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Festal

adjective
1.
Offering fun and gaiety.  Synonyms: festive, gay, merry.  "Gay and exciting night life" , "A merry evening"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Festal" Quotes from Famous Books



... secret path, along the shores of the Caspian Sea; traversed the snowy mountains of Armenia; passed the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Halys; recruited their weary cavalry with the generous breed of Cappadocian horses: occupied the hilly country of Cilicia, and disturbed the festal songs and dances of the citizens ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... chanted in his honor is as follows: "Homage to thee; thou watchest favoringly, thou watchest truly, O master of the two horizons.... Thou treadest the heavens on high, thine enemies are laid low. The heaven is glad, the earth is joyful, the gods unite in festal cheer to render glory to Ra when they see him rising in his bark after he has overwhelmed his enemies. O Ra, give abounding life to Pharaoh, bestow bread for his hunger (belly), water for his ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos

... may wisely mark How clear skies follow rain, And lingering in your own green park Or drilled on Lafian's Plain, Forget not with the festal bowl To soothe at ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt

... embers' glow brings me back the long ago, The days of merry laughter and light song; When I sped the hours away with the gayest of the gay In the giddy whirl of fashion's festal throng. Oh, I ran a grilling race and I little recked the pace, For the lust of youth ran riot in my blood; But at last I made a stand in this God-forsaken land Of the pine-tree and the mountain ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... out glistening on the gilded decorations of the Imperial coach. The Moniteur, with its official enthusiasm, spoke of "the orb of day escaping, against every expectation, from the rigid rule of a stormy season to light up the festal day." ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... clothing as well as food; for the pioneers could not afford to pay from 15 to 25 cents a yard for calico, and from 25 to 75 cents for gingham.* Some persons indulged in homespun cloth for Sunday and festal occasions, but the common outside garments were made of dressed deerskins. Parley P. Pratt, in his autobiography, speaks of passing through a settlement where "some families were entirely dressed in skins, without any other clothing, including ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... Sabbath morning—deep-voiced church-bells shook the air— While in festal garb the church-folk wandered to their house of prayer, Reached their ears a hollow thunder from the glaciers overhead, And huge blocks of ice came crashing downward to the river's bed, And in silence, Wrathful silence, Down the seething stream ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... will contrive in the role of a strayed and bogged fisherman to be at Stonelands Farm before the young couple arrive en route for London and the registry-office, and he will see to it that Monica learns what the daily life of a working farmer is like, and what the beer (or bad champagne for festal occasions) and rabbit pie in the kitchen; with sudden frank explanations as to the imminence of the crisis in the interesting condition of Snowdrop the Alderney; what, too, is the Stonelands' notion ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various

... city for several hours, but it was the darkness of a southern night and of a city in festal mood. The stars seemed to stand out from the blue-gray vault above, as if reaching down to the earth—whether in pity or anger, she could not tell. Around the city itself hung the luminous aura of its lights; the cries of revellers sounded from the neighbouring streets,—even the rush of ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... Thus, in this festal season, banquets were provided, and military shows took place, for the benefit of the Sicilian nobility and of the citizens of Trapani, on such a scale, that the English rose high in general esteem; and many were the secret wishes that Edmund of Lancaster rather than Charles of Anjou ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... burnt in costly silver lamps. Amidst the swinging of censers by the priests the bride and bridegroom joined hands and received the bishop's blessing. The little mermaid dressed in silk and gold stood holding the bride's train, but her ears were deaf to the festal strains, her eyes saw nothing of the sacred ceremony; she was thinking of her coming death and of all that she had ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... assembled every Sunday; on the third, their delight was greater, was more festal ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen

... account of his journey than some of his friends, one of whom said that he could not see Paris properly because the houses there were too high. To-day Hasse's opera is to be given; as papa, however, is not going, I can't go either. [FOOTNOTE: Hasse had also a festal opera to compose, but Leopold Mozart writes, "I am sorry to say that Wolfgang's Serenata has totally eclipsed Hasse's opera."] Fortunately I know all the airs thoroughly by heart, so I can see and hear them in ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

... to the Queen of May On this our festal day! Gay flowers we'll bring, Sweet blossoms of spring, To crown our Queen ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... To them, is no prettier sight possible than the broad campus dotted with buildings, and the knots of daintily-dressed girls moving slowly to and fro along the winding paths. The Meadow City always puts on her most festal array in honor of the occasion; the very heavens seem to watch for that week, and to provide for it the finest moon of ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray

... beetles separated by golden shells which she had caused to be copied from my own. On her fair hair that grew low upon her forehead and was parted in the middle, she wore a diadem of gold in which were set emeralds to match the beetles of the necklace. The Augustus was arrayed in the festal garments of a Caesar, also covered with a purple cloak. He was a heavy-faced and somewhat stupid-looking youth, dark-haired, like his father and uncles, but having large, blue, and not unkindly eyes. From his flushed face I gathered that he had drunk well of the strong Greek wine, and ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard

... alleged, that, as no part of the animal was made a burnt-offering, as no altar was provided to receive the blood, and as the previous oblation of salt cakes, and the concluding ceremony of libations, were carefully omitted, these festal meetings did not involve the guests in the guilt, or penalty, of an illegal sacrifice. [53] Whatever might be the truth of the facts, or the merit of the distinction, [54] these vain pretences were swept away by the last edict ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... bridegroom. The bridegroom returns thanks for the bride and for himself. The health of the bride's parents is then proposed, and is followed by those of the principal personages present, the toast of the bridesmaids being generally one of the pleasantest features of the festal ceremony. After about two hours, the principal bridesmaid leads the bride out of the room as quietly as possible, so as not to disturb the party or attract attention. Shortly after—it may be in about ten minutes—the absence of the bride being noticed, the rest ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... for the body's need, Or lamb foredoomed upon some festal day In offering to the guardian gods to bleed, Or kidling which the wolf hath marked ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... arranged, with red and white flowers and lighted tapers. It was carried by two "enfants de choeur," preceded by the beadle with his cocked hat and staff and followed by two small girls with lighted tapers. The "enfants de choeur" were not in their festal attire of red soutanes and red shoes—only in plain black. Since the inventories ordered by the government in all the churches, most of the people have taken away their gifts in the way of vestments, soutanes, vases, etc., and the red soutanes, shoes and caps, ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington

... her companion took from her hands, and shortly began the process of tuning. Neither of us—the previous company of the wagon-needed to inquire their trade; for this could be no mystery to frequenters of brigade-musters, ordinations, cattle-shows, commencements, and other festal meetings in our sober land; and there is a dear friend of mine, who will smile when this page recalls to his memory a chivalrous deed performed by us, in rescuing the show-box of such a couple from a mob of great ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the bride's mother ties a scarf round his neck and takes hold of his nose and drags him into the shed. Sometimes they make the bridegroom kneel down and pay reverence to a shoe as a joke. They do not observe the custom of the pangat or formal festal assembly, which is usual among Hindu castes; according to this, none can begin to eat until all the guests have assembled, when they all sit down at once. Among the Maheshris the guests sit down as they come in, and are served ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... the order of things, natural happenings. Take the armed dance. There is, first, the "actual necessity of war." Men go to war armed, to face actual dangers, and at their head is a leader in full armour. That is real life. There is then the festal re-enactment of war, when the fight is not actually fought, but there is an imitation of war. That is the ritual stage, the dromenon. Here, too, there is a leader. More and more this dance becomes a spectacle, less and less an action. Then from the periodic dromenon, ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... the festive scene to array themselves for their journey, and they quietly departed from the house to take the train for Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Taken as a whole, the wedding surpassed any similar festal scene ever witnessed at Washington, and was a hearty manifestation of good feeling toward the happy couple and the parents ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... she was always, for her beneficent dragon, under arms; living up, every hour, but especially at festal hours, to the "value" Mrs. Lowder had attached to her. High and fixed, this estimate ruled on each occasion at Lancaster Gate the social scene; so that he now recognised in it something like the artistic idea, the plastic substance, imposed by tradition, by genius, by criticism, in respect to ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... the member not only receives a new name, but his biography containing more or less of the truth about him is written and placed in the records. A song is also composed in his honor, and on festal occasions he is greeted ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 08, August 1895 - Fragments of Greek Detail • Various

... the whole, I think the part of Don Juan in which Lambro's return to his home, and Lambro himself are described, is the best, that is, the most individual, thing in all I know of Lord B.'s works. The festal abandonment puts one in mind of Nicholas Poussin's pictures."—Table Talk of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... back the lost and lovely,—those for whom The place was kept at board and hearth so long, The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom, And the vain yearning woke 'midst festal song! Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'erthrown; But all is ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread,— Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, On the door-stone, gray and rude! O'er me, like a regal tent, Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, Looped in many a wind-swung ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... from the smoke they see Helmet, and plume, and panoply, - Then waked their fire at once! Each musketeer's revolving knell, As fast, as regularly fell, As when they practise to display Their discipline on festal day. Then down went helm and lance, Down were the eagle banners sent, Down reeling steeds and riders went, Corslets were pierced, and pennons rent; And, to augment the fray, Wheeled full against their staggering flanks, The English horsemen's foaming ranks Forced their resistless way. ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott

... twelve tons each. The windows of the principal story, the echinus moulding of which is handsome, have bold and enriched pediments, and the centre windows are honoured by massive balustrade balconies. In the centre, above the first floor, are the Company's arms, festal emblems, rich garlands, and trophies. The entrance door is a rich specimen of cast work. Altogether, though rather jammed up behind the Post-office, this building is worthy of the powerful and wealthy company who ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... found in several cities of Etruria. The amphitheatre of Sutri is considered to be peculiarly Etruscan in its mode of construction. It is cut out of the tufa rock, and was no doubt used by that people for festal representations long before Rome attempted anything of the kind. The Romans copied these edifices from the Etruscans. We have historical evidence, also, that gladiatorial combats had an Etruscan origin, and were borrowed ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... this growth in a spiritual conception of religion went, as was natural, a growth in scepticism. There was a sceptical as well as a believing school, such as finds its expression in the festal Dirge of King Antef of the Eleventh dynasty. Here we read ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... king here, Or what is a boor? Here all starve together, All dwarfed and poor; Here Death's hand knocketh At door after door, 30 He thins the dancers From the festal floor. ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... approaching me, tendered an invitation to accompany him to the principal terrace and partake of the festal "tchang"; which I accepted with pleasure, for my head was ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... correct thing for the stranger to touch this in order that he may tell of the fact thereafter. The traveller may take the spirit of Sheridan's excellent advice to his son, and say he has touched it, but as a rule he takes the trouble to go down and do it. I was escorted for this festal ceremony by a resident, and leaning against that southernmost lamp-post was a Scot in an abject state of drunkeness, and as Stevenson says of a similar personage, "radiating dirt and humbug." Nigh at hand was another drunkard, sitting ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... is Scotia's mountain land, And beautiful and wild; By tyranny's unhallow'd hand Unsullied, undefiled. The free and fearless are her sons, The good and brave her sires; And, oh! her every spirit glows With freedom's festal fires! ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... nor could she, Who ruled in every clime on earth, Find any spring more fit to be The fountain of her festal mirth. ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... each of these men Be hell's door shut, heaven's unclosed, Eternally opened the kingdom of angels, Joy without end, and their portion appointed Along with Mary, who takes into mind The one most dear of festal days ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey

... less, Peruvia, for thy favour'd clime The virtues rose, unsullied, and sublime: There melting charity, with ardor warm, Spread her wide mantle o'er th' unshelter'd form; Cheer'd with the festal song, her lib'ral toils, 45 While in the lap of age[D] she pour'd the spoils. Simplicity in every vale was found, The meek nymph smil'd, with reeds, and rushes crown'd; And innocence in light, transparent vest, Mild visitant! the gentle region blest: 50 As from her lip enchanting accents part, ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams

... festal flower of joy, Fuji" (Wistaria) said another, as he decked the peak of his hat with the drooping clusters of the tender blue blossom. "It looks blue and purple in the distance, just like the fuji ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... been swept and garnished. Flowers and small branches of mimosa decorated it, as if this day were festal. The writing-table, which had been loaded with papers, was now neat and almost bare. But all, or nearly all, Baroudi's books were still in their places. The marvellous prayer rugs strewed the floor. Ibrahim had set sticks of incense burning in ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... women of the family take the body in charge the minute the physician has declared that all is over. The customary obol is put in the mouth of the corpse,[] and the body is carefully washed in perfumed water, clothed in festal white; then woolen fillets are wound around the head, and over these a crown of vine leaves. So arrayed, the body is ready to be laid out on a couch in the front courtyard of the house, with the face turned toward the door so as to seem to greet everybody who enters. In front of the house ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... 'Tis only your whim! His house is high over the stars in the sky, Where the white swan sails undefiled, So high 'tis beyond any mortal eye Save that of the dreaming child!— The church that you spoke of! So then it is there We shall ride in festal procession, ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen

... of my plug hats that I was goin' to lend you," explained his friend, cheerily. "I've rigged it up with a cockade. I figger that we can't any of us be too festal on a day like this. I know you ain't no ways taken to plug hats; but when a man holds office and the people look to him for certain things, he has to bow down to the people. We're goin' to have a great and glorious day of this, Cap," he cried, all his showman's soul infected ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... salon were gathered many personages with whom the reader is familiar, all in festal attire—the Count of Monte-Cristo and his beloved wife Mercedes, their friends Maximilian and Valentine Morrel, Esperance, Mlle. Louise d' Armilly and M. and Madame Albert de Morcerf. Many noble relatives ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg

... various groups, he saw a young man enter the park, accompanied by a lady and followed by a numerous retinue, and they both got into one of the swings placed there for the amusement of the festal crowd. ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob

... there on the table gleamed a beautiful hair-net, thy gift, Costly handwork of Byssos, spangled with golden bees. This, when next in the flowery festal season We shall worship the glorious child of Demeter, This will I offer to her for thy and my sake, So may she favor us both (for she much availeth), That no mourning lock thou untimely sever From thy beloved head ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... The hymn for morning rites ordained; Then, with his head in reverence bowed, Praised Madhu's conquering foe aloud, And, in pure linen robes arrayed, The priests to raise their voices prayed. Obedient to the summons they Proclaimed to all the festal day. The Brahmans' voices, deep and sweet, Resounded through the crowded street, And echoed through Ayodhya went By many a loud-toned instrument. Then all the people joyed to hear That Rama with his consort dear Had fasted till the morning light In preparation for the rite. Swiftly the joyful tidings ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... indicate,—the mother is the "former" of her child. As Henry Ward Beecher has well said, "the mother's heart is the child's school-room." Well might the Egyptian mother-goddess say (167. 261): "I am the mother who shaped thy beauties, who suckled thee with milk; I give thee with my milk festal things, that penetrate thy limbs with life, strength, and youth; I make thee to become the—great ruler of Egypt, lord of the space which the sun circles round." In the land of the Pharaohs they knew in some ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... in all their lives would moments so full of sweetness and splendor come to them. They were all the sweeter because blended with the homely duties that fell to Antonia's hands. As she went about ordering the breakfast, and giving to the table a festal air, Dare thought of the old Homeric heroes, and the daughters of the kings who ministered to their wants. The bravest of them had done no greater deeds of personal valor than had been done by the little band of American ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... the Prince of Kesh himself, a short, stout, broad-shouldered young man, thick-featured, heavy-faced, and having large, rolling eyes. He was clad in festal garments, and hung about with heavy chains of gold fastened with clasps of glittering stones, while from his crisp, black hair rose a tall plume of nodding ostrich feathers. Fan bearers walked beside him, and the train ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... had been saved for the true faith. And in the ecstasy of this union with the human brotherhood and the divine fatherhood, and with Christ, its symbol, Giuseppe de' Franchi saw not the dark, haggard faces of his brethren in the crowd, the hate that smouldered in their dusky eyes as the festal procession passed by. Nor while he knelt before crucifix and image that night, did he dream of that other ceremonial in the Synagogue of the Piazza of the Temple, half-way from the river; a scene more impressive in its sombreness than all the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... breast, Only, can feel the fire of love, Pure as the flames that brightly rest In bosoms of the realms above. Yes! often in the rudest form, A heart may be, more clear and bright Than ever lent the loveliest charm To goddess of the Festal light. Come, hear a story of the time, When this wide land was one green bower, The roving Red man's Eden-chine, Where bloomed the wildest flower. The great ships brought a wondrous race, One evening o'er ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley

... members of the church. As you enter upon a season of special religious activity, you also enter upon a season which society is wont to devote largely to pleasure. Ere another communion season shall have come round, the season for evening entertainments and festal gatherings, will be at its height. From the nature of circumstances you will be called upon to participate in these more or less; and it is at these points that the temptation to conformity to the world will be ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.

... The next was a festal day in Richmond, which, though always threatened by fire and steel, was not without its times of joyousness. The famous Kentucky raider, Gen. John H. Morgan, had come to town, and all that was best in the capital, both military and civil, would give ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... of Greek and Armenian merchants. Many of these are large and stately houses, surrounded with handsome gardens. The streets are shaded with sycamores, and the number of coffee-houses shows that the place is much frequented on festal days. A company of drunken Greeks were singing in violation of all metre and harmony—a discord the more remarkable, since nothing could be more affectionate than their conduct towards each other. Nearly everybody was in Frank costume, and our ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... issues from his lair, the serpent roams ready to bite, it is as obscure as in a dark room, the earth is silent whilst he who creates everything dwells in his horizon." He has hardly arisen when "Egypt becomes festal, one awakens, one rises on one's feet; when thou hast caused men to clothe themselves, they adore thee with outstretched hands, and the whole earth attends to its work, the animals betake themselves to their herbage, trees and green crops abound, birds fly to their marshy thickets ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... Tarascon was never seen under the sun of any land. At times, of a fine festal Sunday, all the town out, tambourines a-going, the Promenade swarming, tumultuous, enamelled with red and green petticoats, Arlesian neckerchiefs, and, on big multi-coloured posters, the announcement of wrestling-matches for men and lads, races of Camargue ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet

... rumours passed the carefully guarded bounds of the women's apartments. At length the long season of pleasure came to a harmonious close. No outbreak of the people of Shushan, no rising of distant provinces, no plotting of high-born traitors had marred the festal pomp. Yet the season of pleasure is always a period of trial, and the seeds of remorse and repentance are almost invariably sown in the hours of gayety. Amid all this brightness, a dark cloud hung over Ahasuerus. On the seventh and last day, when the heart of the king was merry—when ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous

... human justice stand forth in strong relief by reflections which gave them still greater solemnity in Cesar's eyes. Pillerault, the practical philosopher, fearing the danger of unexpected events on the worn mind of his nephew, had schemed to prepare him by degrees for the joys of this festal day. Just as Cesar finished dressing, a number of his faithful friends arrived, all eager for the honor of accompanying him to the bar of the Court. The presence of this retinue roused the honest ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... tree. Now, I have a certain liking for donkeys, principally, I believe, because of the delightful things that Sterne has written of them. But this was not after the pattern of the ass at Lyons. He was of a white colour, that seemed to fit him rather for rare festal occasions than for constant drudgery. Besides, he was very small, and of the daintiest proportions you can imagine in a donkey. And so, sure enough, you had only to look at him to see he had never worked. There was something ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... accident to my team that I'm forced to intrude at a time like this," she apologized to Nicola. He was an old man, gaunt and bowed, and his festal trappings ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... castle they found a great throng of lords and ladies, and because Sir Gwydion had no lady with him he could not sit at the feast. But Balin was well received and brought to a chamber, and they unarmed him. The squires brought him a festal robe to his pleasure, but he would not suffer them ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... and children were waiting for him, and gave him a joyful welcome in honour of the Sabbath. All servile work was forbidden on this day holy to the Lord; and all over the house, and in the face of all the family, I observed a kind of festal air. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... landed in a delightful little cove, embowered amid flowering trees and shrubs. On their return the boatmen decked themselves and their boat with wreaths of hawthorn and blossoming apple sprays, so that they entered the harbour with much festal pomp. In her poetic enthusiasm, Madame de Hell, as she gazed upon the cloudless sky and the calm blue sea and the Greek mariners, who thus, on a foreign shore, and after the lapse of so many centuries, retained the graceful customs of their ancestors, could not but be ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... transparent; the linden-trees in the gardens, which have lately put forth their leaves, appear like fresh, young woods; the long, narrow windows in the Gothic buildings on the island shine as if it were a festal illumination, and between the dark firs there falls a lustre from the panes behind them as of a thousand flames, as if the trees were covered with flickering—Christmas lights; the colours of the rainbow become stronger and stronger, ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen

... was by now wildly jealous of his old fiancee, whose fault was it? Had not Mrs. Barnes herself thrown them perpetually together? Dinners at Upcott!—invitations to Heston!—a resolute frequenting of the same festal gatherings with Mrs. Fairmile. None of it with Roger's goodwill, or his mother's,—Chloe admitted it. It had been the wife's doing—all of it. There had been even—rare occurrences—two or three balls in the neighbourhood. Roger hated dancing, but Daphne ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... day of St. Helena and St. Constantine, the parish priest says Mass in the grey of dawn. At sunrise all the village meets in festal array; the youngest Nistinare brings from the church the icones of the two saints, and drums are carried behind them in procession. They reach the sacred well in the wood, which the priest blesses. This is parallel to the priestly benediction on 'Fountain ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... on Riverside Drive, the foliage was tenderly green and the sunlight was a golden smile. Pushcarts freighted with potted plants and fruit gave scraps of festal color, and a stand canopied with a yellow-and-blue umbrella offered pies ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... of December. KHUR-UM, King of Tyre, Movers says, first performed this ceremony. These facts we learn from Josephus, Servius on the Æneid, and the Dionysiacs of Nonnus; and through a coincidence that cannot be fortuitous, the same day was at Rome the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the festal day of the invincible Sun. Under this title, HERCULES, HAR-acles, was worshipped at Tsūr. Thus, while the temple was being erected, the death and resurrection of a Sun-God was annually represented at Tsūr, by Solomon's ally, at the winter solstice, by ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... when our hearts are gay, And Pleasure round us smiles, Too soon the hours may pass away That rosy Mirth beguiles; And we may feel a tinge of pain Amid the festal cheer, And pause to ask, "When, when again, Shall all ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl

... lovely valley, where the natural solitude was as complete as the most devoted hermit could desire. The only means of getting to it were the narrow hill footpaths along which the worshippers from the great city and the scattered villages wound in and out on festal days, when they came trooping to the temple to make their offerings to the famous ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan

... trumpet's voice had stirred the sky, And rustling banners waved on high; The shouts of victory went up, And wreaths of laurel crowned the cup That flowed amid the festal halls, Within the crowded city's walls; Stern warriors came in long array To grace the conqueror's pageant day: Triumphant peeled the clarion's tone And spears and glancing armor shone, Mid the dust of thousands sweeping ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... little Thad's tree was dressed, the gifts were arranged beneath it, and all seemed in readiness for the dawning of the festal day, when Bessie, taking a mental inventory of the packages and discovering nothing among them for the servants save her own usual contribution of a dress and a pair of gloves for each, turned and said ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs

... a harvest of armed men to hurl him from his throne. With a sigh of resignation, therefore, he summoned Arima, and, resigning himself into that functionary's hands, submitted to be conducted to the bath, and afterwards attired in the festal garments prepared for the occasion. The bath of warm, delicately perfumed water he found to be so wonderfully refreshing that upon emerging from it all sensation of fatigue had vanished; and by the ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... when it assumes this very garb of respectability, and sits in the radiant circle of fashion attended by wit and beauty and social delight. Let us see the Tempter, not as he seems when he throws out his earliest lures, in festal garments and with roses around his brow; but as he looks when fairly engaged in his work, showing his genuine expression. Let us see this vice of intemperance in its results, as they teem and darken here in the midst of our city life. Lay bare ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... cheerful,—much more sovereign and cheerful, is the tone of Shakespeare. His name suggests joy and emancipation to the heart of men. If he should appear in any company of human souls, who would not march in his troop? He touches nothing that does not borrow health and longevity from his festal style. ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... the purpose of their embassy. For it was customary of old thus to welcome guests. When the feast had been prolonged three days, the princess came forth to make herself pleasant to the envoys with a most courteous address, and her blithe presence added not a little to the festal delights of the banqueters. And as the drink went faster Westmar revealed his purpose in due course, in a very merry declaration, wishing to sound the mind of the maiden in talk of a friendly sort. And, in order not to inflict on himself a rebuff, he spoke in a mirthful ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... sat on the steps of his store in French Village in the glory of a stiff white shirt and a festal red vest. The store was closed, of course, in honour of the day. In a few minutes he would put on his black coat, in his official capacity of trustee of the church, and march solemnly over to ring the bell ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... and comprehensive work contains a "liberal education" in the selection, cooking, and serving of food. It is for the novice and expert alike, and the many illustrations (including pictures of utensils, tables for every sort of meal, decorations for festal occasions, dishes ready for serving, etc.) are absolutely invaluable ...
— Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties - With Fifty Illustrations of Original Dishes • Janet McKenzie Hill

... took care that Nancy should not meet his father. Yet he walked the streets with him as before—walking defiantly and with shame those streets through which he had once led the perfect father in festal parade, to receive the applause of a respectful populace. Now he went forth awkwardly, doggedly, keen for signs that others saw what he did, and quick to burn with bitter, unreasoning resentment, when he detected that they did so. Once his father ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... comes from Edom In such glorious array, With his festal garments gleaming, Travelling on his royal way With a face majestic, calm and grave? I that speak in righteousness, mighty ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE

... when our story properly opens, Mr. and Mrs. Burton Jerrold and their son Grey, a well grown lad of fourteen, left their home on Beacon street, and with crowds of other city people took the train for the country, to keep the festal day. ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... through sunless caves, Like bodies struggling in their graves, Carolina! And now it deepens; slow and grand It swells, as rolling to the land An ocean broke upon the strand, Carolina! Shout! let it reach the startled Huns! And roar with all thy festal guns! It is the answer of thy ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... "ordinary," or prescribed, books, "two books of Cicero's Letters will be read on festal days"; and "the Greek Grammar of Theodorus Gaza will be explained at the expense of the ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton

... and servants' hall by rustics, who inherited the custom and the poetry from preceding generations. The boar's head, crowned with rosemary, had taken its honored station among the Christmas cheer; the festal board had been attended by glee singers and minstrels from the village to entertain the company with hereditary songs and catches during their repast; and the old Pyrrhic game of the sword dance, handed down since the time of the Romans, was admirably ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... and lifelessness into grace and nature. "And thus," he says, "it happened that this work was an object of so much admiration to the people of that day, they having never seen anything better, that it was carried in solemn procession, with the sound of trumpets and other festal demonstrations, from the house of Cimabue to the church, he himself being highly rewarded and honoured for it. It is further reported, and may be read in certain records of old painters, that, whilst Cimabue was painting this picture, in a garden ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... on earth to coincide with the arrival of the sun at the highest point of his course in the sky. If that was so, it follows that the old founders of the midsummer rites had observed the solstices or turning-points of the sun's apparent path in the sky, and that they accordingly regulated their festal calendar to ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... celebrated for her beauty, was going to be married, the infidels, lying in wait, would surround the door of the church, shooting their blunderbusses and knifing the unarmed men as they came out, in order to carry away the women in their festal robes. ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... David, from his newly won stronghold of Zion, seeking eagerly for this lost symbol of the people's faith. "Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah; we found it in the field of the wood." So the gray stone cottage on the hilltop gave up its sacred treasure, and David carried it away with festal music and dancing. But was Eleazar glad, I wonder, or sorry, that his ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... Nay, wife, we are young; Our time is not yet come. Let us speak now Of what I know thou holdest near thy heart. I do remember that it was thy wish To celebrate thy father's name and fame By some high festal. If thy purpose hold For such observance, the sad day which took him Returns a short time hence; I will employ Whatever wealth is mine to do him honour, And thee, my Gycia. Honouring the sire, I ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris

... festal! Iglesias, of course, was the great artist who devised and mainly executed it. As well as he could, he covered his pot and pan from the rain, admitting only enough to season each dish with gravy direct from the skies. As day had ripened, the banquet grew ripe. Then as day declined, we reclined ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... ere Jesus came— Alternate then His Altar flame Blazed up and died away, And Silence took her torn with Song, And Solitude with the fair throng That owned the festal day; For in earth's daily circuit then Only one border Reflected to the Seraphs' ken, Heaven's ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... fire-fly, shooting thro' the glade, Spangled the locks of many a lovely maid, Who now danc'd forth to strew His path with flowers. And hymn His welcome to celestial bowers. [Footnote 1] There od'rous lamps adorn'd the festal rite, And guavas blush'd as in the vales of light, [Footnote 2] —There silent sat many an unbidden Guest, [Footnote 3] Whose stedfast looks a secret dread impress'd; Not there forgot the sacred fruit that ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers

... upon the peaceful Forum. The birthplace of the nation! Here it was that the people, the decision having been made to play their part in the destiny of the new world now in the making, came to rejoice. The spirit of the throng was entirely festal. And these were the people, working-men and their wives and mothers from the dark corners of old Rome, neither hoodlums nor aristocracy, the people whose men for the most part were already ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... on more wood![356-1]—the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We'll keep our Christmas merry still. Each age has deem'd the new-born year The fittest time for festal cheer:[356-2] And well our Christian sires of old Loved when the year its course had roll'd, And brought blithe Christmas back again, With all his hospitable train.[356-3] Domestic and religious rite[356-4] Gave honor to the holy night; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... yet, as I think, a grace so wonderful might have disturbed and frightened it; and as it began to rejoice in the vision, it was delivered from all fear, and with the joy came peace, my soul continuing entranced. The joy of this rapture was exceedingly great; and for the rest of that festal time I was so amazed and bewildered that I did not know what I was doing, nor how I could have received so great a grace. I neither heard nor saw anything, so to speak, because of my great inward joy. From that day forth I perceived in myself a very great progress in the ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... French landed again, and found their new friends on the same spot, to the number of eighty or more, seated under a shelter of boughs, in festal attire of smoke-tanned deer-skins, painted in many colors. The party then rowed up the river, the Indians following them along the shore. As they advanced, coasting the borders of a great marsh that lay upon their left, the St. John's spread before them in vast sheets ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... enquiry of his own: "Who the devil have you got hold of NOW?" and at this her ladyship turned tremendously to the child, glaring at her as at an equal plotter of sin. Maisie received in petrifaction the full force of her mother's huge painted eyes—they were like Japanese lanterns swung under festal arches. But life came back to her from a tone suddenly and strangely softened. "Go straight to that gentleman, my dear; I've asked him to take you a few minutes. He's charming—go. I've something to say to ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... been wasted in Manila and in the outside presidios in firing salutes to the persons who govern the provinces, and on festal days, as appears by the different accounts of the administration of the royal estate, is considerable; and inasmuch as this cannot be regulated with certainty, it is diminished by eight hundred pesos per year, for according to the revision, powder must not be so ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various

... exquisite interweaving of the voices? the clever entrances by which the composer has grouped them round the main idea given out by the orchestra? the learned progressions that prepare us for the festal allegro? Did you not get a glimpse, as it were, of dancing groups, the dizzy round of a whole nation escaped from danger? And when the clarionet gives the signal for the stretto,—'Voci di giubilo,'—so ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac

... been a happy observer of all the fun and nonsense going on around her, and renewing her youth when she had dearly loved picnics; but it was not so with Miss Anstice. At the foot of the festal tablecloth, she had been viewing from the corners of her eyes the inroads of various specimens of the insect creation and several other peripatetic creatures that seemed to belong to no particular species but to a new order of beings originated for this very occasion. ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... on the veldt-side, but we felt we couldn't stop, On this, our England's crowning festal day; We're the men of Magersfontein, we're the men of Spion Kop, Colenso,—we're the men who had to pay. We're the men who paid the blood-price. Shall the grave be all our gain? You owe us. Long and heavy is the score. Then cheer us for our glory now, and cheer ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service

... Reynolds laid aside her festal attire, made a nest for herself on her roomy couch and, to the faintly flowing rhythm of "The Beautiful Blue Danube," soon lost herself in dreamland, never waking until the brilliant sun of a glorious June morning flooded her room ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... faded magnificence. The panelled wainscot is covered with dingy paint, and acquires a duskier hue from the deep shadow into which the Province House is thrown by the brick block that shuts it in from Washington Street. A ray of sunshine never visits this apartment any more than the glare of the festal torches, which have been extinguished from the era of the Revolution. The most venerable and ornamental object is a chimneypiece set round with Dutch tiles of blue-figured China, representing scenes from Scripture; and, for ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... oppress my soul With more unrest, and Hebe-like, the bowl Of festal comfort for a moment raise To my poor lips, and then avert thy gaze? Wouldst make me mad beyond the daily curse Of thy displeasure, and in wrath disperse That halcyon draught, that nectar of the mind, Which is the theme I yearn to in ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay

... Highness. Upon which the beautiful maiden in her bridal robes, and the myrtle wreath on her hair, stepped in. At which sight his Grace, who was reclining on a couch, started up, took her hand smiling, and asked—"For the love of Heaven, what brought her hither upon her festal-day?" ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... welcome here To the banquet we have spread: It will cause no bitter tear When the festal hour is fled; It will break no mother's heart, For the deadly bowl we shun! Welcome then—and when we part Blessings go ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson

... another striking passage, Professor Gummere asks us to visualize "a throng of people without skill to read or write, without ability to project themselves into the future, or to compare themselves with the past, or even to range their experience with the experience of other communities, gathered in festal mood, and by loud song, perfect rhythm and energetic dance, expressing their feelings over an event of quite local origin, present appeal and common interest. Here, in point of evolution, is the human basis of poetry, the foundation ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... marked with a white stone and kept ever after as one of the chief festal days of her life, but of the reason why there is here no record. The diary for the rest of the year is blank with the exception of a single leaf ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... Anstey, Olive and I—chose to pay a call to-day; and when, after a little hesitation, Mrs. Rose asked us to have some tea, we were taken into the dining-room, where these festal delicacies ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... here I am, quite dazzled with the sight Presented on this brilliant festal night! Where'er I turn, whole rows of patrons sit— The house is full—box, gallery, and pit! Who says the New-York public are unkind? I know them well, and plainly speak my mind— "It is our right," the ancient ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. The best is when they pass and look aside; But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all. Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time, And that long festal year at Fontainebleau! {150} I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear, In that humane great monarch's golden look,— One finger in his beard or twisted ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... gleam of color. Life, also, has these pallid, monotonous hours. A distrust of all things invades the soul, and physical inertia and mental languor make daily existence a simple weight. It was Christmas-time, but the squire felt none of the elation of the season. He was conscious that the old festal preparations were going on, but there was no response to them in his heart. Julius had arrived, and was helping Sophia to hang the holly and mistletoe. But Sandal knew that his soul shrank from the nephew he had called into his life; knew that the sound of his voice irritated him, ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... being outshone. 'Tis is your own fault, man; none can ever tell whether you be in festal trim or not.' ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... guest In years that follow victory won, How sweet to feel your festal fame In woman's glance instinctive thrown: Repose is yours—your deed is known, It musks the amber wine; It lives, and sheds a light from storied days Rich as October sunsets brown, Which make ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... a beautiful frame of verdure and flowers! Nature has donned her richest festal robes; the inanimate things, like the human beings, all speak of love and happiness, and tell us that the master of this world is that little child with bandaged eyes, who amuses himself by shooting ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... and beaded wine mocked his feverish thirst; and palaces of stainless marble, rising tower upon tower, and turret over turret, like the pearly heaps of cloud before a storm, while the wind swept from their gilded lattices bursts of festal music, the chorus that receives a bride, or the triumphal notes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... a hill-top near the sun The stars are unseen, every one, While from its base within the valley Their festal ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand

... speculation to the geologists of other days—it rushes madly among the standing trees of the woods, wreathing them to their summits in its wild embrace—they stand at night like lofty torches, or a park decked out with festal lamps for some grand gala. After this first burn, a fallow presents a blackened scene of desolation and confusion, and requires, indeed, a strong arm and a stout heart to undertake its clearance; the ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan

... before its usual hour; there was a tang of joyousness in the air, and everybody's heart and mind, strangely enough, seemed to be in festal attire, although nobody was outwardly conscious of it. It was all the more inexplicable because Saint Margaret's had gone to bed miserable, and events naturally pointed toward depression: Margaret MacLean's coming departure, the abandoning of Ward C, the House Surgeon's resignation, ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... her!—a fierce heroic air. She was the embodiment of the moment—of the melancholy morning with its rain and leafless woods—of the human anguish throbbing in the little village. And I, who had seen her last in her festal dress, who had held her warm perfumed youth in my arms, who had watched in her white breast the heaving of the heart that I—I had troubled!—how did I find it possible to stand and face her? But I did. It rushed through me at once how I would make her forgive me—how I would regain ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward



Words linked to "Festal" :   joyous, gay



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