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Sumptuous   Listen
adjective
Sumptuous  adj.  Involving large outlay or expense; costly; expensive; hence, luxurious; splendid; magnificient; as, a sumptuous house or table; sumptuous apparel. "We are too magnificient and sumptuous in our tables and attendance." "She spoke, and turned her sumptuous head, with eyes Of shining expectation fixed on mine."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sumptuous" Quotes from Famous Books



... hundred times more sumptuous and magnificent than ever was Bonivet; for there were in it nine thousand three hundred and two-and-thirty chambers, every one whereof had a withdrawing-room, a closet, a wardrobe, a chapel, and a passage into a great hall. Between every ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... characters—Hamlet, Lear, the English-Norman kings, the Romans? What was Nature to Rousseau, to Voltaire, to the German Goethe in his little classical court gardens? In those presentments in Tennyson (see the "Idylls of the King"—what sumptuous, perfumed, arras-and-gold Nature, inimitably described, better than any, fit for princes and knights and peerless ladies—wrathful or peaceful, just the same—Vivien and Merlin in their strange dalliance, or the death-float of Elaine, or Geraint and the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... welcome as providing another nail in the coffin of their fiscal opponents. It is the glory of democracies that they may be misled but never driven. Here and there, like brave deeds in a dust-patterned world, flashed and glittered the sumptuous uniforms of representatives of the Austrian military caste. Also in evidence, at discreet intervals, were stray units of the Semetic tribe that nineteen centuries of European neglect had been ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... provided a sumptuous marriage feast, but when they returned from church, Petruchio, taking hold of Katharine, declared his intention of carrying his wife home instantly, and no remonstrance of his father-in-law, or angry words of the enraged Katharine, could make him change his purpose. He claimed a husband's ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... procession reached her doors the lady was greatly grieved and cast down. To her three dead lovers she gave sumptuous burial in a fair abbey. As for the fourth, she tended him with such skill that ere long his wounds were healed and he was quite recovered. One summer day the knight and the lady sat together after meat, and a great sadness fell upon her because of the knights who had been slain in her cause. ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... kynge Antiochus had prepared to make warre to the Romayns, he caused his armye to mustre before Anniball. So they shewed and mustred, both horse men and fote men; of whose ryche and sumptuous armour and apparaile al the felde glistred and shone. How saye you, quod the kynge to Hanibal, is nat this armye sufficient ynough for the Romayns? Yes, quod Haniball, and though they were the moste couetous of all the worlde. ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown

... was a sumptuous banquet compared with their late fare; and the poor famished creatures devoured it ravenously, feeling, when it was finished, that they could have disposed of thrice as much. Perhaps it was just as well that there was no more; in their condition a moderately full meal even would have ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... not then what the world meant: but now she went to Mark Antony at the age when a woman's beauty is at the prime, and she also of best judgement. So, she furnished herself with a world of gifts, store of gold and silver, and of riches and other sumptuous ornaments, as is credible enough she might bring from so great a house, and from so wealthy and rich a realm as Egypt was. But yet she carried nothing with her wherein she trusted more than in her self, and in the charms and enchantment ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... his valet under distressing circumstances. It is stated that there can be no doubt that his lordship committed suicide, though no motive can be assigned for the act. The deceased nobleman was widely known in society, and much liked for his genial manner and sumptuous hospitality. He is succeeded ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... went forth the bath to the outer saloon, where he found his clothes taken away and in their stead a suit of the richest royal apparel. Then sherbets were brought him and coffee with ambergris and he drank and arose; whereupon there came to him a troop of slaves and clad him in those [449] sumptuous clothes [450] and he dressed and perfumed himself with essences and sweet-scented smoke. [451] Now thou knowest [452] that Alaeddin was the son of a poor man, a tailor: yet now none had thought it, [453] but had said, "This ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... the pressure thus created almost every public building in the town was requisitioned for hospital purposes; schools and clubs and colleges, the nunnery, the lunatic asylum, and even the stately Parliament Hall with its marble entrance and sumptuous fittings. The presidential chair, behind the presidential desk, still retained its original place on the presidential platform; but,—"how are the mighty fallen!" I saw it occupied by an obscure hospital orderly ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... and of friends bereft, Not one of all these sumptuous temples left; Which, while the fortune of our house did stand, With rich wrought ceilings ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... to believe that beautiful, sumptuous Nina Childe, with her wit, her humour, her imagination, loved this neutral little fellow; yet she made no secret of doing so. We tried to frame a theory that would account for it. 'It's the maternal instinct,' suggested one. 'It's her chivalry,' said ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... or two in advance of this company was the Fourth Alabama Regiment, numbering eight hundred men. The regiment, on its arrival at Newtown, a small village six miles from Winchester, was provided by the citizens with a sumptuous dinner. Then the "Dare-devils" were likewise entertained; but still the supplies and hospitality of the people were not exhausted, as the battery, on its arrival, was served with ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... numerous and miscellaneous party was placed a dinner, consisting, not indeed of the delicacies of the season, as the newspapers express it, but of viands, ample, solid, and sumptuous, under which the very board groaned. But the mirth was not in proportion to the good cheer. The lower end of the table were, for some time, chilled by constraint and respect on finding themselves members of so august ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... somewhere between Oxford and Guildford, I missed a connection or miscalculated a route in such manner that I was left stranded for rather more than an hour. I adore waiting at railway stations, but this was not a very sumptuous specimen. There was nothing on the platform except a chocolate automatic machine, which eagerly absorbed pennies but produced no corresponding chocolate, and a small paper-stall with a few remaining ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... follow this course, some instinctively and through lassitude, and others because the display they make adds to their authority. "Dragged along in Carriages with six horses, surrounded by guards, seated at sumptuous tables set for thirty persons, eating to the sound of music along with a Cortege of actors, courtesans and praetorians,"[32135] they impress the imagination with an idea of their omnipotence, and people bow all the lower ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... touched rarely, and then stirred only to certain deeps. So far as he could love woman born he loved Jehane, saw her exceedingly lovely, loved her proud remote spirit, her nobility, her sobriety. He saw her bodily perfections too, how splendid a person, how sumptuous in hue and light. Admiring, taking glory in these, yet he required the sting of another man's hand upon her to seize her for himself. For purposes of policy, for ends which seemed to him good, he could have lived with Jehane as a brother with a sister: one thing provided, Let no ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... like this of the state of affairs in the family, he had known enough of their adversity to understand the case now at a glance. No one ate more heartily than he; and the conversation went on as if a sumptuous feast had been spread ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... thee Exceeding honor—happiness on earth, Riches in glory—since thou hast made known Thy goodness to me on my journeying!" He sat him by the Guardian of the sea, That noble saint beside his noble Lord. I never heard men tell of comelier ship 360 Laden with sumptuous treasures. In it sat Great heroes, glorious lords, and beauteous thanes. Then spake the ever-living noble Lord, Almighty King; he bade his angel go, His glorious retainer, go and give Meat to the desolate to comfort him Upon the seething flood, that ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown

... to enjoy himself werry well, Mrs. Newt," said Mr. Van Boozenberg, as he observed that youth, in sumptuous array, dancing devotedly with Mrs. Bleecker ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... Col. Sellers's was not sumptuous, in the beginning, but it improved on acquaintance. That is to say, that what Washington regarded at first sight as mere lowly potatoes, presently became awe-inspiring agricultural productions that had been reared in some ducal ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... or make eyes at Gretchen or the landlady—fifty, if she was a day—maybe fifty-five, and yet she fell in love" (this last was addressed directly to me; it had been reminiscent before that, fired at the ceiling, at the hangings in his sumptuous studio, or the fire crackling oil the hearth), "fell in love with that tramp—a boy of twenty-two,'mind you—Ah! but what a rounder he was! Such a trim, well-knit figure; so light and nimble on his feet; such ...
— Fiddles - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith

... cheap cushion at one of Liberty's sales, and some bits of twopenny-halfpenny art china for her narrow mantelpiece. A lacquered tea-tray and a tea-set of a single cup and saucer, a plate and a teapot, made her feel herself almost sumptuous. After a day spent in trudging about in the wet or cold of the streets, doing other people's shopping, or searching for dressmakers or servants' characters for her patrons, she used to think of her bed-sitting-room with joyful anticipation. Mrs. Cupp always had a bright fire glowing in ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... all my life I cannot recall a merrier meal than this, which, for all we knew, would be our last. The very thought lent a touch of bravado to my humour, and presently Tom caught the infection. It was not a sumptuous meal in itself, but princely to our ordinary fare; and the unaccustomed taste of beer loosened our tongues, until our mirth fairly astonished our fellow-diners. At length the waiter came with the news that it was ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... any period of our history. Never has Providence shown more clearly the nothingness of this world's grandeur and magnificence. Never has the saying of Ecclesiastes been more exactly verified: "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!" We have before us the task of describing one of the most sumptuous courts that has ever existed, and of reviewing splendors all the more brilliant for their brevity. To this court of Napoleon and Josephine, to this majestic court, resplendent with glory, wealth, and fame, may ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... have come down to us, and by the World's Fair reproduction of the Hancock House, their mansion must have been a very sumptuous one. It was built of stone, after the manner favoured by Bostonians who could afford it, with massive walls, and a balcony projecting over the entrance door, upon which a large second-story window opened. ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... with your city Where they herd the brainless brats, On a range so badly crowded There ain't room to cuss the cat. This life is not so sumptuous, I'm not longing for a change, For there is no place so homelike As a cow ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various

... the morning till dinner-time came. We had Ernest's ortolans, and some fried ham and eggs, which made us a sumptuous repast. I gave my boys leave to kill as many ortolans as they chose, for I knew that, half-roasted, and put into casks, covered with butter, they would keep for a length of time, and prove an invaluable resource ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... this strange court, without trusty friends, and how in such cases fortune was harsh to helpless people and became a traitress, when he met the poor French knight, who appeared far worse off that he, who had good weapons, a fine horse, and a mansion where servants were then preparing a sumptuous supper. ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac

... the last three or four days. Dined the day before yesterday with the Duc de Poix, and went to Hope's ball; his house is a sumptuous palace in miniature, all furnished and decorated with inconceivable luxury and recherche; one room hung with cachemires. Last night to a small ball at Court. Supper in the gallery de Diane—round tables, all the ladies supping first; the whole thing ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... of the Grand Patiti. The town of Manoa and its palaces covered with plates of massy gold have long since disappeared; but the geographical apparatus serving to adorn the fable of El Dorado, the lake Parima, which, similar to the lake of Mexico, reflected the image of so many sumptuous edifices, has been religiously preserved by geographers. In the space of three centuries, the same traditions have been differently modified; from ignorance of the American languages, rivers have been taken ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... eyesight, but "she knoweth not she is blind, she saith the house is dark. This that seemeth ridiculous unto us in her, happeneth unto us all. No man understandeth that he is covetous, or avaricious. He saith, I am not ambitious, but no man can otherwise live in Rome; I am not sumptuous, but ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... Christ himself did, when he lived here on earth, imitate him as much as in thee lies. How many great Caesars, mighty monarchs, tetrarchs, dynasties, princes lived in his days, in what plenty, what delicacy, how bravely attended, what a deal of gold and silver, what treasure, how many sumptuous palaces had they, what provinces and cities, ample territories, fields, rivers, fountains, parks, forests, lawns, woods, cells, &c.? Yet Christ had none of all this, he would have none of this, he voluntarily rejected all this, he could not be ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... happy as the "Christian Pilgrim" when he had been relieved of his burden. It would, probably, be wrong to say that the lordly Highlander, the impetuous son of Erin, or the proud and independent Englishman, who vied with each other in feats of sumptuous hospitality during these periods of relaxation, did much better on the score of moral responsibilities. They broke, generally, nine out of the ten commandments without a wince, but kept the other very scrupulously, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... any way pinched. I can assure you my lodgings in the Quartier Latin are not what you would call sumptuous, but they are comfortable enough, and they do not stand me in a quarter of what I paid for my chambers in London. I can dine sumptuously on a franc and a half. Another franc covers my breakfast, which is generally cafe au lait and two eggs; another franc suffices for supper. So you see ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... alarm as herds of deer and elk. From this plain we entered a hilly country, covered to the summits of the elevations with wild oats and tufts or hunches of a species of grass, which remains green through the whole season. Cattle were scattered through these hills, and more sumptuous grazing they could not desire. Small streams of water, fed by springs, flow through the hollows and ravines, which, as well as the hill-sides, are timbered with the evergreen oak and a variety of smaller trees. About two o'clock, P.M., we crossed ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... with an egotism baffling as imperturbable, he delights in intruding among his creations; but you cannot see it. You suspect its presence, because he is a born mocker. But you remember that one of his most obvious idiosyncrasies is an inordinate love of all that is sumptuous, glittering, radiant, magnificent; and you incline to suspect that he keeps his sneering for the world of men, and admires his scenes and decorations too cordially to visit them ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... to the advantage derived from travelling alone for the purpose of observing better the archaeological wealth, and the customs of the French, having a distinct and definite line of study and object lesson ever in view; to his wide sympathy with the French people, to their sumptuous care for their ancient monuments, their courtesy and reverential manner of hospitality towards English speaking students; and also in particular to the unsuspicious, deferential manner in which they are ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater

... filled up with dead. From time to time the heap of rags and withered anatomies heaved slowly, and the little spectre of a child crawled out, imploring food. And all day long the solemn arguments went on beneath the sumptuous pavilions of the English, until, after three days of discussion, the ambassadors of Rouen went back, unsatisfied, into ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... She wished them to be sumptuous, and when he alone could not pay the expenses, she made up the deficit liberally, which happened almost every time. He tried to make her understand that they would be quite as comfortable somewhere else, in a smaller hotel, but she always ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various

... of practice in the Rue de Courcelles had not yielded him enough to pay his servant's wages. For he had a servant, of course. He had a valet for the same reason as he had a suite of rooms of a superficially sumptuous aspect. Faithful to his system, or, rather, to his master's system, he had sacrificed everything to show. The display of gilding in his apartments was such as to make a man of taste shut his eyes to escape the sight ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... promised to be charming as well as sumptuous. Ennui, that too frequent guest at mundane feasts, would not come to sit at that table. These fortunate ones were going to pass a delicious hour, drinking enjoyment through every pore, ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee

... rank himself. Rice ap Thomas, Esquire, was a man of a most sweet and inoffensive disposition, beloved and respected by all his neighbours and tenants, and "passing rich with 'sixty' pounds a year." In his domestic he was elegant, hospitable, and even sumptuous, for the time and country in which he lived. He was however naturally of an abstemious and recluse disposition. He abounded in singularities, which were pardoned to his harmlessness and his virtues; and his temper was full of sensibility, seriousness, and ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... after and in sumptuous style—Don Gregorio makes his guests aware of the fact, that he has secured passages for Panama, and may leave San Francisco soon as they. He confides to them the secret of his having chartered the Chilian ship—in short, telling ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... the ceiling are several magnificent cut-glass chandeliers. At night, when these Persian mirrored rooms are lit up, they present a scene of barbaric splendor well calculated to delight the eye of the sumptuous Oriental; every tiny square of glass reflects a point of light, and every larger one reproduces a chandelier; for every lamp he lights, the Persian voluptuary finds himself surrounded by ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... been in the possession of wealthy men, often peers, and (sometimes like their owners!) have passed their lives for the most part undisturbed amid luxurious surroundings. They are invariably richly bound, often in historic bindings, and are clean and fresh inside. Frequently they are sumptuous works and presentation copies, and they always command high prices. In a word, they are aristocrats among books. They are not necessarily rare volumes, though frequently they are large-paper copies, and for the ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... Anne Singleton to be his wife, felt no more love for her than he felt for any of the other sumptuous household appointments he was purchasing about the same time, and made no pretence of doing so. Nor, had he done so, would she have believed him; for Anne Singleton has learned much in her twenty-two summers and winters, and knows that love is only a meteor ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

... afterward I took these rooms; but my establishment was of short duration ere I learned the history of an eventful morning which followed that incident:—of how the placid face of the master peered among his people, beaming with a great joy; how a sumptuous feast was fitted up in the private office for all in the employ; of the two hundred francs, and a suit of clothes, presented to each; and how every one, from the little messenger to the gray cashier, with the rarest wine in the cellar, drank prosperity to the new-born son and heir, ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong

... drawn over the part required to be washed. The Mahometans, out of respect to the divine Majesty before whom they are to appear, are required to be clean and decent when they go to public prayers in their mosques; but are yet forbidden to appear there in sumptuous apparel, particularly clothes trimmed with gold or silver, lest they should make them vain and arrogant. The women are not allowed to be in their mosques at the same time with the men; this they think would make their thoughts wander from their proper business there. On this account they reproach ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... classical age of English literature, is a trite consideration of criticism. The treatment of mythology is particularly conclusive on this point. Throughout the 'Augustan' era, mythology was approached as a mere treasure-house of pleasant fancies, artificial decorations, 'motives', whether sumptuous or meretricious. Allusions to Jove and Venus, Mercury, Apollo, or Bacchus, are of course found in every other page of Dryden, Pope, Prior, Swift, Gay, and Parnell. But no fresh presentation, no loving ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley

... of the drama between the rival houses of Guise and Valois came when the king and his council came to Blois for the assembly. The sunny city of Blois was indeed to be the scene of a momentous affair, and a truly sumptuous setting it was, the roof-tops of its houses sloping downward gently to the Loire, with its chief accessory, the coiffed and turreted chateau itself, high above ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... mighty wall, not fabulous, China's stupendous mound) by patient toil 80 Of myriads and boon nature's lavish help; [F] There, in a clime from widest empire chosen, Fulfilling (could enchantment have done more?) A sumptuous dream of flowery lawns, with domes Of pleasure [G] sprinkled over, shady dells 85 For eastern monasteries, sunny mounts With temples crested, bridges, gondolas, Rocks, dens, and groves of foliage taught to melt Into each other their obsequious ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... Thus mile after mile they covered and the shadows had reached their minimum length, when, coming to a clear pool of water, they drew rein to refresh themselves from the provisions in the saddle-bags. Bread and wine—sumptuous fare for poor fugitives—they ate and drank with keen relish. Dreamily she watched the green insects skimming over the surface of the shimmering water. On the bank swayed the rushes, as though making obeisance to a single gorgeous lily, set like a queen in the ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... live over a shop?' he had asked himself in considering the possibilities of his palace, and he had replied, 'Yes, if the shop is large enough and the rents are high enough.' He was right. His flats were the most sumptuous and the most preposterously expensive in London; and they were never tenantless. One man paid two thousand a year for a furnished suite. But what a furnished suite! The flats had a separate and spectacular entrance on the eastern facade of the building, with ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett

... of those large and sumptuous habitations which the old religious orders built about the Sorbonne, and as Thuillier mounted the broad stone steps with an iron balustrade, that proved how arts of the second class flourished under Louis XIII., he envied both the mansion ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... delightful, and, with the exception of two or three showers, a perfect day. Camp was moved and our entire outfit portaged to the first small lake. Our net, which Pete and Richards had set the day before, yielded us nothing, but with my rod I caught enough trout for a sumptuous supper. ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... 1651, at the urgent request of his royal master, the court of Spain was en fete. Philip's wife, to whom he had been married two years, was only seventeen, and required amusement. Functions of every sort, excursions, entertainments on a most sumptuous scale, were the order of the day, and because Velazquez was now at the summit of his achievement, because he could paint pictures that will endure as long as men care for art, it is difficult indeed to forgive Philip IV. for making him Marshal of the Palace. To be sure the ...
— Velazquez • S. L. Bensusan

... subordinate to national divisions; and the Presbyterian, while, as a theologian, he could not but condemn the established hierarchy, yet looked on that hierarchy with a sort of complacency when he considered it as a sumptuous and ostentatious trophy of the victory achieved by the great race from which he ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... eke out the rapidly diminishing stock of seal and penguin meat. This did not agree with some of the party. Though it was acknowledged to be very tasty it only served to increase their appetite—a serious thing when there was nothing to satisfy it with! One man remarked in his diary: "We had a sumptuous meal to-day—nearly five ounces ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... conferred on the King because of his Idea could not be cancelled; the title of Emperor could not be taken away again, nor the great poem unwritten. The latter step, especially, was not to be thought of; for a leading firm of publishers were just about to issue an edition de luxe of the poem with sumptuous illustrations, engraved on diamond, from the pencil of an eminent R.A. who had become a classic and forgotten how to draw. (His name, however, could still draw: so he left ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... since he did not find Others, as great in place, as great in mind:— Above the rest why is our pomp, our power? Our flocks, our herds, and our possessions more? Why all the tributes land and sea affords Heap'd in great chargers, load our sumptuous boards? Our cheerful guests carouse the sparkling tears Of the rich grape, while music charms their ears? Why, as we pass, do those on Xanthus' shore, 10 As gods behold us, and as gods adore? But that, as well in danger as degree, We stand the first; that ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... being starved. Her votaries have not as yet cared much for purple and fine linen, and sumptuous fare. There are a very few among them who, joining brilliant talents to solid learning, have risen to deserved popularity, to titles, and to wealth. But even their labours, it seems to me, are never rewarded in any proportion to the time and the intellect spent on them, ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... before I had the opportunity, even if I had the courage, to look Dorothy in the face. When the moment came she was flushed with dancing and looked beautiful. Ordinarily she was a little pale, but not even Gilbertine, with her sumptuous colouring, showed a warmer cheek than she, as, resting from the waltz, she leaned against the rose-tinted wall, and let her eyes for the first time rise slowly to where I stood talking mechanically to ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... bird, this rich, Sumptuous central grain, This mutable witch, This one refrain, This laugh in the fight, This clot of night, ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence

... grade, say 50,000l. a year, to the payment of an income-tax of 1s. in the pound, we may remind them that they still retain 33,500l. a year, which is a very generous payment by labour to them for the privilege of seeing them exist in gorgeous splendour and sumptuous idleness."[458] ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... must this your cook-maid go bedight like any queen since nought is there in Black Bartlemy's Treasure that is not sumptuous and splendid. Have you no desire to behold these wonders ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... of conveying the stone, and iron, and marble, so great a height, must have been prodigious? 'Caw!' says the raven, welcoming the peasants. How, being despoiled by plunder, fire and earthquake, has it risen from its ruins, and been again made what we now see it, with its church so sumptuous and magnificent? 'Caw!' says the raven, welcoming the peasants. These people have a miserable appearance, and (as usual) are densely ignorant, and all beg, while the monks are chaunting in the chapel. 'Caw!' ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... art thou that braggest of thy life of idleness; complacently showest thy bright gilt equipages; sumptuous cushions; appliances for the folding of the hands to more sleep? Looking up, looking down, around, behind, or before, discernest thou, if it be not in Mayfair alone, any idle hero, saint, god, or even devil? Not a vestige of one. 'In the heavens, in the earth, in the waters ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... upon her lover, exerted all her power to kindle the enthusiasm and assist the project of the citizens. Her hospitality was unbounded. She threw open her palace to the people; lavished her wealth among them in sumptuous entertainments and exhibitions, and caused the vetchooi kolokol ("assembling-bell"), which summoned the popular meetings to the market-place, to be rung as the signal of these orgies of licentiousness. The great ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... "but I have revealed the accent of truth, which I have impressed deeper in men's hearts."[318] These words express sufficiently the kind of influence which Rousseau also had. Crude as the music sounds to us who are accustomed to more sumptuous schools, we can still hear in it the note which would strike a generation weary of Rameau. It was the expression in one way of the same mood which in another way revolted against paint, false hair, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... He found himself burdened by the splendor of the mansions at which he made his morning calls. He hated the sleekness of the men in livery who preceded him up the stairs, the trimness of the maids waiting on the threshold of hushed boudoirs. Disease and death in these sumptuous palaces seemed divorced from reality as if the palaces were stage structures, and the people in them were actors who would presently walk ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... had caused the startling sound was a knight arrayed in sumptuous apparel, who from under the shadows of the trees came riding toward the cottage. His doublet was violet embroidered with gold, and his scarlet cloak hung gracefully over it; on his cap of burnished gold waved red and violet-coloured plumes; and in his golden shoulder-belt flashed a sword, ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... hills overlooking the battlefield, interspersing the watching of the progress of the battle with prayers for the success of the burghers' arms. As soon as she learned that the Boers had won the field she hastened home and prepared a sumptuous meal for her husband, her thirteen-year-old son, and all the generals who ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas

... care of my horse to our landlord, I ordered dinner to be got ready immediately, as we had thirteen miles to row, and I wished to reach Mr. W——-'s before dark. Our hostess exerted herself, and we soon sat down to a sumptuous feast, consisting of a brace of fine fat wood-ducks and fried black bass, two dishes I am particularly fond of, and which at this time of the year can always ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland

... The sumptuous pleasures of our ancestors weary us, as well as their simple, childish diversions. Without enjoying happiness, without reaping glory, we hasten onwards to the grave, casting naught ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... fact that in the case of absentee proprietors profits tended to go everywhere except into the owners' pockets, deliberately braved the climate, settled down for life (usually a brief one) in either Jamaica or Barbados, built themselves sumptuous houses, stocked with silver plate and rare wines, and held high and continual revel until such time as Yellow Jack should claim them. In the East Indies the soldiers and Civil Servants of "John Company," and the merchant community, "shook the pagoda tree" until ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... considerable, at his feet. Unwilling however to take him by surprise, she allows him a day for deliberation, and insists upon his delivering at the expiration of it, an honest and impartial answer. His entertainment is sumptuous. ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... amusement which Adrian was fond of), "for you are very ignorant of the subject on which we are conversing." When Adrian became emperor, the affront was remembered, and it prevented Apollodorus from being employed. Nor was the opinion which Apollodorus gave with respect to the plans of a sumptuous temple of Venus forgotten: viz.—upon seeing the statues sitting, as they were, in the temple (which, it seems, wanted much of its due proportion in height), he said, "if the goddesses should ever attempt to stand upon their feet, they would assuredly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various

... fragrant flowers?" he might well say; "I can find none." Let him look closer and penetrate our forests, and visit our ponds and lakes. Let him compare our matchless, rosy-lipped, honey-hearted trailing arbutus with his own ugly ground-ivy; let him compare our sumptuous, fragrant pond-lily with his own odorless NYMPHÆ ALBA. In our Northern woods he will find the floors carpeted with the delicate linnæa, its twin rose-colored, nodding flowers filling the air with fragrance. (I am aware that the linnæa is found in some parts of Northern Europe.) The fact is, ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... every seat was occupied. The grace was announced by Mr. Durnford, and sung by the people, with a heartiness which might have been expected of hungry villagers, who had been summoned to an unaccustomed and sumptuous feast. Then the carvers got to work, and, as the waiters carried round the laden plates, comparative quiet reigned; but, when the plates began to reach the guests, the clatter of crockery, the rattle of knives and forks, and the babel of voices, made such a festive hubbub as was ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... was hesitating on the doorstep, the door opened, and the Duchessa came forth—tall, sumptuous, in white, with a wonderful black-plumed hat, and a wonderful white-frilled sunshade. She was followed by a young girl—a pretty, dark-complexioned girl, of fourteen, fifteen perhaps, with pleasant brown eyes (that lucent Italian brown), and in her cheeks a pleasant hint of red (that ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... were executed with pomp and splendor, so the king's table was royally sumptuous. Regardless of season and climate, it was always laden with the delicacies of all parts of the globe. Game and poultry, even of such varieties as were unknown in Palestine, were not lacking, and ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... might appear with dignity in his new office, he was allowed to use silks, brocades, precious stones, and other articles of sumptuous attire, prohibited at that time in Spain, in consequence of the ruinous ostentation of the nobility. He was permitted to have seventy-two esquires, as his body-guard, ten of whom were horsemen. With this expedition sailed Don Alonzo Maldonado, appointed as alguazil mayor, or chief ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... the birth-days here is Very simple. All the royal family are new-dressed; so—at least so they appear- -are all their attendants. The dinners and desserts are unusually sumptuous ; and some of the principal officers of state, and a few of the ladies of the Court, come to Windsor to make their compliments; and at night there is a finer concert, by an addition from town of the musicians belonging ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... and successful people, wealthier by virtue of their great sea-trade than the citizens of Florence or of any other town in Italy; their foremost men lived in great high-roomed palaces, richly furnished, and decorated with pictures of a sumptuous pageantry. But the Venetians were not merely a luxurious people. The poetry of the lagoons, and the glory of the sunset skies, imparted to their lives the wealth of a rare romance. Even in Venice to-day, now that the steamers have spoilt the peace of the canals and the old orange-winged ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway

... they had the prettiest dances, and could do such beautiful bead-work; and described their working on the softened skins of elk, deer, and antelope, making dresses for chiefs and warriors. We had a sumptuous meal of Rocky-Mountain trout, buffalo-tongues, and pemmican. Although Christine was, in some respects, quite a civilized young lady, she occasionally betrayed her innocence of conventionalities, ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... very sumptuous dinner, I reckon; sawdust pudding, perhaps, with cold water sauce! When I work I want something to work on. Living on nothing would be hard on me." James indicated by this remark that he had no confidence in that sort ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... return in the revenues from rubber and ivory. But Leopold was a royal spender in the fullest sense. He had a variety of fads that ranged from youthful and beguiling femininity to the building of palaces and the beautifying of his own country. He lavished millions on making Brussels a sumptuous capital and Ostend an elaborate seaside resort. With his private life we are not concerned. Leopold the pleasure-seeker was one person; Leopold the business man was another, and as such he was unique among the ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... with the sense of material increase. It is brave, superb, haughty with consciousness of the gigantic new body acquired by man. The tonal pomp and ceremony, the pride of the trumpets, the arrogant stride, the magnificent address, the broad, vehement, grandiloquent pronouncements, the sumptuous texture of his music seems forever proclaiming the victory of man over the energies of fire and sea and earth, the lordship of creation, the suddenly begotten railways and shipping and mines, the cataclysm of wealth and comfort. His work seems ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... housekeeper, was no less delighted than the children with what we had brought back; the sight of the dishes pleased her greatly, for she longed to see us eat once more like civilized beings. We went into the kitchen, and there found preparations for a truly sumptuous meal. Two forked sticks were planted in the ground on either side of the fire; on these rested a rod from which hung several tempting-looking fish; opposite them hung a goose from a similar contrivance, slowly roasting, while the gravy dropped into a large shell placed beneath it. In ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... cousin! well indeed," he responded. "Methought that fur rug yesterday was sumptuous after my experience with the wind and snow, but your friends have lodged me like a king. Yon tester bed feels as though 'twere meant for royalty. I doubt if King George ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... Aster. It would never do to allow yonder well-tilled acres, that sumptuous dwelling, all those flocks of sheep, and herds of sleek cattle to pass into the hands of any other girl. Imagine pulling down the boundary line and joining the two farms into one! Imagine how your "guv'nor"—as this well-bred Mr. Ham styles him—would open his eyes ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... thou," quoth she, "in the dark That stumblest here presumptuous? Some Irish Adventurer I take you to be— A Foreigner, from your garb I see, Which besides is not over sumptuous." ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... fain upon bridge more lengthy to gambol, And quite ready to dance amain, fearing only the rotten Legs too crazily steadied on planks of old resurrections, Lest it plunge to the deep morass, there supinely to welter; So surprise thee a sumptuous bridge thy fancy to pleasure, 5 Passive under a Salian god's most lusty procession; This rare favour, a laugh for all time, ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus

... at the height of his fame, he had no lack of friends; for whether he was in Germany, or Spain, or England, he was everywhere given ovations that were fit for a king, and was everywhere entertained by the best people in the most sumptuous manner. At one time he stayed for five weeks with Charles Dickens in his home at Gad's Hill, and the two were ever afterward firm friends. All of these people loved Andersen, not because of his fame, but because ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... to cause the luggage of the guest to be whisked off to the most sumptuous room in the hotel. Seven cities of Greece disputed with one another the honor of having been the birthplace of Homer; more than seven waiters disputed with one another the honor of carrying Adrian Baker's valise. He was like a ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various

... works which the volcanic genius of Michel Angelo could bring itself to finish in marble. In this chapel, directly in front of this marvellous group, the body of the dead Pope, embalmed and clad in Pontifical robes, is laid on a sumptuous bier, amid a blaze of tapers, with sentinels from the Swiss guard at his feet, leaning on their long halberds, and officers of the household in official costume, and all that imposing mixture of sacred and profane which Rome knows so well how to use upon all great occasions. ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... and palaces, their theaters, hunts, and races. At the same time they continue to persuade themselves and others that they are all much concerned about the welfare of these working classes, whom they have always trampled under their feet, and on Sundays, richly dressed, they drive in sumptuous carriages to the houses of God built in very mockery of Christianity, and there listen to men, trained to this work of deception, who in white neckties or in brocaded vestments, according to their denomination, preach the love for their neighbor ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... there seemed to be 'too much Polydores.' We all had a happy reunion, and I devoted the forenoon to the entertainment of the famous family so I could be entitled to the afternoon off to spend with Beth. At noon we built a fire and cooked a sumptuous dinner. Beth baked up some things to keep them supplied a couple of days longer. After dinner I asked her to go for a row. She insisted on taking Diogenes along, and the others all followed us on a raft. So I decided to cut ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... strong taste, and is properly applied.—It should be grated to a powder with a grater, and a small quantity of this powder thrown over the soup, AFTER IT IS DISHED OUT.—This is frequently done at the sumptuous tables of the rich, and is thought a great delicacy; while the Poor, who have so few enjoyments, have not been taught to avail themselves of this, which is ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... his ears; but the evidence of a sumptuous supper was irrefusable. And after that he was conducted to a clean bed! O the luxurious ache of stretching one's broken limbs on melting feathers! the nestling ecstasy of dainty-smelling sheets after half ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... of modern steam-engines; they were hammering with redoubled blows various portions of boilers, the united dimensions of which certainly equalled those of the humble dwelling that had disappeared there. On such a spot, and under such circumstances, the most elegant mansion, the most sumptuous monument, the finest statue, would have awakened less reflection than ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... in 'murrey,' all well mounted, rode out to meet the King at Blackheath. Then, after formal greetings, they all rode to London. In Southwark the King was met by all the London clergy in their most sumptuous robes, with crosses and censers. At the entrance of London Bridge, on the top of the tower, stood a pair of giants, male and female, the former bearing in his right hand an axe, and in his left hand the keys of the City. Around them stood a ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... and I will endeavour to entertain you according to your quality and merit. I thought myself too fortunate to have obtained so great a favour without asking it, to refuse so obliging a proffer. The princess made me go into a bagnio, which was the most handsome, the most commodious, and the most sumptuous, that could be imagined; and when I came forth, instead of my own clothes, I found another very costly suit, which I did not esteem so much for its richness as that it made me look worthy to be in her company. We sat down ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... was overjoyed! Five hundred pounds, and the certainty of having ruined my enemies! That night I gave a sumptuous supper to all the frequenters of the Jolly Thieves; and a jolly time we had of it, I'll assure you, comrades. The most respectable men in London were present at the feast; there were nine cracksmen, five highwaymen, twelve pickpockets, two murderers, three ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... goulde and silver, standing in cups knitt all over with goulde, silver, and crymson silk. [Probably on the centre and four corners of the bedstead. Four bears and ragged staves occupied a similar position on another of these sumptuous ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... carrying her breakfast-tray, with its delicate service of old silver and porcelain, into the darkened bed-room at Lynbrook; but early rising and hard scrambling had whetted the appetites of the naturalists, and the nursery fare which Cicely spread before them seemed a sumptuous ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... bejewelled robes of state and surrounded by his sages and officers, accorded us at the great palace-gate, now fully restored, Liola held back, hiding herself. Not until evening, when I was sitting with Omar in his luxurious private pavilion after eating a sumptuous meal served on the royal dishes of chased gold, I told him confidentially of the recovery of the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... According to the newspaper reports, the recently recovered "Duchess of Devonshire," by Gainsborough, was for some time secreted behind a secret panel in a sumptuous steam-launch up the river Thames, from whence it was removed to America in a trunk ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea

... represented the special magistrates as the friends of the planters. They loved the dinners which they got at the planters' houses. The apprentices had no sumptuous dinners to give them. The magistrates felt under very little obligation of any kind to assert the cause of the apprentice and secure him justice, while they were under very strong temptations ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... his natural sons that they give him the sumptuous tomb they stand pledged to,—such a tomb as will excite the envy of his old enemy Gandolf, who cheated him out of a favorite niche in St. Praxed's Church, by dying before him, and ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... of the cablegram were young bankers and brokers, occupying sumptuous quarters on Threadneedle Street, in sight of the Bank of England, the Exchange, and the Mansion House or official residence of the Lord Mayor of London. The fathers of each member of the firm had been at the head of great banking houses in London for many years, and after herculean efforts, their ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... Nickie was leading man of the small company. Ammonia (whose cage adjoined the more sumptuous one in which Nickie was exhibited, and whose open jealousy of Mahdi was a source of no little inconvenience to Nickie the Kid) was an item of considerable interest, but the Link was the culminating point of the monkey's progress the climax, so to speak, ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... we have mention belonged to Francis I. of France, and is described as covered with gilt leather, tooled with mauresque work. As the Renaissance became general these early forms gave place to larger, more elaborate and more architectural efforts, until the cabinet became one of the most sumptuous of household adornments. It was natural that the countries which were earliest and most deeply touched by the Renaissance should excel in the designing of these noble and costly pieces of furniture. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... A sumptuous entertainment was given on Wednesday (last) evening by the "Ancient and Honorable Company of Fishmongers"—this being their regular annual festival. The Fishmongers' is among the oldest and wealthiest of the Guilds of London, having acquired, ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... my approach. I flashed my company identification and asked to speak to the manager. He went away, came back, and ushered me into an office which managed to be Spartan and sumptuous at the same time. The walls had been plastic-painted in textured brown, the iron floor had been lushly carpeted in gray, and the desk had been covered with a ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake

... determined to wreak his vengeance on the Jews in Egypt, and assembled them for this purpose in the circus, that they might be trampled under foot by drunken elephants, but was hindered by the miraculous interposition of God; whereupon the king liberated the Jews, prepared for them a sumptuous feast, and gave them permission to take vengeance on their apostate countrymen. The narrative probably has a groundwork of truth with legendary embellishments, after the manner of the later Jews. Its author is believed to have been an Alexandrine Jew, but his age cannot ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... Flora Macdonald and a Joan of Arc. Miss Devine, on the contrary, knew herself to be a sleek, luxury-loving animal, quite willing to sell herself to the bidder who could offer her the finest clothes, the richest foods, the most sumptuous surroundings. Such a bidder was to hand in the person of a retired bookmaker, a somewhat greasy old gentleman, but exceedingly rich and undoubtedly fond ...
— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome

... ornament ceases to be ornament when it negatives the purpose of the object to which it is applied—it becomes in such a case a mere excrescence: they might be edged and lined with any, the most sumptuous or the plainest materials: they might be attached round the neck by rich cords of gold and jewelled clasps; or they might be fastened with simple ribands. Thus, in spring time, a young and high-born damsel might wear her hood and tippet of light-coloured silk or brocade, edged with ermine or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... sumptuous, beautifully furnished flat, however, he seemed to change. He came up to her suddenly, put his arms round her, and ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... quiet spot in this most noisy town. The building is a low one, with a tiled roof and long windows, heavily framed, of which the smaller panes and thick woodwork suggest the early days of window-glass. Inside, the house is the house of a poor man. The carpets are worn thin; the furniture, of a sumptuous design, is carefully patched and mended. The atmosphere has that mournful scent of better days—now dead and past. It is the odor of monarchy, slowly fading from the face of a world that reeks ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... that exclamation, the old man covered his knee with the skirt of his dalmatian, a species of robe made of black velvet, open in front, with large sleeves and no collar, the sumptuous material being defaced and shiny. These remains of a magnificent costume, formerly worn by him as president of the tribunal of the Parchons, functions which had won him the enmity of the Duke of Burgundy, was ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac

... the eccentric bachelor, had just died of consumption in his mother's house on Main Street, in his forty-fifth year, would have smiled cannily at the notion that after fifty years their townsman's literary works would be published in a sumptuous twenty-volume edition, and that critics in his own country and in Europe would rank him with Ralph Waldo Emerson. Yet that is precisely what has happened. Our literature has no more curious story than the evolution of ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... came in my affairs, and finding it was only a harmless custom of the editors to make splinters of a great public man, I invited them to a sumptuous dinner, which they set upon with an appetite equaled only by that displayed by them while devouring my character. But, on the whole, they were a jolly set of fellows -quite as jolly as one could desire. If they entertained ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... spot. Near the shore is a dead trunk of a tree about three feet high, on which several plates of copper, inscribed to the memory of Captain Cook, have been nailed by officers of British men-of-war. Not a very sumptuous monument this! On one side of the road, about half a mile above the beach, is a pillar of wood erected on a heap of rough lava. On this is a small ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson

... preminently designed by Nature to undertake the necessary work of improvement. The tawdriness she particularly disliked—the trashy gold and ivory of the decorations, the artificial rose-bushes from which the dust was never removed, the sumptuous velvet carpets which were not taken ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... thronged and bustling on the evenings of the festival; and in broad daylight one is surprised at the deathlike decay of the religious surroundings which at night had seemed so full of life. Not a creature to be seen on the time-worn granite steps; not a creature beneath the vast sumptuous porticoes; the colors, the gold-work are dim with dust. To reach the temple one must cross several deserted courtyards terraced on the mountain side, pass through several solemn gateways, and up and up endless stairs, rising far above the town and the ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... to sing to the only young gentleman who really adored and understood them. This last story is perhaps the most typical of the tone common to all the rest; it would be difficult to find a story which across the gulf of nearly eighty years awakens so vividly a sense of the sumptuous folly of an intellectual boyhood. With Browning, as with all true poets, passion came first and made intellectual expression, the hunger for beauty making literature as the hunger for bread made a plough. The life he lived in those early days was no ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... on his disreputable oars till Captain Malan, full-uniformed, descended the Devolution's side. With due compliments—not acknowledged, I grieve to say—we fell in behind his sumptuous galley, and at last, upon pressing invitation, climbed, black as sweeps all, the lowered gangway of the Cryptic. At the top stood as fine a constellation of marine stars as ever sang together of a morning on a King's ship. Every ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... all these magnificent appliances of civilization, it is time we began to hear something from the djinnis donee whose names are on the Golden Book of our sumptuous, splendid, marble-placed Venice,—something in the higher walks of literature, —something in the councils of the nation. Plenty of Art, I grant you, Sir; now, then, for vast libraries, and for mighty scholars and thinkers and statesmen,—five for every Boston ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... wealth and splendour, and all the temptations which they involve, he retained alike the simplicity of his habits and the rectitude of his mind. Whatever may have been the almost fabulous value of his five hundred tables of cedar and ivory, they were rarely spread with any more sumptuous entertainment than water, vegetables, and fruit. Whatever may have been the amusements common among his wealthy and noble contemporaries, we know that he found his highest enjoyment in the innocent pleasures of his garden, and took ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... [7] Roth's sumptuous volume, British North Borneo, gives a life-like picture of the Dyaks from every point of ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... to his young rival; still less in his home life and leisure moments pursuing like Cicero his self-culture to develop his own nature and enrich the minds and literature of his countrymen, but regaling himself at luxurious banquets in sumptuous villas, decked with everything that could delight the eye or charm the fancy; preserving herds of deer, wild swine, game of all sorts for field and feast; stocking vast lakes with rare and delicate fish, to which this brilliant epicure was ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... marched in wooden shoes; others, by way of economy, carried them in their hand. This costume, soiled by long usage, blackened with sweat and dust, and less original than that of the other men, had the historic merit of serving as a transition between the goatskins and the brilliant, almost sumptuous, dress of a few individuals dispersed here and there among the groups, where they shone like flowers. In fact, the blue linen trousers of these last, and their red or yellow waistcoats, adorned with two parallel rows of brass buttons and ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... into the town, to the Hotel de la Poste, and sit outside the cafe and drink black coffee in despair. We find our chauffeurs doing the same thing. Then we go back to our sumptuous hotel and so, dejectedly, to bed. Aeroplanes hover above us ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair

... a by-way, wherein were ten houses, five fronting five, and at the farther end was a two-leaved door with a silver ring. By the gate stood two benches of marble, spread with the finest carpets, and on one of them sat a man of handsome aspect and reverend, clad in sumptuous clothing and attended by five Mamelukes like moons. When the youth Ibrahim saw the street, he knew it by the description the bookseller had given him; so he salaamed to the man, who returned his salutation and bidding him ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... came a sumptuous litter covered with cloth of gold, drawn by four white palfreys caparisoned in white damask down to the ground, and each having a page in white and blue satin at its head. Over the litter was borne a canopy of cloth of gold supported by four gilt staves, and ornamented at the ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... between us and our soul's delight—for it is from the Pagan, not the Christian, point of view that most lovers of beauty regard life. And if a man's taste require costly gratification of it, say by pictures, by marbles, by the thousand and one sumptuous trifles that go to make the modern house beautiful, then that man is not possessed of true taste, and he will be poorer in his palace than if he dwelt ragged in Nature's lap, with all her riches, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... the funeral arrived. The factories stopped work. There was a clear sky, and under it the turbulent crowd; the light currents of incense streamed in the air, and its sumptuous aroma mingled with the light odour of the smoke that came from the forest cinders. The schoolboys struck and went to the funeral. Some of the schoolgirls came also. The more timid ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub

... answered Deane, and they set out for Mr. Painter's establishment. It proved to be a neat little place, neither of the very cheap nor of the very sumptuous class, and the General was soon promising to bring the whole party to dejeuner there. Painter was profuse in thanks and called Madame to thank the General. The General at once entered into conversation with ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... and other knights, including Lord-Treasurer, the new-created Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, were installed; and a few days afterwards his grace was appointed Ambassador-Extraordinary to France, and his equipages, plate, and liveries commanded, of the most sumptuous kind, not only for his excellency the ambassador, but for her excellency the ambassadress, who was to accompany him. Her arms were already quartered on the coach panels, and her brother was to hasten over on the appointed ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray



Words linked to "Sumptuous" :   sumptuosity, luxurious, deluxe, opulent, sumptuousness, princely, rich, gilded



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