"Unctuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... business went on prosperously, without any laborious fatigue, just as Lisa desired. She had carefully kept free of any possible source of trouble or anxiety, and the days went by in an atmosphere of peaceful, unctuous prosperity. Their home was a nook of sensible happiness—a comfortable manger, so to speak, where father, mother, and daughter could grow sleek and fat. It was only Quenu who occasionally felt sad, through thinking of his brother Florent. Up to the year 1856 he had ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... in the Senor Adminstrador's cancillaria," said Basilio, in an unctuous voice. "The Senor Administrador starts for the mountain in an hour. There is some trouble with the workmen to be feared, it appears. A shameless people without reason and decency. And idle, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... struck cold on a mind which had caught sight, in the New Testament, of the spirit and life of its words. The recoil was even stronger from the shallowness and pretentiousness and self-display of what was popularly accepted as earnest religion; morally the preacher was revolted at its unctuous boasts and pitiful performance, and intellectually by its narrowness and meanness of thought and its thinness of colour in all its pictures of the spiritual life. From first to last, in all manner of ways, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... eternal perdition before he would have yielded up an iota of his claims to universal dominion. He could send Alva to browbeat the Pope, as well as to oppress the Netherlanders. He could compass the destruction of the orthodox Egmont and Farnese, as well as of the heretical William. His unctuous piety only adds to the abhorrence with which we regard him; and his humility in face of death is neither better nor worse than the assumed humility which had become second nature to Uriah Heep. In short, take him for all in all, he was probably the most loathsome character ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... call holiness exuded from every pore: cast-down eyes, chaste deportment, gentle movements. She did not walk, she glided over the ground as if she already felt the wings of seraphim hanging on her shoulders; she did not speak, she murmured unctuous words with a soft, low, mysterious voice like a prayer. When she said: "Would Monsieur le Cure he pleased to come to breakfast? Perhaps Monsieur le Cure could eat a boiled egg?" or "Ah! the sermon which Monsieur le Cure has been pleased to give has gone ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... was changed beyond all recognition. Caste-mark, stomach, slate-colored continuations, and unctuous speech were all gone. I looked at a withered skeleton, turban-less and almost naked, with long matted hair and ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... this kind, which he had the opportunity of observing only once, are sometimes united in masses, and completely close the auditive canal. The surface is granulated and black, and there escapes from it an unctuous fetid discharge. On both sides the animal is exceedingly susceptible of pain, and the excrescences bleed if the slightest pressure is brought to ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... It is a well-known physiological law that it is necessary, in order to enable the skin to carry on its healthful action, to have washed off with water the constant cast of scales which become mingled with the unctuous and saline products, together with particles of dirt which coat over the pores, and thus interfere with the development of the hairs. Water for ablution can be of any temperature that may be acceptable and agreeable, according ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... Broadway from an opposite habit is vastly increased by modern fashions; for the apology for a bonnet that leaves brow, cheek, and head fully exposed,—the rustle and dimensions of crinoline,—the heavy masses of unctuous false hair attached to the back of the head, deforming its shape and often giving a coarse monstrosity to its naturally graceful poise and proportions,—the inappropriate display of jewelry and the long silk ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... above Julia's, as he passed, a hoarse and unctuous voice, issuing out of an undistinguishable lawn, called his name: "Noble! Noble Dill!" And when Noble paused, Julia's Uncle Joseph came waddling forth from the dimness and rested his monstrous arms upon the top of the fence, where a street light revealed them as ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... harm done. But the remembrance of what you have been saved from should keep you meek and lowly in spirit, Bessie. I have been grieved to-day, deeply grieved, to see that you already begin to feel uplifted." Mr. Wiley dwelt in unctuous italics on his regret, and waved his head slowly in token of his mournfulness. Bessie turned scarlet and held ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... of wonder. Jo had, however, come to the end of his weird tale—for weird it certainly was, told at the foot of Guidon Mountain itself, and in a region of vast solitudes—the pair of chemists were approaching "the supreme union of unctuous elements," as The Honourable put it, and in the silence that fell for a moment there crept the words ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and young huddling together cheek by jowl. What a hardy plant was Shakspeare's genius, how fatal its development, since it could not be blighted in such an atmosphere! It only brought human nature the closer to him, and put more unctuous earth about his roots. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... from her sleep. Forth swarm Footmen and horsemen, and in wild career Whirl up the dust. "Arm," cry the warriors, "arm!" With unctuous lard their polished shields they smear, And whet the axe, and scour the rusty spear. Their banners wave, their trumpets sound the fight. Five towns their anvils for the war uprear, Crustumium, Tibur, glorying ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... morality was that of Dickens's 'Christmas Carol,' and the political aim that of sentimental socialism. Thus, though all three candidates promised to support Mr. Gladstone's Government, one of Fitzjames's rivals represented the stolid middle-class prejudices, and a second the unctuous philanthropic enthusiasm, which he had denounced with his whole force in 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.' No combination could have been contrived which would have set before him more clearly the characteristics of ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... reducing friction is to apply oil, or some other unctuous substance, to the parts which move upon each other. Some disadvantages attend this expedient, but till a better is suggested they have to be endured. The cost of the oil expended in maintaining in proper condition the ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... but a man knows how to distinguish them, however little time he may have bestowed in studying the anatomy of sentiments and the affairs of human life. Thus the hand has a thousand ways of becoming dry, moist, hot, cold, soft, rough, unctuous. The hand palpitates, becomes supple, grows hard and again is softened. In fine it presents a phenomenon which is inexplicable so that one is tempted to call it the incarnation of thought. It causes the despair of the sculptor and the painter when they ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... good doctor's sermon and benediction, wishing to make enquiry of the rector touching the movements of his clerk, whose place was provisionally supplied by a corpulent and unctuous mercenary from Dublin, whose fat presence and panting delivery were in signal contrast with the lank figure and deep cavernous tones of the absent official, loitered in the church-yard to allow time for the congregation to disperse, and the parson ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... laboratories seemed to close in on his mind in boiling, chaotic waves of frustration. What was the good of his work, all this great installation, all the gleaming expensive equipment in the lab around him? He was alone. None of them seemed to share his problem, the unctuous, always correct Gordon, the easy-mannered, unbearable Mason, all of them gave him a feeling of actual ...
— Security • Ernest M. Kenyon
... not have been degenerate in itself. The cause is to be found in the very prosperity of monachism, which brought to the religious houses wealth and all its responsibilities. Wealth always imposes fetters, as every rich man, from Seneca downwards, has declared with unctuous lamentation. But what first strikes the student who compares early English monachism with the later is, that whereas the monks of the first period were most concerned with their monastic duties, their religious observances, and their scribing ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... (replied Harrington), how unctuous you are! Forgive my laughing; but it does so remind me of Douce Davie Deans. I will make you professor of spiritual ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... studded with slate stones, bounded by a ruinous brick wall, and having an entrance through a dilapidated gateway. One or two melancholy-looking cows were feeding on the rank herbage that sprang from the unctuous soil, spurning many a hic jacet with their cloven hoofs. But afar, in the most distant part of the field, I espied the figure of a man who was busily occupied in digging a grave. There was something ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... The topmost shoots for cuttings, nor from the top Of the supporting tree your suckers tear; So deep their love of earth; nor wound the plants With blunted blade; nor truncheons intersperse Of the wild olive: for oft from careless swains A spark hath fallen, that, 'neath the unctuous rind Hid thief-like first, now grips the tough tree-bole, And mounting to the leaves on high, sends forth A roar to heaven, then coursing through the boughs And airy summits reigns victoriously, Wraps ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... rode, and a half-melancholy, half-mocking expression played on his face. He was thinking of his grandfather, old Iron Christian, brought into relation with his mother's father, Capt. Billy Ballure, of the dainty gentility of Auntie Nan and the unctuous vulgarity of the ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... Praecipitated with Oyl of Vitriol, or with another Liquor I could Name. Nay, that Black Mineral Antimony it self, being reduc'd by and with the Salts that concurr to the Composition of common Sublimate, into that Cleer though Unctuous Liquor that Chymists commonly call Rectifi'd Butter of Antimony, will by the bare affusion of store of Fair Water be struck down into that Snow-white Powder, which when the adhering Saltness is well wash'd off, Chymists ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... strides, and stopped again. Suddenly, changing my attitude, I fold my hands, hold my head to one side, and ask, with an unctuous, sanctimonious tone of voice: "Hast thou appealed also to him, my child?" It did not ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... warm throb of spring in the earth, rising in a potent mist, sap pervaded and tangible, having a clinging, unctuous softness like the touch of unfolding beech leaves, lured me out to finish the transplanting of the pansies among the hardy roses, while the first brown thrasher, high in the bare top of an ash, eyes fixed on the sky, proclaimed with many turns and changes ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... his plaint and meant to crush him with their answer, the telephone bell sounded at his elbow. Mechanically, he lifted the receiver off its hook, and immediately became aware of Tomlinson's voice, with some element of flurry and distress in its unctuous accents. ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... of suspicion into the belief that Maggard had just then awakened to consciousness, Rowlett ensconced himself on the bedside and nodded an unctuous sympathy. The other closed his eyes and spoke calmly ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... a few drops of wine into one of the tumblers, shook it about, turned it into the other, shook it again, and finally poured it on the unctuous stone floor beside him. Then he filled both glasses to the brim, and both men ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... suppose that Christian love is mere sentiment. I shall have to speak a word or two about that presently, but I would fain lift the whole subject, if I can, out of the region of mere unctuous words and gush of half-feigned emotion, which mean nothing, and would make you feel that it is a very practical commandment, gripping us hard, when our Lord says to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... breathing heavily. Then passion marked him for the thing he was. Garrison saw confronting him not the unctuous, plausible friend, but a hunted animal, with fear and venom showing in his narrowed eyes. And, curiously enough, he noticed for the first time that the prison pallor was strong on Crimmins' face, and that the hair above his outstanding ears was ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... their artistic qualities. As regards technique, it seems likely that both of them practiced principally "tempera" painting, in which the colors are mixed with yolk of eggs or some other sticky non-unctuous medium. [Footnote: Oil painting was unknown in ancient times.] Both Apelles and Protogenes are said to have written technical treatises on the ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... being a Wordsworthian and therefore out of reach of reason—doubt that Wordsworth's arrogance was inhuman? He, not unprovoked by scant gratitude on Coleridge's part for very solid services, and by a doubtless sincere but rather unctuous protest of his brother in opium-eating against the Confessions, told some home truths against that magnificent genius but most unsatisfactory man. A sort of foolish folk has recently arisen which tells us that because Coleridge wrote "The Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... old Provencal house has been written, in a style somewhat unctuous and flowery, by M. Jules Canonge. I purchased the little book—a modest pamphlet—at the establishment of the good sisters, just beside the church, in one of the highest part of Les Baux. The sisters have a school for the hardy ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... every wind of doctrine, alternating helplessly between tenderness and truculence, the charity of a Fry and the tragic atrocity of Medea. After this dismal ruler, Trinidad, by the grace of the Colonial Office, was subjected to the manipulation of an unctuous dandy. This successor of Gordon, of Elliot, and of Cairns, durst not oppose high-placed official malfeasants, but [72] was inexorable with regard to minor delinquents. In the above retrospect we have purposely omitted mentioning such transient rulers as Mr. Rennie, ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... earwig, and a fly; With the red-capt worm, that's shut Within the concave of a nut, Brown as his tooth. A little moth, Late fatten'd in a piece of cloth; With wither'd cherries, mandrakes' ears, Moles' eyes: to these the slain stag's tears; The unctuous dewlaps of a snail, The broke-heart of a nightingale O'ercome in music; with a wine Ne'er ravish'd from the flattering vine, But gently prest from the soft side Of the most sweet and dainty bride, Brought in a dainty daisy, which He fully quaffs up, to bewitch ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... household fortunes (for the man Had risk'd his little) like the little thrift, Trembled in perilous places o'er a deep: And oft, when sitting all alone, his face Would darken, as he cursed his credulousness, And that one unctuous mount which lured him, rogue, To buy strange shares in some Peruvian mine. Now seaward-bound for health they gain'd a coast, All sand and cliff and deep-inrunning cave, At close of day; slept, woke, and went the next, The Sabbath, pious variers from the church, To chapel; ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... employed by that gentleman constructed for them a canoe twenty feet long, four feet wide, and eighteen inches deep. The frame was of poles and willow twigs, on which were stretched five elk and buffalo hides, sewed together with sinews, and the seams payed with unctuous mud. In this they embarked at an early hour on the 16th of April, and drifted down ten miles with the stream, when the wind being high they encamped, and set to work to make oars, which they had not been able to procure ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... of the crust, which can't be done with many American "Camemberts" or, indeed, with the dead, dry French ones sold out of season. Then came the Roquefort, a regal cheese we voted the best buy of the lot, even though it was the most expensive. A plump piece, pleasantly unctuous but not greasy, sharp in scent, stimulatingly bittersweet in taste—unbeatable. There is no American pretender to the Roquefort throne. Ours is invariably chalky and tasteless. That doesn't mean we have no good Blues. We have. But ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... watchful diplomacy, as the damper preferred to dip in a rolling valley between my extended arms, or hang over them like a tablecloth, rather than keep its desired form. But with patience, and the loan of one of Dan's huge palms, it finally fell with an unctuous, dusty "whouf" into the opened-out bed ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... reminds us of Dickens; but Sipyagin and his wife might belong to the great Dickens gallery, though drawn with a restraint unknown to the Englishman. Sipyagin himself is a miniature Pecksniff, unctuous, polished, and hollow. The dinner-table scenes at his house are pictured with a subdued but implacable irony. How the natural-born aristocrat Turgenev hated the Russian aristocracy! When Solomin appears in this household, he seems like ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... passages and embellishments could not be surpassed. If sensuous beauty is the sole end of music, his touch must be pronounced the ideal of perfection, for it extracted the essence of beauty. Strange as the expression "unctuous sonorousness" may sound, it describes felicitously a quality of a style of playing from which roughness, harshness, turbulence, and impetuosity were altogether absent. Thalberg has been accused of want of animation, passion, in short, of soul; but ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... to shake it off, but it remained. He tried again, keeping his eyes on her all the time. Then the long vista of green plush seats leading to her was blotted out and he found himself gazing into a dusky countenance, while an unctuous voice murmured in ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... genuineness of the courtesy, the real kindness and the hospitality of the English are beyond praise and without limit. In this they show a strange contradiction to their dickering habits in trade and their "unctuous rectitude" in stealing continents. I know a place in the world now where they are steadily moving their boundary line into other people's territory. I guess they really believe that ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... again; and the other stretched out his hand to a paper on the table. "Here, comrade," he said, with a laugh, "here is a place for you to begin. A bishop whose wife has just been robbed of fifty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds! And a most unctuous and oily of bishops! An eminent and scholarly bishop! A philanthropist and friend of labor bishop—a Civic Federation decoy duck for the chloroforming of ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... is also a recent invention. It was brought into England about twenty years since. Invented by M. Senefelder, of Munich. It is founded on the principles of Chemical Affinity. A Writing or Drawing is made on Stone, with an Ink prepared with a sort of unctuous ingredient—to this is applied another Ink of a contrary quality; the Ink with which the Writing or Drawing is made, remains on the Stone, while that with which the Printing is performed, separates from it, and is thus transferred to ...
— The Author's Printing and Publishing Assistant • Frederick Saunders
... subject of grease, however, we could wish that a sense of right would enable us to announce its utter extinction in the American kitchen; or, if not absolutely its extinction, such a subjection of the unctuous properties, as to bring them within the limits of a reasonably accurate and healthful taste. To be frank, Dorothy carried a somewhat heavy hand, in this respect; but pretty Margery was much her superior. How this difference in domestic discipline occurred, is more than ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... palatable decoctions with water that gurgled from every hill. The broad valleys and open country supplied animal and vegetable "delicacies" which a white man would pass unnoticed. Many a time, when I was as hungry as a wolf, I found my vagabonds in a nook of the woods, luxuriating over a mess with the unctuous lips of aldermen; but when I came to analyze the stew, I generally found it to consist of a "witch's cauldron," copiously filled with snails, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... artificial marshallings of names and numbers (xxiii.-xxvii.), in the enumeration of mere subjects without predicates, which simply stand on parade and neither signify nor do anything. The monotony is occasionally broken only by unctuous phrases, but without refreshing the reader. Let the experiment of reading the chapters through ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... frost,—showed their shining green faces on the dank soil. In other fields, overrun with a great shaggy growth of rag-weed, some of the parson's flock—father and blue-nosed boys—were lifting poor crops of "bile-whites" or "merinos." From time to time, a tall house jutted upon the road, with unctuous pig-sty under the lee of the garden-fence and wood-pile sprawling into the highway, where the parson would rein up his nag, and make inquiry ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... really splendid in the physique of these oarsmen, at once slender and sinewy. Both bride and bridegroom looked uncomfortable in their clothes. The light that fell upon them in the church was dull and leaden. The ceremony, which was very hurriedly performed by an unctuous priest, did not appear to impress either of them. Nobody in the bridal party, crowding together on both sides of the altar, looked as though the service was of the slightest interest and moment. Indeed, this was hardly to be wondered at; for the priest, so far as ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... the implicated "long hogs"[1] from the prolific backs of the living mutton;—the toothless saw, plied by an unweayring hand, prepares the stubborn mass for the chisel's tracery;—the loom, animated by steam (that gigantic child of Wallsend and water), twists and twines the unctuous and pliant ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... variety of the mineral called talc, unctuous to the touch, of a greenish color, glossy, soft, and easily scratched, and leaving a silvery line, when drawn on paper. It is used for marking ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... with an unusually good cup of chocolate, just right in warmth, sweetly smelling, and with the play of light on watered silk upon its unctuous surface, and with succulent grilled steak flavored with anise-seed, which would set Sancho-Tartarin off on the broad grin, and into a laugh that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... Around his open neck was hung a string of black ebony beads, hooked on to a heavy gold cross, which rested on his capacious breast, and which the wearer was continually feeling, and occasionally pressing to his lips. His face was dark and sensual—thick, unctuous lips, a flat nose, and large black eyes—while a glossy fringe of raven hair went like a thick curtain all around his head, only leaving a bluish-white round patch on the shaved crown. This individual was the Padre Ricardo, who, for some good ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... privileged person, who by the mere force of impudence has made his way in the world. Most English girls in their teens fall in love with a curate and a cavalry officer. Monseigneur Bauer, who combines in himself the unctuous curate and the dashing dragoon, is adored by the fair sex in Paris. He knows how to adapt his conversation to the most opposite kind of persons, and I should not be surprised if he becomes a ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... to Bonaparte, who, recognizing his supple nature and the unctuous flattery of his eloquence, chose him to deliver the eulogy on Washington, and perhaps something of his own at the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... of Nancy but with stress of unctuous generosity. This, if his hearers knew what he had suffered at her hands, must tell greatly to his credit; if they were not aware of the circumstances, such a tone would become him as ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... to tell us that Monsieur Bergeret made some naive remark, or the Abbe Jerome Coignard uttered some unctuous sally, in so large and deliberate and courtly a way that the mere "he said" or "he began" falls upon us like a papal benediction or like the gesture ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... entirely because the whale is so excessively unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration before mentioned: i.e. that a man should eat a newly murdered thing of the sea, and eat it ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... criticism is out of season. But, on the whole, it is only with women of a certain age that he can be said to have succeeded, in at all the same sense as we say he succeeded with men. The younger women do not seem to be made of good flesh and blood. They are not painted in rich and unctuous touches. They are dry and diaphanous. And although young ladies in Great Britain are all that can be desired of them, I would fain hope they are not quite so much of that as Raeburn would have us believe. In all these pretty faces, you miss character, you miss fire, you miss that spice ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mouth of this river they found deposits of unctuous earth, having quite brilliantly the colors of red, purple, and violet. Father Hennepin rubbed some of the red upon his paddle. The constant use of that paddle in the water, for fifteen days, did not efface the color. This ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... they are dry; this will greatly assist in modifying and fixing the tints and shades which the dyes impart. The best thing for the purpose, in the writer's opinion, is clear ox-gall, which, besides being useful as a mordant, will destroy all unctuous matter. ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead
... thither soon. 630 Lead then, said Eve. Hee leading swiftly rowld In tangles, and make intricate seem strait, To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy Bright'ns his Crest, as when a wandring Fire Compact of unctuous vapor, which the Night Condenses, and the cold invirons round, Kindl'd through agitation to a Flame, Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends, Hovering and blazing with delusive Light, Misleads th' amaz'd Night-wanderer from his way 640 To Boggs and Mires, & oft through Pond or ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... to the cautious old tenants of the Hanover aviary. If there were any drops of false or questionable doctrine in the silver shower of eloquence under which they had been sitting, the plumage of orthodoxy glistened with unctuous repellents, and a shake or two on coming out of church left the sturdy old dogmatists ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... unduly excited," replied the chairman, in his most unctuous tones. "It is not easy to know what to do in the position which has suddenly been forced upon me—a condition without precedent, so far as I know, in the whole country. If I have failed in my duty, I ask your pardon; but with so many local issues—so many ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... sharply. He could hear the two dealers' voices murmuring unctuous words, in which, "honor," "gratitude," and many fine long noble titles played the chief parts. The voice of another person, more clear and refined than theirs, answered them curtly, and then, close by the Nuernberg stove and the boy's ear, ejaculated a single "Wunderschoen!" August almost ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... supposed to be the lover of Madame de Maine. He was a handsome prelate, from forty to forty-five years of age; always dressed with the greatest care, with an unctuous voice, a cold face, and a timid heart; devoured by ambition, which was eternally combated by the weakness of his character, which always drew him back where he should advance; of high birth, as his name indicated, very learned for a cardinal, and very well ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... Randall Davidson, bishop of Winchester, is that after an ecclesiastical function, as the clergy were trooping in to luncheon, an unctuous archdeacon observed: "This is the time to put a bridle ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... a deep and unctuous voice, on the heels of Tess' declaration. "Wha's all dis erbout—heh! Glo-ree! Who done let dat goat intuh disher yard? Ain' ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... Leprosy of the Arabs. A contagious disease; the skin is thickened, wrinkled, rough, unctuous, destitute of hair, without any sensation of touch in the extremities of the limbs; the face deformed with tubercles; the voice hoarse, and ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... o'clock, the tinkling note of the muffin-bell strikes agreeably upon the ear, suggestive of fragrant souchong and bottom-crusts hot, crackling, and unctuous. Now ensues a delicate savour in the atmosphere of the terrace kitchens, and it is just at its height when Smith, Brown, Jones, and Robinson are seen walking briskly up the terrace. They all go in at Smith's, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... and pans awaiting cleaning in Pauline's sink, there never was a teaspoonful of flour spilled upon her biscuit board. Her gingham cuffs were always starched and stiff, her colourless hair smooth. She was a silent, dun-coloured creature, whose most violent expression was an occasional deep, unctuous laugh ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... daughter Verona eccentrically took baths in the morning, now and then.) He slipped on the mat, and slid against the tub. He said "Damn!" Furiously he snatched up his tube of shaving-cream, furiously he lathered, with a belligerent slapping of the unctuous brush, furiously he raked his plump cheeks with a safety-razor. It pulled. The blade was ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... below. The bottom was full twenty fathom broad, With crackling straw, beneath in due proportion strowed. The fabric seemed a wood of rising green, With sulphur and bitumen cast between To feed the flames: the trees were unctuous fir, And mountain-ash, the mother of the spear; The mourner-yew and builder-oak were there, The beech, the swimming alder, and the plane, Hard box, and linden of a softer grain, And laurels, which the gods for conquering chiefs ordain. How they ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... brilliant rooms of Mrs. Goldsborough that night with an elated spirit, seeing in herself the future hostess of the fashionable throng there assembled. Instead of standing in a corner, listening with unctuous deference or sympathy to any who chanced to come against her, as was her wont, proffering her fan, or her essence-bottle, or in some quiet way ministering to their egotism, she now stepped freely forth upon the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... great Author of design and the source of all beauty,—that small and light body, capable of being suspended for a great length of time in the air by those broad wings, so that, as a bird of prey, it should watch for its food without the aid of a perch; the feathers, supplied by an unctuous substance, to enable them to throw off the water and keep the body dry; the web-feet for swimming; and the long legs, which it uses as a kind of stay, by turning them towards the head when it bends the neck, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... Miro barked. "One move and it will be your last." Gone was the smooth unctuous speech of former times. His ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... appealingly to the stars, ejaculated, "Proposed to, by Jove!" A period of profound introspection followed, and then he broke forth: "Well, I 'll be hanged!" emphasizing each word with a slow nod. Then he began to laugh,—not noisily; scarcely audibly, indeed; but with the deep, unctuous chuckle of one who gloats over some exquisitely absurd situation, some jest of many facets, each contributing its ray ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... nothing else in the way of consolation. He discreetly cleared his throat a second time, and maintained a masterly silence. But the garrulous old man at his side needed no encouragement. He quickly resumed his discourse, with a certain unctuous enjoyment, distinctly inconsistent ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... allowed to operate so as to permit a flagrantly dishonest contract. Subject to this, he evidently thought himself neglectful of his rightful interests if he did not make the most out of every transaction, and he piously invokes the blessing of Heaven upon the unsavoury business, as, with unctuous complacency, he counts up his gains. But, however such things may be condoned by the prevailing practice they have an ugly appearance when exposed to the public gaze, and Pepys was sorely alarmed both for himself and his principals at the prospect ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... arrangement of heavy and high-backed settles, with an ever-open entrance between them, on either side of which is the omnipresent image of the Bear and Ragged Staff, three feet high, and excellently carved in oak, now black with time and unctuous kitchen-smoke. The ponderous mantel-piece, likewise of carved oak, towers high towards the dusky ceiling, and extends its mighty breadth to take in a vast area of hearth, the arch of the fireplace being positively so immense that I could compare it to nothing ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... more and more unctuous in its friendliness of remonstrance, and he was almost in danger of forgetting that he was merely gambling in argument. When he left off, Grandcourt took his cigar out of his mouth, and looking steadily at the moist ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... manure, as regards dryness or moistness, can readily be known by handling it. Take a handful of the manure and squeeze it tight; it should be unctuous enough to hold together in a lump, and so dry that you can not squeeze a drop of ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... the Pullman porter had mentally summed up as, "Po' white trash"; but the Yiddish shopman could not place his prospective customer under any head or type with which he was familiar. He was neither "kike," "wop," "rough-neck," nor beggar, and, as the proprietor laid out his wares with unctuous solicitude, he was, also, studying his unresponsive and early visitor. When Samson, for the purpose of trying on a coat and vest, took off his own outer garments, and displayed, without apology or explanation, a huge and murderous-looking ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... never read far in Spenser without taking a rest—as we farmers lean upon our spades, when the digging is in unctuous fat ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... mirror there could, at need, choke a hippopotamus; the chain that is to deck this neck must be twice as long as that worn by a well-fed Egyptian priest. In this mirror I see a man, who is moulded out of a sturdy clay, baked out of more unctuous and solid stuff than other folks; and if the fine creature there on the bright surface wears a transparent robe, what have you to say against it, Cleopatra? The Ptolemaic princes must protect the import trade of Alexandria, that fact ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... at this table—that polite, unctuous man I saw talking to you. Listen. I have rescued Miss Challoner from Stapleton and her accomplices. We are going to leave Paris for London in less than half an hour; it's not safe for Miss Challoner to stay here longer. And you must travel with ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... humor at dinner had not brightened things, and she had had an insane desire to turn cartwheels round the room, so implacable and highly strained was the attitude of the master of the house, so unctuous was the grace and the thanksgiving before and after the meal. Abel Baragar had stored up his anger and his righteous antipathy for years, and this was the first chance he had had of visiting his ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... to wander in places the most difficult of access. They are hunted for the sake of their well-known perfume, which is contained in an oval bag about the size of a small hen's egg, hanging from the abdomen. This receptacle is found constantly filled with a soft, unctuous, brownish substance, of the most powerful and penetrating scent, and which is the perfume in its natural state. When close, and in large quantities, the smell is ...
— Book about Animals • Rufus Merrill
... sluicing with water, or immersion in it, as the best method. This is probably the case when the skin is not materially dirty, or its pores or surface obstructed or loaded with the residual solid matter of the perspiration or its own unctuous exudation and exuviae. To remove these completely and readily, something more than simple friction with the smooth hand is generally required. In such cases the use of a piece of flannel or serge, doubled and spread ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... &c adj.; unctuosity^, lubricity; ointment &c (oil) 356; anointment; lubrication &c 332. V. oil &c (lubricate) 332. Adj. unctuous, oily, oleaginous, adipose, sebaceous; unguinous^; fat, fatty, greasy; waxy, butyraceous, soapy, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in business, and nobody was sorry. He enjoyed his practical joke and his glass of Madeira, which had made at least three voyages round the Cape. His temperament, like his person, was just unctuous enough to enable him to slip comfortably ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... his marked abdominal prominence, showed that she was gaining part of what she played for. Wise youths who buy their loves, are not unwilling, when opportunity offers, to try and obtain the commodity for nothing. Examinations of her hand, as for some occult purpose, and unctuous pattings of the same, were not infrequent. Adrian waxed now and then Anacreontic in his compliments. Lucy would say: "That's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in which the shock travelled. This circumstance, which was accidentally noticed by an engineer at Odessa,(4*) suggests the plan of keeping, in countries subject to earthquakes, glass vessels partly filled with treacle, or some unctuous fluid, so that when any lateral motion is communicated to them from the earth, the adhesion of the liquid to the glass shall enable the observer, after some interval of time, to determine the ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... developed only in the male and in the female is rudimentary. In adult males a valvular longitudinal opening occupies the upper surface of the membrane leading into a small pouch, the interior of which is lined with a glandular membrane secreting an unctuous reddish substance with a strong ammoniacal odour. Allied genera are the tropical American Peropteryx and the Brazilian Cormura. The various species of tomb-bats (Taphozous) inhabit the tropical and subtropical parts of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... stream'd down amain: Stank all the land whereon that tempest fell. Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange, Through his wide threefold throat barks as a dog Over the multitude immers'd beneath. His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard, His belly large, and claw'd the hands, with which He tears the spirits, flays them, and their limbs Piecemeal disparts. Howling there spread, as curs, Under the rainy deluge, with one side The other screening, oft they ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... which never, as is its happy case, losing sight of correctness and common-sense, comes, as well as its subject matter, home to "his business and his bosom." His "caviar" is, through the kindness of a commercial friend, imported from the hand of the very Russian cuisinier, who prepares it (unctuous relish!) for the table of the Emperor himself. His cheese is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... to M. Fortunat's lips, and any one seeing him then would subsequently have had but little confidence in his customary good-natured air and unctuous politeness. "And yet the marquis is as much to be pitied as I am," he continued. "He loses as much, even more! And such a sure thing it seemed, too! What speculation can a fellow engage in after this? And a man must put his money somewhere; he can't ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... the darkness under whose cover the Chinaman was modestly divesting himself of his body, came the voice of Mr. Smitz, rich, unctuous, saying: ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... indulge himself in another mezza foglietta of his favourite white wine. He was installed upon the wooden bench against the wall, behind the narrow table on which was spread a dirty napkin with the remains of his unctuous meal. The light from the solitary oil-lamp that hung from the black ceiling was not brilliant, and he could see well enough through the panes of the glass door that the carriage which had just stopped on the ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... smiled faintly in decorous response, and bowed in silence; but his wife resented the unctuous beaming of content on the other's wide countenance, and ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Guermantes whose lover he had been); their colours had melted into one another, so as to add expression, relief, light to the pictures. A touch of red over the lips of Esther had strayed beyond their outline; the yellow on her dress was spread with such unctuous plumpness as to have acquired a kind of solidity, and stood boldly out from the receding atmosphere; while the green of the trees, which was still bright in Silk and wool among the lower parts of the panel, but had quite 'gone' at the ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... with powdered hair and imposing presence, who presented a striking contrast to the meagre personage engaged in conversation with her. The Duke de Riancourt was a small, nervous man of thirty years or thereabouts, with a sanctimonious, unctuous mien, shifting eyes and long, smooth hair, carefully parted near the middle of the forehead, and a rigidity of movement that ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... large man, benign and full-favored, not to say unctuous; and his manner in delivering an opinion was blandly impressive, and convincing to many. ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... sure of a favourable wind. He entrusted his ship more and more to the ever swelling current of the political parties of the proletariat, and hoped to find his profit where, in a half-hearted way, his convictions lay. He exhibited a rebel's front to the middle-classes, and held out a hand of unctuous fellowship to the toiler. He knew how to make his way! Many an insignificant shop-keeper had been known to exchange his musty rooms for a villa in the suburbs, to furnish it pretentiously, and to send his sons ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... completely was he ignored. Nevertheless, certain of the assessors were called: Jean Beaupere, canon of Paris, of Besancon and of Rouen; Jean de Mailly, Lord Bishop of Noyon; Jean Lefevre, Bishop of Demetriade; divers canons of Rouen, sundry ecclesiastics who appeared some unctuous, others stern and frowning;[2722] and, finally, the most illustrious Thomas de Courcelles, who, after having been the most laborious and assiduous collaborator of the Bishop of Beauvais, recalled nothing when he came before the ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... with the propensities of another school: we must give him a liberal share of the feminine sensitiveness and closeness of observation of which Miss Austen is the great example. And perhaps, to fill in the last details, he ought, in addition, to have a dash of the more unctuous and offensive variety of the dissenting preacher—for we know not where else to look for the astonishing and often ungrammatical fluency by which he is possessed, and which makes his best passages remind us of the marvellous ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... triumph was fairly unctuous. His jaw seemed to oscillate in oil as he mouthed his contempt ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... in the ground, hard outside but soft within, where the wood is as pliable as tinder. In this yielding substance, which has a resinous aroma, the larvae spend their life. For the metamorphosis they leave the unctuous regions of the centre and penetrate the hard wood, where they hollow out oval recesses, slightly flattened, measuring from twenty-five to thirty millimetres[1] in length. The major axis of these cells is always vertical. They are continued by a wide ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... down to the store," he said taking her proposal as an invitation to dine, and turning to expectorate a mouth full of tobacco juice before continuing. "Capital sardines them air," passing his hand over his mouth and beard in unctuous remembrance of ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... stories are flanked by huge figures of saints, standing forth in strangely contorted attitudes, black with the dust of ages, black as all old Prague is black, with the smoke of the brown Bohemian coal, with the dark and unctuous mists of many autumns, with the cruel, petrifying frosts of ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... six hundred an' thirty bucks, an' eighteen more, an' pass 'em acrost. An' do it pronto or somethin' might happen to Fatty right where he's thickest." The cowpuncher emphasized his remarks by boring the muzzle even deeper into the unctuous periphery of the proprietor. The croupier shot a questioning ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... the satisfaction that I felt at finding that the carcase of the harpooner was in my possession. I surveyed my treasure over and over again with delight. I could now cook my French dishes. He was soon dissected, and all his unctuous parts carefully melted down, and I found that I had a stock which would last me as long as the bodies which I had remaining to exercise my skill upon. The first day I succeeded admirably—I cooked ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... With unctuous fat of snailes, Between two cockles stew'd, Is meat that's easily chew'd; Tailes of wormes, and marrow of mice, Do make a dish that's wondrous nice. The grasshopper, gnat, and fly, Serve for our minstrelsie; Grace said, we dance a while, And so the time beguile: ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... fat and in his pink-striped shirtsleeves, sat upon the steps of his saloon as they went by. He wished them an unctuous good-evening. The oily smoothness of Mr. Saunders' voice cannot be described with plain pen and ink; it gurgled with sweetness, like molasses poured from a jug. This was not a special tone put on for the occasion; ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... some mistake here, gentlemen," he said in an unctuous, make-everything-easy voice. "I fancy that you have been misdirected. Possibly if you tried ...
— The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for future generations! To be exact, it took these generations eighteen centuries to discover and to appreciate the heritage that was theirs, buried at the foot of Vesuvius. During these long dark and dusky centuries charming goat herds had rested unctuous shocks of hair upon mysterious columns that, like young giant asparagus, stuck their magnificent heads out of the ground. Blinking drowsily at yonder villainous mountain, the summit of which is eternally crowned with a halo of thin white smoke, such as we are accustomed to see arising from the ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... to me on the part of the King his master with great compliments that his Majesty seeks to please me and satisfy me in everything that I could possibly desire of him," said James, rolling over with satisfaction these unctuous phrases as if they really ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... themselves. The greater part of the remainder follow in a minute, after swallowing their tea, carrying their food in their hands to consume as they go. Three or four only remain, who steal the butter of the more impetuous, and make to themselves an unctuous feast. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... triumphal march, Befouled with mud, with raiment torn, wild hair And ragged beard, to Vladislaw. He sat Expectant in his cabinet. On one side His secular adviser, Narzerad, Quick-eyed, sharp-nosed, red-whiskered as a fox; On the other hand his spiritual guide, Bishop of Olmutz, unctuous, large, and bland. "So these twain are chief culprits!" sneered the Duke, Measuring with the noble's ignorant scorn His masters of a lesser caste. "Stand forth! Rash, stubborn, vain old man, whose impudence Hath choked the public highways ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... unctuous, and florid, and lived well. His wife's nose was much too long, and her bones much too prominent, but she loved him with all her heart, and made him little sweetmeats. A perfect congeniality of sentiment united this charming couple. They ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... today seem to think things will arrange themselves. They're rather unctuous about it, but then they're always unctuous,—as though, if they had eyes, they would be turned up to heaven with lots of the pious whites showing. They point out the awful results there would be to the whole world if Servia, ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... the banners now hanging over their shoulders; and the good, fat priests, red and panting, shoving their vast overworked bellies before them, still found strength to shout into the very ear of the mules, in an unctuous, effusive voice, "Long live our noble Bey!" The rain on all this, the rain falling in buckets, discolouring the pink coaches, precipitating the disorder, giving the appearance of a rout to this triumphal return, but a comic rout, mingled with songs and laughs, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... reprehensible with roast beef, laudable with bacon; why the haunch of mutton seeks the alliance of currant-jelly, the shoulder civilly declineth it; why loin of veal, (a pretty problem,) being itself unctuous, seeketh the adventitious lubricity of melted butter,—and why the same part in pork, not more oleaginous, abhorreth from it; why the French bean sympathizes with the flesh of deer; why salt fish points to parsnip, brawn makes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... supporters, that Mr. Redmond's observation found a responsive echo. A tempest of cheers broke forth from the Tory Benches—from the backers of the Times and the supporters of Piggott; and to add to the painful and almost hideous irony of the situation, Mr. Chamberlain made unctuous profession of sympathy with the vindication of Parnell's memory. To those who know that of all the fierce animosities and contempts of Parnell, Mr. Chamberlain's was perhaps the fiercest—to those who remember that strange and almost awful scene when Mr. Parnell—in one of those outbursts ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... left her before her noble purpose could do so, and Genevieve Maud, left to her own resources, made unctuous mud pies and fed them to her family. Grace Margaret and Helen Adeline returned in triumph within the hour and laid at the feet of their small victim modest offerings consisting of one armless rubber doll, one dirty and badly torn picture-book, ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... from it. The more genteel worshippers take up their quarters mainly on the ground floor—at the back of the central seats and at the sides. The poor have resting places found for them immediately in front of the pulpit and at the rear of the galleries. Very little of that unctuous spasmodic shouting, which used to characterise Wesleyanism, is heard in Lune-street Chapel. It has become unfashionable to bellow; it is not considered "the thing" to ride the high horse of vehement approval and burst into luminous showers of "Amens" and "Halleleujahs." ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... light out from its cage: impatient, it may be, of this convict, this sickly, shrivelled bit of humanity standing there; wondering the nauseated life in his nostrils or soul claimed yet its share of God's breath. Society had taken the man like a root torn out of native unctuous soil, kept it in a damp cellar, hid out the breath and light. If after a while it withered away, whose fault was it? If there were no hand now to plant it again, do you look for it to grow rotten, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... up his engine with an unctuous glee. He was boyishly happy because he and the Home Secretary had done them out of the Car of Victory and the ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... now recognized the rector's foot on the resounding steps of the portico. He bowed respectfully to the three occupants of the room, and addressed them in phrases of that unctuous civility which priests are accustomed to use. To the rather absent-minded greeting of the mistress of the house, he replied by an ecclesiastically ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... with it a sacred authority. He was very fond of the Voltairean chevalier. Those two majestic relics of the nobility and clergy, though of very different habits and morals, recognized each other by their generous traits. Besides, the chevalier was as unctuous with the abbe as he ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... unctuous, and had many a sly wink with Chaplain McDevitt. Senator Blair was moody, restless and irritable, except in the hours which he spent with Mrs. Latimer. Winifred, in her anxiety, became a stranger to sleep, ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... Wellington. I expect high-and-dry Baptists have been not a little troublesome in their day, and in East Anglia they were more numerous than in London. It may be that they have helped to weaken Dissent in that part of the world. Men of independent intellect must have been not a little shocked by that unctuous familiarity with God and the devil which is the characteristic of that class. On a Sunday morning Jemmy Wells, as his admirers called him, would describe in the most graphic manner what the devil had said to him in ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... pains, particularly those of the fixed kind, and which were seated deep. In these cases I have given from ten grains to a scruple of the fresh root twice or thrice a day, made into a bolus or emulsion with unctuous and mucilaginous substances, which cover its pungency, and prevent its making any painful impression on the tongue. It generally excited a slight tingling sensation through the whole habit, and, when the patient was kept warm in ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... of boats and larger vessels were constantly to be seen there, as no Hindoo believed he could die in peace without having visited the place. Numerous Fakirs had established themselves here, strengthening the poor pilgrims with unctuous exhortations, and taking in return their pious gifts. The neighbourhood has, however, at present, lost its reputation for sanctity, and the offerings received are scarcely sufficient to maintain two or ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... the effect of destroying any remnant of respect she may still have felt for him. She found that he was in the habit of examining her private papers in her absence, and that he had opened her letters and resealed them. His manner to her was unctuous as a rule; but she knew he lied to her without hesitation if it suited his purpose—and that alone would have been enough to destroy her liking for him, for it is not in the nature of such a woman to love a man who has looked her in the face ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... moment of first exposure, was open and full, though it vanished almost immediately, and the pointed beard so characteristic of the reign of King Charles was perfect. The shape of the face was a long oval; many of the teeth remained; and the left ear, in consequence of the interposition of some unctuous matter between it and the cere-cloth, was found entire. The hair was thick at the back part of the head, and in appearance nearly black. A portion of it, which has since been cleaned and dried, is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... said, in his unctuous, rolling voice, "I have an important announcement to make. The Certina ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams |
