"Sumptuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... relics, sad and vain, Of those invincible men Who held the region then. Funereal memories alone remain Where forms of high example walked of yore. Here lay the forum, there arose the fane— The eye beholds their places, and no more. Their proud gymnasium and their sumptuous baths Resolved to dust and cinders, strew the paths; Their towers, that looked defiance at the sky, Fallen by their own vast weight, in ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... comforted withal, I followed the solemn butler, who received me with the deference due to an expected guest and expressed the master's regret for his enforced absence till dinner time. I traversed vast rooms, each more sumptuous than the last, feeling the strangeness of the contrast between the outer desolation and this sybaritic excess of luxury growing ever more strongly upon me; caught a glimpse of a picture gallery, where peculiar yet admirably executed latter-day French pictures ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... unloosed our dog (and he mighty rejoiced to see us) whereafter, by Atlamatzin's command, we were lodged in a chamber very sumptuous and with servants observant to our every want; for our meals were dishes a-plenty, savoury and excellent well cooked and seasoned, and for our drink was milk, or water cunningly flavoured with fruits, as good as any wine, to my thinking. And cups and platters, nay, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... dining-room and kitchen—which the Lanes had attempted to furnish for the winter, so the rugs and chairs, tables and couch, of the little flat had been all that was necessary to make it habitable and pleasant. A brisk fire burned on the wide hearth, of itself a furnishing without which many a sumptuous room may seem cheerless and in-hospitable. The walls were covered with a quaint old paper of white, with gold stripes about which green ivy leaves wound conventionally. This might have given the room a cold aspect, but Sally had hung curtains of Turkey-red print ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... Christian warriors noted these things without dismay; their hearts rather glowed with emulation at the thoughts of encountering so worthy a foe. As they slowly pranced through the streets of Granada they looked round with eagerness on the stately palaces and sumptuous mosques, on its alcayceria or bazar, crowded with silks and cloth of silver and gold, with jewels and precious stones, and other rich merchandise, the luxuries of every clime; and they longed for the time when all this wealth should be the spoil of the soldiers of the faith, and when ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... perfectly true that in the same Desert is a wonderful city where all the rich money lenders retreat after they have made their fortunes (fortunes so vast that the owners cannot trust even the strong hand of the Government to protect them, but take refuge in the waterless sands), and drive sumptuous C-spring barouches, and buy beautiful girls and decorate their palaces with gold and ivory and Minton tiles and mother-of-pearl, I do not see why Jukes's tale should not be true. He is a Civil Engineer, with a head for plans and distances and things of that kind, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... prettiest house-gown to do honor to the occasion. Up-stairs, however, one thing and another delayed her, so that it was four o'clock when she turned her attention to her toilet; and it was while she was hesitating whether to be stately and impressive in royally sumptuous blue velvet and ermine, or cozy and tantalizingly homy{sic} in bronze-gold crepe de Chine and swan's-down, that ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... you must come from the north, you are so frank and honest, so sturdy and appetizing. You are stocky and homely like the northern races. Your quality is Saxon. Surely the fiery and impetuous south is not akin to you. Not spices or olives or the sumptuous liquid fruits, but the grass, the snow, the grains, the coolness is akin to you. I think if I could subsist on you or the like of you, I should never have an intemperate or ignoble thought, never be feverish ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... Character dagger]), meaning that trains stop there only to let off passengers or, when properly signaled, to let them on. Mary Louise, during the journey, had noted this fact with misgivings that were by no means relieved when she stepped from the sumptuous train and found before her merely a shed-like structure, open on all sides, that ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... sealed, or you should hear them tell The tale of their dim life and all Its compost of experience: how the Sun Spreads them their daily feast, Sumptuous, of light, firing them as with wine; Of the old Moon's fitful solicitude And those mild messages the Stars Descend in silver silences and dews; Or what the buxom West, Wanton with wading in the ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... to cause the luggage of the guest to be whisked off to the most sumptuous room in the hotel. Seven cities of Greece disputed with one another the honor of having been the birthplace of Homer; more than seven waiters disputed with one another the honor of carrying Adrian Baker's valise. He was like ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... high-heel'd Shoes with a glased Wax-leather Instep. Two Days after a severe Fit I was invited to a Friend's House in the City, where I believed I should see Ladies; and with my usual Complaisance crippled my self to wait upon them: A very sumptuous Table, agreeable Company, and kind Reception, were but so many importunate Additions to the Torment I was in. A Gentleman of the Family observed my Condition; and soon after the Queen's Health, he, in the Presence of the whole Company, with his own Hand degraded me into an old Pair of his ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... of all this vigilance, however, at last she appeared without her silver wand; and soon after they saw her sink down on a couch of rose-leaves she had prepared for herself in a sumptuous apartment, where, had it not been for her hideous countenance, where all the malignant passions were portrayed, she would have looked like a sovereign resting on her bed of state. The Prince was eager instantly to set off to look ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... back upon the young girl and trailing the heavy, sumptuous folds of her dressing-gown along the carefully-washed pine-wood floor, she disappeared through the door, which was respectfully closed after her by the head lady's maid. The countess, an accomplished house-mistress, ...
— The Little Russian Servant • Henri Greville
... appearance. The richest hangings and the thickest carpets, glistening flagstones, and pictures, with their richly gilded frames; in every direction could be seen candelabra, mirrors, and furniture and fittings of the most sumptuous character; in every direction, also, were guards of the proudest military bearing, with floating plumes, crowds of attendants and courtiers in the ante-chambers and upon the staircases. In the courtyards, where the grass had formerly been allowed to luxuriate, as if the ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... once waked multitudes to war Thundering thro' all their aisles: but now respond To the death dirge of the melancholy wind: It were a sight of awfulness to see The works of faith and slavery, so vast, 505 So sumptuous, yet withal so perishing! Even as the corpse that rests beneath their wall. A thousand mourners deck the pomp of death To-day, the breathing marble glows above To decorate its memory, and tongues 510 Are busy of its life: to-morrow, worms ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... house do not seem to have been very sumptuous, after all, for a royal guest; but royal dwellings in Scotland, in those days, were not what they are now in Westminster and ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Turkey-red draperies. She bought a cheap cushion at one of Liberty's sales, and some bits of twopenny-halfpenny art china for her narrow mantelpiece. A lacquered tea-tray and a tea-set of a single cup and saucer, a plate and a teapot, made her feel herself almost sumptuous. After a day spent in trudging about in the wet or cold of the streets, doing other people's shopping, or searching for dressmakers or servants' characters for her patrons, she used to think of her bed-sitting-room with joyful anticipation. Mrs. Cupp always ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... season; he draws five guineas for a win, and three for the mount, and he picks up an infinite number of unconsidered trifles in the way of presents, since the turfite, bad or good, is invariably a cheerful giver. The popular jockey soon has his carriages, his horses, his valet, and his sumptuous house; noblemen, millionaires, great dames, and men and women of all degrees conspire to pamper him: for jockey-worship, when it is once started, increases in intensity by a sort of geometrical progression. A shrewd man of the world may smile ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... respect for the Church, and on an occasion like this could do no less than honor one of its dignitaries by requesting him to ask a blessing on the sumptuous repast he had provided—on the rich food and the good wine and brandy he was about dispensing with such a liberal hand. So, in the waiting pause that ensued after the room was well filled, Mr. Elliott was called ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... economy, carried them in their hand. This costume, soiled by long usage, blackened with sweat and dust, and less original than that of the other men, had the historic merit of serving as a transition between the goatskins and the brilliant, almost sumptuous, dress of a few individuals dispersed here and there among the groups, where they shone like flowers. In fact, the blue linen trousers of these last, and their red or yellow waistcoats, adorned with two parallel ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... heart within thee melt with joy: And there in full assembly let him swear A solemn oath, that he hath ne'er approach'd The fair Briseis' bed, nor held with her Such intercourse as man with woman holds. Be thou propitious, and accept his oath. Then at a sumptuous banquet in his tent Let him receive thee; that thine honour due May nothing lack; and so, Atrides, thou Shalt stand in sight of all men clear of blame; For none can wonder that insulting speech Should rouse the anger ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... the catalogue of her charity, if he wanted it. I have casually seen, I believe, fifty tokens of her benevolence, sealed and directed to the several poor subjects of her bounty, whose distance prevented them from being personally known to her. Thus, though she kept no sumptuous table in her own court, she spread the tables of the poor in their solitary cells; breaking bread to virtuous pilgrims, according to their wants and ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... active, nimble-footed marmitons. As the hour of three approaches, numbers of these emissaries are seen gliding swiftly along the roads; and I never yet encountered one without comparing him to the slave who appeared at the bidding of the Genius of the Lamp, and bore a sumptuous banquet to the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... descriptions. Bits of artificial flowers are strewn about the carpet, a shawl is seen thrown over one chair, a mantle over another; the light is half shut off-everything bears evidence of the gaieties of luxurious life, the sumptuous revel and the debauch. The gilded mirrors reflect but two faces, both hectic and moody of dissipation. George Mullholland and Mr. Snivel face each other, at a pier-table. Before them are several half filled bottles, from one of which ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Wenceslaus proved his gratitude right royally. He began by breaking up the lady's bathing establishment as a preliminary to building a new and much more sumptuous one. Susanna's father seems to have been left out of the deal altogether by this time. The King then sent for Susanna, who appears to have been close at hand, namely, in the Royal Castle of [vZ]ebrac, where the solemn rite now to be related took place. After all, if you must break up a lady's ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... city drawing-room of these sumptuous contemporary days could stow away in a corner the entire structure which then became our habitation, and retain space enough outside it for the exploitation of social functions. Nevertheless, by the simple expedient ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... your rights, And no more to be fooled with rhetorical flights; Such as of late each envoy tries On the behalf of your allies, That come to plead their cause before ye, With fulsome phrase, and a foolish story Of "violet crowns" and "Athenian glory," With "sumptuous Athens" at every word: "Sumptuous Athens" is always heard; "Sumptuous" ever, a suitable phrase For a dish of meat or a beast at graze. He therefore affirms In confident terms, That his active courage and earnest zeal Have usefully served your common weal: He has openly shown The style ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... mankind has gradually given to him the superiority and pre-eminence over those eccentric missionaries whose wonders for the moment dazzled, but whose special work has long ago passed away. A foreign ambassador (says Fuller) visited the high sumptuous shrine of St. Cuthbert: 'If thou be a saint, pray for us;' then turning to the plain, lowly, little tomb of Bede, he said, 'Because thou art a saint, ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... crossed to the main part of the two-storied building. "Ai-ya;" she ejaculated, clapping her hands and laughing. "I never expected anything of the sort; we merely said that we ladies were coming for a leisurely stroll and people imagined that we were spreading a sumptuous altar with lenten viands and came to bring us offerings! But it's all our old lady's fault for bruiting it about! Why, we haven't even got any slips of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the car. "Now, I couldn't think it proper for me to shoot up this sumptuous palace on wheels. And wouldn't some casual passenger be likely to get his lights put out when the band began to play? Would you want that Boston church to be shy a ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... the CAPTAIN COOK, and, making friendly demonstrations, were invited on board. Food was given them, and to the leader the captain presented a blue shirt. No dweller of the Island had ever before possessed such a sumptuous and glorious garment. Indeed, if the absolute truth must be told, no dweller had dreamt of anything more desirable than an inadequate cloak laboriously wrought from the inner bark of a fig-tree, raiment sanctioned by the first ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... vol. x. p. 472." Next is the estate of Edridge, among the lords of which were Godwin, Earl of Kent and the Earl of Montaigne and Cornwall: Mayfield, was possessed by the see of Canterbury before the Norman conquest, and at its palace Sir Thomas Gresham lived in sumptuous style, and probably entertained Queen Elizabeth in one of her progresses; among the curiosities here the anvil, hammer, and tongs, which are traditionally said to have belonged to the noted St. Dunstan, "and, who is also said to have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... horses, and rode rapidly back to Belair. The banquet was a sumptuous affair, and lasted, intermingled with dancing and singing, until midnight. The old people did not leave the table for fourteen hours. The grave-digger did the cooking, and did it very well. He was renowned for that, and he left his ovens to come and dance and sing between every two ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... I had the opportunity, even if I had the courage, to look Dorothy in the face. When the moment came she was flushed with dancing and looked beautiful. Ordinarily she was a little pale, but not even Gilbertine, with her sumptuous colouring, showed a warmer cheek than she, as, resting from the waltz, she leaned against the rose-tinted wall, and let her eyes for the first time rise slowly to where I stood talking ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... thought for him as any lover for his mistress; giving him his arm, telling him where to put his foot down so as to avoid the mud, warming the bed for him, lighting a fire in his room, making his supper ready. The next day, after he had done his best to fluster his son's wits over a sumptuous dinner, Jerome-Nicolas Sechard, after copious potations, began with a "Now for business," a remark so singularly misplaced between two hiccoughs, that David begged his parent to postpone serious matters until ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... which, by his own confession, was the only one to which his memory clung in sympathy or endearment. At his feet lay an open basket, in which I detected the remains of what must have been a rather sumptuous cold repast. To all appearance he had foregone none of his ancient customs; only those customs had taken on elegance with his rise in fortune. The carriage and the horses, and most of all, the imperturbable driver, seemed to awaken ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... the Crescent, the Infidel Turk, to whom she had come in the power of the very same Message for which she had suffered in Christian countries, was receiving her with kindness and respect, offering to clothe her body in sumptuous apparel, instead of with ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... two fine sheep for one rupee ten annas, or 3S. 3D., and one of them formed a sumptuous repast for the coolies and retainers, who held a most convivial banquet round their camp-fires in the evening. The primitive inhabitants seemed quite unaccustomed to the sight of strangers, and we found on this account, better and more plentiful supplies procurable, while the assembling ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... of those momentous occasions when the lord of the fee welcomed his retainers to his own board, and extended equal favor and protection to the highest and the lowest. Humbert's animation increased as the sumptuous meal progressed, while his naturally brilliant qualities, and a remarkable fund of wit and anecdote, so fascinated the baron that he was wholly absorbed in the charming Ailred. Gilbert sat silent and watchful, ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... him to become his own executioner, on an appointed day and hour, on penalty of being subjected to the most exquisite tortures, if he survive the appointed time. On receiving this mandate, the delinquent invites all his friends and near relations to a sumptuous feast on the set day. When the feast is over, he shows them the letter from the emperor, and, while they are reading it, he stabs himself with a dagger below the navel, and cuts open his belly to the breast ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... the stone, and iron, and marble, so great a height, must have been prodigious? 'Caw!' says the raven, welcoming the peasants. How, being despoiled by plunder, fire and earthquake, has it risen from its ruins, and been again made what we now see it, with its church so sumptuous and magnificent? 'Caw!' says the raven, welcoming the peasants. These people have a miserable appearance, and (as usual) are densely ignorant, and all beg, while the monks are chaunting in the chapel. 'Caw!' ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... forms a pleasing picture in the book of mediaeval history. He was essentially a gentleman by birth, scorning to take pay for his songs, and often distributing the gifts he received among his servants. He had to maintain a large retinue, and give sumptuous entertainments, with the result that he often used up his entire patrimony. The usual course in such cases was a trip to Palestine with the Crusaders, and a gallant death in battle with the infidel. But before reaching that end, his career must have been decidedly ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... it. It used to amuse me, however, to watch a robber gull, perched on their back, cleverly and neatly intercepting the fish as it ascended. These fish, with broiled turtle meat and tinned fruits, made quite a sumptuous repast. ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... serve the purpose of a last resting place, but where humble wooden crosses stand in rows, sheltered by old birches. How peacefully our dead repose under the rich green grass! None of them ever saw these gigantic palms, sumptuous palaces and pagodas covered with gold. But on their poor graves grow violets and lilies of the valley, and in the spring evenings nightingales sing to them in ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... sumptuous Tuck-in of most scrumptious, And dainty mag-pie! [15] Will ye jes' come ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... noticing for the last three or four days. Dined the day before yesterday with the Duc de Poix, and went to Hope's ball; his house is a sumptuous palace in miniature, all furnished and decorated with inconceivable luxury and recherche; one room hung with cachemires. Last night to a small ball at Court. Supper in the gallery de Diane—round tables, all the ladies supping first; the whole ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... not yet organized property. So this is what happens: Any duke—and even in the time of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. there were some left who had two hundred thousand francs a year, a magnificent residence, and a sumptuous train of servants—well, such a duke could live like a great lord. The last of these great gentlemen in France was the Prince de Talleyrand.—This duke leaves four children, two of them girls. Granting that he has great luck in marrying them all well, ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... "Pasted him so hard that he thought it was night an' went to sleep. Then Yuma busted in an' thought to work his guns. He got his'n, too. That there tenderfoot didn't have no respect for guns. Red says he never thought any man could hit so hard. It must have been sumptuous!" He laughed delightedly. "I'd like to shake hands with that ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... distinguished guests, or upon special occasions, instead of dinners, and may then be very stylish affairs. Flowers should be artistically arranged, both for the adornment of the parlor and dining-room and the table more sumptuous, though always dainty; broiled delicacies, such as do not require carving, take the place of joints, and too rich dishes, with salads, oysters, croquettes and ices; bouillon is very generally served at large or small lunches, as is ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... had arrived before her. Thomas Jefferson, the black stable-man, reported him as partaking of a sumptuous supper with unimpaired relish. The thought of her favorite, crunching his feed in the stall close at hand, gave her a sense of companionship as she ate her own solitary meal. Her father had been called in consultation to a neighboring ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... with a high vaulted roof and decently furnished. Below and around him in the courtyard were the scenes of the Advocate's life-long and triumphant public services. There in the opposite building were the windows of the beautiful "Hall of Truce," with its sumptuous carvings and gildings, its sculptures and portraits, where he had negotiated with the representatives of all the great powers of Christendom the famous Treaty which had suspended the war of forty years, and where he was wont almost daily to give audience ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... iourney into Siria, the places renewed in his remembrance the long intermitted loue of Cleopatra Queene of Aegipt: who before time had both in Cilicia and at Alexandria, entertained him with all the exquisite delightes and sumptuous pleasures, which a great Prince and voluptuous Louer could to the vttermost desire. Whereupon omitting his enterprice, he made his returne to Alexandria, againe falling to his former loues, without any regard of his vertuous wife Octauia, ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... usually all the weaving is done by the men, and with jollity and many a story the task is soon finished. The spun cotton is handed over to the bridegroom as a contribution from the village, to be paid for like everything else Hopi, by a sumptuous feast, which has been prepared by the women for the spinners. Perhaps ten sage-brush-fed sheep and goats, tough beyond reason, are being softened in a stew, consisting mainly of corn; stacks of paper bread have been baked, various other dishes have been concocted, ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... left alone the Count examined his surroundings. His simple chamber seemed to him sumptuous. He smelt the flowers on the mantelpiece, half suspecting that they were an attention of the young girls. The wreath suspended from the ceiling made him smile. It had been hung there in his honour, there could be no ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... bay—for which a thousand francs over and above its value was paid by M. Godefroy as a result of a sumptuous snail supper given to that gentleman's coachman by the horse-dealer—thanks to the expensive brown bay which certainly went well, the financier was able to get through his many engagements satisfactorily. He appeared ...
— The Lost Child - 1894 • Francois Edouard Joachim Coppee
... been "toujours trottant, traversant, et vagabondant le monde" (always trotting, traversing, and tramping the world). Not in the habit of a vagabond, however, for the balls, banquets, tournaments, masques, ballets, and wedding-feasts which he describes so vividly were occasions for the display of sumptuous costumes; and Messire Pierre de Bourdeille doubtless appeared as elegant as any other gallant in silken hose, jeweled doublet, flowing cape, and long rapier. What we value most are his paintings of these festive scenes, and the vivid portraits ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... feature about the New Mexican fandango; it was that all classes, rich and poor alike, met and intermingled, as did the Romans at their Saturnalia, upon terms of equality. Sumptuous repasts or collations were rarely ever prepared for those frolicsome gatherings, but there was always an abundance of confectionery, sweetmeats, and native wine. It cost very little for a man to attend one ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... sleights, whereby they lay in wait to deceive, they quite got him in, and set him up, and made him a great one, even the chief, before they were aware. Further, He quickly got him a beast to ride on, far, for sumptuous glory, beyond (though as to nature, as assish a creature as) that on which Baalam was wont to ride: And by this exaltation he became not only more stately, but the horns of the beast would push ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... country as a marriage dower upon her lover, exerted all her power to kindle the enthusiasm and assist the project of the citizens. Her hospitality was unbounded. She threw open her palace to the people; lavished her wealth among them in sumptuous entertainments and exhibitions, and caused the vetchooi kolokol ("assembling-bell"), which summoned the popular meetings to the market-place, to be rung as the signal of these orgies of licentiousness. The great bell in Novgorod was the type of the republican independence ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... Lady Sandwich (749) has got a son; if one may believe the belly she wore, it is a brave one. Lord Holderness(750) has lately given a magnificent repast to fifteen persons; there were three courses of ten, fifteen, and fifteen, and a sumptuous dessert: a great saloon illuminated, odours, and violins-and, who do you think were the invited?-the Visconti, Giuletta, the Galli, Amorevoli, Monticelli, Vanneschi and his wife, Weedemans the hautboy, the prompter, etc. The bouquet ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... enough in them to have a specific utterance. There might seem to be something almost physical in the sensation, as it can be excited by tickling, or the inhalation of gas. Similar results may be produced by other bodily causes. Homer speaks of the chiefs laughing after a sumptuous banquet, and of a man "laughing sweetly" when drunk. Bacon's term titillatio, would seem very appropriate in such cases. There was an idea, in olden times, that laughter emanated from a particular part of the body. Tasso, in "Jerusalem Delivered," describing the death of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... hanging around him, their dresses in curious contrast to his severe garment of camel's hair, their nervous dread in as great contrast to his incisive and searching eloquence. Here were the people clothed in soft raiment, and accustomed to sumptuous fare, bending as reeds before the gusts of wind sweeping fiercely across ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... they displayed themselves "drawn in carriages with six horses, surrounded by guards; sitting at sumptuous tables with thirty covers, eating to the sound of music, with a following of players, courtezans, and mercenaries. . . .'' At Lyons "the solemn appearance of Collot d'Herbois is like that of the Grand Turk. No one can come into his presence without three repeated requests; a string of apartments ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... thus created almost every public building in the town was requisitioned for hospital purposes; schools and clubs and colleges, the nunnery, the lunatic asylum, and even the stately Parliament Hall with its marble entrance and sumptuous fittings. The presidential chair, behind the presidential desk, still retained its original place on the presidential platform; but,—"how are the mighty fallen!" I saw it occupied by an obscure hospital orderly who was busy filling up a still ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... in the midst of a civilization with which they are in perfect accord. Up the avenue, beyond, streamed an incessant parade of more costly ears, more carriages, shining, caparisoned horses, every outfit sumptuous to its last detail, every one different from all the others, and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, till in the distance they dwindled to a black stream dominated by the upward sweep of the Arc de Triomphe, magnified to fabulous proportions by the filmy haze of the spring day. ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... bracing, sub-acid, active fruit! I think you must come from the north, you are so frank and honest, so sturdy and appetizing. You are stocky and homely like the northern races. Your quality is Saxon. Surely the fiery and impetuous south is not akin to you. Not spices or olives, or the sumptuous liquid fruits, but the grass, the snow, the grains, the coolness, is akin to you. I think if I could subsist on you, or the like of you, I should never have an intemperate or ignoble thought, never be feverish or despondent. So far as I could absorb or transmute your quality, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... which was sumptuous, Agathe returned to Paris the happiest of mothers, and told Joseph and Desroches what she called ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... bone lace and spangells of goulde and silver, standing in cups knitt all over with goulde, silver, and crymson silk. [Probably on the centre and four corners of the bedstead. Four bears and ragged staves occupied a similar position on another of these sumptuous pieces of furniture.] ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... of a very Small Number of Parliamentary Judges, (when Law-Suits and Litigiousness increased) swarm'd this incredible Multitude of Judges, and Spawn of Counsellors. And, in the first Place, a great, sumptuous and magnificent Palace was built (as we told you before) either by the Command of Lewis Hutin, or of Philip the Fair: then (from a moderate Number of judges) three Courts of Ten each, were elected a [tres decurie] viz. Of the great Chamber of Accounts, ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... me, 'I was not pleased; such things did not appeal to me.' But here, in a letter from Hyderabad, bidding one 'share a March morning' with her, there is, at the mere contact of the sun, this outburst: 'Come and share my exquisite March morning with me: this sumptuous blaze of gold and sapphire sky; these scarlet lilies that adorn the sunshine; the voluptuous scents of neem and champak and serisha that beat upon the languid air with their implacable sweetness; the thousand little gold ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... Christian doctrine of the brotherhood of the company of Jesus should be taught in India, which you ordered to be brought from Rome, and have always supported at your expence. Thus likewise, you have erected, and founded the noble and sumptuous university of Coimbra, to augment the honour and reputation of your kingdom; where, besides many divines and colleges of poor begging friars to expound the evangelical law, there are temporal men ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... fare was no more sumptuous than usual; but Franz was surprised to see that his father had set out two ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... The first test of each candidate's strength showed that Robert Burroughs had but thirty of the entire ninety-four. Thereafter began a systematized demoralization of the men of all parties who constituted the legislative assembly. Sumptuous headquarters were maintained at the leading hotel by Mr. Burroughs, and the Honorable William Moore, past master in chicanery and rascality, extended a well-filled hand to all who entered the spider's parlor. ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... stateliest mansions of to-day, of some of society's most dashing heroines, of John Peter's fine livery and cosy seat behind the best team of gilt-harnessed horses that trot the streets of the Capital, of the best and most sumptuous entertainments that are given in our hospitable City, and of the honest old gentleman himself who from this period must be recognized as John Atkinson Reid Esq., with a decade of distinguished antecedents that every one knows without even ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... Keepum is seen seated before a table in his drawing-room, finishing a sumptuous supper, and asking himself: "Who dares to question me, the opulent Keepum?" Mr. Snivel enters, joins him over a glass of wine, and says, "this little matter must be settled tonight, Keepum, old fellow-been minced long enough." And the two chivalric gentlemen, after a ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... days, like fair ladies outvying one another in wearing gowns broidered with flowers, the towns of Italy made it their pride to cover the walls of their Churches and Cloisters with paintings. Among all these, Florence was the most sumptuous and magnificent, and was the place of all others for a Painter to live in. Buffalmacco knew how to give his figures movement and expression; and, while far behind the divine Giotto for beauty of design, he pleased the eye ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... of the Duchess of St. Leu is sumptuous, without that freezing etiquette so commonly met with in the great. Her household still call her Queen, and her son Prince Napoleon or Prince Louis. The suite is composed of two ladies of honor, an equerry, and the tutor ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... of the sort be possible? Not, perhaps, the sumptuous salon of her imagination, thronged with the fair and famous, suitably attired. Something, perhaps, more homely, more immediately attainable. Some of the women dressed, perhaps, a little dowdily; not all of them young and beautiful. The men wise, perhaps, rather than persistently witty; ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... Majesty, the Court, suspected and contemptible; you are Scarabee's that batten in her dung, and have no palats to taste her curious Viands; and like Owles, can only see her night deformities, but with the glorious splendor of her beauties, you are struck blind as Moles, that undermine the sumptuous Building that allow'd you shelter: you stick like running ulcers on her face, and taint the pureness of her native candor, and being bad Servants, cause your Masters goodness to be disputed of; you make the Court, that is the abstract of all Academies, to teach ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Great Hall itself, this is the most remarkable part of the Tudor edifice that remains. According to an old engraving it was in this chamber that Cardinal Wolsey entertained the French ambassadors at the sumptuous banquet referred to earlier. ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... jolly here, isn't it?" said he. "The trees, with their black trunks, and their leaves, and things. Have you ever seen such sumptuous foliage? And the greensward, and the shadows, and the sunlight, and the atmosphere, and the mistiness—isn't it like pearl-dust and gold-dust floating in the air? It's all got up to imitate the background of a Watteau. We must do our best to be frivolous and ribald, and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... valiant and a generous, and loved table-talk[FN349] and tales and verses and anecdotes and histories and entertaining stories and legends of the ancients. Whoso knew a rare recital and related it to him in such fashion as to please him he would bestow on him a sumptuous robe of honour and clothe him from head to foot and give him a thousand dinars, and mount him on a horse saddled and bridled besides other great gifts; and the man would take all this and wend his way. Now it chanced that one day there came an old ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... time, concluded Durtal, there is nothing left peculiar to Paris, but the ceremonies, very like each other, of taking the veil and of funerals. It is unfortunate that when we have to do with a sumptuous ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... one of the most influential and accomplished noblemen of the country to me, one day at his sumptuous table—"how many of the lords-lieutenant do you think have left a popular ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... came off at one of the American churches in Paris. It was a sumptuous ceremonial, aided by a bishop (who was on his travels, but who had not forgotten to bring along his vestments) and by the attendance of half the colony. Raymond was obliged to put up with all this pomp and show, ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... chandelier. However, as Lady Bellair loved a contrast, this was perhaps not unfortunate; for certainly her ladyship, in her simple costume which had only been altered by the substitution of a cap that should have been immortalised by Mieris or Gerard Douw, afforded one not a little startling to her sumptuous fellow-traveller. ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... lieutenants, the lieutenant of marines, the doctor, and three of the young gentlemen, to dine with him. Such an invitation was like a royal command. Nettleship and I, with Dick Larcom, who had just joined the frigate, and who was a protege of the captain, were the favoured ones. The repast was sumptuous in my eyes, and unlike anything I had seen before. Lord Robert was all courtesy and kindness. He inquired of each of us what service we had seen, and particulars about ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... pursues a spiral direction to the capitol, and displays, in a chronological order, the principal actions of the French army, from the departure of the troops from Boulogne to the battle of Austerlitz. The figures are near three feet high, and their number said to be two thousand. This sumptuous monument stands on a plinth of polished granite, surmounted by an iron railing; and, from its size and position, has an imposing appearance when seen from any part ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... the Queen opened the New Royal Exchange, with great State, and the Lord Mayor (W. Magnay, Esq.) was made a baronet; the reading-room at Lloyd's was made into a Throne room for the occasion, and a sumptuous dejeuner was served in the Underwriters' room. It was a very imposing pageant and pretty sight; but, although the Exchange was formally opened, no merchants assembled within its quadrangle until the first ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... in which there has been a sumptuous banquet, we perceive the fragments of a feast now become a prey to beggars and banditti; if, in some instances, the spectacle is less wretched and disgusting; it is, because the banquet ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... him look closer and penetrate our forests, and visit our ponds and lakes. Let him compare our matchless, rosy-lipped, honey-hearted trailing arbutus with his own ugly ground-ivy; let him compare our sumptuous, fragrant pond-lily with his own odorless NYMPHÆ ALBA. In our Northern woods he will find the floors carpeted with the delicate linnæa, its twin rose-colored, nodding flowers filling the air with fragrance. ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... splendour in 1517, when Francis I. was entertained there with jousts and tournaments. At these gay gatherings Margaret appeared apparelled in keeping with her brother's love of display; for, like all princesses, she clothed herself on important occasions in sumptuous garments. But in every-day life she was very simple, despising the vulgar plan of impressing the crowd by magnificence and splendour. In a portrait executed about this period, her dark-coloured dress is surmounted by a wimple with a double collar ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... is yet standing in Cayro, which is a sumptuous thing, hauing a place to walke in of 56. mighty pillars, all gilt with gold, but I saw ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... matter of expense in order to make their pictures superlatively funny and unusual in the matter of staging. The Pathe comedy, "Cleopatsy," featuring the famous clown Toto, was a striking example of how a slap-stick comedy today is unhesitatingly given as elaborate and sumptuous a scenic investiture as was accorded a few years ago to screen-versions of Shakespearean or other "classic" plays. The laughs in this Pathe production were produced, principally, by the introduction of business and situations that simply could not have ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... Professor," continued the mighty little dwarf, when he was seated in a chair even more sumptuous, "suppose we have a friendly little discussion. I have been much interested in your experiments on heat radiation. What you demonstrated this morning, in particular, was most absorbing. You have hit upon a rather profound scientific ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... and apparently empty house frightened her, and it was with a fast beating heart that she made her way to the ground floor and into the drawing-room. Its sumptuous furnishings astounded her. Mrs. Robinson had neither the air nor the well-dressed appearance of a woman of wealth. From her swarthy skin and black eyes and hair Julie had taken her ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... his suite, dressed in their best. The ceremony was as usual; conversation and tea in the front room, followed by a more substantial repast in the second. I have never, however, seen a reception in China so sumptuous, the authorities so well got up, and the feeding so well arranged. The Governor-General is a good-looking man, less artificial in his manner than Chinese authorities usually are. He is a Mantchoo. It ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... waited for employment daily, and entertained my friends with sumptuous hospitality at lunch and supper; here also I occasionally astonished my mother and sister by dexterously turning yellow liquids into blue ones, and performing other marvels of science—accomplishments which I have ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... of your poor house"—and he glanced round the sumptuous chamber—"that caused you to send me this letter saying that you have Cromwell's writ to seize my lands?" asked Sir John, rushing at his grievance like a bull, and casting down the document upon the table; "or do you also mean to make ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard |
