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Costume   Listen
noun
Costume  n.  
1.
Dress in general; esp., the distinctive style of dress of a people, class, or period.
2.
Such an arrangement of accessories, as in a picture, statue, poem, or play, as is appropriate to the time, place, or other circumstances represented or described. "I began last night to read Walter Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel...I was extremely delighted with the poetical beauty of some parts...The costume, too, is admirable."
3.
A character dress, used at fancy balls or for dramatic purposes.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Costume" Quotes from Famous Books



... Nan had meant had been uttered in a moment of bitterness, and was entirely unjust. Mr. Jacomb was not failing in any proper respect for his sacred calling. But he was among some young people; he hoped they would not think his costume coercive; he wished to let them know that his youth also had only been the other day, as it were, and that he appreciated a joke as well as any one. If his speech at the moment was frivolous—and, indeed, intentionally frivolous—his life had not been frivolous. He had never ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... had kept himself in the background. But now he had an idea inspired by confidence in his costume. Introducing himself to the gumashta, he asked him to give out that the party was in command of a Firangi in the service of the Nawab, and was conveying part of the Nawab's private equipage in advance ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... I frequently did while I was at work—whom should I see, with a fly-net over his shoulder, but Wilton, one of the three fellows in against me for the scholarship! And not long after him who should appear arm-in-arm in cricket costume, but Johnson and Walker, ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... by the people, that he was obliged to compromise the matter, and compelled all who would wear beards and robes to pay a heavy tax, except priests and peasants: having granted the indulgence to priests on account of the ceremonial of their worship, and to peasants in order to render their costume ignominious. ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... did not know that the shameful fact of Kalora's thinness was being whispered among the young men of Morovenia. When the daughters were out for their daily carriage-ride both wore flowing robes. In the case of Kalora, this augmented costume was intended to conceal the absence of ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade

... the youngest of the continents—conceived at an age when he had begun to repeat himself, broad, summary, impressionist, audacious in empty space; whereas Europe would seem to represent his pre-Raphaelite period, in its wealth of detail, its variety of figure, costume, architecture, landscape, its crudely contrasted colours and minute precision of ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson

... colored, fill them with admiration and ecstasy. Such boldness and facility and execution, such an overwhelming fertility in the choice of subjects, such singular realism in the conception and rendering of past scenes, historical and otherwise, such astounding knowledge of architecture, character, costume, and what not, such local color—it is all as if I had really ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... family for me. When I am gay, I go to them to pour out my gayety; if I am sad, I go to them to have my grief consoled; they receive kindly both my joy and my sorrow. No fixed day nor hour of admission, no ceremony and grand toilet; they receive me when I arrive; they welcome rue in whatever costume I present myself. I enjoy to the utmost, with these good friends, the pleasure of being spoiled; I give myself up to it with delight. As soon as I enter, they install me in a comfortable arm-chair, in a choice ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... embassy on the road Peter travelled quickly and reached Saardam. The very day of his arrival he took a lodging at a blacksmith's, procured himself a complete costume like those worn by Dutch workmen, and began to wield the axe. He bargained for a boat, bought it, and drank the traditional pint of beer with its owner. He visited cutleries, ropewalks, and other manufactories, and everywhere tried his hand at the work: in a paper manufactory he made some paper. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... about; and the light went through many different phases of brilliancy and semi-eclipse. On the steps in front of the altar knelt a young girl richly attired as a bride. A chill settled over Denis as he observed her costume; he fought with desperate energy against the conclusion that was being thrust upon his mind; it could not—it should not—be as ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... on the stand-up desk. Mr. Jones, tightly enfolded in an old but gorgeous blue silk dressing-gown, kept his elbows close against his sides and his hands deeply plunged into the extraordinarily deep pockets of the garment. The costume accentuated his emaciation. He resembled a painted pole leaning against the edge of the desk, with a dried head of dubious distinction stuck on the top of it. Ricardo lounged in the doorway. Indifferent in appearance to what was going on, he was biding his time. At a given moment, between ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... Hawley-Crowles, who saw not, neither heard, and who longed for no further taste of heaven than this stupendous triumph which she had won for herself and the girl. Her heavy, unshapely form was squeezed into a marvelous costume of gold brocade. A double ballet ruffle of stiff white tulle encircled it about the hips as a drapery. The bodice was of heavy gold net. A pleated band of pale moire, in a delicate shade of pink, crossed the left shoulder and was caught ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... He may do the "light business," or the "heavy," or the comic, or the eccentric. He may be the captain who courts the young lady, whose uncle still unaccountably persists in dressing himself in a costume one hundred years older than his time. Or he may be the young lady's brother in the white gloves and inexpressibles, whose duty in the family appears to be to listen to the female members of it whenever they sing, and to shake hands with everybody between all the verses. Or he may be ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... stirred about with a stick or boat upon a rock, and hung up to drip and dry upon the nearest bush or tied to the swaying limb of a tree). "A shocking bad hat" of the slouch order completed his costume. Approaching a tall specimen of "melish," who wore a new homespun suit of "butternut jeans," a gorgeous cravat, etc., the soldier opened his arms and cried out in intense accents, "Let me kiss him for his mother!" Another was desired to "come out of that hat." ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... clad and comfortless, or the reverse? The indulgence of my sensations has brought about revolutionary changes of costume and custom. Such changes were bound to react mentally, for are they not merely the symbols of ideas? Once it was unseemly, if not uncleanly, to perspire freely. Now the function is looked upon as necessary, wholesome, and the sign of one's loyalty to the sun. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... a group sitting on the sward before the cottage door. Minnie Merle in the costume of a very young girl, with her golden hair all hidden under a thick wig of dark curling locks, that straggled in childish disorder around her neck and shoulders, while her sun-bonnet, the veritable green and white ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... the age that, scorning Tradition in a shallow, silly pride, struggles for and seems to value only that which is new regardless of the value of the thing itself. The new in dress, regardless of beauty or fitness in the costume—the new in thought, regardless of the saneness of the thinking—the new in customs and manner of living—the new in the home, in marriage relation, in the education and rearing of children—new philosophy, new science, new religion, ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright

... thing. It had been hard to convince him that they were not proper for everyday wear, but when he was half convinced of this fact, he had done the next best thing, and taken to a very pink shirt. This, tucked in a large pair of men's trousers, below which were beaded moccasins, was Injun's costume, which he wore ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

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

... had passed through the portals of a great restaurant, and found ourselves surrounded with all the colour and tumult of a New York dinner a la mode. A burst of wild music, pounded and thrummed out on ukuleles by a group of yellow men in Hawaiian costume, filled the room, helping to drown or perhaps only serving to accentuate the babel of talk and the clatter of dishes that arose on every side. Men in evening dress and women in all the colours of the rainbow, decollete to a degree, were seated ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock

... D[i]w[a]n of H[a]f[i]z came into his hands he at once set about making himself at home in the mental world of the Persian and Arabic poets. Thus arose his Divan (1819), in which he imitated the oriental costume, but not the form. His aim was to reproduce in German verse the peculiar savor of the Orientals, with their unique blend of sensuality, wit, and mystic philosophy. But the feeling—the inner experience—was all his own. The best book of the Divan, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... beard. Afterwards, Archie packed his trunks. When he turned in at last, outward bound next day by the cross-country mixed train, he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had stowed the phonograph, the printing-press and type, the signal flags, the magical apparatus and Fakerino costume and the new accordion; and he knew—for he had taken pains to find out—that the stock of trading goods, which he had bought with most anxious discrimination, was packed and directed and waiting at the station, consigned ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan

... thousand shells (NASSA NERITEA) artificially pierced, which had been used to deck their garments: Near an adult were other shells forming a necklace, a bracelet, an amulet, and a garter worn on the left leg; whilst on the head was a regular RESILLE or net, not unlike that of the Spanish national costume, which net was made of small nerita shells and kept in place ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... tended, to give the New England clergy of past generations a kind of aristocratic dignity, a personal grandeur, much more felt in the days when class distinctions were recognized less unwillingly than at present. Their costume added to the effect of their bodily presence, as the old portraits illustrate for us, as those of us who remember the last of the "fair, white, curly" wigs, as it graced the imposing figure of the Reverend Dr. Marsh of Wethersfield, Connecticut, can testify. ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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

... the various drugs and essences over which he presided formed an aromatic atmosphere singularly suggestive of incense, as did his costume, that of a high-priest of the temple; but, very soon discarding a gray-linen cape or talma, worn for the protection of his speckless coat, and tossing a bundle of corks rather disdainfully to his assistant, the head of the establishment came politely forward, standing on ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... the room, it burst upon me that it was very pretty. The room was dressed with flags,—and evergreens,—and with uniforms; and undoubtedly there is charm in colour, and a gilt button and a gold strap do light up the otherwise sombre and heavy figures of our Western masculine costume. The white and rosy and blue draperies and scarfs that were floating around the forms of the ladies, were met and set off by the grey and white of the cadets and the heavier dark blue of the officers. I never anywhere else saw so pretty gatherings. ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... made us mats out of the wild flax; and the girls themselves decorated their room daily with beautiful flowers, chiefly lilies. They also busied themselves in making garments of various kinds from opossum skins. They even made some sort of costume for me, but I could not wear it on account ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... garb, habit, uniform, array, clothing, garments, raiment, vestments, attire, costume, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... from the door of the Tigre-Royal; in the first were two gentlemen in traveling costume, preceded ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... at her friend for a moment in silence. It was curious that whatever costume Sonya Valesky wore seemed to have been created for her. Nona recalled the beauty of her clothes in their first meeting on shipboard, yet they held no greater distinction than this simple dress. Well, perhaps personality is the strongest force in the world and Sonya Valesky's distinction, ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook

... I exchanged bows. I noticed at once that he wore the Frenchman's costume when he pays a visite de ceremonie, frock-coat and gloves, and that a silk hat lay on the table. I was glad that he paid ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... thoughtfully as he gazed on the fair, trim-figured woman challenging him. He noted with a man's pleasure the perfectly fitting tailor-made traveling costume, the beautifully arranged hair, the delightful Parisian hat. He looked into the animated face, the only thing about her that seemed to be as of old. Though he saw that her outward appearance was changed, even improved, he knew that that was all. It was ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... unknown before, he was bereft of the will to realize these familiar protagonists of his plain dramas. He knew them, of course; he knew them all too well; but he had not the wish to fit the likest of them with phrases, to costume them for their several parts, to fit them into the places in the unambitious action where they had so often contributed to the modest but ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

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

... I pulled all the yellow feathers out of my tail, (I have Cochin blood in my veins,) and I have gone in black Spanish costume ever since out of ...
— In Macao • Charles A. Gunnison

... Freda, when we first caught sight of her she was standing near the companion, dressed in a daintily made yachting costume of blue serge and white braid, and round her white sailor hat she wore the name of the yacht stamped on a white ribbon; in her waist-band she had fastened two deep crimson roses, and she looked at us with frank, girlish curiosity, no doubt wondering whether we should add to ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall

... he expanded, my amazed uncle could not tell how, into his proper proportions; and stood pretty nearly in profile at the bedside, a handsome and elegantly shaped young man, in a bygone military costume, with a small laced, three-cocked hat and plume on his head, but looking like a man going to ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... comedy, "Ni el To ni el Sobrino" (1834), written in collaboration with Antonio Ros de Olano. Larra censured it for its insipidity and lack of plan. A more ambitious effort was "Amor venga sus agravios" (1838), written in collaboration with Eugenio Moreno Lpez. This was a five-act costume play, in prose, portraying the life at the court of Philip IV. It was produced without regard to expense, but with indifferent success. Espronceda's most ambitious play was never staged, and has only recently become easily accessible: this was "Blanca de Borbn," a historical drama ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... seated at some distance from the table upon which my breakfast was spread. She wore a sort of white kimono. One did not have to stand on ceremony with a fellow who did not even wear a stiff collar and a necktie. Nor did I know enough to resent her costume. She did not order anything to eat for herself, not even a glass of tea. It seemed as though she had come in for the express purpose of eying me out of countenance. If she had, she succeeded but too well. Her silent glances fell on me like splashes of hot water. I was ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... unequalled lashes! "Unnecessarily long," Aunt Jane afterwards pronounced them; while Kate had to admit that they did indeed give Emilia an overdressed look at breakfast, and that she ought to have a less showy set to match her morning costume. ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... to the American driver where he sits; he is indeed, in all respects, a far different personage from his great-coated prototype in England. He is in general extremely dexterous in the art of driving, though his costume is of a most grotesque description. Figure to yourself a slipshod sloven, dressed in a striped calico jacket and an old straw hat, alternately arranging the fragile harness of his horses, and springing again upon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various

... dance in costume?" she asked, tossing her head, "or tell fortunes as I used to at school? Do you remember, Syl, how I went to the kitchen door, once, and took the maids all in, and then Miss Tibbetts came down to see what was going on, and ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... upon a high wire. I have never heard of it before. There may be whole generations of artists gifted in this particular stunt. You have here, nevertheless, a moment of very great beauty in the cleanness of this man's surprising agility and sureness. The monkey costume hinders the beauty of the thing. It should be done with pale blue silk tights against a cherry velvet drop, or else in deep ultramarine on an old ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... book under his eyes; but commonly each has the companionship of some fearless girl in the abandonment of the conventionalities which with us is a convention of summer ease on the sands beside the sea, but which is here without that extreme effect which the bathing-costume imparts on our beaches. These young people stretched side by side on the grass in Hyde Park added a pastoral charm to the scene, a suggestion ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... I speak I cut out at once. I told Mr. Gray never to put them into costume again. Why! sticks and stones have more grace of movement and naturalness than those two poor creatures—positively!" cried the ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr

... make-up was artistic, and how she managed the quick transformation from ball dress to that of the plantation, with all its black paint and rouge, Mrs. Barker alone knows, and where on this earth she got that dress and turban, she alone knows. But I imagine she sent to Virginia for the whole costume. At all events, it was very bright in her to think of this unusual divertissement for our guests when dancing was beginning to lag a little. The dance she must have learned from a mammy when a child. I forgot to say that during the time she was dancing our fine orchestra played ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... years of age, his hair is light, not a "sable silvered," but a yaller gilded; you can see some of it sticking out of the top of his hat; his costume is the national costume of Arkansas, coat, waistcoat, and pantaloons of homespun cloth, dyed a brownish yellow, with a decoction of the bitter barked butternut—a pleasing alliteration; his countenance presents a determined, combined with a sanctimonious expression, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... the bride and bridegroom departed; Diana attended by a maid, an appanage which the Captain had insisted upon. Poor Diana was sorely puzzled as to what she should find for the maid to do when her hair had been dressed early in the morning, and her costume laid out in ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... this period, also, the peasant costume became the fashion in the higher circles. Count Tolstoy is generally (out of Russia) assumed to be the first and only wearer of ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... sigh of relief, and shutting his hands and throwing out his arms with a satisfied gesture, he rose and walked to the fireplace, over which hung a large portrait of his mother and several photographs, one of these taken in the exact attitude and costume of the painting of Whistler's mother in the Luxembourg gallery. M. Paul was proud of the striking resemblance between the two women. For some moments he stood before the fine, kindly face, and then he said aloud, as if speaking to her: "It looks like a hard fight, ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... tous heureux d'avoir le costume des Anglais Seul'ment ce qu'il fallait, Pour que ca soit complet. Et je suis certain si l'armee veut nous mettre a l'aise C'est d'nous donner la solde Anglaise. Le jour qu'nous aurions ca, ah! quell' affaire Nous n' serions plus jamais dans ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason

... immense strength; and the enormous muscles had even more than the prominence we find in some statues, but so seldom meet with in men of these effeminate times. These particulars were the more easily noted, as their style of costume, in the daytime at least, approached very closely to nudity. But their size was as nothing to their appetites; and deep and vasty as their internal accommodations must have been, it remains a matter of perplexity to ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various

... a little butterfly creature, in the blue-and-scarlet costume of a man,—all frills and fluffs and lace and linen,—came forward, with many trips and skips and grimaces, and pronounced a prologue, which consisted of a panegyric on the King and his government in their relations ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... work done by missionaries than the knowledge he gained from going to a high-priced ball or champagne supper held a few feet from the shore, expressing the most emphatic opinions concerning the value of a foreign missionary's life and influence! He changed his costume several times a day. And I learned from a midshipman who volunteered the information that the following comprises the regular and compulsory list of clothes a naval officer in this Christian age is obliged to possess and solemnly ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... peculiarities, and to ridicule social foibles of which he was, at most, a distant observer. The inevitable consequence is, that though here and there we catch a glimpse of the genuine man, we are, generally, too much provoked by the awkwardness of his costume to be capable of enjoying, or even ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... strolled from the office and sat down on a bench just outside. They had not been there for more than a minute, when a boy, dressed in half-European and half-native costume approached. ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... surprise at his own costume in her happy eyes, and gave him her cool hand. A swift tremor ran through him at the contact, a tremor which was like that of the night in the cabin, which he could not conceal, which Judith must notice. She said something, but he let the words go, holding only the vibrant ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory

... interest by means of mystifications, which screw up our imagination to the utmost pitch, and then let us down gently with a natural but not too obvious explanation. A certain amount of terror is almost essential to heighten the interest of a novel of costume and adventure, like The Prisoner of Zenda or Rupert of Hentzau, or of the fantastic, exciting romances of Jules Verne. Rider Haggard's African romances, She and King Solomon's Mines, belong to a large group of supernatural tales with a foreign ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... herself was wearing an odd costume, a long frock made like a peasant's smock with an insignia of two crossed logs and a flame embroidered upon one sleeve. With her dark eyes, her dark, rather coarse hair, which she wore parted in the middle over a low forehead, and her white, unusually ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook

... with some of his officers, accepted the invitation. Arriving at Moscow, the English were struck with astonishment in view of the magnificence of the court, the polished address and the dignified manners of the nobles, the rich costume of the courtiers, and, particularly, with the jeweled and golden brilliance of the throne, upon which was seated a young monarch decorated in the most dazzling style of regal splendor, and in whose presence all observed the most respectful silence. Chanceller presented ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... absolutely nothing between her and the weather but her exterior robe or 'costume.' The door had been made upon a woman's wit, and it had found its way out. Behind the bank, whilst Knight reclined upon the dizzy slope waiting for death, she had taken off her whole clothing, and replaced only her outer ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... in his account of the evening, "was crammed. Lola Montez arrived in a splendid carriage, accompanied by her maid. When she was dressed, she enquired if I thought her costume would be approved. I have seen sylphs and female forms of the most dazzling beauty in ballets and fairy dramas, but the most dazzling and perfect form I ever did gaze upon was that of Lola Montez in her white and gold attire studded ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... was necessarily younger. The former was kind, the latter was kinder. The mother was graceful and pretty, the daughter was more graceful and prettier. Nuna wore her hair gathered on the top of her head into a high top-knot, Nunaga wore a higher top-knot. In regard to costume, Nuna wore sealskin boots the whole length of her legs—which were not long—and a frock or skirt reaching nearly to her knees, with a short tail in front and a long tail behind; Nunaga, being similarly clothed, had a shorter tail in front and ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... His costume was as droll as the girls'; for Uncle Augustus, who had figured the week before in some private tableaux, had a full Brother ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May

... suburban arrivals volleyed forth from Waterloo Station on a May morning in the year '86, moved a slim, dark, absent-looking young man of one-and-twenty, whose name was Piers Otway. In regard to costume—blameless silk hat, and dark morning coat with lighter trousers—the City would not have disowned him, but he had not the City countenance. The rush for omnibus seats left him unconcerned; clear of the railway station, he walked at a moderate pace, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... through. She at last consented to do this, and left us for a short time, reappearing with much embarrassment and many blushes, in a most becoming suit, which she had found in a midshipman's chest. We all admired her costume, and any awkwardness she felt soon began to pass off; we then retired to our berths, and peaceful sleep prepared us all for the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... their customs, and finding them on the whole a little more sophisticated than those of San Salvador. The women wore mantillas on their heads and "little pieces of cotton" round their loins-a sufficiently odd costume; and they appeared to Columbus to be a little more astute than the other islanders, for though they brought cotton in quantities to the ships they exacted payment of beads for it. In the charm and wonder of his walk in this enchanted ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... displays your broad shoulders; or in the orthodox black frock, that, after all, is perhaps more suitable to the figure of a man approaching—let us say, the nine-and-twenties? Or, better still, why not riding costume? Did we not hear her say how well Jones looked in his top-boots and breeches, and, "hang it all," we have a better leg than Jones. What a pity riding-breeches are made so baggy nowadays. Why is it that male ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... developed sudden interest in the work on hand, and knelt down on the floor beside him, holding out first one implement and then another for his use. The softly-tinted face and cloudy golden hair looked lovelier than ever about the long white smock which she had adopted as her working costume, and poor Maud stared at her own heated reflection with increased disfavour, the while she ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... satirical. "Well we may wonder," said he; "search the wide world over! But reely and truly you've come to the wrong 'ouse this time. Here, stand to one side!" he commanded, as a lady in the costume of La Pompadour, followed by an Old English Gentleman with an anachronistic Hebrew nose, swept past me into the hall. He bowed deferentially while he mastered their names, "Mr. and Mrs. Levi-Levy!" he cried, and a ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Church had no gorgeous temples, no fragrant incense, [218:1] no splendid vestments. For probably the whole of the first century, she celebrated her religious ordinances in private houses, [218:2] and her ministers officiated in their ordinary costume. John, the forerunner of our Saviour, "had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins;" [218:3] but perhaps few of the early Christian preachers were arrayed in such ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... infliction's over, any way, —but I suppose I've got to go and see her—tiresome stuck-up thing!" Human nature appears to be just the same, all over the world. We see the diffident young man, mild of moustache, affluent of hair, indigent of brain, elegant of costume, drive up to her father's mansion, tell his hackman to bail out and wait, start fearfully up the steps and meet "the old gentleman" right on the threshold!—hear him ask what street the new British Bank is in—as if that were what he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... to the Japanese, and since they had returned our arms, they had ceased to regard us as prisoners. I willingly complied with their wishes, and determined to present myself before my countrymen, in a costume in which they would have ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... neighborhood presented the appearance of a vast camp. Issuing from the church in his full canonicals, surrounded by his cardinals and bishops in all the splendor of ecclesiastical costume, the pope stood before the populace on a high scaffolding, erected for the occasion, and covered with scarlet cloth. A brilliant array of bishops and cardinals surrounded him, and among them, humbler in rank but more important ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot

... you will find food for philosophy:—the whole land checkered with nations, side by side contrasting in costume, manners, and mind. Here you will find science and sages; manuscripts in miles; bards singing ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... brandishing a sword in the remaining hand." When attacked, the figure vanishes, leaving behind a massive, iron key which unlocks a door leading to an apartment containing a coffin, and statues of black marble, attired in Moorish costume, holding enormous sabres in their right hands. As the knight enters, each of them rears an arm and advances a leg and at the same moment the lid of the coffin opens and the bell tolls. Sir Bertrand, guided by the flames, approaches the coffin from which a ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... the Bishops of Winchester and St. Asaph, a large number of peers, peeresses, members of Parliament, merchants and bankers, and distinguished men from almost all parts of the world, surpassing, in variety of tongue, character and costume, the description of the population of Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost—a season of which it is hoped the Great Exhibition will prove a type, in the copious outpouring of the holy spirit of brotherly union, and the consequent diffusion, throughout the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... exotic people cling to their native costume, especially the natives of India, and the Malays, though a good deal depends on the employment in which they engage. Some of the Malays drive cabs, and the drivers usually adopt European dress or a modification of it. Among ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... costume of silk, with four rows of heavily-knotted fringe upon the skirt, and the sleeves trimmed to correspond. The figures of the children are simple and easily understood. The pelisse of the little girl has an edge to correspond ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... is too early yet (says the Telegraph) to announce the title of the latest of the Laureate's plays, but this much may be said, that it is written partly in blank verse and partly in prose, that it is what is known in theatrical circles as a 'a costume play,' and that the scene is laid in England. It may, however, interest sensitive dramatists to know that Lord TENNYSON is liberal enough to place the stage detail wholly in the competent hands of Mr. DALY. He does not wince if a line is cut here and there, or protest if a scene or a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various

... brass was appropriated as it lay, the figure being slightly altered to suit the style of costume prevalent at the later date. In other cases the engraver did not even trouble himself to alter the figure, and simply added a new inscription ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... saw fit. The average costume consisted of a buckskin shirt, ordinary trousers tucked into high leather boots, and a slouch hat or cap. They always went armed. At first a Spencer carbine was carried strapped to the rider's back, besides a sheath knife at his side. In the saddle ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley

... is a jump, a jump is a balloon, a balloon is not high, there is no sky. The darkness is black, darkness is engaged, there is no darkness, there is a protection. If the authority is mingled with a decent costume then there is no question that a woman is asking something. She is asking to be listening. This happens and what then, there are indications. What are the indications. The indications are these. The time to engage an evening is the same time as Saturday, it is Friday. Friday is that day and there ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein

... expedition, and the last surviving member of any expedition connected with Leichhardt. He wrote a booklet in which he vigorously defends his comrades and himself against the unworthy slurs cast at them by Leichhardt. Amongst his papers is a rough sketch from life of Leichhardt in bush costume. ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc

... faineant—his record at the Columbia Law School promised better than that, and he had found a place in a large office that might answer for the stepping-stone. As yet he had not individualized himself; he was simply charming, especially in correct summer costume, luxuriating in indolent conversation. He had the well- bred, fine-featured air of so many of the graduates from our Eastern colleges. The suspicion of effeminacy which he suggested might be unjust, but he certainly had not experienced ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick

... presently Pearl floated out. She had changed her Spanish costume for the one of scarlet crepe in which Hanson had first seen her, a crown of scarlet flowers on her dark hair. Her very expression, too, had changed, her eyes were elongated, her features seemed delicately Egyptian; the brooding sphynx look ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... was a remarkable man. If he had not been so, he would hardly have been tolerated at the chateau, since he was not particularly beautiful, and not especially refined. He was in holy orders, as his tonsured head and clerical costume bore witness—a costume which, from its tightness and simplicity, only served to exaggerate the unusual proportions of his person. Monsieur the Preceptor, had English blood in his veins, and his northern origin betrayed itself ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade

... logical exposition of divine truth, he had few equals. His language, though select and grammatical, was always simple, and within the comprehension of the humblest of his hearers. In regard to matter, his discourses were eminently Biblical, sound, and evangelical. In form and costume, his theology was that of Edwards, and Dwight, and Woods,—the theology of the Puritan fathers of New England. Upon this system of divine truth his own hopes of eternal life rested, and it was this which he earnestly labored, for ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... evening you would never find a woman better groomed or, if the occasion demand, more ornately rigged-out than either one of these young women will be. But always, while on duty, they wear a correct and proper costume for the work they are doing, and they match the picture. These two, though, are, I think, exceptions to the rule ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... tell over there. One of them was tall and blond, with a heavy, bow-shaped red moustache—Irish in type; the other of no particular height, excellently groomed, dark, and exemplary. I knew he was exemplary from some detail of costume that I can't remember—his gloves or a strip of silk down the sides of his trousers—something of the sort. The blond was saying something that I did not catch. I heard the words "de Mersch" and "Anglaise," and saw the dark man turn his attention ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... had the opportunity to take in all the details of her costume, and he did so with a practised, sophisticated eye. It was, after all, of a fashion two years old, evidence of the slowness with which the modes reached these outposts of civilization. Here was a perfect fitting blue frock of the then ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... were waited upon by the monk, who walked about among the guests, bringing them glasses, knives and forks, bottles of wine, and any thing else that they required. He was dressed in the costume of his order, and looked, as Rosie said, precisely like the pictures of monks which she had seen ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott

... simple-minded Nonconformist clergyman. His broad, black hat, his baggy trousers, his white tie, his sympathetic smile, and general look of peering and benevolent curiosity were such as Mr. John Hare alone could have equaled. It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... and the dramatic are in him closely blended together, and hardly distinguishable; for he principally describes external appearances as indicating character, as symbols of internal sentiment. There is a meaning in what he sees; and it is this which catches his eye by sympathy. Thus the costume and dress of the Canterbury Pilgrims—of the Knight—the Squire—the Oxford Scholar—the Gap-toothed Wife of Bath, and the rest, speak for themselves. To take one or two of these ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... curtain, over which plainly showed the top of a mosquito curtain—she slept in there. On the walls were all tender texts about loving and believing and bearing others' burdens, interspersed with photographs, mostly of women with plain features and enthusiastic eyes, dressed in some strange costume of the Army in Madras, Ceylon, China. A little wooden table stood against the wall holding an album, a Bible and hymn-books, a work-basket and an irrelevant Japanese doll which seemed to stretch its absurd arms straight out in a gay little ineffectual ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... Harte was always a notable figure, from the fact that the average man wore "slops," devoid alike of style or cut, and usually of shiny broadcloth. Broad-brimmed black felt hats were the customary headgear, completing a most funereal costume. ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley

... A little past midnight, in the same costume, I was turning from Piccadilly into Bond Street, when a lady of the pavement, out of luck that evening so far, confided to me that the last bus for Brompton had passed, and that she should be grateful to any gentleman who would ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... carriage and drove to the Cathedral. The building is not imposing from the outside, but is highly gilded within where is the famous Holy Cross which gives the town its name. There are also many wax figures representing saints, mostly dressed in the costume of the seventeenth century and enclosed in glass cases. The boy who acted as our guide having discovered our nationality, pointed out with great glee English organ, English clock. and finally with satirical ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman

... all! I was only speaking of the folly of people dressing above their station. I began by telling Clare of the fashions of my grandmother's days, when every class had a sort of costume of its own,—and servants did not ape tradespeople, nor tradespeople professional men, and so on,—and what must the foolish woman do but begin to justify her own dress, as if I had been accusing her, or even thinking about her at all. Such nonsense! Really, Clare, your husband has spoilt you sadly, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... In the blaze of the ball-room gay, My lady sits; while round her flits A skeleton slender and grey. And the ghastly spectre standeth By the side of my lady fair So mournfully bland, and with bony hand It plays with her costume rare. And this is the song the ghostly guest Sings, out ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... loveliest this morning, in a gown that was all lace and soft Madras muslin, flowing, cloud-like; while Mary's tailor gown, with its trim tight bodice, horn buttons, and kilted skirt, seemed to cry aloud that it had been made for a Tomboy. And this tailor gown was a costume to which Mary had condemned herself by her own folly. Only a year ago, moved by an artistic admiration for Lesbia's delicate breakfast gowns, Mary had told her grandmother that she would like to have something of the ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... exhibition that the sublimest of the Greek poets obtained the ivy chaplet, which had succeeded to the goat and the ox, as the prize of the tragic contests. In the course of a few years, a regular stage, appropriate scenery and costume, mechanical inventions and complicated stage machinery, gave fitting illusion to the representation of gods and men. To the monologue of Phrynichus, Aeschylus added a second actor [14]; he curtailed the choruses, connected them with the main story, and, more important ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... before half-past seven, the Duke, arrayed for dinner, passed leisurely up the High. The arresting feature of his costume was a mulberry-coloured coat, with brass buttons. This, to any one versed in Oxford lore, betokened him a member of the Junta. It is awful to think that a casual stranger might have mistaken him for a footman. It does not do to think ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... he said tenderly, "we can't think of showing ourselves on the street in such a costume. Besides, it would frighten your mama to see you so. I am going out to one of the shops to buy you a frock. Tell me, what sort was it ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... beguiled her from the superintendence thereof down into the garden with me, where from my window I could see Nickols and father in deep conclave over some drawings. Father had discarded his Henry Clay costume and looked young and alive in some of Nickols' flannels and linen. They looked up with interest as I came down the flagstone walk with Charlotte trotting on my one side and wee Sue clinging ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... had fallen, and the floor was a mass of dead leaves. The plastered walls were painted with frescoes—faded and moldy now—of a country chateau with cypress trees, and three ladies in big plumed hats riding on white horses, and a gentleman in shooting costume and tall boots, who wore side whiskers, and carried a gun, and had four hunting dogs standing in a row behind him. All these were rather stiff and badly painted, yet gave an air of neglected grandeur to the grotto. There were marble seats, and ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... right direction by bearing in mind the ever-present climatic conditions. Climate is of all forces the most irresistible; for, on the one hand, the Great Desert of Sahara could not be crossed in an Arctic costume and on Esquimaux diet; nor, on the other, could the Polar regions be explored in a Hindoo garb and on Oriental fare. And though blood is thicker than water, yet the resistless influence of a semi-tropical range of temperature will be to imprint ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... some chocolate," said Jacqueline to Giselle, as soon as her cousin appeared, looking far prettier in her black cloth frock than when she wore an ordinary walking-costume. Her fair hair was drawn back 'a la Chinoise' from a white forehead resembling that of a German Madonna; it was one of those foreheads, slightly and delicately curved, which phrenologists tell us ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... "Bretesque," the name for the outer defences of the castle. The broad market place is one of the most spacious in the kingdom, and a very interesting sight on market days. Here one may see the shepherd of Salisbury Plain, or rather, of the Marlborough Downs, in typical costume—long weather-stained cloak and round black felt, almost brimless, hat, described by Lady Tennant as having a bunch of flowers stuck in the brim, but this the writer had never the fortune to see until the summer of 1921 when the shepherd was also wearing his ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... selected from the best of the seniors and juniors, was to drill, dance, and go through other gymnastic exercises. And it was agreed among them that each girl should have a brand new costume, although this was no suggestion of either the ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson

... wall of the Lone-Rock home as they had been at the Wigwam. First there was Lloyd in her little Napoleon hat, riding on Tarbaby down the long locust avenue, and then Lloyd on the horse that later took the place of the black pony. Then Lloyd in her Princess Winsome costume, with the dove and the spinning-wheel, and again in white, beside the gilded harp, and again as the Queen of Hearts and as the Maid of Honor at ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... so angelic as not to feel a slight curiosity to know how she shall look in a new and strange costume? Mary bent over the rock, where a little pool of water lay in a brown hollow above the fluctuations of the tide, dark and still, like a mirror,—and saw a fair face, with a white shell above the forehead and drooping wreaths of green seaweed in the silken hair; and a faint blush ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... ready—Tavia picking out the patches of daisies that would surely be in bloom in time, and Dorothy making certain that Mrs. Travers would not disappoint Tavia with her white things, as well as keeping track of Aunt Libby, who had Dorothy's own costume in hand. The dress was too short and had to be let down a whole inch, and of course, it could not be done up until after ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose

... pearls and embroidered in silver, a perfect chef-d'oeuvre of the dressmaker's art. The skirt, with its billowy train and peeping folds of delicate lace, pleased Thelma,—but she could not understand the bodice, and she held that very small portion of the costume in her hand with an air of doubt and wonderment. At last she turned her grave blue eyes ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli



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