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Embellish   Listen
verb
Embellish  v. t.  (past & past part. embellished; pres. part. embellishing)  To make beautiful or elegant by ornaments; to decorate; to adorn; as, to embellish a book with pictures, a garden with shrubs and flowers, a narrative with striking anecdotes, or style with metaphors.
Synonyms: To adorn; beautify; deck; bedeck; decorate; garnish; enrich; ornament; illustrate. See Adorn.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Embellish" Quotes from Famous Books



... not only has mythology used this fruit to embellish the joy and sacredness of the marriage rite, but the Holy Bible makes the apple tree a type of the lover and of love; for we read: 'As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons.' And, 'Comfort me with apples.' Such pictures as these ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... ivory, and on the terraces may peacocks be as plentiful as sparrows are to the undeserving. May you live many centuries shining as you now shine; and at your setting may rivulets of ink dug by the pens of poets flow through meadows of paper in praise of the virtues that embellish you here on earth. Sing-tu-Che, a person of small note but devoted to your service, wishes these frivolous advantages to the Pearl of the West, on whom ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... some memorial of his own gratitude and munificence. His first idea was to imitate the equestrian and colossal statue which he had seen in the Forum of Trajan; but when he had maturely weighed the difficulties of the execution, he chose rather to embellish the capital by the gift of an Egyptian obelisk. In a remote but polished age, which seems to have preceded the invention of alphabetical writing, a great number of these obelisks had been erected, in the cities ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... be, that a good musician must be a good lover; that a broken heart alone can add the Master's degree to the usual conservatory diploma of Bachelor of Music; that all musicians must be sentimental, if musicians at all; and finally that only musicians can know how to announce and embellish that primeval theme to which all existence is but variations, more or less brilliant, more or ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... not been pleas'd to discover himself, nor to Print his Name, but has set his Mark to his Works, which he has Embellish'd with new Flowers of Rhetorick, that shew what a Genius he has for refining Language, and how happily one may use the Figures of Cursing, Swearing, and Bawdy, which before were entirely exploded. Tho' we cannot well suppose the Writer of that Merry ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon

... scenes, and Truth's unerring word: There shall broad streets their stately walls extend, The circus widen, and the crescent bend; There, ray'd from cities o'er the cultur'd land, Shall bright canals and solid roads expand. Embellish'd villas crown the landscape scene, Farms wave with gold, and orchards blush between; While with each breeze approaching vessels glide, And northern treasures dance on every tide!" Then ceas'd the nymph: tumultuous echoes roar, And Joy's loud voice was heard ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... they wanted to purchase some vines to train over their front porches. The man at the greenhouse showed me an innumerable assortment of beautiful rose-bushes, which I bought in the fond delusion that they would vastly embellish our front lawn. I recall the pride with which I told Alice and Adah that I guessed I had purchased enough flowers to fill the whole yard. I recall also the sense of humiliation I experienced when, after that innumerable assortment had been set out in the yard, I discovered that there was not ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... want to forget it. I know very well that I had begun to love you even then. But, Michael—do you remember that undecorated window which you told me had been left so probably for you to embellish as an expiatory offering, because rapine and violence were in the blood—Well, dear love, I think we must put up the most beautiful stained glass together there—in memory of our little son. For we are equally to blame for his brief ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn

... anticipated Darwin's method in advice given in his Gargantuan manner: "Do not exact from yourself, at one effort of excogitation, propriety of thought and elegance of expression. Invent first, and then embellish. The production of something, where nothing was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or decoration of the thing produced. Set down diligently your thoughts as they arise in the first ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... our Hermann might early set out on some travels; That he at least might behold the cities of Strasburg and Frankfort, Friendly Mannheim, too, that is cheerful and evenly builded. He that has once beheld cities so cleanly and large, never after Ceases his own native city, though small it may be, to embellish. Do not the strangers who come here commend the repairs in our gateway, Notice our whitewashed tower, and the church we have newly rebuilded? Are not all praising our pavement? the covered canals ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... rid. And being then asked why he did not discharge them, declared that they were bailiffs, who had introduced themselves with an execution, and whom, since he could not send them away, he had thought it convenient to embellish with liveries, that they might do him credit while they stayed. His friends were diverted with the expedient, and by paying the debt discharged their attendants, having obliged Sir Richard to promise that they should ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... ready to start From his home on the mountains afar; He is shrunken and pale—he looks froze to the heart, And snow-wreaths embellish his car. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various

... of them used to talk pleasantly of this their first journey to London. Garrick, evidently meaning to embellish a little, said one day in my hearing, 'we rode and tied.' And the Bishop of Killaloe informed me, that at another time, when Johnson and Garrick were dining together in a pretty large company, Johnson ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... not pretend to compare with a city more than a thousand years old, which at all periods of its history had maintained the princely taste for building, and which a long line of emperors had never ceased to embellish. ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... won it bravely; they enjoyed it generously and kindly. No lover ever delighted more to cherish and adorn a mistress, to heighten and illustrate her charms, and to vindicate and defend her against all the world than did the Moors to embellish, enrich, elevate, and defend their beloved Spain. Everywhere I meet traces of their sagacity, courage, urbanity, high poetical feeling, and elegant taste. The noblest institutions in this part of Spain, the best inventions for comfortable and agreeable living, and all those habitudes ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... There are clusters of rosy, happy children, clambering about its crumbling top; little knots of men too in the road beyond—evidently expecting something. Even this is in keeping with the poet's grave, which should not be sombre and melancholy, like other graves; and what could better embellish and enliven its aspect than young, blushing life clustering around it? We linger awhile among the boisterous children playing on the churchyard wall, and then we hear a confused sound of voices ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... collection of edifying tales, many of which use the materials supplied by the Pali Nikayas and Vinaya but present them in a more effective and artistic form. It was thought a pious task to amplify and embellish the simple narratives handed ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... gentlemen, an admirable picture, the product of a talented hand, but an execrable picture from a moral point of view. Yes, M. Flaubert knows how to embellish his paintings with all the resources of art, but without the discretion of art. With him there is no gauze, no veils, it is nature in all her nudity, in ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various

... rebuild and embellish the city of Mexico, which was again as well peopled by natives as ever it had been before the conquest. All of these were exempted from paying tribute to his majesty, till their houses were built, and till the causeways, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... how am I to tell you?" and she twisted her hands, frowning in perplexity. "I don't want to embellish the story so as to make it picturesque and myself more interesting," and she looked at the Tenor with slightly elevated eyebrows, as if pained already by her own inaccuracy. There was something irresistibly comic in this candid avowal of the force of habit, and all ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... ways—as there are in all large communities. Many of these, finding themselves well off, begin to discover they had ancestors. They name their houses after places where their grandfathers lived or should have lived. They put crests upon their carriages; they embellish their stationery with a motto, and otherwise put on a little of what is called "side." But Birmingham people are not worse than others in this respect. In fact, I think there is less affectation, pretence, and snobbishness, or at any rate ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... Prince of Humbugs, Barnum," so it appears Some folks have designated me for several years. Well, I don't murmur; indeed, when they embellish it, To tell the truth, my friends, I rather relish it, Since your true humbug's be, who as a host, For the least money entertains you most. In this sense I'm a "humbug," I succumb! Who as a "General" thing brought out Tom Thumb? ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... sittest, by eternal lot! Say, who that angel is, that with such glee Beholds our queen, and so enamour'd glows Of her high beauty, that all fire he seems." So I again resorted to the lore Of my wise teacher, he, whom Mary's charms Embellish'd, as the sun the morning star; Who thus in answer spake: "In him are summ'd, Whatever of buxomness and free delight May be in Spirit, or in angel, met: And so beseems: for that he bare the palm Down unto Mary, when the Son of God Vouchsaf'd to clothe ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... soft smile and intelligent eyes, who had sat by the side of Leonard in his garret. She was about the middle height, still slight but beautifully formed; that exquisite roundness of proportion, which conveys so well the idea of woman, in its undulating pliant grace—formed to embellish life, and soften away its rude angles—formed to embellish, not to protect. Her face might not have satisfied the critical eye of an artist—it was not without defects in regularity; but its expression was eminently gentle and prepossessing; and there were few who would not have ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... manes! may they enjoy more repose, than that troubled world which their extraordinary, yet different talents seemed equally destined to embellish and to embroil, though it would be difficult to name any two modern writers, who have expressed, with more eloquence, a cordial love of peace, and a zealous desire to promote the interests ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... briar steals from the innocent sheep to make himself a warm winter livery, are, to either of them both, an excellent ornament; so make thou account, that to have feathers sticking here and there on thy head will embellish thee, and set thy crown out rarely. None dare upbraid thee, that like a beggar thou hast lain on straw, or like a travelling pedlar upon musty flocks; for those feathers will rise up as witnesses to choke him that says so, and to prove thy bed to have been of the softest ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... lilacs, the whole of which were then in full blossom. The flowers filled the air with a species of purple light, that cast a warm and soft radiance even on the glowing face of Anneke, as she pointed out to me the magical effect. I know no flower that does so much to embellish a place, as the lilac, on a large scale, common as it is, and familiar as we have become with ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... great point to which all this was to tend, which all this was to fascinate and subdue, to adorn, to embellish, to delight, to honour. Woman! Oh! when I first dared, among the fields of Eton, to dwell upon the soft yet agitating fancy, that some day my existence might perhaps be rendered more intense, by the admiration of these maddening but then mysterious creatures; ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... country were not sent into the world to shun society, but to embellish it; they were not designed for wilds and solitudes, but for the amiable and endearing offices of social life. They have useful stations to fill, and important characters to sustain. They are of a religion which does not ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... most agreeable and desultory manner; to-day a tourist, to-morrow a novelist; the next day surprising his public by an excursion into the regions of historical romance, amongst the well-beaten highways and byways of which he still manages to discover an untrodden path, or to embellish a familiar one by the sparkle of his wit and industry of his researches. The majority of his books convey the idea of being written currente calamo, and with little trouble to himself; and these have a lightness and brilliancy peculiar ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... personal appearance quite as much as the most fashionable of Parisian belles; for they bestow much labour, time, and thought, and endure much actual suffering in the elaborate patterns with which they tattoo, and, as they vainly suppose, embellish their faces and persons. The ancient Britons, who painted themselves in various devices, also bore witness to the natural craving after personal adornment, which seems to be inherent ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... example can have no influence, may be safely overlooked, nor is it of much use to recall obscure and unguarded names to memory for the sake of sporting with their infamy. But if there is any writer whose genius can embellish impropriety, and whose authority can make errour venerable, his works are the proper objects of critical inquisition. To expunge faults where there are no excellencies is a task equally useless with that of the chymist, who employs the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... mind which receives this, not only is content with the exaggeration of the first mind, but its own report adds its own effect of endeavours to embellish, and so by this action, and by the deception which it also receives from the goodwill generated in it, good report is made more ample than it should be; either with the consent or the dissent of the conscience; even as it was with the first mind. And the third receiving ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... the honourable name of history from the truths contained in them, as I shall prefer truth to embellishment. In fact, to embellish my story I have neither leisure nor ability; I shall, therefore, do no more than give a simple narration of events. They are the labours of my evenings, and will come to you an unformed mass, to receive its shape ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... from distinguished citizens, and from candidates for office do not go far to prove a generous or philanthropic spirit on the part of the donors, but they show clearly enough that the practice of giving large sums of money to embellish the city, and to please the public, had grown up under the Republic, and that the people of Rome had come to regard it as the duty of their distinguished fellow citizens to beautify the city and minister to their needs and ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... topicks are preoccupied, is nothing more than the murmur of ignorance or idleness, by which some discourage others, and some themselves; the mutability of mankind will always furnish writers with new images, and the luxuriance of fancy may always embellish them with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... France, he removed to Paris. He established a workshop in the vicinity of the royal Palace of the Tuileries, and was thereafter known as "Bernard of the Tuileries." He was employed by the king and queen and some of the greatest nobles of France to embellish their palaces and gardens with the products of his ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden

... "dog-hearted daughters." Sir Henry Holland once lost a bet of a guinea owing to his failure to find a dog kindly spoken of by Shakespeare. Milton for the most part sublimely passes them by, except to embellish his "portress at hell's gate" with a canine appendix. Goethe's aversion to them is well known. Old Dr. Watts is an authority on moral traits, and the best word he has for them is that "dogs delight to bark and bite, for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... the days of freedom. After the expulsion of the kings, Horatius Pulvillus, in his second consulship[195] dedicated this monument on such a magnificent scale, that in later days, with all her boundless wealth, Rome has been able to embellish but never to enlarge it. After an interval of four hundred and fifteen years, in the consulship of Lucius Scipio and Caius Norbanus,[196] it was burnt and rebuilt on the same site. Sulla after his victory undertook the task of restoring it, but did not dedicate ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... them as follows:—"Their buildings," says Thornton, "are heavy in their proportions, bad in detail, both in taste and execution, fantastic in decoration, and destitute of genius. Their cities are not decorated with public monuments, whose object is to enliven or to embellish." Their religion forbids them every sort of painting, sculpture, or engraving; thus the fine arts cannot exist among them. They have no music but vocal; and know of no accompaniment except a bass ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... fact that you ought to have treated it as entirely official and confidential, it is obviously impossible to hush it up now. All sorts of rumours will get about directly, and everybody who has a grudge against us will take care to embellish these rumours. So it will be necessary for you to refute ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen

... And three big mahogany presses,—hey?—A diabolical suspicion came over me which I had had once before,—that he might be one of our modern alchemists,—you understand, make gold, you know, or what looks like it, sometimes with the head of a king or queen or of Liberty to embellish one side of the piece.—Don't I remember hearing him shut a door and lock it once? What do you think was kept under that lock? Let's have another look at his hand, to see if ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... that my eldest brother, with whom I had much in common, was a doctor—had been to adopt the medical profession. Curiously enough, my brother also had a taste for caricaturing, and, like the illustrious John Leech in his medical student days, he was wont to embellish his notes in the hospital lecture-room with pictorial jeux d'esprit of a livelier cast than those for which scope is usually afforded by the discourses of ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... good things, all things sweet, delicious and poetic, which embellish life and make it enjoyable, were withdrawing from her, because she was growing old! It was all finished! Yet she still found within her the tenderness of the young girl and the passionate impulses of the young woman. ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... brand out of the furnace. Benedicamus Patrem et Filium cum Sancto Spiritu. Benedictus, et laudabilis, et gloriosus, et superexaltatus in saecula. Every day doing marvels and exceeding all that seemed possible in power and love, by new and still newer manifestations. A Greek had come to Africa to embellish the shrines of heathenism, to minister to the usurpation of the evil one, and to strengthen the old ties which connected genius with sin; and she had suddenly found salvation. But yesterday a poor child of earth, ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... highly-colored masses of burned clay which indeed refused to be consumed, but have been twisted into shapeless blocks by the fervent heat. Of course, with such unconventional materials for the main walls it would be a silly affectation to embellish the exterior of the house with elaborate mouldings or ornamental wood-work, and the visible details are therefore plain to the verge of poverty. But as men of great genius can disregard the trifling formalities of society, so there are no architectural rules ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner

... associations of any object should embellish that object is very comprehensible. Homer furnishes us with a good illustration of the constant employment of this effect. The first term, one need hardly say, leaves with him little to be desired. The verse is beautiful. Sounds, ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... others to supply their places. The Sikh Government is of exactly the same character; and the countries they governed have, I believe, the same wretched appearance—they are swarms of human locusts, who prey upon all that is calculated to enrich and embellish the face of the land they infest, and all that can tend to improve men in their social relations, and to link their affection to their soil and their government.[21] A Hindoo prince is always running ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... see it is of no use to oppose her. For my part, I think her papa has acted wisely in permitting the engagement. Contradiction would embellish her hero; while, left to him, she will soon find him out. I do not concern myself, for Miss Martindale can get over a little ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... He feared that with all his successes his throne would be overturned unless he could amuse the people and find work for turbulent spirits. Consequently he concluded on the one hand to make a change in the foreign policy of France, and on the other to embellish his capital and undertake great public works, at any expense, both to find work for artisans and to develop the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

... once popular and intolerable. Nor shall we anticipate any charge of irreverence; since we claim the opportunity and indulge only the license of the painter, who, in the treatment of Scriptural themes, seeks both to embellish the sacred page and to honor his art,—and of the sculptor, and the poet, likewise, each of whom, ranging divine ground, remarks upon the objects there presented according to the law of his profession. As the picturesque, the statuesque, the poetical in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... mode of propagating it is by slips, or cuttings. As it is a small, shewy, hardy plant, and not disposed to over-run others, it is very suitable to embellish rock-work. ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. V - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis

... true, each individual taste may alter and embellish the buildings and surroundings, but these improvements belong to the city and not to the individuals. The titles are vested in the community, and its members can vote, as in the case of Abraham Lincoln, in reference to ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... favorably. Besides, he remembered that by Saturday he would need to embellish his sartorial display with a few treasures from his chum's wardrobe. He sat down and took his head in ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... growing gradually till they have at last reached their full stature, and so (their course being completed) have settled in the works of a few writers; and that there being now no room for the invention of better, all that remains is to embellish and cultivate those things which have been invented already. Would it were so! But the truth is that this appropriating of the sciences has its origin in nothing better than the confidence of a few persons ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... Princes, abounding with infinite wealth, would leave behind them a name renowned and glorious, if they possessed, together with their store of the goods of Fortune, a mind filled with grandeur and inclined to those things that not only embellish the world, but also confer vast benefit and advantage on the whole race of men! And what works can or should Princes and great persons undertake more readily than noble and magnificent buildings and edifices, both on account ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari

... those audacious stories which Frenchmen alone seem to have enough originality to invent. Captain Mago is sent by Hiram King of Tyre, on a voyage to Tarshish (Spain) to procure a supply of silver and other treasure with which to embellish the temple of David, King of the Jews, which was to be erected at Jerusalem. During his absence of several years, he met with innumerable strange and perilous adventures by land and sea. In itself the narrative of his exploits is of thrilling ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... be by no means complete if devoted entirely to dwellings; and as the resources of an extensive professional practice in the arts which embellish and beautify our country may be largely made use of, we present here a design ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward

... anxiously begged to tattoo a little figure on my arm, which she had no sooner done than the youngest insisted on making the same mark; and while all around were running about and screaming in the greatest confusion, these two poor creatures sat quietly down to embellish me. When the boat landed, a general rush was made for the privilege of carrying our things down to it. Awarunni, who owned the little dog which slept with me, ran and threw him as a present into the boat; when, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... was founded and dedicated to St. Matthew in 1084 by Robert Guiscard, who plundered the temples of Paestum of their marbles and sculptures to embellish it. ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration - Vol 1, No. 9 1895 • Various

... surface (type, borders, ornaments, and engravings) which may be prepared by the same mechanical procedures. The picture exists for its own interest or as an illustration for the text. As such it is merely an element in the design of the page. Decoration or ornament may be used to embellish the page, as a pattern on its flat surface, and may be related to the text, but need not serve ...
— Applied Design for Printers - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #43 • Harry Lawrence Gage

... For one hour of nausea you promise it a plethora of good things In the arrogance of success, had put on the manner of the master Live coals are more readily held in men's mouths than a secret Putting as good a face upon the matter as I could Rumor but grows in the telling and strives to embellish Something in the way of hope at which to nibble Stained by the lifeblood of the God of Wine To follow all paths; but a road can discover by none Whatever you talk of at home will ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... the prominences in the materials employed are turned towards the outside, so that the interior of the room may be smooth and the birds may not catch their plumage in it. This done, the little architects, to embellish their retreat, transport to it a number of conspicuous objects, such as very white stones from a neighbouring stream, shells, the bright feathers of the parroquet, whatever comes to their beak. All these treasures are arranged on the earth, before the two entries to the bower, ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... and the wits of England, entertained Franklin, in the highest degree, with the literary gossip of London, and probably excited in his mind an intense desire to visit those scenes, which he himself was so calculated to enjoy and to embellish. On the journey he wrote the following comic letter to his wife. He had been disappointed in not receiving a line from her ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... choirs in their innumerable streams and waterfalls; valleys and plateaus that spring into life when pricked by the harrow of the husbandman; forests of big trees, perpetually green, to adorn and protect; the greatest of oceans to temper with its breezes; inland seas and azure lakes to embellish and attract—such are a few of the elements that make the State of Washington and provide beauteous ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles

... dancing and the technique of the stage, to create an atmosphere in which a solo or ensemble dance, or a song number will live. Without atmosphere the dance becomes all perspiration and no sense. There must be a definite idea behind a dance or underneath it. Everything must be done to embellish the theme or general idea. No idea must be overproduced; just enough must be done in the way of creating atmosphere for a dance to allow it to get over properly. In other words, it must be fully realized and produced properly, in a skillful, ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn

... cashier, ruined his bank by stealing money to enable him, for a while, to live in an elegant house and support servants, equipages, silks and diamonds galore. For a time he was the idol of the town, while he gave costly dinners and showered his ill-gotten gains to embellish his favorite temple, and to build a tower upon it to look down in contempt upon ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... contended, that to render the human body and mind more perfect, chastity must more universally prevail, and that chastity will never be respected in the male world till the person of a woman is not, as it were, idolized when little virtue or sense embellish it with the grand traces of mental beauty, or the ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... When people embellish their conversation with a glitter of titles, and drag into it self-aggrandizing anecdotes, though I laugh at this peacock vein in them, I do not harshly condemn it. Nay, since I too am human, since I too belong to the great household, would it be surprising if—say ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... wonders of Wales," is three miles from Holt, and is four hundred years old. Few churches built as early as the reign of Henry VIII. can compare with this. It is dedicated to St. Giles, and statues of him and of twenty-nine other saints embellish niches in the tower. Alongside of St. Giles is the hind that nourished him in the desert. The bells of Wrexham peal melodiously over the valley, and in the vicarage the good Bishop Heber wrote the favorite hymn, "From Greenland's Icy Mountains." Then the Dee flows on past the ducal palace ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... in a narrative, and the habit of exaggerating destroys the power of accurate observation and recollection which would render the story truly interesting. If, instead of trying to embellish her account with the fruits of her imagination, a young lady possessed the power of seizing upon the points best worth describing, and could give an exact account of them, she would be far more entertaining than any exaggeration could make her; for there is no romance ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady

... continent. Though his character has been described only by those who were exasperated against him to the very highest degree, still it is evident that he possessed many of the noblest qualities which can embellish human nature. ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... things merely ornamental were not necessary to the well-being of man, and that all superfluous things should be excluded from the usages and manners of their society. "In this proscription, we have included," said he, "the study of the fine arts, for we see them applied only to embellish pleasures, and to strengthen our inducements to gratify the senses at the expense of our immortal claims. But, because we have seen painting put to this derogatory use, and have, in consequence, prohibited the cultivation of it among us, are we sure that it is not one ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt

... resembling them which really occurred, or they may have been fictitious altogether. Great generals, like other great men, have often the credit of many exploits which they never perform. It is the special business of poets and historians to magnify and embellish the actions of the great, and this art was understood as well in ancient days ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... attributed to this long interval are not by any means of such a nature as to suggest deliberate fabrication. An annalist who was also a courtier, applying himself to construct the story of his sovereign's ancestors, would naturally be disposed to embellish his pages with narratives of great exploits and brilliant achievements. Neither the Records nor the Chronicles can be said to display such a propensity in any marked degree. The Chronicles do, indeed, draw upon the resources of Chinese history to construct ethical codes and scholarly diction for ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... great scale, carried up by galleries, arches, windows, sculptures, and supported by the extraordinarily thick buttresses of which I have spoken and which, though they embellish it with deep shadows thrown sidewise, do not improve its style. The portals, especially the middle one, are extremely interesting; they are covered with curious early sculptures. The middle one, however, I must describe alone. It has no less than six rows of figures—the others ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... Craik will explain it much better than I can. By a devil, dear.' The voice was perfectly poised and restrained, and Mr Craik did not see fit for the moment to embellish the definition. ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... which she celebrates her birthplace. There are walks along the country pathways, long meditations at night, village weddings and fetes. All the poetry and all the picturesqueness of the country transform and embellish the story. ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic

... with his methods, and Gen. Peter Horry wrote to him: "I requested you would (if necessary) so far alter the work as to make it read grammatically, and I gave you leave to embellish the work, but entertained not the least idea of what has happened . . . You have carved and mutilated it with so many erroneous statements your embellishments, observation and remarks, must necessarily be erroneous as proceeding from false ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... the simplicity of its first plan; to find what was first projected, whence the scheme was taken, how it was improved, by what assistance it was executed, and from what stores the materials were collected; whether its founder dug them from the quarries of Nature, or demolished other buildings to embellish his own.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... let us work, in order to bring our humble contribution to the general harmony of things, by our painful and meritorious labour; in order that we may associate ourselves with God, share in His creation, and embellish and adorn the earth and ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... remarkable effect of the division of labor is not that it accentuates the distinction of functions already divided but that it makes them interdependent. Its role in every case is not simply to embellish or perfect existing societies but to make possible societies which, without it, would not exist. Should the division of labor between the sexes be diminished beyond a certain point, the family would cease to exist and only ephemeral sexual relations would remain. If the sexes had never ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... said to have been so pleased with a row of grotesque Indian-China jars, which embellish one side of the entrance, and which he mistook for pots de chambre, that after returning home and consulting his rib, he sent an order per post for one of the most elegant pattern ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... folks come in and look upon the dead, let them learn from the sight that Death is the judge of the gentry as well as of the serfs; let them see how the rich can be splendid even after death, how they embellish their coffins, how they fasten them with golden nails, how they embroider their palls with patterns of roses and gold filagree, how they spread the bed of death itself with the finest white watered silk and perfume it with the ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... religion. I now proceed to show, that these circumstances have engendered towards the colonists in the, mass of the Mexican nation, feelings of unconquerable jealousy and hostility. Yes! our superiority in enterprise, in learning, in the arts and in all that can dignify life, or embellish human nature, instead of exciting in them a laudable ambition to emulate, to equal, or excel us—excites the most hateful of all the passions—envy—and has caused them to endeavor for years past, by an unremitting series of vexatious, oppressive and unconstitutional acts, to retard our growth ...
— Texas • William H. Wharton

... had raised the devil from attic to cellar; Mrs. Farren was in tears, Howker desperate. Not one out of the fifteen servants considered necessary to embellish the Seagrave establishment could do anything with them after Kathleen Severn's sudden ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... (vulgarity) 851; gaud, pride. [ornamentation of text] illustration, illumination, vignette. fleuron[obs3]; head piece[Fr], tail piece[Fr]; cul-de-lampe[Fr]; flowers of rhetoric &c. 577; work of art. V. ornament, embellish, enrich, decorate, adorn, bead, beautify, adonize[obs3]. smarten, furbish, polish, gild, varnish, whitewash, enamel, japan, lacquer, paint, grain. garnish, trim, dizen[obs3], bedizen, prink[obs3], prank; trick out, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... caused by their esthetic feelings. It is much easier for them to describe a situation as they feel it should have been than to describe it as it actually was. Many children "embellish the facts" without any trace of intent to deceive. Although we recognize that what they say is not strictly the truth, we must further recognize that it is their love of the beautiful or their sense of the fitness of things ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg

... dependence of his exploits on the higher order of things. Mythical narratives occupy much space in these odes, for in the time of Pindar the mythical past was invested with a splendor and sublimity, of which even the faint reflection was sufficient to embellish ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... set us wondering and laughing and crying till we could laugh and cry no longer. He had been a fellow worker with the brothers Grimm, and the stories he told were mostly from their collection, though he knew how to embellish them with anything that could make a child cry ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... generally desirable to indicate the presence of animated existence in a scene of natural beauty; but only of such existence as shall be imbued with the spirit, and shall partake of the essence, of the beauty, which, without it, would be dead. If our object, therefore, is to embellish a scene the character of which is peaceful and unpretending, we must not erect a building fit for the abode of wealth or pride. However beautiful or imposing in itself, such an object immediately indicates the presence of a kind of existence ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... they have all the airs and ignorance of the ladies who give the tone to the circles of the large trading towns in England. They are fond of their ornaments, merely because they are good, and not because they embellish their persons; and are more gratified to inspire the women with jealousy of these exterior advantages, than the men with love. All the frivolity which often (excuse me, Madam) renders the society of modest women so stupid in England, ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... was never quite certain of the tone in which he ought to reply to any observation, or whether the speaker was jesting or in earnest. And so in any event he would embellish all his facial expressions with the offer of a conditional, a provisional smile whose expectant subtlety would exonerate him from the charge of being a simpleton, if the remark addressed to him should turn out to have been facetious. But as he must also be prepared to face the alternative, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... adorn'd with such variety of dazling Colours, that she was fain presently to command him to withdraw, but the Images in her Hangings, did, for many daies after, appear to her, if the Room were not extraordinarily darken'd, embellish'd with several offensively vivid Colours, which no body else could see in them; And when I enquir'd whether or no White Objects did not appear to her adorn'd with more luminous Colours than others, and whether she saw not ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... peaceful road, Nor bribe her reason to pursue the mode; Mild as the saint whose errors are forgiv'n, Calm as a vestal, and compos'd as heav'n. This be the partner, this the lovely wife That should embellish and prolong my life; A nymph! who might a second fall inspire, And fill a glowing Cherub with desire! With her I'd spend the pleasurable day, While fleeting minutes gaily danc'd away: With her I'd walk, delighted, o'er the green, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... such The fervour of thy pencil, pouring wide The still illumination, that the mind Pauses, absorbed, and scarcely thinks what powers Of mortal art the sweet enchantment wrought. She sees the painter, with no human touch, Create, embellish, animate at will, The mimic scenes, from Nature's ampler range 20 Caught as by inspiration; while the clouds, High wandering, and the fairest form of things, Seem at his bidding to emerge, and burn With ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... she stood in the full morning sunlight, was like to gladden the eyes of all mankind. She was beautiful, and all adjectives applicable would but serve to confuse rather than to embellish her physical excellence. She was as beautiful as a garden rose is, needing no defense, no ramparts of cloying phrases. The day of poets is gone, otherwise she would have been sung in cantos. She was tall, shapely, deep-bosomed, ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... will ever keep her memory fresh. "In these 'gems of purest ray serene,' the peculiar genius of Mrs. Hemans breathes, and burns, and shines pre-eminent; for her forte lay in depicting whatever tends to beautify and embellish domestic life, the gentle overflowings of love and friendship, home-bred delights and heartfelt happiness, the associations of local attachment, and the influences of religious feelings over the soul, whether arising from the varied circumstances and situations of man, or from the aspects ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... these:—"Sensible of the honour you do my country, I share the gratitude of my fellow-citizens, and hope that it will increase when they have profited by the lessons that you of all men are able to give them. Embellish the asylum you have chosen; enlighten a people worthy of your instruction; and do you who know so well how to paint virtue and freedom, teach us to cherish them in ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... has greatly exceeded my construction, Sir John, and I beg leave to amend my plea. All I mean is, that the leading consideration in this interview, is a monikin interest—that we are met to propound, explain, digest, animadvert on, and embellish a monikin theme—that the accessory must be secondary to the principal—that the lesser must merge, not in your sense, but in my sense, in the greater—and, by ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... this untimely grief? What has caused the sorrows that bespeak better and happier days, to those lavish out such heaps of misery? You are aware that your instructive lessons embellish the mind with holy truths, by wedding its attention to none but great and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... merchants does not disturb one more than the purling of your brooks. If sometimes I amuse myself in contemplating their anxious motions, I receive the same pleasure which you do in observing those men who cultivate your land; for I reflect that the end of all their labours is to embellish the city which I inhabit, and to anticipate all my wants. If you contemplate with delight the fruits of your orchards, with all the rich promises of abundance, do you think I feel less in observing so many fleets that convey to me the productions of either India? What spot on earth ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... dearth of so many things that once made her life easy and comfortable which throws her back upon her own resources. Here again is woman's strength. Fertile in expedients, apt in device, an artisan to construct and an artist to embellish, she proceeds to supply what is lacking in her new home. She has a miraculous faculty for creating much out of little, and for transforming the coarse into the beautiful. Barrels are converted into ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... Queen Anne's reign, was consecrated in 1723, and had a district assigned to it. It was entirely rearranged and restored in 1868, and has lately been repainted. It is a most peculiar-looking church, with a spire cased in zinc. Small figures of angels embellish some points of vantage, and the symbols of the four Evangelists appear in niches. The windows are round-headed, with tracery of a peculiarly ugly type; but the interior is better than the exterior, and has lately been repaired and ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... amusing, but it did not involve an opinion, it did not lead to a difference of sentiment, in which the owner of the house might be found in the wrong. Players, singers, dancers, are hand and glove with the great. They embellish, and have an eclat in their names, but do not come into collision. Eminent portrait-painters, again, are tolerated, because they come into personal contact with the great; and sculptors hold equality with lords ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... told Caroline, that some one would write Advice to Diplomatists, in the manner of Swift's advice to Servants; and she observed that M. de Tourville, charge d'affaires, &c., might supply anecdotes illustrative, and might embellish the work with a portrait of a finished diplomatist. Unfortunately for the public, on the third morning of the diplomatist's visit, a circumstance occurred, which prevented the farther development of his character, stopped his flow of anecdote, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... expressions or words that follow are totally independent of the answer, and are only adapted to embellish or mystify the question as far as the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... which rejoiced the heart of Francis the First, and cracked with grief in 1786 at being called upon to ring for Louis XVI. It was his nephew, Rouland Leroux, whose help was called in when the canons desired to embellish their west facade and have a finer central door. This work was begun in 1508 with the money of Georges d'Amboise, and Pierre Desaubeaulx did the central tympanum. Jean Theroulde, Pierre Dalix, another ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... the vast theatre of ancient Ephesus,—the stone-benched amphitheatre I mean—and had our picture taken. We looked as proper there as we would look any where, I suppose. We do not embellish the general desolation of a desert much. We add what dignity we can to a stately ruin with our green umbrellas and jackasses, but it is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... an eye beaming with the benignity of a happy heart; a cheerful temper, alive to all kind impulses, and frankly diffusing its own felicity; a self-poised mind, that needs not lean on others for support; an elegant taste, that can embellish solitude, and ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... Sir, I am highly honoured. Ba-ath is favoured. Mrs. Dowler, you embellish the rooms. I congratulate ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... embellish the proposal with that accessory; but there's another detail which may put you on the track of her. Madame de Godollo exhorted me, if I wished to push the matter, to go and see a certain Monsieur ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... or necessity, as in baths, amphitheaters, circuses, obelisks, triumphal pillars, arches, and mausoleums; for what they added to the aqueducts was rather to supply their baths and naumachias, and to embellish the city with fountains, than out of any real necessity ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... with the impressive moral of "In Adam's fall We sinned all," or gave us a foretaste of the Apollo in "A was an Archer, and shot at a Frog,"—in either case, the story is a plainly told incident, (carefully observing the unities,) which the child's fancy can embellish for itself, and the whole has an additional charm from the gorgeous coloring of an accompanying picture. The vividness is good, and is the only thing that is good. Why, then, should this one merit be omitted, as our children grow a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... Dupin, "abounds with very strict analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may be made to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a description. The principle of the vis inertiae, for example, seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... soft smile and intelligent eyes, who had sat by the side of Leonard in his garret. She was about the middle height, still slight, but beautifully formed; that exquisite roundness of proportion which conveys so well the idea of woman, in its undulating, pliant grace,—formed to embellish life, and soften away its rude angles; formed to embellish, not to protect. Her face might not have satisfied the critical eye of an artist,—it was not without defects in regularity; but its expression was eminently gentle ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... soul which brings us continually into contact with the external world, multiplies our sufferings and our pleasures, and reacts at once on the physiognomy, the manners, and the language. If the variety and mobility of the features embellish the domain of animated nature, we must admit also that both increase by civilization without being produced by it alone. In the great family of nations, no other race unites these advantages to a higher degree than that of Caucasus or the European. It must be admitted that this insensibility ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... is the true temple of God; enter ye into your temples and illumine them with good thoughts. The sacred vessels, they are your hands and your eyes. Do I say that which is agreeable to God—doing good to your neighbors? But, first embellish wherein dwells He, who ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne

... It was far from the cliffs, and there was no view. It was simply a little hollow of a clearing scooped out among the immense forests. When the mountaineers clear land, they do it effectually. Not a tree was left to embellish the yards of any of the four or five little log huts that constituted the hamlet, ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... he ought to be bending over a sheet of paper, ruled in pretty parallels of fives, trying to embellish the same with semi-breves and crotchets.' That is what I think to myself, thinks I; and the thought leaves me gasping. I am utterly unable to ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... delightful compositions, somewhat in the "Hugh Thomson" manner, embellish several volumes of Messrs. Macmillan's Cranford series, has illustrated also "The Parachute," and "English Fairy and Folk Tales," by E. S. Hartland (1893), and also supplied two pictures to that most fascinating volume prized ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... as a rule, made out of whole cloth. They usually had a basis of truth. When he told a story and he felt that it was producing no effect he would "play it up," as newspapermen would put it, often quite grotesquely. Altogether he was so inclined to overemphasize and embellish his facts that it was not always easy to say where truth ended and fiction began. Somehow it seemed to me as though the moistness and looseness of his lips had something to do ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... of manumission in the inn; the reed was still. And yet, to do him justice, there was even then the frank and suave exterior; no boorish awkward silence in his ancient gossips made him lose his jocularity; he continued to embellish his conversation with morals based ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... the queen looked in these dresses by means of illuminated portraits of her contained in the books written at that time. It was the custom in those days in writing books—the work of which was all executed by hand—to embellish them with what were called illuminations. These were small paintings inserted here and there upon the page, representing the distinguished personages named in the writing. These portraits were painted in very brilliant colors, and there are several still remaining that show precisely how ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... silent places of the seventh heaven, for we had little to say to each other. We were tyros in the art of conversing, and our promising ideas born of long mental struggles were stilled with bludgeons of assent and dissent. We knew not how to nourish and embellish them, and yet, though there were long stretches of embarrassed silence, we were not unhappy. Even Boller found his subterfuges to drag me away quite futile, and Miss Todd herself seemed content, for she met a dozen like efforts with a ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... Consequently, when we find in man the signs of a pure and disinterested esteem, we can infer that this revolution has taken place in his nature, and that humanity has really begun in him. Signs of this kind are found even in the first and rude attempts that he makes to embellish his existence, even at the risk of making it worse in its material conditions. As soon as he begins to prefer form to substance and to risk reality for appearance (known by him to be such), the barriers ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... the fisherman this, but he knew the statement would make a sensation and chose to embellish what he had heard ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... other so rapidly, that the decrees came like hail, always with sounding phrases and grand words to embellish them. ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... universe, are never more than those which are derived from men who are organized and modified after a certain mode; or whose cheerful imagination is so constructed as to give birth to agreeable chimeras which they embellish according to their fancy: these illusions, however, must be frequently dissipated even in themselves, whenever their machine becomes deranged; when sorrows assail them, when misfortune corrodes their mind; the spectacle of nature, which under certain ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... when a little excited, the words tumbled out with headlong velocity or flowed like molten brass into the mould of the founder, and, to carry the simile farther, some would sputter over. He had in his storehouse of language, many queer phrases and sayings that he brought out to embellish his conversation, some of which were only used as a corps de reserve, or brought into action when all others failed ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... 90 Up to our means: a very different thing! No abstract intellectual plan of life Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws, But one, a man, who is man and nothing more, May lead within a world which (by your leave) Is Rome or London, not Fool's-paradise. Embellish Rome, idealize away, Make paradise of London if you can, You're welcome, ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... dates of their deaths are very clearly marked by the different fashions of their dresses—a compact and upstanding ruff adds to the stiff precision of the first wife's appearance; while the sloping lines of a 'Vandyke' collar embellish the dress ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... which promises unspeakable advantages to the human race, and immortal fame to its author! Behold the dawn of an universal revolution! A new race of men shall arise, shall overspread the earth, to embellish it by their virtues, and render it fertile by their industry. Neither vice nor ignorance, shall stop their active career; they will know our calamities only from the records of history. The prolonged duration ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... that modern invention has employed to embellish it, there are to be seen, on the chimney-piece in a drawingroom, the arms of Cardinal Richelieu, just as they were during the lifetime of his father, which the cardinal desired to leave there, because they comprise a collar of the Holy ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... plus ultra of merit in France, she was "tout a fait gentille." She possessed also, considerable dramatic skill and tact, and would, I think, have proved a delightful acquisition to the stage, from the skill she displayed in those little playful scenes, with which the French delight to embellish life. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various

... one slight difference between Me and my epic brethren gone before, And here the advantage is my own, I ween (Not that I have not several merits more, But this will more peculiarly be seen); They so embellish, that 't is quite a bore Their labyrinth of fables to thread through, Whereas this story's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... anyhow desires after the Unseen which will arise in our minds in spite of ourselves, to provide the mind with a means of self-command, to impress on it the beautiful ideas which saints and sages have struck out, to embellish it with the bright hues of a celestial piety, to teach it the poetry of devotion, the music of well-ordered affections, and the luxury of doing good. As for the intellect, its exercise happens to be unavoidable, whenever moral impressions are made, from the constitution of the human mind, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... extend my thanks to the distinguished ladies who have had the kindness to honor and embellish our tables with their presence; and permit me to invite you to drink with them and with me, hoping that the national harmonizing of individual rights and just liberties, which is called the United States of America, may be perpetuated ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... said the King, smiling at Angela, whose vivid blush was as fresh as Miss Stewart's had been a year or two ago, before she had her first quarrel with Lady Castlemaine, or rode in Gramont's glass coach, or gave her classic profile to embellish the coin of the realm—the "common drudge ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... There they listen to the music of ghaitah and gimbri, pay a peseta for a cup of indifferent coffee, and buy an unmusical instrument or two for many times the proper price. Thereafter they retire to their hotel to consider how fancy can best embellish the bare facts of the evening's amusement, while the True Believers of the coffee-house (debased in the eyes of all other Believers, and, somewhat, too, in fact, by reason of their contact with the Infidel) gather up the pesetas, ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... through the kindness of Mr. J. T. Tussaud, to embellish the present collection by an ancient cast of the hand of the Comte de Lorge, a famous prisoner in the Bastille. This cast was taken, together with a death mask, after death, by the great-grandmother of the sculptor, to whom both ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... famous history; they have caught the fancy of poets and literary men who have sought in various ways to reproduce and embellish them. Among English-speaking peoples the poem of Tennyson on this subject is a prime favorite. But in Homer the Lotus-eaters are not an isolated fact, they are a link in the chain of a grand development; this inner connecting ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... into a convenient, warm, well-contrived apartment: We necessarily receive a pleasure from its very survey; because it presents us with the pleasing ideas of ease, satisfaction, and enjoyment. The hospitable, good-humoured, humane landlord appears. This circumstance surely must embellish the whole; nor can we easily forbear reflecting, with pleasure, on the satisfaction which results to every one from his intercourse ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume



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