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Ornament   Listen
verb
ornament  v. t.  (past & past part. ornamented; pres. part. ornamenting)  To adorn; to deck; to embellish; to beautify; as, to ornament a room, or a city.
Synonyms: See Adorn.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ornament" Quotes from Famous Books



... been stated that Brook Farm was a well chosen location for the experiment made there. It was nine miles from Boston. There were no surrounding industries. There was no water power at hand, the little brook being too small for any purpose but ornament. There was no available railroad station—the nearest was four miles away. This necessitated the teaming of lumber, fertilizers, coal, family stores and all stock for manufacturing purposes, from Boston, as it was not practical to send part way by rail and transfer ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... heard her mother's voice, and flitting along as lightly as one of the little sea-birds, appeared before Hester Prynne, dancing, laughing, and pointing her finger to the ornament upon her bosom. ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... in Cheltenham, and brought, as part of her dowry, the skeleton of the 'Pygmie.' Dr. Allardyce presented it to the Cheltenham Museum, and, through the good offices of my friend Dr. Wright, the authorities of the Museum have permitted me to borrow, what is, perhaps its most remarkable ornament.] ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley

... mainland, which was only a few miles away. We kept on asking by signs that our clothing might be returned to us, but the blacks tore the various garments into long strips before our eyes, and wrapped the rags about their heads by way of ornament. We reached the encampment of the black-fellows late that same evening, and were at once handed over to the charge of the women, who kept us close prisoners and—so far as we could judge—abused us in the most violent manner. Of course, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... afield is a very different creature from the gilded ornament of an English mess. His face is scorched and peeled, he is generally (unless he be a staff officer) very ill-clad; he has a ragged beard; he esteems golden syrup the greatest luxury on earth; he ceases to be ashamed of originality in thought or expression; he altogether fails to ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... on the occasion of his victories. Among them was the magnificent golden-hilted sword, studded with jewels, and the gorgeous plume of diamonds which he had received from the hand of the Empress, among other marks of distinction, for his extraordinary services at Aczakoff. At other times he wore no ornament but the chain of the order of St. Andrew. He carried no watch or ornaments with him, save those which commemorated his military exploits. On these he delighted to look, as they were associated in ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various

... his strong common sense, that balance-wheel of character, were brought into the service of his earnest convictions. What he had to say, he put into the simplest form; and if his love of art and beauty, and his imaginative faculty, gave wealth and ornament to his style, he never sacrificed a particle of direct force for any rhetorical advantage. His function in life—he felt it to his inmost soul—was to present to human hearts and minds the essential verities of their existence in such a manner that they could ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... Architectural Sheet-Metal Work, containing details of the Centennial Buildings, and other important Sheet-Metal Work, Designs and Prices of Architectural Ornaments, as manufactured for the Trade by the Kittredge Cornice and Ornament Company, and a Catalogue of Cornices, Window-Caps, Mouldings, etc., as manufactured by the Kittredge Cornice and Ornament Company. The whole supplemented by a full Index and Table of Contents. By A.O. ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart of humanity; he its judgment, she its feeling; he its strength, she its grace, ornament, and solace. Even the understanding of the best woman seems to work mainly through her affections. And thus, though man may direct the intellect, woman cultivates the feelings, which mainly determine the character. While he fills the memory, she occupies ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... lieutenant's heart, to find it still. All night the brother lay close against the coffin, and in the morning went away with his comrades, leaving us to bury Henry, having 'confidence;' but first thanking us for what we had done, and giving us all that he had to show his gratitude,—the palmetto ornament from his brother's cap and a button from his coat. Dr. W. read the burial service that morning at the grave, and —— wrote his name on the little head-board: 'Lieutenant Rauch, Fourteenth ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... eyes. They remained heavy and unsmiling; and the disquieting half-rings below them were more bluely brown than ever. Leaning sideways against the counter, Maurice looked away from them to her hands; her fingers were entirely without ornament, and he would have liked to load them with rings. As it was, he could not even pay for the clock she chose; it cost more than he had to spend in ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... the room, touching an ornament here, a picture there. At length, she came to the table and, dropping languidly into a chair, rested her elbow on the arm and, with chin in hand, ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott

... the cottage for luncheon, the bump in Mrs. Jenks-Smith's corsage was removed, and proved to be a gift for Sylvia,—a thick leather case, holding a rich neck ornament of diamonds, a sort of collar with pendants, for the Lady of the Bluffs ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... become wrinkled with frowning and facing youth; they admire their old customs, even to the eating of red herring and going wetshod. They cast the thumb under the girdle, gravity; and because they can hardly smell at all their posies are under their girdles. They count it an ornament of speech to close the period with a cough; and it is venerable (they say) to spend time in wiping their drivelled beards. Their discourse is unanswerable, by reason of their obstinacy; their speech is much, though little to the purpose. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... kept my eyes on an ornament on the table, but as I finished I glanced up swiftly. The landlord was at the time engaged in handing some fruit to mademoiselle, but at my remark he almost dropped the plate, and mademoiselle said, with a laugh: "You will have to arrest everyone we meet on the road, monsieur, if your ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... eager for the multiplication of them, I suppose he is some parish curate, whose chief profit depends on weddings and christenings. He is not a man-midwife; for he would be better skilled in physic than to think fits and madness any ornament to the characters of his heroines: though his Sir Charles had no thoughts of marrying Clementina till she had lost her wits, and the divine Clarissa never acted prudently till she was in the same condition, and then very wisely desired to be carried to Bedlam, ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... reproach you, my nephew; I understand human nature, and the seductive arts of women. It is time that you seek other ornament—myrtle becomes a youthful brow, and the helmet adorns the man crowned ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... Bryce, determined not to be monopolised by Hector thus early in the day. Rob had come with his brother, but she felt little satisfaction in his presence, knowing that he had tried to refuse the invitation, and had only yielded on Arthur's assertion that he was needed for help, not ornament, and must come whether he liked it or not, to lend a hand with the oars. He looked pre-occupied and solemn, but was absolutely friendly in his manner, rejoicing in the fineness of the weather, and congratulating Peggy on the success of her dressmaking experiment, of which he had heard ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... ranged along the inner walls—as though gazing before them into space in company with two winged genii. The arch supported by their mitred heads was ornamented by a course of enamelled bricks, on which other genii, facing one another in pairs, offered pine-cones across a circular ornament of many colours. These were the mystic guardians of the city, who shielded it not only from the attacks of men, but also from invasions of evil spirits and pernicious diseases. The rays of the sun made the forecourt ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... describe the wavy ringlets of her shining hair, needing neither art nor powder; of itself an ornament, defying all other ornaments; wantoning in and about a neck ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... all the inhabitants may join in the solemnity, which is performed in the open plain and by daylight, but the dance is reserved for the virgins or at least the unmarried females, who disdain the incumbrance or the ornament of dress. The feast is opened by devoting the goods of the master of the feast to his medicine, which is represented by a head of the animal itself, or by a medicine bag if the deity be an invisible being. The young women then begin ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... to them; in fact, they had no inclination for commerce. Lucre they despised, scarcely knowing the use of money, which had been lately introduced among them. Yet, being refined in their tastes, fond of ornament, of wine at their feasts, loving to adorn the persons of their wives and daughters with silk and gems, they had allowed the Danes to dwell in their seaports, to trade in those commodities, and to import for their use what the land did ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... good, you know," he said, as if communing with himself alone; "here is no room for the music to spread. All these," he pointed to another ornament, "are so very, very bad. But some day, perhaps," he added, with another smile, "you will hear me in a ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... me, and directions to the several tradesmen respecting my equipment. The large chest, the sword, the cocked-hat, the half-boots, were all ordered in succession; and the arrival of each article either of use or ornament was anticipated by me with a degree of impatience which can only be compared to that of a ship's company arrived off Dennose from a three years' station in India, and who hope to be at anchor at Spithead before ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... command in great triumph, I found Jump, to my amusement, waving over his head a red cotton umbrella which some wandering Crow had dropped on the trail. The umbrella being, from the Crow point of view, a highly-prized ornament, it was not strange to find it on our trail. In an evil moment I asked Jump to hand it to me. As he did so it fell, open, over the nose of my cayoose. As to what happened I decline to explain: there have been many calumnies concerning what ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... was executed for the Dukes of Este, who kept it in a silver frame studded with precious stones and used it as an ornament for their bedrooms, and when they travelled, they took it with them in a casket. When the King of Poland became its possessor, he gave it a second boxing of glass with lock and key. In 1788, this masterpiece ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... it's a sort of alphabet that spells something. Spoon, tumbler, water, sugar,—brandy—that's it. O-t-a-r-d is brandy. Who put these things here? What does it all mean? Don't put sugar here for show, don't put a spoon here for ornament, nor a jug of water. There is only one meaning to it, and that is a very polite invitation from some invisible person to help myself, if I like, to a glass of brandy and sugar, and if I don't like, let it alone. That's my reading. I have a good mind to ask Doctor Franklin about it, though, for ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... a favourite in folk-lore and is an ornament to poetry from the Iliad to our modern day. Such heroines, apparently unknown to the Pagan Arabs, were common in the early ages of Al-Islam as Ockley and Gibbon prove, and that the race is not extinct may be seen in my Pilgrimage (iii. 55) where the sister of Ibn Rumi resolved to take ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... left off the string of pearls. The effect was better without any ornament. Her face was her despair; her eyes were misty and unsure; the color came and went in her cheeks; she could not keep ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... the works of the two authors we may read their manners and natural inclinations, which are wholly different. Virgil was of a quiet, sedate temper; Homer was violent, impetuous, and full of fire. The chief talent of Virgil was propriety of thoughts, and ornament of words; Homer was rapid in his thoughts, and took all the liberties, both of numbers and of expressions, which his language, and the age in which he liv'd, allow'd him. Homer's invention was more copious, Virgil's more confin'd; so that if Homer had not ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... sweet, in her aspect, that were I to have the virtues and the graces all drawn in one piece, they should be taken, every one of them, from different airs and attributes in her. She was born to adorn the age she was given to, and would be an ornament to the first dignity. What a piercing, yet gentle eye; every glance I thought mingled with love and fear of you! What a sweet smile darting through the cloud that overspread her fair face, demonstrating that she had more apprehensions and grief at her heart ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... Methinks such bravery does ill adorn a simple Puritan; one professing such principles should don a plainer robe. Gems, too, upon your sleeves!—is not a bright, but modest eye, a far more precious jewel? If it can be outshone by any other ornament, it ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... not true. Both the father and the son received us with the greatest civility, gave us provisions, and, after some delay, sold us a very large hog for a hatchet A crowd soon gathered round us, but we saw only two people that we knew; neither did we observe a single bead or ornament among them that had come from our ship, though we saw several things which had been brought from Europe: In one of the houses lay two twelve-pound shot, one of which was marked with the broad arrow of England, though the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... observe the manners and appearance of such as came about the house. One person alone was the occasional visitor of the young lady: a man of considerable stature, and distinguished only by the doubtful ornament of a chin-beard in the style of an American deacon. Something in his appearance grated upon Harry; this distaste grew upon him in the course of days; and when at length he mustered courage to inquire of the Fair Cuban who this was, he was yet ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... cunningly engraved in a most unusual way. Rather less than an inch in length, it formed a crescent made up of six oval segments joined one to another, the sixth terminating in a curled point. The first and largest segment ended jaggedly where it had evidently been snapped off from the rest of the ornament—if the thing had formed part of an ornament. Stuart looked up, frowning ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer

... Ragnall diamonds, so I thought that she should see some of them for the first and last time. Do you know I haven't worn these things since George and I went to Court together, and I daresay shall never wear them again, for there is only one ornament I care for and I have got /that/ on ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... delighted with the success of her chance experiment. The jar with the vine in it made a very pretty ornament for her work table. Moreover, the plant needed little care. To keep it fresh she had only to moisten it with a spoonful of water every two or three weeks. And cold weather—even zero weather—did not injure it at all. Friends who called on Mrs. Scribner ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... Stella came in. She wore a plain white dress that seemed to fit her very well, though where she got it from he never discovered, and her luxuriant hair was twisted up into a simple knot. On the bosom of her dress was fixed a spray of brilliant ampelopsis leaves; it was her only ornament, but none could have been more striking. For the rest, although she limped and still looked dark and weary about the eyes, to all appearances she was not much the ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... these:—"the splendid regnal talent, undoubtedly, possessed by the Emperor Nero"—"the expiring scion of a lofty stem"—"the virtuous partner of his couch"—"ah, by Vesta!"—and "I tell thee, Roman." Among the quotations which serve at once for instruction and ornament on the cover of this volume, there is one from Miss Sinclair, which informs us that "Works of imagination are avowedly read by men of science, wisdom, and piety;" from which we suppose the reader is to gather the cheering inference that Dr. Daubeny, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... of the chapel is almost destitute of ornament; if we except the reeded windows, and the double buttresses at the angles of the tower, which is stated to be short of its original height. On the east side, two angular lines mark the connexion which the chapel had with the other ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various

... inevitable Manzur Ali; and, the Begam Sumroo joining in his favour, he was admitted to the presence and fully pardoned. In the same Darbar, the Begam was publicly thanked for her services, and proclaimed the Emperor's daughter, under the title of Zeb-un-Nissa "Ornament ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene

... count gazing wistfully towards Albano. He did not see the charmers as they crept down the rough road close to the garden wall, and went sadly home, along the blooming path, to the 'Tomb of the Four Thimbles,' as Livy irreverently called the ruin which has an ornament at each of its corners like ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... Patroclus necessary to his Achilles, and Virgil an Achates to Aeneas, such examples may well justify the Dramatic Poets in calling in the assistance of associates, who generally appear of more use than ornament to the piece." Besides, were it not for them, long and disgusting soliloquies must be innumerable, especially if there be any plot in the piece of either love, ambition, or conspiracy. In short, as he again says, "they are the mortar which forms ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard

... surrounded by his nine vigorous sons, was the most picturesque figure in Greece. But he had no genius for great things. A sovereignty, which in other hands might have expanded to national dominion, remained with Petrobei a mere ornament and curiosity; and the power of the deeply-rooted clan-spirit of the Maina only made itself felt when, at a later period, the organisation of a united Hellenic ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... was replaced by stone. When temples came to be built of stone, it seems that this plan of terracotta covering was retained for a time, partly from habit, partly because of its fine decorative effect. But it was soon found that marble was capable of withstanding the wear of weather and that the ornament could be applied ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various

... use this room when I am alone; I was forced to praise its tint, which I abominate, and its shape, which is wholly detestable. What would you? I could not wound my good Guiseppe; the vase has remained, the chief ornament—in his eyes—of my drawing-room. Now, thanks to you, my charming child, I am delivered of this encumbrance, and my poor white and gold can appear without this hideous blot ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards

... delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely Apparition sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; A dancing Shape, an Image gay, To haunt, to startle, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... to draw its inspiration from ideals held in common. Then will the architect conceive the city's monument which will no longer be a temple, a prison, or a fortress; then will the painter, the sculptor, the carver, the ornament-worker know where to put their canvases, their statues, and their decoration; deriving their power of execution from the same vital source, and gloriously marching all together towards ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... Ned Cloherty sneaking about the Mall very often lately—like as if he was waiting for somebody. I'm not saying it's for you or me he's waiting; you might know that better than I do. But he's no great ornament to the view there, or anywhere else, as far ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... he would be told to run about in the snow to make them warm. Still more rigid was his training in the special etiquette of the military class, and he was early made to know that the little sword in his girdle was neither an ornament nor a plaything. He was shown how to use it, how to take his own life at a moment's notice, without shrinking, whenever the code of his class ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... here in peace. Go back to Castile, and take with you your bells, your images, and your missions. Continue here, and you only precipitate results. Stay! promise me you will do this, and you shall not lack that which will render your old age an ornament and blessing"; and the stranger ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... home-drawn arrow, never failing at such close quarters to bring the victim to the ground. For one white scalp, however, that dangles in the smoke of an Indian lodge, a dozen black ones at the end of the hunt ornament the ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... country surrounding recalls the Campagna. Two more flights of stairs, most ingeniously contrived and to all appearance hanging on nothing, lead to two other apartments, the top one lighted by glass all round, concealed on the outside by the open ornament that runs round the ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown

... 550 And dredeles past the toyling Hellespont, Famous for amorous Leanders death: And now by gentle Fortunes so am blest, As to behold what mazed thoughtes admire: Heauens wonder, Natures and Earths Ornament, And gaze vpon these firy sun-bright eyes: The Heauenly spheares which Loue and Beauty mooue, These Cheekes where Lillyes and red-roses striue, For soueraignty, yet both do equall raigne: The dangling tresses of thy curled haire, 560 Nets weaud to cach our ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous

... artisan has wended his way along the streets showing his teeth, but then at his own sweet will he can employ those favoured instruments on roast or boiled: hence his smile for those who, gifted with the like weapons, bear them as men bear court swords, for ornament, not use. Alas! the smirk of the well-dressed may be struck into blank astonishment by the fluttering of rags—by a standard of tatters borne by a famine-maddened myriad; the teeth of the dragon want may be sown, and the growth may, as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various

... groan! My gentle kiss (a fishing smack) Shot far amiss and with a hiss I landed pretty well for'ard. A smack I smote with a fearful thwack, A stunning whack across the back, On the upper deck of the Judy Peck. At noon to-day, the fishermen say, We ornament the table— O, wretched deed!—or chicken feed, Two rods ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... of these undertakings was the establishment of the congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri—that great ornament and accession to the force of English Catholicity. Both the London and the Birmingham Oratory must look to you as their founder and as the originator of their characteristic excellences; whilst that of Birmingham has never ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... just the same way. I don't believe she has ever had a day's illness in her life. She will be physicking this parish when my bones are rattling in my coffin, and she will be laying down the laws of literature long after your statue has become a familiar ornament of Westminster Abbey. She's a wonderful woman, ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... purposing to remain at Nuceria until joined by Marcian. Three days later Marcian appeared at the castle He brought no intelligence of the lost ladies. As for their abode, it had been thoroughly pillaged; the treasure chamber was discovered and broken open; not a coin, not a vessel or ornament which had its price, not a piece of silk, had escaped the clutches of ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... always placed with mathematical exactitude, and a set of chairs, so placed as to give one mysteriously the impression that they were not meant to be sat upon. There was also a grate, which never had a fire in it, and was never without a paper ornament in it, the pink and white aspect of which caused ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... "You'll make a pretty ornament, M'sieur Janette," he exclaimed, standing off to contemplate the white thing leering and bobbing at him from the end of its string. "Mon Dieu, I tell you that when the lamp is lighted Bucky Nome must be blind if he doesn't recognize you, ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood

... considered, what more natural than that the Fashionable World should desire to make oblation to this, its newest (and consequently most admired) ornament, and how better than to feed him, since banquets are a holy rite ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... sudden impulse lie cast the ropes aside, and, helping me on with my cloak, threw again over it a heavier cloak he had brought, gave me a fur cap to wear, and at last himself put on me a pair of woollen leggings, which, if they were no ornament, and to be of but transitory use (it seemed strange to me then that one should be caring for a body so soon to be cut off from all feeling), were most comforting when we came into the bitter, steely air. Gabord might easily have given these last tasks to the soldiers, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the red road were beginning to glitter and grow rosy from the far-flushing east, but there was no trace of the owner of the shining waif. He knew that there was no woman in camp, and among his few comrades in the settlement he remembered to have seen none wearing an ornament like that. Again, the coincidence of the inscription to his rather peculiar nickname would have been a perennial source of playful comment in a camp that made no allowance for sentimental memories. He slipped the glittering little ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... father of ceramics. We use the word in its widest, in its etymological sense. Ceramics is the art of fashioning clay and burning it in the fire so as to obtain constructive materials, domestic utensils, or objects of luxury and ornament.[127] ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... more helpful to the latter in a crisis than hard, manual work. Besides, Sarah herself had a sneaking weakness for what she called "dra'in'-room days". For the drawing-room was the storehouse of what treasures had remained over from a past prosperity. It was crowded with bric-a-brac and ornament; and as her mistress took these objects up one by one, to dust and polish them, she would, if she were in a good humour, tell Sarah where and how they had been bought, or describe the places they had originally come from: so that Sarah, pausing ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... most sterile parts of Central America. Here is another kind that I shot in Peru. You see it is very similar but has less orange about it, and its crest is more like a tuft or shaving-brush than the lovely radiating ornament of the other bird. That is almost like a wheel of ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn

... worked along similar lines, but for different reasons. Mrs. Burton strove to make Eve ornamental so that she might acquire millions; Mrs. Williams strove to Anglicize and Europeanize her son so that he might ornament those which were already his. Those little spread eagles, the corpuscles in his blood, folded their wings a trifle as he grew older, and weren't always so ready to scream and boast; but they remained ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... varieties, however, such as triple tail-fins, etc., ought to be called monstrosities; but it is difficult to draw any distinct line between a variation and a monstrosity. As gold-fish are kept for ornament or curiosity, and as "the Chinese are just the people to have secluded a chance variety of any kind, and to have matched and paired from it" (8/52. Mr. Blyth in the 'Indian Field' 1858 page 255.), it might have been predicted that selection would ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... service, but that he much feared he should be compelled to disappoint them. My claims were great, and he was surprised that his predecessors had not acknowledged them by promoting me; that he had no doubt my brother-in-law would have been an ornament to the service had he lived; that I ought to have sent his son's name in long ago, and that he would take the matter into consideration. He desired me to leave my address, advising me not to remain in town, as it might be some time before I was likely to hear from ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston

... reduced to the necessity of using a rude version wherein text and gloss were mingled in inextricable confusion, and the Scriptures were made to countenance the most absurd abuses.[153] The best furnished libraries rarely contained more than a few detached books of the Bible, and these intended for ornament rather than use.[154] Lefevre resolved, therefore, to apply himself to the translation of the Sacred Scriptures from the Latin Vulgate into the French language. In June, 1523, he published a version of the four gospels, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... no ornament could better become a loyal soldier," said Charteris, with just sufficient meaning in his voice to leave the traitors uncertain whether he had penetrated their designs or not. He took advantage of their uncertainty to ride back in ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... objects of household use or ornament, which he had seen all his life without specially noticing them, seemed under the stress of his present mood to acquire a sudden importance and fix themselves indelibly in his memory. There, on a nail driven long before he was born, hung the little round lid- ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... on General Victoria. Found his excellency in a large hall without furniture or ornament of any sort, without even chairs, and altogether in a style of more than republican simplicity. He has just returned the visit, accompanied by ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... doubt me, but listen carefully to what I tell you. Whenever you wish food, you have only to place this ornament in a kettle of boiling water, saying over and over again the names of what you want to eat. In three minutes take off the lid, and there will be your dinner, smoking hot, and cooked more perfectly than any ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman

... that planet is a woman called Ziek-dod who has been dead twelve hundred years. Her writings have been quoted and esteemed as masterpieces all through these ages. Her style is singular, resembling the proverbs of Solomon, with a little more ornament in the language. ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... meritorious efforts in directing man's attention to another world are not rewarded by substantial preferment in this. His secular man believes in cambric bands and silk stockings as characteristic attire for "an ornament of religion and virtue;" hopes courtiers will never forgot to copy Sir Robert Walpole; and writes begging letters to the King's mistress. His spiritual man recognizes no motives more familiar than Golgotha ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... large—just a neat fit In its abiding-place it presents an irregular strip of silk, green as polished malachite, or dark green and grey, or blue and slaty green, mottled and marbled, with crimped edges and graceful folds—an attractive ornament in the drab rock. Touch any part—there is a slow suspensory withdrawal, and then a snap and spurt of water as the last remnant of the living mantle disappears between the interlocking valves of ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... a tree anyway be it large or small. Some are useful food producers while others are of value for ornament or timber. All are good. There are no bad trees. So if you plant and raise a tree there can be no mistake. Whatever kind you select you will have done well. Fruit and nut trees will of course appeal most strongly to the young, especially to those ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low

... become so in name, by 'being married to immortal verse.'"[80] If it is true that Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe possess the "essence and the power of poetry" and require only the addition of verse to become absolutely so,[81] then the musical expression is only a factitious ornament, to be added or removed at the caprice of the writer. But Hazlitt is careful to declare that verse does not make the whole difference between poetry and prose, leaving the whole question as vaguely ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... and fatigue in spite of her strenuous attempts to straighten it. She was clad in a perfectly plain, almost quaker-looking light dove-coloured silk dress, fitting closely, and unrelieved by any ribbon or ornament of any description, so that her whole appearance suggested nothing ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... up thine eyes round about and behold; all these gather themselves together, and they shall come to thee. And as I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on even as ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... sanctified, re-baptized devils? And after all, what do we know of ourselves? And what the spirit that leads us wants TO BE CALLED? (It is a question of names.) And how many spirits we harbour? Our honesty, we free spirits—let us be careful lest it become our vanity, our ornament and ostentation, our limitation, our stupidity! Every virtue inclines to stupidity, every stupidity to virtue; "stupid to the point of sanctity," they say in Russia,—let us be careful lest out of pure honesty we ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... monstrosities. It was not exceptionally big, and was certainly not showy; on the whole, it had the unmistakable air of having been built by a good architect, of the very best materials and in a way to last as long as hewn stone can. Such beauty as it had lay in its proportions and not in any sort of ornament, for it was in fact rather plainer than most of its neighbours ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... fraction less than two hundred in width, while the dome is over two hundred feet in height. Its loftiest tower is over three hundred and sixty feet above the ground; there are a hundred pinnacles in all, and no less than four thousand five hundred marble statues ornament the exterior. The interior consists of a nave with double aisles, and is supported by fifty-two pillars, each fifteen feet in diameter, the summits of which are decked with canopied niches presenting statues in place of the customary capitals. The pavement is finished in marble and ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... cart-loads of specimens of their most valuable wares, for which they asked no other return than her acceptance and her autograph acknowledgment. Gloves, bonnets, shawls, gowns, chairs, carriages, pianos, and almost every imaginable article of use or ornament was named for her. Songs and musical compositions were dedicated to her, and poems were published in her honor. Day after day and week after week her doings formed the most conspicuous news in the ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... down at the mighty rock masses, as they swung low over the mountains, gazing in wonder at the green masses of the strange vegetation; strange, indeed, for they for uncounted ages had grown only mushroom-like cellulose products, and these mainly for ornament, for all their food was artificially made ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... were of similar ornamental character; although the unenclosed shop-fronts present a strange contrast with some of the improvements and superfluities of modern times. The Hall front has lately been renovated, and presents a rich display of architectural ornament. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various

... Holly Scroll Saw with the Drill, we will give free the following valuable list of articles. With this Saw and these splendid Designs any boy or girl ought to make enough money to clothe themselves for a year, besides filling their homes with beautiful articles for ornament and use. ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various

... Round arches. Heavy round or square pillars. Cushion capitals. Elaborate recessed doorways. Zig-zag ornament. ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... temple, is remarkable for its two octagonal minarets, 232 feet above the Ganges. The view from it over the town, especially of the European Resident's quarter, is fine; but the building itself is deficient in beauty or ornament: it commands the muddy river with its thousands of boats, its waters peopled with swimmers and bathers, who spring in from the many temples, water-terraces, and ghats on the city side: opposite is a great sandy plain. The town below looks a mass of poor, square, flat-roofed houses, of ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... very rare quality in a writer. In the decline of great kingdoms, and where refinement in all the arts is carried to an excess, I suppose it is always so. The later Roman writers are remarkable for false ornament; they were without doubt greatly admired by the readers of their own day; and with respect to authors of the present era, the popular among them appear to me to be equally censurable on the same account. Swift and Addison ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... When the center ornament has been adjusted, it may be used as a mathematical base for all the rest of the table appointments. Candlesticks, either of silver or bronze, are artistic when placed at equal distance around the flowers. They diffuse a soft light upon the table, and by being an incentive ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler

... believe, that when the males and females of any animal have the same general habits of life, but differ in structure, colour, or ornament, such differences have been mainly caused by sexual selection: that is, by individual males having had, in successive generations, some slight advantage over other males, in their weapons, means of defence, or charms; which they have transmitted to their male ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... edifice, since which, displays of fire-works have been prohibited in the Park by the civic authorities. At the entrance there is a spacious vestibule, but this, as well as the interior, though elegant in its simplicity of style, is meagre of ornament. Proceeding to the interior, I reached the criminal court, where a squalid-looking prisoner was undergoing trial for murder. The judges and officers of the court were almost entirely without insignia of office, and the counsel employed, I thought, evinced ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... standing up now, watching the canoe which had drawn quite near the bank. In a minute or two longer it touched the land, and the woman rose. She was of small size, but rather squarely built; her long jet black hair, without ornament or attempt at dressing, hung loosely down over her shoulders; she wore mocassins of soft yellow leather ornamented with beads; trousers of black cloth, with a border of the same kind of work, reached her ankles; a cloth skirt, almost ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... Zechariah's vision; his rags are stripped off, and he is clothed anew in a dress of honour. 'Them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also sanctified.' The ring is a token of wealth, position, and honour. It is also a sign of delegated authority, and is an ornament to the hand. So God gives His prodigals, when they come back, an elevation which unforgiven beings do not reach, and sets them to represent Him, and arrays them in strange beauty. No doubt the lad had come back footsore ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... reverence for holy ground and the quiet dead, the tomb must have been destroyed, and the figure defaced and thrown out as rubbish. Then some one later on had brought her to the cottage and set her up as an ornament to the garden, leaning against a tree, and looking very strange and uncomfortable. When Betty and her sister were little children they were half afraid of the tall grim figure, which looked queer and uncanny among the bushes in the twilight, but as they grew older ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham

... most of all the natural beauties of a place must be preserved and trees should be planted. Shade is needed as a good background. There is nothing that will enhance a beautiful statue, fountain or other park ornament like a ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... girl he remembered in her fierce loveliness,—nothing of all her singularities of air and of costume. Nothing? Yes, one thing. Weak and suffering as she was, she had never parted with one particular ornament, such as a sick person would naturally, as it might be supposed, get rid of at once. The golden cord which she wore round her neck at the great party was still there. A bracelet was lying by her pillow; she had ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Nature at one time provides for use, she afterwards turns to ornament," and Herbert Spencer, following out this idea, remarks that "the fairy lore, which in times past was matter of grave belief and held sway over people's conduct, has since been transformed into ornament for The Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault

... gunroom port, where her people made it fast. In a few minutes she came into the bow of her canoe, where she sat weeping with inconsolable sorrow. I gave her many things which I thought would be of great use to her, and some for ornament; she silently accepted of all, but took little notice of any thing. About 10 o'clock we were got without the reef, and a fresh breeze springing up, our Indian friends, and particularly the queen, once more bade us farewell, with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... little silver to begin with. [406] The humble student would not have dared to raise his eyes to a lady of family; but, when he had become a clergyman, he began, after the fashion of the clergymen of that generation, to make love to a pretty waitingmaid who was the chief ornament of the servants' hall, and whose name is inseparably associated with his in ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the first which we have observed in Normandy.—Very little painted glass is to be found in any part of the church; but the glazing of the windows is composed of complicated patterns. This species of ornament was introduced about the time of Louis XIVth; and Felibien, who has given several pattern plates in his treatise on architecture, observes, that it was intended to supply the place of painted glass, which, as it was ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... thus far, has constantly occupied itself in bringing woman up to, and putting her by the side of man. In the barbarous stage of society, woman is the slave and tool of man; in the Asiatic age she is the plaything and ornament with which man amuses himself; but in Christendom there is a tendency to place woman side by side with man in everything, and just as far as it has been done we find the benefit of it. Woman ought to be made the companion of man in his great ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... will usually lead him right when his own unaided reason might be apt to go wrong. The true wife is a staff to lean upon in times of trial and difficulty; and she is never wanting in sympathy and solace when distress occurs or fortune frowns. In the time of youth, she is a comfort and an ornament of man's life; and she remains a faithful helpmate in maturer years, when life has ceased to be an anticipation, and we ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... power. A few grog-blossoms marked the neighbourhood of his nose. He flung back his long drab greatcoat, revealing that beneath it he wore a suit of cinder-gray shade throughout, large, heavy seals, of some metal or other that would take a polish, dangling from his fob as his only personal ornament. Shaking the water-drops from his low-crowned, glazed hat, he said, "I must ask for a few minutes' shelter, comrades, or I shall be wetted to my skin ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... growth had been accelerated by careful culture and rich manure. Every tree in the neighborhood which presented a fair appearance of beauty or stature, had been taken up by its roots and transplanted to the park. Fouquet could well afford to purchase trees to ornament his park, since he had bought up three villages and their appurtenances (to use a legal word) to increase its extent. M. de Scudery said of this palace, that for the purpose of keeping the grounds and gardens well watered, M. Fouquet had divided ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... the roof of the canopy, and in a position which would be directly over the head of the Sultan, is a golden cord, on which is hung a large heart-shaped ornament of gold, chased and perforated with floriated work, and beneath it hangs a huge uncut emerald of fine colour, but of triangular shape, four inches in diameter, and an inch and ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... When he returned to his native town, and became a master, he built house after house—a whole street. It was a very handsome one, and a great ornament to the town. These houses built for him a small house, which was to be his own. But how could the houses build? Ay, ask them that, and they will not answer you; but people will answer for them, and tell you, "It certainly ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... Morrow, for hitherto there had been no occasion grand enough to warrant its being used. At first Mrs. Dudley had been in doubt, but after a few quite reasonable arguments on the part of Polly the little case had been tucked into a safe corner. The beautiful ornament had already fastened Polly's sash a number of times, and it was again called into service for the home party. She was in a hurry when the maid clasped it, for Harold was calling her to come out in the hall and see the caterers bring the things in, and before the ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd

... Chinese women. She was obliged to invent names for them. For instance, the embroidered band a Chinese girl wears as soon as she is old enough not to have her hair shaved in front Nelly called a 'hair-belt,' and the curved, flat ornament sticking out behind An Ching's head she christened 'head-protector.' Nelly was not quite sure that it was good English to invent names, but she said to herself, 'The Chinese call a tea-cosy "a tea-pot's hat" and a sewing machine "an iron tailor."' Greatly to Nelly's surprise and sorrow, ...
— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper

... a ring, Maude," little Anne lisped when the dowager had subsided into her chair again. Maude took no notice; her finger was still lifted with the precious ornament. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... way out we were introduced to the Rev. Mr. Cudworth, chaplain of the regiment. He is a fine-looking man, with black eyes and hair, set off by a white havelock. He wore a sword, and Fred, touching it, asked, 'Is this for use or ornament, sir?' ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... and touching records of naval warfare that we have ever read, and its very simplicity and lack of literary ornament make it the more impressive.... We share the emotions on board, feel the nervous thrill behind the gallant spirit and the cheerful ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi

... has the board of direction been privileged to make to the friends and patrons of this institution a more favorable report than the present. The orphan's home is completed, and the beautiful building on the banks of the Hudson is alike an ornament to the city and a memorial of the liberality of its inhabitants. Within it are found, not only ample accommodations for a numerous family, but a place for the Lord, a habitation for the orphans' God. On the 19th of November last the chapel was opened for ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... simplicity, of which folks talk so much, is great indeed; but only the greatest as long as men are still ignorant of Nature's art of draping her forms with colour, chiaroscuro, ornament, not at the expense of the original design, but in order to perfect it by making it appeal to every faculty instead of those ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... thoughts are courtly and high mannered. A singular analogy exists between the personal attire of a period and its written style. The peaked beard, the starched collar, the quilted doublet, have their correspondences in the high sentence and elaborate ornament (worked upon the thought like figures upon tapestry) of Sidney and Spenser. In Pope's day men wore rapiers, and their weapons they carried with them into literature, and frequently unsheathed them too. They knew how to stab to the heart with an epigram. Style went out with the men ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... Queen, that true ornament of our century, from whom you do not derogate in the love and knowledge of good letters, while amusing herself with the acts of human life, has left such beauteous instructions that there is no one who does not find matter of erudition in them; and, indeed, according to all good judgment, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... discomfort of our modern stoves. In the porch at the frontdoor were two seats, where the Doctor was accustomed to sit in fine weather with his pipe and his book, or with such friends as might call to spend a half hour with him. The lawn in front had scarcely any other ornament than its green grass, cropped short by the Doctor's horse. A stone wall separated it from the lane, half overrun with wild hop, or clematis, and two noble rock-maples arched over with their dense foliage the little red gate. Dark belts of woodland, smooth hill pasture, green, broad meadows, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... is one of the greatest additions to the pleasantness of any place, the Koran often speaks of the rivers of paradise as a principal ornament thereof: some of these rivers, they say, flow with water, some with milk, some with wine, and others with honey; all taking their rise from the ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... ranged all round the chamber. The genie thence led him to the stables, where were some of the finest horses in the world, and the grooms busy in dressing them; from thence they went to the storehouses, which were filled with all things necessary, both for food and ornament. ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... they did not express art for art's sake; anybody could see that; but, after all, there would be days—January days—when a fireplace alone, however beautiful as an ornament, would not make enough impression on the family circle, and scarcely any at all on the up-stairs. Coming up rather quietly somewhat later, she found me sitting under the big maple, surreptitiously studying a range and furnace catalogue borrowed of Westbury. We decided ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine

... indeed any trace, of this primitive edifice, has continued to exist to our day. The structures of the most archaic character throughout Chaldaea are, one and all, the work of King Urukh, who was not content to adorn his metropolitan city only with one of the new edifices, but added a similar ornament to each of the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... way shot an antelope, the greater part of which was given to the Indians. As they were now approaching the place where they had been told by Captain Lewis they would see the white men, the chief insisted on halting: they therefore all dismounted, and Cameahwait with great ceremony and as if for ornament, put tippets or skins round the necks of our party, similar to those worn by themselves. As this was obviously intended to disguise the white men, captain Lewis in order to inspire them with more confidence put his cocked hat and feather on the head of the chief, and as his own over-shirt was in ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... you how I appreciate what you've done for us." Sez I, "I'm a housekeeper and know what it is to fix up for company and how much work it is to git two or three rooms and the front steps and door yard all right for half a dozen folks for jest one afternoon, and then to clear up and ornament as you have more'n twelve hundred acres, and have so many visitors come right onto you and settle down for a six months' stay, I don't ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... efficient and very cheap. The runners, two in number, are lithe little round-headed Kavirondos, generally, their heads shaved to leave a skull cap, clad in scant ragged garments, and wearing each an anklet of little bells. Their passion for ornament they confine to small bright things in their hair and ears. They run easily, with a very long stride. Even steep hills they struggle up somehow, zigzagging from one side of the road to the other, edging along an inch or so at a time. In such places I should infinitely have preferred ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... Moguls, as Irving wrote the tales of the Alhambra, poor little Alhambra, it has its own charm, and it is rather a shame to drag it in beside the buildings of Northern India; how little it seems, its architecture, and ornament, and its stories, compared with these Mogul palaces, forts, and gardens, and the love and war associated with them. I see I have page after page in my journal of attempts to describe the Taj Mahal and its gardens, and now I find them very ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... that, sir, if you'd seen my wig," said the American, with a chuckle. "They came so near catching me that my hair began to rise at the thought of being cut shorter than ever it was cut before, and made into an ornament. They nearly had me before I got to the first terrace. You know I—There's a chap yonder going to send an arrow at us, Chris, ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... and lay hidden, waiting for the raiders. They were in full war dress, which is to say as nearly naked as possible except for their spears, a leg ornament made from the hair of the colobus monkey, a leather apron hung on just as suited the individual wearer's fancy, a great shield, and an enormous ostrich-feather head-dress. They seemed in no hurry, for they probably guessed that the cattle would stop to graze again when the first ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... Life of Johnson has Time done, is Time still doing, what no ornament of Art or Artifice could have done for it. Rough Samuel and sleek wheedling James were, and are not. Their Life and whole personal Environment has melted into air. The Mitre Tavern still stands in Fleet Street; but where now is its scot-and-lot paying, beef-and-ale ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... tales are too vague or shadowy to be convincing; in others the author makes artistic use of some simple object, such as a flower or an ornament, to suggest the mystery that broods over every life. In "The Minister's Black Veil," for example, a clergyman startles his congregation by appearing with a dark veil over his face. The veil itself is a familiar object; on a woman or a bonnet it would pass ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... need," exclaimed the prince, "of an army, not of a crown. A crown is but a childish ornament when the yoke of the ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... your Excellency, is Obadiah Howl-man. I had the distinguished honour, your Excellency, of showing your Excellency over the grounds of the new Mission College. I was the contractor for the erection of that ornament to our little town." And again the oily creature smirked and bowed and did the invisible ...
— Officer And Man - 1901 • Louis Becke

... say that? Well, dear, she is a very poor little girl; with all her rich clothes and her ornaments there is one ornament which I am afraid she will never ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard

... her foot; it was very small, and there was an immense rosette on her slipper. She fixed her eyes for a while on this ornament, and then she looked at the glowing bed of anthracite coal in the grate. "Did you ever see anything so hideous as that fire?" she demanded. "Did you ever see anything so—so affreux as—as everything?" She spoke English with perfect purity; but ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... (butterflies and moths) and on the faces of Hymenoptera (bees; wasps, etc.) has led to the more usual adaptations, and sparseness of hair has its influence in this case. Species of Augochlora are the only insects on which I found pollinia. These bees are very smooth, depending for ornament on the metallic sheen of their bodies. An Halictus repeatedly pulled down the labella (lips) of flowers from which pollinia had not been removed; and the only reason I can assign for its failure to extract pollinia is that it is ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... impressed upon his clear and protruding brow, and the expression of his grey sunken eyes, which were delicately arched, was singularly searching. His figure was slight but compact. His dress was plain, but a model in its fashion. He was habited entirely in black, and his only ornament were his studs, which were turquoise and of great size: but there never were such boots, so ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... equal attention to the office of an historian. His facts are coldly and carelessly stated. They neither inform the reader, nor interest him. Many of them are erroneous, and most of them defective and obscure. It is undoubtedly both an ornament, and a useful addition to history, to accompany it with maxims and reflections. They afford likewise an agreeable change to the style, and a more diversified manner of expression; but it is absolutely ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine

... flung on them. Then a large elbow-chair covered with dirty-white dimity, with my cravat and shirt collar thrown over the back. Then a chest of drawers with two of the brass handles off, and a tawdry, broken china inkstand placed on it by way of ornament for the top. Then the dressing-table, adorned by a very small looking-glass, and a very large pincushion. Then the window—an unusually large window. Then a dark old picture, which the feeble candle dimly showed me. It was a picture of a fellow in a high Spanish hat, crowned with a plume of towering ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... to a fault, a lily-white maid with the silkiest of flaxen tresses. Her pale-blue eyes, with their light lashes, and rather colorless little face with its straight features were of the petite fairy type. You felt instinctively that, like a Dresden china vase, she was made more for ornament than for use, and nobody—even school-mistresses—expected too much from her. Experience had shown them that ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... any other which was her home. "'Tis all too grand for me, your Grace," he would say; "I am a country yokel, and have hunted and drank, and lived too hard to look well among town gentlemen. I must be drunk at dinner, and when I am in liquor I am no ornament to a duchess's drawing-room. But what a woman you have grown," he would say, staring at her and shaking his head. "Each time I clap eyes on you 'tis to marvel at you, remembering what a baggage you were, and how you kept from slipping by the way. There was Jack ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... over South Greece in the first Late Minoan period. Characterized by exuberance both in shape and ornament (III, Figs. 11, 12, 13, 16, 17). Bulk of what is likely to be found is of latest period when style has become conventionalized. Compare Fig. 11 (Mycenaean) with III, Fig. 7 Late Minoan I. Characteristic shapes high goblet and 'stirrup' ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various

... passed away, and the Venetian Senate, anxious not to lose so bright an ornament, renewed his appointment for another six years ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... in a square, cheerless, dimly-lighted room pervaded by a musty smell, that had for only furniture a couple of chairs and a praying-stool, and for only ornament a great, gaunt crucifix hanging upon ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... reasons send each of these girls a piece of chintz; and to Patty, who bears the name of Mrs. Washington, and who waited more upon us than Polly did, I send five guineas, with which she may buy herself any little ornament she may want, or she may dispose of them in any other manner more agreeable to herself. As I do not give these things with a view to having it talked of, or even to its being known, the less there is said about the matter the better you will please ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... ornaments on carthorses, 'J. D.' writes from Dover: 'Anyone who has lived in Spanish countries must be struck on going to East Kent by the gay trappings of the farmers' horses on gala days, in which the national colours of Spain, scarlet and orange yellow, and the "glittering brazen" ornament of the crescent and the cross, so generally prevail. Their history must date from the introduction of the Flemish breed of horses to this country, showing that as the Moors carried the crescent to Spain, so the Spaniards ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies

... fusuma, on which kirin (fabulous monsters) are depicted on a dead gold ground, and four oak panels, 8 feet by 6, finely carved, with the phoenix in low relief variously treated. In the Abbot's room there are similar panels adorned with hawks spiritedly executed. The only ecclesiastical ornament among the dim splendours of the chapel is the plain gold gohei. Steps at the back lead into a chapel paved with stone, with a fine panelled ceiling representing dragons on a dark blue ground. Beyond ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird



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