"Connoisseur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the cap into his hand, and with the air of a connoisseur pinches the fur, blows on it, sniffs at it, and a contemptuous smile ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was re-enacted, with but small variations, whenever any thing appeared which met with her ladyship's approval; and Guy found that in spite of her youth she was a decided connoisseur in the delicacies of the table. Now, to tell the truth, he was not at all fond of children; but this one excited in him a positive horror. There seemed to be something in her weird and uncanny; and he found himself constantly speculating as to how he could ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... minister, who in his earlier days had been allowed by his best friends to be a little particular about his food, and had been no mean connoisseur in wines, found more pleasure at his table, from lightness of heart, and the joy of a new independence, than he had had for many a day. It added much also to his satisfaction with the experiment, that, instead of sleeping, as his custom was, after dinner, he was able to read without ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... Truda had to face a house that was plainly willing to be unsympathetic; applause came doubtfully and in patches, till she gained a hold of them and made herself their master by main force of personality. Monsieur Vaucher, the manager, was still a connoisseur of art. Years of feeling the public pulse through the box-office had not stripped him of a certain shrewd perception of what was fine and what was mean in drama; and he chuckled and wagged his head in the wings as minute by minute the spell of Truda's genius ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... no daughter of kings, no duchess of Castile, no dona of Segovia; and her beauty belonged to more primary manifestations; but it was above the lower forms, even if it did not reach to the highest. "A handsome even splendid woman of her class" would have been the judgment of the connoisseur. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... pleasure in his occupation. The bodies he polishes become to some extent his own workmanship, and he feels responsible for their symmetry or deformity. He experiences a degree of triumph in contemplating a beautiful form, which has grown more airily light and beautiful under his hands. He is a great connoisseur of bodies, and could pick you out the finest specimens with as ready an eye as ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... dollars; but we need not imagine that Murillo received any such sum for the work. This picture has a further interesting history. The canvas was cut from the frame by thieves in 1874, and later it was sold to Mr. Schaus, the connoisseur and picture dealer of New York. He paid $250 for it, and at once put it into the hands of the Spanish consul, who restored ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... would have given all she had in the world to help these suffering beings; but her little cooking and concocting were all that she could do, and those they disregarded utterly. When in the dull forenoon she would have enlivened Vivia with her precious elderberry-wine, that a connoisseur must taste twice before telling from purplest Port, and Vivia only wet her lips at it, or when she carried Ray a roasted apple, its burnished sides bursting with juice and clotted with cream, and the boy glanced at it and never saw it, little ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... this novel attack. She drew her hand away, went on talking about the part—the changes he had suggested in her entrance, as she sang her best solo. He discussed this with her until they rose to leave the theater. He looked smilingly down on her, and said with the flattering air of the satisfied connoisseur: ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... him!" said the captain, drawing back a step, and looking at the beautiful animal with the eye of a connoisseur; "if I am not mistaken, he was bred between the mountains of Grenada and the Sierra Morena. I rode such a one at Almanza, and I have often made him lie down like a sheep when he wanted to carry me off at a gallop, only by pressing him ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... Eugenio very sad, and he asked himself if the willingness to arrive only after you had got there had gone out of the world and left nothing but the ambition to be at this point or that without the trouble of having reached it. He smiled as he recalled the stock criticism of the connoisseur in The Vicar of Wakefield, that the picture would have been better if the painter had taken more pains; but he did not smile gayly: there seemed to him a sum of pathetic wisdom in the saying ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... the existence of sentiments the violence of which would only become manifest in after life. Her mouth, a trifle drawn in, expressed a haughty pride in keeping with her hand, her chin, her brows, and her beautiful figure. And—as a last diagnostic to guide the judgment of a connoisseur—Natalie's pure voice, a most seductive voice, had certain metallic tones. Softly as that brassy ring was managed, and in spite of the grace with which its sounds ran through the compass of the voice, that organ revealed the character of the Duke of Alba, from whom the Casa-Reales were collaterally ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... Seidlitz's fine Bit of Painting, hung out yonder, hooked on the sky itself, as temporary background to Gotha, to be judged of by the connoisseurs. For pictorial effect, breadth of touch, truth to Nature and real power on the connoisseur, I have heard of nothing equal by any artist. The high Generalcy, Soubise, Hildburghausen, Darmstadt, mount in the highest haste; everybody mounts, happy he who has anything to mount; the grenadiers tumble out of the Schloss; dragoons, artillery tumble out; Dauphiness takes wholly to her ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... This connoisseur was suddenly fascinated, and had adopted the Laughing Man. He did not come every evening, but when he came he led the public—applause grew into acclamation—success rose not to the roof, for there was ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... proud to see you, I can tell you. Our host owns some marvelous tapestries and they're hung out to-night for the world to see." She guided Armitage toward the Secretary's gallery on an upper floor. Their host was almost as famous as a connoisseur as for his achievements in diplomacy, and the gallery was a large apartment in which every article of furniture, as well as the paintings, tapestries and specimens of pottery, was the careful choice of ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... Honourable, Judge, or something; and if they cannot obtain it legitimately, they obtain it by courtesy, or sometimes facetiously, like a gentleman I have before alluded to, who obtained the rank of judge because he was a connoisseur in wine. In these, and a thousand other ways, the love of vanity stands ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... in this green dell, at the foot of the precipice, seeing it rise from the water on one side, reflected as in a broken mirror, and draped in young, golden foliage on the other, it really was an ideal castle for a fairy tale. A connoisseur in the best architecture of the Renaissance would perhaps have been ungracious enough to pick faults; for to a critical eye the turrets and arches might fall short of perfection; and there was little decoration on the time-darkened stone walls, save ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... a mark of the connoisseur to be able to read character and habit and to divine at a glance all a creature's potentialities. This sort of penetration characterises the man with an eye for horse-flesh, the dog-fancier, and men and women of the world. It guides the born leader in the judgments he instinctively ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... she did. At least the Herr Consul at Sammtstadt informs me of a marriage-certificate issued to one Clinch of Chicago, and Kolnische of Koln; and there is an amusing story extant in the Verein at Sammtstadt, of an American connoisseur of Rhine wines, who mistook a flask of Cognac and rock-candy, used for "craftily qualifying" lower grades of wine to the American standard, ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... themselves, as if one person was to do all and have the merit of all, like generals of an army." Garrick seems to have been the first actor honoured by capital letters of extra size in the playbills. "The Connoisseur," in 1754, says: "The writer of the playbills deals out his capitals in so just a proportion that you may tell the salary of each actor by the size of the letter in which his name is printed. When the present manager of Drury Lane first came ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... a few evenings after this at the Opera, and found that he was a passionate lover of music. They talked again, and he very well, for he really was a sensible, well-educated young man. Music is a favorite source of inspiration, and Hazlewood was a connoisseur as well as amateur. She found that he seldom missed a night at the Opera, and "she was surprised she had not seen him there before, as she went ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... and some charcoal, she covered all this fuel with a cabbage leaf; then, going to the further end of the shop, she took from a chest a large round loaf, cut off a slice, and selecting a magnificent radish with the eye of a connoisseur, divided it in two, made a hole in it, which she filled with gray salt joined the two pieces together again, and placed it carefully by the side of the bread, on the cabbage leaf which separated ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... he should perceive distinctly what degree of skill he has attained, reverence that which surpasses it, and know the principles of right in what he has been able to accomplish. It is impossible to make every boy an artist or a connoisseur, but quite possible to make him understand the meaning of art in its rudiments, and to make him modest enough to forbear expressing, in after life, judgments which he has not knowledge enough to ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... develop at her own sweet will, untrammelled whether by parental advice or parental affection, more careful to ignore than to safeguard the girl's behaviour, whose passionate temperament he appreciated as a connoisseur of the sex and in whom he recognized charms far and away more seductive than a pretty face. Too generous-hearted to be circumspect, too clever to come to harm, cautious even in her caprices, passion had never made her forget the ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... discovered that Mount Pitt was honeycombed with mutton-bird burrows. They were slain in thousands. "The slaughter and mighty havoc is beyond description," wrote an officer. "They are very fine eating, exceeding fat and firm, and I think (though no connoisseur) as good as any I ever eat." Many people who are not hunger-driven profess to relish young mutton-bird, whose flesh is like neither fish nor fowl, but ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... of deference so exquisitely flattering from one we already know to be superior he requested my decision; observing that, from the manner in which he had seen me examine the details of the architecture, he could not be mistaken in his confidence that I was a connoisseur. All eyes were turned upon me. As a shy man, this made me blush; as a vain man, the blush was accompanied with delight. It might easily have happened that such an appeal, acting at once upon shyness and ignorance, would have inflamed my wrath; ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... presume, while the old ladies were occupied with lunch, sampled the cans of soup that stood in rows along the floor. He used to come along with dripping whiskers which betrayed his excursion, and the look of a connoisseur in his large round eyes—as if he were certifying that justice had been done once ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... house, though small, was a perfect model of taste in design and adornment, . . he knew where to pick up choice bits of antique furniture, dainty porcelain, bronzes, and wood-carvings, while in the acquisition of rare books he was justly considered a notable connoisseur. His delicate and fastidious instincts were displayed in the very arrangement of his numerous volumes, ... none were placed on such high shelves as to be out of hand reach, . . all were within close touch and ready to command, ranged in low, carved oak cases or on revolving ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... could see through to the greenery which draped the lower end of the garden. The front building, which was reserved for receptions and the lodging-rooms of guests, held many objects of art and accumulated wealth, but none of them equalled in the eyes of a Claes, nor indeed in the judgment of a connoisseur, the treasures contained in the parlor, where for over two centuries the family ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... savants of Europe and America as an entomologist, but better known to the general public as a writer of stories. With her, as companion and assistant, was a doctor of laws, who is also a newspaper proprietor, a voluminous author, an art connoisseur, and many things beside. They had turned their backs thus unseasonably upon the metropolis, and in this pleasant out-of-the-way corner were devoting themselves to one absorbing pursuit,—the pursuit of moths. On their daily drives, two or three insect ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... to the Times, all the same. I'm a connoisseur in all this sort of thing, and I won't have unnecessary risks run with the nation's property. You said there was an attendant just outside, but he sounds to me as though he were at the other end of the ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... and ready, and an expression of expectancy lightened the face of the head waiter—who himself brought a bottle of most carefully decanted red wine, feeling the temperature through the fine glass with the air of a great connoisseur. ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... believe that Carmen really admired them either. But the minx knew that the Senator prided himself on having the only "pot-hooks" of the great "A," or the first artistic efforts of "B,"—I leave the real names to be filled in by the connoisseur,—and the Senator became interested. For the last year, two or three of these abominations had been hanging in his study, utterly ignored by the casual visitor. But here was appreciation! "She was," she added, "only a poor young artist, unable to purchase such treasures, ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... to entertain him with his company. One evening—and this is the only reproducible instance of the doctor's readiness—Mr. Atkinson regaled his guest with a diminutive glass of choice Madeira. The doctor regarded it against the light with the half-closed eye of the connoisseur, and after sipping the molten topaz with satisfaction, inquired how old it was. "Of the vintage of about sixty years ago," was the answer. "Well," said the doctor reflectively, "I never in my life saw so small a thing of such an age." There are other ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... in Carlisle when he began to show his shirt collar; his clattering brogues gave place to silent pumps, his leathern bendy to a fashionable hat, and his coarse grey jacket to a coat with tails. Moreover, he began to bow and smile to the ladies when they entered the shop; he also became quite a connoisseur in teas and confections; he recommended them to them, and he bowed and smiled again as they left. Such was the work of less than two years; and before three went round, there was not a smarter or a better dressed youth in all Carlisle than William Sim. He became a favourite ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... deuse take that boy and his picture, Ned! What if we two fools have been playing too roughly with such plastic clay? I wish to-night were come and gone safely. I'll go see Dr. Thorne, and ask him to accompany us to-night. He claims to be something of a connoisseur, and the picture is really worth seeing, if the lad has not spoiled it with his 'final touches'. And anyhow, the boy will be a study for a psychological monomaniac ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... hold your breath; and a sudden stroke of genius lit her face into a very heaven with its lightning. It seemed to me that in her I should find one who would truly sympathize with me, one who looked on the art not as a connoisseur, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the art of versifying, and music. Dilettanteism in the graphic and plastic arts of course followed, and the vast number of paintings and statues produced during the Renaissance inspired every cultivated woman in Italy with a desire to become a connoisseur. ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... only fit for shoemakers and blacksmiths. I never come into the place but I think of my journey in France, where they know the style and taste of a gentleman, and things are served to suit your choice." Thus our little friend continued his connoisseur remarks, to give the Captain a particular idea of his proficiency in the requisite qualities, age, and time of keeping necessary to make the adjuncts of a supper fit for a gentleman. "D—me! we don't know ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... accomplishment, and in no sense, except as mentioned, to be put in comparison with the other. He displayed to his visitors a large and most incongruous collection of these objects of art in a sort of grotto excavated in his garden, thus reversing, however, the more conspicuous procedure of his brother connoisseur, who exhibited his assemblage of rarities in his front yard. The Scottish Earl, certainly, had some literary pretensions, while the "lord" Timothy, who could neither read nor write with ordinary expertness, honored the Muses, ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... this pastime, a regular ring was formed, and a wrestling match began, which was carried on in as regular and fair a manner as a boxing match in our own country, and as much skill and cunning were displayed in the art of throwing as the greatest connoisseur would desire. I was pleased, also, to observe that, whatever happened (and some most severe throws and blows passed), nothing ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... If the connoisseur owes his insight to history alone, which embodies the ideas which give rise to art, for the young artist the history of art ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... playing, Tom looked at her. "That's capital music," he said, assuming the air of a connoisseur, then he added: "I s'pose ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... the Philosopher. "Meanwhile a little information might not come amiss. Sending all one's trousers to be pressed at once sounds to me serious. Is the lady a connoisseur in men's attire?" ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... Rev. Erasmus Teends himself, the minister of the parish, looking like a turkey-cock with a crumpled white neckcloth for wattles. He was known in the parish as Mess John, and was full of dignified discourse and excellent taste in the good cheer of the farmers. He was a judge of nowt [cattle], and a connoisseur of black puddings, which he considered to require some Isle of Man brandy to bring out ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... and the shape of her face one of Sir Joshua's angel's heads (if one could imagine them brunettes). She had large brown eyes and a long black plait, and was a graceful example of what was formerly called "the awkward age." It needed no connoisseur to see that she was going to be a very pretty woman. When she saw Savile, she rushed to the gate and let him ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... said Cerizet; the tale excited him, and he showed openly that he saw the matter as an artist and a connoisseur. ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the room with a low, stealthy tread, and looked me over in a cursory way and yet with the air of a connoisseur. ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... time you mean spending the hours pleasantly, I think we had better go and chat awhile with Mr. Halberg's pretty daughters," replied Henry; "I believe you consider yourself quite a connoisseur in beauty. Perhaps we shall both find our beau-ideal there to-night. Mary told me they were expecting a visit from a young friend who is skilled in captivating hearts, and Rosalie says she arrived this morning. Have you seen her, Rosalie?" continued ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... join me here for a few days after the exam., if you care to," Mr. Enwright had sent over. It was George's introduction to the Continent, and the circumstances of it were almost ideal. For a week the deeply experienced connoisseur of all the arts had had the fine, eager, responsive virgin mind hi his power. Day after day he had watched and guided it amid entirely new sensations. Never had Mr. Enwright enjoyed himself more purely, and at the close he ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... flattered by the compliments say of M. Tournonville, the well-known dealer on the Quai Voltaire, who would bow himself before the young Englishman with the admiring cry, "Mon Dieu! milord, que vous etes fin connoisseur!" while the dealer's assistant grinned among the ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... height, and the extreme elevation of the shrine may be about eight feet. Nor has Geisler's almost equally exquisite little engraving of the richly carved gothic font in this church, less claim upon the admiration of the connoisseur. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... their heart and not in their head To know half is less endurable than to know nothing When a friend refuses to share in joys Who do all they are able and enjoy as much as they can get Wide world between the purpose and the deed Years are the foe of beauty You must admire it, every connoisseur must Youth has a right to go astray ...
— Quotations From Georg Ebers • David Widger
... table where they would least likely be disturbed, and imperilled his reputation with the smiling waiter by ignoring the inevitable Chianti and calling for champagne. Cicely reproved him for his extravagance, but sipped her wine with the air of a connoisseur. ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... my friend, adding that Mr. X was an enlightened connoisseur of bronzes and china, and asking me ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... diffidence, he was frequently called out in conversations covering a variety of topics. His conversational powers, his inexhaustible fund of information, and his broad learning (for those times and considering his circumstances), made him the connoisseur of that section. At times he related, in modest terms, the difficulties he was constrained to encounter in order to acquire the knowledge of books he had, and the unsatisfied longings he still had for further knowledge. His fame as a mathematician was already established, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... them to probe recesses of flowers forbidden others, and they seem proud of the superiority. The varied-honey-eater visits flower after flower with something of method. The sun-bird flashes from raceme to raceme, sampling a dozen blooms, while his noisy rival sips with the air of a connoisseur at one. There is a spell in the nectar of the flame-tree as irresistibly attractive to taste of birds as the colour is to the sight of man. Although the tree bursts into bloom with truly tropical ardour, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... friend's admiration for the beautiful chestnut, his grandfather's birthday present. The ladies admired with earnestness that compensated for want of knowledge, the gentlemen with greater science and discrimination; indeed, Philip, as a connoisseur, could not but, for the sake of his own reputation, discover something to criticise. Guy's brows drew together again, and his eyes glanced as if he was much inclined to resent the remarks, as attacks at once on Deloraine and on his grandfather; but he said nothing, and presently ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... out almost before it landed. With all the deliberation of a connoisseur examining an old and rare edition, he turned the pages with his slim fingers. There, as he had said, was the paper, with the same red seals that I had admired the previous evening. He placed it slowly in his inside pocket, and tossed the book ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... impossible, and the day was to be fixed after reference to the Abbess. Meantime the King's eye was caught by the illuminated breviary. He was a connoisseur in such arts, and eagerly stood up to look at it as it lay on the desk. Eleanor could not but come and direct him to the pages with which she had been most delighted. She found him looking at Jacob's dream on the one side, the ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his feet, and comfortable shoes to ease him; such a hanging on his words and admiring of his labours. Then comes supper, with a bevy of guests, or themselves all alone in the westering sunlight, while he smacks connoisseur's lips over the roast crane and the blankmanger, and she nibbles her sweet wafers. Afterwards an hour of twilight, when she tells him how she has passed the day, and asks him what she shall do with the silly ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... adversary. Robert Ross's second point is rather controversial. Shaw agrees with me that Wilde never knew anything really of music or of painting and neither the history nor the so-called philosophy of art makes one a connoisseur ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... this required a particular point of view—it was quality, not quantity, wanted now; and, to be sure, he was a connoisseur. After much study by the Colonel, during which the world lost many thrilling tales, the one which survived ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... gathered: He was a man of great general accomplishment, well versed in the literature both of Greece and Rome, devoted to literature and the society of men of letters, a lover of the fine arts and of natural history, a connoisseur of gems and precious stones, fond of living in a grand style, and of surrounding himself with people who amused him, without being always very particular as to who or what they were. For the indulgence of all these tastes, his great wealth was more than sufficient. He reclaimed the Esquiline ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... heard of a connoisseur who was one day in an auction-room where there was an inimitable piece of painting of fruits and flowers. The connoisseur would not give his opinion of the picture till he had first examined the catalogue; and, finding it ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Rococo. As for Donatello himself, he was but slightly influenced by classical motives. His sojourn in Rome was short, his time fully occupied; he was forty-seven years old and had long passed the most impressionable years of his life. He was a noted connoisseur, and on more than one occasion his opinion on a question of classical art was eagerly sought. But, so far as his own art was concerned, classical influences count for little. His architectural ideas were only classical through a Renaissance medium. ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... loveliest of arts, Painting—embracing as it does the beautiful, the great, and the pathetic, whatever charms the eye and moves the heart—we are sensible of more than common pleasure, and become soothed into dreams and visions of our own, even by the gentle garrulity of a connoisseur. Is there any one who pretends to acquaintance with literature, however uninitiated he may be in the mysteries of the arts, who has not read the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and who has not wished, after reading them, to be enabled to say, "anche io son pittore?" When ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... simpered the connoisseur, and, reading, herself, added meditatively, "I should hate anyhow, for you to have that thing. The devil would be ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... as loyal to his code as is the Briton. He carried his bath-tub, his immaculate linen, his evening clothes, his war equipment—in which he had the pride of a connoisseur—wherever he went, and, what is more, he had the courage to use the evening clothes at times when their use was conspicuous. He was the only man who wore a dinner coat in Vera Cruz, and each night, at his particular table in the crowded "Portales," at the Hotel Diligencia, ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various
... when, taking an arm of each, she walked affectionately between them along the river bank promenade, to the great marveling and admiration of the Bar. It was said, however, that Mr. Jack Hamlin, a gambler, at that moment professionally visiting Wayne's Bar, and a great connoisseur of feminine charms and weaknesses, had glanced at them under his handsome lashes, and asked a single question, evidently so amusing to the younger members of the Bar that Madison Wayne knit his brow and Arthur ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... monuments there is attached by a similarity of taste, fashion, and attitude, a certain number of houses scattered about in different quarters and which the eyes of the connoisseur easily distinguishes and furnishes with a date. When one knows how to look, one finds the spirit of a century, and the physiognomy of a king, even in the knocker ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... with the rhythm of the waltz she no longer merely followed the music. She and it were one now. And Hanson, a connoisseur, familiar with the best, at least in his part of the world, recognized the artist whose technique is so perfect that it is absorbed, assimilated and forgotten; but its essence remains, nevertheless, a sure foundation upon which to build ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... am any judge of diamonds, these are valuable stones," said Mr. Mannering, "and the owner of them, who is a friend of mine, being himself a connoisseur in that line, would not be likely to entertain any false ideas ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... presence of the French introduced him to a new world into which he entered with boyish delight. With the insatiable curiosity which was his characteristic throughout life, he threw himself into the pleasures and avocations of the novel society. Thoranc was a connoisseur in art, and gave frequent commissions to the artists of the town; and Goethe, already interested in art through his father's collections, found his opportunity in these tastes of Thoranc, who was struck by the boy's precocity and even ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... wave. I tell you, they had to stand to their tackle: there was no idle men aboard that ship, God knows. It was upon the progress of a scene so horrible to any human-hearted man that my misguided uncle now pored and gloated like a connoisseur. As I turned to go down the hill, he was lying on his belly on the summit, with his hands stretched forth and clutching in the heather. He seemed rejuvenated, mind ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... matter-of-factness of demeanour which one usually does find in an expert. He was then busy at his task of seeing life in London. He seems to give about one-third of the year to the tasting of all the heterogeneous sensations which London can provide for the connoisseur and two-thirds to the exercise of his vocation in some withdrawn spot in Cornwall that nobody save a postman or so, and Mr. Walpole, has ever beheld. During one month it is impossible to 'go out' in London without meeting Mr. Walpole—and then for a long period he is a mere legend ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... American, singularly fond of the small elegances of life. Although he sat alone at dinner, the table was heaped with choice flowers and carefully selected hothouse fruit. His one glass of wine, the best of its sort, he sipped meditatively, and with the air of a connoisseur. The soft lights upon the table were such as a woman, mindful of her complexion, might have chosen. Behind his chair stood his English butler, grave, solemn-faced, attentive. The cigars and matches were already on his left-hand side, ready for the moment when he should have finished his wine. Outside ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... quick adaptation of a timely fact, acquired for the occasion, appear the rich overflowing of a copious erudition. He was a man who instantly perceived, and liberally acknowledged, the merits of others. No connoisseur had a more felicitous knowledge of the arts, or was more just in the general objects of his patronage. In short, what with all his advantages, he was one whom an aristocracy may boast of, though a people may forget; and if not a great ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... objection as frivolous. He occupied an easy chair opposite me; he was smoking one of my best cigars with every sign of active enjoyment; he sipped his glass of claret—he rarely touched anything stronger, he informed me—with the air of a connoisseur. ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... 1637-1703. This famous diarist was the son of a London tailor. He received a collegiate education, and became a connoisseur in literature and art. Of a prying disposition, he saw all that he could of the varied political, literary, and social life of England; and has recorded what he saw in a diary so quaint, simple, and amusing, that it has retained its popularity to the present day, and has greatly ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... his inward eagerness to test the character and attributes of the two human beings who had for the present constituted themselves as his guardians, made him tremble violently. And Mr. Bunce looked at him with the scrutinising air of a connoisseur in the ailments ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Barnes, somewhat of a connoisseur, was not slow to recognise the value and extreme rarity of the prints. Rembrandt, Whistler, Hayden, Merryon, Cameron, Muirhead Bone and Zorn were represented by their most notable creations; two startling subjects by Brangwyn hung alone in one corner of the room, isolated, ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... gusto, tact, finesse; nicety &c (discrimination) 465; to prepon [Gr.]; polish, elegance, grace. judgment, discernment &c 465. dilettantism, dilettanteism; virtu; fine art; culture, cultivation. [Science of taste] aesthetics. man of taste &c; connoisseur, judge, critic, conoscente, virtuoso, amateur, dilettante, Aristarchus^, Corinthian, arbiter elegantiarum [Lat.], stagirite^, euphemist. caviare to the general [Hamlet]. V. appreciate, judge, criticise, discriminate ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Bainton, with a connoisseur's due appreciation of a good old brand, sipped at his glass slowly, while Spruce, hastily swallowing his measure of the cordial, wiped his mouth furtively with the back of his hand, murmuring: "Your good 'elth, an' many ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... being determined, Mr. Cupples applied himself to the enjoyment of the view for a few minutes before ordering his meal. With a connoisseur's eye he explored the beauty of the rugged coast, where a great pierced rock rose from a glassy sea, and the ordered loveliness of the vast tilted levels of pasture and tillage and woodland ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... beginning to be a connoisseur in the fine flavours of the different brands of jealousy. Anyway there ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... completely trite and vapid, aping all the faults of Johnson's style, without any thing to atone for them. The sentences are often absolutely unmeaning; and one half of each might regularly be left blank. The World, and Connoisseur, which followed, are a little better; and in the last of these there is one good idea, that of a man in indifferent health, who judges of every one's title to respect from their possession of this blessing, and ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... however, teach him to game, swear, drink, nor any other genteel vice the town abounded with. He applied most of his leisure hours to music, in which he greatly improved himself; and became so perfect a connoisseur in that art, that he led the opinion of all the other footmen at an opera, and they never condemned or applauded a single song contrary to his approbation or dislike. He was a little too forward in riots at the play-houses and assemblies; and when he attended his lady ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... silver, I'm a connoisseur; I have goblets as big as wine-jars, a hundred of 'em more or less, with engraving that shows how Cassandra killed her sons, and the dead boys are lying so naturally that you'd think 'em alive. I own a thousand bowls which Mummius left to my patron, where Daedalus ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... murky gloom of Gothic vaults resulted in a poem so crude that even "Monk" Lewis, who was no connoisseur, would have declined it regretfully as a contribution to his Tales of Terror, but Fair Elenor is worthy of remembrance as an early indication of Walpole's influence, which was to become so potent on the ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... there was little to betray the connoisseur of fine arts and antiques in the person of Jacob Paul, who possessed the brisk, businesslike manner and steel-blue eyes ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... Kate Kildare approaching down the long stairway with the appreciation of a connoisseur. Beside her moved a slender sprite of a girl, whose hair gleamed like spun gold above a dress of apple-green. But his glance for her was merely cursory, and returned at once to the older woman. Of this Jemima ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... especially selected for the occasion from his own private stock. It was a Tokay Imperial of 1863, the genuine Essenz, from Prince Esterhazy's own wine cellar, and the best brain stimulant and brain clearer in the world, as every connoisseur knows. ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... consists in the beauty of its colouring rather than in its figuring. This ceramic ware, as my readers probably know, differs greatly in appearance, quality, and, I may add, in price according to the particular part of the country in which it is produced. It is not necessary to be an art connoisseur to grasp the fact that, say, the famous Satsuma ware is distinct in almost every respect from that of Imari, Kaga, Ise, Raku, Kyoto, &c. All these different wares have charms peculiar to each. It is really marvellous to think that a country with such a comparatively ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... the garret, and truly with the eye of a connoisseur, and said, although he had yet received no ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... accompanied by a guarantee from the publisher that the author had been dead at least a hundred years. Poetry, like wine, certain brands of cheese, and public buildings, was rightly considered to improve with age; and no connoisseur could have dreamed of filling himself with raw, indigestible ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Connoisseur, Collector. By BYRON WEBBER. Illustrated with nearly 100 Photogravure Plates and a number of Drawings in half-tone. Two Vols., small folio, buckram gilt, 10 ...
— Chatto & Windus Alphabetical Catalogue of Books in Fiction and General Literature, Sept. 1905 • Various
... connoisseur in human nature, noted the significances of the Veiga glance, but he suspected that there might also be something histrionic in it. Dr. Veiga examined heart, pulse, tongue. He tapped the torso. He asked many questions. Then he took an instrument ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... the eye of a connoisseur, and turning one over with his stick shook his head disparagingly. For some time he amused himself by walking up and down the garden inspecting the roses, and then, lighting a cigarette, threw himself at full length on ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... Caecilius for Plautus and Terence; and, if nevertheless the critics of the true literary age of Rome—the Varronian and Augustan epoch—assigned to Caecilius the first place among the Roman editors of Greek comedies, this verdict appears due to the mediocrity of the connoisseur gladly preferring a kindred spirit of mediocrity in the poet to any special features of excellence. These art-critics probably took Caecilius under their wing, simply because he was more regular than ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Aragon, Upon that Female Paragon So gazed the Prophet's Cam-u-el, that primal Desert Ship. A connoisseur meticulous, He found her that ridiculous He grinned from ear to auricle ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... worst form of American greenness appears abroad in a desire to be perfectly up in critical appreciation of the arts, and to approach the great works in the spirit of the connoisseur. The ambition is not altogether a bad one. Still I could not help laughing at a fellow-countryman when he told me that he had not yet seen Raphael's "Transfiguration," because he wished to prepare his mind for understanding the original ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... and contumely gave to her perfect symmetry of person, a timid eye, a retiring manner, and spread upon her face a placid sweetness, a pale serenity indicating sense, which no wise connoisseur in female charms would have exchanged for all the sparkling eyes and florid tints of her vain and vulgar sisters. Henry's soul was so enamoured of her gentle deportment, that in his sight she appeared beautiful; while she, with an understanding competent to judge of his worth, ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... critic and divine, was Rector of Harrietsham and Woodchurch, a Prebendary of Winchester and of Salisbury. He was Bampton Lecturer in 1802, and, soon afterwards, was appointed sub-preceptor to the Princess Charlotte of Wales. He was a connoisseur of architecture and painting, and passed much of his time in Italy and at Rome. When he was at Pisa he preached in a private room in the basement story of the house in Pisa where Shelley was living, and fell under Byron's displeasure ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... said Mr. Medderbrook bitterly, "is Schreckenheim, the greatest tattoo artist in the world. He is the king of them all. A connoisseur in tattooish art can tell a Schreckenheim as easily as a picture-dealer can tell a Corot. But no matter! Mr. Gubb, you are a detective and I believe what is told detectives is held inviolable. Yes. You—and all Riverbank—see in me an ordinary ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... knob of his stick slowly in his thick, white fingers. He looked carefully at Lady Newhaven, as a connoisseur with intent to buy looks at a piece of valuable china. She was accustomed to being looked at, but there was something in Captain Pratt's prolonged scrutiny which filled her with vague alarm. She writhed under it. He observed her uneasiness, ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... book for one franc twenty-five centimes, Monsieur," replied Coccoz, whose face at once beamed with joy. "It is historical; and you will be pleased with it. I know now just what suits you. I see that you are a connoisseur. To-morrow I will bring you the Crimes des Papes. It is a good book. I will bring you the edition d'amateur, with ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... welfare and as some assuagement to this regret he sought to dispose of them as profitably as possible. With this end in view, he made an appointment for a private audience after hours with Mr. Sidney Kuppenheimer, who conducted a large loan bank on Madison Street and was reputed a connoisseur and admirer of all ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... be a tough business," observed the sorcerer, surveying the bell with the eye of a connoisseur. "It will ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... residence partly in Berlin and partly in Dresden, he returned to Italy, living at Venice and then at Pisa, where he died on the 3rd of May 1764. Frederick the Great erected to his memory a monument on the Campo Santo at Pisa. He was a man of wide knowledge, a connoisseur in art and music, and the friend of most of the leading authors of his time. His chief work on art is the Saggi sopra le belle arti ("Essays on the Fine Arts''). Among his other works may be mentioned Poems, Travels in Russia, Essay on ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... gives him wondrous joy to see them in their wrong places. How absurd, then, for the average critic to be play-taster to the occasional playgoer! He no more represents him than an M. P. represents the baby he kisses. As well might one ask a connoisseur to choose the claret for a back-parlour supper-party. Thus the critic cannot honestly represent the Public. That he cannot represent Art without injuring the Theatre as well as the Public, has already been shown. The conclusion one is driven to is that the critic has no raison d'etre ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... was outside on a feeble-looking sofa. As Cora predicted, he evidently was honored with the trio of cars that pulled up to the narrow sidewalk. Tillie, with the air of a connoisseur, stepped into the shop before the little man with the ragged whiskers had time ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... the mouth of a lion whose head was one of my chief treasures; he tilted against a dragon candlestick like a young St. George; he burnt his budding whiskers in an attempt to discover the source of the flame in the wick of the candle. He became, too, a great connoisseur of vases, ornaments, and pictures, sitting before them and examining them for an hour at a time. He was also very much given to voyages of discovery, dark continents having a peculiar fascination for him. Even ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... connoisseurs could sell them," Julia objected. "If I were a connoisseur and bought one when they were for sale, I could sell it ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... Omega Club, who seemed to be fairly steady on his legs and was presently absorbed in an artistic examination of a number of silver ornaments, crucifixes, relics and suchlike objects of virtu, which the Duchess had gathered together. He handled them like a connoisseur. Others of that institution had promised to attend the party but, on being overhauled by the conscientious Vice-President, were found to be ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Horace Walpole (1717-1797), a prolific writer, connoisseur, and collector, best known for his extensive correspondence; he established a taste for literary collecting by would-be cultured gentlemen ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... social system which, again, is but an animalcule in the blood of Time. Still more infinitesimal seems the man who is a subdivision, not of a form of work even, but merely of a form of taste; the man who collects foreign stamps, say, or book-plates, or arrow-heads, the connoisseur of a tiny section of one of the lesser schools of Italian painting, the coral-insect who has devoted his life to a participle, first-edition men, and all those various bookworms who, without impropriety be it spoken, are the maggots ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... of ornaments included for a while antique curiosities, cut stones, and medals. M. Denon flattered this whim, and ended by persuading the good Josephine that she was a perfect connoisseur in antiques, and that she should have at Malmaison a cabinet, a keeper for it, etc. This proposition, which flattered the self-love of the Empress, was favorably received; the room was selected, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Occasionally, to the inconvenience of his wife, he would bring in unexpected guests of diverse gifts, any one whom he might happen to meet—amateurs, fellow-artists, singers, poets. An idle hanger-on whose only merit lay in his companionable mood or in his jests, was as welcome as a gifted connoisseur or a distinguished musician. But the greater part of his recreation Mozart sought away from home. He was to be found almost every afternoon at billiards in the Kaffeehaus, and many an evening at the inn. He enjoyed both driving and riding, frequented balls and masquerades—a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... British painter and art connoisseur, the third son of Samuel Burton of Mungret, Co. Limerick, was born in Ireland in 1816. He was educated in Dublin, where his artistic studies were carried on with marked success under the direction of Mr Brocas, an able teacher, who foretold for the lad a distinguished ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... you think of the Norman Duke, provided you have ever heard Niemeyer or Jahnke speak of him. Our Rollo has somewhat the same character. But he is only a Newfoundland dog, a most beautiful animal, that loves me and will love you, too. For Rollo is a connoisseur. So long as you have him about you, you are safe, and nothing can get at you, neither a live man nor a dead one. But just see the moon ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... the silken folds of the clinging gown, redolent with the bizarre artistry of a Parisian atelier, was the shapely suggestion of exquisite physical perfection which did not escape the connoisseur glance of Holloway. ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... tea-pot, which fumed strongly of catnip-tea, a little of which gracious beverage Miss Roxy was preparing in an old-fashioned cracked India china tea-cup, tasting it as she did so with the air of a connoisseur. ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... James Gray at Naples. Hamilton is a friend of mine, is son of Lady Archibald, and was aide-de-camp to Mr. Conway. He is picture-mad, and will ruin himself in virtu-land. His wife is as musical as he is connoisseur, but she is ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... same time extracted a business card from the tail pocket of his coat. This he delivered to me with a smile which seemed to invite me to participate in a great and serious secret: the secret of irreproachable standing as an art expert and connoisseur. I confess to a mistaken impression concerning him up to the moment he handed me his clumsy business card. My suspicions had set him down as a confederate of Count Tarnowsy, a spy, a secret agent or whatever you choose to consider ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... preceding vendange; this was done in April or in May, when the vintage was received at headquarters. Ropiness was cured by repeated rackings and by brandying, eight gallons per pipe being the normal ratio. That distinguished connoisseur found in an old malmsey of 1859 all the aroma and lusciousness of a good liqueur; the 'London particular' of 1865 tasted remarkably soft, with a superior nose; an 1871-72, made for the Russian market, had an oily richness with ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... long galleries, spacious chambers, join'd By no quite lawful marriage of the arts, Might shock a connoisseur; but when combined, Form'd a whole which, irregular in parts, Yet left a grand impression on the mind, At least of those whose eyes are in their hearts: We gaze upon a giant for his stature, Nor judge at first if all be true ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... which reigned among them. On the fourth day, Swift entered the room where the company were assembled before dinner, and addressed Mr. Mathew, in a strain of the highest compliment, expatiating on all the beauties of his improvements, with all the skill of an artist, and with the taste of a connoisseur. Such an address for a man of Swift's character, could not fail of being pleasing to the owner, who was, at the same time, the planner of these improvements; and so fine an eulogium from one, who was supposed to deal ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... the very same week that he parted from his English friends, Mozart himself set out upon a journey to Prague, whither he had been very cordially invited by a distinguished nobleman and connoisseur, Count John Joseph Thun, who maintained in his service an excellent private band. This was the first professional expedition of any consequence in which he had engaged since his settlement in Vienna; it was prosecuted under the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Ahmed with all the best treasures in her jewel-box; beauty of face and form, strength and grace, charm of voice and presence—everything needed to ensnare and delight the senses, and he was accustomed to be loved, passionately adored, and worshipped. He was naturally a connoisseur in such matters, and knew well and easily the truth or dissembling in them. But here there was neither: the girl shrank from him instinctively, and seemed possessed by nothing but dumb, helpless fear that was distressing to him. Yet not all ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross |
