"Brilliancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... remain uninspired. If we desire to know the naked truth of things, the less we have to do with strong drink the better. Clear eyesight and self-command are in some degree impaired by it always. The earlier stages are supposed to be exhilaration, increased brilliancy of fancy and imagination, expanded good-fellowship, and so on. The latter stages are these in our passage, when strange things dance before cheated eyes, and strange words speak themselves out of lips which their owner no longer controls. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... intervened, during the pendency of this negotiation, to set off the good faith of the Company with an additional brilliancy, and to make it sparkle and glow with a variety of splendid faces. General Matthews had reduced that most valuable part of Hyder's dominions called the country of Biddanore. When the news reached Mr. Hastings, he instructed Mr. Anderson to contend for an ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... rose and led the way into the next room, where Miss Mannering, at his request, took her seat at the harpsichord. Lucy Bertram, who sung her native melodies very sweetly, was accompanied by her friend upon the instrument, and Julia afterwards performed some of Scarlatti's sonatas with great brilliancy. The old lawyer, scraping a little upon the violoncello, and being a member of the gentlemen's concert in Edinburgh, was so greatly delighted with this mode of spending the evening, that I doubt if he once thought ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... pretences, and otherwise left in the lurch. Not Friedrich, but one Lothar, a stirring man who had grown potent in the Saxon countries, was elected Kaiser. In the end, after waiting till Lothar was done, Friedrich's race did succeed, and with brilliancy,—Kaiser Barbarossa being that same Friedrich's son. In regard to which dim complicacies, take this Excerpt from the imbroglio of Manuscripts, before they go ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... sensations, as well as to convince his observers that he was quite at his ease. I know not how far he was successful, for they laughed as much when he failed, or more perhaps, than they would have done had his wit preserved its usual brilliancy. His manner told them he intended to be jocular, and that was their ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... man who penetrated deeper than others into the mystery of life missed the meaning of his own life. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter—the power that moves the world is not brilliancy of intellect; it is purity of heart. Nobility of character is the essence of powerful personality. Lincoln is greater than Webster, Washington than Jefferson, not through greater mental grasp, but because of a purer spiritual ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... wren. This is the only place and these the only woods in which I find him in this vicinity. His voice fills these dim aisles, as if aided by some marvelous sounding-board. Indeed, his song is very strong for so small a bird, and unites in a remarkable degree brilliancy and plaintiveness. I think of a tremulous vibrating tongue of silver. You may know it is the song of a wren, from its gushing lyrical character; but you must needs look sharp to see the little minstrel, especially while in the act of singing. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... at the brilliancy of the gas-light, and guessed he'd save most of it. At that Mrs. Fletcher smiled, and he grinned sheepishly back. She had probably guessed the secret. Mothers had uncanny ways of seeing right into fellows, and he might as well ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... to instability In a moment falls to the ground, And as it has the brilliancy of glass It also ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... the house plunged in darkness, from the back of the stage, came a burst of light. Lily, after running over the roof and sliding down the pulley, was descending against the blue back-drop, bringing with her the star! First, one saw the light breaking, then swelling and increasing in brilliancy, and Lily appeared, a starry Eve, holding, in her upraised hand, a dazzling luminary, a crystal globe, which an invisible wire from behind filled with an intensity of light. And powerful rays shot ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... women's faces,—in the very midst, it may be, of their warmest summer's day; and then one can guess at the secret of intolerable solitude that lies hid beneath the delicate laces and brilliant smile. There was no warmth, no brilliancy, no summer for this woman; so the stupor and vacancy had time to gnaw into her face perpetually. She was young, too, though no one guessed it; so the gnawing was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... with blooming shrubs planted around, with not a sound to be heard of the merry company, nor of the animated streets of the city, with the full moon shining overhead and brightening the solemn circle with its clear brilliancy—such was the spot. The two captains unsheathed their gleaming swords and stood opposite each other, ready for the encounter. But before they began the combat a nobler feeling drew them to each other's arms; they lowered ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... embrace dishonourable; for to refer what you do to those things, one of which asserts the man who is free from evil to be in the enjoyment of the chief good, while the other is conversant with the most trifling part of our nature, is rather the conduct of a man who would obscure the whole brilliancy of honourableness—I might almost say, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... beneficence to me; for all which I rewarded thee with this little spot on my hill-top. Thou wast very good, very kind. It would not have been well for thee, a youth of fiery joys and passions, loving to laugh, loving the lightness and sparkling brilliancy of life, to take this boon to thyself; for, O brother! I see, I see, it requires a strong spirit, capable of much lonely endurance, able to be sufficient to itself, loving not too much, dependent on no sweet ties of ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mood are you in to-night, Madge? You puzzle me;" and he looked directly into her eyes. At the moment she was facing a window, and a flash of strange brilliancy made every feature luminous. It seemed to him that he saw her very soul, the spirit she might become, for it is hard to imagine existence without form—form that is in harmony with character. The crash that followed was so terrific that they paused and stood confronting ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... came out and gradually twinkled into brilliancy, until at last the glorious host of heaven shone in the deepening sky with an intensity of lustre that cannot be described, contrasting strangely with the pallid ghostly aspect of the surrounding snow-fields. These were the only trace of earth that now remained to greet the ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... in words that are true." Thus addressed by the Kuru chief, Vidura, who was conversant with the science of Profit, with the course of the world, and with truth (that concerns the real nature of things), and possessed of great brilliancy of intellect, spoke first these words, recollecting the contents ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... fact. In Germany it has passed through several editions, and is there regarded as the chef-d'oeuvre of the author. As a revelation of an entire new phase of human society, it will strongly remind the reader of Miss Bremer's tales. In originality and brilliancy of imagination, it is not inferior those;—its aim is far higher. The elegance of Mrs. Marsh's translation will at once arrest the attention of every ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... means of some kind is employed to attract them to the atoms of some other element. This can be done by giving the latter piece of metal a positive charge. If now these two pieces of metal are placed in a bulb from which the air has been exhausted and the first piece of metal is heated to brilliancy while the second piece of metal is kept positively electrified then a stream of electrons will flow ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins
... Howells in his 'Modern Italian Poets,' "in greater degree than any other Italian poet of this, or perhaps of any age, those merits which our English taste of this time demands,—quickness of feeling and brilliancy of expression. He lacks simplicity of idea, and his style is an opal which takes all lights and hues, rather than the crystal which lets the daylight colorlessly through. He is distinguished no less by the themes ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... experiments, and what combination of pigments ruined his pictures, is of interest only to the expert. Fortunately, enough pictures escaped to show us the original glory of those which have faded. Among the best preserved canvases, "those in which his power and brilliancy appear least impaired, those in which the typical Sir Joshua still most unmistakably shines forth," are Lady Cockburn and her Children, Miss Bowles, Mrs. ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... brought to light by cutting and polishing, it was regarded more as a rare cabalistic curiosity than a precious ornament. Some diamonds, however, whose natural form and polish were more favourable to the development of their clouded brilliancy, foretold the splendour they would display were it possible to cut and polish them as other gems. Numerous attempts were made to attain this desired end, but all in vain, until, about 1460, Louis de Berghen, a young jeweller of Bruges, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... noted. It is that the false streak, which appears in the beginning to dart from the luminous hole, does not fade, but seems to suffer a sudden and total eclipse; whereas the second streak flashes out suddenly in situ, but at a lesser brilliancy than the other, ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... handkerchief, she took it up, and removing the covering, started as suddenly as if a blow had been dealt her, for there was the tortoise-shell box, with its blue satin lining, and its diamonds, which seemed to her like so many sparks of fire flashing in her eyes and dazzling her with their brilliancy. ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... fellow-countrymen throughout the world today than you dreamed of fifty years ago. You, James Russell Lowells! You, Robert Louis Stevensons! You, Mark Van Dorens! with your literary perception, your power of illumination, your brilliancy of expression, yea, and with your love of sincerity, you know your Thoreau, but not my Thoreau—that reassuring and true friend, who stood by me one "low" day, when the sun had gone down, long, long before sunset. You may know something ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... humor, hammering away at sinners who are not present in his congregation. The essay has few illuminating ideas, but a great deal of Johnsonian rhetoric, which make its periods tiresome, notwithstanding our admiration for the brilliancy of its author. More significant is one of Burke's first essays, A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, which is sometimes read in order to show the contrast in style with Addison's Spectator essays ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... wit, and unconquerableness of purpose, for which she was remarkable. She ever knew full well what she desired to gain or to avoid, and once having fixed her mind upon any object, she showed an adroitness and brilliancy of resource, a control of herself and others, the which there was no circumventing. She never made a blunder because she could not control the expression of her emotions; and when she gave way to a passion, 'twas because she ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... carefully. "They are a most magnificent collection, and had they been properly cut in the first place they would have been worth a very large sum. Unfortunately, the Indian princes think more of size than of lustre, and have their stones cut very much too flat to show off their full brilliancy. Some of these large ones I should certainly advise to be recut, for what they will lose in weight they will gain in beauty and value. However, sir, I will go through them and give you an estimate of the selling value of each piece. I need not say that ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... Mrs. Terriberry read of herself as "queenly in gray satin and diamonds," being unable to place the diamonds until she recalled the rhinestone comb in her back hair which sparkled with the doubtful brilliancy of ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... The unfettered development, the limitless choice of accessories, the confidence, the self-esteem, the sureness of expression, the simplicity of purpose, the ease of execution—all these produce a certain effect of beauty behind which one really cannot get to measure length of nose, or brilliancy of eye. This much can be said: there was nothing in her that positively contradicted any assumption of beauty on her part, or credit of it on the part of others. She was very tall and very thin with small head, long neck, black eyes, and abundant straight black ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... August afternoon. The sun was shining down with that intense brilliancy which, I think, is only to be seen in Canada, or in the sunny climes of those countries bordering on the Mediterranean sea. The little village of Rimouski seemed this afternoon all asleep, for the heat made every one drowsy, and the old French Canadian women at ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... and secluded life which Agnes had led with the specious and fatal brilliancy which had been the lot of her mother,—her simple peasant garb with those remembered visions of jewelry and silk and embroideries with which the partial patronage of the Duchess or the ephemeral passion of her son had decked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... similar qualities determine the rank of a man year after year in West Point, and his standing in the Army when he graduates from West Point; but from that time on, all effort to find which man is best or worst, and reward or punish him accordingly, is abandoned; no brilliancy, no amount of hard work, no eagerness in the performance of duty, can advance him, and no slackness or indifference that falls short of a court-martial offense can retard him. Until this system is changed we can not hope that our officers ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... gout. The faculty of medicine at Reims naturally rose in arms at this insolent assertion. They seized their pens and poured forth a deluge of French and Latin in defence of the wines of their province, eulogising alike their purity, their brilliancy of colour, their exquisite flavour and perfume, their great keeping powers, and, in a word, their general superiority to the Burgundy growths. The partisans of the latter were equally prompt in rallying in their defence, and the faculty of medicine of Beaune, ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... intolerable, but her defensive reserve and dignity attracted the gentleman more than all her dashing brilliancy, and he became more urgent. 'You cannot ask me to leave you entirely to yourselves ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and dreamer, in love with life, colour, form, music and beauty, he had the dash and brilliancy, the warmth and enthusiasm of a born leader of men. The impulsive champion of the people, the friend of the weak, he had become the patriot prophet of a ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... seen the lofty canvas of several vessels, rising, as it were, like spirits from the watery deep, and just catching the rays of the sun declining in the opposite direction, which gave an unusual brilliancy to their wide-spread sails. But the craft which most attracted the attention of our friends was the one Raby ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... was amazed at the wonderful brilliancy of the walls between which the tun glided down. They seemed all studded with pearls and diamonds, glittering and sparkling brightly, while below him he heard the most beautiful music tinkling at a distance, so that he did not know ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... sounds, like all tones of the voice, are reinforced sounds. The tendency of most singers is to sing the reed sounds too white and the flute sounds too dark. By properly distributing brilliancy and color we influence and modify all the vowels without ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer
... spirituelle beauty, glorious Die Vernon, like another Grace Greenwood, swept past me, followed by Rashleigh, and half a score of the Osbaldistons. She was, indeed, a lovely creature. The dark-green riding-dress she wore fitting so perfectly her light, elegant figure, served but to enhance the brilliancy of her complexion, blooming with health and exercise. Her long black hair, free from the little hat which hung carelessly upon her arm, fell around her in beautiful profusion, and even the golden-tipped riding-whip she held so gracefully in ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... on from hand to mouth, flashing out in his old brilliancy and power, and forcing himself to take the lead in whatever company he might be; but utterly lonely and depressed when by himself—reading feverishly in secret, in a desperate effort to retrieve all by high honors and a fellowship. As Tom ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... forehead was low and smooth, and her commanding dark eyes regarded the world indifferently and fearlessly. She looked bold and resourceful and unscrupulous, and she was all of these. They were handsome girls, had the fresh color of their country up-bringing, and in their eyes that brilliancy which is called,—by no ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... the bas-reliefs and perhaps the whole surface of the walls were painted, and the building was ornamented with flags. Music and dances were performed in the courtyards and, as in many Indian temples, the intention was to create a scene which by its animation and brilliancy might amuse the deity and rival the pleasures ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... thing, a fair field and no favor, when the sudden flash of the headlight of the approaching engine, as it shot around the curve, caused both men to lose their hold and spring from the track. The strong, clear light flooded both with its brilliancy, and in that instant mutual recognition ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... four when a new warmth began to steal over the air and a sense of summer to appear in the earth about me. With the greatest rapidity the unusual weather that had accompanied me from Milan was changing into the normal brilliancy of the south; but it was too late for the sun to tell, though he shone from time to time through clouds that were now moving eastwards more perceptibly and shredding as ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... the basset horn is extremely reedy and rich, especially in the medium and low registers; the tone colour is similar to that of the clarinet without its brilliancy; it is mellow and sensuous, but slightly sombre, and therefore well adapted for music of an ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... the poet tries to adapt himself to the requirements of the actor who is to pay him for his work. And that this is the truth may be seen by the countless plays that a most fertile wit of these kingdoms has written, with so much brilliancy, so much grace and gaiety, such polished versification, such choice language, such profound reflections, and in a word, so rich in eloquence and elevation of style, that he has filled the world with his fame; and yet, in consequence of his desire to suit the taste of the actors, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... white satin deeply embroidered with gold, depending simply to the knee! But when she placed me on the sofa beside her, and entered into conversation, every thing was forgotten but her incomparable elegance of manner. She had singular brilliancy of eye; it almost spoke, it perpetually flashed, and it filled up the pauses when she ceased to speak, with a meaning absolutely mental. Her language was animated and intelligent; sometimes in a tone of gentle ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... have succeeded without any trouble at the first attempt? We will see. A candle blown out that moment and still retaining a red tip to its wick is lowered by a wire into a small test jar filled with my product. Capital! The candle lights with a little explosion and burns with extraordinary brilliancy. It ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... saintly, recalling the earliest work of the Byzantine school and that of the catacombs. Draperies and other details are heavy, dull, and ill drawn. In short, the work is of the same class as the early Carolingian. The blue, red, green, and gold of the borders, etc., have all kept their brilliancy.[52] It is somewhat curious that the Van Eycks, the founders of Flemish painting, were natives of this little town—then, doubtless, pretty and rural, now a busy place of breweries, oil-factories, tanneries, and other fragrant ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... it was two when, some point arising and some particular picture being instanced, an adjournment to the Louvre was proposed. I paid the score, and in a moment we were trooping down the Rue de Renne. It was smoking hot; Paris glittered with that superficial brilliancy which is so agreeable to the man in high spirits, and in moods of dejection so depressing; the wine sang in my ears, it danced and brightened in my eyes. The pictures that we saw that afternoon, as we sped briskly and loquaciously ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... casts over the modern home. The men were led to seek social and intellectual sympathy and companionship outside the family circle, among a class of women known as Hetairae, who were esteemed chiefly for their brilliancy of intellect. As the most noted representative of this class stands Aspasia, the friend of Pericles. The influence of the Hetairae was ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... this History commences,—the beginning of the sixteenth century,—when compared with the ages which had preceded it, since the fall of the Roman empire, was one of unprecedented brilliancy and activity. It was a period very fruitful in great men and great events, and, though stormy and turbulent, was favorable to experiments and reforms. The nations of Europe seem to have been suddenly ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... purest, and least observed of all lights, is, however, daylight; and his talk was commonplace, just as sunshine is, which gilds the most indifferent objects, and adds brilliancy to the brightest. As for the old-world anecdotes which these clever persons were condescending enough to laugh at as pleasant extravagances, serving merely to relieve and set off the main stream of debate, they were often enough, it may be guessed, connected with the theme in hand by links ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... products is the tamarind, unrivalled either as regards beauty of foliage, brilliancy of blossoms, or the delicacy of its acidulous pulpy pods. In blossom the tree is a lovely object. Amid its feathery dark green foliage issue, in vast numbers, golden yellow branches with delicate flowers dazzling to the eye; while its fruits in ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... bandaged shoulder, a long pipe between his teeth, and at his elbow a tankard of sack and an elderly Hebe in the person of Mistress Lettice Verney. Patricia, sumptuously clad and beautiful as a dream, sat in the great window with Betty and Sir Charles. Her eyes shone with a feverish brilliancy, her white hands were never still, she laughed and jested with her lover, touching this or that with light wit. Once or twice she broke into song, rich, passionate, throbbing through the night. The gentle Betty looked at her in wonder, but ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... beard indicates a crisp, excitable, and variable disposition, and much diversity of character—now blowing hot, now cold—along with intense love and hate, gushing, glowing emotions, brilliancy, and variety of talent. So look out for ringlets; they betoken April weather—treat them gently, lovingly, and you will have the brightest, clearest sunshine, and ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... so long that a change came over the aspect of the woods. The sun lost its first clear, penetrating brilliancy, and took on a deeper glow. Dan noticed it first, and ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... and I am left to myself, which is all the better. As I told Lady Lyndon in those days, with perfect sincerity, 'Calista' (I used to call her Calista in my correspondence)—' Calista, I swear to thee, by the spotlessness of thy own soul, by the brilliancy of thy immitigable eyes, by everything pure and chaste in heaven and in thy own heart, that I will never cease from following thee! Scorn I can bear, and have borne at thy hands. Indifference I can surmount; 'tis a rock which my energy will climb over, a magnet which attracts the dauntless iron ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... country is throwing off its winter cloak and dressing itself in its green, gorgeous array; now that King Day shines in all his glory through the mist by day, and the moon and stars appear in their brilliancy in the evenings; now that, as if in harmony with the artistic rendering of Easter anthems by your choirs, the thrush and the blackbird twitter forth the disappearance of the foggy winter with its snow, sleet and wet; now that the flocks ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... a thimbleful of cognac into it, sipped it, and then slid into a comfortable position in his armchair, put his big hands into his trousers pockets, and regarded Mark with a steady and unblinking stare. His eyes were pale blue, deeply set and small, but still of a keen brilliancy. ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... of Eden back, for in Christ she is reconciled to God. It is for man and woman to get back Eden. Christ came to be our common helper. He is woman's Saviour as well as man's, and offers to all that help which changes life's desert into a garden, and life's gloom into the brilliancy of ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... respects, to Hamilton when the pen was in his hand; the latter was, however, though reserved in a large society, particularly agreeable in a more select one. Some of his letters remain, in which he alludes to his want of that facility at impromptu which gave such brilliancy to the conversation of some of his brother wits and contemporaries. But, while we admit the truth of this, let it be remembered, at the same time, that when he wrote this, he was by no means young; that he criticised his own defects ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... Neil was tall, and her motions full of untaught elegance and natural grace. Her countenance was a fine oval; her features, though not strictly symmetrical, were replete with animation, and her eyes sparkled with a brilliancy indicative of a warm heart and a quick apprehension. Flaxen hair, long and luxuriant, decided, even at a distant glance, the loveliness of her skin, than which the unsunned snow could not be whiter. If you add to this a delightful temper, buoyant spirits, and ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... such a powerful light, Tom?" asked Mr. Swift. "Why, it is of extraordinary brilliancy, and it goes for several miles. Look how plainly you can pick out the trees on Nob's Hill," and he pointed to an elevation some distance away from the Swift homestead, across the woods ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... before thee, holds a single human creature who doubts his Maker. Not one! except thine own doomed star! Behold it yonder—sparkling feebly, like a faint flame amid sunshine—how poor a speck it is—how like a scarcely visible point in all the brilliancy of the ever-revolving wheel of Life! Yet there dwell the dwarfs of clay—the men and women who pretend to love while they secretly hate and despise one another. There, wealth is a god, and the greed of gain a ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... measured by things beautiful, so filled that ten folio volumes could not hold the description of them, and I have left out the meadows, the brooks, and hills. Often in writing about these things I have felt very earnestly my own incompetence to give the least idea of their brilliancy and many-sided colours. My gamut was so very limited in its terms, and would not give a note to one in a thousand of those I saw. At last I said, I will have more words; I will have more terms; I will have ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... a dozen subordinate places; the kin of Patrick Henry revived their ancestor's glory by as zealous a devotion to the new revolution. With personages like these in every office the society of the new capital revived the brilliancy of the French Directory and also the character of the States-General, while Holland held the Spains at bay. The blockade had not yet pinched the affluent, nor beggared the industries of the well-to-do. Always famous for a brilliant bar, a learned judiciary, and a cultivated ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... observed to be characterised by an air of levity; he attempted this unusual manner. It was probably a caprice which induced him to introduce one of his sermons in "Tristram Shandy;" it was fixing a diamond in black velvet, and the contrast set off the brilliancy. But he seems then to have had no design of publishing his "Sermons." One day, in low spirits, complaining to Caleb Whitefoord of the state of his finances, Caleb asked him, "if he had no sermons like the one in 'Tristram ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... the upper wings being of dull, sombre, and often imitative tints, and these generally conceal the hind wings when the insects are in repose. This arrangement of the colours is therefore eminently protective, because the butterfly always rests with his wings raised so as to conceal the dangerous brilliancy of his upper surface. It is probable that if we watched their habits sufficiently we should find the under surface of the wings of butterflies very frequently imitative and protective. Mr. T. W. Wood has pointed out that the little orange-tip butterfly often rests in the evening on the green ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... of Landsfeld, who is now among us," adds a second scribe, "owes more to the brilliancy of intellect with which Heaven has gifted her than to her world-wide celebrity as an artiste. Her person and bearing are unmistakably aristocratic. If we may credit the stories which from time to time have reached us, she ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... He thought he saw more than he did see, and he said even more than he thought he saw. If the true motive of all our actions is self-love, or vanity, no man is a better proof of the truth than the great maxim-maker. His self-love took the shape of a brilliancy that is sometimes false. He is tricked out in paste for diamonds, now and then, like a vain, provincial beauty at a ball. "A clever man would frequently be much at a loss," he says, "in stupid company." One has seen this embarrassment of a wit in a company of dullards. ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... room, filled with rare mineralogical and geological specimens. There were quartz crystals gleaming with lumps of free-milling gold, curling masses of silver and copper wire direct from the mines, gold nuggets of unusual size and brilliancy, and specimens of ores from the principal mines not only of that ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... there was a ditch sufficiently deep in which a fire had also been lighted, and which was covered by a grating as in the Aldini experiments. It is even probable that this grating was of copper, which, illuminated by the fireplace, must have presented a terrifying brilliancy, while in reality it served only to prevent the flames from the fireplace reaching him who dared to ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... West of Southwest wind, dry, magnetic, full of smell of unmeasured miles of growing grain in summer, or ripening corn and wheat in autumn. When it comes in winter the air glitters with incredible brilliancy. The snow of the country dazzles and flames in the eyes; deep blue shadows everywhere stream like stains of ink. Sleigh bells wrangle from early morning till late at night, and every step is quick and alert. In the city, smoke dims its ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... was tormented with awful dreams; yet, strange to say, I awoke in the morning refreshed and fearless. The sun was shining through the chinks in my shutters, which had been closed because of the storm, and was making streaks and bands of golden brilliancy upon the wall. I had dressed and completed my preparations long before I heard the steps of the servant who ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... indeed all works of imagination, paint sentiments and events with colors of a very different brilliancy from those presented by nature. The fascination of such works springs less from the desire which each author feels to show his skill in putting forth choice and delicate ideas than from the mysterious ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... earl of Strafford that the viceregal court first owed its brilliancy. When he came to Dublin as lord deputy he found the Castle falling to ruins. He had it restored, and lived there in the manner described by a traveled eye-witness, who says that a most splendid court was kept there, and that he had seen nothing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... lay upon the ground for a fortnight after the storm in which we rode from Derby, but at the end of that time it melted, and the sun shone with the brilliancy and warmth of springtide. So warm and genial was the weather that the trees, flowers, and shrubs were cozened into budding forth. The buds were withered by a killing frost which came upon us later in the season at a time when the ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... puddles. He did not know that the academic mind reflects infinity and is full of light by the simple process of being shallow and standing still. In his case, therefore, there was something solemn, and even evil about the infinity implied. It was half-way through a starry night of bewildering brilliancy; stars were both above and below. To young Smith's sullen fancy the skies below seemed even hollower than the skies above; he had a horrible idea that if he counted the stars he would find one too many ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... to do. But Fate decreed that he should be childless, that all religious independents might call him father. There is only one thing better than for a strong man to marry an absolutely dull woman. She teaches him by antithesis: he learns by contrast, and her stupidity is ever a foil for his brilliancy. He soon grows to a point where he does not mentally defer to her in the slightest degree, but goes his solitary way, making good that maxim of Kipling, "He travels the fastest who travels alone." He learns to love the ideal. The mediocre quality of Parker's ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... she knew how to maintain, despite her embonpoint, a very great charm, which was enhanced by her delightful foreign accent. She had splendid shoulders, the finest arms in the world, and a complexion of radiant brilliancy. Her soft black eyes, her full red lips, her framing mass of curled hair, her finely chiselled forehead, and the sinuous grace of her gait gave her an air of abandon and dignity together, a haughty yet sensuous expression which was ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... General Crook and his staff in their dress uniforms (this was one of the few times in his life that Crook wore full dress in public); and the Indians themselves, in their gaudy colors. The court-room was a galaxy of brilliancy. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... his powers, Warruk was ready to ignore the warning. Then, too, the sun now shone with an unusual brilliancy; fiery tongues from the sky seemed to lap up the water in the lakes and marshes, leaving nothing but vast areas of cracked and peeling mudflats sprinkled with brown, withered reeds that were a pitiful reminder of the waving expanses of green where ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... and fair man can look like an elderly dark one. Their features were the same, both had the same sinewy firmness of build and the same eyes; but Greif's close-cut golden hair and delicate moustache gave him a brilliancy his father had never possessed. He seemed to bring the light with him into the deep shade of the glen where they met. One looking at him would have felt instinctively that he was made to wear the gleaming uniform of a Prussian Lifeguard, rather than the sober garments ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... turned it over together. The 'notes,' of which it was full, showed great brilliancy and facility, an accurate eye, and a very practised hand. They were the notes of a countryman artist newly come to London. The sights, and tones, and distances of London streets—the human beings, the vehicles, the horses—were all ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... gentleman would leave first, and she was chatting away in a peculiarly lofty strain, when the old lady got out. In stumbling to the door, she upset the basket, and—oh horror!—the lobster, in all its vulgar size and brilliancy, was revealed to the ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... immediately awakened to the consciousness of either remembering or trying to remember. His consciousness of his own knowledge or memory would seem to belong to a period, so to speak, of twilight between the thick darkness of ignorance and the brilliancy of perfect knowledge; as colour which vanishes with extremes of light or of shade. Perfect ignorance and ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... of mind: no conception that the charm of society depends upon it. They think cleverness an antic, and have a constant though needless horror of being thought to have any of it. So much does this stiff dignity give the tone, that the few Englishmen capable of social brilliancy mostly secrete it. They reserve it for persons whom they can trust, and whom they know to be capable of appreciating its nuances. But a good Government is well worth a great deal of social dulness. ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... then been invented, and it was necessary to explain the word to Mr. Brown. He merely remarked that the oil and paint would come to a deal of money, and then gave way. Jones was struck dumb by the brilliancy of the idea, and for once forgot ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... inspiration. Take the case of a great teacher, like Arnold or Jowett; Arnold lit in his pupils' minds a kind of fire, which was moral rather than intellectual; Jowett had a power of putting a suggestive brilliancy into dull words and stale phrases, showing that they were but the crystallised formulas of ideas, which men had found wonderful or beautiful. The secret of such teaching is quite incommunicable, but it is a very high ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... walks of composition. Besides applying to the old masters, he was indefatigable in perusing the works of Emanuel Bach, Hasse, Handel, and Eberlin, and by the diligent performance of these authors, he acquired extraordinary brilliancy and power in the left hand. On the 11th of September, 1767, the whole family proceeded on their way to Vienna; but as the small pox was raging there, they went to Ollmuetz instead, where both the children caught that disorder. At Vienna, Mozart wrote his first opera, by desire of the emperor. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... up, and the King of Rome dismounting, came toward her with a low inclination of the head. Around them stood the noblemen of his suite, whose splendid uniforms and decorations dazzled the eye with their brilliancy. They sprang from their horses and each one reverentially saluted the bride-elect. This done, the King of Rome assisted her to alight, that she might mount the magnificent horse which was now led forward by the empress's chief master of ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... character. He had entered upon the adventure in his famous barrel on Encisco's ship as a reckless, improvident, roisterous, careless, hare-brained scapegrace. Responsibility and opportunity had sobered and elevated him. While he had lost none of his dash and daring and brilliancy, yet he had become a wise, a prudent and a most successful captain. Judged by the high standard of the modern times, Balboa was {35} cruel and ruthless enough to merit our severe condemnation. Judged by his environments and contrasted with any other of the Spanish conquistadores ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... not John Masselin only, but the very assembly itself in which he sat, that appears to us, at the end of five centuries, seriously moved by a desire for a free government, and not far from comprehending and following out the essential conditions of it. France had no lack of states-general, full of brilliancy and power, between 1356 and 1789, from the reign of Charles V. to that of Louis XVI.; but in the majority of these assemblies, for all the ambitious soarings of liberty, it was at one time religious party-spirit and at ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... is as anomalous an aesthetic product as one could well imagine. In a day when magnitude of plan and vividness of color, rhetorical emphasis and dynamic brilliancy, are the ideals which preeminently sway our tonal architects, emerges this reticent, half-lit, delicately structured, subtly accented music; which is incorrigibly unrhetorical; which never declaims or insists: an art alembicated, static, severely restrained—for ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... hair, which was done up in a series of wonderful loops filleted with narrow blue ribbons. She carried a pink fan. Lionel, who liked bright colors, was charmed at the effect; and altogether she set out in good spirits for the walk down the Pass, though she was prepared to be afraid of Rose, of whose brilliancy she had heard a little too much to make the idea of meeting her ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... despair—there is nothing infinite about it. Guide yourself by the delicate Spiritual Instinct within you, which tells you that with God all things are possible, save that He cannot destroy Himself or lessen by one spark the fiery brilliancy of his ever-widening circle of productive Intelligence. But make no attempt to convert the world to your way of thinking—it would be mere ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... the high steep roofs and narrow gables of the mansion, with lines indented into steps, and corners decorated with small turrets. One of the folding leaves of the lower gate was open, and as the sun shone full into the court behind, a long line of brilliancy was flung upon the aperture up the dark and gloomy avenue. It was one of those effects which a painter loves to represent, and mingled well with the struggling light which found its way between the boughs of the shady arch that ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... sailed into the air and burst in a point of greenish white light, dazzling in its brilliancy, even in the full light of day. Immediately after this two white objects, so small as to be hardly visible, floated earthward: the parachutes of the observers. They had jumped. The balloon disappeared from view behind Drew's machine. ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... if song it could be called, that had only a wild rhythm, and flowed forth in the fitful measure of a wind-harp, did not clothe itself in the sharp brilliancy of the Italian tongue. The words, so far as they could be distinguished, were German, and therefore unintelligible to the Count, and hardly less so to the sculptor; being softened and molten, as ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in its most mechanical departments.[942] In the first quarter, however, of the eighteenth century, there was some improvement in it. Joshua Price, in the east window of St. Andrew's, Holborn, has 'rivalled the rich colouring of the Van Linges. The painting is deficient in brilliancy, and some of the shadows are nearly opaque; yet these defects may almost be overlooked in the excellence of its composition, and in its immense superiority over all other works executed between the commencement of the eighteenth century and ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... other members of the world of fashion went to the entertainment, which proved one of surpassing brilliancy. The night was fine, and the company, which began arriving soon after nine o'clock, stayed till the small hours of the following morning. The walks adjacent to the Palace were enclosed and converted into temporary ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... and yet so unlike. It was as if you had burned strange-colored fires before my lady's face, and by their influence brought out new lines and new expressions never seen in it before. The perfection of feature, the brilliancy of coloring, were there; but I suppose the painter had copied quaint mediaeval monstrosities until his brain had grown bewildered, for my lady, in his portrait of her, had something of the aspect of ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... land." In the morning, the little town of Cove received the designation of Queenstown from her majesty, at the request of the inhabitants, as commemorative of her arrival there. It was noticed that the moment her majesty set her foot on shore, the sun, which had been clouded, burst forth with brilliancy. In the afternoon, the royal party visited the city of Cork, to receive various deputations, and afford the queen an opportunity of seeing the city. She proceeded up the river, and never did the scenery on the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... intrigues, of such a kind as the theatrical literature of all other countries can produce but few examples of it, it certainly shows astonishing acuteness, is, nevertheless, by no means the most valuable part of the Spanish theatre, which displays a much greater brilliancy in the handling of wonderful, mythological, or ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... of almost equal brilliancy, Mose leaped to the ground with the rope in his hand, and while Kintuck looked on curiously, he began a series of movements which one of Delmar's Mexicans had taught him. With the noose spread wide he kept it whirling in the air as if it were a hoop. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... perpendicular, non-magnifying telescope that, by means of a reflector at its upper end, gives a view of the seascape when a submarine boat is submerged. And in the eyepiece at its base Metcalf beheld a thin thread of light, of such dazzling brilliancy as to momentarily blind him, stretch over the sea; but he put on his smoked glasses and turned the apparatus, tube and all, until the thin pencil of light touched the end of the torpedo-boat's signal-yard. He did not need to bring the two-inch ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... The value of the jewels we found more difficulty in estimating. There were diamonds—some of them exceedingly large and fine—a hundred and ten in all, and not one of them small; eighteen rubies of remarkable brilliancy; three hundred and ten emeralds, all very beautiful; and twenty-one sapphires, with an opal. These stones had all been broken from their settings and thrown loose in the chest. The settings themselves, which we picked out from among the other gold, appeared to have been beaten ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... England and New York were caught up and echoed with manifold vehemence in Virginia. Patrick Henry, the idle boy of Hanover, had just burst from the chrysalis of obscurity, and was enchanting his countrymen with the brilliancy of his eloquence. He had been but a few days a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, when intelligence of the passage of the Stamp Act reached the Old Dominion. Upon a scrap of paper torn from the fly-leaf of an old ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... cardinal deacon in 1227 and cardinal bishop of Ostia in 1231. On the death of Innocent IV. he was elected pope at Naples on the 12th of December 1254. He is described as a stout man, kindly, cheerful, but of no great brilliancy. He succeeded Innocent IV. as guardian of Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen, promising him his benevolent protection; but in less than a fortnight he conspired against him and bitterly opposed Conradin's uncle Manfred. Alexander fulminated with excommunication ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... came out with marvellous brilliancy. I fancied that I had never seen them appear so bright; but probably the gloominess of my thoughts made them look brighter by contrast. I seemed the centre of a glorious system of worlds revolving above me with a calm and tranquil beauty, that appeared to reproach ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... the true, living image of a waterfall on canvas—the movement is wanting; how can one describe it in words, delineate this majestic grandeur, brilliancy of colour, and arrowy flight? One cannot do it; one may however attempt it; get together, by little and little, with words, an outline of that mirrored image which our eye gave us, and which even the strongest remembrance can only retain—if ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... a fire lighted at the summit of the mainmast and remained there near two hours and a half, which comforted us greatly, for we were in tears only expecting the hour of perishing; and, when that holy light was going away from us, it gave out so great a brilliancy in the eyes of each, that we were like people blinded and calling out for mercy. For without any doubt nobody hoped ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... expected to spend the rest of her life in Washington Square, and to enjoy Mrs. Penniman's society for the whole of this period; as she had a conviction that, long as she might live, her aunt would live at least as long, and always retain her brilliancy and activity. Mrs. Penniman suggested to her the ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... story, while his hand linked picture to picture in the unfolding scene, with a free play of sentiment, fancy, and meditation round about them. Intense points show out, as if by an inner and undesigned brilliancy. The companionship of Donatello, full of the freshness and laughter of the early world, with Miriam tracked by her own terrible secret, is itself a startling situation, and the effecting of their union by a crime, which paralyzes the love of one while it creates ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry |
