"Magnificence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scarcely heeded the crowds of people that thronged the street and rudely jostled her. If she saw them at all, it was only to regard them as so many purchasers of molasses candy. With her brain almost reeling with the immensity and magnificence of her scheme, she reached Temple Street. After a little search, she found the number of Mrs. Gordon's residence on a splendid house, whose grandness quite abashed her. But her courage revived as she thought of the purpose that had brought ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... this kind, stood staring at him in bewilderment, not knowing what to do or say, and entreating him to rise, but all to no purpose until he had agreed to grant the boon demanded of him. "I looked for no less, my lord, from your High Magnificence," replied Don Quixote, "and I have to tell you that the boon I have asked and your liberality has granted is that you shall dub me knight to-morrow morning, and that to-night I shall watch my arms in the chapel of this your castle; thus tomorrow, as I have said, will ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... further enhanced by the formation of innumerable minute crystals which sparkle literally with as much lustrous beauty as the diamond. On one occasion Scoresby's ship was decorated with uncommon magnificence, and in a peculiarly ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... any of his letters of introduction till yesterday, because he wished that we should be masters and mistresses of our own time to see sights before we saw people. We have been to Versailles—melancholy magnificence—La petite Trianon: the poor Queen! and at the Louvre, or as it is now called, La Musee, to see the celebrated gallery of pictures. I was entertained, but tired with seeing so many pictures, all to be admired, and all in so bad a light, that my little neck was almost ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... (June 29, 1406), the cousins were married at Compiegne, he fifteen, she seventeen years of age. It was in every way a most desirable match. The bride brought five hundred thousand francs of dowry. The ceremony was of the utmost magnificence, Louis of Orleans figuring in crimson velvet, adorned with no less than seven hundred and ninety-five pearls, gathered together expressly for this occasion. And no doubt it must have been very gratifying for a young gentleman of fifteen, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lapsing up to the grounds which sloped down to the water's edge in a closely shaven lawn, broken by stately old trees and blossoming flower-beds. The view so charmed her with its loveliness, that at first she hardly heeded the magnificence of the different apartments through which ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... and the philosophical reflections which taught him to set ceremonial and exterior splendour at defiance, proved, like other maxims of mere philosophy, ineffectual, at the moment they were weighed against the impression naturally made on the mind of an inexperienced youth, by the unusual magnificence of the scene. The splendid apartments through which they passed, the rich apparel of the grooms, guards, and domestics in waiting, and the ceremonial attending their passage through the long suite of apartments, had something in it, trifling and ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... what he had just heard, he civilly pointed to a bit of meadow through which the Thames meanders, and good-naturedly told me it was Runnymeade. I presume my manner denoted a proper interest, for he now took up the subject of the English Barons, and entered into a long account of their modern magnificence and wealth. This is a topic that a large class in England, who only know their aristocracy by report, usually discuss with great unction. They appear to have the same pride in the superiority of their great families, that the American slave is known to feel in the importance of his master. I ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... theatres, and markets; or those it does possess are, in an architectural sense, not at all above the level of village or country-town pretensions, but one or two of its national edifices do approach the magnificence and grandeur of the old world. The new Treasury Buildings are unquestionably, on the score of size, embellishments and finish, the American edifice that comes nearest to first class architecture on the other side of the Atlantic. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... evinced, in all their deeds, a high degree of sagacity, energy, and greatness of soul. Mankind, though they may condemn their vices and crimes, will never cease to admire the grandeur of their ambition, and the magnificence, comprehensiveness, and efficiency of their plans of action. The whole known world was the theater of their contests, and the armies which they organized and disciplined, and which they succeeded at length in bringing under ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... back, patted my head, kissed my hand, and then with a low, laughing, sinister growl, they asked me for buckshish, which I firmly refused; then they laughed, and sang and chatted as before. In calmly looking around me, one idea filled and fixed my mind, which I expressed at the time in one word—magnificence!... I remained long at the top of the pyramid, and naturally felt elevated by the sublimity of the scenery around, and also by the thought, that I had conquered every difficulty, and accomplished my every purpose. The breeze was still cool, although ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... house. With the coming of the Normans grander ideas prevailed. Abbots Thurstan (A.D. 1082) and Herlewinus (1101-20) both projected buildings of some pretensions, but Henry of Blois, brother of King Stephen, abbot in 1126, was the first great builder. Henry's church was a fabric of much magnificence, but it completely perished in a fire in 1184, and Henry II., in one of his occasional fits of piety, charged himself with its rebuilding, and entrusted the work to his chamberlain Ralph, who, upon the ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... of these heralds of the sun is the planet Venus, and such a "morning star" for power, glory, and magnificence, the king of Babylon had once been; like one of the angels of God. But as addressed in Isaiah's prophecy, he has been brought ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... rediscover whether the ash comes early or late in the etiquette of the trees. A contemporary English novelist was once asked by a foreigner what was the most important crop in England. He answered without a moment's hesitation: "Rye." Ignorance so complete as this seems to me to be touched with magnificence; but the ignorance even of illiterate persons is enormous. The average man who uses a telephone could not explain how a telephone works. He takes for granted the telephone, the railway train, the linotype, the aeroplane, as our grandfathers took for granted the miracles ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... though his knowledge of the tongue was not good, and he had by him some fragments of genuine Gaelic poems. He was flattered by Home's appeal to him, and, feeling perhaps that the few and slight genuine poems which he could produce would hardly warrant the magnificence of his allusions to Gaelic literature, he forged a tale in poetic prose, called The Death of Oscar, and presented it to Home as a translation from the Gaelic. The poem was much admired, and Macpherson, unable now to retrace his ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh
... heaven; by him let us behold his most high and spotless face: by him the eyes of our heart are opened; by him our ignorant and darkened minds shoot forth into his marvellous light; by him the Supreme Governor willed that we should taste immortal knowledge: who, being the brightness of his magnificence, is so much greater than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... returned to the subject of his housewarming, going into details as to the magnificence of the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... scene before us, and to suspect we were in a dream; and my readers must excuse the manner of my expressions, as never had any one seen, heard, or even dreamt of any thing which could compare to the magnificence of the scene we now beheld. On approaching Iztapalapan, we were received by several of the highest nobles of the Mexican empire, relations of Montezuma, who conducted us to the lodgings appointed for us in that place, which were magnificent palaces of stone, the timber work ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... his life, the long-drawn episode which made his name a target for the gossip and scandal of early eighteenth-century Germany; the episode which changed the simple, stiff family life of the Wuerttemberg ducal circle to a brilliant, festive court, which travellers tell us in their memoirs vied in magnificence with the glories ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... peasant on the spot or the fancy of a passing stranger. I might fill a page with accounts of Turks' tents, beehives, judges' wigs, harps, handkerchiefs, and flitches of bacon, but I rather choose to speak of these subterranean palaces with none of such vulgar similarities. No one ever saw such magnificence in stalactites; from the black fissured roofs of antres vast and low-browed caves they are hanging, of all conceivable shapes and sizes and descriptions. Now a tall-fluted column, now a fringed canopy, now like a large white sheet flung over a beetling rock in the elegant folds ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... of the ball-room, which maintained the dignity and the refined beauty of the staircase and the hallways; and only in the insistent audacity and intemperate colouring of some Rubens pictures did he find anything of that inherent tendency to exaggeration and Oriental magnificence behind the really delicate artistic faculties possessed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the city, connected with it by a splendid avenue, is the mountain of Buddha, where now stands the temple of the Grand Lama. This temple is four stories high, and therein dwells the Grand Lama and his High Priests. Some idea of the magnificence of this temple may be obtained when I tell you that its great pillars are covered with plates of pure gold. The Grand Lama can live forever, and many people believe he does so, but he really does not. After a certain time he reincarnates himself into a new body. ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... man, 'no harm will be done thee.' So on the poor youth went, as reluctantly as a dog to be hanged; but presently a fine-wooded, fertile country spread itself out before them, with well arranged mansions dotting it over, while every kind of apparent magnificence met the eye, and seemed to smile in its landscape; the bright waters of its rivers meandered in twisted streams, and its hills were covered with the luxuriant verdure of their grassy growth, and the ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... splendidly that he was like a King's son; and they put a ring on his finger, and it was one which would enable him to go there and back again by wishing, but they told him that he must not throw it away, or name their names; for if he did, all his magnificence would be at an end, and then he ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... chivalry; which, while they certainly softened the character of the nobility, contained nevertheless a certain mixture of frivolity and extravagance. The celebrated order of the Golden Fleece, which was introduced by Philip, was less an institution based on grounds of rational magnificence than a puerile emblem of his passion for Isabella of Portugal, his third wife. The verses of a contemporary poet induced him to make a vow for the conquest of Constantinople from the Turks. He certainly never attempted to execute this senseless crusade; but he did not omit ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... exchanging it with our King, for the sovereignty of Touraine and the Amboise country; and had actually charged her faithful Aubigny to buy her some land near Amboise to build her there a vast palace, with courts and outbuildings; to furnish it with magnificence, to spare neither gilding nor paintings, and to surround the whole with the most beautiful gardens. She meant to live there as sovereign lady of the country. Aubigny had at once set about the work to the surprise of everybody: for no one could imagine for whom ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Madame Mollot, "when I saw a stuff, a material, of splendid magnificence, most beautiful! dazzling! I said to myself, 'That must be a dressing-gown of the spun-glass material I have sometimes seen in exhibitions of industrial products.' So I fetched my opera-glass to examine it. ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... the meaning of words. They suggested that where I have failed you could succeed, if you had a mind to try. I have challenged you, Bardelys. I challenge you again. Go about this wooing as you will; dazzle the lady with your wealth and your magnificence, with your servants, your horses, your equipages; and all the splendours you can command; yet I make bold to say that not a year of your scented attentions and most insidious wiles will bear you fruit. ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... at home. At ten in the morning that was a matter of course. She was shown, not into the grand drawing-room, which was only used on grand occasions, but into a little back parlour which, in spite of the wealth and magnificence of the Zamenoys, was not so clean as the room in the Kleinseite, and certainly not so comfortable as the Jew's apartment. There was no carpet; but that was not much, as carpets in Prague were not in common use. There were two tables crowded ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... the Queen. In glowing words they painted to her the glory and the honour which would come to Spain if Columbus succeeded. And if he failed, why, what were a few thousand crowns, they asked. And as the Queen listened her heart beat fast; the magnificence of the enterprise took hold upon her, and she resolved that, come what might, Columbus should go forth on ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... remote and forsaken streets "by the shore of the Adrian Sea," hard by the last relics of the Roman Empire—the mausoleum of the children of Theodosius, and the mosaics of Justinian—than among the assembled dead of St. Croce, or amid the magnificence of Santa Maria ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... whole day settled upon Peter with the deepening night. He held his poor light above his head and picked his way to his own room. After the magnificence of the Renfrew manor, it had contracted to a grimy little box lined with yellowed papers. His books were still intact, but Henry Hooker would get them as part payment on the Dillihay place, which Henry owned. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... pursuits. Moawyah, the founder of the Ommiade dynasty, who followed in 661, revolutionized the government. It had been elective, he made it hereditary. He removed its seat from Medina to a more central position at Damascus, and entered on a career of luxury and magnificence. He broke the bonds of a stern fanaticism, and put himself forth as a cultivator and patron of letters. Thirty years had wrought a wonderful change. A Persian satrap who had occasion to pay homage to Omar, the second khalif, found ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... to have her have something pretty when she graduates," Fanny said, speaking as if she were feeling her way into a mind of opposition. Neither she nor Andrew had ever owned a watch, and the scheme seemed to her breathless with magnificence. ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... with yams. The third service was made up of a loin of fresh pork, with apple-sauce, a kid smothered with onions, and a terrapin baked in the shell; and last of all, a prodigious sea-pie was presented, with an infinite volume of pancakes and fritters. That everything might be answerable to the magnificence of this delicate feast, he had provided vast quantifies of strong beer, flip, rumbo, and burnt brandy, with plenty of Barbadoes water for the ladies; and hired all the fiddles within six miles, which, with the addition ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... was the very triumph of commonplace greatness, of external magnificence and success, such as the vulgar among mankind can best and most sincerely appreciate. Had he been a great and profound ruler, had he considered with unselfish meditation the real interests of France, had he with wise insight discerned and followed the remote lines of progress ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... and from tulip-time to the coming of frost they were ablaze with flowers. Nothing was allowed to straggle, or to take up more than its share of room. The roses were tied firmly to their neat green stakes; the crown-imperials nodded over a spot of ground barely large enough to hold their magnificence; while the phlox and sweet-william actually had to fight for ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... land, with cloud shadows floating across it, at long intervals bird voices or the bleating of distant flocks charm the listening ear. Out of this wild and beautiful spot spring Cyclopean rocks, appalling in the splendor of their proportions and the magnificence of their dyes. Sharp shafts shoot heavenward from breadths of level sward, and glow like living flames; peaks of various tinges overlook the tops of other peaks, that, in their turn, lord it among gigantic ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... further swelled by crowds of hypochondriacs, and by the superstitious, the idle, and the curious, who filled his temple to such an extent that soon he was obliged to hire a large hall for his Sunday meetings, at which he was wont to appear in great magnificence with the cortege of ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... Firth, after landing on Inchkeith, they arrived at St Andrews which had long been an object of interest to Johnson. They passed Leuchars, Dundee, and Aberbrothick. The ruins of ecclesiastical magnificence would seem to have touched a hidden chord in Boswell's past, for we find him on the road talking of the 'Roman Catholick faith,' and leading his companion on transubstantiation; but this, being 'an ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... dead is the custom in Siam, and while there I was present at several royal funerals, each marked by more lavish display of costly magnificence than we Americans ever see on this side the water. Shortly after I left the country occurred the death of the patriotic second king, so well and favorably known among us as Prince T. Momfanoi, the introducer of square-rigged vessels and many other ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... to heighten the interest. It was not long after the invention of gunpowder, when firearms and artillery mingled the flash and smoke and thunder of modern warfare with the steely splendor of ancient chivalry, and gave an awful magnificence and terrible sublimity to battle, and when the old Moorish towers and castles, that for ages had frowned defiance to the battering-rams and catapults of classic tactics, were toppled down by the lombards of the Spanish engineers. ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... royal child to whom much would be told and under whose notice much would be brought; and who, from his position, would be expected to mark and remember much. Long afterwards, he would recall the magnificence he had seen, and associate it with the glories of the double history of Rome; Rome pagan and Rome Christian: Rome, the great conqueror and law-giver, spiritual as well as temporal. Very often, after Alfred ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... moral liberty; and that it might stand there unshaken, formed it of stone or brass, or some more massive substance than the bodies of living men, making an impression by its very weight, and from its very elevation and magnificence only the more completely subject to ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... husky battle murmured thick, May testify of services performed! But now the seas are haggard with thy wrath, Thy breath is tempest! never at the shores Of hostile Ilium did thy stormful brows Betray such fierce magnificence! not even On that wild day when, mad with torch and glare, The frantic crowds with eyes like starving wolves Burst from their ports impregnable, a stream Of headlong fury toward the hissing deep; Where then full-armed I stood in guard, compact ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to see the rest of it?" he said, jumping up. I did not know there was anything more to see. Now however he brought me up on the high angle of the parapet that had intercepted my view to the north. I could hardly get away from there. The full magnificence of the mountains in that quarter; the river's course between them, the blue hills of the distant Shawangunk range, and the woody chasm immediately at my feet, stretching from the height where I stood over to the crest of the Crow's Nest; it took away my breath. I sat down ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of the original painting has a sombre magnificence which is in keeping with the seriousness of the subject. The painting of the head and bust places it among the finest works ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... of a big corporation who must be dignified whether he has a soul or not. He represents the 'renaissance.' No nonsense about him, no sentiment, no sympathy, no anything but—himself and his own magnificence." ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... front of us, however, the ground was open, and the day being clear and sunny, with a fresh breeze blowing (else the smoke from a battle between four hundred thousand men would have obstructed the view altogether), the spectacle presented Was of unsurpassed magnificence and sublimity. The German artillery opened the battle, and while the air was filled with shot and shell from hundreds of guns along their entire line, the German centre and left, in rather open order, moved out to the attack, and as they went forward the reserves, in close column, took up positions ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... you from all embarrassment by simply saying I cannot be your wife. When the war is over I intend to search the country for my mother. Doctor, were you to give me a palace-like home, with velvet carpets to hush my tread, and magnificence to surround my way, I should miss her voice amid all other tones, her presence amid every scene. Oh, you do not know how hungry my heart is for my mother! Were I to marry you I would carry an aching heart into your home and dim its brightness. I have resolved never to marry until I have found ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... history of his excursion to the Island of Monte Cristo and of his finding a party of smugglers there, and the two Corsican bandits with them. He dwelt with considerable force and energy on the almost magical hospitality he had received from the count, and the magnificence of his entertainment in the grotto of the "Thousand and One Nights." He recounted, with circumstantial exactitude, all the particulars of the supper, the hashish, the statues, the dream, and how, at his awakening, there remained no proof ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... The face of the stream glowed like metal. Why did she not come? She believed him guilty from the mouth of another? If so, there was something less for him to lose. And now the sacrifice he had made did whisper a tale of mortal magnificence in his ears: feelings that were not his noblest stood up exalted. He waited till the warm meadow-breath floating past told that the day had settled into heat, and then he waited no more, but quietly walked into the house with the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... am sent for by the Viceroy," quietly said the Major, with a listless air, gazing around admiringly on the magnificence ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... Mind, I don't quite sympathize with that comparison of St. Augustine's where he detects a resemblance between yon spectra of purple and green and the plumage of a dove. What has a dove to do with such magnificence and grandeur? It was an anti-climax, a bathos, of which St. Augustine is seldom guilty. 'And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... graceful on the walls, Th' Acanthus weav'd no splendid Capitals; Nor did the Attic elegance supply One simple foliage for the judging eye. But, in their stead, Confusion void of Sense, And all the pride of false Magnificence, Display'd an idle, vain, fantastic show, Fit only for ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... of my profession to take any partisan view of the life of such a man, although it was my fortune to follow the same flag which he carried to victory upon so many fields. When it was furled, it was done with such calm magnificence as to win the admiration of his enemies and of the world. Yet I do not stand here to make any reference to that cause which has passed from the theatre of earth's activity, and taken its place only in history. But I do claim the right, from the stand-point which I occupy, of pointing to a man worthy ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... now the opportunity of observing, as the mountains and valleys shook off their snowy mantle and became clothed anew in the fresh green verdure of spring, is one of the most picturesque in the States, partaking alike of the lofty grandeur and rough magnificence of the sierras of the north, and the spreading landscape features to be met with in the middle of the continent adjacent to the watersheds of the Missouri and Mississippi, where the open country extends like a panorama on either ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... accompany her elders to the bedroom—she made a long sound: "Ooo!" Then she gave a leap and stood still, staring out of the window at the estuary. She tried to force her mood to the colour of her dress, but the sense of propriety was insufficient for the task. The magnificence of all the world was unfolding itself to her soul. Events had hitherto so dizzyingly beaten down upon her head that she had scarcely been conscious of feeling. Now she luxuriously felt. "I am at last ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... say to a piece of roast beef and a cup of coffee?" Peter had planned this magnificence as he came along fingering his pay envelope. He knew just the place, he told her. The feeling of his proper male ascendency as he drew her through the crowd was a tonic to him; the man tossing pancakes in the window where he hesitated looking for the ladies' ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... object, to make a good road to it. I thought of you again, and I was then in great good humor, at the Pont du Gard, a sublime antiquity, and well preserved. But most of all here, where Roman taste, genius, and magnificence, excite ideas analogous to yours at every step. I could no longer oppose the inclination to avail myself of your permission to write to you, a permission given with too much complaisance by you, and used by me with too much indiscretion. ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... and Joe felt that tingling sense of pride which never comes from the sensation of sharing in mere power or splendor or pompous might, but is so certain when the human touch modifies magnificence. ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... upwards of two hundred feet high to the topmost spear. Underbrush, ground growth, even saplings of the same species lacked entirely, so that we proceeded in the clear open aisles of a tremendous and spacious magnificence. ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... dishevelled, vulgar woman, reciting bombastic nonsense! And yet!—a touch of Southern magnificence, even of Southern grace, amid the cockney squalor and finery. Doris coolly recognised it, as she stood, herself invisible, behind her uncle's large easel. Thence she perceived also the other persons in the studio:—Bentley sitting in front of the poetess, ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... with his retinue started, in much pomp and magnificence, to visit the bride; and he made such good speed, in his impatience, that he arrived in the island several days before the time appointed. Within the city gates, the cavalcade halted for a moment that the prince ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... (5 July) the king and parliament had been entertained at dinner by the City with great magnificence. The day was unfortunately rainy, and Pepys, who seems never to have quite forgotten that he was the son of a tailor, and never put on a new suit of clothes without recording the fact in his diary, remarks ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... slave. She imagined herself his wife, she pictured him inclining to revolt, she saw the results of that feeble insubordination, and laughed aloud. Christopher was respectable; he would undoubtedly continue to rise at Swettenham's, he would take a pride in the magnificence of her costume. When her temper called for natural relief she could quarrel with him by the hour without the least apprehension, and in the end would graciously forgive him. Yes, there was much to ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... good creatures who seemed sincerely repentant and happy in their way, and after an affectionate embrace I took leave of them and travelled all night. I stopped at Chanteloup to see the monument of the taste and magnificence of the Duc de Choiseul, and spent twenty-four hours there. A gentlemanly and polished individual, who did not know me, and for whom I had no introduction, lodged me in a fine suite of rooms, gave me supper, and would only sit down to table with me after I had used all my powers ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... in temples made with hands." And he went on to preach the truth in Christ Jesus: repentance, remission of sin, the resurrection of the dead. Some mocked and some put him off by saying they would hear him again of this matter. They felt so proud, their glory and magnificence seemed so sure and enduring, their learning, art and accomplishments seemed so fur above this obscure teacher of ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... a large bed in this room, which looked just like anybody's bed; but it was by no means so elegant as the young republican had anticipated. The apartment was rich and costly in its furnishings, but there was none of the magnificence which one would have expected to find in the room ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... covered with jewels that she appeared like a jeweller's window, in the midst of which shone the two amazing diamonds, suspended by a slender chain about her neck, and putting every other jewel she wore to shame by their gorgeous magnificence." ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... son of Eirik (Astrid's brother), came into Eistland from Novgorod, on King Valdemar's business to collect the king's taxes and rents. Sigurd came as a man of consequence, with many followers and great magnificence. In the market-place he happened to observe a remarkably handsome boy; and as he could distinguish that he was a foreigner, he asked him his name and family. He answered him, that his name was Olaf; that he was a son of Trygve Olafson; and Astrid, a daughter of Eirik Bjodaskalle, ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... is supposed to turn a different colour along the lines of the foundations. In later days, the kings certainly stayed at the palace, and not at the Castle. John was at Guildford nineteen times in eleven years, and kept Christmas there in 1200 "with uncommon splendour and magnificence." Henry III had his wines stored at Guildford, probably in the caverns near the Castle, and once, with a capital eye for business, ordered that no other wines should be sold in the bailiwick of Surrey ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Laura entered upon possession of the North Avenue house, she was not—after the first enthusiasm and excitement over its magnificence had died down—altogether pleased with it, though she told herself the contrary. Outwardly it was all that she could desire. It fronted Lincoln Park, and from all the windows upon that side the most delightful outlooks ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... silken stuffs. Whether it be a horse or money, each one got what he deserved according to his skill. And thus the wedding festivities and the court lasted almost a fortnight with great joy and magnificence. For his own glory and satisfaction, as well as to honour Erec the more, King Arthur made all the knights remain a full fortnight. When the third week began, all together by common consent agreed to hold a tournament. On ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... turn Klefts, could easily circumvent Mahometans who came on a mission disagreeable to the latter. The habits and manners of the Armatoles, living among forests and in mountain passes, were necessarily rude and simple: their magnificence consisted in adorning with silver their guns, pistols, and daggers; their amusements, in shooting at a mark, dancing, and singing the exploits of the most celebrated chiefs. Extraordinary activity, and endurance of hardships and ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... say? Ah! that can never be; they overwhelm and fill us with awe, make us very quiet, and incline our hearts to silent worship of Him whose "works are manifold, and who, in wisdom, hath made them all." As this magnificence unrolls before us like a grand panorama, the deep, dark, rocky canons; the high, snow-capped mountains, sometimes blue and far away like a wondrous picture, with a back ground of clear cloudless sky; the immense plains, with no signs of life, broken here and there ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain, or the minute study of Bethnal Green which Gavin published in 1848 as a type of the conditions prevailing in English towns, we realize that the magnificence of this epoch was built up over circles of Hell to which the imagination of ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... Peter hath it: For if God "spared not the old world," &c. (2 Peter 2:5). Secretly intimating, that those that then lived, being the first of his workmanship, and far surpassing in magnificence, if he would have spared, he would have spared them; but seeing he so dreadfully swept them away, let no man be so bold to presume that wickedness shall now deliver him ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... persisted in keeping the wedding-journey a surprise from him. She had hinted at a trip which would dazzle him, and also at a wedding gift which would stun him by its magnificence; Mr. Mix had visions on the one hand, of Narragansett, Alaska or the Canadian Rockies, and on the other hand, of a double fistful of government bonds. Mr. Mix didn't dare to tease her about the gift, but he did dare to tease her about the journey, ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... Pleasures of living he's a Stranger to, he lives despis'd, and will die unpitied: But such is the inequality of Fortune's Favours, that Merit must stoop and Ideots be advanc'd to the highest Pomp and Magnificence. It is entirely out of your Power to give the pitied Leander the least Relief; your Father's House is a Nunnery, he has his Locks and Keys to secure you, and his Spies for Intelligence; but I advise you to send the unfortunate Youth an Answer to his mournful Epistle." Upon this, Theodora immediately ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... massive character of the materials, and the grandeur of the design. Among them, perhaps the most remarkable are the great roads, the broken remains of which are still in sufficient preservation to attest their former magnificence. There were many of their roads traversing different parts of the kingdom; but the most considerable were the two which extended from Quito to Cuzco, and again diverging from the capital, continued in ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... never had his eyes been blessed with a vision of such transcendent perfection. Every rare feature came out in full relief on his memory—the great blue eye, the broad entablature of forehead, the seductive curl of lip, the splendid carriage of head, and, above all, the magnificence of queenly form. ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... most effectual means taken by the Incas for communicating with their people were their progresses through the empire. These were conducted, at intervals of several years, with great state and magnificence. The sedan, or litter, in which they travelled, richly emblazoned with gold and emeralds, was guarded by a numerous escort. The men who bore it on their shoulders were provided by two cities, specially ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... guest." With a vivacity which cannot have been the common habit of her intercourse with her husband, Sieglinde pronounces judgment aloud and at once upon this ungenerous speech and speaker, whose prudence must certainly, in contrast with the Waelsung's frank magnificence of courage, seem to her unspeakably bourgeois: "Only cowards fear one going his way unarmed and alone!" And turning again eagerly to the guest: "Tell further, guest, how you lately lost your arms in battle!" Siegmund as eagerly satisfies her. The circumstances which he describes ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... outer, and if we are in earnest the precious things lie all around our feet, and we need not waste our strength in striving after the dim and unattainable. Women, in your golden youth; mother, binding around your heart all the precious ties of life,—let no magnificence of culture, or amplitude of fortune, or refinement of sensibilities, repel you from helping the weaker and less favored. If you have ampler gifts, hold them as larger opportunities with which you can benefit others. Oh, it ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... six-inch plank floors, elaborately-carved decorations, stained-glass windows, and its amusement and refreshment halls. All betoken the former elegance of the Russian governor's home, which was supported with such pride and magnificence as will never be seen there again. The walls are crumbling, the windows broken, and the old oaken stairways will soon be sinking to earth again, and its only life will be on the page ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... pomp and magnificence than that which we have spoken of, sends his ambassadors to foreign princes in the affairs of estate. For while our men were abiding in the city of Moscow, there were two ambassadors sent to the King of Poland, accompanied with 500 notable horse; ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... reptile has passed, for can it not be imagined that, in those far-back days when oysters attained a length of two feet and better deserved the title of Tridacna (three bites) than the present clams, pearls of corresponding magnificence of size were produced? Or are robust pearlless oysters to be accepted as the type of the strong era, and small oysters and pearls merely as signs of degeneracy? The largest of modern pearls measured ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... to us there. But the truth is, they were very great days at Berlin, those of Autumn, 1750; distinguished strangers come or coming; the King giving himself up to entertainment of them, to enjoyment of them; with such a hearty outburst of magnificence, this Carrousel the apex of it, as was rare in his reign. There were his Sisters of Schwedt and Baireuth, with suite, his dear Wilhelmina queen of the scene; ["Came 8th August" (Rodenbeck, 205).] there were—It would be tedious to count what other high Herrschaften and Durchlauchtig ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... amiability, having had opportunities of displaying both these attractive gifts at the several courts where she has acted as Italian ambassadress. They made their way quickly up the long room,—she short, rather sallow, inclined toward embonpoint, but with eyes whose magnificence was rivalled only by that of her diamonds; he bald-headed, fat, gray-haired, covered with orders,—and were soon out of sight. I followed them with a sigh which caused my neighbour to ask me jocosely whether the marchesa was an old flame ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... populace followed in their footsteps. From that very time, every year diminished the authority of the Senate, until in the age of Augustus the death of the nobles and the selection of insignificant men almost wholly destroyed its dignity. Augustus, to be sure, restored to the fathers their ancient magnificence, but, great as was the fire (so to speak), it was without real heat. Never was the power of the senators recovered. At last even the appearance of ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... perhaps half or three-quarters of an hour there is a Weli called Nebi Osha; that is to say, a sepulchre, or commemorative station of the Prophet Joshua, celebrated all over the country for the exceeding magnificence of the prospect it commands in every direction. In order to reach this, we had to pass over hills and plains newly taken into cultivation for vineyards, mile after mile, in order to supply a recent call for the peculiar grapes of the district at Jerusalem to be sent ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... MYalu was summoned from the sweating throng squatted before the line of demon keepers through the giant ebon guards to audience with the Son-of-the-Earthquake. At the entrance as bidden he knelt, for he knew that he would be compelled did he refuse. A white flame was in his heart, but yet the magnificence of the son of the World Trembler and his satellites, the terrible ghosts of the distant white god, with amulets and charms upon his breast, had awed and subdued MYalu. Then came the voice of Sakamata relating that the chief MYalu, ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... feeling. And now his sympathy would gush forth anew, and he would cover with attentions his father, who, fiercely preoccupied with the business of obtaining breath, gave no heed to them. And now he would stand impressed, staggered, by the magnificence ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... of which the student regards as superfluous and inappropriate. An accepted tradition of the modern stage ordains that every revival of a Shakespearean play at a leading theatre shall base some part of its claim to public favour on its spectacular magnificence. ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... entertain her; for that was a part of the hospitality of which the South boasted. There was something enjoyable, too, in parading the riches of a well-stocked wardrobe and the lavish splendors of an old Southern home to one who, she believed, had never seen such magnificence before; for the belief that poverty and poor fare are the common lot of the country folks at the North is one of the fallacies commonly held by all classes at the South. As slavery, which was the universal criterion of ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... with crimson upholstery, upon which rested a multitude of scarlet-embroidered cushions that seemed to the color-loving eye like a dream of plum-pudding after a nightmare of mince-pie. Through this magnificence had drifted, while yet the Leatherstonepaughs saw Rome in all its idealizing mists, generations of artists. Sometimes these artists had had a sublime disdain of base lucre, and sometimes base lucre had had a sublime disdain of them. Some of the latter class—whose name is Legion—had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... Sardis. Croesus received him as his guest, and lodged him in the royal palace. On the third or fourth day after, he bade his servants conduct Solon over his treasuries and show him all their greatness and magnificence. When he had seen them all, and so far as time allowed inspected them, Croesus addrest this question to him: "Stranger of Athens, we have heard much of thy wisdom and of thy travels through many lands, from love of knowledge and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... but that I scarcely minded, for I had suddenly come into possession of my wife's castle in Spain. I sat in a spacious, lofty apartment, furnished with a princely magnificence. Rare pictures adorned the walls, statues looked down from deep niches, and over both the dark ivy of England ran and drooped in graceful luxuriance. Upon the heavy tables were costly, illuminated volumes; luxurious chairs and ottomans invited to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... eyes filling at her disappointment; William then marched down the hall with a stately magnificence peculiar to butlers, and opened the door into the playroom. He flung it wide and stood to one side like a grenadier, as Celeste and Ethel entered. There was a gorgeous tree, beautifully trimmed. William had bought the tree and Celeste's French taste ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... chains from the frescoed ceiling. The walls were richly tapestried with products of the looms of the Gobelins, representing the plains of Italy filled with sunshine, where groves, temples, and colonnades were pictured in endless vistas of beauty. The furniture of the chamber was of regal magnificence. Nothing that luxury could desire, or art furnish, had been spared in its adornment. On a sofa lay a guitar, and beside it a scarf and a dainty glove fit for the hand ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... yesterday a very long and dear letter from your august hand, which made me very happy. Your fete I believe to have been most probably one of the most splendid ever given. There is hardly a country where so much magnificence exists; Austria has some of the means, but the Court is not elegant from its nature. We regret sincerely not to have been able to witness it, and will admire the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... ministers, to catch, by a side-glance, a view of the times, as they appeared to men occupying a less central and less abstract position than that of the general historian. If we look at the Palace of Versailles from the terrace in front of the edifice, we are impressed with its broad magnificence, but we are soon tired, and all that is left in our memory is a vast expanse of windows, columns, statues, and wall. But let us retire to some of the bosquets on each side of the main avenue, and take a diagonal view of the great mansion ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... Giles's demeanour was rather that of one prepared for the inevitable than that of an eager bridegroom; and when orders began to pour in for accoutrements of unrivalled magnificence for the King and the gentlemen who were to accompany him to Ardres, there to meet the young King of France just after Whitsuntide, Dennet was the first to assure her father that there would be no time to think ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sable tide."— Such thoughts as these that moss-grown pile calls forth To those who gaze upon its shattered walls, Or, musing, tread its grass-grown aisles, or pause To contemplate the wide and barren heath, Spreading in rude magnificence around, With scarce a tree or shrub to intersect Its gloomy aspect, save the noble ash That fronts the ruins, on whose hoary trunk The hurricanes of years have vainly burst, To mar its beauty;—there sublime it stands, Waving its graceful ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... perverse: he loves the obstinacy of Roland, who will not, till too late, sound his horn to call Charlemagne and his armies, but prefers to face the enemy, and if need be to die, by himself, rather than to ask for help; he is filled with the sense of the magnificence of the stark figure of Hagen, who had indeed treacherously murdered the great Siegfried, but whose heart is so high and his hand so heavy, that when he is overpowered, and Chriemhilda at last avenges upon him the murder of her husband, ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... for twenty years before the east end of the church was pulled down during the Archiepiscopate of Anselm, and rebuilt in a much more splendid style by Ernulph, the prior of the monastery. Conrad, who succeeded Ernulph as prior, finished the choir, decorating it with great magnificence, and, in the course of his reconstruction, nearly doubling the area of the building. Thus completed anew, the cathedral was dedicated by Archbishop William in A.D. 1130. At this notable ceremony the kings of England and Scotland both assisted, ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... magnificence of all ceremonial in worship; and this was the thought that struck me then. Permit me to describe the scene, and to express the thought that rose in my mind, as I gazed upon it. It was in the great cathedral ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... the dwelling of one of the chief senators of Pompeii is elegant indeed, and adorned with the most beautiful specimens of art, but small. But their public buildings are everywhere marked by the bold and grand designs of an unsparing magnificence. In the little town of Pompeii (it contained about twenty thousand inhabitants) it is wonderful to see the number and grandeur of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... this splendid celebration of Easter means that you are a more religious people than in the plainer Easter days that I remember. Is the sincerity of religious feeling always in proportion to the magnificence of the ritual? If it be, you have become a deeply religious people, especially in your great city. We used to think at the legation in Rome that the people of that city were in danger of mistaking a punctual observance of religious ceremonies for religion. But you are so intelligent that you ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... such a court as had not been seen before, nor was ever seen again, whether one count beauty first, or riches and magnificence, or the marvel of splendid ceremony and the faultless grace of studied manners, or even the cool recklessness of great lords and ladies who could lose a fortune at play, as if they were throwing a handful of coin to a beggar in ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... that the English general, Carleton, had said he would not surrender the town till the horse had caught up to the hay. Skulking riflemen of the Congress troops had taken refuge in the mansion of Bigot's former magnificence, the Intendant's Palace, and Carleton had ordered the cannoneers on his walls to knock the house down. So fell the house ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... broke the crusted snow of Mont Genevre. An Italian mother, the most beautiful of the Viscontis, come out of Italy, rich in her land of Asti and her half million of pure gold, had borne him in her youth to the King of France's brother: a man luxurious, over fine, exact in taste, a lover of magnificence in stories and words, decadent in a dying time, very brave. Through that father the Valois blood, unjustly hated or still more unjustly despised according to the varied ignorance of modern ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... of uncorrupted feelings and adventurous genius led forth by an imagination inflamed and purified through familiarity with all that is excellent and majestic, to the contemplation of the universe. He drinks deep of the fountains of knowledge, and is still insatiate. The magnificence and beauty of the external world sinks profoundly into the frame of his conceptions, and affords to their modifications at variety not to be exhausted. so long as it is possible for his desires to point towards objects thus infinite and unmeasured, he is joyous, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... ancient ruined city, of prodigious grandeur and extent, in the province of Vera Paz, but little more than 150 miles to the east of Guatimala, (instead of nearly 200, as the Padre had supposed,) which far surpassed in magnificence every other ruin, as yet discovered, either in Central America or Mexico. It lay overgrown with huge timber in the midst of a dense forest, far remote from any settlement, and near the crater of a long extinct volcano, ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... hospitalities, however, were all on their side. The first entertainment—to which Selina insisted upon going, and Johanna thought Hilary and Ascott had better go too—was splendid enough, but they were the only ladies present; and though Mr. Ascott did the honors with great magnificence, putting Miss Selina at the head of his table, where she looked exceedingly well, still the sisters agreed it was better that all further invitations to Russell Square should be declined. Miss Selina herself said it would be ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... we are!" said Clover, as she remarked this magnificence. "Turn round, Cecy—a panier, I do declare—and a sash! You are getting awfully grown up, ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... multitude of lights, the polished floor of costly wood, the bare whiteness of walls wainscotted with marble, the vastness of the room, the imposing forms of furniture, carved heavily in ebony, impressed me with a sense of secular and austere magnificence. For centuries there had always been a Riego living in this fortress-like palace, ruling this portion of the New World with the whole majesty of his race. And I thought of the long, loop-holed, buttressed walls that this abode of noble adventurers presented foursquare ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... vied with each other in erecting shrines, and in 605, we find the Empress Suiko commanding all high dignitaries of State to make 16-foot images of copper** and of embroidery. Buddhist festivals were instituted in 606, and their magnificence, as compared with the extreme simplicity of the Shinto rites, must have deeply impressed the people. In a few decades Buddhism became a great social power, and since its priests and nuns were outside the sphere of ordinary administration, the question of their ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... flutings and scrolls of white icing, and on its broad breast reposed cherries, and stout butterflies of jelly, and cunning traceries of colored sugar. It was quite the dressiest cake I had ever beheld. Surely no human hand could be wanton enough to guide a knife through all that magnificence. But in the center of all this splendor was an inscription in heavy white letters ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... the whole of this day's journey, to keep along the ridge bordering on the glen. It is impossible to form a correct idea of the wild magnificence of the scenery without the pencil of a Salvator. Such a painter would here find an ample field for the exercise of his genius. How dreadful must the convulsion have been that formed these glens! The principal glen led us to the westward: there were others that ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... and distinction, in town you would bow, Let appearance of wealth be your care: If your friends see you live, not a creature cares how, The question will only be, Where? A circus, a polygon, crescent, or place, With ideas of magnificence tally; Squares are common, streets queer, but a lane's a disgrace; And we've no such thing as an alley. A first floor's pretty well, and a parlour so so; But, pray, who can give themselves airs, Or mix with high folks, if so vulgarly ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... kiss she had given the giant aboard ship, he concluded that the Bird Daughter was drawn by the physical magnificence of the man, which gave him a little bitterness. So he merely set his jaw the harder and said nothing of the thing that lay in his heart to any one. For that matter, he was not quite sure himself what the thing was; but he knew that he had ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... and grace. Never before had she so desired to create an impression. Yet she had given Julian her most solemn promise, and she intended to keep it. As she slowly attired herself, however, she wondered very much why he was so set upon denuding her of her accustomed magnificence. Her mind was entirely unable to grasp his conception of beauty and of attractiveness. She thought all men preferred the peony to the violet. To-night it was very certain that she would be no peony, scarcely even a violet. Her new gown ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... be put on board; then I made a spring for the deck, as it surged up towards me on a rising wave, and in a moment more the cabin-door had shut behind me, and I was safe and snug, in the midst of leather and mahogany and electric-lighted magnificence. Through the heavy double windows I saw the dock swing round behind us, and saw the torrents of green spray sweep over us and past. I grasped at the seat to keep myself from being thrown forward, and then grasped ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... governor's hands. His Lordship received the envoy in great state, seated in a chair, surrounded by the most brilliant of the army, in elegant and splendid array. The ambassador sat on one end of the same carpet, astonished at the magnificence of our captain-general and his soldiers. The captain-general commanded the governor of the fort to entertain the envoy at his own house, and sent later, for his delectation, some cocoanuts and chickens. He gave him some very beautiful pieces of silk; but ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... outward guise of regal office, in his bearing, politeness, address, magnificence, and high-heeled dignity, but he was sensual, ferocious, ignorant, profligate, and superstitious. His greatness was fictitious, his splendor superficial, and his character false. The king was the state, but his mistresses governed. A court thus constituted led the fashions and formed the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... when he was Minister here, had the grand hotel of the Ministry, and gave entertainments to all the great de par le monde, as Brantome says, and entertained them in a proper ministerial magnificence. The splendid and beautiful Duchess of Dash was at one of his ministerial parties; and went, a fortnight afterwards, as in duty bound, to pay her respects to M. Guizot. But it happened, in this fortnight, that M. Guizot was Minister no longer; having given up his ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... grand mien, even the tone of his voice and the majestic and natural charm of all his person, distinguished him till his death as the King Bee, and showed that if he had been born only a simple private gentleman, he would have excelled in fetes, pleasures and gallantry. . . . He liked splendor, magnificence and profusion in everything. Nobody ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... of stunned bewilderment, was looking at her with worshipping admiration. He had always known that Miss Ann possessed a mind of no common order, but this, he felt, was genius. For a moment the magnificence of the idea took his ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... much suffering, privations, and weariness, how happy it makes one to reap the rewards of all his labors! How the soul soars toward the divine Author of all these microscopic worlds, the magnificence of which is revealed to us! Where now are the long hours of anguish, hunger, contempt, which overwhelmed us before? Gone, sir, gone! Tears of gratitude moisten our eyes. One is proud to have achieved, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... take the oath of allegiance and homage. Having thus prepared, as best he could, for his son's future, Robert set out on his pilgrimage. He visited Rome and Constantinople, everywhere displaying his magnificence, together with his humility. He fell ill from sheer fatigue whilst crossing Asia Minor, and was obliged to be carried in a litter by four negroes. "Go and tell them at home," said he to a Norman pilgrim he met returning from the Holy Land, "that you ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... have surround him. If I were to select a character of which it might be said that it was round, without angles, even without salient points, it would be his—not because he was weak, but because the calmness, the serenity, and the magnificence (if I may use a word that seems to be hyperbolic) of the equipoise of his qualities made each of them seem less important than it would have seemed if other qualities ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... in the manuscript Life of Lord Arundel, to which we have already alluded, and it also contains a reference to his library. 'This Earle moreover continewed allwayes of a greate and noble mynde. Amonge the number of whose doings, that past in his tyme, this one is not the least, to showe his magnificence, that perceivinge a sumptuous house called Nonsuche to have bene begon, but not finished, by his first maister Kinge Henry the eighte, and thearfore in Quene Maryes tyme, thoughte mete rather to have bene pulled downe and solde by peacemeale then to be perfited at her charges, ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... she had leisure to notice how fine it was in proportions and adornments, and what luxurious abundance of everything that wealth buys and cultivation takes pleasure in, had space to abound without the seeming of multiplicity. The house was as stately within as on the outside. The magnificence was new to Eleanor, and drove her somehow to musings of a very opposite character. Perhaps her unallayed spirit of opposition might have been with other causes at the bottom of this. However that were, her thoughts went off in a perverse train upon the ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... assumed the name of Leo X. The new pontiff was but thirty-six years of age, a man of brilliant talents, and devoted to the pursuit of letters. Inspired by boundless ambition, he wished to signalize his reign by the magnificence of his court and the grandeur ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... splendiferously. There are to be jewels as big as walnuts, and bouquets five feet in diameter, and a rope of pearls for a necklace, and a rehearsal of the hale thing in the church. Aye, indeed, a rehearsal, and the 'deacon, honest man, in the middle of the magnificence." ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... depth and richness, the same truth of character, passion, imagination, thought and language, thrown, heaped, massed together without careful polishing or exact method, but poured out in unconcerned profusion from the lap of nature and genius in boundless and unrivalled magnificence. The sweetness of Deckar, the thought of Marston, the gravity of Chapman, the grace of Fletcher and his young-eyed wit, Jonson's learned sock, the flowing vein of Middleton, Heywood's ease, the pathos of Webster, and Marlow's deep designs, add a double lustre to the ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... of the Gauls themselves. From curiosity, or a desire to make terms with Alexander, certain Gauls betook themselves to his camp. He treated them well, made them sit at his table, took pleasure in exhibiting his magnificence before them, and in the midst of his carouse made his interpreter ask them what ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... resting,—noted such mysterious and evasive hues in her Northern sky. Never had she seen heavens so triumphant. True, the stars shone with a remote glory, but she was more inspired by their enduring, their impersonal magnificence, than she could have been by ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... heureux, 600 De la pourpre aujourd'hui par comme vous-mme, Et portant sur le front le sacr diadme, Sur un de vos coursiers pompeusement orn, Aux yeux de vos sujets dans Suse ft men; Que, pour comble de gloire et de magnificence, 605 Un seigneur minent en richesse, en puissance, Enfin de votre empire aprs vous le premier, Par la bride guidt son superbe coursier; Et lui-mme, marchant en habits magnifiques, Crit haute voix dans les places publiques: 610 Mortels, prosternez-vous: c'est ainsi ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... anywhere else, except it be perhaps in Poland) to be passed over; I mean the state of free servants, and attendants upon noblemen and gentlemen; which are no ways inferior unto the yeomanry for arms. And therefore out of all questions, the splendor and magnificence, and great retinues and hospitality, of noblemen and gentlemen, received into custom, doth much conduce unto martial greatness. Whereas, contrariwise, the close and reserved living of noblemen and gentlemen, causeth ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... Her lofty city.—Ver. 57. The magnificence of ancient Babylon has been remarked by many ancient writers, from Herodotus downwards. Its walls are said to have been 60 miles in compass, 87 feet in thickness, and 350 feet ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Agrippa, which were placed at the foot of the statue that he had raised to himself. The ancients took so much care to soften the idea of dissolution that they knew how to strip it of every thing that was doleful and repulsive. There was, besides, so much magnificence in their tombs that the contrast was less felt between the blank of death and the splendours of life. It is true that the hope of another world being less vivid among the Pagans than amongst Christians, they endeavoured to dispute with ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... Unookuk, with a quiet magnificence. Then, seeing no electric recognition of the name, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... letters; for they both sailed to Dicearchia, and found Caius at Bairn, which is itself a little city of Campania, at the distance of about five furlongs from Dicearchia. There are in that place royal palaces, with sumptuous apartments, every emperor still endeavoring to outdo his predecessor's magnificence; the place also affords warm baths, that spring out of the ground of their own accord, which are of advantage for the recovery of the health of those that make use of them; and, besides, they minister to men's luxury also. Now Caius saluted Herod, for he first met with him, and then looked ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... among them are said to be of great merit. Over the dome rises a tower or spire, or rather obelisk, for its singular shape renders it difficult to ascertain its appellation, which, whatever may be its intrinsic merit, adds little either to the beauty or to the magnificence of the structure which it surmounts. This obelisk was erected about the middle of the last century, contrary to the opinion of the best architects. Though misplaced, its form is not in itself inelegant, while its architecture ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... sword-belt of Durand (the sword and the dagger were not worn at the banquet, nor in the house, they were received by the marshal, and deposited in his care, a precaution against quarrelling), solid silver links passing over his shoulder, were real actual things. All the magnificence that he could call up by the exercise of his imagination, was but imagination; a dream no more to be seen by ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... potential parts of Fortitude (s. vii., n. 3, p. 92), the three virtues of Magnificence, Magnanimity, and Patience. It is the part of Patience, philosophically to endure all sufferings short of death. It is the part of the former two, to dare wisely, not in a matter of life and death, but in the matter of expense, for Magnificence, and of honour, for Magnanimity. Magnificence, technically ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... magnificence divine! 'O wisdom truly perfect! thus to call 'from a few causes, such a scheme of things; 'effects so various, ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.
... who huddled at the windows and door to see the inner magnificence a frightened whisper ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... privately not to attack him very fiercely, but to spare "the Hungarian guest," whose vanity, known throughout the world, used to make him cry in case of defeat. But the most interest was excited among the knights by Witold's affairs. They told marvelous tales about the magnificence of that cradle, made of sterling silver, which the Lithuanian princes and bojars[39] had brought as a present from Witold and his wife, Anna. Macko told about the proposed enormous expedition against ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... gives to the marvellous world He has made for humanity. To see the Dawn o'er mountain and lake; scent the grass and the incense of the flowers, and the sweet breath of the land. To grasp the real and tumultuous magnificence of their ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... to adorn his west, sticking his red hot ball of a sun in the very midst; and a couple of hours later, when the orb has fallen, and the flaming crimson has mellowed into liquid orange, you can see the black skeletons of trees scribbled upon the melancholy glory. Nor need I speak of the magnificence of a winter midnight, when space, sombre blue, crowded with star and planet, "burnished by the frost," is glittering like the harness of an archangel full panoplied against ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... towards the west. There had been a heavy shower in the afternoon, and clouds were brilliant all over the sky, around Graylock and everywhere else. Those over the hills of the west were the most splendid in purple and gold, and, there being a haze, it added immensely to their majesty and dusky magnificence. ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... festivities attending the birth of the august heir to the crown; Our good Mr. Johnson happened to pay me a visit on one of those days when my lady countess's carriage flamed up to our little gate. He was not a little struck by her magnificence, and made her some bows, which were more respectful than graceful. She called me cousin very affably, and helped to transfer the present of jelly from her silver dish into our crockery pan with much benignity. The Doctor tasted the sweetmeat, and pronounced ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... acclamations followed the royal coach throughout the route. The townsfolk of Harwich, in particular, had hung out every scrap of bunting they could find, besides erecting half a dozen triumphal arches, which by their taste and magnificence were calculated to leave the most favourable ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... seaport, and as the contemporary and rival of fair Venice, and, like her, has had a proud and eventful history. How sadly are these splendid cities of the past, these great and wealthy republics of ancient times, sunk at the present day to a shadow of their former magnificence and grandeur! Their ruined splendour alone remains to show us what they were. But it is like gazing on the beauty of death; the soul, the spirit, is wanting, and we are continually haunted by the hollow mockery of the empty house which ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... Lord Lieutenant then gave his arm to the lady of highest rank (alas, it was not I!); her Excellency chose her proper squire, and we passed through the beautifully decorated rooms to St. Patrick's Hall in a nicely graded procession, magnificence at the head, humility at the tail. A string band was discoursing sweet music the while, and I fitted to its measures certain well-known lines descriptive of the entrance of the beasts into ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... soldier, beguiled by Falsehood, doffs the armor of God, and indulges in sinful pleasures, and loses his purity. He then quickly falls into the power of Carnal Pride, or the brutal tyranny of False Religion (Orgoglio). He can then be restored only by an appeal to the Highest Honor or Magnificence (Prince Arthur) through the good offices of Truth ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... is no kitchenmaid," she boomed wrathfully. "And I had not expected such an antiquated range. Nor could I possibly manage with these saucepans"—sweeping a scornful hand towards an array which seemed to the hapless Lintons to err only on the side of magnificence. "There will be a number of necessary items. And where am I to sit? You will hardly expect me ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... prevalent fashion, the Venetian divides his Indies into three parts, the first extending from Persia to the Indus; the second from the Indus to the Ganges; the third including all beyond the Ganges; this last he considered to excel the others in wealth, culture and magnificence, and to be abreast of Italy in civilization. We may note, moreover, Conti's account of the bamboo in the Ganges valley; of the catching, taming and rearing of elephants in Burma and other regions; of Indian tattooing and the use of leaves for ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... had been glorious ones for Peggy and her sisters. The love of display and finery which was characteristic of them was satiated by the brilliance and the gayety of the winter season during which the titled British Officers were feted and entertained extravagantly. None outshone the Shippens in the magnificence of their entertainments. Their house was ever open in hospitality, and more than once it had been whispered about that their resources had ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... were kept long at the piano. The villagers were astonished and enchanted with the magnificence of their performance, and could not bear to have them stop. All the music that they had ever heard before seemed spiritless prentice-work and barren of grace and charm when compared with these intoxicating floods of melodious ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... three voyages did not, perhaps, far exceed that of digging out the buried contents of Herculaneum. And we may add, that the novelties of the Society or Sandwich Islands seem better calculated to engage the attention of the studious in our times, than the antiquities which exhibit proofs of Roman magnificence. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr |
