"Gems" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... needle-gravers on the eye-corners it would be a warning to whoso would be warned and a matter of thought to whoso would think. Learn, O Commander of the Faithful, that my father was a jeweller man, a connoisseur in gems, who owned no son save myself; but when I had increased in age and had grown in stature and Allah had given me comeliness and perfection and beauty and brilliancy and plenty and good fortune, and my sire had brought me up with the best of education, Allah vouchsafed to him a ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the good steed that I bestride his footing can but keep." Swift was the steed, but swifter borne on Bavieca's stride, Three fathoms from the sea my Cid rode at King Bucar's side; Aloft his blade a moment played, then on the helmet's crown, Shearing the steel-cap dight with gems, Colada he brought down. Down to the belt, through helm and mail, he cleft the Moor in twain. And so he slew King Bucar, who came from beyond the main. This was the battle, this the day, when he the great sword won, Worth a full thousand marks of ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... is a tonic for the mind; the stories are gems, and for pith and vigor of description they are ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... might be, Phaethon set out for the country of sunrise. He journeyed by day and by night far into the east, till he came to the palace of the Sun. It towered high as the clouds, glorious with gold and all manner of gems that looked like frozen fire, if that might be. The mighty walls were wrought with images of earth and sea and sky. Vulcan, the smith of the gods, had made them in his workshop (for Mount-Aetna is one of his forges, and he has the central fires of ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... battle champions in their chariots, harpers in hundreds, smiths with gleaming spears and shields and harness for battle steeds and chariots; troops of men and boys leading racehorses; jewellers with gold drinking-horns, and brooches, and pins, and ear-rings, and costly gems of all kinds, and chess-boards of silver and gold, and golden and silver chessmen in bags of woven brass; dyers with their many-coloured fabrics; bands of jugglers; drovers goading on herds of cattle; shepherds driving their sheep; huntsmen with spoils of the chase; dwellers in the ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... he said with a grin, and lifting the paper disclosed a quantity of bracelets, rings, pendants and other ornaments from which the gems had been removed. During our absence he had been occupied in removing the stolen jewels ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... and things, we shall leave in New York. No, not quite everything; I had for gotten four little ponies, four little gems, black as ink. We have not the heart to leave them; we shall drive them in a phaeton; it is delightful. Both Bettina and I drive four-in-hand very well. Ladies can drive four-in-hand in the Bois very early in the morning; can't they? Here it is quite possible. Above all, my dear Katie, do not consider ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... in that room listening to the captain's yarns, swelled with pride as he noted the rapt fashion in which the captain listened to his. The tale of the shipwreck he regarded as a disagreeable necessity: a piece of paste flaunting itself among gems. In a few words he told how the Fair Emily crashed on to a reef in the middle of the night, and how, owing to the darkness and confusion, the boat into which he had got with Stobell and Tredgold was ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... the variety and magnificence of his expositions must fix them very strongly in the minds of his hearers. In ordinary works great attention would be excited by the very infrequent occurrence of the very brilliant expressions and illustrations with which he cloys the palate. His gems lie like paving stones. He does indeed seem to be an ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... again," said the nineteenth-century Christian, deep into whose soul modern unbelief and thought have crept, though he knows it not. He it is who uses his Bible as the pearl-fishers use their shells, sorting out gems from refuse; he sets his pearls after his own fashion, and he sets them well. "Do not fear," he says; "hell and judgment are not. God is love. I know that beyond this blue sky above us is a love as wide-spreading over all. The All-Father will show her to you again; not spirit only—the ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... gems and gold, of statues and flowers and fountains, Vases of onyx and jasper from Indian emperors sent; Pictures out of the heart of tropical sunlit mountains, Of rocks of porphyry piled at the gates ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... liberal Italian met with rather an uncourtly rebuke from Ximenes, who told him, on leaving the presence, that "he had rather have the money his diamonds cost, to spend in the service of the church, than all the gems ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... wealth, managed their patrimonies with disinterested zeal, and spent her own money to bear the expenses of their political career. She rose superior to the foibles and vices of her time. Immodesty, the plague-spot of her age, had never infected her pure life. Gems and pearls had little charms for her. She was never ashamed of her children, as though their presence betrayed her own advancing age. "You never stained your face," says her son, when writing to console ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... fortunate enough to have been surrounded from childhood up by the choicest gems of the tonal language, and whose minds are of the deceptive order, will insensibly attain a refinement of taste and delicacy of perception no learned dissertation on music could afford. At the same time, an acquaintance with the materials and elements of which the art is composed and with the laws ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... saw another great treasure ship. We pursued her and captured more than twenty tons of silver bars, thirteen chests of silver and a great store of precious gems. ...
— History Plays for the Grammar Grades • Mary Ella Lyng
... pain, which had broken down the fair mind itself,—but it had all created a gracious form for the memory to dwell on, an undying association with the "Tancredi," as beautiful, instructive, and joy-giving as the "Divino Amore" of Raphael, the exquisite onyx heads in the "Cabinet of Gems," or that divine prelude the Englishman was at that moment pouring out from his piano in a neighboring palazzo, in a flood of harmony as golden and rich as the wine of Capri, every note of which, we know, had been a life-drop wrung from the proud, breaking heart of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... "The gems were certainly magnificent; and though I knew well enough that these untiring Brahmins would not be long in guessing that the things had come into my possession, I took the bracelet. I thought, anyhow, that I might have a few hours' start; ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... ship, with sails of silk and damask, masts of gold heavily studded with rare gems, and covered with thick plates of gold and silver, arrived at the ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... Budge, F.S.A., gave a description of 150 scarabs in his, Catalogue of the Egyptian Collection of the Harrow School Museum, with translations of most of the inscriptions upon them. In 1888, Dr. A.S. Murray and Mr. Hamilton Smith in their, Catalogue of Gems, gave a list of scarabs and scaraboids. In 1889 Mr. Flinders Petrie published, Historical Scarabs: A series of Drawings from the Principal Collections, Arranged Chronologically. This book has only nine small pages of description but they are valuable. In his, History of ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer
... billion f.o.b. note: official export figures are grossly underestimated due to the value of timber, gems, narcotics, rice, and other products smuggled to Thailand, China, and Bangladesh ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... aloof, Soft-lighted through the roof, Enshrining pictures old, And groups of statues cold, The gems of Art, when Art was in her Age of Gold! Not picked from any single age or clime, Nor one peculiar master, school, or tone; Select of all, the best of all alone, The spoil and largesse of the Earth and Time; Food for all thoughts and fancies, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... promised bride. To win her he appeared as a wealthy middle-aged suitor, ready to lay all his riches at her feet, his real character being carefully concealed; but all his arts had been plied in vain; no gold or gems or promises of future splendor could turn her heart from her young lover. Her parents, however, were inclined to look with favor upon the magician's suit, and their daughter was made most unhappy by ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... and bowing most profoundly, "I trust that you understand my awkward position? My apologies cannot be too humble. It will give me great pleasure to hand you a certified check for the missing gems the first ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... If all human beings are endowed with Buddha-nature, why have they not come naturally to be Enlightened? To answer this question, the Indian Mahayanists[FN171] told the parable of a drunkard who forgets the precious gems put in his own pocket by one of his friends. The man is drunk with the poisonous liquor of selfishness, led astray by the alluring sight of the sensual objects, and goes mad with anger, lust, and folly. Thus he is in a state of moral poverty, entirely forgetting the precious gem of ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... that you divide our camp, madame my mother. For me there is no natural opposition of ranks. What are we? We are slaves: all are slaves. While I am a slave, shall I boast that I am of noble birth? "Proud of a coronet with gems of paste!" some one writes. Save me from that sort of pride! I am content to take my patent of nobility for good conduct in the revolution. Then I will be count, or marquis, or duke; I am not a Republican pure blood;—but not till then. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... logging activities throughout the country and strip mining for gems in the western region along the border with Thailand have resulted in habitat loss and declining biodiversity (in particular, destruction of mangrove swamps threatens natural fisheries); soil erosion; in rural areas, most of the population does not have access to potable water; declining fish ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... from yon oak or larch; Dusky sparrows in a crowd, Diving, darting northward free, Suddenly betook them all, Every one to his hole in the wall, Or to his niche in the apple-tree. I greet with joy the choral trains Fresh from palms and Cuba's canes. Best gems of Nature's cabinet, With dews of tropic morning wet, Beloved of children, bards and Spring, O birds, your perfect virtues bring, Your song, your forms, your rhythmic flight, Your manners for the heart's delight, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... painted; a crimson cap bearing a gold medal emblazoned with St. George and the Dragon; collars, bracelets, and other ornaments of cut-glass, which, in a country where glass was unknown, might claim to have the value of real gems." ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... man's hand, so feeble that it could not bear the least pressure, and yet decorated with a young man's fopperies. Dale noticed the three rings on the little finger-one of gold, one of silver, one of black metal, each with tiny colored gems in it—and while heartily ashamed of his rustic violence, he felt a ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... in fact, a young man of tender years, wearing on his head, to hold his hair together, a cap of gold of purplish tinge, inlaid with precious gems. Parallel with his eyebrows was attached a circlet, embroidered with gold, and representing two dragons snatching a pearl. He wore an archery-sleeved deep red jacket, with hundreds of butterflies worked in gold of two different shades, interspersed with flowers; and was girded with a sash ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Lord Proprietor had taken, on his way to North Inniscaw. Here, on the uplands, the breeze met them, and at his feet Sir Ommaney, for the first time, saw spread the wonderful circle of the great sea lights. Smaller lights twinkled like a thread of gems along the north and north-eastern horizon. They belonged to the ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... will rear new trees under homes that glow As if gems were the frontage of every bough; O'er our white walls we will train the vine, And sit in its shadow at day's decline, And watch our herds as they range at will Through the green savannas, all ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... zenith, that balanced the crescent,— Up and far up and over,—the heaven grew erubescent, Vibrant with rose and with ruby from the hands of the harpist Dawn, Smiting symphonic fire on the firmament's barbiton: And the East was a priest who adored with offerings of gold and of gems, And a wonderful carpet unrolled for the inaccessible hems Of the glistening robes of her limbs; that, lily and amethyst, Swept glorying on and on through temples of ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... with gold, fell in heavy, glistening folds around her graceful figure; a diadem of brilliants sparkled like a constellation upon the blackness of her luxuriant hair, and her exquisite neck and arms were covered with costly gems. She had just completed her toilet for a dinner given by the Princess Karl Liechtenstein, when Podstadsky had met her with the alarming intelligence which had obliged her to ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... brother of one of the ladies, a young man who had just reached the age of twenty-two. His part of the business was the most difficult to perform, but he finally succeeded in realizing over four thousand dollars in gold for the gems intrusted to him. Fortunately the money was at once forwarded to the patriot leader through a safe and reliable channel. Hardly had the business been accomplished to the satisfaction of all concerned when the young Cuban was secretly denounced to the Governor-General ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... dockyard? Were the jewels his own? Had he stolen them? Suggestions and queries poured upon me; I felt that, whatever it might be, I would know the truth; and I resolved to dare beyond my custom, and to learn more of the bearded man and of his gems. ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... fallen on the earth and sea had smitten me as well and changed me; and I was like some needy homeless tramp who has found a shilling piece, and, even while he is gloating over it, all at once sees a great treasure before him—glittering gold in heaps, and all rarest sparkling gems, more than he can ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... the part. He wore wide cut coats of filmy serge, light as gossamer; chequered waistcoats with a pattern for every day in the week; fedora hats light as autumn leaves; four-in-hand ties of saffron and myrtle green with a diamond pin the size of a hazel nut. On his fingers there were as many gems as would grace a native prince of India; across his waistcoat lay a gold watch-chain in huge square links and in his pocket a gold watch that weighed a pound and a half and marked minutes, seconds and quarter seconds. ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... feeling, and of sight, To charge upon the POET thus presume, Ye lightless minds, whate'er of title proud, Scholar, or Sage, or Critic, ye assume, Arraigning his high claims with censure loud, Or sickly scorn; yours, yours is all the cloud, Gems cannot ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... in England. St. Cuthbert's maniple at Durham is of pure gold thread. John Garland says the ladies wove golden cingulae in the thirteenth century; and Henry I., according to Hoveden, was clothed in a robe of state of woven gold and gems of ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... of hoofs upon the road. Not so faintly now as they come near the bridge; and in a moment, as they pass the darkened windows, the silence is cloven by alarm as by an arrow. They are heard now far away, hoofs that shine amid the heavy night as gems, hurrying beyond the sleeping fields to what journey's end—what heart? —bearing ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... fingers on a door panel, and carefully gathered into an envelope the ashes from the cigar his uncle had been smoking. The data obtained would have proved conclusively that Cunningham had come to his death at the hands of a Brahmin of high caste on account of priceless gems stolen from a temple in India. An analysis of the cigar ashes would have shown that a subtle poison, unknown to the Western world, had caused the victim's heart to stop beating exactly two minutes and twelve seconds after taking the first puff at the cigar. Thus the fictional ethics of the situation ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... roof?—plates of beaten gold! Yonder mule hath harness of exquisitely chased silver! Here comes a noble chief and his favourite wife, with a retinue of slaves. The soles of his sandals are of gold, the straps are studded with gems; pearls are sewn in hundreds in his bright-hued robes! Yet is he completely eclipsed by the splendour of his spouse. She is sprinkled, hair and clothing, with the precious yellow dust. The breeze blows it from her hair; ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... masterpiece. Leola's repetwar likewise includes 'Catherine the Queen before her Judges,' 'Quality of Mercy is not Strained,' 'Death of Little Nell,' 'Death of Paul Dombey,' 'Death of the Old Year,' 'Burial of Sir John Moore,' and other standard gems suitable for ladies." ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... clear rays obliquely striking the fragrant gum-leaves, which fluttered high over-head in the gentle morning breeze, and still bathed, as it were, in tears for the late elemental strife, made them sparkle like glittering gems in the roof of their arboreous edifice. The aromatic exudation from the dwarfish wattle, with its May-like blossom, which seemed to flourish under the protection of its gigantic compeers; and the bright acacia, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... among the most beautiful in France; until recently, although within range of the Hun artillery, it had been left undisturbed. In return the French had spared an equally beautiful city on the other side of the line. This clemency, shown towards two gems of architecture, was the result of one of those silent bargains that are arranged in the language of the guns. But the bargain had been broken by the time I arrived. Bombing planes had been over; the Allied planes had ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... contained. It was as if their whole existence depended upon it; they could scarcely breathe for excitement. Every moment's delay was unspeakable agony. At last, however, the coverings were withdrawn and the contents of the receptacles stood revealed. Two were filled with uncut gems, rubies and sapphires, others contained bar gold, and yet more contained gems, to which it was scarcely possible in such a light to assign a name. One thing at least was certain. So vast was the treasure that ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... of State Street as a fairy-land? And yet, if you half close your eyes the hallucination is complete. Even the people who by daylight are shoddy and care-worn take on an appearance of romance and gaiety, and the tawdry colored lights are the scintillant gems of the garden ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and Cold," as specially fit to be read in connexion with the "Biglow Papers." It is only by looking at all sides of a man of this mould that you can get a notion of his size and power. Readers, therefore, should search out for themselves the exquisite little gems of a lighter kind, which lie about in the other poems comprised in the volume. I am only indicating those which, as it seems to me, when taken with the "Biglow Papers," give the best idea of the man, and what his purpose in life has ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... apparently more infatuated every day, took the keenest delight in pleasing her. Everything that he thought would add to her happiness was done. He showered her with costly presents, giving her wonderful diamond tiaras, superb pearl necklaces and other gems until her jewels were soon the talk of New York. She had carte blanche at Fifth Avenue dressmakers and milliners; she had her French maid, her hairdresser, her automobile and her box at the opera. He forced ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... ever new. The civil wars have inspired many pathetic compositions, and poems like Salome Urena's apostrophe to the ruins of colonial times, Bienvenido S. Nouel's elegy on the ruins left by the late revolutions, and Enrique Henriquez' "Miserere!", gems of verse, are veritable cries of anguish at the desolation wrought by fratricidal strife. Perhaps it is the poets' sorrow at the misfortunes of their country which is the cause of the note of sadness so often ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... eight pounds, I should say," he answered, still exultantly. "Seven or eight solid pounds of gems, the finest in ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... catacombs is that of the Saviour under the form of the Good Shepherd. No emblem fuller of meaning, or richer in consolation, could have been found. It was very early in common use, not merely in Christian paintings, but on Christian gems, vases, and lamps. Speaking with peculiar distinctness to all who were acquainted with the Gospels, it was at the same time a figure that could be used without exciting suspicion among the heathen, and one which was not exposed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... that they had been so early at their traffic. Now the merchants had shut up all their richest stores; and the markets were full of others who brought false pearls and mock diamonds, instead of the costly gems for which they had traded in the morning. There seemed to be hardly any true traders left. Idlers were there in numbers, and shows and noisy revels were passing up and down the streets; and they could see thieves and bad men lurking about at all the corners, seeking whom they ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... night was dark and the night was late, When the robbers came to rob him; And they picked the lock of his palace-gate, The robbers who came to rob him—; They picked the lock of the palace-gate, Seized his jewels and gems of State, His coffers of gold and his priceless plate,— The robbers ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... while his men went ashore to sack the town. One Spaniard had succeeded in swimming across to warn the port.[7] When Drake landed, the entire population had fled to the hills. Rich plunder in wedges of pure gold, and gems, was carried off from the fort. Not a drop of blood was shed. Crews of the scuttled vessels were set ashore, the dismantled ships sent drifting to open sea. The whole fiasco was conducted as harmlessly as a melodrama, with a moral thrown in; for were ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... the polar snows, Mid' horrors that reject the day; Along the burning line she glows, Nor shrinks beneath the torrid ray: She opens India's glitt'ring mine, Where streams of light reflected shine; Wafts the bright gems to Britain's temp'rate vale, And breathes her odours ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... further deck her strange new home, And even as she 'gan to think the thought, Quickly her will by unseen hands was wrought, Who came and went like thoughts. Yea, how should I Tell of the works of gold and ivory, The gems and images, those hands brought there The prisoned things of earth, and sea, and air, They brought to please their mistress? Many a beast, Such as King Bacchus in his reckless feast Makes merry with—huge elephants, ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... Whatever rude commodities were collected in the forests of Germany and Scythia, and far as the sources of the Tanais and the Borysthenes; whatsoever was manufactured by the skill of Europe or Asia; the corn of Egypt, and the gems and spices of the farthest India, were brought by the varying winds into the port of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted the commerce ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... of our forefathers shared sparingly with the birds. Often still, unless we are careful, our share will be small indeed; for the unperverted taste of the birds discovered from the first what men have been so slow to learn—that the ruby- like berries are the gems best worth seeking. The world is certainly progressing toward physical redemption when even the Irish laborer abridges his cabbage-patch for the sake of small fruits—food which a dainty Ariel ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... may thrill the heart, Their meaning be more deeply felt Than all the glowing oratory Poured at the shrine where reason knelt. The fairest pictures art conceives, The noblest sentiments of mind, The loveliest, purest gems of thought Are those which ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... the hall the crowd filled it to its furthest corners. Moreover no common man was present there, but rather every noble and head-priest in Egypt, and with them their wives and daughters, so that all the dim courts shone with gold and precious gems set upon festal garments. While I was waiting old Bakenkhonsu hobbled towards me, the crowd making way for him, and I could see that there was laughter in his ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... and cardboard, took life and soul: it begot an interest, inspired a pathos, as much as if it had been made—oh! not of gold and gems, but of flesh and blood. And the simple broken words that the veteran addressed to it! The scenes, the fields, the hopes, the glories it conjured up! And now to be wrenched away,—sold to supply Man's humblest, meanest wants,—sold—the last symbol of such a past! ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... writer go to a better source for inspiration than to ballads preserving in homely setting such gems as this, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... eggs, whose whole produce would not purchase the sandal-tie of my lady's slipper; will grow red and rough by standing in wet trenches, and feeling the winter's frost. The neck on which diamonds might have worthily sparkled, will look less tempting when the biting winter has hung icicles there for gems. Cheeks formed as fresh for dimpling blushes, eyes as well to sparkle, and lips to smile, as those which shed their brightness and their witchery in the tapestried saloon, will grow pale with want, and forget their dimples, when smiles are not there to wake them; lips become compressed ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... in the Sun, was the invisible Deity, the Parent of the Universe, the Mediator. In Zoroaster's cave of initiation, the Sun and Planets were represented over-head, in gems and gold, as also was the Zodiac. The Sun appeared emerging from the back of Taurus. Three great pillars, Eternity, Fecundity, and Authority, supported the roof; and the whole was an emblem ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... coat. Posts, post-houses and runners, in Siberia. Po-sz' (Persia). Potala at L'hasa. Pottinger. Poultry, kind of, in Coilum, in Abyssinia (guinea-fowl?). Pound, sterling. Pourpre, or Purpura. P'o-yang Lake. Pozdneiev, Professor. Precious stones or gems, how discovered by pirates. Prester John (Unc Can, Aung or Ung Khan), Tartar tribute to; account of; marriage relations with Chinghiz; insults Chinghiz' envoys; "these be no soldiers"; marches to meet Chinghiz; real site of battle with Chinghiz; his real fate; slain in battle; his lineage ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... in days of old Walter Raleigh did unfold His gay cloak, with all its hems Wrought in braided gold and gems, That his Queen might passing tread On the sumptuous cloth outspread, And step on the shining fold Or fair samnite rich in gold. So for France— Splendid, grand, majestic France!— May Fortune down her mantle throw To mend the way ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... mouth to mouth, and the crew whiled away the evening hours with their monotonous chants. We always anchored at night; sometimes we stopped for fishing, and once ran into a small bay—one of those charming scenic gems which can only be found in the eastern seas—to land some salt and take in cocoa-nuts and other items. As for the port of Mangalore, for which I was bound, it seemed to be, though only about 450 miles from Bombay, an immense distance away, and practically was nearly as far as Bombay is from Suez. ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... were desert and uninhabitable, [41] but now experience has demonstrated that they deceived themselves; for good climates, many people, and food and other things necessary for human life are found there, besides many mines of rich metals, with precious gems and pearls, and animals and plants, which ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... spoken, but there rose A hubbub in the court of half the maids Gathered together: from the illumined hall Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes, And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes, And gold and golden heads; they to and fro Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale, All open-mouthed, all gazing to the light, Some crying there was an army in the land, ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... the good-nights to his father and mother; and noted also the lack of them. He beheld the drooping, weary figure of the Princess, in her blaze of gems, forcing piteous smiles of farewell. And he was glad that there were so many who, under cover of the throng, evaded the ordeal of the good-night, and slipped away from the brilliant rooms as from ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... this was not the case: Her dress was many-colour'd, finely spun; Her locks curl'd negligently round her face, But through them gold and gems profusely shone: Her girdle sparkled, and the richest lace Flow'd in her veil, and many a precious stone Flash'd on her little hand; but, what was shocking, Her small snow feet had slippers, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... he never made her feel her childlessness as a reproach—she admits this in her evidence—but seemed to try to make her forget it by showering gifts and favours on her. Rich though he was, he had never been openhanded; but nothing was too fine for his wife, in the way of silks or gems or linen, or whatever else she fancied. Every wandering merchant was welcome at Kerfol, and when the master was called away he never came back without bringing his wife a handsome present—something curious and particular—from Morlaix or Rennes or Quimper. One of the waiting-women ...
— Kerfol - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... pulled down the shades and turned on the electric lights. Then he took a swatch of black velveteen from his pocket and arranged it over the sample-table with the two gems in its folds. ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... which is divine, which is the abstract of beauty absolute, gives to the beholder a shock of astonishment and delight,—not unmixed with melancholy. Very few works of art give this, because very few approach perfection. But there are marbles and gems which give it, and certain fine studies of them, such as the engravings published by the Society of Dilettanti. The longer one looks, the more the wonder grows, since there appears no line, or part of a line, whose beauty does not surpass all remembrance. So the ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... some of his fellow-members to have an address in Hatton Garden, and to be more or less of a diamond merchant there. He often carried about with him, in a pocket-book, or in neat little packages of grocer's gay paper, borne in the waistcoat-pocket, a collection of gems of considerable value, and would show them to his intimates with the insouciance of a man who was accustomed to handling things of price. He never was without money, made little journeys at times, which rarely took him ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... "and comes alone—on the master's business. You know I had many dealings with Sahib Hugh Fraser in the old days," mused the jeweler. "He always admits my men. I have valued gems for him for ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... period of time. How the loftiest flights of the imagination are piqued as we contemplate the marvellous changes since this primeval forest depended on the soil and sun for their life-giving elements! As we wander through this wonderful forest our feet seem to be treading on the rarest gems. And well may it seem so, because when polished these pieces display a beauty of coloring and a lustre that rivals the glint of precious stones. There is no other petrified forest in the world in which the mineralized wood assumes so many varied ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... home again, and had lunch: then, while Mrs. Lawrence was taking her siesta, Fred carried off Sylvie to his study. It was luxuriously beautiful. Several gems of pictures adorned the wall, which had been newly frescoed to suit his fancy. Easy chairs lured one to test their capacious depth, some exquisitely-bound books were arranged in a carved and polished case, and the table was daintily littered ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... aware, of course, that this depends. If you should ask that stately lily, radiant with beauty, from the crown of the head to the sole of her foot, surrounded by her kind, and cherished and admired as one of the choicest gems of the garden, whether she considered it an agreeable thing to be a flower, she would probably toss her head in scorn, as youthful beauties do, at the very question. But ask the poor roadside blossom, trampled on, switched off, and subjected ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... that if any laws concerning them had to be made by the State Legislatures or by Congress, their agents in those bodies should make them. A certain Mr. Vanderbilt, the president of one of the largest railroad systems in America, a person whose other gems of wit and wisdom have not been recorded, achieved such immortality, as it is, by remarking, "The public be damned." Probably the president and directors of a score of other monopolies would have heartily echoed that impolitic and petulant display of arrogance. Impolitic the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... drawing about her her more ornate garb of witchery. Across her bosom fell a wondrous tissue, trembling with exuberance of unprismed light. These were the gems in thousands of the skies, all fair against the blackness of the robes of Night, and I knew that the blackness of the one was as lovely as the radiance of the other. Nor could one separate one from the other, for there arose a thin mist of ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... the Screech-Owl, Hoppy, and the other wretches whose misdeeds blacken these pages, form the foil; while Fleur-de-Marie, Clemence d'Harville, Miss Dimpleton, and Mrs. George are the gems which will be seen to shed their luster and charm over the no less interesting pages of the Second Division of this work, entitled, "Part ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... Cayuga and Seneca, show sheets of water long and wide, their shores sometimes indented with glens and gorges, and sometimes rising with pleasant slopes to the wooded hills; in others still, as the Cazenovia, Skaneateles, Owasco, Keuka, and Canandaigua, smaller lakes are set, like gems, among vineyards and groves; and in others shimmering streams go winding through corn-fields and orchards fringed by ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... with igneous rocks, associated with high-temperature minerals. The weathering of the rock has developed placers from which most of the rubies are recovered. Siam is also an important producer. In the United States rubies have been found in pegmatites in North Carolina, but these gems ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... it, and opening out of it were six lovely bedchambers, each furnished in the greatest luxury. Adjoining each sleeping room was a marble bath, and each Princess had a separate boudoir and a dressing room. The furnishings were of the utmost splendor, blue-gold and blue gems being profusely used in the decorations, while the divans and chairs were of richly carved bluewood upholstered in blue satins and silks. The draperies were superbly embroidered, and the rugs upon the marble floors were woven with beautiful ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... Raffles, who seemed all anxiety to pin her down with gifts of price. I could not quite gather whose gift to whom was the diamond ring; but it had evidently been paid for; and I voyaged to the moon, wondering when and how. I was recalled to this planet by a deluge of gems from the jeweller's bag. They lay alight in their cases like the electric lamps above. We all three put our heads together over them, myself without the slightest clew as to what was coming, but not unprepared for ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... at present constituted is hopeless for any good thing. All kinds of nameless brutalities are practised without reproof in the names of law and order, and commercial economics. On one side human life is a splendid fabric of cloth of gold embroidered with priceless gems, and on the other it is a mass of filthy, festering ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... the gems of the old humbug's speech, and I mouthed it as it was made to be mouthed. The house took the burlesque with perfect seriousness and good faith—chiefly, I suppose, because it was impossible to make the vulgar rant too clap-trappy ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... he has accomplished. As a polished orator Mr. Walker has been heard with profit and delight in all parts of the State. Some of his addresses before the State Teachers' Association are considered real gems of literature. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... sunset's fleeting glow, Kiss of friend, and stab of foe, Ooze of moon, and foam of brine, Noose of Thug, and creeper's twine, Hottest flame, and coldest ash, Priceless gems, and poorest trash; Throw away the solid ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... prosperity; May Allah keep thee in good health! Well hast thou learned the use of wealth. No longer buried under-ground, Its comforts spread to all around. The poor man's blessings on thy name Are better far than worldly fame. I called thee hither. Now, behold, Here are the silver, gems, and gold I took from thee in other days; Receive them back, and go thy ways, For thou hast learned this truth at last— Would that it might be sown broadcast!— That riches are but worthless pelf When hoarded ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... assertions which tend to strengthen in the minds of those who have no opportunity of judging, the belief that China is possessed of a vast and valuable literature, in which, for aught any one knows to the contrary, there may lie buried gems of purest ray serene. Can it be supposed that, if true, nothing of all this has yet been brought to light? There have been, and are now, foreigners possessing a much wider knowledge of Chinese literature ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... belonged to his mother—are historical. His maternal grandfather was an Amsterdam Jew, and the greatest diamond merchant of his time. He had mills where the gems were ground as corn is ground in our country, and seem to have been as plentiful as corn. Egad, Lady Judith, how you would ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... placed upon the floor in convenient locations for seeing. A thousand bands of music played, and tens of thousands of couples, gayly dressed and flashing with gems, whirled together upon ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... tried to comfort Inzana as she played with her silver moon, but she would not hear Them, and went in tears to Slid, where he played with gleaming sails, and in his mighty treasury turned over gems and pearls and lorded it over the sea. And she said: "O Slid, whose soul is in the sea, bring back ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... my mother and transferred their simple obedience to myself; but still the cloud only darkened on the brows of Senor Valdevia. His absences from home had been frequent even in the old days, for he did business in precious gems in the city of Havana; they now became almost continuous; and when he returned, it was but for the night and with the manner of a man crushed ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... day long, perhaps, does the rain continue to fall, until the earth is fully moistened and "enriched with vegetable life." At length, towards evening, the sun peeps out from among the broken clouds, and lights up, by his sudden radiance, the lovely scene. Myriads of rain-drops sparkle like gems beneath his beams; a soft mist that seems to mingle earth and sky gradually rolls away, and "moist, and bright, and green, the landscape laughs around." Now pours forth the evening concert from the woods, while warbling brooks, ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... had ever heard of Krakatoa. It was unknown to fame, as are hundreds of other gems of glorious vegetation set in tropical waters. It was not inhabited, but the natives from the surrounding shores of Sumatra and Java used occasionally to draw their canoes up on its beach, while they roamed through the jungle in search ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... and Sir Thomas Gresham drank a diamond dissolved in wine to the health of Queen Elizabeth, when she opened the Royal Exchange; but the breakfast of this roguish Dutchman was as splendid as either. He had an advantage, too, over his wasteful predecessors: their gems did not improve the taste or the wholesomeness of their wine, while his tulip was quite delicious with his red herring. The most unfortunate part of the business for him was, that he remained in prison ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... gittern (guitar) (p.3). The dreamer arrives at the bank of a stream, which flows over stones (shining like stars in the welkin on a winter's night) and pebbles of emeralds, sapphires, or other precious gems, so ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... a brilliant winter day. White gems sparkled on the branches of the trees, and Jim was already commencing that course of romping which had, up to that date, strewn his path through life with wreck and ruin. Madge was investigating the capabilities of cupboards ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... attributed to "Mother Goose." Some of the earlier verses have become entirely obsolete, and it is well they have, for many were crude and silly and others were coarse. It is simply a result of the greater refinement of modern civilization that they have been relegated to oblivion, while the real gems of the collection will doubtless live and grow in popular favor ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... Rudolph with her golden wand; an electric thrill passed through his frame, and he fell down senseless to the ground. When he awoke, he found himself lying upon a couch of purple and gold, in a superb crystal hall, whose pillars, sparkling with gems, rose upward to a lofty transparent dome of blue, through which the sun was shining brilliantly. Over him bent the Fairy Queen, radiant in beauty, and eying him with indescribable tenderness. At last she spoke, kindly caressing him: "My son, you are now in my dwelling, where no harm shall befall ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... days we remained in Paris, I visited the Louvre and its stolen goods. It was a brilliant treat; never was any palace so decorated with such gems of art, nor, I hope, under the same circumstances, ever will be again. On the day Louis le Desire entered, I paid a napoleon for half a window in the Rue St. ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... umobscured, And with the Majesty of Darkness round Covers his Throne; from whence deep Thunders roar Mustering their Rage, and Heavn resembles Hell? As he our Darkness, cannot we his Light Imitate when we please? This desart Soil Wants not her hidden Lustre, Gems and Gold; Nor want we Skill or Art, from whence to raise Magnificence; and ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... may not be heeded, or but slenderly touched, or if it were otherwise, here it is in some other way, method, or expression; besides which, there is no new thing under the sun. And have we not, nay, choose we not, to have variety of gems, agates, rubies, and diamonds shining about us, some squared, some angled, each having their own excellency, because so formed? If this instance take not, it is because the children of this generation are wiser than the ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... effect was assisted by many curious little treasures of art, which the host had taken care to strew upon his tables. They were principally such bits of antiquity as the soil of Rome and its neighborhood are still rich in; seals, gems, small figures of bronze, mediaeval carvings in ivory; things which had been obtained at little cost, yet might have borne no inconsiderable value in ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in the way of righteousness! Since thou art a Moslemah and a believer in Allah the One, I owe thee a duty of obligation and it is that I should never transgress against thee nor forsake thee, though be lavished unto me on thine account the world full of gold and gems. So be of good cheer and eyes clear of tear; and be thy breast broadened and thy case naught save easy. Art thou willing that this youth Ali of Cairo be to thee man and thou to him wife?" Replied Miriam, "O Prince of True Believers, how should I be other ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... royal robe I wear Trails all along the fields of light: Its silent blue and silver bear For gems the starry ...
— By Still Waters - Lyrical Poems Old and New • George William Russell
... degrading—that was one truth that Selwyn did recognise; but what he failed to see was that in the midst of all the foulness there lay some glorious gems. When battles are forgotten and war is remembered as a hideous anachronism of the past, our children and their children will bow in reverence to that stone set high in Britain's ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... consisted of rock-colored Nomes, all squat and fat, they were clothed in glittering armor of polished steel, inlaid with beautiful gems. Upon his brow each wore a brilliant electric light, and they bore sharp spears and swords and battle-axes of solid bronze. It was evident they were perfectly trained, for they stood in straight rows, rank after rank, with their ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Then, there was the "Scottish Chiefs," a treasure-house of delight to me,—two or three trashy novels, given me by Tom Salyers, of which my mother knew nothing,—and (the only poetry I had ever seen) a song-book, which had, scattered among its vulgarisms and puerilities, some gems of Burns and Moore. These my natural, unvitiated taste had singled out, and I would croon them over to myself, set them to a tune of my own composing, and half sing, half chant them, when at work out-of-doors, till my mother declared ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... some are white with purple zig-zags. And lastly come a whole series in pale olive, and olive and cream, in which the general colour is that of a blackcap's egg, and the pattern made by alternate spots of olive and bands of cream. If these little gems of beauty come out of the London river, what may we not expect in the upper waters of the silver Thames?[1] A search in the right places in its course will show. But these neretinae are everywhere up to the source of the river, for they feed on all kinds of decaying substances. If the pearl ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... in Hinduism it offers the sharpest contrasts. Its obvious manifestations may seem to be acts of devotion which cannot be commended ethically and belief in puerile stories: yet we find that this offensive trash continually turns into gems of religious thought unsurpassed in the ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... splendour, and of the crowded streets at noon. The beauty of the East rose before her. He told her of many-coloured webs and of silken carpets, the glittering steel of armour damascened, and of barbaric, priceless gems. The splendour of the East blinded her eyes. He spoke of frankincense and myrrh and aloes, of heavy perfumes of the scent-merchants, and drowsy odours of the Syrian gardens. The fragrance of the East filled her nostrils. And all these things were transformed by the power of his ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... United States, be premature. Of all the solemn conclusions one feels as 'barred,' the list is quite headed in the States, I think, by this particular abeyance of judgment. When an ancient treasure of precious vessels, overscored with glowing gems and wrought artistically into wondrous shapes, has, by a prodigious process, been converted through a vast community into the small change, the simple circulating medium of dollars and 'nickels,' we can only say that the consequent ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... circuit the mountain, famished, and to long for the fruit and waters of the tree in vain. They soon came up with the poets—a pallid multitude, with hollow eyes, and bones staring through the skin. The sockets of their eyes looked like rings from which the gems had dropped.[43] One of them knew and accosted Dante, who could not recognise him till he heard him speak. It was Forese Donati, one of the poet's most intimate connexions. Dante, who had wept over his face when dead, could as ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... face to face only the previous night; Roy had distinctly asserted that he was back, in life, from Australia. Whatever his anxiety may have been, his wife seemed at rest. Full of smiles and gaiety, she sat opposite to him, glittering gems in her golden hair, shining ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... I have scarcely time to sit. I have brought you a keepsake which I hope you will sometimes wear in memory of your old pupil," said Cora, opening the casket and displaying the gems. ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... eyes, Like minnows of a thousand dies Through lucid waters glancing, In busy motion to and fro, The gems of diamond-beetles sow, ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... then, scan the heavens to discover those orbs which lie in our neighbourhood. The sun has set, the moon has not risen; a cloudless sky discloses a heaven glittering with countless gems of light. Some are grouped together into well-marked constellations; others seem scattered promiscuously, with every degree of lustre, from the very brightest down to the faintest point that the eye can just glimpse. Amid all this host of objects, how ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... into the fire. Stepping to the mantel, he took from it a small metal casket, builded to hold jewels. What should be those gems of price which the metal box protected? Richard did not strike one as the man to nurse a weakness for barbaric adornment. A bathrobe is not a costume calculated to teach one the wearer's fineness. To say best, a bathrobe is but a savage thing. It is the garb most likely ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... earthly rulers are symbolical. The spiritual body through this union becomes radiant; luminous; and shines with such splendor that it dazzles the eyes of the beholder. What constitutes the beauty and the value of gems—diamonds; rubies; sapphires; emeralds; ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... walking, in some magical way, upon still water. Noble windows, extending from floor to roof, were draped with purple curtains, and stood open to the quiet moonlit world without; between these, tall mirrors flashed back gems and colours, moving figures and floods of amber radiance, and enhanced by reduplicated reflections the size of the rooms. Amid all this splendour of warmth and tints and light moved the numerous guests of the ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Prehistoric history is not blotted out from Nature's laboratory. The Astral Book of Karmic evolution will one day reveal its hidden treasures to a waiting world in such a manner as to surprise and enlighten mankind as the recording angels give up those gems of truth they have so jealously guarded for untold cycles of time, simply because the time was not ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... Tribune, so called, was a small apartment of the duke's gallery devoted to the gems of his collection, and so named after a similar appropriation in the departments of the grand gallery of Florence. The hanging of a picture in this place was of itself alone the highest compliment the author could receive through his production; and so did Carlton understand and appreciate the ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... dear fellow," said he, "you have never seen the real gems of the collection. I am going to show ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... the secret, and could have access to all the drawers. With an uneasily beating heart Timar drew out the drawer where those jewels were kept which it had been unadvisable to place on the market. These gems have their own experts, who recognize by certain marks where this stone or that gem came from; and then follows the question, how did he get it? Only the third generation from the finder can venture to show it, as to him it is all ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... by these extreme proceedings, vanished entirely, and, no expense being spared through the whole of the costly tableaux, Lucifer manifested on a throne of diamonds, but whether the gems were furnished from the treasury of Avernus or from the pockets of bamboozled Freemasons through the wide world, les renseignements do not state. Need I say that Miss Vaughan's first impulse was to fall in worship at his feet? But ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... ring! A health to James our royal King; Heaven approves the offering, Resounding in chorus; Let our sacrifice aspire, Richest gems perfume the fire, Angels and the sacred quire Have led ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... Maxim. A very loud hammering, quickly repeated, and almost simultaneously a whirring in the air, followed by four quick explosions, and then we knew this poisonous devil was at work. The shells were little gems in their way, and when they did not burst, which was often the case, were tremendously in request as souvenirs. Not much larger than an ordinary pepper-caster, when polished up and varnished they made really charming ornaments, and the natives were quick to learn that they commanded a good price, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... golden anchor studded with gems and coiled with a rope of hair in her bosom. It was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... characteristic passages, Mr. Gosse cannot help protesting somewhat acrimoniously against that very method of writing whose effects he is so ready to admire. In practice, he approves; in theory, he condemns. He ranks the Hydriotaphia among the gems of English literature; and the prose style of which it is the consummate expression he denounces as fundamentally wrong. The contradiction is obvious; but there can be little doubt that, though Browne has, as it were, extorted ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... are not exactly hymns; He never learned them in the choir; And yet they brace his dragging limbs Although they miss the sacred fire; Although his choice and cherished gems Do not include "The Watch ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... apparently because of their more beautiful markings, and decorative skulls became more and more numerous. Many of the latter were mounted in precious metals and set with colored stones and priceless gems, while thick upon the hides that covered the walls were golden ornaments similar to those worn by the girl and those which had filled the chests he had examined in the storeroom of Fosh-bal-soj, leading the Englishman to the conviction ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... day's labour resulted in a find of five fine and eight medium-sized stones. Thus the toilers progressed, each day yielding them a better return for their labour, until late in the afternoon of the fifth day they struck the "pocket," so confidently looked for by the professor. Then the gems were found in such abundance that it was scarcely possible to turn over a shovel-full of soil without finding one or more; while it was by no means uncommon to turn up as many as half a dozen at one ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... appeased had but for the moment been satisfied. There would be unremitting watch for victims; everywhere the net for the unwary and the fearless would be laid. Blood-thirstiness and lust and covetousness would make grand their disguises,—broad would their phylacteries be made,—shining with sacred gems, their breast-plates. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... found herself somewhat nearer home there than at the family chateau. Lady Maclaughlan, who could be commonly civil in her own house, was at some pains to amuse her guest by showing her collection of china and cabinet of gems, both of which were remarkably fine. There was also a library, and a gallery, containing some good pictures, and, what Lady Juliana prized still more, a billiard table. Thursday, the destined day, at length arrived, and a large party assembled to dinner. Lady Juliana, as she half reclined ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... In one of them was bound the mutilated corpse of my queenly wife, her fingers hacked off and her ears torn out for the gems which had decked them. Upon my left sat little Celia. But for one lurid stripe of crimson across her girlish breast she might well have been asleep, so lightly death had touched her. Behind them I saw a tall, gaunt woman, wearing a ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... devoted study of the whole works of art belonging to Greece, shown that in many respects a livelier and more familiar knowledge of the ancient inhabitants of that classic land is to be derived from the contemplation of their remaining statues, sculptures, gems, medals, coins, etc., than by any amount of mere school-grinding at Greek words and Greek quantities. It has recovered at the same time some interesting objects connected with ancient Grecian history; having, for example, during the occupation of Constantinople in 1854 by ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... been steadily before the public. Her compositions are mostly for piano, including some excellent Liszt and Scarlatti transcriptions. Among her own works are a Polonaise Heroique, Polka Caprice, Gems of Scotland, and many other ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... beautiful sheet of water, which the cool breeze rippled like the wavy undulations of Cleopatra's hair, waters bedecked with cresses and white water-lilies, whose chaste bulbs coyly unfolding themselves beneath the sun's warm rays, reveal the golden gems which lie concealed within their milky petals—murmuring waters, on the bosom of which black swans majestically floated, and the graceful water-fowl, with their tender broods covered with silken down, darted restlessly in ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... pinions Echoing softly their laughter; around them the wantoning dolphins Sighed as they plunged, full of love; and the great sea-horses which bore them Curved up their crests in their pride to the delicate arms of the maidens, Pawing the spray into gems, till a fiery rainfall, unharming, Sparkled and gleamed on the limbs of the nymphs, and the coils of the mermen. Onward they went in their joy, bathed round with the fiery coolness, Needing nor sun nor moon, self-lighted, ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... ladies of the court, the great lords, the queen, in all the splendour of their rank and their pride, in diamonds, earnest to display their luxury so that all the brilliant features of the nation's life are concentrated in the price they give, like gems in a casket. What adornment! What profusion of magnificence! What variety! What metamorphoses! Gold sparkles, jewels emit light, the purple draping imprisons within its rich folds the radiance of the lustres. The light is reflected ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... for, he was respected alike in the church and the world, he held a high and lucrative position, he had a well appointed home, over which his handsome wife presided with dignity and grace, and yet, as he took his seat before his desk in the lofty room whose shelves were lined with gems of thought in fragrant, costly bindings, life seemed to have missed its ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... our old friend Intellectual Tyranny come back in another form, not with cowl and cape, but tricked out with feminine finery and jewelry and gems that lure and dazzle. There is one thing quite as valuable as health, and that is intellectual integrity. To say, "Oh, 'Science and Health' is certainly inspired—just see how old Mrs. Johnson was cured of the rheumatism!" is ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... fruit she bore. After making these presentations, she gave the Emperor a Palm of Victory, made of green enamel, the fronds tipped with pearls and jewels. This was very rich and gorgeous. To Queen Eleanor she gave a fan containing a mirror set with gems of great value. Indeed, the Queen of Hungary showed that she was a very excellent lady, and the Emperor was proud of a sister worthy of himself. All the young ladies who impersonated these mythical characters were selected ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... these are nothing to the gems I will hourly bestow upon thee; be but faithful and kind to me, and I will lade thee with my richest bounties: behold, here my bracelets ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... modernity here and there in the arrangement of ribbons; the garment matched her guards' crimson, and was draped about her shoulders so as to leave one bare, together with that arm. Across her forehead was a band of dark-blue gems, and she ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint |
