"Symmetry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Symmetry of form is a rare and exquisite gift, but there are other conditions quite as indispensable to beauty. Let a woman possess but a very moderate share of personal charms, if her countenance is expressive of intellect and kind ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... in form that they were puzzling. About fifty feet across and ten in altitude, they looked artificial in their symmetry—like great saucers set on the ocean floor bottom side up. They took on a dirty black hue as our light struck them, and glowed with a faint phosphorescence as they ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... Fagerolles, whom he considered to be his own creation, when Henriette solicited a little attention for the raviolis. There was a short slackening of the quarrel amid the crystalline clinking of the glasses and the light clatter of the forks. The table, laid with such fine symmetry, was already in confusion, and seemed to sparkle still more amid the ardent fire of the quarrel. And Sandoz, growing anxious, felt astonished. What was the matter with them all that they attacked Fagerolles so harshly? Hadn't they all begun together, and were they not all to reach ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... the acanthus, anthemion, etc. The moldings were wide and sometimes a torus of laurel leaves was used, but in spite of the great amount of ornament lavished on everything, there is the feeling of balance and symmetry and strength that gives ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... a certain symmetry or disproportion of parts (either of which depends immediately upon the locomotive system)—or a certain softness or hardness of form (which belongs exclusively to the vital system)—these reciprocally denote a locomotive symmetry or disproportion—or a vital softness or hardness—or a mental ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... higher forms of vitality. Even the leaves of the same tree are said to differ, each one from all the rest. And can it be good for the soul of a man "with a biography of his own like to no one else's," to subject itself without thought to the opinions and ways of others: not to grow into symmetry, but to be moulded down ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... proficient with the bows and arrows, or in hurling the javelin, I was equipped with a strong spear. My mistress was skilful to admiration with the arrow and javelin; she never missed her aim that I knew, and she certainly never appeared to such advantage as she did at this hunting-party. Her activity, her symmetry of limb, and her courage, her skill with her weapons, all won the heart of the old king; and I believe that his strong attachment to her arose more from her possession of the above qualities than from ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... then a gray, who seemed to have a strong objection to being led, and who held back and dragged at his rein in a most provoking manner; and lastly, by the side of a brown hack that I fancied I had seen before, a beautiful black horse, the very impersonation of strength, symmetry, courage, speed, and all that a horse ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... one bit of knowledge would more than any other illuminate the problem, I think we may give the answer without hesitation. The greatest advance that we can foresee will be made when it is found possible to connect the geometrical phenomena of development with the chemical. The geometrical symmetry of living things is the key to a knowledge of their regularity, and the forces which cause it. In the symmetry of the dividing cell the basis of that resemblance we call Heredity is contained. To imitate the morphological phenomena of life we have to devise ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... look of apprehension sat oddly on her small features, which had an air of neat symmetry somehow suggestive of being set in order every morning by the housemaid. Some one (there were rumors that it was her cousin) had once said that Paula Fetherel would have been very pretty if she hadn't looked so like a moral axiom ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... more often they appear as in figure 181. The unequal pair appears in each figure at s. In the metaphase (fig. 182) it is the last to come into the equatorial plate, possibly because of its lack of symmetry. The smaller component of this pair is always directed toward the equator of the spindle. Figure 183 shows a small tangential section of a spindle in metaphase, containing the unequal pair and one equal pair. In figure 184 a polar view of a metaphase is shown, the unequal ...
