paper across his knee or a book on the table beside him. He tried to read; but the carefully edited paper, with its brilliant articles, its catchy little paragraphs, and its sparkling gossip, didn't interest him in the least. He dropped it, and fell to wondering, to picturing, what they were doing at that precise moment at The Cottage. Mrs. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... for folly with the savings of the poor. His most Christian Majesty has set the fashion of continual silliness and universal love. He begets children in the peasant's oven and in the chamber of Charlemagne alike. And we are all good subjects of the King. We are brilliant, exquisite, brave, and naughty; and for us there is ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... will illustrate the importance of attending to the exact conditions of an hypothesis. He says that in those groups of "birds that need protection from enemies," "when the male is brightly coloured and the female sits exposed on the nest, she is always less brilliant and generally of quite sober and protective hues"; and his hypothesis is, that these sober hues have been acquired or preserved by Natural Selection, because it is important to the family that the sitting bird should ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... blockaded Havana and other parts of the coast of Cuba, another, under Commodore George Dewey, sailed from Hong-kong to attack the Spanish fleet at the Philippine Islands. Dewey found it in the Bay of Manila, where, on May 1, 1898, he fought and won the most brilliant naval battle in the world's history. Passing the forts at the entrance, he entered the bay, and, without the loss of a man or a ship, he destroyed the entire Spanish fleet of ten vessels, killed and wounded over 600 men, and captured the arsenal at Cavite (cah-ve-ta') ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... was probably not a new trait—Mr. Jaffrey's curious sensitiveness to atmospherical changes. He was as sensitive as a barometer. The approach of a storm sent his mercury down instantly. When the weather was fair he was hopeful and sunny, and Andy's prospects were brilliant. When the weather was overcast and threatening he grew restless and despondent, and was afraid that the boy was not going to ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... cup and saucer, and sugar bowl, and creamer, which Miss McPherson had herself bought at Sevres years ago, when the life she looked forward to was very different from what had actually come to her. Possibly the memory of the day when she walked through those brilliant rooms at Sevres, and bought her costly wares, softened a little her somewhat harsh, uncompromising nature, for there was a very womanly expression on her usually severe face as she sipped her favorite oolong, and gazed dreamily into ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... if I remember right, jest about now that we see a glitterin' high up over our heads some writen in flame. I never see such brilliant writin, before nor don't know as I ever ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley

... museums; or, finally, that they were not shells at all, but mere shell-like forms, produced by some occult process of nature in the bowels of the earth. In fine, in order to destroy the credibility of the Noachian deluge, the brilliant Frenchman exhausted every expedient in his attempts to neutralize that Palaeontologic evidence on which geologists now found some of their most legitimate conclusions. But he only succeeded, instead, in producing compositions of ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... "Brilliant, Watson. You are scintillating this morning. If it is not column, then I am very much deceived. So now, you see, we begin to visualize a large book printed in double columns which are each of a considerable length, since one of the words is numbered ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... them to shut their ears, those of the mind, at least, to the best advice, and especially in the most critical moments."—"And the Constable," said Madame, "what do you say of him?"—"I cannot say much good or much harm of him," replied he. "Was the Court of Francis I. very brilliant?"—"Very brilliant; but those of his grandsons infinitely surpassed it. In the time of Mary Stuart and Margaret of Valois it was a land of enchantment—a temple, sacred to pleasures of every kind; those of the mind ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... said, during the long conversation of the counsellor and the burgomaster, that the lighting of the town was to be achieved, not by the combustion of common carburetted hydrogen, produced by distilling coal, but by the use of a more modern and twenty-fold more brilliant gas, oxyhydric gas, produced by ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... just received your letter, dear lover, and as I read it, all my lilies changed once more to roses—as they did, you remember how often, while you were here. This is your miracle, my Philip, for in the South you know we do not have the brilliant colour so noticeable in your Northern women. But now I have only to think of you, to whisper your name, to recall something you said or did, and immediately I feel the red rose of love burn out on cheek and brow. Indeed, I think it was this magic of colour that ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... the regency, during a long minority, postponed the season of calamity; and when it at length arrived, it was concealed for some time from the eyes of the vulgar by the pomp and brilliant festivities, which distinguished the court of the young monarch. His indisposition, if not incapacity for business, however, gradually became manifest; and, while he resigned himself without reserve to pleasures, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... stately temples of the Forum, with their rich carvings and colonnades and walls in tones of delicate creamy white, scarce less brilliant than the clouds which a gentle morning breeze was chasing westwards to the sea. And under the arcades of the temples cool shadows, dense and blue, trenchant against the white marble like an irregular mosaic of lapis lazuli, with figures gliding ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... clenched in her shabby muff and smiled her moonlight smile. She was giddy with the intoxicating, heady air, with the brilliant sunset light, with Babe's loud cordiality. She wanted desperately to like Babe; she wanted even more desperately to be liked. She was ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... chose a bird that closely resembled the one belonging to his sister. The bird with its beautiful yellow plumage, its clear, brilliant, coal-black eyes, afforded Albert much pleasure. Soon the bird became tame, flew upon Albert's outstretched finger and ate ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne

... a beautiful heavy shawl of the soft wool of the Cashmere goats; really of every kind of brilliant hue, but so dexterously blended together, that the whole looked dark and sober. But Kate did not look with favour on ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge

... that in giving little memoirs of Mr. Johnson's behaviour and conversation, such as I saw and heard it, my book lies under manifest disadvantages, compared with theirs, who having seen him in various situations, and observed his conduct in numberless cases, are able to throw stronger and more brilliant lights upon his character. Virtues are like shrubs, which yield their sweets in different manners according to the circumstances which surround them; and while generosity of soul scatters its fragrance like the honeysuckle, and delights the ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... resemblance was greatly strengthened by a vast area of cloud, uniformly illuminated, and lying like a neve below the peaks. From it fell a kind of cloud-river strikingly like a glacier. The horizon at sunset was remarkable—spaces of brilliant green between clouds of fiery red. Rainbows had been frequent throughout the day, and at night a perfectly continuous lunar bow spanned the heavens from side to side. Its colours were feeble; but, contrasted with the black ground against which it ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall



Words linked to "Brilliant" :   splendid, superior, brilliancy, intelligent, superb, reverberant, colourful, vivid, magnificent, impressive, brainy, brilliance



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