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Parchment   Listen
noun
Parchment  n.  
1.
The skin of a lamb, sheep, goat, young calf, or other animal, prepared for writing on. See Vellum. "But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar."
2.
The envelope of the coffee grains, inside the pulp.
Parchment paper. See Papyrine.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Parchment" Quotes from Famous Books



... books. We realized we'd got to have some books to make this room look finished off. We bought hers in paper covers and have had them beautifully bound. Just look here." She went to take a specimen from the bookcase, a white parchment volume with gold tooling, a crimson fleur-de-lys painted on the front cover. "Aren't they lovely? An idea! We'll take some of them up to her and ask her to write her name in them. Wouldn't ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... Andrea Panelling Panier fleuri Parchment Paper Shades for Lights Passepartout Peasant China Peasant Lace Pergolese, Michael Angelo Pericles Period Rooms Pesaro Pharmacy Jars (See Medicine Jars) Phidias Photographs Picture Frames Pictures Pietra-dura Pilasters Poitiers, ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood

... too much, ye ask for more; I am not skill'd in your clerkly lore, I scorn your logic; I had rather die Than live like Hugo of Normandy: I am a Norseman, frank and plain; Ye must read the parchment over again. ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... women among the Rejects who had been specialists in various fields. There were a few books that had survived the trampling of the unicorns and others could be written with ink made from the black lance tree bark upon parchment made from the thin inner skin ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin

... called Sir Tristrem, which has been so often altered and abridged as to bear little resemblance to the original. Hugonet, who well knew the value in which this poem was held by the ancient lords of the castle, took the parchment volume from the shelves of the library, and laid it upon a small desk adjacent to the Baron's chair. Having made such preparation for putting it in safety, he fell into a brief reverie, in which the decay of light, and the preparations for the Douglas Larder, but especially ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... apples were joined together, a larger and a smaller one; the former was directed away from the centre of the tree as usual, while the smaller one was pointed in exactly the opposite direction. The larger fruit had the customary parchment-like carpels, the ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... Margaret, the Emperor's sister [Editor's note: Actually, she was his aunt], a whole set of all my works, and have drawn her two pictures on parchment with the greatest pains and care; all this I have put at 30 florins, and I have had to draw the design of the house for her physician, the doctor, according to which he intends to build one, and for drawing ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer

... may be, for the maintenance of any slave or slaves that may be aged or infirm, either of body or mind, to prevent their becoming chargeable to the county. And every slave so emancipated shall have a certificate of freedom from the clerk of such court on parchment with the county seal affixed thereto, for which the clerk shall charge the emancipator five shillings; saving, however, the rights of creditors and every person or persons, bodies politic and corporate, except the heirs or legal representatives ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... Six days ago there arrived from the conference at Versailles a high army officer, acting for this occasion as a confidential messenger of the Administration. He brought with him a certain communication—a single small sheet or strip of parchment paper containing about twelve or fifteen typewritten lines. But those few lines were about as important and, under certain circumstances, as dangerous a collection of typewritten lines as it is possible to ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... and Books Made Permanent Records.—At first all records were made by pen, pencil, or stylus, and manuscripts were represented on papyrus paper or parchment, and could only be duplicated by copying. In Alexandria before the Christian era one could buy a copy of the manuscript of a great author, but it was at a high price. It finally became customary for monks, ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... Urbain Grandier to me. 'Did they tremble at deceiving themselves?' They work the work of the just. The question! They bind his limbs with ropes to make him speak. His skin cracks, tears away, and rolls up like a parchment; his nerves are naked, red, and glittering; his bones crack; the marrow spurts out. But the judges sleep! they dream of flowers and spring. 'How hot the grand chamber is!' says one, awaking; 'this man has not chosen to speak! Is the torture ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... a parchment scroll Whereon the beautiful, the true, Are registered; and in his soul Mrs. Smith: I do love poetry, ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley

... gone on for some years the diggings broke out, and there was an awful overturn of everything in Melbourne. I made a lot of money, and I bought the shop from the landlord, and was very proud to get my title-deed written out on parchment, and to see myself a woman of landed heritable property; and then I made my will, too, for I had something to leave. I never was doing better in business in my life than when Robbie Lowrie, a brother of Sandy's, came out to go to the diggings, and ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... are comparatively legible, those of Sumatra, designated in early days as "the older Java," resemble a dim palimpsest, marred by erasure or hiatus, and barely decipherable beneath the lettering on the surface of the age-worn parchment. ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... multitudinous buds of the Madras rose, also examine the buds of the Persian rose, to prevent the bursting of the calyx by tying with thread, or with a piece of parchment, or ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... finished, Horn and Egmont, accompanied by the other gentlemen, proceeded to the "Jassy" house, then occupied by Alva, to take part in the deliberations proposed. They were received by the Duke with great courtesy. The engineer, Pietro Urbino, soon appeared and laid upon the table a large parchment containing the plan and elevation of the citadel to be erected at Antwerp. A warm discussion upon the subject soon arose, Egmont, Horn, Noircarmes and others, together with the engineers Urbino and Pacheco, all ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the former proprietor, by descent from our ancestors, or by the last will and testament of the dying owner; not caring to reflect that (accurately and strictly speaking) there is no foundation in nature, or in natural law, why a set of words upon parchment should convey the dominion of land; why the son should have a right to exclude his fellow creature from a determinate spot of ground, because his father had so done before him; or why the occupier of a particular field, or of a jewel, when lying on his death bed, and no longer able to maintain ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various

... puerile, absurd, odious. Madame Martin, whom Choulette and the rain saddened, thought the trip would never end. When she reached the house she found Miss Bell in the drawing-room, copying with gold ink on a leaf of parchment, in a handwriting formed after the Aldine italics, verses which she had composed in the night. At her friend's coming she raised her little face, plain but ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France

... he will say anything. He will hardly venture to press on me anything copied from that old parchment. As he will wear a suit of armor obviously made the other day in Birmingham, why—!" Mrs. Byron shrugged her shoulders, and did not take sufficient interest in the manager's ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... said; "he'll see you pretty soon;" and, with an air of some surprise, Rogers obeyed. His sere, dull-brown whiskers and the moustache closing over both lips were incongruously and illogically clerical in effect, and the effect was heightened for no reason by the parchment texture of his skin; the baldness extending to the crown of his head was like a baldness made up for the stage. What his face expressed chiefly was a bland and beneficent caution. Here, you must have said to yourself, is a man of just, sober, and prudent views, fixed purposes, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... beautiful old parchment In which the sun And the moon Keep their diary. To read it all, One must be a linguist More learned than Father Wisdom; And a visionary More clairvoyant than Mother Dream. But to feel it, One must be an apostle: One who is more than intimate In having ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... quillwork; the upper part is fastened over the shoulders by strips of leather; a flap or cape hangs down about a foot before and behind, and is ornamented with quillwork and fringe. This covering is quite loose, but tied around the waist with a belt of stiff parchment fastened on the side, where also some ornaments are suspended. The sleeves are detached from the body garment; from the wrist to the elbow they are sewed, but thence to the shoulder they are open underneath and drawn up ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... 'selfishness' I dared believe I was free from, I hardly meant the low faults of ... I shall say, a different organization to mine—which has vices in plenty, but not those. Besides half a dozen scratches with a pen make one stand up an apparent angel of light, from the lawyer's parchment; and Doctors' Commons is one bland smile of applause. The selfishness I deprecate is one which a good many women, and men too, call 'real passion'—under the influence of which, I ought to say 'be mine, what ever happens to you'—but I know better, and you know best—and ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... Apedefers. By the memory of the decretals, said Friar John, tell us, I pray you, what you honest men here live on? Could not a man take a chirping bottle with you to taste your wine? I can see nothing among you but parchment, ink-horns, and pens. We live on nothing else, returned Double-fee; and all who live in this place must come through my hands. How, quoth Panurge, are you a shaver, then? Do you fleece 'em? Ay, ay, their purse, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... that your father was furious would hardly express his state of mind. I have already said that the whole amount of cash left was barely enough for the funeral expenses. The bonds which were found proved to be so many worthless pieces of parchment. The jewellery of recent workmanship consisted of a set of valueless shirt-studs and a watch that would not have fetched ten florins at auction. Of silver there was a tablespoon, a teaspoon, a ladle, and two or three pieces ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... Then they settled back into their former immobility. Some stared at us vacantly; others lowered their eyelids and rubbed their hands together softly, with a terrible subservience. If we brushed close to one, he cringed like a dog who fears a kick. Yellow, parchment-like faces, all with the high-bridged, curving noses, and the black, animal-like eyes. I was as definitely separated from them as though tangible iron bars were between us. We seemed to be looking at each other across a great gulf. "They are human beings," I said to myself. "I am one with them." ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce

... "Thou shalt bind them on thy hand, and they shall be ever before thy eyes [Vulg.: 'they shall be and shall move between thy eyes'], the Pharisees gave a false interpretation to these words, and wrote the decalogue of Moses on a parchment, and tied it on their foreheads like a wreath, so that it moved in front of their eyes": whereas the intention of the Lord in giving this commandment was that they should be bound in their hands, i.e. in their works; ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... stepped to a locker, rummaged in it a moment, and drew out a faded piece of yellow parchment, which he spread on the table. It was a map or chart. In the centre of it was a circle. In the middle of the circle was a small dot and a letter T, while at one side of the map was a letter N, and against it on the other side ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... was covered with tanned deerskin, firmly stretched. The sides were often elaborately carved and tastefully painted. This drum was placed upright on a stand in front of the player and the notes were produced by striking the parchment with the tips ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton

... them, the reader must go carefully through the book, seeing that the catch-words, if there are any, answer to the head lines; and if there are "signatures," that is, if the foot of the leaves of a sheet of parchment has any mark for enabling the binder to "gather" them correctly, going through them, and seeing that each signed ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... either party. Susan put Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Gage to work on a Women's Declaration of 1876, and so "magnificent" a document did they produce that she not only had many copies printed for distribution but had one beautifully engrossed on parchment for presentation to President Grant at the Fourth of July celebration in ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... cursed room, a swaying, swirling maelstrom of death, while the air grew thick with miasma, the floor foul with shreds of shrouds, and yellow parchment, clattering bones, and wisps of ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram

... could only look with wondering contempt on the antiquated stuff which it rejoiced me to gather from that kindly stall, or from the richer shelves within. My Cicero's Letters for instance: podgy volumes in parchment, with all the notes of Graevius, Gronovius, and I know not how many other old scholars. Pooh! Hopelessly out of date. But I could never feel that. I have a deep affection for Graevius and Gronovius and the rest, and if I knew as much as they did, I should be well satisfied ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... mirrors of polished copper set in frames of gems that he did not recognize. Upon the wall were mended bits of purple tapestry, embroidered or painted or woven in singular patterns of flora and birds that St. George could not name. There were rolls of parchment, and vases of rock-crystal, and a little apparatus, most delicately poised, for weighing unknown, delicate things; and jars and cups without handles, all baked of a soft pottery having a nap like the down of a peach. Over the windows hung curtains of lace, woven by hands which St. George could ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... until I shall be authorized so to do by the proper authorities of the Orange institution; that I will neither write it, nor indite it, stamp, stain, or engrave it, nor cause it so to be done, on paper, parchment, leaf, bark, stick, or stone, or anything, so that it may be known; and I do further swear, that I have not, to my knowledge or belief, been proposed and rejected in, or expelled from any other Orange Lodge; and that I now become an Orangeman ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... scrivener to come to him, and on the low wall overlooking the sea the man of inkhorn and goosequill laid his parchment, and wrote a letter to Sir Marhaus at the king's dictation, saying that a knight would battle with him in the morning. A messenger was sent therewith without delay, and the king went into supper, snapping his fingers and joking with his barons in ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... transcription, the splendor of the binding (which was often gorgeous to excess), and by the beauty and richness of the illuminations. Many of the manuscripts of the middle ages are magnificent in the extreme; sometimes inscribed in liquid gold on parchment of the richest purple, and adorned with ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... bell-cord, and the old-fashioned North Country landlady came—tall, thin, parchment-faced, musty-looking as though she had been dressed up in Victorian garments in 1880 and left to stand in an unaired parlor ever since. She glowered silent disapproval at the presence of Mr. Wrenn in Istra's ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... red face, keen blue eyes, and strong, square jaws: a typical specimen of the old-time British sailor. Hugh Maclean, on the other hand, was a lean and lank Australian, of evident Scottish ancestry. His long, aquiline nose and high cheek-bones were tightly covered with a parchment-like skin, bronzed almost to the hue of leather. He wore a close-cropped, pointed beard, and the deep-set gray eyes that looked out from under the peak of his seaman's cap twinkled ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... ebony cabinet of which La Belle Nita had spoken. She moved towards it. Somehow or other, she found herself with the other key in her hand, stooping down. She counted the drawers—one, two three—fitted in the key, turned it, and realised with a little start the presence in the drawer of a roll of parchment, tied around with tape and sealed with a black seal. She laid her hand upon it, but even at that moment she felt a shiver pass through her body. There had been no sound in the room, which she could have sworn had been empty when she entered it, yet she ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... The thread can be arranged so as to be thicker in the centre than at the edges by laying some extra stitches over that part. If a quite flat padding is required, the shape, cut out in cloth, felt, or parchment, is attached by stitches to the material as shown in fig. 102; the surface stitching would be taken across it. Cardboard, sometimes pasted on to the ground, is used for this purpose, but it is unsatisfactory in several ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie

... Runacles proceeded to explain the will in a hard, methodical voice, nodding his head whenever he reached a point of importance at the parchment which rustled between Captain Barker's fingers. For a while this rustle sounded like the whisper of ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of an Empire block I came upon an old, old negro woman, parchment-skinned and doddering, living alone in a stoop-shouldered shanty of boxes and tin cans. "Ah don' know how ol' ah is, mahster," was one of her replies, "but ah born six years befo' ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... the Imperial Guard, had been nicknamed Dagobert. His grave, stern countenance was strongly marked; his long, gray, and thick moustache completely concealed his upper lip, and united with a large imperial, which almost covered his chin; his meagre cheeks, brick-colored, and tanned as parchment, were carefully shaven; thick eyebrows, still black, overhung and shaded his light blue eyes; gold ear-rings reached down to his white-edged military stock; his topcoat, of coarse gray cloth, was confined at the waist ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... figure either carved in metal or stone, or delineated on parchment or paper, made with superstitious ceremonies under what was supposed to be the special influence of the planetary bodies, and believed to possess occult powers of protecting the maker or possessor from danger. The figure in the text is ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... told me that he had three hundred and sixty-five, a new one for every day. He would come on deck every morning, display his fresh necktie, and receive a compliment upon its color and appropriateness, and then take from his pocket a huge water-proof envelope. From this he would unroll his parchment appointment as a diplomat, and the letters he had to almost every one of distinction in Europe. On the last day, going through the same ceremony, he said to me: "I am not showing you these things out of vanity, but to impress upon you the one ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... and I were frankly on tiptoe with excitement, but old Roger's hand was steady as a rock as he unfolded the stiff yellow parchment and spread before us the marriage certificate of Lockwood Lee Prynne and Maria Teresa—alas, the shape of a fatally hot coal had burned through the rest of the name! We skipped eagerly to the next place of handwriting, the officiating ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... he was concerned all went well. A multitude accompanied him to Mile End Fields, and then, on his demanding that they should frankly tell him what were their grievances, they handed to him a parchment containing the four points that have from the first been asked for, and all of which are reasonable enough. The king, after reading them, told them in a loud voice that he was willing to grant their desires, and would forthwith issue a charter bestowing these four ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... collection, in neat parchment bindings, with very beautifully written titles, was placed in a separate attic. The acquisition of new books, as well as their binding and arrangement, he pursued with great composure and love of order; and he was much influenced in his opinion by the critical notices ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... when I had first seen him. The old wistful look in his eyes had almost entirely gone, while the parchment-like skin had become almost as smooth and ruddy as ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking

... ink the ocean fill, Were the whole world of parchment made, Were every single stick a quill, Were every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God alone Would drain the ocean dry; Nor could the scroll contain the whole Though ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... tasking their ingenuity to make palatable food of the hides of cattle, next of the skins of horses, dogs, and asses. The stock of even this unsavory material soon became exhausted; whereupon, not very unnaturally, parchment was turned to good account. Manuscripts a good century old were eaten with relish. Soaked for a couple of days in water, and afterward boiled as much longer, when they became glutinous they were fried, like tripe, or prepared with herbs and spices, after the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... join;—there are methods of operating on Russia, and kindling a poor fat Czarina into strange suspicions and indignations. In May, 1746, within six months of the Peace of Dresden, a Treaty of Petersburg, new version of the Warsaw one, was brought to parchment; Czarina and Empress-Queen signing,—Bruhl dying to sign, but not daring. How Russia has been got to join, and more and more vigorously bear a hand; how Bruhl's rabidities of appetite, and terrors of heart, have continued ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle

... [2] A piece of parchment inscribed with a passage of Scripture, rolled in a case and tacked to the doorpost. The pious touch or kiss this when ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... the encampment; up to every move on the board. He wanted to have a deal with me for Jessy. But 'pon my honor, we had a good time of it. There was the old tinker, mending the shaft, in his fur cap, with a black pipe, one inch long, sticking out of his mouth; and the old brown parchment of a mother, with her head in a red handkerchief, smoking a ditto pipe to the tinker's, who told our fortunes, and talked like a printed book. Then there was his wife, and the slip of a girl who bowled ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... be converted into a Will in the event of his death (a curious example of the validity attaching to all acts of notaries in those days), should never have been superseded, but should actually have been so converted after his death, as the existence of the parchment seems to prove. But for this circumstance we might suppose the Marcolino mentioned in the ensuing paragraph to have been a son of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... foolish to imagine that a philosopher would think it worth while to search for gold, as a metal. He would not even consider the ambition worthy the parchment used to preserve the ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... crying, of course, making a low inarticulate whimper like a frightened child. Miss Higglesby-Browne seemed to have petrified. Her skin had a withered look, and a fine network of lines showed on it, suddenly clear, like a tracery on parchment. Beyond her I saw the face of Dugald Shaw, gray with a steely wrath. A gun had been trained anew on him and Cuthbert, and the bearer thereof was arguing with them profanely. I suppose the prisoners had threatened outbreak at the ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... while the Countess was in a notary's office, for the purpose of signing some deeds, that a tall, grave, and eccentric-looking old gentleman entered, and seeing the notary engaged, took his seat to wait his turn. After completing her signature of the deeds, the Countess, raising her eyes from the parchment, perceived that she was the object of close and keen observation of the eccentric old gentleman with the very brilliant and piercing eyes. A single glance served to bring that face and form distinctly back to her memory. Rushing up to the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the Curupira, and other demons or spirits of the forest. They were all very appropriate to the time and place, for now and then a yell or a shriek resounded through the gloomy wilderness around the shed. One old parchment-faced fellow, with a skin the colour of mahogany, seemed to be a capital story-teller; but I was sorry I did not know enough of the language to follow him in all the details which he gave. Amongst other things, he related an adventure he had once had with a jaguar. He got up from his hammock ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... not hard lines, but broken and irregular. I saw the same appearance in nature, and strained every nerve to give it. If I could hit off this edgy appearance, and insert the reflected light in the furrows of old age in half a morning, I did not think I had lost a day. Beneath the shrivelled yellow parchment look of the skin, there was here and there a streak of the blood-colour tinging the face; this I made a point of conveying, and did not cease to compare what I saw with what I did (with jealous, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... beasts; old gold ornaments, torques, blue-stone necklaces, under glass-cases, were in the library; huge rings that must have given the wearers fearful fists; a shirt of coarse linen with a pale brown spot on the breast, like a fallen beech-leaf; and many sealed parchment-skins, very precious, for an inspection of which, as Patrick was bidden to understand, History humbly knocked at the Earlsfont hall-doors; and the proud muse made her transcripts of them kneeling. He would have been affected by these wonders ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... unprovided with the resources for teaching, or to provide these resources anywhere on the spur of the moment In the twelfth century, on the contrary, the only necessary equipment consisted in the master, his small library which could be carried by one man; wax tablets, or pens, ink, and vellum or parchment for the students; and any kind of a shelter which would serve as a protection from the weather. Not even benches or chairs were necessary, for students commonly sat upon the straw-strewn floors of the lecture rooms. Thus the school might easily follow the teacher in his ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton

... Parchment, is that the sacred fount whence roll Waters, he thirsteth not who once hath quaffed? Oh, if it gush not from thine inmost soul, Thou has not ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... was a withered old woman, yellow as parchment, with a mass of thick grey hair gathered in a single knot at the back of her head. She wore heavy rings on her fingers, and large earrings; her small piercing eyes had a look of burnt-out passion; and her countenance wore in a stronger ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie

... forest stream. Many a New Brunswick belle has worn it for a head-dress as the dames of more polished lands do frames of French willow; and it is said the title deeds of many a broad acre in America have been written on no other parchment than its smooth and vellum-like folds. The sugar-maker's bark-covered hut contains his bedding and provisions, consisting of little save the huge round loaf of bread, known as the "shanty loaf"—his beverage, or ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan

... this word upon the temple wall Is by a rivet clenched, and shall abide: Not upon wax inscribed and delible, Nor upon parchment sealed and stored away.— Lo, thou hast heard our free mouths speak their will: Out from our presence—tarry ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... speak to me," she once whispered as they passed. And again she wrote on a slip of parchment, "Remember my ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... of my employees. Soon after quitting Cumberland we struck the Saskatchewan River, and, turning eastward along it, entered the great region of marsh and swamp. During five days our course lay through vast expanses of stiff frozen reeds, whose corn-like stalks rattled harshly against the parchment sides of the cariole as the dog-trains wound along through their snow-covered roots. Bleak and dreary beyond expression stretched this region of frozen swamp for fully 100 miles. The cold remained all the time ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... learn that starvation stared him in the face; the fishing, that promised so well when I passed, having entirely failed, and no deer were to be found. He wrote me, however, that he would maintain his post while a piece of parchment remained ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... few who feared him; many who despised him; some who hated him; and from east to west of his kingdom it is doubtful whether a dozen loved or admired him. In appearance he was cadaverous-looking, tall and thin, with a stoop in his shoulders. His skin was parchment-colored, and his eyes heavy and slow ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... died a Cardinal very rich, and left behind him great store of money; shortly before his death he made his will, and laid it in a chest where the money was. After his death the chest was opened, and therein, by the money, was found lying a bull, written on parchment, with these words: ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... other shops—those of a mealman, a lapidary, a cordwainer—namely, a shoemaker; a lindraper, for they had not yet added the syllable which makes it linen; a lorimer, who dealt in bits and bridles; a pouchmonger, who sold bags and pockets; a parchment-maker; a treaclemonger, a spicer, a chandler, and a pepperer, all four the representatives of our modern grocer; an apothecary; a scrivener, who wrote for the numerous persons who could not write; a fuller, who cleaned clothes; a tapiser, who sold tapestry, universally used for hangings ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... strange woman (they asked one another), short and slight, with a face like yellow parchment and with short, straight brown hair, who smiled as she gathered the little tribe of African girls round her ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews

... youths, is a schoolroom; to the clients, a passage; to the chief, a laboratory. The greasy furniture is handed down to successive owners with such scrupulous care, that in some offices may still be seen boxes of remainders, machines for twisting parchment gut, and bags left by the prosecuting parties of the Chatelet (abbreviated to Chlet)—a Court which, under the old order of things, represented the present Court of ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac

... the woman from the scrap of her dress. From the cess-pool, it re-constitutes the city; from mud, it reconstructs manners; from the potsherd it infers the amphora or the jug. By the imprint of a finger-nail on a piece of parchment, it recognizes the difference which separates the Jewry of the Judengasse from the Jewry of the Ghetto. It re-discovers in what remains that which has been, good, evil, the true, the blood-stain of the palace, the ink-blot of the cavern, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... from the nailing up of these Theses that the history of the Great Reformation dates; for the hammer-strokes which fixed that parchment started the Alpine avalanche which overwhelmed the pride of Rome and broke the stubborn power which had reigned supreme for a ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

... easy-chair, not yet able to talk. She was greatly shocked at the change in him; the once fine, marble-like face was horribly wasted, so that the sharp unsightly bones looked as if they would cut their way through the deadly dry parchment-yellow skin that covered them; and the deep blue eyes now looked preternaturally large and bright—all the brighter for the dark purple stains beneath them. He was low indeed, nigh unto death perhaps; yet he did not appear cast down ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... solitary's delight and riches in peace, his darts and arms in war, his food in famine and his medicine in sickness. Henry asked why his scribes did not make copies. The answer was that there was no parchment. "How much money do you want?" asked the king. "One silver mark," was the ungrasping request. Henry laughed and ordered ten marks to be counted out and promised a complete "divine library" besides. The Winchester monks had just completed ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson

... Cesar was not pleasant. His parchment skin, showing dead white on his cranium through the thin wisps of dirty brown hair, seemed to be glued directly and tightly upon his big bones, Without being in any way deformed, he was the nearest approach which I have ever seen or could imagine to what is commonly understood by ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... He cherished a secret desire to belong to the Order, but would not have mentioned it for the world, for how could he help? He wrote the motto in his note-book, and then for weeks spent all his spare time copying it on parchment in letters taken from an old English missal, one of his father's treasures, drawing and coloring them with greatest care. When it was done it was really beautiful, and Jim, who was in the secret, had it nicely framed and presented it, as we know, at ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard

... entered the house. Sir Jervis took me into the dining-room—and there sat Miss Redwood, with a large black cat on her lap. Older than her brother, taller than her brother, leaner than her brother—with strange stony eyes, and a skin like parchment—she looked (if I may speak in contradictions) like a living corpse. I was presented, and the corpse revived. The last lingering relics of former good breeding showed themselves faintly in her brow and in her smile. You will hear more of Miss Redwood presently. In the meanwhile, Sir Jervis ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... Vincent, of Havre, states, from his own experience of long continuance, that when bottles containing wine are closed by tying a piece of parchment or bladder over their mouths, instead of using corks in the ordinary manner, the wine acquires, in a few weeks only, those qualities which is only given by age in the ordinary way after many years.—Nouveau Jour, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various

... nourished! The expression of his countenance, lengthy and not too cheerful to begin with, at times was positively appalling. Set a Tartuffe's all-devouring eyes, and the sour humor of an Alceste in a sallow-parchment visage, and try to imagine for yourself the gait, bearing, and expression of a man who thought himself as good a doctor as the illustrious Bianchon, and felt that he was held down in his narrow lot by an iron hand. He could not ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... perform the engagement which compelled me to leave him, with the utmost despatch. On entering Miss Carlton's apartment, I assumed an air of as much tranquillity as possible. I found the lady seated at a desk, with pen in hand and parchment before her. She greeted me with affectionate dignity, and caught from my countenance that cheerfulness of which on my entrance ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... aspect of a very old man conserving his strength for important occasions. He spoke seldom, leaving the initial statement of the French case to his ministers or officials; he closed his eyes often and sat back in his chair with an impassive face of parchment, his gray gloved hands clasped in front of him. A short sentence, decisive or cynical, was generally sufficient, a question, an unqualified abandonment of his ministers, whose face would not be saved, or a display of obstinacy ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... silence again ensued, and then one of the lawyers opened the cause. He began by reading from an immense roll of parchment the general charges against Mr. Hastings, but he read in so monotonous a chant that nothing more could I hear or understand than now and then the ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... it, Mr. Anderson; I can't indeed," replied the owner, picking up the parchment. "And I'll tell you why. My brother and I have been thinking matters over, and we've really been obliged to confess, for conscience' sake, that the Chrysolite is ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various

... parade, half negligently, from the dregs of his collection by a dealer in old curiosities at Crema. The cross was, or is—for it is lying on the table now before me—twenty-one inches in length, made of strong wood, covered with coarse yellow parchment, and shod at the four ends with brass. The Christ is roughly hewn in reddish wood, coloured scarlet, where the blood streams from the five wounds. Over the head an oval medallion, nailed into the cross, serves as framework to a miniature of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... squire, the son of Richard, and father of Duncan Yordas, with fierce satisfaction struck the bosom of his heavy Bradford riding-coat, and the crackle of parchment replied to the blow, while with the other hand he drew rein on the brink of the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... my leg began to be filled with a tightness and throbbing which increased every hour, and presently it began to swell also, till the skin was stretched like drawn parchment. I was taken, too, with a sickness, that racked me violently, and if one of the greater and more dangerous beasts had come upon me then, he would have eaten me without a fight. With the fall of darkness I managed to haul myself up into a tree, and ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... chair, or "the throne," as he called it, with sceptre or poker in hand; and the club was thereupon styled by acclamation "The Poker Club." I have seen my father's diploma of membership; it was tastefully drawn on parchment, with the poker duly emblazoned on it as the regalia ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... claimants, that the lawyer had begged him to undertake the management of the whole business. In his youth, my uncle would have liked nothing better than going over to Ireland himself, and ferreting out every scrap of paper or parchment, and every word of tradition respecting the family. As it was, old and gouty, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... imagines that the man of such a career was an OLD stager—some long-visaged, parchment-faced fellow the OTHER side of forty at least. Well, this hero of the gaming table, Henry Weston, was aged only TWENTY-THREE years! What terrible times those must have been ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... into the evening Mr. Quest was employed in drafting, and with his own hand engrossing on parchment certain deeds, for the proper execution of which he seemed to find constant reference necessary to a tin box of ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... acknowledge that the whole school of Deism, 'rational' or 'spiritual,' have the least reason in the world to indulge in sneers at book-faith; for, upon my word, their faith has consisted in little else. Their systems are parchment religions, my friend, all of them;—books, books, for ever, from Lord Herbert's time downwards, are all they have yet given to the world. They have ever been boastful and loud-tongued, but have done nothing; there are no great social efforts, no organizations, no practical ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... himself the momentary luxury of surveying the loaded shelves of the noted Circular Study wherein he now was seated. The great writing-table, with its priceless bronze head of Cicero and its luxurious appointments; the morocco, parchment, the vellum backs of the rare works about; the busts above the belles-lettres, afforded him visible, if aesthetic enjoyment. In a gap between two tall bookcases a Persian curtain partially concealed the glass doors of a huge conservatory. Mr. Belford liked ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... demanded the charter in so decided tones that the reluctant governor gave orders that it should be produced. The box containing it was brought into the chamber and laid upon the table, the cover removed, and there before their eyes lay the precious parchment, the charter of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Luther and myself—in a certain room in Cambridge, Massachusetts, not far from the University in that neighborhood where Luther had attended the Law School and the rest of us, on our respective graduation days, had received valuable pieces of parchment with the presidential signature attached. The conversation had already run through the question of Votes for Women, progressive politics, and prize-fights, and before the card game began it had ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... we stopped in passing, is a mass of granite, which is accessible only at its western end, as represented in Mr. Westall's sketch. After killing a few seals upon the shore, we ascended the hill to search for the bottle and parchment left by captain Vancouver in 1791;* but could find no vestiges either of it or of the staff or pile of stones; and since there was no appearance of the natives having crossed over from the main, I was led to suspect that a second ship had been here ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... and moves the wood without a wind: The roused god, as all this while he lay Entombed alive, starts and dilates himself; He struggles, and he tears my aged trunk With holy fury; my old arteries burst; My rivell'd skin, Like parchment, crackles at the hallowed fire; I shall be young again:—Manto, my daughter, Thou hast a voice that might have saved the bard Of Thrace, and forced the raging bacchanals, With lifted prongs, to listen to ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man?... Away, burn all the records of the realm: my mouth shall be the parliament ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... strange hunter, and seeing him asleep, she gazes at him, until she insensibly falls in love with him. Observing the document which the stranger has in his keeping, she takes and reads it, and disgusted with its contents throws it into the fountain, quickly fetching another parchment which was once given to her by her father, and which contains both permission to wish for something and her father's promise ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... Faust. Is parchment, then, the holy well-spring, thinkest, A draught from which thy thirst forever slakes? No quickening element thou drinkest, Till up from thine own ...
— Faust • Goethe

... small parchment face, and bent figure leaning on a stick, might have been seen peering in through the closed windows. Sir John looked dispassionately at the family group, and shook his head. Then he hobbled back to his chair under the cedar. Tea was ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... the crowd, which carried me away. Someone in front began to shout orders, and the crowd swayed back again. The infantry muskets rattled. The commotion lasted some time. When it ceased, I saw that the man about to die had been kissing the very old man; tears were streaming down the gray, parchment-coloured cheeks. Pedro Nones had the rope round his neck; it curved upwards loosely towards the beam, growing taut as the cart ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... pale parchment label, tied to a key. Mother held it to the candle and read: 'Key of the lock behind the knot in the mantelpiece panel in ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit

... letter of indulgence from Pius VI. himself, made out in your name for you. Take it, and perform your duty." He laid down the parchment provided with the papal seal upon her shoulder, and drawing the veil over her made the sign of the cross, saying, "I bless you, and give you absolution ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... where I had the advantage of them. I was well educated, and was graduated from the University of France, with the parchment in that valise, signed by the minister of education. The carrier brought all the letters to my desk. I looked them over, and when I found any from England or Scotland, or even France, I opened and ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic

... not awake him, but gazed upon the features of the boy he had so deeply injured, with an expression wherein there was no lingering remorse, but simply a deep and deadly hatred. At length he was about to awake the sleeper, when he saw the end of a packet of parchment protrude from the breast of the tunic. The baron drew ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... had entered the inner room. Lady Henry looked round. Over her wrinkled face, now parchment-white, there shone a ray of pleasure—sudden, vehement, ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... they were at the Furnace village, its blast gone out, its lines of huts deserted, no human soul to be seen; and the mill-pond, lying like a parchment under the funereal cypress-trees, seemed stained with the blood of the bog-ores that oozed upward from the depths like the corpse of murdered Enterprise, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... patriotic ardor, urging the women to stand by their guns and not allow the framers of the constitution to take any action whereby they might be defrauded of their sacred rights to equality. Miss Anthony's message was quoted, "Let it be the best basis for a State ever engrossed on parchment;" and never did the faith of its editor waver in the belief that ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... the ruins of Babylon or Thebes—displaying their coins, their mutilated statuary, or half legible inscriptions. At another, you see a Greek with some masterpiece of Zeuxis—nobody less—which he swears is genuine, and to his oaths adds a parchment containing its history, with names of men in Athens, Antioch and Alexandria, who attest it all. At the foot of another, sits a dealer in manuscripts, remarkable either as being the complete works of distinguished authors, or for the perfection ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... required for the making of pillow lace; in the first place a cushion or pillow, then bobbins and a winder, parchment patterns, pins and ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont

... word," Norgate admitted. "It's the sort of platitude I could watch framing in his mind before I was half-way through what I had to say. What they don't seem to take sufficient account of in that museum of mummied brains and parchment tongues—forgive me, Hebblethwaite, but it isn't your department—is that the Prince's behaviour to me is such as no Englishman, subscribing to any code of honour, could possibly tolerate. I will admit, if you like, that the Kaiser's attitude may render it ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... many instances disgracing their several codes. We have observed the disposition to retaliation excited in Connecticut in consequence of the enormities perpetrated by the Legislature of Rhode Island; and we reasonably infer that, in similar cases, under other circumstances, a war, not of PARCHMENT, but of the sword, would chastise such atrocious breaches of moral obligation and social justice. The probability of incompatible alliances between the different States or confederacies and different foreign nations, and the effects of this situation upon the peace of the whole, have ...
— The Federalist Papers

... sort of guitar, another an earthenware drum covered at one end with parchment, and a third a large tambourine, while a fourth ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne

... Audiencia, after the decrees of execution [executorias] have been transcribed, the records of each single year being placed one above another. The court clerk shall place on each record of a case a strip of parchment stating the persons and the subject of the case. This shall be done within five days after the decree of execution has been transcribed. And in another part of the said room another cabinet shall be placed, in which shall be deposited the grants, decrees, and documents pertaining ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair

... before she goes. [He takes the parchment from the table.] Stay, give me pen and ink. This is for her when the name is altered. Her home I think ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker

... starves merely me. For when was ever woman logical Both day and night-time? Not since Adam fell! I doubt a lover somewhere. What shrewd bee Hath buzzed betimes about this clover-top? Belike some scrivener's clerk at Bideford, With long goose-quill and inkhorn at his thigh— Methinks I see the parchment face of him; Or one of those swashbuckler Devon lads That haunt the inn there, with red Spanish gold, Rank scurvy knaves, ripe fruit for gallows-tree; Or else the sexton's son"—here Wyndham laughed, Though not a man of mirth—indeed, a man Of niggard humor; but that sexton's son— Lean ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... In the inside, is a winding stair-case, leading to the top, whither that diabolical woman used frequently to ascend, accompanied by astrologers, and there perform several mysterious ceremonies, in order to discover futurity in the stars. She wore on her stomach a skin of parchment, strewn with figures, letters, and characters of different colours; which skin she was persuaded had the virtue of insuring her from ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... merit by grants of pasturage out of its ideal domains. Indeed, it is but a few years since our own Longfellow, on a visit to Rome, was waited upon by the secretary of the Arch-Flock, and presented, after due ceremonies and the reading of a floral and herbaceous sonnet, with a parchment bestowing upon him some very magnificent possessions in that extraordinary dreamland. In telling me of this he tried to recall his Arcadian name, but could only remember that ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... finished his cabin, with a cavernous fireplace of rough stone at one end. He split planks for a door out of raw timber, and graced his house with two windows—one of four small panes of glass carefully packed in their bedding all the way from Hazleton, the other a two-foot square of deerskin scraped parchment thin; opaque to the vision, it still permitted light to enter. The floor was plain earth, a condition Bill promised to remedy with hides of moose, once his buildings were completed. Rudely finished, and lacking much that would have made for comfort, still ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... consists of a cloth drenched in warm water or a dripping bandage laid around the diseased part, then covered by several layers of woolen blanket or cloth, which is in turn covered by parchment paper, rubber cloth, or other impervious material. Heat, moisture, and pressure are obtained by such a bandage if water is poured upon ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... younger sons must make their own way in the world; but he had hoped to live until they were a little older, when he might himself have started them in life, or expressed his wishes respecting them to their elder brother. As it was, however, there was no commendation of them, nothing but a strip of parchment, drawn up by one of the monks of Beaulieu, leaving each of them twenty crowns, with a few small jewels and properties left by their own mother, while everything else went ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... rolling on the floor, hippocephali mingled promiscuously with drinking cups, in which quivered leaves of gold, skulls placed upon vellum checkered with figures and characters, huge manuscripts piled up wide open, without mercy on the cracking corners of the parchment; in short, all the rubbish of science, and everywhere on this confusion dust and spiders' webs; but there was no circle of luminous letters, no doctor in an ecstasy contemplating the flaming vision, as the eagle ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... interpretation on the words extorted as it were from Bois-Guilbert, and glancing her eye upon the slip of parchment which she continued to hold in her hand, she read written thereupon in the Arabian character, "Demand a Champion!" The murmuring commentary which ran through the assembly at the strange reply of Bois-Guilbert, gave Rebecca leisure to examine and instantly to destroy ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... contents. In the centre of the room, which might have been about fourteen feet square, stood a table, with a shadow lamp placed before the only part of it which was left vacant for the use of the pen. The remainder of the space was loaded with parchment upon parchment, deed upon deed, paper upon paper. Some, especially those underneath, had become dark and discoloured by time; the ink had changed to a dull red, and the imprint of many a thumb inferred how many years they had been in existence, and how long they had lain as sad mementos of the law's ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... doorway, appeared the head of a young woman, covered with blue-black hair, then the questioning face of an old woman with a skin like yellow parchment. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... always to be craving your pardon, Margery. But I said naught to this parchment-faced—to this Mr. Pengarvin, that might offend your father, ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... of Governor Belcher's term of office was principally taken up in endeavoring to settle the currency. Honest John Hull's pine-tree shillings had long ago been worn out, or lost, or melted down again, and their place was supplied by bills of paper or parchment, which were nominally valued at three pence and upwards. The value of these bills kept continually sinking, because the real hard money could not be obtained for them. They were a great deal worse than the old Indian currency of clam-shells. These ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... had recovered his usual good looks. But that truthful counsellor presented to him cheeks still sunken and pallid, and sharpened features. The clear gray eye looked out from a cavern, and the rich nut-brown hair hung over a brow covered with parchment. His lean figure no longer filled the uniform which once fitted it so well. He stood before his glass in no peacock mood of self-admiration; but was compelled to own that he was not, just now at least, the man to fascinate a lady's eye; so he resolved ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... seven fullpaged illustrations by Paul Thirlat, engraved on Wood by Eugene Dete (both of Paris), and artistically printed by Brendon & Son, Ltd. (of Plymouth), 4to, vi 312 pages, half parchment bound, with corners, and fleur-de-lys on side. 1908-9. ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... the brutish stage of thought is past the fetichistic instinct remains in the sacredness attached to the mere letter or paper or parchment of the sacred book or writing, when used as amulet, plaster or medicine. The survivals, even in Buddhism, of ancient and prehistoric Fetichism are many and often with undenied approval of the religious authorities, especially in those ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... begin that circle which hence may spread out and cover the whole land with proofs of fraternity, of a reaction in public sentiment, and the assurance of a future career in conformity with the principles and purposes of the Constitution. All else is idle. I would not give the parchment on which the bill would be written that is to secure our constitutional rights within the limits of a State, where the people are all opposed to the execution of that law. It is a truism in free governments that laws rest upon public opinion, and fall powerless ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... brought before Sir Hugh, who could make nothing of him. He ordered the varlet to be removed and examined, in order to discover whether any secret letters were concealed about him. All they found was a piece of parchment securely suspended from the neck, bearing ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... shrivelled piece of parchment in the British Museum to-day, attests to the keeping of this appointment. That old Oak at Runnymede, under whose spreading branches the name of John was affixed to the Magna Charta, was for centuries held the most sacred spot ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... again,—the parchment, or papyrus, having been first polished for use, and then rubbed as clean as possible, to be used a second time.]—the name and the thing—are at least as old as Cicero. In one of his letters he banters ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis

... my turn!" the demon cries, and blows A blast of sulphur from his mouth and nose. Ah! bootless aim! the critic fiend, Sagacious Yamen, judge of hell, Is judged in his turn; Parchment won't burn! His schemes of vengeance are dissolved in air, Parchment ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... scoundrels through the midriff with his most graceful rapier. Ah, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, you are a magnificent trio. I think I like d'Artagnan in his own memoirs best. I bought him years and years ago, price fivepence, in a little parchment-covered Cologne-printed volume, at a stall in Gray's Inn Lane. Dumas glorifies him and makes a Marshal of him; if I remember rightly, the original d'Artagnan was a needy adventurer, who died in exile very early in Louis XIV.'s reign. Did you ever read the "Chevalier d'Harmenthal?" ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to exercise his skill by making an instrument for himself; and the temptation is the greater because he can confine himself to the essentials. The excellence of a banjo in respect to power and tone depends mainly upon the rim and the neck, that is, supposing the parchment head to be of proper quality; but then the preparation of the heads is a business of itself, and the amateur is no more expected to make the head than to make the strings. So again, all the minor accessories, such as pegs and tail ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... was chartered, the parchment and sealing wax of the royal lawyers did but confirm rights and habits of self-government and obedience to law previously established by the congregations. The towns of Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield had long lived happily under their "Fundamental Orders" drawn up by themselves ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... then, the soul of honour—there he stands Frank as ten years ago when knighted first. What honest man should dare (he said) he durst. Good-but the scene shifts—faugh! what hangman hands 100 Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands Read it. Poor traitor, spit ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... outwards, hanging flower boxes filled with fuchsias, and at the back (a great feature) a little court tiled with jade-green tiles, and surrounded by pink hydrangeas in peacock-blue tubs. Here, under a parchment-coloured Japanese sunshade covering the whole end, inhabitants or visitors could be screened from the eyes of the curious while they drank tea and examined at their leisure the latest of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... that when the dinner was over, some of the guests were uncommonly mellow; and it is credibly asserted, that Dick Holmes, who had spent his life among parchment and cobwebs, had during the meal buried his mouth in the bosom of his own waistcoat, and had there been heard confidentially singing to himself a short song of an Anacreontic character. But be that as it may, when he rose ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... Hundred Thirty-five, the graves were opened and casts taken of the skulls. The top of Swift's skull had been sawed off at the autopsy, and a bottle in which was a parchment setting forth the facts was inserted in the head that had ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... thickly upon both sides; while nearly all its remaining length are merely surveyors' lines, over which people may walk back and forth without any consciousness of their presence. No part of this line can be made any more difficult to pass by writing it down on paper or parchment as a national boundary. The fact of separation, if it comes, gives up on the part of the seceding section the fugitive-slave clause, along with all other constitutional obligations upon the section seceded from, while I should expect no ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... used to be one of the best of the Mission libraries at San Juan. The books were all in old-style leather, sheepskin and parchment bindings, some of them tied with leathern thongs, and a few having heavy homemade metal clasps. They were all in Latin or Spanish, and were well known books of divinity. The first page of the record of marriages was written and signed by ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James

... of that year. All the two thousand or more inhabitants of the colony met together to receive the precious gift; Baxter, placed on high, read it out to them with his best voice and delivery, and then held it up so that all might behold the handsomely engrossed parchment, and the sacred seal of his dread majesty King Charles. What a picture of democratic and childlike simplicity! With how devout and earnest an exultation did the people murmur their thanks and applause! The crowd in their conical ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... were seen; then, with a cry, he expired. Searching his pockets, they found the king's letter for executing more cruelties, as also a little purse with two pistol bullets, a little ball made up of all colours of silk, like an ordinary plumb, a bit of parchment, a finger breadth in length, with two long words written upon it which none could read, though the characters were like Hebrew or Chaldaick. This they took, but meddled ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... had in no way done her injustice; a more unattractive female was never seen. I groaned as I thought that my poor Aneouta should have been committed to the charge of such a being. A brown handkerchief was tied over her head: from beneath it escaped a few straggling white hairs. The eyes in her parchment-like countenance were scarcely perceptible, while her mouth was garnished with two yellow bones, which did the duty of teeth; her feet were encased in straw shoes, and her entire dress was of a dark hue, obtained by age and dirt. There ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... log-houses, built without much regard to comfort, surrounded by lofty stockades, and flanked with wooden bastions. The difficulty of conveying glass into the interior has precluded its use in the windows, where its place is poorly supplied by parchment, imperfectly made by the native women from the skin of the rein-deer. Should this post, however, continue to be the residence of Governor Williams, it will be much improved in a few years, as he is devoting his attention to that point. The land around Cumberland House is low, but ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... free from storms, which is proved, he said, by the growth of herbage and trees even to the edge of the sea. With this purpose, that, if he perished in this tempest, the king and queen might have some news of his voyage, he took a parchment and wrote on it all that he could of his discoveries, and urgently begged that whoever found it would carry it to the king and queen. He rolled up this parchment in a piece of waxed linen, closed this parcel ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale

... library of 200,000 manuscripts are far less durable memorials of the city of booksellers than those beautifully dressed skins, which, taking their name (Pergamena) from the place of their manufacture, will preserve the name and fame of Pergamos as long as parchment can preserve man's memorials, or God's predictions. Though famous for fragrance, physic, and philosophy, Pergamos was infamous for idolatry, licentiousness, and persecution; yet still endeared to Jesus as the scene of the martyrdom of faithful Antipas, and the dwelling-place ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... uncle is in England. He does not purpose to come back to France unless he whom he calls his rightful king again rules the land. Should that come to be, my poor patent of nobility would not be worth the parchment ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... into the cave, and how any man could live in it a week is a mystery to me, for it was little more than four feet high, and as damp and dismal a grotto as ever was seen. A wooden settle and a rough table were the sole furniture, with a lot of parchment ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle

... doing so, it was necessary that a certain process should be gone through in order to guard the interest of all parties concerned. I inquired what kind of process he meant. Upon this the prince rose and went to his trunk, which was in the room, and took from it a parchment which he laid on the table and set before me, that I might read and give him my determination in regard to it. There were also on the table pen and ink and wax, and he placed there a governmental seal of France—the one, if I mistake not, used under the old monarchy. ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous



Words linked to "Parchment" :   paper, sheepskin, vellum



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