— Studies in Spermatogenesis (Part 1 of 2) • Nettie Maria Stevens
... of Salem, with a form of great symmetry, possesses a countenance not only beautiful, but entirely intellectual—the most so of any you have met with either here or elsewhere; it is of the Italian model; and should have basked beneath an Italian sky. She is very easy, graceful and modest in her deportment, and dresses 'rich not gaudy;' ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... floor evidently implied a lower order beneath. This basement, seven and a half metres in depth, now buried, was in Perrault's scheme designed to be exposed by a fosse of some fifteen to twenty metres in width, and the whole elevation and symmetry of the wing would have immensely gained by the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... anxious for the denouement. And so Shakspeare, careless of future fame, frequently displays a singular disparity between the parts. He has so much of detail in the first two acts, that in order to preserve the symmetry, five or six more would be necessary. Thus conclusions are hurried, when, as works of art, they should ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... you behold the picture of Julius Caesar, do you see with your eyes any more than some colours and figures, with a certain symmetry and composition of ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... extravagant or unwarrantable inflections which will mar the expression of the thought should be permitted, but it is quite desirable to gradually extend the range of the inflections, if one still maintains in the practice that common sense which will leave the expression in perfect symmetry when the extra effort made for inflection shall have been withdrawn. Though it is sometimes desirable to exaggerate one element, even to the sacrifice of others, it is never necessary to introduce false notes, the effect of which may remain as a limitation ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... porcelain; but there were ever roses in her cheeks, for she was strong by nature, and her health was perfect. She was somewhat short of stature, as were all the Hotspurs, and her feet and hands and ears were small and delicate. But though short, she seemed to lack nothing in symmetry, and certainly lacked nothing in strength. She could ride or walk the whole day, and had no feeling that such vigour of body was a possession of which a young lady should be ashamed. Such as she was, she was the acknowledged beauty of the county; and at Carlisle, where ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... due to the muscular exactions required; he had a sickening fear that the scowl that marked his brow was destined to form a perpetual alliance with the smirk at the corner of his nose, forever destroying the symmetry of his face. If one who has not the proper facial construction will but attempt the feat of holding a monocle in place for unbroken hours, he may come to appreciate at least one of the ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... fellow on the other side of the legs is prepared in exactly the same manner; and the second trestle is a duplicate of the first, with the exception that the directions of the struts are reversed relatively to the C piece, to preserve the symmetry—which, however, ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... picture will be blended and melted into one harmonious whole,—when all the now disjointed stones in the temple will be seen to fit into their appointed place, giving unity, and compactness, and symmetry, to all the building. ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... upon it. "Its lines," says Miss Jekyll, "fill one with the satisfaction caused by a thing that is exactly right, and with admiration for the art and skill of a true artist." These homely tongs are fashioned with a fine eye for symmetry, and, indeed, for beauty of design and perfect fitness for the intended purpose. The ends which were to pick up the coal are shaped like two little hands, while "the edges have slight mouldings and even a low bead enrichment. The circular flat on the side away from the ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... renewed quest of that favorite pabulum more delectable than rowen clover, the splintered cribbings from the legs of a certain pine bench, which, up to date, he has lowered about three inches—a process in which he has considered average rather than symmetry, or the comfort of the too trusting visitor who happens to be unaware of ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... indomitable ferocity, with jaws fitted to pin down the bull, for man's brutal sport? But if we give up the principle in one case; if we do not admit that the variations of the primeval dog were intentionally guided in order, for instance, that the greyhound, that perfect image of symmetry and vigor, might be formed; no shadow of reason can be assigned for the belief that variations, alike in nature and the results of the same general laws, which have been the groundwork through natural selection of the most perfectly ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... the curves of the leg, and destroyed all firmness and dignity of gait. Far better was the fashion of the middle ages, when the trouser became a real pantaloon—a pantalon collant, as modern artists call it, and when the full symmetry of the limb was displayed to the utmost advantage. This was, no doubt, the acme of perfection that the garment in question was capable of; and it is to be lamented that the mode has not kept its position in society more universally. For all purposes of ceremonial ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... thy thrilling voice, Nor see thy winning face; That once would gleam like morning's beam, In mental pride and grace: Thy form of matchless symmetry, In sweet perfection cast— Is now the star of memory That fades not with ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... to injury and contumely gave to her perfect symmetry of person, a timid eye, a retiring manner, and spread upon her face a placid sweetness, a pale serenity indicating sense, which no wise connoisseur in female charms would have exchanged for all the sparkling eyes and florid tints ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... roofs, and glazed at both ends, are better placed North and South,—that is, with the ends facing these points,—as nearly as a due regard to the positions of other buildings in the vicinity, and the general symmetry and apportionment of the grounds will permit. Each side of the roof will thus receive an equal amount of sun-light. For span-roofed Green-houses the rule is not so arbitrary, the glass not being lined with foliage, ...
— Woodward's Graperies and Horticultural Buildings • George E. Woodward
... saw that a collision with the Indian was unavoidable, and without the least hesitation prepared himself for it. The savage was a Miami—a brawny, muscular warrior, fully six feet in height, of matchless symmetry and formidable strength. When the combatants were perhaps a dozen yards apart, he raised his tomahawk over his head, and poising it a moment, hurled it, with a most deadly force, full at the head of the hunter. The latter had not expected such a demonstration as this, but had ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... of the plateau, they are dowered with the grandeur and repose of mountains, together with the finely chiseled carving and modeling of man's temples and palaces, and often, to a considerable extent, with their symmetry. Some, closely observed, look like ruins; but even these stand plumb and true, and show architectural forms loaded with lines strictly regular and decorative, and all are arrayed in colors that storms and time seem ...
— The Grand Canon of the Colorado • John Muir
... of many animals, but nowhere did he see an indication of any woven fabric, indicating that in that respect at least the Ho-don were still low in the scale of evolution, and yet the proportions and symmetry of the corridors and apartments bespoke a degree ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... most important of all, the ear-tufts. The tufts between the toes and the flexibility of the tail are other important points. The shape of head, eyes, and body are also carefully noted. A short-haired cat is judged first for color, then for eyes, head, symmetry, and ears. ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... faith, but as it is heretical and erroneous, though he suffer much tribulation for it, he continues obstinate, and not to be convinced. He flutters up and down like a butterfly in a garden, and while he is pruning of his peruke takes occasion to contemplate his legs and the symmetry of his breeches. He is part of the furniture of the rooms, and serves for a walking picture, a moving piece of arras. His business is only to be seen, and he performs it with admirable industry, placing himself ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... who is generally cautious in his statements, says that the greyhound within the last fifty years, that is before the commencement of the present century, "assumed a somewhat different character from that which he once possessed. He is now distinguished by a beautiful symmetry of form, of which he could not once boast, and he has even superior speed to that which he formerly exhibited. He is no longer used to struggle with deer, but contends with his fellows over a shorter and speedier course." An able writer (1/84. In the 'Encyclop. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... The site of its nest is usually some low bank by the roadside, near a wood. In a slight excavation, with a partially concealed entrance, the exquisite structure is placed. Horse and cow hair are plentifully used, imparting to the interior of the nest great symmetry and ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... and perhaps that is a distinction more enviable, because less envied, than the 'palmy state' of beauty. Her prettiness is of the prettiest kind—that of which the chief character is youthfulness. A short but pleasing figure, all grace and symmetry, a fair blooming face, beaming with intelligence and good-humour; the prettiest little feet and the whitest hands in the world;—such is ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... honest, not for fear of the laws, but because he hath observed how unseemly an article it maketh in the day-book or ledger when a sum is set down lost or missing; it being his pride to make these books to agree and to tally, the one side with the other, with a sort of architectural symmetry and correspondence. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... she exclaimed. "Never did I see an arm and hand of such lovely hue and such exquisite symmetry. I would willingly have made the journey from Rome to ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... passion and the energy of contest, no judgment, however experienced, could venture to anticipate the result of the battle, or name the person likely to be victorious. Indeed it was surprising how the natural sagacity of these men threw their attitudes and movements into scientific form and symmetry. Kelly raised his cudgel, and placed it transversely in the air, between himself and his opponent; Grimes instantly placed his against it—both weapons thus forming a St. Andrew's cross—whilst the men themselves stood foot to foot, calm and collected. Nothing could be ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... a memorial from the president of one of the Boards, who said he was moved by a dream to make the request. We may suppose that his real motives were a wish to do Justice to the merits of Tsze- zo, and to restore the symmetry of the tablets in ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... whichever way he was viewed. Even his thumbs and fingers were nearer square than round; and his very neck, which was bare, though a black silk kerchief was tied loosely round the throat, had a sort of pentagon look about it, that defied all symmetry or grace. His stature was just six feet and an inch, when he straightened himself; as he did from time to time, seemingly with a desire to relieve a very inveterate stoop in his shoulders; though it was an inch or two less in the position he most affected. His hair was dark, and his skin had got ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... ideas, seeds, reasons, shadows, stirring up our minds, that by this good they may be united and made one." Others will have beauty to be the perfection of the whole composition, [4475]"caused out of the congruous symmetry, measure, order and manner of parts, and that comeliness which proceeds from this beauty is called grace, and from thence all fair things are gracious." For grace and beauty are so wonderfully annexed, [4476]"so sweetly and gently win our souls, and strongly allure, that ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... fashion of the times, a fashion not abandoned till the fifth century and in Sparta not till later. The appearance of the hair over the forehead and temples should be noticed. It is arranged symmetrically in flat spiral curls, five curls on each side. Symmetry in the disposition of the front hair is constant in early Greek sculpture, and some scheme or other of spiral ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... shrinking from the touch. And then I saw the improbability, I might say the impossibility, of finding in any ready-made-clothing store, a dress which would fit the twisted form. One must be made on purpose; one which would set at defiance all rules of symmetry; and how to have it completed to-morrow, even late in the day to-morrow? Where should I go to have such an order filled by the time I desired it? And I believed from what I had seen of Matty that the non-fulfilment or postponement of my hasty, ill-considered ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... that is, not being of the circumference most coveted, but too thick, they have been whittled down in bulk. A prime Malacca cane is, of course, a natural stem, and it is a nice point to have a slight irregularity in its symmetry as evidence of this. The delicious spotting of a Malacca cane is due to the action of the sun upon it in drying. As the stems are dried in sheaves, those most richly splotched are the ones that have been at the outside of the ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... be discovered; cut the cheese across, and every slice brings to view cells and partitions, and seeds and embryos, arranged with an unvarying regularity, which would be past belief if we did not know from experience, how far beyond all that the mind can conceive, is the symmetry with which the works of Nature ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... decaying tree,—in rendering his barren plants fruitful. He has recourse to it even when merely desirous of ascertaining the variety of pear or apple which some thriving sapling, slow in bearing, is yet to produce. Selecting some bough which may be conveniently lopped away without destroying the symmetry of the tree, he draws his knife across the bark, and inflicts on it a wound, from which, though death may not ensue for some two or three twelvemonths, it cannot ultimately recover. Next spring the wounded branch ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the ordinary size of women, gave her the appearance of extreme youth, insomuch, that although she was near eighteen, she might have passed for four years younger. Her figure, hands, and feet, were formed upon a model of exquisite symmetry with the size and lightness of her person, so that Titania herself could scarce have found a more fitting representative. Her hair was a dark shade of the colour usually termed flaxen, whose clustering ringlets suited admirably with her fair complexion, and with the ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... Unless methodically arranged, even with a very small library, a volume is often difficult to turn to when desired for immediate consultation, requiring tedious search, especially if the volumes are arranged upon the shelves with respect to size and outward symmetry. This may be avoided by the use of small bookcases and ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... excellent masonry, its good (although crude) carving, its old-time sculpturing of dreadful-looking animals at either end, its decorative triumphal arches, its masses of memorial tablets (which I could not read), its seven arches of beautiful simplicity and symmetry and perfect proportion, it would have been a credit to any civilized country in the world. I noticed that, in addition to cementing, the stones and pillars forming the sides of the roadway were also dovetailed. Among the works of public interest with which successive emperors ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... grow to truth, and they will grow to symmetry; give them leave to ripen, and they ...
— Heart's-ease • Phillips Brooks
... in boys just bursting into manhood; for he was already as conspicuous for the thinness of his flanks, and the shapely hollow of his back, as for the depth and roundness of his chest, the breadth of his shoulders, and the symmetry of his limbs. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... incendiary bombing, no saltlick, wandering stream or struggling bush enlivened this prairie. There was not even an odd conformation, a higher clump here or there, a dead patch to relieve the unimaginative symmetry. I have read of men going mad in solitary confinement from looking at the same unchanging walls; well, here was a solitary cell hundreds of miles in area and its power to destroy the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... for thee, at the orchestra,—they no longer jeer and wink, when, with a fierce fondness, thou dost caress thy Familiar, that plains, and wails, and chides, and growls, under thy remorseless hand. They understand now how irregular is ever the symmetry of real genius. The inequalities in its surface make the moon luminous to man. Giovanni Paisiello, Maestro di Capella, if thy gentle soul could know envy, thou must sicken to see thy Elfrida and thy Pirro laid aside, and all Naples ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... There was feasting, for the hunters had brought in an antelope and a zebra as trophies of their skill, and gallons of the weak native beer were consumed. As the warriors danced in the firelight, Tarzan was again impressed by the symmetry of their figures and the regularity of their features—the flat noses and thick lips of the typical West Coast savage were entirely missing. In repose the faces of the men were intelligent and dignified, those of ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sentence—art which must be divined, if the sentence is to be understood! If there is a misunderstanding about its TEMPO, for instance, the sentence itself is misunderstood! That one must not be doubtful about the rhythm-determining syllables, that one should feel the breaking of the too-rigid symmetry as intentional and as a charm, that one should lend a fine and patient ear to every STACCATO and every RUBATO, that one should divine the sense in the sequence of the vowels and diphthongs, and how delicately and richly they can be tinted and retinted in the order of their arrangement—who ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the plains are the regions where people dwell in greatest numbers. The plains in the two great land masses of the Old World and the New have the same inverse or right- and left-handed symmetry as the mountains. In the north the vast stretches from the Mackenzie River to the Gulf of Mexico correspond to the plains of Siberia and Russia from the Lena to the Black Sea. Both regions have a vast sweep of monotonous tundras at the ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... the Falls, beneath an aged pine, reclined a well- guarded, sorrowful, but haughty band. Their fine symmetry, noble height, and free carriage, were especially attractive. They were all young warriors, whose white paint presented emblems of peace: their plumes were from the beautiful white crane of the sunny forest, which designated the southern land ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... beautiful relic, one is led almost instinctively to believe that it was used as a plummet, for the purpose of determining the perpendicular to the horizon [for building purposes?]; . . . when we consider its symmetry of form, the contrast of colors brought out by the process of grinding and polishing, and the delicate drilling of the hole through a material (syenite) so liable to fracture, we are free to say it affords an exhibition of the lapidary's skill superior to anything yet furnished ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... wide and grass-grown streets, Whose symmetry was not for solitude, There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seat's Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood Of Este, which for many an age made good Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood Of petty power impelled, of those who wore The wreath ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of Providence, are handed down to us, and from us, in the same course and order. Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts,—wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old or ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... John," he observed, hitching the sea-lion skin into symmetry, "whether it is sink ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... night that differed entirely from those we endured when going up. There was a concert party on board, and a cavalry major who possessed some tomato soup. That night the sky was superb with stars. Taurus rose, with Aldebaran as red as fire; then Castor and Pollux calm in their symmetry, with the Pleiades above like a shattered diamond. Then glittering Orion slowly swung above the horizon. In the middle of the night there was a crash of musketry, and a sudden uproar. The major appeared, speaking Hindustani ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... a present of a beautiful black setter puppy, from an unknown hand. He bred and cherished him, and the memory of Black York is still fresh in his country; not only for his perfect symmetry, his silky, raven black hair, but for his gentle, submissive disposition. He was a nervous dog when young, for even a loud word alarmed him, which, combined with his mysterious arrival, and an involuntary affection, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... to add to this collection a meditation upon Empedocles of Agrigentum and the Reign of Hatred.[1] But it was somewhat too long, and its inclusion would have impaired the symmetry of the volume. ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... hear a fiddle, are forced to turn over on their backs and howl; some are unmoved by music. So some men are tortured by every violation of symmetry, while some cannot discern a straight line. I belong to the former class, and my Butler belongs to the latter. He WOULD lay the table in a way which almost gave me a crick in neck, and certainly dislocated ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... the sooner for making a will. Have I the air of a man in a consumption?"—and the sturdy sportsman glanced complacently at the strength and symmetry of his manly limbs. "Come, Phil, let's go to the stables. Now, Robert, I will show you what is better worth seeing than those miserable flower-beds." So saying, Mr. Beaufort led the way to the courtyard at the back of the cottage. Catherine and Sidney ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... out, the aspect of the heavens differs in small detail; but generally it may be laid down that the opposite portions of the sky, whether in the Milky Way itself, or in those regions distant from it, show a marked degree of symmetry. The proper motions of stars in corresponding portions of the sky reveal the same kind of harmony, a harmony which may even be extended to the various colours of the stars. The stellar system, which we see disposed all around ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... articles which had been often used with effect in the past. Among them was one which had been out in the campaigns of 1689 (Dundee's), 1715 (Mar's), and in 1745-6. It was of Spanish manufacture, and remarkable for the length and symmetry of its blade, in consequence of which it received the sobriquet of Rangaire Riabhach.[B] In his failure to find the keys of the arms depository, he bethought him to make a confident and enlist the sympathies of an elderly lady, who had been a member ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... young lady lying asleep, chemised with her hair[FN12] as she were the full moon rising[FN13] over the Eastern horizon, with flower-white brow and shining hair-paring and cheeks like blood-red anemones and dainty moles thereon. He was amazed at her as she lay in her beauty and loveliness, her symmetry and grace, and he recked no more of death. So he went up to her, trembling in every nerve and, shuddering with pleasure, kissed her on the right cheek; whereupon she awoke forthright and opened her eyes, and seeing the Prince standing at her head, said to him, "Who art thou and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... badly ordered for humanity is a self-evident truth of which the observant scarcely need reminding. It is equally obvious, from the exquisite order and symmetry of animal and vegetable life, that Providence is not to blame for the colossal mess into which civilization has managed to lead ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... of the sea in which we had our centre. Since we remained always in the centre, and since we constantly were moving in some direction, we looked upon many circles. But all circles looked alike. No tufted islets, gray headlands, nor glistening patches of white canvas ever marred the symmetry of that unbroken curve. Clouds came and went, rising up over the rim of the circle, flowing across the space of it, and spilling away and down across the ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... the North, the East, and the South. They were followed by sixteen hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel amusement of the amphitheatre. The wealth of Asia, the arms and ensigns of so many conquered nations, and the magnificent plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen, were disposed in exact symmetry or artful disorder. The ambassadors of the most remote parts of the earth, of Aethiopia, Arabia, Persia, Bactriana, India, and China, all remarkable by their rich or singular dresses, displayed the fame and power of the Roman emperor, who exposed likewise to the public view the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... more formal greatness in the high square Gothic Foscari, just below it, one of the noblest creations of the fifteenth century, a masterpiece of symmetry and majesty. Dedicated to-day to official uses—it is the property of the State—it looks conscious of the consideration it enjoys, and is one of the few great houses within our range whose old age strikes us as robust and painless. It is visibly ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... much otherwise of their own condition, that they paint the Devil White. Nor is Blackness inconsistent with Beauty, which even to our European Eyes consists not so much in Colour, as an Advantageous Stature, a Comely Symmetry of the parts of the Body, and Good Features in the Face. So that I see not why Blackness should be thought such a Curse to the Negroes, unless perhaps it be, that being wont to go Naked in those Hot Climates, the Colour of their Skin does probably, according to the Doctrine ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... think, be owned, that upon the whole, London is neither so handsomely nor so well built as Berlin is; but then it certainly has far more fine squares. Of these there are many that in real magnificence and beautiful symmetry far surpass our Gens d'Armes Markt, our Denhoschen and William's Place. The squares or quadrangular places contain the best and most beautiful buildings of London; a spacious street, next to the houses, goes all round them, and within that there is generally a round ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... most beautiful brunette in the world; her eyes were large, lively, and sparkling; her looks sweet and modest; her nose was of a just proportion and without a fault; her mouth small, her lips of a vermilion red, and charmingly agreeable symmetry; in a word, all the features of her face were perfectly regular. It is not therefore surprising that Aladdin, who had never seen, and was a stranger to, so many charms, was dazzled. With all these perfections the Princess had so delicate a shape, so majestic an air, that the ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the Plain might have remarked that the heavens above them did not altogether fit in with their own high civilisation and social habits. They would be right. Oddly enough, however, when symmetry was eventually restored, it was not the heavens that had been obliged to adapt themselves. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... quantity or degree.] Equality — N. equality, parity, coextension^, symmetry, balance, poise; evenness, monotony, level. equivalence; equipollence^, equipoise, equilibrium, equiponderance^; par, quits, a wash; not a pin to choose; distinction without a difference, six of one and half a dozen of the other; tweedle dee and tweedle dum [Lat.]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... solemn in their light, a serenity in his smile, a grandeur on his brow, that I had never marked till then! Was that the same man I had recoiled from as the sneering cynic, shuddered at as the audacious traitor, or wept over as the cowering outcast? How little the nobleness of aspect depends on symmetry of feature, or the mere proportions of form! What dignity robes the man who is ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the Maker held earth incomplete, Till man was formed, and placed upon the sod, The perfect, living image of his God, All landscape scenes were lacking in my sight, Wherein the human figure had no part. In that, all lines of symmetry did meet - All hues of beauty mingle. So I brought Enthusiasm in abundance, thought, Much study, and some talent, day by day, To help me in my efforts to portray The wond'rous power, majesty and grace Stamped on some form, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... about being aesthetic or wisely epicurean. The truth of it is brought home to us occasionally in one of those fine symbolical intuitions which are the true stuff of poetry, because they reveal the organic unity and symmetry of all existence. I am alluding to the sense of cloying and restlessness which comes to most of us (save when tired or convalescent) after a very few days or even hours shut up in quite the finest real gardens; and to that instinct, impelling ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... fair arm, of loveliest symmetry, Supports the fairer brow in thought reclining, While gleams with diamond fires thy poniard nigh In quick reflection of the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... problems it is fair to give examples where her methods have been wholly and entirely successful. The man who does not know one tree or shrub from another cannot travel in trains, motor-cars, or afoot without remarking the neatness, symmetry, and the flourishing condition of the forests. In these matters Germany so far surpasses us that we may be said to be merely in a kindergarten stage of development. As early as 1783 a German traveller, Johann David ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... perceived; the great epos or rhapsody, the form and meaning of the entire composition,—which is a work of Art in no other sense than a poem is one, except that it uses, instead of speech, musical forms, of greater variety and symmetry,—are not at all understood. Nor is the subtile and irresistible coherence in successions of clear sunny melody, in which Mozart so abounds, in any great degree understood, even by some who call themselves artists. They think ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... adaptation of the ant-eater to its position and to its few and simple wants. To those who have not studied "the works of the Lord," it may appear uncouth and unattractive. Compared with a dog, it is stupid; and alongside of a lion, it is slow. It has not the symmetry of the horse, nor the beautiful markings of the zebra and leopard. But its Creator has given it the instincts, the form, the muscular powers, and the colours which best answer its purpose. And no one can say that it is ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... generally journalists. Few of the balloons in use twenty-five years ago would hold more than twenty thousand cubic feet of gas. Of the large balloons the Buffalo became widely known on account of its size and the number of notable voyages it made. Capacity, symmetry, lightness and staying quality considered, it was probably the best balloon ever built in America. When fully inflated it contained ninety-one thousand cubic feet of gas, and would carry up a dozen passengers. It was the Buffalo which on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... nothing of symmetry and much of convenience; never to remove an anomaly merely because it is an anomaly; never to innovate except when some grievance is felt; never to innovate except so far as to get rid of the grievance; never to lay down any proposition of wider extent than the particular case for which it ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... was necessary to save the party—nay, that was a slip; we should say, to save the family; this is not a parable. Yet Numa loved his wife. She bore him a boy and a girl, twins; and as her son grew in physical, intellectual, and moral symmetry, he indulged the hope that—the ambition and pride of all the various Grandissimes now centering in this lawful son, and all strife being lulled—he should yet see this Honore right the wrongs ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... things of weight; his eyes, small but with no Chinese slant, never varied in expression; his nose was slender and not at all inclined to flatness; and if his mouth had not been disfigured by the immoderate use of tobacco and buyo, which, when chewed and gathered in one cheek, marred the symmetry of his features, we would say that he might properly have considered himself a handsome man and have passed for such. Yet in spite of this bad habit he kept marvelously white both his natural teeth and also the two which the dentist furnished ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... dwelt on "the far-famed harbour of Dublin, the rival of our London in commerce," and told of ships of merchandise that sailed from Britanny to Irish ports, and of the busy wine trade with Poitou. Ireland alone broke the symmetry of an empire that bordered the Atlantic from the Hebrides to Spain, and the fame of empire had its attractions for the heirs of the Norman conquerors. Patriotic and courtly historians remembered that their king was representative ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... of motion and of look, the smooth And swimming majesty of step and tread, The symmetry of form and feature, set The soul afloat, even like delicious airs Of flute ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... true-blue-slightly- imbricated-with-red-flag coalition rose whose deep globular head with ornate decorative calyx retains its perfect exhibition-cross-question- hostile-amendment symmetry of form without blueing or burning in the hottest Westminster sun. Its smiling peach and cerise endearments terminating in black scarlet shell-shaped waxy Berlin ultimata are carried on an admirably rigid peduncle. Equally vigorous in all parts of Europe. Superbly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... for a brief while through some great country like England or Russia may jot down a few of the impressions which come home to him, making no pretense at completeness or symmetry of description. So, one who has journeyed like a hasty traveler over some passages in that vast tract of years which we describe as the classic and Christian civilizations, notes down in the following ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... girl of fourteen. It often happens that fruits borne on the same stem are different in color and taste; so these two sisters were different in personal appearance and character. Nature seems to have presided in a special manner over the moulding of Aloysia's exquisite frame. The symmetry of her person, hand and foot of charming delicacy, azure eye and rosy cheek, garlanded with nature's golden tresses, and the sweet expression of innocence in her features, would suggest her at once ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... a broad band at the waist; and the slight drapery set off, rather than concealed, the rich contours of a form of mature but admirable symmetry. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... shadowy outline of this ship, he supposed it to be some packet, or cotton-droger, standing for her port on the northern shore. But a few minutes removed the veil, and with it the error of this notion. A seaman could no longer mistake the craft. Her length, her square and massive hamper, with the symmetry of her spars, and the long, straight outline of the hull, left no doubt that it was a cruiser, with her hammocks unstowed. Mulford now cheerfully announced to his companions, that the ship they so plainly saw, scarcely a gun-shot distant from them, was the sloop-of-war which had already ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... one was of "Jackson's patent enema machines, as patronised by the nobility (either sex) when travelling"; another of "Mrs. Rodd's anatomical ladies' stays (which ensure the wearer a figure of astonishing symmetry";) and another of a "Brilliant burlesque ballad, 'Get along, Rosey,' sung with the most positive triumph ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... first volume of poems in 1870, he left only his House of Life incomplete; but amongst the readers who then offered spontaneous tribute to that series of sonnets, and still treasured it as a work of all but faultless symmetry, built up by aid of a blended inspiration caught equally from Shakspeare and from Dante, with a superadded psychical quality peculiar to its author, there were many, even amongst the friendliest in sympathy, who heard of the completed sequence with a sense of doubt. Such ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... for his "Christ in the Garden of Olives." His dark hair clustered thickly on his shoulders, and was thrown back in disorder, as by the weary hand of the laborer when the sweat and toil of the day is over. The long untrimmed beard grew with a natural symmetry that disclosed the graceful curve of the lip, and the contour of the cheek; there was still the noble outline of the nose, the fair and delicate complexion, the pensive and now sunken eye. His shirt, thrown open on the chest, displayed his muscular though attenuated frame, which ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... temple depends on symmetry, the principles of which must be most carefully observed by the architect. They are due to proportion, in Greek [Greek: analogia]. Proportion is a correspondence among the measures of the members of an entire work, and of the whole ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius |
