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Adorn   /ədˈɔrn/   Listen
Adorn

verb
(past & past part. adorned; pres. part. adorning)
1.
Make more attractive by adding ornament, colour, etc..  Synonyms: beautify, decorate, embellish, grace, ornament.  "Beautify yourself for the special day"
2.
Be beautiful to look at.  Synonyms: beautify, deck, decorate, embellish, grace.
3.
Furnish with power or authority; of kings or emperors.  Synonyms: clothe, invest.



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"Adorn" Quotes from Famous Books



... adorn yourself as you please," said Howard, "and of course, dearest child, there are hundreds of things you can do for me. I am the feeblest of managers; I live from hand to mouth; but I am not going to submerge you either. If you won't ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... what I tell you, Caroline," she said, in a grave, solemn voice, "I cannot survive the disgrace of being taken prisoner by the French. I will not adorn, as a modern Cleopatra, the triumphal entry of the modern Augustus. To live and to die honorably is my motto. I prefer death to ignominious captivity. Tell it to my husband and my children. And now to the will of God I commit myself. The moment that a French soldier ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... adorn each statesman's bust And strew their laurels o'er each warrior's dust, Alike immortalise, as good and great, Him who enslaved as him who saved the State, Surely the Muse (a rustic minstrel) may Drop one wild ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... bands, that should combine your snow-white wrists, Are these which shall adorn your milk-white necks. The private cells, where you shall end your lives, Is Italy, is Europe—nay, the world. Th' Euxinian Sea, the fierce Sicilian Gulf, The river Ganges and Hydaspes' stream Shall level ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... some perch nearer the matter in hand) that when I was first installed lord of such a manor, and found myself the Crusoe of that remote attic-island, which for near thirty years was to be my unmolested hermitage, I cast about for works of art with which to adorn it. The garret, that El Dorado of boys, supplied me with some prints which had once been the chief ornament of my great-grandfather's study, but which the growth of taste or luxury had banished from story to story till they had arrived where malice ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... friend Schmucke is to give the Descent from the Cross, Ruben's sketch for his great picture at Antwerp, to adorn a chapel in the parish church, in grateful acknowledgment of M. Duplanty's kindness to me; for to him I owe it that I can die as a Christian and a ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... undertake to experiment with nostrums upon themselves and their neighbors. The exalted character of Berkeley is thus drawn by Sir James Mackintosh: Ancient learning, exact science, polished society, modern literature, and the fine arts, contributed to adorn and enrich the mind of this accomplished man. All his contemporaries agreed with the satirist ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... said Adelaide, feeling that she must change the subject or show her exasperation, yet unable to find any subject which Janet would not adorn with refined and cultured views. "Isn't ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... of the deep grey stone basins of exquisite shape and carving, the tiny statuettes tottering into ruin, and the worn old sun-dial, across which the slanting rays of the sun still glanced. Weeds, too, had crept up around them in picturesque toils, weeds which had started to destroy, but remained to adorn with all the sweet abandon of unrestrained growth. Some of them had put forth brilliant blossoms of many hues, little spots of exquisite coloring against the sombre hue of the stonework and the deep green of the leaves. Everywhere nature had triumphed over science and ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... execution being your affair and not mine. What I was thinking of was how I'd feel when I saw you and every damned one of your pirates hanging at the end of ropes over the edges of the various fancy balconies and other trimmings which adorn this palace. It will be going clean against my principles to arrange that kind of obituary dangle for you, Captain. I may have some trouble soothing my conscience afterwards. But I expect that can be managed. You may call me inconsistent and you may be right. But I'm ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... great fault," observed Mrs. Brahan; "he keeps you too close a prisoner, my dear. I fear he is very selfish. Tell him so from me; for he must not expect to monopolize a jewel formed to adorn ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... canvas daubs, with which strolling showmen adorn their booths, hangs from a rafter, no doubt to prevent its being spoilt by too long rolling up. It bore the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... their conquerors than they ever treated themselves. The Africans, in the conquered colonies of Africa, are better off under British rule than those colonies or portions unconquered are. The hosts of India enjoy more, fare better in every grace and virtue in all that goes to adorn and develop mankind, under the British government and protection than they ever did or would under self-government. So the French, Germans, Italians, Russians, Spaniards, and the numerous progeny of emigrants to this country, fare better in every way ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... and the Atlantic; and with how much fidelity did memory recall the peculiar graces, whether of body or mind, of each of the dear girls in particular! Since my recent experience in London, Emily Merton would occasionally adorn the picture, with her more cultivated discourse and more finished manner; and yet I do not remember to have ever given her more than a third place on the ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... great richness and profusion; I have gathered a branch less than a foot long, and counted twelve full bunches of flowers on it. The scent is equal to the orange flower. The dogwood is another of the splendid white blossoms that adorn the woods. Its lateral branches are flat, like a fan, and dotted all over, with star-like blossoms, as large as those of the gum-cistus. Another pretty shrub, of smaller size, is the poison alder. It is ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... This is a Weed that will grow in a barren Soil. Humanity, Good Nature, and the Advantages of a Liberal Education, are incompatible with Avarice. Tis strange to see how suddenly this abject Passion kills all the noble Sentiments and generous Ambitions that adorn Humane Nature; it renders the Man who is over-run with it a peevish and cruel Master, a severe Parent, an unsociable Husband, a distant and mistrustful Friend. But it is more to the present Purpose to consider it as an absurd Passion of the Heart, rather than ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... there came commandment For to set the ladies free, With their jewels still adorn-ed, None to do them injury. Then said this lady mild, "Full woe is me; O let me still ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various

... fitted, both by art and nature, to adorn a ball-room, and conduct a ball. With that ease of manner which a perfect knowledge of the world and long practice alone can give, she floated round the circle, conscious that she was in her element. Her eye, with one glance, seemed to pervade the whole ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... of his day, with the most recherche studio in London, and more orders upon his list than he has either time or inclination to execute. Goethe has let us into the secret of the young German artist's life. Let us look upon him in the dawnings of his fame, before he is summoned to adorn the stately halls of Munich with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... esteem the loss of a penny. They find pearls on their coast; and diamonds and carbuncles on their rocks; they do not look after them, but if they find them by chance, they polish them, and with them they adorn their children, who are delighted with them, and glory in them during their childhood; but when they grow to years, and see that none but children use such baubles, they of their own accord, without being bid by their parents, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... was to adorn herself to appear before the sultan; but before she went, she took her sister Dinarzade apart, and said to her, "My dear sister, I have need of your assistance in a matter of great importance, and must pray you ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.

... sent into the piazza, among knights of industry, valets, gondoliers, and all other manner of revellers that adorn this Christian land, in search of the heir of one of the most ancient and honorable houses ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... at the end of my finances," pursued the doctor; "and it would really be a pity that the house should not have a roof; not on account of the house, which is simple and thoroughly bourgeois, but because of the paintings of Jehan Fourbault, which adorn its wainscoating. There is a Diana flying in the air, but so excellent, so tender, so delicate, of so ingenuous an action, her hair so well coiffed and adorned with a crescent, her flesh so white, that she leads into ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... an English maiden in her teens, though very seldom so pretty as our own damsels, possesses, to say the truth, a certain charm of half-blossom, and delicately folded leaves, and tender womanhood shielded by maidenly reserves, with which, somehow or other, our American girls often fail to adorn themselves during an appreciable moment. It is a pity that the English violet should grow into such an outrageously developed peony as I have attempted to describe. I wonder whether a middle-aged husband ought to be considered as legally married to all the accretions that ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... call her beautiful; but she was comely and enjoyed good health, and she had what one may describe as a good surface—nothing that she wore was thrown away on her, and any chair that she occupied, however large, she never failed to adorn. There you have her picture: you may imagine her as plump, as blonde, as good-tempered, and as well-preserved for her age as suits your individual taste—no qualifying word of the chronicler of this history shall obstruct ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... immediately concluded he was the Duke of Nemours. The Duke's person was turned in so delicate a manner, that it was impossible not to express surprise at the first sight of him, particularly that evening, when the care he had taken to adorn himself added much to the fine air of his carriage. It was as impossible to behold the Princess ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette

... the poor; the noble and saintly spirit which, for fifty years, has shone on Champagne, and to which we owe the vast number of distinguished and accomplished women who adorn this ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... occasion there arises a great man; or to put it more accurately, in the present instance, a mighty and distinguished boy. My father, being the parson of the parish, and getting, need it be said, small pay, took sundry pupils, very pleasant fellows, about to adorn the universities. Among them was the original "Bude Light," as he was satirically called at Cambridge, for he came from Bude, and there was no light in him. Among them also was John Pike, a born Zebedee, ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore

... mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol practice should distinctly be an open-air pastime; and when Holmes in one of his queer humours would sit in an arm-chair, with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... replied Trapper Jim, "there's some difference in the beasts; but I reckon the little tassels that kinder adorn the ears of the lynx ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie

... orchard in full bloom? but it is true, notwithstanding, that the olive, and cypress, and cedar, the orange and the citron, the fig and the pomegranate, the myrtle and the vine, convey a different and more luxuriant feeling to the mind; and are associated with ideas which give to the landscape they adorn a character more delightfully, more ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... services to mankind. Nor does he need even this. The Republic may perish; the wide arch of our ranged Union may fall; star by star its glories may expire; stone by stone its columns and its capitol may moulder and crumble; all other names which adorn its annals may be forgotten; but as long as human hearts shall anywhere pant, or human tongues shall anywhere plead, for a true, rational, constitutional liberty, those hearts shall enshrine the memory, and those ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... melaleuca come in superabundance, pale yellow spikes, odorous to excess. When the trees thus adorn themselves—and they do so twice in the year in changeless fashion, in the fulness of the wet season—the air is saturated with the odour as of treacle slightly burnt. The island reeks of a vast sugar factory or distillery. Sips of the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... have avoided her upon occasion, went not unfrequently to the castle to see her; for the kindhearted woman spoiled her. Not only did she admire her beauty, and stand amazed at her wonderful cleverness, but she drew from her little store a good part of the money that went to adorn the pretty butterfly. She gave her at the same time the best of advice, and imagined she listened to it; but the young who take advice are almost beyond the need of it. Fools must experience a thing themselves before they ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald

... substance, form, life, senses, and reason, and the other goods of body and soul, which are not lacking even to those who are bad and vicious. But there is no possibility of seizing the true good by such things as may adorn this mortal life, but cannot ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... of); great sculptors and decorators of the beautiful caves, so fancifully and so intricately connected, in which they live, and which have taken thousands of years to design and excavate and ventilate and adorn, and which they warm and light up at will in a beautiful manner by means of the ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... difficulty arises in making a varied display. The real trouble is in discarding, especially for a limited area. But when summer begins to merge into autumn the choice is not so extensive, and among the annuals which then adorn the garden Asters are indispensable. This superb flower has been developed into many forms, and each class affords a wide range of magnificent colours. Yet it must be admitted that in the majority of gardens Asters are seldom ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... a little upon style. I would set you right, and remove from before you the prejudices of a somewhat rustic education. We may adorn the simplicity of ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... of the merchant warmed towards the child of his only brother. Her delicate and affectionate attentions increased the interest he felt in her. That interest was not at all lessened by a distinct perception of the fact that she was fitted to adorn the magnificent parlors of his city residence. It was, therefore, his fixed purpose to take her with him on his return. Some objections, he doubted not, would be raised by his sober brother; but he placed ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... was a native of Ireland, of a good family and fitted by nature and education, to adorn the walks of civilized life. He came to this country not far from 1738, as land agent of his uncle, Sir Peter Warren, an admiral in the English navy, who had acquired a considerable tract of land upon the Mohawk, in the ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... poverty; Swaddled up in homely rags, On a bed of straw and flags! He whose hands the heavens displayed, And the world's foundations laid, From the world's almost exiled, Of all ornaments despoiled. Perfumes bathe him not, new-born; Persian mantles not adorn; Nor do the rich roofs look bright With the ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... horses. I afterwards learned that the whole trouble originated in the fact that the lady who had ridden away was a divorced woman. To present-day readers, this may appear absurd, prudish, but not so to the men and women of that day. This is not repeated here to "point a moral," but merely to "adorn a tale" of ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... man advanced in life would show to another eminent man still more advanced; it was the deference of the warmest friendship to an individual who not only reciprocated the feelings of affection, but who possessed all the moral and intellectual qualities that can adorn human nature. He considered Mr. Wickham not only the most accomplished lawyer this country ever produced, but the wisest man he ever knew. I have heard him say that the speech of Mr. Wickham on the doctrine of treason in Burr's trial ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... kiss, I attacked hooks, buttons, and strings, till in a jiffy she had nothing but her stockings left to adorn her figure, covering her face with her hands to hide ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous

... prophet-Spring adorn, Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers, And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers. A poet's face asleep ...
— Poems • Alice Meynell

... studded with iron nails, stayed her progress; it was an old, strong oaken frame, surmounted by a Gothic arch, in the keystone of which leered one of those grotesque demoniacal faces with which the fathers of the church delighted to adorn their shrines. Sybil looked up—her glance encountered the fantastical visage. It recalled the features of the sexton, and seemed to mock her—to revile her. Her fortitude at once deserted her. Her fingers were upon the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... purposes. They are not quite on a level with the parks of London, it is true; or even with the Tuileries, or Luxembourg, or the Boboli, or the Villa Reale, or fifty more grounds and gardens, of a similar nature, that might be mentioned; but, seen in the spring and early summer, they adorn the building they surround, and lend to the whole neighborhood a character of high civilization, that no other place in America can show, in precisely the same form, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... us all, to which the shrewd old man replied, "If the God who made you made us, how is it that you are so different—you so rich, we so poor?" On asking him about the magnificent pieces of lacquer and inlaying which adorn his curio shelf, he said that they were his father's, grandfather's, and great-grandfather's at least, and he thinks they were gifts from the daimiyo of Matsumae soon after the conquest of Yezo. He is a grand-looking man, in spite of the havoc wrought by his intemperate habits. ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... they give Devils.] When they worship those whom they call Devils, many of whom they hold to be the Spirits of some that died heretofore, they make no Images for them, as they did for the Planets; but only build a new house in their yard, like a Barn very slight, covered only with leaves, and adorn it with Branches and Flowers. Into this House they bring some of the Weapons or Instruments, which are in the Pagods or Temples, and place them on Stools at one end of the house, which is hanged with Cloth for that purpose, and before them on other Stools they lay Victuals: and all that time ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... the things around. To the right and left of where he stood the screen of laurels curved and embraced a sort of arena in which, among yews that had once been clipped into cones, lay capitals, columns, broken pieces of arches and vaults, obviously placed there to adorn the formal garden that had been laid out on the ruins of ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... retorted; "again I say to you with Tertullian, 'Let women paint their eyes with the tints of chastity, insert into their ears the Word of God, tie the yoke of Christ about their necks, and adorn their whole person with the silk of sanctity and the damask of devotion.' I say to you that the boy you wish to rescue from Wallingford, and make King of England, is freely rumored to be not verily the son of Sire Henry but the child of tall Manuel of Poictesme. I say to you that ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... the year of grace 1567 had just commenced, and the trees were beginning to adorn themselves once again in their green array, when the Knight of Haddon, Sir George Vernon, led out a merry company for the first hawking expedition of the year. The winter had been unusually long, and more than extraordinarily severe; and whilst the knight ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... a jealous god, whose wrath you have deserved, since your heart was sensible to the same charms. And thou, Vulcan, fashion a thousand brilliant ornaments to adorn the palace where Love will dry Psyche's tears, ...
— Psyche • Moliere

... away with him! a Professor should not owe any man any thing, but love. A professor should provide things, not of other mens, but of his own, of his own honest getting, and that not onely in the sight of God, but of all men; that he may adorn the Doctrine if God ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... could think of external things. There was little to be done in the last arrangement of the dead, but she could place the delicate, pale hands in a more natural position, and the flowers which the gardener had brought to adorn the coffin did not satisfy her. She knew all that grew in the woods and fields near Nuremberg, and no one could dispose bouquets more gracefully. Her mother had been especially fond of some of them, and was always pleased when she brought ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... by the same author, appeared to him extremely clear and lively, and quite within his range, and to that he gave his own personal approbation. The other work, however, as it was making so much noise in the world, and promising to go down to posterity, would serve to adorn his reign, and make it illustrious ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... he wove a web of romance, from which only one fact emerges clearly—that his father was at some time a priest. Current gossip said that he was parish priest of Gouda; a little town near Rotterdam, with a big church, which in the sixteenth century its inhabitants were wealthy enough to adorn with some fine stained glass. There in the town school, under a master who was afterwards one of the guardians of his scanty patrimony, Erasmus' schooldays began, and he made acquaintance with the Latin grammar of Donatus. After an interval as ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... planted in a most beautiful order, combined to form arbors with arched approaches and encircling walks, all more beautiful than words can describe. There the intelligent walk, and gather flowers and weave garlands with which they adorn little children. Moreover, there are kinds of trees and flowers there that are never seen and cannot exist on earth. The trees bear fruit that are in accordance with the good of love, in which the intelligent are. These things are seen by them because a garden or park and fruit trees and flowers ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg

... reckoning,' 'a queen of fashion, 'to give a free hand,' 'to be at a deadlock,' and so forth; and in what particular circumstances he himself might make use of them in conversation. Failing these, he would adorn it with puns and other 'plays upon words' which he had learned by rote. As for the names of strangers which were uttered in his hearing, he used merely to repeat them to himself in a questioning tone, which, he thought, would suffice to furnish ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... our blue flowers are merely naturalized immigrants from Europe, it is well to know we have sent to England at least one native that was considered fit to adorn the grounds of Hampton Court. John Tradescant, gardener to Charles I, for whom the plant and its kin were named, had seeds sent him by a relative in the Virginia colony; and before long the deep azure blossoms with their golden anthers were seen in gardens on both sides of the Atlantic ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... you to detail them and direct the execution. I shall rejoice to see that you understand the profession of war practically as well as theoretically. Therefore, this war is so far welcome, that it will give my crown prince an opportunity to win his first laurels, and adorn the brow which, until now, has been crowned ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... Athens a land dominion, he had nevertheless succeeded in securing for her a place of proud pre-eminence in maritime Hellas. Athens having achieved such a position as she now held, it was the idea of Pericles that the Athenians should so adorn their city that it should be a fitting symbol of the power and glory of their empire. Nor was it difficult for him to persuade his art-loving countrymen to embellish their city with those masterpieces of genius that in their ruins still excite the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... to come! To-day is yesterday return'd; return'd, Full powered to cancel, expiate, raise, adorn, And reinstate us on the rock of peace. Let it not share its predecessor's fate, Nor, like its ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... Orford's contrast to this character of Prince Rupert is too just to be here omitted. "Born with the taste of an uncle whom his sword was not fortunate in defending, Prince Rupert was fond of those sciences which soften and adorn a hero's private hours, and knew how to mix them with his minutes of amusement, without dedicating his life to their pursuit, like us, who, wanting capacity for momentous views, make serious study of what is only the transitory occupation of a genius. ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... court, and expectation vain Of idle hopes, which still do fly away Like empty shadows, did afflict my brain) Walk'd forth to ease my pain Along the shore of silver-streaming Thames; Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems, Was painted all with variable flowers, And all the meads adorn'd with dainty gems Fit to deck maidens' bowers, And crown their paramours Against the bridal day, which is not long: Sweet Thames! run softly, till I ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... individuals, does honour to the genius of a nation; and could not have been fully established, without those exertions of understanding and integrity, those trials of a resolute and vigorous spirit, which adorn the annals of a people, and leave to future ages a subject of just admiration and applause. But if we suppose that the end is attained, and that men no longer act, in the enjoyment of liberty from liberal ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... conscious that it deeply impressed even the "unsunned temper" of our childhood. The wisest among us may not be able to define precisely these impressions, or trace to their source the admiration and satisfaction it occasions, yet all are ready to acknowledge its beautiful fitness to adorn and glorify the Christian temple. But to the thoughtful mind how suggestive it is of pleasant imagery! It is "the silent finger" that points to heaven; it is an upward aspiration of the soul; a prayer from the depths of a troubled heart; a suspirium de profundis; a hymn of thanksgiving; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... the coronation of poets was a prerogative of the old Roman emperors, and consequently was no less his own, he crowned, May 15, 1355, the Florentine scholar Zanobi della Strada at Pisa, to the annoyance of Petrarch, who complained that the barbarian laurel had dared adorn the man loved by the Ausonian muses, and to the great disgust of Boccaccio, who declined to recognize this laurea Pisana as legitimate. Indeed, it might be fairly asked with what right this stranger, half Slavonic ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... man who won't go home till morning. In these degenerate days the philosopher retires not to the desert, and there, by meditation most profound, wrings from the secret treasure-house of his own superior soul, jewels to adorn his age and enrich the world: He mixes an impossible plot with a little pessimism, adds a dude and a woman whose moral character has seen better days, spills the nauseous compound on the public as a "philosophical novel" and works the ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... chief masses of the plume are set others which partly complete their power, partly adorn and protect them; but of these I can take no notice at present. All that I want you to understand is the action of the two main masses, as the wing ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... the exquisite Odes of the sweet Psalmist, inspired as they were with sentiments and views alike honorable to God and man, to elevate the conceptions, purify the heart, ennoble the aspirations, and adorn the life of man! ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... contained a little dust, and upon it the cover of a coarse earthen pot, painted with yellow ochre. (This cover has since been broken). It was placed near the head of the statue, and the upper part, with the three feathers that adorn it, appeared among loose stones, placed around it with great care. Colonel D. Daniel Traconis, who had that day come to visit, and bring me a few very welcome provisions, was present when it was discovered. I continued ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.

... into the Order of Deacons the first Martyr Saint Stephen, with others: Mercifully behold these thy servants now called to the like office and administration; replenish them so with the truth of thy doctrine, and adorn them with innocency of life, that, both by word and good example, they may faithfully serve thee in this office, to the glory of thy Name, and the edification of thy Church; through the merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ, ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England

... her tears profuse, As dews refresh the flower, She is well worth three purses full, And will adorn the bower— For vain her vow to pine and die Thus torn from her dear valley: She reigns, and we still row along The ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... age, he had met "Glorious John", though the succession could be passed on otherwise through Congreve, one of the most polished of English satirical writers, whom Dryden complimented as "one whom every muse and grace adorn", while to him also Pope dedicated his translation of the Iliad.[14] Bolingbroke, furthermore, was the friend and patron of Pope, while the witty St. John, in turn, was bound by ties of friendship to Mallet, who passed on the succession to Goldsmith, Sheridan, Ellis, ...
— English Satires • Various

... and clear, Where Delia's charms renew'd appear, Ye flow'rs that touch'd her snowy breast, Ye trees whereon she lov'd to rest, Ye scenes adorn'd where'er she flies, If grief shall close these woe-worn eyes, May some kind form, with hand benign, My body with this earth enshrine, That, when the fairest nymph shall deign To visit this delightful plain, That, when she views my silent shade, And marks ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr

... slight contretemps, you made no whole-hearted effort to rejoin us in time to degrade your intellect by discussing the sort of topics which appeal to that genus of hopeless wasters which the Wilsons adorn." ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... Poor Richard says: "The used key is always bright," so the well-read book always shows the handling. A small well chosen library carefully read is of vastly more benefit than the large, poorly chosen, unread volumes that adorn the shelves of many homes. Yet I am not sure but that poorly chosen books are better not read than read. A learned doctor once said: "It is not what we eat that sustains life, but ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... and axillars are paler than those of her lord, and the scarlet spot shows very indistinctly on her occiput. The young of both sexes don the dress of the mother bird during the first season, save that they fail to adorn themselves with a scarlet gem on ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... nation, shared the excitement of her mistress in this fete. The curtains in the pink bedroom were drawn, and on the bed, in all its splendour of lace and roses, was spread out the dinner-gown-a chef-d'oeuvre of Madame Barriere's as yet unworn. And no vulgar, worldly triumph was it to adorn. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... 'extraordinary in Beauty and Intellect.' When travelling with his parents to Languedoc, Arnaud being 8 years old, he was shot at by banditti, and forsaken by his parents. The Captain of the band nursed him. 'But those perfections to which Arnaud owed his existence, ceased to adorn it. The ball had gored his shoulder, and the fall had dislocated it; by the latter misadventure his spine likewise was so fatally injured as to be irrecoverable to its pristine uprightness. Injuries ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... Boston. As I have indicated, most of them have musical abilities of a high order, entitling them to a much fuller notice than can here be given. There are, of course, others of fine musical attainments who adorn private circles. ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... in front its towing-steamer, "Troubadour." A steam calliope is part of the visible furniture of the establishment, and its praises as a noise-maker are sung in large type in the handbills which, with numerous colored lithographs of the performers, adorn the shop windows in ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... coral, gold, and amber; Be seen at feasts and triumphs; have it ask'd, What miracle she is; set all the eyes Of court a-fire, like a burning glass, And work them into cinders, when the jewels Of twenty states adorn thee, and the light Strikes out the stars! that when thy name is mention'd, Queens may look pale; and we but shewing our love, Nero's Poppaea may be lost in story! Thus ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson

... this and help to make men of us all by insisting on this most weighty piece of manners; so that we may adorn life with the pleasure of cheerfully BUYING goods at their due price; with the pleasure of SELLING goods that we could be proud of both for fair price and fair workmanship: with the pleasure of working soundly and without haste at MAKING goods that we could be ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris

... their first meetings had been surprised and chilled by his anxiety to get the value of his money. He had informed her, bluntly, that money was not made by spending it; but for some months he had been surprised by a desire to spend his money to adorn and beautify this woman. Clara, however, maintaining her independence with a wary eye, had refused to take presents from him. He had become more civilized and more human under the weight of his generous emotions, but ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... the Lion's Head and the Lioness's Head, carved by nature's hand, to adorn and dominate the beauteous stream; and then anon the river widens, and a most charming and magnificent view of the valley before us suddenly bursts upon our vision; rugged hills, clad with verdant forests from summit to base, level prairie ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... my vanquish'd heart shall wave Round your triumphant beauty as you go, Not thus adorn'd work out some other's woe— Yet, if you will, pluck daisies from my grave! Peace! ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... attention and the reverse of unwelcome, but sometimes the envy is not placed where the beneficiary is expecting it to be placed. Once, when Susy was seven, she sat breathlessly absorbed in watching a guest of ours adorn herself for a ball. The lady was charmed by this homage; this mute and gentle admiration; and was happy in it. And when her pretty labors were finished, and she stood at last perfect, unimprovable, clothed ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... Trailing along in the wake of a pair of the golf-playing Nobles of the Mysterious Mecca at the Lincoln Park Golf course provided a cash surplus which enabled the Wildcat to discard his winter-weight Prince Albert and to adorn his person with a retiring suit of clothes three shades lighter than a sunburned pumpkin and embellished with six-inch checks. Life wasn't so bad. Ol' railroad sleepin' car was probably doin' all right. Reasonably sure that tomorrow ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley

... taste of your fruit." They had to be very careful to remember the tree's correct name and not to forget to say "please." It was also very important that they should remember not to be greedy. They must always leave plenty of fruit for the other beasts who might pass that way, and plenty to adorn the tree itself and to furnish seed so that other trees might grow. If they wished to eat figs they had to say, "O, fig tree, O, fig tree, please give me a taste of your fruit;" or, if they wished to eat oranges they had to say, "O, orange tree, ...
— Fairy Tales from Brazil - How and Why Tales from Brazilian Folk-Lore • Elsie Spicer Eells

... without the least regard to the honour and advantage of their country. They left her most valuable and necessary rights of trade unowned and undecided; they subscribed to the insolent demand of sending the nobles of the realm to grace the court and adorn the triumphs of her enemy; and they tamely gave up her conquests in North America, of more consequence to her traffic than all the other dominions for which the powers at war contended; they gave up the important isle of Cape Breton, in exchange for a petty factory in the East ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... overthrown, that is true, but, I ask you, who would willingly accept such a life? All useful things are ugly and forbidding. A kitchen is indispensable, but you take care not to sit there; you live in the salon, which you adorn, like this, with superfluous things. Of what use, let me ask you, are these charming wall-paintings, this carved wood-work? There is nothing beautiful but that which seems to us useless. We called the sixteenth century the Renascence ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... the above purpose. The person to whom the management of this business was committed, having neglected to make a proper calculation of his materials, had proceeded too far with his work, when he found that there would not be a sufficient number of skulls to adorn the whole palace; he therefore requested permission to begin the work, as the lawyers would say, de novo, in order that he might, by placing them farther apart, complete the design in a regular manner; but the king would by no means give his consent to this proposal, observing that he ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... you some added strength and strenuousness; you may give to us some of the beauty of life. I wish I could make you feel—I wish still more that I could make my countrymen feel—what delight I experience in visiting your city, and in observing the combination of the bright, cheerful colors which adorn your homes and daily life, with the beautiful tones that time has given to the century-old walls and battlements that look down upon your noble bay. The combination has seemed to me, as I have looked upon it today, ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... arabesques; upon this stood a bell, a tray containing the rolls of the sacred books, and a small incense-burner of ancient Chinese porcelain. Before the table was a hanging drum, and behind it was one of those high, back-breaking arm-chairs which adorn every Buddhist temple. In one corner of the space destined for the accommodation of the faithful was a low writing-desk, at which sat, or rather squatted, a lay clerk, armed with a huge pair of horn spectacles, through which he glared, goblin-like, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... she embarked, full-sailed, upon the topic of The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables may be pictured to themselves by persons endowed with the rudiments of imagination; I must not attempt to adorn this sober page with an attempted reproduction of the scene. Mortal language reeled and cracked under the strain of giving form to her admiration; but it was so honest and well meant that it could not but give pleasure even in the midst of bewilderment. My father bowed ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... dinner on the houseboat that evening. After dinner the girls proceeded to adorn themselves with the old sets of jewelry found in the safe. Madge wore the pearls because, she insisted, they were her special jewels, and she had gone down to the bottom of the bay to find them. Phil was more fascinated with some old-fashioned garnets, Lillian with a big, golden topaz ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers

... very much wish to take you would always succeed in,' said Mr. Lennox. 'I have great faith in the power of will. I think myself I have succeeded pretty well in yours.' Mr. Hale had preceded them into the house, while Margaret was lingering to pluck some roses, with which to adorn her morning gown ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... cannot give to my son the least of blessings, do thou give the greatest; because in my hands there is not any thing, do thou from thine pour out all things; and that temple of a new-born spirit, which I cannot adorn even with earthly ornaments of dust and ashes, do thou irradiate with the celestial adornment of thy presence, and finally with that peace that passeth all understanding." Reared at the feet of parents so pious and affectionate, Schiller would doubtless pass a happy ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... vines with ferns from the woods are lovely in a country church where festoons and garlands are often needed to adorn the bare walls. ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt

... the churches are crowded by many who scarcely ever think of entering at any other time. On Good Friday only, considered here the holiest day in the whole year, are they still more largely attended. The music is usually fine, but one misses the beautiful flowers which adorn ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... discharge of this trust. When they come to examine the school, if the standard of intellectual attainments is not so high as might be desirable, they should yet bear testimony to its advancement, if they find that those "virtues which adorn life" have been held up in all their attractiveness to the ...
— Reflections on the Operation of the Present System of Education, 1853 • Christopher C. Andrews

... up to him. "She brings strange game!" added he, with a smile. "Who is the young warrior with the white circle upon his breast? He is a pale-face. It is not the custom of our white brothers to adorn themselves in such fashion?" ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... which is at once broad, simple and harmonious. The nave is more than usually wide between its main piers, and its rounded arches are lofty and well proportioned. Excellent portraits of former Bishops adorn its white walls, and narrow rectangular windows at frequent intervals admit a dim, mellow light through their dark panes. Before one of these windows—apparently with no thought of incongruity in the exhibition of such a gruesome object attached ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... my person, would like to be what he is in his,—that is all. People often talk of changing. No man alive would really exchange his personality for that of another man, if he had the chance. He only wishes to adorn what he most admires in himself with those things which, in his neighbor, excite the admiration of others. He meditates no change which does not give his vanity a better appearance to himself, and his reputation a dash of more brilliant ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... terminated? Forty spears against forty guns—but how many guns would not have decamped? Perhaps all, and I should have been left with my boy gunbearers to have my jugular deliberately severed, or to be decapitated, leaving my head to adorn a tall pole in the centre of a Kigogo village, like poor Monsieur Maizan's at Dege la Mhora, in Uzaramo. Happy end of an Expedition! And the Doctor's Journal lost for ever—the fruits of six ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... retirement, which he employed in reading the Greek and Latin classics, the antient Christian fathers, and the history of the primitive church. Being blamed by one of his friends for wasting so much time in the study of pagan writers, he replied, That he intended to adorn the house of God with these ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... exempted—who is stated by his friends to be the warm admirer of knowledge, and most anxious for its advancement, should have been so imperfectly informed by those friends, as to have wrested from the head of science, the only civic wreath which could adorn its brow.(2*) ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage

... they were; two were nearest to the bear's claws, Thaddeus and the Count; to them the skin belongs. Thaddeus will yield, I am sure, as the younger, and as the kinsman of our host; hence Your Honour the Count will receive the spolia opima.94 Let this trophy adorn your hunting chamber, let it be a reminder of to-day's sport, a symbol of fortune in the chase, ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... spokesman had explained their great desire to do something themselves in memory of "the best friend they ever had," as they truly called him. Some of them had seen memorial-windows, and they wanted Mr. Yolland to take from each a small weekly subscription throughout the winter, to adorn the new chapel with windows. "With the history of Samson a killin' of the lion," called out a gruff voice. It was the voice of the father of the boy whom Harold had rescued on ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... do not love this destiny, glittering though it seem; your heart is not in the vocation which your gifts adorn." ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... of her church.[H] The cypress coffin in which she had been reverently laid at the time of her death was preserved and set within a marble sarcophagus. No expense was spared by the devout Paschal to adorn the church that had been so signally favored. All the Art of the time (and at that time the arts flourished only in the service of the Church) was called upon to assist in making the new basilica magnificent. The mosaics which were set up ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... and in the mountains. In the early days, if an Indian by any chance happened to get possession of a piece of money (only gold or silver was recognized as a medium of exchange in the remote West), he would immediately fashion it into some kind of an ornament with which to adorn his person. Some tribes, however, did indulge in a sort of currency, worthless except among themselves. This consisted of rare shells, such as the Oligachuck, so called, of the Pacific coast nations, used by them within my own recollection, as late ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... perched birds of gold and silver. When I saw this I thought that I must be mad, but it was not so, for having no other use for the precious metals, of which they had so much abundance, thus did these Incas adorn their palaces. ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... betwixt the Admiral of Hainault and Sir John Stanley, the second brother of the house of Stanley of Hooton.[13] Then follows the account, more particularly developed in our own story, of the adventures and moving accidents which have been liberally used to adorn the "Garland" of his descendant William, Earl of Derby. "For many generations this was the recognised chronicle of the family, until, in the time of James the First, a clergyman of Chester translated the rhymes of the Bishop into English, carefully ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby



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