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Picturesque   Listen
adjective
Picturesque  adj.  Forming, or fitted to form, a good or pleasing picture; representing with the clearness or ideal beauty appropriate to a picture; expressing that peculiar kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture, natural or artificial; graphic; vivid; as, a picturesque scene or attitude; picturesque language. "What is picturesque as placed in relation to the beautiful and the sublime? It is... the characteristic pushed into a sensible excess."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Picturesque" Quotes from Famous Books



... Robert Halarkenden; I must tell you who he is. Thirteen years ago my uncle was on a camping trip in Canada and one of the guides was a silent Scotchman, mixed in with French-Canadian habitants and half-breed Indians. My uncle was interested in him—he was picturesque and conspicuous—but he would not talk about himself. Another guide told Uncle Ted all that anyone has ever known about him, till yesterday. He was a guardian of the club and lived alone in a camp in the wildest part of it, and in summer he guided ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray

... was very ready-witted. His biographer[2] records the following anecdote of him as very likely to be authentic. The great artist occasionally made sketches from an honest old tailor, of the name of Fowler, who had a picturesque countenance and silver-gray locks. On the chimney-piece of his painting-room, among other curiosities, was a beautiful preparation of an infant cranium, presented to the painter by his old friend, Surgeon Cruickshanks. Fowler, without moving his position, continually ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... in 413, in the reign of Theodosius II., Anthemius, then praetorian prefect of the East and regent, enlarged and refortified the city by the erection of the wall which forms the innermost line of defence in the bulwarks whose picturesque ruins now stretch from the Sea of Marmora, on the south of Yedi Kuleh (the seven towers), northwards to the old Byzantine palace of the Porphyrogenitus (Tekfour Serai), above the quarter of Egri Kapu. There the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... Devil's Punch Bowl very many times magnified,—and spies, far away and far below, a few lonely houses half hidden by trees at the bottom. This is the romantic village of Coombe, and hither I went and found the vicar busy in the garden of the small old picturesque parsonage. Here a very pretty little bird comedy was in progress: a pair of stock-doves which had been taken from a rabbit-hole in the hill and reared by hand had just escaped from the large cage where they had ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... and in "Chita" he has produced a prose poem of much beauty.... His style is tropical, full of glow and swift movement and vivid impressions, reflecting strong love and keen sympathetic observation of nature, picturesque and flexible, luxuriant in imagery, and marked by a delicate ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... or sand hills, extend unbrokenly from here to the French frontier, spire after spire dominating small towns, and windmills, are the objects seen. To some the flatness is most monotonous, but to those who find pleasure in the paintings of Cuyp, the country is very picturesque. The almost endless succession of green, well-cultivated fields and farmsteads is most entertaining, and the many canals winding their silvery ways through the country, between rows of pollards; the well kept though small ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards

... with this picturesque personage at Madame de Blery's. I was listlessly intrenched in a corner, far from the circle of busy talkers, just sufficiently awake to be conscious that I was asleep—a delirious condition, which I ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... far side of the field the scene had been arranged. It represented a hill road, over which the dispatch bearer must ride at breakneck speed. For picturesque purposes Hal wore a surgeon's field case, hanging over one shoulder by a strap. In actual war time his real dispatches would have been hidden somewhere in his clothing, his shoes, or what-not place ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... glade before the row of miner's cottages had been erected on one side of it by Mr. Kimberley for the convenience of his work-people, and even yet the beauty of the scene would not have been marred by the pretty picturesque-looking little red brick houses with their white-coppiced windows and green-painted sashes, if the carelessness and disorder which reigned within had not been reflected without in the neglected plots of ground attached to each cottage, in the ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden

... Bo[vr]ivoj had occasion to ask his neighbour Svatopluk, Prince of Moravia, for protection, and then he became acquainted with that energetic missionary, St. Methodius. Unhappily we have no precise information concerning date and place of this picturesque event. The chronicler has done his best by giving the following story to fill up the blank. He narrates that Bo[vr]ivoj was not allowed to sit at table with Svatopluk, but was given a low stool apart, as being unfit to associate ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... the existence of whoever attempts to build upon them. Palace, barracks, monument and temple alike never existed, and were but the shadowy precursors of disaster to their projectors. It was reserved for the Third Republic to break the evil spell, and to crown the picturesque and historic eminence with an edifice worthy of the beauty of the site and of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... not nearly so picturesque as she had hoped, she confessed to herself, as her thoughts came down to their customary level. The vineyard of her dreams, with its long, trailing vines, was not found in this country; there were only close-clipped plants trained to stakes. But there was a sound of talking and of laughter, and the ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood

... Nick, large and picturesque, sat tailor-fashion on his blankets, facing the glowing stove with the unblinking, thoughtful stare of a large dog. Ralph was less luxurious. He was propped upon his upturned bucket, near enough to the fire to dispense the coffee without rising from ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum

... troop-horses danced into formation to invade the waiting trucks. Loaded trucks banged into one another and thunderclapped their way into the sidings. And soldiers of nearly every Indian military caste stood about everywhere, in what was picturesque confusion to the uninitiated, yet like the letters of an index to a man who knew. And King knew. Down the back of each platform Tommy Atkins stood in long straight lines, talking or munching great sandwiches ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... morning came, the admiral, with a reinforcement, landed, and immediately gave the word to advance. We passed over a high ridge which crossed the island, and descended on the other side, when a view broke on our sight which for picturesque beauty ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston

... fashion is; entering, very properly, a technical caveat as to the language of the battle-cries of the bowmen. "Why should English archers use French terms?" he said. I replied that the only reason was this—that a "Monseigneur" here and there struck me as picturesque; and I reminded him that, as a matter of cold historical fact, most of the archers of Agincourt were mercenaries from Gwent, my native country, who would appeal to Mihangel and to saints not known to the Saxons—Teilo, Iltyd, Dewi, Cadwaladyr ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen

... is indeed noble and stately, but it is miraculously expressive as well. Its expressiveness is the thing that strikes one more forcibly every time one hears it. At first one feels chiefly its old-world freshness—not the picturesque spring freshness of Purcell and Handel, but a freshness that is sweet and grave and cool, coming out of the Elizabethan days when life, at its fastest, went deliberately, and was lived in many-gabled houses with trees and gardens, or in great palaces with pleasant courtyards, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... mansion of Belmont, overlooking the picturesque valley of the St. Charles, was the residence proper of the Bourgeois Philibert, but the shadow that in time falls over every hearth had fallen upon his when the last of his children, his beloved son Pierre, left home to pursue his military studies ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... because he had known Lyman. As other people were listening, I felt no delicacy about doing the same, for the conversation was an eloquent one, and well worth catching. So interested did I become that I forgot the great rafts floating by, the picturesque shores, the splendid river, and leaned nearer and nearer that no word might be lost, till my book slid out of my lap and fell straight down upon the head of one of the gentlemen, giving him a smart blow, and knocking his ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... of the first important accessions to the colony was the company of Mennonites led by Pastorius, the "Pennsylvania Pilgrim," who founded Germantown, now a beautiful suburb of Philadelphia. Group after group of picturesque devotees that had been driven into seclusion and eccentricity by long and cruel persecution—the Tunkers, the Schwenkfelders, the Amish—kept coming and bringing with them their traditions, their customs, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... of St. Augustine (of Hippo) are said to have been founded at Avignon in or about 1061. Their first establishment in England was at Colchester (circa 1105), where the picturesque ruins of the Priory Church, dedicated to St. Botolph, are all that remain of the monastic buildings. The habit consisted of a black cassock with a white rochet, over which a black cloak and hood were worn, thus leading to their familiar name ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley

... once a pair of king vultures rested for a moment within gunshot, but flew out of sight as our canoe approached; and now and then an alligator showed his head above water. As we floated along through this picturesque channel, so characteristic of the wonderful region to which we were all more or less strangers,—for even Dr. Epaminondas and Senhor Tavares Bastos were here for the first time,—the conversation turned naturally enough upon the nature of this Amazonian Valley, its physical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... might be permitted to take a loftier flight. The gardens, terraced on the side of a mountain, sloped down, platform after platform, to the banks of the Seine, and the eye took in the many windings of the stream covered with islets green and picturesque. These variations in the landscape made up a thousand pictures which gave to the spot, naturally charming, a thousand novel features. We walked along the most extensive of these terraces, which was covered with a thick umbrage of trees. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac

... Quebec during the winter of 18—, if he went into society at all, must have been struck by the appearance of a young Bobtail officer, who was a joyous and a welcome guest at every house where it was desirable to be. Tall, straight as an arrow, and singularly well-proportioned, the picturesque costume of the 129th Bobtails could add but little to the effect already produced by so martial a figure. His face was whiskerless; his eyes gray; his cheek-bones a little higher than the average; his hair auburn; his nose not Grecian—or Roman—but ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille

... of a farm-yard, an orchard, and a narrow slip of kitchen-garden, gave you, and could for years preserve so lively the memory of one short ride, and that probably through a flat uninteresting country, I remembered how early I learned to disregard the face of Nature, unless she were decked in picturesque scenery; how wearisome our parks and grounds became to me, unless some improvements were going forward which I thought would attract notice: but those days are gone.—I will now proceed in my story, and bring you acquainted ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... IV. In 1621 Paul Boulle was born, and five years later Jacques. The family was settled at Charenton-le-Pont, near Paris, the principal town of the Huguenots for eighty years. Here, in 1649, Pierre Boulle was buried, the father of seven children. The earlier seventeenth century designs show picturesque landscapes or broken ruins or figures, motifs which recur a century later, as in the beautiful panel signed "Follet" in the Cabinet by Claude Charles Saunier in the Wallace collection. The colours ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson

... town is walled on three sides only, as the perpendicular face of the cliff renders any defence unnecessary on that side; and on the summit of the precipice stands the upper town and castle. The rock is of a red colour, and the whole has a very picturesque appearance. A narrow isthmus and a lofty bridge connect the island with the adjacent continent. The mountains are barren; but the ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... gladly settle round it, and engage in that peaceful pursuit of agriculture and trade of which they are so fond, and, undistracted by wars and rumors of wars, might listen to the purifying and ennobling truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ." At Zumbo, the most picturesque site in the country, they saw the ruins of Jesuit missions, reminding them that there men once met to utter the magnificent words, "Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ!" but without leaving one permanent trace of their labors in the belief ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... father would live and thrive by a profession so precarious as that of literature, she gave little thought to the details of the new phase of life before her. Whatever Tarrant proposed would be good in her sight. Probably he would wish to live in the country; he might discover the picturesque old house of which he had so often spoken. In any case, they would now live together. He had submitted her to a probation, and his last letter declared that he was satisfied ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... among the trees, and the vines on the hill-sides, form a picturesque landscape. The reapers were busy in the harvest fields; and the ground that is cleared of its burdens gives proof of the diligence of the French farmer; the plougher, if not the sower, literally overtakes the reaper. In the forepart of the route we saw much wood and ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... Meanwhile, in a picturesque, vine-trellised cottage, not fifty yards off, ladies went about their domestic duties as usual, apparently oblivious of all danger. One I saw quietly knitting in the cool, shaded stoep, and her busy needles only stopped for one moment, when ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse

... thunder of hostile cannon and the cheers of sailors were heard upon yet another sheet of fresh water, before the quarrel between England and the United States was settled. In the north-east corner of New York State, and slightly overlapping the Canada line, lies Lake Champlain,—a picturesque sheet of water, narrow, and dotted with wooded islands. From the northern end of the lake flows the Richelieu River, which follows a straight course through Canada to the St. Lawrence, into which it empties. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... which seemed to be made of two-thirds sand to one-third water. Now and again mounted horsemen appeared in the distance whom Mr. Dayton said were "cow-boys;" but no cows were visible, and the rapidly moving figures were neither as picturesque nor as formidable as they had expected ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... to the capital by sea; and all vessels arriving at its port have their papers examined at Belem Castle. The salutes of ships of war are, in like manner, answered by its guns. Proceeding onward, we pass the Convent of St. Geronymo, a splendid pile of Moorish architecture, "the picturesque appearance of the scene being heightened by groups of boats peculiar in their construction to the Tagus." From Belem we trace a range of buildings, connecting it with Alcantara and Buenos Ayres, and finally with the ancient city of Lisbon. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various

... travelled, a yoke of oxen were sometimes hooked on before the post-horses, and I went lumbering up, up, up, through mist and rain, with the roar of falling water for change of music. Of a sudden, mist and rain would clear away, and I would come down into picturesque little towns with gleaming spires and odd towers; and would stroll afoot into market-places in steep winding streets, where a hundred women in bodices, sold eggs and honey, butter and fruit, and suckled their children as they sat by their clean baskets, and had such ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... a picturesque, gray old building, with turrets covered with ivy, and square towers of modern build; there were deep oriel windows, stately old rooms that told of the ancient race, and cheerful modern apartments replete ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme

... Slingsby had been driven off the road by the great Flaming Tinman, "Black Jack," whose clan name was Anselo Herne, who, thrusting a Bible into Slingsby's mouth, forced him to swear his Bible oath that he would surrender his beat. Here was a truly picturesque situation after Borrow's own taste, and, no doubt with a joyful heart, he paid Slingsby five pounds ten shillings for his tinker's outfit, bought a wagoner's frock from the landlady, and felt ready enough to encounter the ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper

... about the town's one street, very picturesque and rich in colour, with rushing fountains where women drew fair water in jugs and jars of antique beauty. Whilst I was thus loitering in the sunshine, two well-dressed men approached me, and with somewhat excessive courtesy began conversation. They understood that I was about to drive to Cosenza. ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... breezes that seemed to come straight from the sea. Gladys lay back luxuriously among the cushions, watching the flicker of green leaves over our heads, or the soft shadows that lurked in the distant meadows, or admiring the picturesque groups of cattle under some ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... to stir in him a knowledge of evil and chose the picturesque as being the least unpleasant. But he couldn't believe that old John Silver and the Squire and Benn Gunn hadn't been real people. The tale dwelt in his mind for days, but the final defeat of the mutineers seemed to satisfy him as to the intention ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... rivers. The timber was oak, sugar, elm, hickory and other deciduous trees. This valuable timber was the chief obstruction to the farmers. It had to be deadened or cut away to open up a clearing for the cabin and the field. The labor of two or three generations was required to convert it into the picturesque, beautiful and healthy region ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... stately trees dotting the landscape here and there. There were orchards, too, bearing luscious fruits that are all unknown in our world. Alluring brooks of crystal water flowed sparkling between their flower-strewn banks, while scattered over the valley were dozens of the quaintest and most picturesque cottages our travelers had ever beheld. None of them were in clusters, such as villages or towns, but each had ample grounds of its own, with orchards and ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.

... peninsula which separates the Shannon from the wide Atlantic. On one side the placed river flowed on its course, between fields of waving corn, or rich pasturage—the beautiful island of Scattery, with its picturesque ruins reflected in the unrippled tide—the cheerful voices of the reapers, and the merry laugh of the children were mingled with the seaman's cry of the sailors, who were "heaving short" on their anchor, to take the evening tide. The village, which consisted of merely ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... long rude lifetimes for the beauty and poetry of it—when you consider, beauty and poetry can be thought of in this. Here was no Court aiding the transmutation of the middle class, no King spending money; here were no picturesque contacts of Royalty and the people, no pageantry, no blazonry of the past, nothing to lift the heart but an occasional telegram from the monarch expressing, upon an event of public importance, a suitable emotion. Yet the common love for the throne amounted ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... spinster. If her spinning pleases you, you may keep her till she spins all your lint.' In spite of the gravity of the situation, one cannot help thinking that Flora and her stepfather must have had a good deal of amusement concocting this circumstantial and picturesque falsehood. ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... they slowly; dropped over the figure of Sister Maria Colomba, and, kneeling, held it over her until the last verse of the psalm had been sung. This suggestive ceremony closed the service. It is a forcible and picturesque type of the complete severance of the nun's future life and interests from the outside world, the death of her heart to all carnal affections, the "dying daily" which Saint Paul calls the "life" of the Christian soul. A long procession accompanied the newly-professed nun to the inner rooms of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... Dorchester runs through the heart of that great wild tract that under the general name of Egdon Heath forms a picturesque and often gloomy background to many of Mr. Hardy's romances. These heath-lands are a marked characteristic of the scenery of this part of the county. Repellent at first, their dark beauty, more often than not, will capture the interest and perhaps awe of the stranger. Much ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... and companion. They went through a series of evolutions, now advancing in line, again forming in different bands and pretending to charge one another, and afterwards going through many other intricate manoeuvres. The scene was a most picturesque one, and gave great pleasure to those ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... and activity to which the human frame can be brought by constant exposure to climate, by habit of exertion and endurance of fatigue. Long-limbed, muscular and wiry, lightly clad in costumes remarkable for their picturesque and fantastical variety; unencumbered by knapsacks, or by any baggage save a linen bag slung across the back, and containing rations for two days; their long muskets over their shoulders; belts, full of cartridges and supporting bayonets, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... merely the commercial way of looking at it," protested Holmes. "You reckon up the situation on a basis of mere dollars, strike a balance and charge the thing up to profit and loss. But the romance of it all, the element of the picturesque, the delicious, tingling sense of adventure which was inseparable from a road experience with a commanding personality like Turpin—these things are all lost in your prosaic book-agent methods of our day. No man writing his memoirs for the enlightenment of posterity would ever dream of ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs

... charming books for girls, narrated in that simple and picturesque style which marks the authoress as one of the first among writers for ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... host. Here may be seen, concentrated in the quadrangle, the costume of every nation, in all the gay variety that fancy can devise: the Persian spangled robe, and the embroidered Greek vest; the graceful Spanish, and the picturesque Italian, the Roman toga and the tunic, and the rich old English suit. Pages in red frocks, and marshals in their satin 100 doublets; white wands and splendid turbans, plumes, and velvet hats, all hastening with a ready zeal to obey the call of the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... Never had the picturesque of religion received more lustre than from her presence. John was delighted to see how they all gazed at her and wondered. Lillie looked like a first-rate French picture of the youthful Madonna,—white, pure, and patient. ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... glen. A serpentine and rocky road. Name a new creek. Grotesque hills. Caves and caverns. Cypress pines. More natives. Astonish them. Agreeable scenery. Sentinel stars. Pelicans. Wild and picturesque scenery. More natives. Palm-trees. A junction in the glen. High ranges to the north. Palms and flowers. The Glen of Palms. Slight rain. Rain at night. Plant various seeds. End of the glen. Its length. Krichauff Range. The northern range. ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... Miss Crawley—she preferred her carriage—but the walk over the Rectory fields, and in at the little park wicket, and through the dark plantation, and up the checkered avenue to Queen's Crawley, was charming in the moonlight to two such lovers of the picturesque as the Captain ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... hero of this Swiss movement was Ulric Zwingle, the most interesting of all the reformers. He was born in 1484, and educated amid the mountains of his picturesque country, and, like Erasmus, Reuchlin, Luther, and Melancthon, had no aristocratic claims, except to the nobility of nature. But, though poor, he was well educated, and was a master of the scholastic philosophy and of all the learning of his age. Like Luther, he was passionately fond ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... The mill is the most picturesque thing you ever saw—an old Louis XIII house and mill on the River Rille near Beaumont-le-Roger, once inhabited by the poet Chateaubriand. The river runs underground in the sands for some distance and comes out a few miles from Knight's—cold ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith

... the wall that flanks the gate on the side opposite that which supports the girl, are another man and woman, who cast from time to time pitying glances at the pale face beneath the straw bonnet. These are as raggedly picturesque in their attire as the rest—a short red petticoat, a blanket substituted for a shawl, and a bundle on the back, distinguish the female; a long great coat and short trousers the male. They are deep ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... back to her hotel, where she had only time to take a slight luncheon before starting in the eleven o'clock coach for Aberdeen, where, after four hours' ride through a wildly picturesque country, she arrived just in time to take the afternoon train to Edinboro'. It was the express train, and reached the old city at ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... on which the tall, thin, grey-haired Colonel Domojiroff was seated. He was only in his undergarments and stockings, was evidently a little drunk and was telling stories. Around the brazier lay twelve young men in various picturesque poses. My officer companion reported to Domojiroff about the events in Uliassutai and during the conversation I asked Domojiroff where his detachment was encamped. He laughed and answered, with a sweep of his hand: "This is my detachment." I pointed out to him that ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... foresight; great in loyalty and patriotism; great in persuading discontented chiefs and reconciling conflicting interests and passions; great in the ability to discover merit and genius wherever it lay hidden; great in picturesque and eloquent speech; supremely great in the gift of firing the hearts of hopeless men and noble enthusiasms, the gift of turning hares into heroes, slaves and skulkers into battalions that march to death with songs on their lips. But all these are exalting activities; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... one of the "best" houses in the rising city of Townsville. It stood on the red, rocky, and treeless side of Melton Hill, overlooked the waters of Cleveland Bay, and faced the rather picturesque-looking island from whence it ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke

... have remarked the great diversity of statement employed by different teachers regarding the facts which we are engaged in teaching, and the equal diversity of terminology used in teaching the symbols by which musicians seek to record these facts. To the teacher of exact sciences our picturesque use of the same term to describe two or more entirely different things never ceases to be a marvel.... Thoughtful men and women will become impressed with the untruthfulness of certain statements and little by little change their ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens

... Julius undertook to command his army himself, and to fight at the head of his troops. Letting his white beard grow, putting on armour, and proudly riding his war-horse under fire, he exhibited the most picturesque and romantic figure of ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... horrible worst of it is, my friend,' he said, as if to some silent companion listening behind him, 'the worst of it is, YOUR way was just simply, solely suicide.' What was it Herbert had called it? Yes, a cul-de-sac—black, lofty, immensely still and old and picturesque, but none the less merely a contemptible cul-de-sac; no abiding place, scarcely even sufficing with its flagstones for a groan from the fugitive and deluded refugee. There was no peace for the wicked. The question of course then came in—Was ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... from being overfed: You're sweetly picturesque in rags: You never know the aching head That comes along with money-bags: And you have time to cultivate That best of qualities, Content— For which you'll find your present ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll

... It was a picturesque spot at the head of a valley extending down to the sea, with a stream of water running through it, descending from a high hill which rose in the centre of the island. On one side was a grove of trees, and on the other where the ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... stand in a row with your brooms and mops over your shoulders," pleaded Amy. "You look perfectly dear—and so picturesque." ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... greater part it presents an endless succession of hills and dales, though the surface near the mountains is of a bolder and sometimes of a rugged cast. The scenery of this section is as remarkable for quiet, picturesque beauty, as that of the Western is ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... the old man, removing his battered hat respectfully—the rest of his clothing was in keeping, a picturesque assortment of rags and patches such as only an old Negro can get together, or keep together—"dis hyuh lot, suh, b'longs ter de fambly dat I useter b'long ter—de ol' French fambly, suh, de fines' ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... shaped triangular galleries adjoining, Shodo Hirata maintains the standard of the first gallery, not to forget, either, Toyen Oka with his oleander bush and the cat on the picturesque fence. Tesshu Okajima's hollyhock screens are marvels of decorative simplicity, while Kangai Takakura uses a washday as a motive for a double twofold screen decoration. The last two artists can both be found in the second irregular triangular gallery, opposite the first one mentioned. The central ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... regret that I ever wrote on this subject, not merely because the paper strikes me as too picturesque by half, but because I regarded Villon as a bad fellow. Others still think well of him, and can find beautiful and human traits where I saw nothing but artistic evil; and by the principle of the art, those ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... death, his brother published a collection of his miscellaneous pieces. We extract a few, of no little merit. His verses to Ben Jonson, written before their author came to London, and first appended to a play entitled 'Nice Valour,' are picturesque and interesting, as ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... untouched until the toast of "His Britannic Majesty" had been drunk in good Tsaristic vodka. Then it became a real military fraternisation. Officers inside, soldiers out. No civilian was allowed to approach within three versts, except the old Kirghis chief who, dressed in his picturesque native dress, had travelled over fifty versts to attend the function of making an English Ataman. The band of the Cossack regiment tried valiantly to enliven the proceedings with music, but the English marching choruses ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... romantic to every inexperienced female mind in the idea of pirates and debauchees, who have sentiment as well as slang, miseries as well as vices. Such gentlemen their imaginations are apt to survey under the light of the picturesque instead of under the light of conscience. Every poet and novelist who addresses them on this weak side is sure of getting a favorable hearing. Byron's popularity, as distinguished from his fame, was mainly owing to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... and chivalry of their respective nations; for the Spanish camp was graced, as usual, by the presence of Queen Isabella and the infantas, with the courtly train of ladies who had accompanied their royal mistress from Alcala la Real. The Spanish ballads glow with picturesque details of these knightly tourneys, forming the most attractive portion of this romantic minstrelsy, which, celebrating the prowess of Moslem, as well as Christian warriors, sheds a dying glory round the last hours of ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... to Lewes and Brighton, and about the same distance from those two places. It is at the eastern extremity of what is called the Weald of Sussex. Nothing can be more delightful than this country is in the spring, summer, and autumn; it is then luxuriant and picturesque in the extreme; nothing can then surpass the beauty of the surrounding scenery, and the richness of the foliage which clothe the majestic oak and beech-trees; of the latter there are many, very many, of ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... his reign, he will write that "he cheard up their blouds with two charters more, and in Anno 1262 and forty-five of his courte keeping, he permitted them to wall in their towne."[269] The pleasure of replacing stale, commonplace expressions by rare, picturesque, live ones, and in lieu of a plain sentence to give an allegorical substitute, has so much attraction for Nash, that clear-sighted as he is, he cannot always avoid the ordinary defects of this particular style, defects which he has in common with ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... consider it part of your profession to look as picturesque as our stiff-cut broadcloth will ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... her task with the peach, talking to him all the time a little gravely, a sweet and picturesque picture of a graceful and very desirable woman, her delicate shape and artistic fragility more than ever accentuated by the sombreness of ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... It was a picturesque country to look down upon, and the boy saw a good deal of it, because the eagle was trying to find the old fiddler, Clement Larsson, and flew from ravine ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... love the birds" sings Gwalchmai "and their sweet voices in the lulling songs of the wood"; he watches at night beside the fords "among the untrodden grass" to hear the nightingale and watch the play of the sea-mew. Even patriotism takes the same picturesque form. The Welsh poet hates the flat and sluggish land of the Saxon; as he dwells on his own he tells of "its sea-coast and its mountains, its towns on the forest border, its fair landscape, its dales, its waters, and its valleys, its white sea-mews, its beauteous ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green

... men were in one of the most picturesque parts of that wild and beautiful country, created, as it would seem, for the express gratification of the fisherman and the landscape painter; Simon Perkins, an artist in his very soul, wholly engrossed by ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... prayer was unburdening his own soul with semi-religious phrases, in a Kentucky accent, addressed with unwonted and even picturesque fluency at the stumbling, stodgy Rusty Snow, who trudged along loaded with luggage and an insatiate hatred of this "cussed foreign joint," as he labeled it ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... his voice and manners, and—what was, naturally, not the least attraction—his marked kindness to myself. Being in mourning for his mother, the colour, as well of his dress, as of his glossy, curling, and picturesque hair, gave more effect to the pure, spiritual paleness of his features, in the expression of which, when he spoke, there was a perpetual play of lively thought, though melancholy was their habitual ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... to set out for India, and, fearing that in his absence vandals might destroy a picturesque ruin on his estate, he said to his steward: "I want you to build a wall here"—he drew a tiny furrow with his stick around the ruin—"a stone wall ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... however, even supposing Oom Paul's influence were capable of producing such picturesque results, it would be well meantime if a little fundamental education could be introduced. This may seem impracticable at the first blush, considering that the population is so widely scattered, but no doubt there is some hidden solution. Ignorance is accountable in a ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann

... "A picturesque, mountainous district, bounded on the south and the west by the plain of the Rhine, towards which its spurs descend precipitately. Its geological formation consists chiefly of variegated sandstone and granite; its lower heights being covered with extensive pine forests. It ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... the tents several gypsy boys sat grouped in picturesque attitudes, industriously twanging guitars and mandolins. The whole encampment was lighted by flaring torches on the ends of long poles, and was the final touch needed to give the true ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower

... painted faces, bright blankets and buckskin suits, they made a picturesque group as they halted and surveyed ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... of Patras still affords a fine study of the 'dirty picturesque,' with clothes mostly home-made; sheepskin cloaks; fustanellas or kilts, which contain a whole piece of calico; red leggings, and the rudest of sandals; Turkish caps, and an occasional pistol-belt. The Palikar still struts about in all his old bravery; and the bourgeois humbly imitates the dingy ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... that he was the man who had bumped into Thomas that night at the theater may have had something to do with her doddering. He might at least have helped Thomas in recovering his hat. Dark, full-bearded, slender, with hands like a woman's, quiet of manner yet affable, he was the most picturesque person at the cottage. But there was always something smoldering in those sleepy eyes of his that suggested to Kitty a mockery. It was not that recognizable mockery of all those visiting Englishmen who held themselves complacently superior to their generous American hosts. ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... great work of pacifying the Highlands is very far from certain, but Drumtochty did not relish any trifling with its traditions, and had a wonderful pride in its solitary bridge, as well it might, since from the Beeches nothing could well be more picturesque. Its plan came nearly to an inverted V, and the apex was just long enough to allow the horses to rest after the ascent, before they precipitated themselves down the other side. During that time the driver leant on the ledge, and let his eye run down the river, taking in the Parish Kirk ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... made upon the imagination[9] of children, is of the utmost consequence to their future taste. The beautiful engravings[10] in Spence's Polymetis, will introduce the heathen deities in their most graceful and picturesque forms to the fancy. The language of Spence, though classical, is not entirely free from pedantic affectation, and his dialogues are, perhaps, too stiff and long winded for our young pupils. But a parent or preceptor can easily select the useful explanations; ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... the City, had followed the practice of successful men and retired to enjoy the fruit of his labours in a nice little retreat in the country. Mr. Killick had selected the delightful old-world village of Stanmore as the scene of his retirement, and there, in a picturesque old house, set in the midst of fine trees and carefully trimmed lawns, Purdie and Lauriston found him—a hale and hearty old gentleman, still on the right side of seventy, who rose from his easy chair in a well-stocked library to look in astonishment from the two cards which ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher

... will easily portray in far more glowing and picturesque colors than our poor pencil can paint. So we leave you to conjure up all the bright visions you choose with which to deck the futures of our young debutants in the great drama of wedded life. And some of you young writers, who thirst for fame's thorny laurels, may touch your ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... himself of some unhallowed hopes concerning the rival house, and Jim, as he passed the opposition Inn on a certain evening, had the picturesque devastations vividly in mind. It so happened that a masting team of oxen was standing patiently outside awaiting the driver who was refreshing himself at the bar. A masting team consists of six to twelve strong, selected oxen, yoked two and two to a mighty chain with which they can drag forth the ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... the round towers and the keep fell into ruins—picturesque and beautiful ruins, round which the green ivy hung in luxuriant profusion; then ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay

... have carried the custom of picturesque or expressive naming, to an extent bordering on the ridiculous, were the hard-headed champions of the true church-militant, the English puritans—as Hume, the bigoted old Tory, rather ill-naturedly testifies! And the puritans of New England—whatever advancing intelligence ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... easily influenced by such surroundings as these," and as she spoke she waved her hand with a graceful gesture that took in her picturesque environs. ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... But that such an encounter—in some respects analogous to the temptation of Christ by the Devil—formed part of the old tradition is indicated by several passages in the Pitakas[330] and not merely by the later literature where it assumes a prominent and picturesque form. This struggle is psychologically probable enough but the origin of the story, which is exhaustively discussed in Windisch's Buddha und Mara, seems to lie not so much in any account which the Buddha may have given of his ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... in those ancient days, and perhaps as fruitful and as densely populated as in modern times. The same Italy and Greece were there then as now. There were the same blue and beautiful seas, the same mountains, the same picturesque and enchanting shores, the same smiling valleys, and the same serene and genial sky. The level lands were tilled industriously by a rural population corresponding in all essential points of character with the peasantry of modern ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... still in attendance. The talk over the circumstances was sweeter than the bare facts, and the replenished glass enabled Stephen to add the picturesque bits of the affray, unspurred by a surrounding eagerness of his listeners—too exciting for imaginative effort. In particular, he dwelt on Robert's dropping the reins and riding with his heels at Algernon, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... all about her. She will be absolutely safe from him. The inconsolable widower will ostentatiously seek distraction in foreign travel, and in a fortnight, at most, will, under another name, resume his connubial career in a certain villa unsurpassed, I am told, for its picturesque situation. ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett

... time he had learned something being out the whole afternoon hunting, perhaps side by side with Cedric." Thus she fretted, and scolded her maid until it was time to go to the drawing-room. It was a picturesque scene; the ancient castle with its crenellated tower, from which now pointed a tall flag-pole, the British Royal Ensign bound closely about it, its colours being distinctly visible through its casing of ice; for an immense quadruple-faced light was placed high up in the fork of a tree ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... victory across the prostrate foe, and pursuing the flying relics of their power, "He drinks of the brook in the way, therefore shall He lift up the head," words which are somewhat difficult, however interpreted. If, with the majority of modern commentators, we take them as a picturesque embodiment of eager haste in the pursuit, the conqueror "faint, yet pursuing," and stooping for a moment to drink, then hurrying on with renewed strength after the fugitives, one can scarcely help feeling that such a close to such a psalm ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... KATHERINE Stands at bay. In a moment he opens the door again, to usher in the deputation; then retires. The four gentlemen have entered as if conscious of grave issues. The first and most picturesque is JAMES HOME, a thin, tall, grey-bearded man, with plentiful hair, contradictious eyebrows, and the half-shy, half-bold manners, alternately rude and over polite, of one not accustomed to Society, yet secretly much taken with himself. He is dressed in rough tweeds, with a red silk tie slung ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... being in Scotland, I went with one of the most humane members of the humane medical profession, on a morning tour among some of the worst lodged inhabitants of the old town of Edinburgh. In the closes and wynds of that picturesque place—I am sorry to remind you what fast friends picturesqueness and typhus often are—we saw more poverty and sickness in an hour than many people would believe in a life. Our way lay from one to another ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... vast fireplaces are relics of the ancient abbey, and even now form most picturesque interiors. At a long wooden table in one sat a blue-bloused group drinking cider out of huge yellow mugs—scene for a painter. Another, fitted up as a dairy, was hardly less of a picture. On shelves in the dark, antiquated chamber lay large, red-earthen pans full of cream for cheese-making. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... and hedgehog bounties. But now! The oldest resident couldn't remember a case of high treason and rebellion against the Northeastern such as this promised to be, and the sensation took on an added flavour from the fact that the arch rebel was a figure of picturesque interest, a millionaire with money enough to rent the Duncan house and fill its long-disused stable with horses, who was a capitalist himself and a friend of Mr. Flint's; of whom it was said that he was going to marry Mr. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... his fitness for the honor that had been thrust upon him. He played first upon the piano, and the committee advised together in whispered monotone. Then they asked him to play on the organ, and there was more consultation, with argument which was punctuated by rolling adjectives and many picturesque gesticulations. Then they asked him to play the piano again. He did so, and the great men retired to deliberate and vote ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... wonderful imagination, the glowing descriptions, and the passionate lyrics in which the poetry of "Atta Troll" abounds. The poem may be and will be read by them as "Gulliver's Travels" is read to-day by young and old, by poet and politician alike, not for its original satire, but for its picturesque, dramatic, and enthralling tale. ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine

... it is hardly possible to gauge precisely the degree of popular apprehension in the premises. John Randolph was doubtless more picturesque than accurate when he said, "the night bell never tolls for fire in Richmond that the mother does not hug the infant more closely to her bosom."[102] The general trend of public expressions laid emphasis upon the need of safeguards but showed confidence that no great disasters ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... speculation, no commerce; "nothing venture, nothing have," is as true for the development of organic wealth as for that of any other kind, and neither Erasmus Darwin nor Lamarck hesitated about admitting that highly picturesque and romantic incidents of developmental venture do from time to time occur in the race histories even of the dullest and most dead-level organisms under the name of "sports;" but they would hold that even these occur most often and most happily to those that have ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... gone mad; that the French Revolution was a general act of insanity, a temporary conversion of France and large sections of the world into a kind of Bedlam. The Event had risen and raged; but was a madness and nonentity,—gone now happily into the region of Dreams and the Picturesque!—To such comfortable philosophers, the Three Days of July 1830 must have been a surprising phenomenon. Here is the French Nation risen again, in musketry and death-struggle, out shooting and being shot, to make that same mad French Revolution ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... day. The girls disposed themselves about the bungalow in picturesque attitudes, and the boys sat on the broad porch, telling over again the adventures of ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose

... maintain an attitude of diplomatic reserve. The climax, however, was reached in the scene of Cleopatra's funeral. This afforded the immense staff of the ballet an opportunity for displaying the most varied picturesque effects ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... swiftness born of many nights in camp together, the four now unpacked the needful articles, not putting up any tent, but spreading it down on the floor of the cave. Their fire lit up the rocks in a wild and picturesque manner as they sat near, cooking and eating their first meal of the actual ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough

... father always sends an outrider like that with you? How nice! So picturesque—and like the old ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... stated some events on insufficient authority, and drawn conclusions beyond the warrant of his promises; but there is more deep dramatic skill, more picturesque and coloured scenery, more distinct and characteristic grouping, and more lively faith to the look and spirit of the men and times and feelings of which he writes, in Thierry, than in any other historian that ever lived. He has almost an intuition in favour of liberty, ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... everything that I had planted, from continual watering and guano, had grown most luxuriantly. In fact, my cabin was so covered and sheltered, that its original form had totally disappeared; it now looked like an arbour in a clump of trees, and from the rocks by the bathing-pool it had a very picturesque appearance. ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... picturesque rags of the English poor, and the shrivelled flesh of the women, ravaged by work and poverty; children lying in dirt; and the stunted creatures produced by overwork in the one-sided processes of the factories! And the most charming last details of practice: prostitution, murder ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx

... old-fashioned casement windows on the upper story, and queer little dormers in the roof. Below, roomy bows had been added at a much later date than the building of the cottage. The principal doorway was sheltered by a rustic porch, spacious and picturesque, with a bench on each side of the entrance. The garden was tolerably large, and in decent order, and beyond the garden was a fine old orchard, divided from lawn and flower-beds only by a low hedge, full of bush-roses and ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... six months, and that there must be some other explanation for this. I wrote him that I was coming. I found that the best way to reach the Science Community was to take a bus out from Washington. It involved a drive of about fifty miles northwest, through a picturesque section of the country. The latter part of the drive took me past settlements that looked as though they might be in about the same stage of progress as they had been during the American Revolution. The city of my destination was back in the hills, and very much isolated. During the last ten miles ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... fascinated us both. We were the guests of a burly farmer, who lived in a queer old house, half timber and half brick, with low-ceilinged rooms. The general living-room was the capacious kitchen, which looked mighty picturesque. Oak panels ran half-way up to the ceiling; the pots and pans were ranged neatly in an open cupboard, pleasantly suggestive of good fare and plenty of it. There were flowers in red pots in the windows, and my bedroom was a picture of coolness ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... tents made by spreading sailcloth over the tops of bushes; round tents; square tents; big tents; little tents; and for every tent a camp fire; hundreds of white-topped wagons, also, at rest for the night, their great poles propped up by sticks, and their mules and drivers lying and standing in picturesque ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... pappy, won't it be nice to have a day or two's quiet in our own home, with Carry and Marie? And you know Mr. Lemuel will be in town all the summer and winter. The material for his work he finds within himself. He doesn't need to scamper off like the rest of them to hunt out picturesque peasants and studies of waterfalls—trotting about the country with a note-book ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... not only one of the most picturesque, but most prosperous in all Ireland. It is also remarkable for being entirely surrounded by water—by the ocean, Lough Neagh, and the rivers Bann and Lagan. In this county vast quantities of flax are raised and manufactured into linen—-chiefly at Belfast, the handsomest ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood

... seeing landscape quite as good; and none more vivid, in spite of canting dilettantes, than from a railway train. But landscape on a walking tour is quite accessory. He who is indeed of the brotherhood does not voyage in quest of the picturesque, but of certain jolly humours—of the hope and spirit with which the march begins at morning, and the peace and spiritual repletion of the evening's rest. He cannot tell whether he puts his knapsack on, or takes it off, with more delight. The excitement of the departure puts him in ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Paul's father should have been just a plain "hired man." Cowboy, miner, man-o'-war's man, even enlisted man, though that were bad enough—any of these he might have been in an accidental way, that at least would have been picturesque; but it is only the possession of land, by whatsoever means or title, that can dignify an habitual personal contact with it in the form of soil. That is one of the accepted prejudices which one ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... him several times on the tip of his nose, a proceeding which he considered offensive to his dignity, and then went off to change the crushable velvet skirt for a house dress of her favourite rose hue—a quaint little garment made in a picturesque style, which had no connection whatever with the prevailing fashion. When she returned to the sitting-room she seated herself on the floor beside the fire, and Pat, now entirely restored to equanimity and a little ashamed of his previous ill-humour, ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... terminated by an abrupt point which seems to plunge into the sea. Before us are spread out the double summit which towers above Megiddo; the mountains of the country of Shechem, with their holy places of the patriarchal age; the hills of Gilboa, the small, picturesque group to which are attached the graceful or terrible recollections of Shunem and of Endor; and Tabor, with its beautiful rounded form, which antiquity compared to a bosom. Through a depression between the mountains of Shunem and Tabor are seen ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... all that time they did nothing but dance and sing and hold great drinking-feasts. The captain did not wish to come with me, but when he saw that I was determined to make him he came of his own accord. I left the chief who came with me as captain there. This town of Jauja is very fine and picturesque, with very good level approaches, and it has an excellent river-bank. In all my travels I did not see a better site for a Christian settlement, and I believe that the Governor intends to form one there, though some think ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... Will delight equally the artistic and the poetic, the historical and the antiquarian, the picturesque and ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... Ulverston woods, said by connoisseurs to be the finest and most picturesque in England. Such a glorious sight on this May evening as made the lawyer's heart beat, though many years had passed since the fountain of poetry flowed for him. The hawthorn and chestnut trees were all in flower; the maple ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme

... woman! Truly do I make this engagement with thee that I will stay with thee, O thou of slender waist, until thou obtainest a son.' Then Hidimva, saying, 'So be it,' took Bhima upon her body and sped through the skies. On mountain peaks of picturesque scenery and regions sacred to the gods, abounding with dappled herds and echoing with the melodies of feathered tribes, herself assuming the handsomest form decked with every ornament and pouring forth at times mellifluous strains, Hidimva sported with the Pandava and studied to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... more opposed than the state of society, the modes of thinking, the standards of reference on all points of morality, manners, and even politics and religion, in such a new manufacturing place as Keighley in the north, and any stately, sleepy, picturesque cathedral town in the south. Yet the aspect of Keighley promises well for future stateliness, if not picturesqueness. Grey stone abounds; and the rows of houses built of it have a kind of solid grandeur connected with their uniform ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... After Entrevaux, picturesque Puget-Theniers was an anticlimax; though other fairy towns peered down from high crags and sheer hillsides where they hung by wires caught in spider webs—and though we passed through other gorges of grim beauty, my thoughts had flown ahead of our swift car. I was glad when at ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... the region about the city of Mexico. From the city there are sketches of journeys in every direction, and at last we traverse the palm forest of St. Jago, and stand upon the heights whence the eye reaches to the Pacific. Every picturesque scene is finished with the greatest care and with special regard to the natural features of the landscape. Buildings and human figures are either avoided altogether or used as merely subordinate. When Mexico is completed, Rugendas will use in a similar manner the sketches he has taken in other ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... eye as the pen of Bryant has elsewhere vividly presented them to the imagination. In short, the entire scene was one of a rich and benevolent nature, before it had been subjected to the uses and desires of man; luxuriant, wild, full of promise, and not without the charm of the picturesque, even in its rudest state. It will be remembered that this was in the year 175-, or long before even speculation had brought any portion of western New York within the bounds of civilization. At that distant day there ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... doors were closed, and one hundred and forty-nine members were found to be present. This House went into Committee of the Whole to come out of it again, and the yeas and nays were called until the clerk grew hoarse. Thus rolled the hours away. Candles burned down to their sockets, forming picturesque grottoes of spermaceti as they declined; lamps went out in suffocating fumes. Some insisted on having a window up, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... countermarched, threatening to charge down its face. Most of them were naked, and as their persons were painted in gaudy colors and decorated with strips of red flannel, red blankets and gay war-bonnets, their appearance presented a scene of picturesque barbarism, fascinating but repulsive. As they numbered about six hundred, the chances of whipping them did not seem overwhelmingly in our favor, yet Nesmith and I concluded we would give them a little fight, provided we could engage them without going beyond ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... which successfully conceals abnormal common-sense. It was he, more than any other man, who saved Ireland from Home Rule, though as an Irish landlord he has not come much to the fore, because his vast English estates are immeasurably more important than those situated round Lismore. This picturesque town was once called the abode of saints, but only antiquarians remember that its university was once so important that Alfred the Great went there to study, and that in the old castle Henry II held a Parliament. The Cavendishs rebuilt the latter, and both in appearance and position ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... the temples, producing sleep. Pauguk is the personification of death. He is armed with a bow and arrows, to execute his mortal functions. Hosts of a small fairy-like creation, called Ininees, little men, or Pukwudj Ininees, vanishing little men, inhabit cliffs, and picturesque and romantic scenes. Another class of marine or water spirits, called Nebunabaigs, occupy the rivers and lakes. There is an articulate voice in all the varied sounds of the forest—the groaning of its branches, and the whispering of its leaves. ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... times confined to the tabu restrictions of the halau. Like a truant schoolboy, it delighted to break loose from restraint and join the informal pleasurings of the people. Imagine an assembly of men and women in the picturesque illumination given by flaring kukui torches, the men on one side, the women on the other. Husbands and wives, smothering the jealousy instinctive to the human heart, are there by mutual consent—their daughters they leave at home—each one ready to play his part to ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... with a smile on his countenance, and made the usual picturesque form of salutation by describing the figure 3 with his right hand from the floor to his forehead. Perhaps it was because he wanted to be polite that he said he had enjoyed our company on the previous day, and had determined, if ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... livelier than ever, and her friends are very amusing. Lady Mary is very handsome, and she sings and plays on the mandoline. She is going to take it with her to-night. It will be so pretty, the sound of singing on the water, and she will look so picturesque ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... of that class of artists. If the individuality of his conceptions, the skill of his groupings, and the graphicness gave rise to such an idea, it would seem to have its foundation as well in Nature as in superstition. Matthew has more detail, more thought; Luke is more picturesque, more descriptive. John has more deep feeling; Luke more action, more life. The Annunciation, the Widow of Nain, the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the incident to which we shall presently advert, are found in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... only know that at the end of their first interview Diderot's facility of discourse had been so copious that, after he had taken his leave, Voltaire said: "The man is clever, assuredly; but he lacks one talent, and an essential talent—that of dialogue." Diderot's remark about Voltaire was more picturesque. "He is like one of those old haunted castles, which are falling into ruins in every part; but you easily perceive that it is inhabited by some ancient sorcerer."[188] They had a dispute as to the merits of Shakespeare, and Diderot ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... events in the history of man, as well as one of the most picturesque situations, was when Paul stood on the Areopagus at Athens, carrying Christianity into Europe, offering a Semitic religion to an Aryan race, the culmination of monotheism to one of the most elaborate and magnificent polytheisms of the world. A strange and marvellous scene! From the place ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... terraced gardens on the opposite bank; over that again, the tumbled-about collection of gleaming white houses, and green casements, and red roofs, and old towers and belfries; and then, higher still, and enclosing, as it were, the picturesque little town, the great ethereal amphitheatre of pale blue mountains, with here and there a sprinkling of snow glittering sharply, as if it were quite close at hand. How fresh and cold the morning air was, after the sultry atmosphere of the lakes! How beautiful the snow was! ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... its absolute irrelevancy. Miss Greenaway's charm lies in the fact that she first recognised quaintness in what had been considered merely "old fashion," and continued to infuse it with a glamour that made it appear picturesque. Had she dressed her figures in contemporary costume most probably her work would have taken its place with the average, and never obtained more ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... different places and their peculiar features are exhibited with sufficient precision, considering the nature of the obstacles he had to encounter. The literary execution of the work, moreover, is highly respectable, sometimes even rich and picturesque; and the author describes the grand and beautiful scenery of the Cordilleras with a sensibility to its charms, not often found in the tasteless topographer, still less often in ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... barber and wig-maker, had cut his hair in a circle, covering his head with a bowl and cutting off all that protruded, an infallible method of guiding the scissors accurately. Thus accoutred, he was less picturesque, surely, than with his long hair flying in the wind and his lamb's fleece a la Saint John the Baptist; but he had no such idea, and everybody admired him, saying that he looked like a little man. His beauty triumphed ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... inertness of the mass of any modern civilized community in this respect is probably so great as would make war impracticable, except against actual invasion. The habits and aptitudes of the common run of men make for an unfolding of activity in other, less picturesque directions than ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... green meadows and fields, pleasant villages, and the clear, full current of the Danube, along whose left bank extended a beautifully formed mountain chain, whose declivity toward the river presented a rich variety to the eye, for sometimes it was clothed in budding groves, sometimes displayed picturesque bare cliffs, and again vineyards in which labourers were working. From the farthest distance the steeples of Ratisbon offered the first greeting to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of the Christmas Monks is a most charmingly picturesque pile of old buildings; there are towers and turrets, and peaked roofs and arches, and everything which could possibly be thought of the architectural line, to make a convent picturesque. It is built of graystone; but it is only ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... inside, the harbour-tug was getting up steam. On shore, a few gaily dressed natives were hurrying home with their early market produce, and others were stretched lazily on the grass at the water's edge or on the benches under the trees. Our stores for the day, a picturesque-looking heap of fish, fruit, vegetables, and flowers, were on the steps, waiting to be brought off, and guarded in the meantime by natives in costumes of pink, blue, orange, and a delicate pale green they specially affect. The light mists rolled gradually away from the mountain ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... lovers of golf the admirable use to which it is put from early spring to latest fall. Now, links, as well as parterres and driveways, are lying under an even blanket of winter snow, and even the building, with its picturesque gables and rows of be-diamonded windows, is well-nigh indistinguishable in the shadows cast by the heavy pines, which soar above it and twist their limbs over its roof and about its forsaken corners, with a moan and ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green



Words linked to "Picturesque" :   beautiful, colourful, picturesqueness



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