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Alabaster   Listen
noun
Alabaster  n.  
1.
(Min.)
(a)
A compact variety or sulphate of lime, or gypsum, of fine texture, and usually white and translucent, but sometimes yellow, red, or gray. It is carved into vases, mantel ornaments, etc.
(b)
A hard, compact variety of carbonate of lime, somewhat translucent, or of banded shades of color; stalagmite. The name is used in this sense by Pliny. It is sometimes distinguished as oriental alabaster.
2.
A box or vessel for holding odoriferous ointments, etc.; so called from the stone of which it was originally made.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Alabaster" Quotes from Famous Books



... teachers instructed me in the ancient learning of our people, and in such matters appertaining to the Gods as it is meet that children should know. So I grew strong and comely, for my hair was black as the hair of the divine Nout, and my eyes were blue as the blue lotus, and my skin was like the alabaster within the sanctuaries. For now that these glories have passed from me I may speak of them without shame. I was strong also. There was no youth of my years in Abouthis who could stand against me to wrestle with me, nor could any throw so far with the sling or ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... the new St. Agnes' as the Bishop had hoped. Columns of red brick were covered in marble and alabaster by the votive offerings of individuals or the subscriptions of different Silchester Houses; the baldacchino was given by one rich old lady, the pavement of the church by another; the Duke of Birmingham contributed a thurible; Oxford Old Siltonians ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... performance of another duty, it is to speak the briefest, yet the hardest of all words to utter, the word of final farewell. Had I the gift of eloquence, I would pour into that word, as into a casket of alabaster, all the love, all the affection, all the sad sweet smiles, all the 'God be with you until we meet again,' of your loved ones back home. Through the gates of memory you have left ajar, I seem to see your old home town—the streets guarded ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... Museum the most interesting productions of the Peak are to be seen. Many of the specimens are manufactured into vases, copied from the antique. Besides the natural productions of the place, there are a great variety of fine alabaster vases from Florence, with statues of various kinds of Italian marble. Immediately facing the museum are the gardens, called the Museum Gardens, in which are several grottoes, curiously ornamented. Perched upon a rock, just at the entrance, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various

... were smoothed back by the skilful fingers of an expert femme de chambre, and confined in an elaborate knot at the back of Bertha's small head; the rebellious locks would wave and break into fine rings upon the white brow, and lovingly steal in stray ringlets adown the alabaster throat, ignoring conventional restraint as ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... her skin, complexion and hair than he. The analogy extends even to superfluous hair which he had removed, not by the modern electrolysis, but by depilation with forceps and main force. The attendants at his bath would polish his epidermis, for his satisfaction, until it resembled alabaster or marble. ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... fountain of bronze, covered with frozen spray, through which only suggestive glimpses of its delicate tracery can be obtained. From every rise we looked over thousands of such mimic fountains, shooting, low or high, from their pavements of ivory and alabaster. It was an enchanted wilderness—white, silent, gleaming, and filled with inexhaustible forms of beauty. To what shall I liken those glimpses under the boughs, into the depths of the forest, where the snow destroyed all perspective, and brought ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... went, and when he got there the whole palace was made of polished marble with alabaster figures and golden ornaments, and soldiers were marching before the door blowing trumpets, and beating cymbals and drums; and in the house, barons, and counts, and dukes were going about as servants. Then they ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... distinguished the form of my grandmother lying as then when my aunt made me touch her face. A few yards further on lay the body of my uncle, as I saw him in his coffin. His face was dead white in the midst of the cold clear ice, his eyes closed, and his arms straight by his side. He lay like an alabaster king upon his tomb. It was he, I thought, but he would never speak to me more—never look at me—-never more awake. There lay all that was left of him—the cold frozen memory of what he had been, and would never be again. I did not weep. I only knew somehow ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... fantastic, ignorant, absurd, very simple, very unreasonable oftentimes, but things beautiful always, and sometimes even very wise by a wisdom not of the world; by a certain light divine that does shine now and then as through an alabaster lamp, through minds that have ...
— Bebee • Ouida

... called Diamond Grotto. Alma's Bower closes this series of wonderful formations. As a whole, they are called Cleveland's Cabinet, in honor of Professor Cleveland, of Bowdoin College. Silliman calls this admirable series, the Alabaster Caves. He says: "I was at first at a loss to account for such beautiful formations, and especially for the elegance of the curves exhibited. It is however evident that the substances have grown from the rocks, by ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... as is beheld by infants in their slumbers, when they dream of paradise!" said Glenn, paying no attention to Joe, his eyes immovably riveted on the innumerable sprigs of alabaster which pointed out in every direction in profuse clusters, while his pale lips seemed to move mechanically, and his brow expressed a mournful serenity, as if entertaining a regret that he should ever be ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... like Heaven blue and charming, a pretty Mouth, Neck round and white as polisht Alabaster, and a Complexion beauteous as an Angel, a Hair fit to make Bonds to insnare the God of Love,—a sprightly Air,—a Hand like Lillies white, and Lips, no Roses opening in a Morning are ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... would cause me to be treated like a princess, and that in a short time I should have my liberty if I preferred to return to the world. At the same time he attempted to put his arm around my waist. In a moment I was on my feet. While he was talking love to me, I was looking at two large alabaster vases full of beautiful wax flowers; one of them was as much as I could lift. Without one thought about consequences, I seized the nearest vase and threw it with all the strength I had at the priest's head. He fell like a log and uttered one or two ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... white slave-mother, of whom we have already spoken, created as much of a sensation by the fairness of her complexion and the alabaster whiteness of her child, when being conveyed on shore at New Orleans, as she had done when brought on board at Grand Gulf. Every one that saw her felt that slavery in the Southern States was not confined to the negro. Many had been taught to think that ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown

... and following the northern base of the pillars, we find a very beautiful alabaster monument (11), with the effigy of Sir John Cheyney (died 1509) clad in military garb, and wearing the collar of SS. with the portcullis badge of Henry VII. suspended therefrom. Sir John Cheyney was the standard-bearer ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White

... do. The reredos is alabaster, I believe, and we had nobody fit to undertake that. I so longed for the ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Girl who sits on my right, next beyond the Master, can hardly be more than nineteen or twenty years old. I wish I could paint her so as to interest others as much as she does me. But she has not a profusion of sunny tresses wreathing a neck of alabaster, and a cheek where the rose and the lily are trying to settle their old quarrel with alternating victory. Her hair is brown, her cheek is delicately pallid, her forehead is too ample for a ball-room beauty's. A single faint line between the eyebrows is the record of long—continued ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... see nothing but pullets, geese, ducks, partridges, fowls, and game of all kinds, fruits, and eggs, amphorae, loaves of bread and cakes, hams, and I know not what all else. In the shops attached to this palace belong all sorts of precious articles—vases, lamps, statuettes, jewels, a handsome alabaster cup; besides, there have been found five hundred and fifty small bottles, without counting the goblets, and, in vases of glass, raisins, figs, chestnuts, lentils, and near them scales and bakers' and pastry-cooks' moulds. Could the Pantheon, then, have been a tavern, a free inn (hospitium) ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... leaves behind a whirlwind, eddying, twisting; and as the Dweller raced by them, brushing them with its spirallings and tentacles, they shone forth with unearthly, awesome gleamings—like vessels of alabaster in which wicks flare suddenly. And when it had passed they closed behind it, staring up ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... wing Of Hippogrif bore through the Air sublime Over the Wilderness and o're the Plain; Till underneath them fair Jerusalem, The holy City lifted high her Towers, And higher yet the glorious Temple rear'd Her pile, far off appearing like a Mount Of Alabaster, top't with golden Spires: There on the highest Pinacle he set The Son of God; and added thus in scorn: 550 There stand, if thou wilt stand; to stand upright Will ask thee skill; I to thy Fathers house Have brought thee, and highest ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... till the people that make wattles in the plains shall hear of it and sing; but the heralds shall go northward along the hills until they come to Sooma. And in that golden city they shall tell the kings, that sit in their lofty alabaster house, of thy strange and sudden smiles. And often in distant markets shall thy story be told by merchants out from Sooma as they sit telling careless tales to lure ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... and saw that the pale light shone forth from a great white diamond on the finger of a dead man's hand. The body was faintly and darkly outlined; even the floating arm might also have been a floating mass of blackened river weed; but the hand was white as alabaster, and as I bent over it, staring down, one of the fingers moved and beckoned. Then I woke with ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson

... lay deep under the snow, the mountain meadows were one smooth sheet of white. The rocks were invisible and the lakes lay buried. The mountains round about had lost their gloomy shade, and now seemed to surround the valley with walls of alabaster, and when the sun shone, the whole white world was radiant. Where the road, which looked like a single furrow in a white field, separated, running northward and southward, stood the hospice. The gray walls were plastered ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... though owning allegiance to Dungi, carried on wars on his own behalf, and boasts of having conquered "Ansan of Elam." The materials for his numerous buildings were brought from far. Hewn stones were imported from the "land of the Amorites," limestone and alabaster from the Lebanon, gold-dust and acacia-wood from the desert to the south of Palestine, copper from northern Arabia, and various sorts of wood from the Armenian mountains. Other trees came from Dilmun in the Persian Gulf, from Gozan in Mesopotamia, and from Gubin, which is possibly Gebal. The ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... wrapping himself in a light robe, he returned once more to the tepidarium, where he found Glaucus, who had not encountered the sudatorium; and now, the main delight and extravagance of the bath commenced. Their slaves anointed the bathers from vials of gold, of alabaster, or of crystal, studded with profusest gems, and containing the rarest unguents gathered from all quarters of the world. The number of these smegmata used by the wealthy would fill a modern volume—especially if the volume were printed by a fashionable publisher; Amaracinum, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... a bishop of greater edification than Ximenes; and Erasmus, in a letter to his friend Vergara, perpetrates a Greek pun on the classic name of Alcala, intimating the highest opinion of the state of science there. The reclining statue of Ximenes, beautifully carved in alabaster, now ornaments his sepulchre in the College of ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... it's only a pocket handkerchief full, he says! Coals! What would he do with coals? Toast his cheese with 'em and then come back for more. That's the way with these people, ma'am; give 'em a apron full of coals to-day, and they'll come back for another, the day after to-morrow, as brazen as alabaster.' ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... any thing of this subject? Have you neither seen nor heard of Alabaster, and had no means of ascertaining any thing in regard to it? If you have, you ought to rise. It is not necessary that you should state a fact altogether new and unheard of, but if you tell me its color, or some of the uses to ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... which he officiated was not the one which Lady Montfort usually attended, she was soon among his congregation and remained there. He became a constant guest at the castle, and Lady Montfort presented his church with a reredos of alabaster. She did more than this. Her enthusiasm exceeded her selfishness, for though the sacrifice was great which would deprive her of the ministrations and society of Nigel in the country, she prevailed upon the prime minister to prefer him to a new church in ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... girls I ever saw. She was nearly as tall as myself, but considerably stouter, and her body was molded in a most exquisite manner. Although her eyes were very black and her hair like the raven's plume, her skin was as white as alabaster. Her teeth were as regular as if they had been cut of a solid piece of ivory, and her hands and feet were fairylike in their proportions. I was the eldest girl in the school and Laura immediately made me her companion. She was exceedingly intelligent, well ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival

... is a case of curiosities found about the church, among them several fourteenth or fifteenth century reliefs in alabaster, representing the Resurrection, the Coronation of the Virgin, the story of Herodias, and the figure of a bishop, probably St. Wilfrid, with a curious P-shaped implement ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett

... chairs in hair seating; cheffonier, with plate glass; book-case; flower-stands; pianoforte, by Collard and Collard; music-stool and Canterbury; chimney and pier-glasses; mirror; ormolu time-piece; alabaster and wax figures and shades; china; Brussels carpets and rugs; fenders and fire-irons; curtains and cornices; Venetian blinds; mahogany four-post, French, and camp bedsteads; feather beds; hair mattresses; mahogany chests of drawers; dressing-glasses; wash and dressing-tables; ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... and Riar each had an alabaster baby, dressed in white Swiss, and they were all just alike, except that they ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle

... Lansing, broken-nailed and perspiring, extracted the cigars and stalked with them into the deserted drawing room. The great bunches of golden roses that he and Susy had gathered the day before were dropping their petals on the marble embroidery of the floor, pale camellias floated in the alabaster tazzas between the windows, haunting scents of the garden blew in on him with the breeze from the lake. Never had Streffy's little house seemed so like a nest of pleasures. Lansing laid the cigar boxes on a console and ran upstairs to collect his last possessions. ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... patriarch or prophet, but are more likely to have been connected with the ancient religion of Canaan, which lingered here to the latest days of Roman paganism. In the great Druse shrine of Neby Schaib near Hattin there is a square block of limestone in the centre of which is a piece of alabaster containing the imprint of a human foot of natural size, with the toes very clearly defined. The Druses reverently kiss this impression, asserting that the rock exudes moisture, and that it is never dry. There is a split in the rock ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... Now, it has been my inspiration to introduce it into statuary. For this purpose I have invented a peculiar plastic compound which you will permit me not to divulge. That's my secret, signore! It's as light, you perceive, as cork, and yet as firm as alabaster! I frankly confess that I really pride myself as much on this little stroke of chemical ingenuity as upon the other element of novelty in my creations—my types. What do you say to my types, signore? The idea is bold; does it ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James

... of white wool, embroidered on the neck and hem, that lay ready for me, and went down the stair to the room whither my hostess had directed me. It was round, all of alabaster, and without a single window: the light came through everywhere, a soft, pearly shimmer rather than shine. Vague shadowy forms went flitting about over the walls and low dome, like loose rain-clouds over ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... when on tasting the food, he found the bread to be made of chalk, the chicken of cardboard, and the brilliant fruit of colored alabaster! ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini

... the spot; no polished alabaster, or the mimicry of sculptured marble marks his grave: the real excellency of the patriot is written on the minds of his countrymen; it will be remembered with applause as long as the nation subsists, without this artificial expedient to ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp

... people still arriving, a small crowd of onlookers scanning the various groups as they crossed the pavement. On this hot night in May, it seemed pleasantly cool to get into the great hall of white and black marble, where the miniature lake, on which floated an alabaster swan, was all banked round with flowers; and when Lady Adela had dispossessed herself of her long plush coat, it was evident she had dressed for the reception before going to the theatre, for now she appeared ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... ornaments. But this moment sped away without any catastrophe, although with much of heart throbbing. Hatszegi observed the jewels in the ears and round the neck of his bride and paid her the compliment of saying that they contrasted admirably with the snowy whiteness of her alabaster neck. ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... Herodotus admires so much, they quickly resumed the offensive[76]. We cannot follow all the fluctuations of the conflict; the information left by the early historians is vague and contradictory, and we have no cuneiform inscriptions to help us out. After the fall of Nineveh cylinders of clay and alabaster slabs were no longer covered with wedges by the Assyrian scribes. They had recounted their victories and conquests at length, but not one among them, so far as we know, cared to retrace the ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... the city itself swung into view, gleaming like alabaster between the boles of the bordering trees, with here and there a flash of sunlight from the golden roofs of the principal buildings; and finally a great archway, pierced through the lofty and massive wall that enclosed ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... several colours. In places where they were wind-swept of their snow and showed the naked ice, the hues were wondrously splendid, and, mingling upon the sight, formed a kind of airy, rainbow-like veil that complicated the whole congregation of white shaft and many-tinctured spire, the marble column, the alabaster steeple into a confused but most surprisingly dainty and ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... have seen till we have utterly ceased to see them, the things that nobody who really lives in Florence ever dreams of buying, are new to these people. They love them. As a result, you can guess. There will be in their apartments alabaster plates with profiles of Dante and Michelangelo on a black center. There will be mosaic tables with magnolias and irises. There will be Pliny's doves. Think of it! There will be green bronze ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... and fear, and his spirit moved by the passionate exultation of the antiquary whose studies and researches are about to be rewarded with unexpected treasure. Towards sunset the men came upon a large oblong piece of what appeared to be alabaster, closely inlaid with patterns of worn gold and bearing on its surface the sculptured emblems of a cross, a drawn sword and a crown of laurel leaves intertwisted with thorns, the whole most elaborately wrought, and very little ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... stuffs. Beside all this there was an old oak Gothic priedieu, a small altar draped in rose color and white lace, a mass of flowers, and numerous crucifixes and Madonnas of various sizes in silver, ivory and alabaster. ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... sallow; her eye full, dark, and commanding, though occasionally more languor was on it than eyes of that colour are wont to express. She wore a long jacket of russet colour, and a crimson boddice. Her hair, turned back from her brow, hung in dark heavy ringlets below the neck, which, though not of alabaster, was exquisitely modelled. In person she was tall and well-shapen, and her whole manner displayed a mind of no ordinary proportions. She was well-skilled in household duties, her mother having an especial desire that her daughter ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... to the river and set down their loads at the foot of a vast mountain and a lofty, and pitched their tents by the stream-bank. Then they rested and ate and drank and slept in security, for they were come to their own country. On the morrow the old woman set Hasan a couch of alabaster, inlaid with pearls and jewels and nuggets of red gold, by the river-side, and he sat down thereon, having first bound his face with a chin-kerchief, that discovered naught of him but his eyes. Then she bade proclaim among the troops that they should all assemble before ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... And from her head her gilden casque he kest, For every lace he broke and every thong, And in the dust threw down her plumed crest, About her shoulders shone her golden locks, Like sunny beams, on alabaster rocks. ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... procession returns to the city. The relatives who stay take off their shoes, wash their hands, and proceed to gather up the bones—which they cleanse in wine and milk—and the ashes, which they mix with perfume. These remains are then placed in the urn of bronze, marble, alabaster, or maybe of coloured glass, and the urn fills one more niche in the chamber ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... him by the hand, A lily prisoned in a jail of snow, Or ivory in an alabaster band: So white a friend ingirts so white ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... eyes, hating the feeling that constrained him, yet unable for the moment to restrain it or to turn his eyes away. She had that clear, bright whiteness of skin that is seen only in Frenchwomen, and only here and there among these; whiteness as of fire behind alabaster. Her hair was black and soft, and the lashes lay like jet on her cheek, as she stood looking down, smiling a little, feeling so happy, so pleased that she was pleasing others. And now, when she raised her eyes, they were seen to be dark and soft, ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards

... the age of fifty-nine, after an active and notable reign of thirty-seven years. Her funeral was attended with the greatest solemnity, and her corpse was brought to the Cathedral of Roeskilde, where Eric of Pomerania, her successor, in 1423, caused her likeness to be carved in alabaster. Her acts show her character. She displayed judiciousness united with circumspection; wisdom in devising plans, and perseverance in executing them; skill in gaining the confidence of the clergy and peasantry, and thereby counterbalancing the imperious nobility. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... days beforehand, had himself waxed the red floor of his garret, beaten the armchair, and knocked off the dust from the chimney-piece, on which might be seen under a globe an alabaster timepiece between a stalactite and a cocoanut. As his two chandeliers and his chamber candlestick were not sufficient, he had borrowed two more candlesticks from the doorkeeper; and these five lights shone on the top of the chest of drawers, ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... shall not undertake to decide; but this I know,—God gave me only so much love to spend, and I poured it all out, I deluged my idol with it, instead of doling it carefully through the future years. Like the woman of Bethany, I have broken my box of alabaster, and spilled all my precious ointment, which might have served for a lifetime of anointing, and I cannot renew the shattered receptacle, nor gather back the wasted fragrance; and so my heart must remain without spikenard or balm during its earthly sojourn. I have been prodigal,—have beggared my ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... were placed; Magnificence like this the nuns admired, And such amusements ardently desired. Their beauty too incited to be free; A thousand matters filled their souls with glee; In height the belles were pretty much the same Like alabaster fair; of perfect frame; In num'rous corners Cupid nestling lay: Beneath a stomacher he'd slyly play, A veil or scapulary, this or that, Where least the eye of day perceived he sat, Unless a lover called to mystick bow'rs, Where he might hearts entwine with chains ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... face out-looking like a star— As in a vision saw he this, for straight They vanished. Where those silvery shadows were Was nothing. Had he dreamed it? Had he gone Mad with much thinking on her, and so made Ghosts of his own sick fancies? Like a man Carved out of alabaster and set up Within a woodland, he stood rooted there, Glimmering wanly under pendent boughs. Spell-bound he stood, in very woeful plight, Bewildered; and then presently with shock Of rapid pulses hammering at heart, As mad ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... mahogany and cheap gilding, bare floors with gaudy little rugs lying about here and there, tables with flaming tapestry covers, chairs cushioned with red velvet of the commonest kind, sham tortoiseshell clock and candelabra on the dining-room chimney-piece, alabaster clock and candelabra in the drawing-room. There was nothing home-like or comfortable in the house to atone for the smallness of the rooms, which seemed mere cells to Ida after the spaciousness of Mauleverer Manor and The Knoll. She wondered how her father and mother ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... pillow and arranged the shawl about him. Perhaps she was wrong to do such things, just because she was so young; but when she did them he breathed freely again, and the faint false dawn of a new day that might never brighten rose in the alabaster cheeks. ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford

... as we were relieved of the country-woman's presence, she removed her hood, and let a mass of ebon hair fall upon her alabaster shoulders, making a truly ravishing contrast. She put the portrait before her, and proceeded to arrange her hair like ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... second: The alabaster halls of the air will be filled with those who will throng up from all the cemeteries of all the ages—from Greyfriar's Churchyard and Roman Catacomb, from Westminster Abbey and from the coral crypts of oceanic cave, and ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... auburn hair, with here and there a glint of warmer hue, framed that beautiful face—half woman's, half child's. Dark-gray eyes, with long dark lashes and brows; cheeks naturally very pale, but sensitive, like some delicate alabaster, showing the red at every wave of emotion; something racy, piquant, unique, enveloped the whole appearance of this young girl. I had never seen anything ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... philosopher's stone. The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character. Living all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. All his alabaster lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid. Smell almost cure you like the dentist's doorbell. Doctor Whack. He ought to physic himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first fellow that picked an herb to ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... gold, and [beside it] a little door. She opened the door and found herself in a long passage; so she followed it and behold, a bath lined with all kinds of precious marbles and floored with a mosaic of pearls and jewels. Therein were four cisterns of alabaster, one facing other, and the ceiling of the bath was of glass coloured with all manner colours, such as confounded the understanding of the folk of understanding ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... pleasant little bay here which possesses possibilities as a future watering-place, but at present the accommodation for visitors is extremely limited. The cliffs that border the foreshore are strikingly coloured and are veined with alabaster. The view towards Minehead is charming. It is said that the sea at very low water uncovers the remains of a ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade

... called "PER-T EM HRU," i.e., "Coming Forth (or, into) the Day," was discovered by a high official in the foundations of a shrine of the god Hennu during the reign of Semti, or Hesepti, a king of the Ist dynasty. Another rubric in the same papyrus says that the text was cut upon the alabaster plinth of a statue of Menkaura (Mycerinus), a king of the IVth dynasty, and that the letters were inlaid with lapis lazuli. The plinth was found by Prince Herutataf, a son of King Khufu (Cheops), who carried it off to his king and exhibited it ...
— The Book of the Dead • E. A. Wallis Budge

... naughty Nell, in her most winning way. "A frown upon that alabaster brow, a pout upon those rosy lips; ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... arms? Thou shameless minx, worthy of a name—that shall be nameless! Yes, thy skin is soft: ours is rough with hardship; and well wetted, waiting here in the rain. No children hast thou hungry at home; only alabaster dolls, that weep not! The traitress! To the Lanterne!—And so poor Louison Chabray, no asseveration or shrieks availing her, fair slim damsel, late in the arms of Royalty, has a garter round her neck, and furibund ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... of Roscoff has a curious pierced steeple, like many of those in Finistere, and some alabaster bas-reliefs of the fourteenth century, with numerous boxes of skulls. A ship rudely sculptured by the porch, and another by the east window, show that the fishermen and ship-owners contributed to the building of the church. By the shore is a rock of grotesque form, ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... prelate could not exercise his functions, and was forced to return to the Peninsula in 1515. He came back in 1519, invested with the powers of a Provincial Inquisitor, which he exercised till 1539, when he died and was buried in the cathedral, where a monument with an alabaster effigy marked his tomb till 1625, when it was destroyed ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... hall-with its twenty doors and lofty porphyry columns—in which the king's guests assembled, it was lighted from above, since it was only at the sides that the walls—which had no windows—and a row of graceful alabaster columns with Corinthian acanthus-capitals supported a narrow roof; the centre of the hall was quite uncovered. At this hour, when it was blazing with hundreds of lights, the large opening, which by day admitted the bright sunshine, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... it bent sharply to the right in an elbow. This offset extended three or four yards and then bent to the left in a similar elbow, opening into a cavern more than fifteen yards wide, twice as long or longer, and with a roof of dim white pendants like alabaster, no part of which was less than five yards from the conveniently level, rather damp floor, while some parts of it ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... the sun is directly overhead we hasten to put up sunshades, so why should we deliberately reproduce in our homes the most trying position of light? The fixtures also are usually extremely ugly. One sees sometimes in private houses what is called the indirect method of lighting, which is usually an alabaster bowl suspended by chains from the ceiling in which the lights are concealed. The reflected light on the ceiling is supposed to give a suffused and bright light. To my mind there is something extremely obnoxious about this method used in homes, for it smacks of department ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop

... silken cushions, turning her head toward the closed door with the languorous, almost insolent, indifference which one perceives in the movements of a tigress. Below, in the lobby, where the pillars of Mokattam alabaster upheld the painted roof, the little yellow man from Pekin shivered slightly, although the air was warm for Limehouse, and always turned his mysterious eyes toward a corner of the great staircase which was ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... light fantastic toe," "the cup that cheers but does not inebriate," "in the arms of Morpheus," "the debt of nature," "the bourne whence no traveler returns," "to shuffle off this mortal coil," "the devouring element," "a brow of alabaster." ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel

... characters, were strewn on all sides. With joy I found the fragment of a bas-relief. Convinced that sculptured remains must still exist in some parts of the mound, I sought for a place where excavations might be commenced with some prospects of success. Awad led me to a piece of alabaster which appeared above the soil. We could not remove it, and on digging downward it proved to be the upper part of a large slab. I ordered the men to work around it, and shortly we ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... you last night? Where were you, Charley, and dear little Alice? You had all gone to rest, and left old Grandfather to meditate alone in his great chair. The lamp had grown so dim that its light hardly illuminated the alabaster shade. The wood-fire had crumbled into heavy embers, among which the little flames danced, and quivered, and sported about ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... byways, its male citizens—most of them—walked with a sea roll, and upon the tables and whatnots of their closed and shuttered "front parlors" or in their cupboards or closets were laquered cabinets, and whales' teeth, and alabaster images, and carved chessmen and curious shells and scented fans and heaven knows what, brought from heaven knows where, but all brought in sailing ships over one or more of the seas of the world. The average better class house in ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... father, the trees!" began she, smiling and with vivacity; "not the whole garden, just the trees, which, covered with snow and frost in the moonlight, were like pillars of marble, alabaster, crystal, set with diamonds, hung with laces; and whenever the slightest breeze moved, a rain of pearls was scattered on the ground." "Great God!" exclaimed Darvid, "marbles, alabasters, laces, diamonds, pearls! But there was nothing ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... (Sept. 9) informed by Governor Wallace, that the Sierra de Tecolote, east of the ruins, contains probably gypsum, even in the form of alabaster. It is certain that nothing like lime-kilns or places where lime might have been burnt are found at any moderate distance from the ruins. The surrounding rocks, up to head of the valley and to the ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier

... write to you. 'Tis the top of a black barren mountain, a vile little town at the foot of an old citadel: yet this, know you, was the residence of one of the three kings that went to Christ's birth-day; his name was Alabaster, Abarasser, or some such thing; the other two were kings, one of the East, the other of Cologn. 'Tis this of Cofano, who was represented in an ancient painting found in the Palatine Mount, now in ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... indeed, quite exceeds description. In the principal one is a group on one wall—a colossal relief—representing Marcus Curtius plunging into the gulf in the Forum. There are busts of the twelve Caesars; there are busts of all the Roman Emperors, with alabaster draperies, placed on pedestals of red granite. There are Bernini's "Apollo and Daphne;" Canova's celebrated statue of Princess Pauline Borghese (the sister of Napoleon I); Bernini's "David" and "AEneas and Anchises;" Thorwaldsen's "Faun;" "Diana," "Isis," "Juno," and many other celebrated classic ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... too severely intellectual for the other features. She possessed a wealth of luxuriant black hair, which she had a quaint method of coiling around her head in a single massive braid, singularly contrasting with the alabaster whiteness of the delicate temples upon which it rested. She was very happy at the home she occupied, which was often enlivened by the joyous snatches of music that broke from her ruby lips as from a bird; but she had but a faint, a dream-like remembrance of the scenes connected with ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... rendered as deeply and as roundly as the sculptor desired. In Southern countries, however, and chiefly in Italy, the stone used for building was not ordinary, but semi-precious stone. Marble, porphyry, and alabaster were available; and the use of such material led to a different ideal in architecture and decoration,—that of incrustation instead of solid piling. These valuable stones of Italy could not be used, generally speaking, in vast ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... the count de Gubernatis, I saw the remains of a bath, fronting the portal of the temple, which I have described in a former letter; and here were some shafts of marble pillars, particularly a capital of the Corinthian order beautifully cut, of white alabaster. Here the count found a large quantity of fine marble, which he has converted to various uses; and some mutilated statues, bronze as well as marble. The peasant shewed me some brass and silver medals, which he has picked ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... Some alabaster slabs came to light at Tell el Amarna bearing the hieroglyphic names of King Amenophis IV. and his father, Amenophis III. These had evidently served as lids to the chests. Some tablets also were inscribed with notes in hieratic, written in red ink. But in spite of these exceptions, it ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr

... through its ruins, and he may judge of the impression its halls were calculated to make upon the stranger who, in the days of old, entered for the first time into the abode of the Assyrian Kings. He was ushered in through the portal guarded by the colossal lions or bulls of white alabaster. In the first hall he found himself surrounded by the sculptured records of the empire. Battles, sieges, triumphs, the exploits of the chase, the ceremonies of religion, were portrayed on the walls, sculptured ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... dear little foot, you always flee from me, yet I took the best of care of you; I bathed you with perfumed water, in a basin of alabaster; I rubbed your heel with pumice stone, mixed with oil of palm; your nails were cut with golden scissors, and polished with a hippopotamus' tooth; I was careful to select for you painted and embroidered tatbebs, with turned up toes, ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... discovered that his chance lay chiefly in her recently acquired and fanciful predilection d'artiste for hoary mediaeval families with ancestors in alabaster and primogenitive renown. Seeing this he dwelt on those topics which brought out that aspect of himself more clearly, talking feudalism and chivalry with a zest that he had never hitherto shown. Yet it was not altogether factitious. For, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... hand, when the different ways of painting in oils, or of etching, or of sculpturing in alabaster, are discussed, then the word "technique" is in its place; but in such a case the adjective "artistic" is used metaphorically. And if a dramatic technique in the artistic sense be impossible, a theatrical technique is not impossible, ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... Chymist's principle, Adusta nigra sed perusta alba, by several Instances of Calcin'd Alabaster, Lead, Antimony, Vitriol, and by the Testimony of Bellonius, about the white Charcoles of Oxy-caedar, and by that of Camphire. (140, 141, 142.) That which follows about Inks was misplac'd by an Errour of the ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... white that it did not seem real, but more like the face of some vision that comes and sits for a minute and fades away before a little draft of air. Her hands were on the chair arms just like the hands of those Egyptian kings, carved out of alabaster, that you see in museums. She might have been one of those queens of great empires in the old times. She might have heard the roar of battle and seen the retreat of her army from the windows of the palace and had plunged a thin little dagger into ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... began to show signs of life and motion. Huge masses of opaque mist, that had shut us in like walls of alabaster, were rent asunder and noiselessly rolled away. The change was magical. In a few moments we found ourselves under a cloudless sky, upon a sparkling sea, flooded with sunshine, and the Golden Gate wide ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... leiodermatous[obs3], slick, velutinous[obs3]; even; level &c. 213; plane &c. (flat) 251; sleek, glossy; silken, silky; lanate[obs3], downy, velvety; glabrous, slippery , glassy, lubricous, oily, soft, unwrinkled[obs3]; smooth as glass, smooth as ice, smooth as monumental alabaster, smooth as velvet, smooth as oil; slippery as an eel; woolly &c. (feathery) 256. Phr. smooth as silk; slippery as coonshit on a pump handle; slippery as a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... a foundation-stone of the new heaven was to be laid! In a week's time Mike would be working at one of the alabaster walls. Perhaps in two years' time, perhaps even in a year, with good fortune, the roof would be on, the door wreathed with garlands, and a modest little ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... opera house the petals trace For modesty a fitting aureole; An alabaster wreath to lay, methought, In dusky hair o'er some fair woman's face Which kindles ev'n such love within the soul As sculptured ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... supper Mary brought an alabaster box of very precious and costly perfume, and poured it upon the head of Jesus and also upon His feet, wiping them with her long hair. Judas, one of the twelve, frowned upon her, and said it was a waste, for the perfume might have been sold for money ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury

... glimmer of interest rose upon the alabaster calm of his face at that name, but it faded instantly, and he ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... in painted or encaustic tiles covering the masonry of Chaldean buildings at Nimroud and Khorsabad. The pale ones associated with low reliefs, and really resembling them, as they were partly raised, and the reliefs in alabaster and stone, which were partly coloured, were in harmony, and yet in contrast, with ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... And, in the high latitudes to which the restless and apprehensive spirit of Tisquantum had led him, he had traveled over boundless fields of snow in the sledges of the diminutive Esquimaux, and lodged in their strange winter-dwellings of frozen snow, that look as if they were built of the purest alabaster, with windows of ice as clear as crystal. And marvelously beautiful those dwellings were in Henrich's eyes, as be passed along the many rooms, with their cold walls glittering with the lamp-light, or glowing from the reflection of the fire of pine branches, that burnt so brightly in ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... A snub-nosed girl with alabaster hair came to take my order. I asked for jaco and bunlets, and carried the food to a wall shelf near the Dry-towners. Their dialect fell soft and familiar on my ears. One of them, without altering the expression ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... of poetic fire. They tell of the glory of the cardinals, in litters, on horseback, in glittering carriages, blazing with jewels and shaded with gorgeous canopies; of marble palaces, grand walks, alabaster columns, gigantic obelisks, villas, gardens, grottoes, flowers, fountains, cascades; of churches adorned with polished pillars, gilded soffits, mosaic floors, altars sparkling with diamonds, and gorgeous pictures from master-hands looking down from every wall; of monuments, statues, images, ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

... will be built of gold and paved with silver. You will sit all day cutting coupons in an office of alabaster." ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon

... big alabaster bowl hanging a foot below the ceiling level, and it gave the detective an opportunity of making a swift examination. The room was furnished simply if in perfect taste, and had the appearance of a study. Beside her desk was ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace

... over, the swimmers drew near to a great, circular palace made all of solid alabaster polished as smooth as ivory. Its roof was a vast dome, for domes seemed to be fashionable in the ocean houses. There were no doors or windows, but instead of these, several round holes appeared in different parts of ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum

... soon to be called the "Parlement de Normandie" by Francois Premier. Louis de Breze's second wife was the famous Diane de Poitiers, who called herself "La Grande Seneschale" until she died, and who put up the magnificent tomb in alabaster and black marble which has preserved her husband's memory ever since his death in 1531, long after the "Palais de Justice" had been built to carry on for ever those legal functions which had once been a portion of the duties ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... hardness of this stone, and the property which it has of being easily split, it must be considered rather as a species of Talc than of Crystal. For an iron spike effects an entrance into it as easily as into any other Talc or Alabaster, to which it ...
— Treatise on Light • Christiaan Huygens

... other row, alone, a robust man with disfigured face, and red whiskers, looked like a fresh cut alabaster statue. Cold had blanched him; but a faint steam arose from his armpits, in the sepulchral light of a green-shaded gas-jet. There heat remained to prove that the great furnace in the frame had ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... But here is a love that is mighty to help, and on which we can rely without disappointment or loss. Human excellence is always limited and imperfect, but here is One whom we may imitate and be pure. So let us do like that poor woman in the Gospel story—bring our precious alabaster box of ointment—the love of these hearts of ours, which is the most precious thing we have to give. The box of ointment that we have so often squandered upon unworthy heads—let us come and pour it upon His, not unmingled with our tears, and anoint Him, our beloved ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... packets of every kind, and impatiently watching till the clerks left their apartments for the counting-house. At last she herself crept into Anton's room. She gave one more searching glance at the sofa-cushion she had worked, and arranged in an alabaster vase all the flowers that the gardener had succeeded in forcing. While so engaged, her eye fell upon the drawing that Anton had done on his first arrival, and on the rich carpet which Fink had had laid down. Where was Fink now? She felt on this day as if ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... a glide like a falling star, there ran down from the right horn of the Cross to the foot of it, one of the lights of this cluster of splendours, distinguishing itself, as it went, like flame in alabaster. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... could not be with them all felt that some exquisite savor was lacking in their intercourse. Her beauty was illumined by the awakened soul within, as some rosy lamp might shine through a flawless vase of alabaster. There were hours when Anne's eyes seemed to ache with the splendor of her. As for Owen Ford, the "Margaret" of his book, although she had the soft brown hair and elfin face of the real girl who had vanished so long ago, "pillowed ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... The river, with an overrunning flood, swept away a large portion of the walls. The besiegers entered through the breach, and set the city on fire. The charcoal, burnt beans, and slabs of half-calcined alabaster, in the British Museum, demonstrate the fulfillment of ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... furniture and even the rudest comforts of a home. The window curtains are pulled down, but a ray of bright sunlight shoots in and lying on the apology for a bed is a babe. Its eyes are closed. Its face is as white as alabaster. The little thin hands are folded across its tiny breast. ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... on two sphinxes of gold and ivory, over which the purple drapery fell in rich and massive folds. In one corner, a pedestal of Egyptian marble supported an alabaster vase, on the edge of which were two doves, exquisitely carved, one just raising his head, the other stooping to drink. On a similar stand, at the other side, stood a peacock, glittering with many coloured gems. The head lowered upon ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child

... glow of the fire mingling with the paler light of amber lamps, and this mingled radiance shining on the rich rugs, the few old brocades, and the rare English prints which covered the walls. He saw wide-open creamy roses in alabaster bowls which were scattered everywhere, on tables, on stools, on window-seats, and on the rich carving of the Spanish desk in one corner. Against the curtains of gold silk there was the bough of twisted pine he had broken, and against the pine branch ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... screen,—nothing between the vestibule and the altar to break the long vista; even the organ stood aside,—though it by and by made us aware of its presence by a melodious roar. Around the walls there were old engraved brasses, and a stone coffin, and an alabaster knight of Saint John, and an alabaster lady, each recumbent at full length, as large as life, and in perfect preservation, except for a slight modern touch at the tips of their noses. In the chancel ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... San Paolo fuori le Mura surpasses every thing in splendor of marble and costly stone—porphyry, malachite, alabaster—and luxury of gilding that is to be seen at Rome. But I chiefly remember it because on the road that leads to it, through scenes as quiet and peaceful as if history had never known them, lies the Protestant graveyard in which Keats is buried. Quite by chance the ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... me how the upper part of some of the gowns was supported. In some instances there was no strap over the shoulders, the upper third of these alabaster torsos and arms being absolutely naked, save for a band of pearls, diamonds, or other gems, of a size rarely seen in the Orient; but I learned later that the bone or steel corset, which molds the form, constituted the support of the gown. I gradually became habituated ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... every variety of pattern, hanging from the ceiling, but few remained alight. From those, however, which were still unextinguished there shone a mild brightness, admirably adapted to display the objects immediately around them. The golden garlands and the alabaster pots of sweet ointment which had been suspended before the guests during the banquet, still hung from the painted ceiling. On the massive table, composed partly of ebony and partly of silver, yet lay, in the wildest ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... buried in the north chapel, by the quire; but this monument being amongst others (by bad people) defaced in the reign of Edward VI., was again since renewed by the Fishmongers. This second monument, after the profane demolishing of the first, was set up in June, 1562, with his effigies in alabaster, in armour richly gilt, by the Fishmongers, at the cost of William Parvis, fishmonger, who dwelt at the 'Castle,' in New Fish Street." The epitaph ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... have witnessed those three nor'-westers enjoying their supper in the snowy camp. The fire had been replenished with logs, till it roared and crackled again, as if it were endued with a vicious spirit, and wished to set the very snow in flames. The walls shone like alabaster studded with diamonds, while the green boughs overhead and the stems around were of a deep red colour in the light of the fierce blaze. The tea-kettle hissed, fumed, and boiled over into the fire. A mass of pemmican simmered ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... into them, except in large bodies and armed. The men are in the habit of decorating their lips and cheeks with bones and stones, which they suspend from holes they bore in them. I have seen some of them with three, seven, and even as many as nine holes, filled with white or green alabaster—a most barbarous custom, which they follow in order, as they say, to make themselves appear ferocious.... They are a people of great longevity, for we met with many who had descendants of the fourth degree. Not knowing how to compute ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober

... the city is fair; there is by the sandy ways a paving all alabaster, and the lanterns along it are of chrysoprase, all night long they shine green, but of amethyst are ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany

... even more fashionable than Shepheard's. Here we have baronets and counts and a few earls. But there they have dukes and kings and emperors, yet there is a gold-and-alabaster mantelpiece which takes your mind even from royalty, it is so beautiful. Ghezireh is situated on the Nile, half an hour's drive away, so that in spite of its royal atmosphere it never will take the place of Shepheard's. Here you see all the interesting people you have heard of in your ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... iron man" is sitting in his wife's room on a small embroidered armless chair. Opposite to him on a large elevated divan lies his wife, a tiny, elegant, transparent little lady, with a face of alabaster, and wee wee hands which a child of two would not have known what to do with if they had been doled out to her. Her small strawberry-like mouth scarcely seemed to have been made for talking purposes; all ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... the tenth century of our era, a period of more than four thousand years. Already more than 20,000 tablets have been received at the University of Pennsylvania, besides many specimens of pottery, bowls, jars, cones, and images, as well as gold, copper, and alabaster work. ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... sunlight that fell upon her face betrayed no crack or wrinkle—no flaw of any kind—in the white marble of its perfection. It was indeed a lovely face, classic in the chiseling of its transparent alabaster; and when she turned, her eyes were like misty lakes of blue. Bar none, she was the most beautiful creature—and there had been many—that had ever wandered into the offices of Tutt & Tutt. He sought for a word. "Wonderful"; that was, it, she was "wonderful." His stale spirit ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... Jane and Lady Sarah followed at a little distance. In this order the party proceeded down the avenue as far as the first gate; then they returned by a side-walk leading through the laurels, and stood in a line facing the wind-worn tennis-ground, with its black, flowerless beds, and bleak vases of alabaster and stone. From time to time remarks anent the Land League were made; but all knew that a drama even as important as that of rent was being enacted. Olive had joined her sister, and the girls moved forward on either side of the handsome Captain; and, as a couple of shepherds directing the ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... bosom, slowly glided the winged granaries of commerce; there, too, lay its islands, glorying in their strength—the May, shrouded in light, appeared as a leviathan sunning in its rays—and the giant Bass, covered with sea-fowl, rose as a proud mountain of alabaster in the midst of the waters. A thousand boats lay along the shores of Dunbar. It was the herring season—and there were many boats from the south and from the north, and also from ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... knew the land not far ahead, The port not far: so forward piloted By that sweet spirit and strong, she held her way Unveering. And a little past midday, The wanderer lifted up his eyes, and right Before him saw what seemed a great wall, white As alabaster, builded o'er the sea, High as the heaven; but drawing nearer he Perceived it was a mighty mist that lay Upon the ocean, stretching far away Northward and southward, and the sun appeared Powerless to ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... a bushel of seed sows, and always on potato land. They plant many more potatoes than they eat, to supply the market at Belfast; manure for them with all their dung, and some of them mix dung, earth, and lime, and this is found to do better. There is much alabaster near the town, which is used for stucco plaster; sells from 1 pound ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young

... clairvoyant predicted would never disappear until the feudal parties came together, and a Murdock wedding with a Richards. The offspring of such union would be without taint or blemish, he said, and I am told, sir, your boy is fair as alabaster." ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... met her who first kindled in my bosom affection for woman—a widowed woman, withered and old. She smiled: the lingering trace of what it was, was all that was left. The little, plump hand was lean and bony, and wrinkles usurped the alabaster brow. Fifty years had made its mark. But memory was, by time, untouched. We parted. I closed my eyes, and there she was, in her girlhood's robes and her girlhood's beauty. The lip, the cheek, the glorious eye, were all in memory garnered still; and I loved that memory, but not the woman ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... ruby lips we like, The lass with teeth of pearl, The maid with the eyes like diamonds, The cheek-like-coral girl; The girl with the alabaster brow, The lass from the Emerald Isle. All these we like, but not the jade ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... is full of Early Victorian furniture, and horrid alabaster statuette things, under glass cases, and then a few modern armchairs covered in gorgeous brocade, but it is all clawed by the cats, and soiled by the dogs' muddy feet, and you are unable to make up your mind where it ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn

... said in himself, 'Surely, the like of this palace will not lack of victual,' and leaving the horse there, went in quest of somewhat to eat. Presently, he came to a stair and descending it, found himself in a court paved with white marble and alabaster, that shone in the light of the moon. He marvelled at the place and the goodliness of its fashion, but heard no sound and saw no living soul and stood in perplexity, looking right and left and knowing not whither he should go. Then said he to himself, 'I cannot do better than return to ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... distracted gesture. Silence brooded over the dinner table, covered with spoons bearing the Forsyte crest—a pheasant proper—under the electric light in an alabaster globe. And outside, the river evening darkened, charged with heavy ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... see our sanctuary sumptuously decorated, will exclaim: Would it not have been better to give to the poor the money spent in purchasing these things? So complained Judas (though caring not for the poor(432)) when Mary poured from an alabaster vase the precious ointment on the feet of an approving Savior. Why should not we imitate Mary by placing at His feet, around His sanctuary, our vases with their chaste and fragrant flowers, that the Church may be filled with their perfume, ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... circular or rather oval on one side, so as to make the arrangement correspond with the oval shape of the table. The waiters between the end-pieces were in the form of parallelograms, the ends about one third part of the length of the sides; and the whole of these waiters were filled with alabaster figures, taken from the ancient mythology, but none of them such as to offend, in the smallest degree, against delicacy. On the outside of the oval, formed by the waiters, were placed the various dishes, always without ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... Mountains were superb in their wild grandeur. The whole outline of peaks, some eighty or ninety distant, showed up, stencilled in delicate contrast to the sky-line. The immense ice-slopes shone white as alabaster against dark shadows. The sky to the west over the mountains was clear, except for low-lying banks at the foot of the slopes round about Mount Discovery. To the south hard streaks of stratus lay heaped up to 30 degrees above the horizon.... Then Erebus commenced to ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... ancient apartments now converted into dining-room and nursery. The master's children were too familiar with these grim, shadowy corners to feel the slightest dread besides, they were not imaginative children. To Arthur, an "ally taw," that is, a real alabaster marble, such as he now fumbled in his pocket, was an object of more importance than all the defunct bishops, archbishops, kings, queens, and benefactors of every sort, whose grim portraits stared at him by day and night. And Letitia was far more anxious that the candle she carried should ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... small, and their look piercing rather than bright. His costume was limited to a tattered breech-clout of buckskin. A collar of small white shells encircled the neck, and from this necklace dangled a triangular piece of alabaster, flat, and with a carving on it suggesting the shape of a dragon-fly. His hair streamed loose over the left ear, where there was fastened to the black coarse strands a tuft of ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... forth, both on him and me. I trusted to the substantial goodness and greatness of the character, and thought I should only make it more effective in portraiture by keeping in the few specks. I despise with my heels the whole trickery of erecting an alabaster image, and calling that a Man.... The work is now done, and I leave it to its fate. I had no personal object to gratify except, indeed, that I wished and hoped to please my poor wife." From a letter to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... visit the castle, Signorino, you could see the crypt which contains the tombs of the family of Farfalla, the former owners. They are of black marble and alabaster, with gilding—very rich. You could also see the wine-cellars. Many years ago a tun there burst, and a serving man was drowned in the wine. You could also see the bed in which Nabulione, the Emperor of Europe, slept, when he was in ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... differing hue and shade had been ingeniously used by the sculptor to give color to his work. The boys themselves, as I have said, were of polished ebony hue, while the breech-cloths which formed their sole garment were of purest alabaster white. Upon their heads were turbans of pink. They grinned broadly as I came out, and opened the door of the chair ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs

... the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard, very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head. And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, "Why was this waste of the ointment made? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the ...
— Jesus of Nazareth - A Biography • John Mark

... the raven's wing.' But all the time I KNOW it is just plain red and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow. I read of a girl once in a novel who had a lifelong sorrow but it wasn't red hair. Her hair was pure gold rippling back from her alabaster brow. What is an alabaster brow? I never could find out. ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the heavy old beams and high wainscoting of the walls speak of ages gone by. But so it is. The cheerful paper-hangings have the air of belonging to the old walls; and such modernisms as astral lamps, card-tables, gilded Cologne-bottles, silver taper-stands, and bronze and alabaster flower-vases do not seem at all impertinent. It is thus that an aged man may keep his heart warm for new things and new friends, and often furnish himself anew with ideas; though it would not ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... plush, with bead fringe three inches deep. The mantelpiece and table-top and so on are gray marble, and the ornaments are two deformed gilt cherubs holding a slop-jar with a clock-face in the middle of it. Also two unspeakable alabaster jugs, three feet high, and two Parian busts under glass cases. They are supposed to be Luther and Melanchthon; I think they are Lucifer and Mammon. Well, the poor little thing is used to it, and doesn't know what is the matter. Wait till Monday week,—I mean till some future day,—and ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards

... extant in England; a splendid—no, not splendid, but dimly magnificent—chapel, belonging to the same College, with painted windows of rare beauty, not brilliant with diversified hues, but of a sombre tint. In this chapel there is an alabaster monument,—a recumbent figure of the founder's father, as large as life,—which, though several centuries old, is as well preserved as ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... heard the "holy hour" strike, and as the last stroke sounded he fancied he saw the Cupid and Psyche surmounting his clock entwine their alabaster arms about one another. At the same moment two timid taps were given at ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... thou glidest on, As doth the swan upon the yielding water, And with a cheek like alabaster cold! But as thou didst divide the amorous air Just opposite the Astor, and didst lift That vail of languid lashes to look in At Leary's tempting window—lady! then My heart sprang in beneath that fringed vail, Like an adventurous ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... Tanfield, a great judge in those times. The latter was buried "at twelve o'clock in the Night" in the church of Burford; and there is a very handsome aisle there and an immense monument to his memory. The Tanfield monument, though somewhat ugly and grotesque, is a wonderful example of alabaster work. The cost of erecting it and the labour bestowed must have been immense. It was this knight who built the great house of which the present ruins form part, and the date would probably be about 1600. But in 1808 nearly half ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... the perfection of the French art of the time. Another work by Juste now in the Louvre is the monument to Louis de Poncher, one of the ministers of Francis I., and his wife, Roberta. These statues are in alabaster, and were formerly in the Church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement

... no naiads of celestial beauty ready to cleave the crystal waters with their alabaster arms, and no gracious undines with fair hair to come forth at night and play ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds



Words linked to "Alabaster" :   alabastrine, white, calcite, gypsum, oriental alabaster, onyx marble



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