"Onyx" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my attention to the quaint relics lying upon the long low bench between us, which is covered with white silk: a metal mirror, found in preparing the foundation of the temple when rebuilt many hundred years ago; magatama jewels of onyx and jasper; a Chinese flute made of jade; a few superb swords, the gifts of shoguns and emperors; helmets of splendid antique workmanship; and a bundle of enormous arrows with double-pointed heads of brass, fork-shaped ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... sustaining it, built of Echaillon stone, are honeycombed with arabesques and heavy with ornaments; the steps are of white marble, and antique red marble balusters rest on green marble sockets and support a balustrade of onyx. To the right and to the left of this landing are stairways to the floor, on a plane with the first row of boxes. On this floor stand thirty monolith columns of Sarrancolin marble, with white marble bases and capitals. Pilasters of peach-blossom and violet stone are against the ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... placed groups of settees and armchairs, similarly carved and gilded and richly upholstered. The floor was paved with an intricate mosaic of parti-colored bits of marble, its expanse broken only by the great gorgeous carpet before the throne, by the chair set for Brinnaria, by the onyx table, supported on sculptured monsters like griffons, beside the throne, and by the throne itself, a curule seat of ivory mounted with gold, its crimson cushion glowing, set ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... the door, in large golden letters on a marble tablet, is the word "Love." In this room the mosaic marble floor of white has a Romanesque border and is decorated with sprays of fig leaves bearing fruit. The room is toned in pale green with relief in old rose. The mantel is of onyx and gold. Before the great bay window hangs an Athenian lamp over two hundred years old, which will be kept always burning day and night. Leading off the "Mother's Room" are toilet apartments, with full-length French mirrors ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... Between the deer's lips. Here two friends had dozed Together, wearing mogra-buds, which bound Their sister-sweetness in a starry chain, Linking them limb to limb and heart to heart, One pillowed on the blossoms, one on her. Another, ere she slept, was stringing stones To make a necklet—agate, onyx, sard, Coral, and moonstone—round her wrist it gleamed A coil of splendid colour, while she held, Unthreaded yet, the bead to close it up Green turkis, carved with golden gods and scripts. Lulled by the cadence of the garden ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... to whom Warren had turned for confirmation was a slight, trim, gray-eyed man. Sometimes the gray of the eyes turned almost black, but always they were hard as onyx. There was about the man something sinister, something of eternal wariness. His glance had a habit of sweeping swiftly from one person to another as if it questioned what purpose might lie below ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... by the Dewan as heir apparent. The bride was brought from Tibet, and the marriage party were feasted for eighteen days at the Rajah's expense. All the Lamas whom I met were clad in red robes, with girdles, and were shaven, with bare feet and heads, or mitred; they wore rosaries of onyx, turquoise, quartz, lapis lazuli, coral, glass, amber, or wood, especially yellow berberry and sandal-wood: some had staves, and one a trident like an eel-fork, on a long staff, an emblem of the Hindoo Trinity, called Trisool ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... of Quartz,—the queen of its tribe, Amethyst, Onyx, Chalcedony, Heliotrope, Agate,— Some toiler of old Japan, the Artist fantastic, Has polished to likeness of ice, Ruining form to reveal it Fleche d'Amour That the marvelous, delicate, hairlike inclosures Of crystallizations foreign might please the beholder. Herein worked the Infinite well, And, ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock
... whole gamut of human emotions in a single sentence? Sitting in that miserable cottage at Fordham he wrote of the splendor of dream palaces beyond the dreams of art. He hung those grimy walls with dream tapestries, paved those narrow halls with black marble and polished onyx, and into those low-roofed chambers he brought all the treasured imagery of fancy, from the "huge carvings of untutored Egypt" to "mingled and conflicting perfumes, reeking up from strange convolute censers, together with multitudinous, flaring ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... around, Pouring the flowery wines of Crete; And, as they passed with youthful bound, The onyx shone beneath their feet.[3] While others, waving arms of snow Entwined by snakes of burnished gold,[4] And showing charms, as loth to show, Through many a thin, Tarentian fold, Glided among the festal throng Bearing rich urns of flowers along Where roses lay, in languor breathing, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Japan, Prismatic lustres of Phoenician glass, Fawn-tinged embroideries from looms of Bagdad, The green of ancient bronze, cinereous tinge Of iron gods,— These, and the saffron of old cerements, Violet wine, Zebra-striped onyx, Are to me like the narrow walls of home To the ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... the precious stones on Earth have their counterparts in the heavens, presenting in a jewelled form contrasts of colour, pleasing harmonies, and endless variety of shade. The diamond, sapphire, emerald, amethyst, topaz, and ruby sparkle among crowds of stars of more sombre hue. Agate, chalcedony, onyx, opal, beryl, lapis-lazuli, and aquamarine are represented by the radiant sheen emanating from distant suns, displaying an inexhaustible variety of colour, blended in tints of ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... on the arm of an over-stuffed armchair and looked up at the gilt-and-onyx clock which I suspected Casey of having bought. "If he isn't lynched before morning," she sighed whimsically, "he'll probably make it to the Nevada ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... elaborately arabesque, and as Edna looked up she saw through the glass roof the flickering of stars in the summer sky. In the centre of the room, immediately under the dome, stretched a billiard-table, and near it was a circular one of black marble, inlaid with red onyx and lapis lazuli, which formed a miniature zodiac similar to that at Denderah, while in the middle of this table sat a small Murano hour-glass, filled with sand from the dreary valley of El Ghor. A huge plaster Trimurti ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... their masters, who were clad in the scarlet and gold of the White Hussars, and the cream and silver of the Lushkar Light Horse. Dirkovitch's dull green uniform was the only dark spot at the board, but his big onyx eyes made up for it. He was fraternising effusively with the captain of the Lushkar team, who was wondering how many of Dirkovitch's Cossacks his own dark wiry down- countrymen could account for in a fair charge. But one does not speak of these ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... apologized for the old walnut chairs and tables, and the old velvet carpets, and the hopelessly old-fashioned white lace curtains and gilt-framed mirrors. Even Captain Holly's big clock—"an impossibly hideous thing," Mrs. White called the frantic bronze horses and the clinging tiger, on their onyx hillside—was serenely ticking, and the pink china vases were filled with flowers. And there was an air of such homely comfort, after all, about the big rooms, such a fragrance of flowers, and flood of sunny fresh air, that the whole effect was not half as bad as it might be imagined; indeed, ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... faces red-brown, yellow or chestnut, their beards scanty and fine or thick and frizzled, their greatcoats yellowish-green, and their muddy helmets sporting the crescent in place of our grenade. Their eyes are like balls of ivory or onyx, that shine from faces like new pennies, flattened or angular. Now and again comes swaying along above the line the coal-black mask of a Senegalese sharpshooter. Behind the company goes a red flag with a green hand in ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... is your return for my care and forethought for you, is it? Do you retract every word which you have said, or I'll cut you off without a penny," and with a fearful oath he swung himself around in his chair with such violence as to overturn the small onyx table upon which the cigars were ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... car, gave her order and sank back against the seat. When the car stopped, she descended and found the gates guarding the doors of the onyx vault locked. She pushed her flowers between the bars, dropping them before the doors, then wearily sank on the first step, leaning her head against the gate, trying to think, but she could not. Near dawn her ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... and Pers "Bulur" (vulg. billaur) retaining the venerable tradition of the Belus- river. In Al-Hariri (Ass. of Halwan) it means crystal and there is no need of proposing to translate it by onyx or to identify it with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... And the blithe revolver began to sing To the blade that twanged on the locking-ring, And the brown flesh blued where the bay'net kissed, As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist, And the great white bullocks with onyx eyes Watched the souls of the dead arise, And over the smoke of the fusillade The ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... oval basin with a step of onyx round it; delicate slippers of serpent skin were standing on the edge, together with an alabaster flagon. The trace of a wet footstep might be seen beyond. Exquisite scents ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... ceiling shone With richest tracery, the beams were bound In golden coverings; no scant veneer Lay on its walls, but built in solid blocks Of marble, gleamed the palace. Agate stood In sturdy columns, bearing up the roof; Onyx and porphyry on the spacious floor Were trodden 'neath the foot; the mighty gates Of Maroe's throughout were formed, He mere adornment; ivory clothed the hall, And fixed upon the doors with labour rare Shells of the tortoise gleamed, from Indian seas, With frequent emeralds studded. Gems of ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... rolls of parchment and papyrus, the books of the day, some of them splendidly emblazoned and illuminated; a lyre of tortoiseshell, and near to it the slender plectrum by which its cords were wakened to melody. Two or three little flasks of agate and of onyx containing some choice perfumes, a Tuscan vase full of fresh-gathered flowers, and several articles yet more decidedly feminine, were scattered on the board; needles, and thread of various hues, and twine of gold and silver, and some embroidery, half finished, and as it would seem ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... other part there hung twelve stones, three in a row one way, and four in the other; a sardius, a topaz, and an emerald; a carbuncle, a jasper, and a sapphire; an agate, an amethyst, and a ligure; an onyx, a beryl, and a chrysolite; upon every one of which was again engraved one of the forementioned names of the tribes. A mitre also of fine linen encompassed his head, which was tied by a blue ribbon, about which there ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... already composed the first sentence of his address to the United Chambers of Commerce of the Five Towns; his mind was full of it; he sat down at once to his vast desk, impatient to begin dictating. Then it was that he perceived the letter, lodged prominently against the gold and onyx inkstand given to him on his marriage by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The envelope was imperfectly fastened, or not fastened at all, and the flap came apart ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... inclined to twinkle at the youthful art students who affected pretentious ties, the quiet old German restaurant that once had been a church, Chinatown where you ate unskillfully with chopsticks upon a table of onyx, and the Turkish restaurant where everything, ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... dabchicks have "delicate rose-colored bills, harlequin-like markings, and rosy-white aprons." The harlequin-like markings I should call, rather, agate-like, especially on the head, where they are black and white, like an onyx. The bodies look more like a little walnut-shell, or nutmeg with wings to it, or things that are to ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... high-priests of Lagash made themselves kings, and a dynasty was founded there by Ur-Nin[a]. In the ruins of a building, attached by him to the temple of Nin[a], terra-cotta bas-reliefs of the king and his sons have been found, as well as the heads of lions in onyx, which remind us of Egyptian work and onyx plates. These were "booty" dedicated to the goddess Bau. E-anna-du, the grandson of Ur-Nin[a], made himself master of the whole of southern Babylonia, including "the district of Sumer" together with the cities of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... words of Pliny a great dispute has arisen. Some think that onyx is the material described, a conjecture founded on the variety of colors which that stone presents. To this it is objected, that onyx and murrha, onyx vases and murrhine vases are alike mentioned by Latin writers, and never with any hint as to their identity; nay, there is a passage in which ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... Grail's coming down to earth, Titurel conceived the plan of building a temple suitable for its reception. The knights who helped to build and afterward guarded this temple were called "Templars." Their first effort was to clear the mountain top, which they found was one single onyx of enormous size. This they leveled and polished until it shone like a mirror, and upon this foundation they prepared to build ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... bracelet, anklet; earring; locket, pendant, charm bracelet; ring, pinky ring; carcanet^; chain, chatelaine; broach, pin, lapel pin, torque. [gemstones: list] diamond, brilliant, rock [Coll.]; beryl, emerald; chalcedony, agate, heliotrope; girasol^, girasole^; onyx, plasma; sard^, sardonyx; garnet, lapis lazuli, opal, peridot, tourmaline, chrysolite; sapphire, ruby, synthetic ruby; spinel, spinelle; balais^; oriental, oriental topaz; turquois^, turquoise; zircon, cubic ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in the third cinerarium; a most extraordinary circumstance. It can be explained by supposing that both bodies were cremated at the same time, and that their ashes were somehow mixed together. The stone, probably an onyx, was injured by the action of the fire, and its engraving nearly effaced. It seems to represent a lion in repose. Nothing was found in the fourth; the fifth furnished two heavy gold rings with cameos representing respectively a mask and a bear-hunt. ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... thy windows of agates" (Isa. liv. 12). Two of the angels in heaven, Gabriel and Michael, once disputed about this: one maintained that the stone should be an onyx, and the other asserted it should be a jasper; but the Holy One—blessed be He!—said unto them, "Let it be as both say, which, in Hebrew, abbreviated, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... tell me, there was a butcher in Bond Street. Perhaps you dealt there. For my part I was not eating much meat in those days. But I can imagine his window—a perfect little grotto of jasper and onyx, with stalactites of pure gold, and in the middle, resting on a genuine block of Arctic ice, an exquisite beef-sausage. I wish he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... down Washington street, I choose something in the shop windows for my castle—an engraving at Williams & Everett's, a mosaic or classic onyx at Jordan's, or a camel's hair—for a dressing gown, of course at Hovey's. It really costs surprisingly little, and is an agreeable exercise of taste and judgment. It is likewise an exercise of benevolence. I select as many things for my guests ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... lighted by windows with dentelated arches, looking on to the gardens. On the marble floor were designs of graceful bouquets in onyx, lapis-lazuli, and agate. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... materials incorporated in the deposit. These account for the corrugations of the stone when it is cut. In California, as in other regions where hot springs are found, travertine is not uncommon. It is found notably in the volcanic district of Mono County, and elsewhere, sometimes in the form of Mexican onyx, which is only a translucent variety of the same marble. In its reproduction here the marble has been imitated even to the natural imperfections which roughened the Italian stone. In the concave surfaces of the ornamentation the color has been deepened, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... of Maltese lace, yellow with age, that her grandmother had sent from England; a long chain of fine gold, too frail to be worn; a brooch set with diamonds in a bygone fashion; a ring with her father's seal carved in onyx. ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... always remain in idleness, however, and when news came to him that the Persian king was in need of his greatest warrior, Rustem took his lasso, his bow and arrows and his club, mounted Raksh and rode away. Before going, however, he took from his arm an onyx bracelet that had been his father's, and calling Tehmina to him handed ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... from which they brought gold, agate, and onyx, incense and myrrh, and the perfumes of Arabia; pearls, spices, ivory, ebony, ostrich plumes and ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... and war, are heaps of refuse; for the old Brunswick has had to give place to yet one more of the twenty-storied, emblazoned hostelries, whose alabaster halls, frescoed walls, mosaic floors, and onyx and silver bathtubs are designed to minister to the comfort of our great and free people when they needs must wander from the luxury of their homes. When I had dressed I crossed over to the old Delmonico's opposite, and, in a secluded corner ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... him. "In a 'pork-pie' hat, with her hair in a long net. That was so 'smart' then; especially with one's skirt looped up, over one's hooped magenta petticoat, in little festoons, and a row of very big onyx beads over one's braided velveteen sack—braided quite plain and very broad, don't ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... the parlor pinkly lit with velours, even through the rainy day, and so inflexibly calm. Sara might have measured the distance between the chairs, so regimental they stood. The pink-velour curlicue divan with the two pink, gold-tasseled cushions, carelessly exact. The onyx-topped table with the pink-velour drape, also gold-tasseled. The pair of equidistant and immaculate china cuspidors, ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... systematically the generation of silex, calcedony, onyx, and quartz, in calcareous earth, marl, gypsum, sand-stone, and also what he terms terre glaise, ou de l'Argile. It is in this last that we find a perfect analogy with what is so frequent in this country of Scotland. These are the agates, calcedonies, calcareous and zeolite nodules, which ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... In Sterling's "Onyx Ring," Walsingham, the poet, takes down a volume from Sir Charles Harcourt's library, and reads a charming romance, apparently from its pages. A lady of the company afterwards turned to the same book, which proved to be a work ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... made me so rich as I am able to help my neighbours. There is a little head cut in an onyx that I take to be a very good one, and the dolphin is (as you say) the better for being cut less; the oddness of the figures makes the beauty of these things. If you saw one that my brother sent my Lady Diana last week, you would believe it were meant ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... mythical Prester John, it is written: 'The river Indus which issues out of Paradise flows among the plains through a certain province, and it expands, embracing the whole province with its various windings. There are found emeralds, sapphires, carbuncles, topazes, chrysolites, onyx, beryl, sardius, and many other precious stones. There, too, grows the plant ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... floated about his shoulders—it seemed to be windy in the colonnade. It was princely; and his turkish trousers were of pure gold. At his side was a bent sabre, and on his head a turban, with a stone in it—certainly onyx, or sardonox, or a pearl, or a precious stone—or whatever ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... amber-tinted, others so polished as to seem colandered, some dewy, some plump and satiny, as though Rubens had prepared their flesh; in short, all shades known to man in white. Here were eyes sparkling like onyx or turquoise fringed with dark lashes; faces of varied outline presenting the most graceful types of many lands; foreheads noble and majestic, or softly rounded, as if thought ruled, or flat, as if resistant will reigned there unconquered; beautiful bosoms swelling, as George ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... naturalist left Mr. Haye and came to them, and presently was deep in quartz and silica, and onyx and chalcedony, and all manner of stones that are precious. He told all that Elizabeth wanted to know, and much more than she had dreamed of knowing. Even Rose listened; and Rufus was eagerly attentive; and Elizabeth after she had asked questions ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... Beside her was an onyx bowl. She took from it a perfectly plain ring of orichalch and slipped it on my left ring-finger. I saw that she wore one ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... sound. The brass band from Black Mountain was in possession of the platform. The golden windows shone comfortably in the cold spring evening, and Hazel ran towards them as she would have run towards the wide-flung onyx doors of faery. ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... gleaming marble of a thousand steps climbed to the citadel where arose four pinnacles beckoning to heaven, and midmost between the pinnacles there stood the dome, vast, as the gods had dreamed it. All around, terrace by terrace, there went marble lawns well guarded by onyx lions and carved with effigies of all the gods striding amid the symbols of the worlds. With a sound like tinkling bells, far off in a land of shepherds hidden by some hill, the waters of many fountains turned again home. Then the gods awoke and there stood Sardathrion. Not to common men have the ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... bouquets of coloured wax under glass domes. A thick carpet of purplish black velvet pile covered the floor from wall to wall; stiff Adam chairs and settee with wheelbacks of black and gold were upholstered in dusky ruby and indigo. Ebony tables of framed, inlaid onyx held tortoise shell and lacquer ornaments, an inlaid tulip-wood music-box, volumes in elaborately tooled morocco, and a globe where, apparently, metallic fish were suspended in a ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... when I picked up my morning paper and read in great flaring head-lines on the front page that Mrs. Burlingame's diamond stomacher had been stolen from her at her Onyx Cottage at Newport, I smiled broadly, and slapped the breakfast-table so hard in my satisfaction that even the shredded-wheat biscuits flew up into the air ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... had finished, the only question was, how Gwendolen's coffee and toast should still be of the hottest and crispest; and when she appeared with her freshly-brushed light-brown hair streaming backward and awaiting her mamma's hand to coil it up, her large brown eyes glancing bright as a wave-washed onyx from under their long lashes, it was always she herself who had to be tolerant—to beg that Alice who sat waiting on her would not stick up her shoulders in that frightful manner, and that Isabel, instead of pushing up to her and asking questions, would ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... my garden is o'erhung with gems Fixed in an onyx setting. Fireflies Flicker their lanterns in my dazzled eyes. In serried rows I guess the straight, stiff stems Of hollyhocks ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... an affectionate rebuke of my inconsiderate effusiveness—brought us to the main gate of the long red stone enclosure about the Taj. This is itself a work of art—in red stone banded with white marble, surmounted by kiosques, and ornamented with mosaics in onyx and agate. But I stayed not to look at these, nor at the long sweep of the enclosure, crenellated and pavilioned. Hastening through the gate, and moving down a noble alley paved with freestone, surrounded on both sides ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... and gold, of statues and flowers and fountains, Vases of onyx and jasper from Indian emperors sent; Pictures out of the heart of tropical sunlit mountains, Of rocks of porphyry piled at the gates of ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... old-fashioned? country, hair cloth rocking-chair, and an exceedingly commonplace-looking table with a pile of manuscript, an ink-bottle, and pen conspicuously upon it. On the floor were sheets of manuscript. 'The mantel-piece is of pure onyx,' continued the show-woman, 'and the beehive upon the window-sill is made from one solid block of onyx; the rug is made of a hundred breasts of eider-down ducks, and the toilet-room you see in the corner is of the latest design, with gold-plated drain-pipes; the painted windows are from ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the drawing-room walls, above their wainscoting of highly-varnished mahogany, were hung with salmon-pink damask and adorned with oval portraits of Marie Antoinette and the Princess de Lamballe. In the centre of the florid carpet a gilt table with a top of Mexican onyx sustained a palm in a gilt basket tied with a pink bow. But for this ornament, and a copy of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" which lay beside it, the room showed no traces of human use, and Mrs. Spragg herself wore as complete an air of detachment as if ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... church establishment, this it is, which the patriot, and the philanthropist, who would fain unite the love of peace with the faith in the progressive melioration of mankind, cannot estimate at too high a price. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The clergyman is with his parishioners and among them; he is neither in the cloistered cell, nor in the wilderness, but a neighbour and a family-man, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and her onyx eyes, Her braided hair in its silken sheen, Were surely meet for a Lover's prize, But Fate ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... represent the beast Slain by Bellerophon, the Chimaera, Was on the floor; and from its lion's mouth The flame had issued, like the flame of life That flickered and went out with him gold-crowned. A target stood near by, and on it clashed Griffon and stag, adverse as right and wrong. About, lay cups of onyx set in gold. On conic jars were bacchanalian scenes,— Nude chubby Bacchi, grotesque leering fauns, All linked 'neath vines that grew important grapes; And in the jars were rings and flowers of gold. We found twin ear-drops cut from choicest stone, Metallic mirrors, and a ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... pillars of his limbs were entwined necklaces of enormous pearls. Upon his back, which was covered with a magnificent Persian carpet of striped pattern, stood a sort of estrade overlaid with gold finely chased, and constellated with onyx stones, carnelians, chrysolites, lapis-lazuli, and girasols; upon this estrade sat the young queen, so covered with precious stones as to dazzle the eyes of the beholders. A mitre, shaped like a helmet, on which pearls formed ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... calling as it were the voice direct of Heaven. What no merits of his could give, the land which he had chosen gave, Mesopotamia pretty soon proving herself a treasury of mineral riches: here is bdellium and the onyx- stone; and where the streaming Pison, dawdling, draws his twine of waters over that happy valley of Havilah, there is gold—hoard stored from before the Eozoic, as misers bury for their heirs, in ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... Moorish castles; velvet-green fields with aloe hedges grey as lines of broken slate; dark, noble gorges sprinkled with mother-o'-pearl flakes of white wild roses, that drifted down the red rock into water green as onyx. There were blossomy bits of Holland and long tracts of Switzerland. Glacier-mills in narrow gorges were like empty niches for colossal statues of saints; pink and white orchards foamed at the feet of ancient look-out towers; black rocks, like ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a topaz, and an emerald. The second row contained a carbuncle, a jasper, and a sapphire. The first of the third row was a ligure, then an amethyst, and the third an agate, being the ninth of the whole number. The first of the fourth row was a chrysolite, the next was an onyx, and then a beryl, which was the last of all. Now the names of all those sons of Jacob were engraven in these stones, whom we esteem the heads of our tribes, each stone having the honor of a name, in the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... like funeral monuments reared to the memory of the power buried at their base. Another fascinating sight upon this drive was that of the Painted Desert whose variously colored streaks of sand, succeeding one another to the rim of the horizon, made the vast area seem paved with bands of onyx, agate, ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... of the house up the broad staircase, the thick carpets deadening the sound of their steps. At the top of the stairs they lowered their burden and waited in silence. Doors opened and shut in the distance; from one of them a bright stream of light fell on the shining onyx pillars and on the gilt frames of the paintings, which in the light from strange swinging lamps looked like huge black patches. Then the light from the door disappeared, a bell rang somewhere and figures hurried to and fro. A fantastically dressed East Indian next appeared and made signs to the ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... of the speaker's voice. The line of its ceiling was marked outside by the serried capitals of Greek columns springing from their massive bases on the ground. The grand stairway was of polished marble, its wainscoting and walls of onyx. ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... expect to find great wealth in these gray-looking mountains of simple and uniform structure; yet they abound in stones and metals. Besides the different kinds of marble, which it is not strange to find, diamonds also, jasper, agates, onyx, topaz, and other stones, a kind of jade and of malachite, are found in a great many places. Copper exists in considerable quantities in the neighborhood of Dondon and Jacmel, and in the Cibao; silver is found near ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... guests had gathered in a circle at the head of the hall round fat old Pessoa, who had sent a servant upstairs for a pair of tartan socks so that he could dance the Highland fling. He had got up and strolled to the other end of the room, where the great black onyx fireplace climbed out of the light into the layer of gloom which lay beneath the ceiling that here and there dripped stalactites of ornament down into the brightness. Against the wall on each side of the fireplace there stood six great chairs of cypress wood, padded with ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... of legends and dreams round about Tlemcen, the "Key of the West," city of beautiful mosques. The mountains were honeycombed with onyx mines; and rising out of wide plains were crumbling brown fortresses, haunted by the ghosts of long-dead Arabs who had buried hoards of money in secret hiding-places, and died before they could unearth their treasure. Tombs of kings and princes, and koubbahs of renowned ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Princess Arjamand are about two acres of surface covered with such mosaics as fine and as perfect as if each setting were a jewel intended for a queen to wear—turquoise, coral, garnet, carnelian, jasper, malachite, agate, lapis lazuli, onyx, nacre, bloodstone, tourmaline, sardonyx and a dozen other precious stones of different colors. The guide book says that twenty-eight different varieties of stone, many of them unknown to modern times, are inlaid in the walls ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... to climb the rocks. The floor was covered with Byzantine carpets, pillows embroidered by the yellow men of Cathay, and the skins of Libyan lions. Perfumed smoke arose from golden censers. Flowering plants grew in large onyx vases. And at the far end, in the purple shadow, gleamed the gold nails on the shell of a huge Indian tortoise turned upside down, which served as the bed of the actress. It was here that every day, to the murmur of the water, and amid ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... out of blue stone; trees with stems dark-veined as marble rose up to give rest to boughs which drooped the altered hues of their foliage like the feathers of peacocks at roost. Jewel within jewel they burned through every shade from blue to onyx. The white blossoms of a cherry-tree had become changed into turquoise, and the tossing spray of a fountain as it drifted and swung was like a column of blue fire. Where a long inlet of sea reached in and touched the feet of the hanging gardens the stars ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... looked down through such leaves into such waters! Never has river wave had such curve and sheen and bank as adorned the Pison, the Havilah, the Gihon, and the Hiddakel, even the pebbles being bdellium and onyx stone! What fruits, with no curculio to sting the rind! What flowers, with no slug to gnaw the root! What atmosphere, with no frost to chill and with no heat to consume! Bright colors tangled in the grass. Perfume in the air. Music in the sky. Bird's warble and tree's ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... a handful of a grass, perfectly unknown to us, and advised us to rub our temples and eyelids with it. Then the buni produced from a dirty bag a kind of round stone, something like a fish's eye, or an onyx with a white spot in the centre, not bigger than a ten-kopek bit. He declared that anyone who bought that stone would be able to charm any cobra (it would produce no effect on snakes of other kinds) paralyzing the creature and then causing it to fall asleep. Moreover, by his account, ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... attractive and home-like; the plainly tiled floor, leather-covered lounging-chairs, and numerous and convenient cuspidors lending an air of democratic comfort which was somehow missing in the resplendent, bemirrored, onyx-plated bar, blazing with its cut ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... SHALNASS. This is onyx, And that one Chrysophrase, beneath thy notice. Impenetrable they are called, but odors Can pass their walls ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... years before Christ. Thirty-five years later, it was but the hundredth. In spite of some attempts at reaction by Augustus, this passion for splendor reached a frantic pitch. A freedman in the reign of Claudius decorated his triclinium with thirty-two columns of onyx. I say nothing of the slaves that were counted by thousands in the old palaces, and by hundreds in the triclinium ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... is the fourfold river that maketh no moan, Fair are the trees fruit-bearing of the wood, Fair are the gold and bdellium and the onyx stone, And I know the gold ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... of a long study of detective fiction I have never met any sleuths with a gift of loquacity like that of Messrs. Corson and Gibbs, who during the first part of In the Onyx Lobby (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) make futile efforts to trace the murderer of Sir Herbert Binney, proprietor of Binney's Buns. Sir Herbert had gone to New York to persuade his nephew to become the manager of an American branch of a Binney Bun factory, and, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... He rose from his troubled bed Ere the dream had faded away, And he said, "I will fashion the dream As the potter fashions the clay." He said in his great heart's vanity, "I will fashion a wondrous thing To stand in a palace of onyx And blind the eyes of a king." He said in the pride of his soul As the birds began to sing, "I will surely take no rest Till I fashion this wondrous thing. I will swear an oath to eschew The white ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... searched for stones; and it is not improbable that they yielded besides the varieties already named, and the other unknown kinds mentioned by Pliny, many, if not most, of the materials which we find to have been used for seals by the ancient people. These are, cornelian, rock-crystal, chalcedony, onyx, jasper, quartz, serpentine, sienite, haematite, green felspar, pyrites, loadstone, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... 19, 1642. The rock is of trap, greenstone, or whinstone, which miners call iron-stone and Cornishmen 'blue elvan:' this diorite, composed of felspar and the hardest hornblende, contains granular iron and pyrites like silver. Some specimens are beautifully banded in onyx-fashion and revetted with 'spar' (quartz) of many colours, dead-white and crystalline, red and yellow. We find the same trap on the mainland. Near the smaller Akinim or Salt-pond village there is a mass threaded with quartz-veins from north to south (1 30'), bossed by granite dykes ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... These letters, in accordance with the scale of expense and extravagance on which Cleopatra determined that every thing relating to herself and Antony should be done, were engraved on tablets made of onyx, or crystal, or ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... the court of the Great King suddenly stands among them. His gossamer robes seemed woven of the deep blue of the fields of space through which he had just passed, and the stars were glittering through the graceful folds bound with rare devices, wrought from the jasper, onyx, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... you will step carefully from amber stones to onyx flecked with violet, mingled with light, half showing the sea-grass and sea-sand underneath, reflecting your white feet and the gay strap crimson as lily-buds of Arion, and the ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... of the whippings; it would be talked about, all round the world, as something stunning, a more complete show than the Tivoli at Sidney or the New York Hippodrome. Harrasford was credited with designs for a palace in onyx and marble. He had bought or was going to buy a theater with the object of transforming it; names and prices were given. Everybody was interested in it. Just now, especially, when the bioscopes and the gramophones and the singers were taking the bread out of the "artistes'" mouths, ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... years the demand for choice decorative materials has been the means of opening out many marble quarries all over the world. Transit being easy, a large scale of varieties is available. One fine addition is the Mexican onyx. My feeling is that the most beautiful marbles are those where the soft and sinuous veins melt and die into the general body, comparatively sharp markings dying right away at the edges into innumerable gradations. Marbles ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... in her manner. She inquires as to mutual friends of the "Southern set." Her praises of Raoul are justified in the beautiful bust, a creation of loveliness, on its Algerian onyx pedestal. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... of many guests, he had risen up and rubbed her feet, to fulfil some wager or promise; that he had suffered the Ephesians to salute her as their queen; that he had frequently at the public audience of kings and princes received amorous messages written in tablets made of onyx and crystal, and read them openly on the tribunal; that when Furnius, a man of great authority and eloquence among the Romans, was pleading, Cleopatra happening to pass by in her litter, Antony started up and left them in the middle of their cause, to follow at her side ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... turning over his fine collection of Mare Antonios, and his Turner's 'Liber Studiorum,' of which he was a warm admirer, or examining with a magnifier some of his antique gems and cameos, 'the head of Alexander on an onyx of two strata,' or 'that superb altissimo relievo on cornelian, Jupiter AEgiochus.' He was always a great amateur of engravings, and gives some very useful suggestions as to the best means of forming a collection. Indeed, while fully appreciating ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... husband's fancy in the slightest degree. It was made in light woods, and the woods were curved and twisted as though they had recently spent seven years in a purgatory for sinful trees. Here and there in the design onyx-stones had been set in the wood. The seat itself was beautifully soft. What captured Vera was chiefly the fact that it did not open at the top, as most elaborate music-stools do, but at either side. You pressed a button (onyx) and the panel fell down displaying your music in little compartments ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... more, an' if she weep, Than joy she cannot else reveal; As onyx-gems of Pison keep A tear-vein, where the sun ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... photographs. A victrola stood in a corner, and the upright piano near the center of the room formed a background for a precisely draped, imitation mandarin skirt and a convenient shelf for family photographs and hand-painted vases. On the mantel an elaborate onyx-and-bronze clock ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... lanes of liquid onyx Toward the high fire-laden altars Move the saints of Manhattan In endless pilgrimage to death, Amidst the ...
— Precipitations • Evelyn Scott
... stepping over the dead man's stick—a swank affair of dark, polished wood, with a heavy knob of carved onyx, which lay about a foot beyond the reach of the curled fingers of the stiff ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... her, being shown into a large suite on the second floor, where he had to wait an hour in a lofty anteroom with no other company but a statue of Pocahontas. He was oppressed by the gorgeousness of the surroundings—by the frowning pictures, the gilt furniture, the onyx-topped tables, the vases, the mirrors, the ornate clocks. He was in a fever of expectation, and could not fight down his growing timidity. He had not seen Florence for a year, and his heart would have been as much in his mouth had the meeting been set in the old brick ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... assistant Secretary of State, moving-picture actor, or Y.M.C.A. boob-squeezing committee. Such adept professors of conviction and enthusiasm, in the true sense, never actually teach anything new; all they do is to give new forms to beliefs already in being, to arrange the bits of glass, onyx, horn, ivory, porphyry and corundum in the mental kaleidoscope of the populace into novel permutations. To change the figure, they may give the medulla oblongata, the cerebral organ of the great masses of simple men, a powerful diuretic or emetic, but they seldom, ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... drives her to force expression: I mean the stage in Germany, not Rome, whence females are excluded. But the vases in this Borghese villa! the tables! the walls! the cameos stuck in the walls! the frames of the doors, all agate, porphyry, onyx, or verd antique! the enormous riches contained in every chamber, actually takes away my breath and leaves me stunned. Nor are the gardens unbecoming or inadequate to the house, where on the outside appear such bas-reliefs as would be treasured ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... there is at least one man here who has had the honor of commanding men as elevated as yourself." Saying which, he hastily drew from his bosom, where it hung suspended from his neck, a large flat tablet of remarkably beautiful onyx, on one side of which was sculptured a very striking face; but on the other, which he presented to the gaze of the colonel, was a fine representation of an eagle grovelling on the dust, and beginning ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... in which the stones were set, entirely filling it. These stones are called "stones to be set." As to the bezel it is called mishbetzet (Mem Shin Bet Tsadi Tav. In the ephod, and in the breastplate]. Onyx stones for the ephod and "stones to be set" for the breastplate. The breastplate as well as the ephod are described in Tezaweh[83]; they are two sorts ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... Ecbatana and Susa boasted greater magnificence and luxury than this one-time dwelling of Croesus. The ceilings of the wide banqueting halls rose on pillars of emerald Egyptian malachite. The walls were cased with onyx. Winged bulls that might have graced Nineveh guarded the portals. The lions upbearing the throne in the hall of audience were of gold. The mirrors in the "House of the Women" were not steel but silver. The gorgeous carpets were sprinkled with rose water. An army of dark ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... hand and then someone takes and feeds them to a mare, as it is thought that the woman's pregnancy has been prolonged by her having walked behind the tethering-ropes of a mare, which is twelve months in foal. Or she is given water to drink in which a Sulaimani onyx or a rupee of Akbar's time has been washed; in the former case the idea is perhaps that a passage will be made for the child like the hole through the bead, while the virtue of the rupee probably consists in its being a silver coin and having the image or device of a powerful ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... marbled corridors and regal parlours, down long perspectives of Persian rugs and onyx ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... of Eden, nor Noah's Ark. Her imagination had not prepared her for a room like this. She had formed her ideas of rooms upon her grandmother's and her mother's and the neighbors' best parlors, with their glories of crushed plush and gilt and onyx and cheap lace and picture-throws and lambrequins. This room was such a heterodoxy against her creed of civilization that it did not look beautiful to her as much as strange and bewildering, and when she was bidden to sit down in a little inlaid precious ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... embroidered vestment worn by the high-priest of the Jews, and consisting of two parts, one covering the breast and supporting the breastplate, and the other covering the back, these being clasped to the shoulders by two onyx stones, with names inscribed on them, six on each, of the 12 tribes, and the whole bound round the waist with a girdle of gold, blue, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... variety called "onyx" having very regular bands, and the "sardonyx" being an onyx agate in which some of the ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... breathing heavily, with his face and the palms of his hands towards the sky, and slaves were fanning him to keep away the flies. And from the market-place I came to a silver temple and then to a palace of onyx, and there were many wonders in Perdondaris, and I would have stayed and seen them all, but as I came to the outer wall of the city I suddenly saw in it a huge ivory gate. For a while I paused and admired it, then I came nearer and perceived the dreadful truth. The gate ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... eye, clear as an onyx, seemed to protest against the plea of age. The MS. was in the vilest "Shikastah" or running-hand; and, as I carried it off, the writer declined to take the trouble of copying out ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... It shall have gold do'knobs and jewelled ornaments and rare birds of gay plumage to sing and keep her company, and painted ceilings and little cupids carved in mahble, and theah shall be graven images set on onyx pedestals and some curious Hindoo gods squatting, and a Turkish room of red lights dimmed by little carved lanterns and rich, rare rugs and pictuahs by great mastahs in gilded frames, and walls lined with the books she loves best in royal bindings.... And she shall have servants ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... shelves display blocks of smalts and glass of endless variety of color. By far the greater number of these colors are discoveries or improvements of the venerable mosaicist Lorenzo Radi, who has found again the Byzantine secrets of counterfeiting, in vitreous paste, aventurine (gold stone), onyx, chalcedony, malachite, and other natural stones, and who has been praised by the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice for producing mosaics even more durable in tint and workmanship than those ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... scales shroudeth the most fatall venome." Is there anything more certain? But that does not prevent the halcyon from hatching when the sea is calm, and the phoenix from spreading her wings when the sunbeams shine on her nest. This is what the husband remarks, and, guided by the onyx, the alexander, &c., after a mock trial, ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... and MARBLE). In the form of stalactites calcite is of extremely common occurrence. Each stalactite usually consists of an aggregate of radially arranged crystalline individuals, though sometimes it may consist of a single individual with crystal faces developed at the free end. Onyx-marbles or Oriental alabaster (see ALABASTER) and other stalagmitic deposits also consist of calcite, and so do the allied deposits of travertine, calc-sinter ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... a very imposing and towering affair, with onyx and gilded halls. The elevator that fairly shot us skyward when we ascended to our eerie nest ten stories above the street, and was a boundless joy to the Precious Ones, who would gladly have made their playhouse in the gaudy little car with the ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Dalis hesitated. "Your word!" he snapped, looking at each Sarka in turn, and each in his turn nodded. They had given their word, but not their love, to Dalis. Dalis bowed low to Sarka the Youngest, who darted to the onyx base in which revolved the Master Beryl, and pressed a small lever of metalized jade, set in a slot on the southern side of the base of onyx. The humming sound within the Beryl became perceptibly louder, and as ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... indeed?—she, the orphaned daughter of a fraudulent bankrupt, to whom not even her good name was left, whom no one wanted, not even herself. Of all the treasures she possessed, only two valuable souvenirs remained which she had hidden from the bailiffs—an onyx box and the returned engagement-ring. The box she had concealed in her pocket; and when alone at night, she drew it out and looked at its precious contents. There were all sorts of poison in it. By some odd freak, Athalie had bought it ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... given special names, as amethyst (violet), rose quartz (pale pink), smoky or milky quartz (colored and opaque). Other varieties of silicon dioxide, some of which also contain water, are chalcedony, onyx, jasper, opal, agate, and flint. Sand and sandstone ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... the Mediterranean can be perfectly imitated by taking a cast of a coral branch and filling in the mold with celluloid of the same color and hardness. The clear luster of amber, the dead black of ebony, the cloudiness of onyx, the opalescence of alabaster, the glow of carnelian—once confined to the selfish enjoyment of the rich—are now within the reach of every one, thanks to this chameleon material. Mosaics may be multiplied indefinitely by laying together sheets and sticks ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... Cornbrash, an upper deposit of the Lower Oolite, down to the Lias, the formation on which the Oolite rests. The only modifying circumstance to the geologist is, that though the sandstone beds run continuously along the cliff for miles together, distinct as the white bands in a piece of onyx, the intervening beds of shale are swarded over, save where we here and there see them laid bare in some abrupter acclivity or deeper water-course. In the shale we find numerous minute Ammonites, sorely weathered; in the sandstone, Belemnites, some of them of great size; ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... them; but astern The cowering merchants in long robes Sit pale beside their wealth Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops, Of gold and ivory, Of turquoise-earth and amethyst, Jasper and chalcedony, And milk-barr'd onyx-stones. The loaded boat swings groaning In the yellow eddies; The Gods behold them." [Footnote: Arnold, ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... 'silver, brass, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, fine linen, and goats' hair, and rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and shittim wood, oil for the light, spices for anointing-oil, and for sweet incense, onyx stones and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate.'" To these instructions, God added these words: "But do not suppose that you are giving Me these thirteen objects as gifts, for thirteen deed did I perform for you in Egypt, which these thirteen objects now repay. For 'I ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... have invented and executed as a protective covering for her industrious fingers." It is said the name in this country was originally "thumb-bell," so called because of the shape being of bell-like form. Of the thimbles of the wealthy it is recorded there are thimbles of onyx, mother-o'-pearl, and of gold, encrusted with rubies and diamonds—the seamstress has, however, to be content with useful if less ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... lingered. When they took leave she gave Mrs. Churchley, without intention and without defiance, but from the simple sincerity of her pain, a longer look into the eyes than she had ever given her before. Mrs. Churchley's onyx pupils reflected the question as distant dark windows reflect the sunset; they seemed to say: "Yes, I AM, if that's what you ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... waist. The large shell is supported by the tail of the whale on one side, and on the other by the serpent which twists around it; in this reptile's head a turquoise is set, the eyes are formed of garnet, and the tongue of red onyx. The whole is of silver-gilt, and within the mouth is a small figure of Jonah, whose adventure is thus strangely mixed with the general design. The sea is quaintly indicated by the circular base, chased with figures ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... Sheba, idol moulded in Onyx milk-white, moon-mailed and casqued with gems; Ye gold-swathed queens of Egypt, Isis' kin, With bright god-hawks and snakes for diadems; Serene masque-music of Greek girls that bear The sacred Veil to that Athenian ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... hall, by the foremost of three or four persons vested in silver, with belts of the crimson metal which plays the part of our best-tempered steel, and bearing in their hands wands of a rose-coloured jewel resembling a clouded onyx in all but the hue. Each of them wore over his dress a band or sash of gold, fastened on the left shoulder and descending to the belt on the right, much resembling the ribbons of European knighthood. These supported on the left breast a silver star, or ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... with a history, all crowded together and making a charming nest for the listless, somewhat morbid, and disgusted young man stretched out upon a couch, covered with a rug of ostrich feathers brought from the Straits of Magellan. Over the onyx mantel was a portrait of his grandmother, a handsome old lady with high-piled, snow-white hair, and eyes whose brilliancy age had not dimmed. The lines about the mouth were hard, but the face was full of intelligence, and the ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... figure of the conventionalised serpent-god on the onyx tablet found in 1895 in the Valley of Mexico and taken to the Museum of Chicago (see Holmes's "Ancient Cities of Mexico") strongly reminds me of the figure on the stone from Chavin in Peru (see "The Andes and ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... set it in a brass candlestick in the middle of the table. Then Mr. Clerk takes a little rule from his pocket, measures an inch down on the candle, sticks into the grease at that point a scarf-pin with an onyx head that Elzevir lent him, and lights the wick. Now the reason of this was, that the custom ran in Moonfleet when either land or lease was put up to bidding, to stick a pin in a candle; and so long as ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... by Allah, I will arise and open it and see what is within, though within it were sudden death!" Then he took the key and, opening the door,[FN50] saw therein no treasure but he espied a vaulted and winding staircase of Yamani onyx at the upper end of the chamber. So he mounted the stair, which brought him out upon the terrace- roof of the palace, whence he looked down upon the gardens and vergiers, full of trees and fruits and beasts and birds warbling praises of Allah, the One, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... the box, and there, on a bed of pink cotton, were a pair of cuff-buttons, the most elegant we had ever seen. They were onyx, with diamond stars for a centre. The diamonds were all small except the central ones, that were like the dewdrops at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... for it day and night, and pray that he might yet be made white as snow? But guilty as he was, a poor piece of broken vilest clay, without the properties even which are useful to the potter, he was as dear to her as when she had leaned against him believing him to be a pillar of gold set about with onyx stones, jaspers, and rubies. There was but one sin on his part which could divide them. If, indeed, he should cease to love her, then there would be an end to it! It would have been better that Sir Harry should have remained in London till he could have returned with George's ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... containing the name of one of the tribes. It was held in position by the ephod, which consisted of another piece of cloth, with a back and front part, which were united into one on the shoulders. On each shoulder it was clasped by an onyx stone bearing the names of six of the tribes. Thus twice, on the shoulders, the seat of power, and on the heart, the organ of thought and of love, Aaron, entering into the presence of the Most High, bore 'the names of the tribes ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... linen and goats' hair and red skins of rams and badgers' skins brought them. And all the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue and of purple and of scarlet and of fine linen. And the rulers brought onyx-stones, and stones to be set, and spice, and oil for the light. The children of Israel brought a willing offering unto the Lord, every man ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... seemed to Mubarek to consist of all sorts of precious stones—the topaz, the jasper, the onyx, the carbuncle, the emerald, the ruby, and many others, and having brought their plates filled with this fruit into the house, these strange people sat down and ate them with much relish, praising highly their delicious flavour ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... fresh cleanness and his ignorance of the traditions of the place, strode through the onyx-pillared lobby peopled with well-fed, modish human beings who conversed in modulated voices or bustled in and out, engrossed with affairs which might or might not be of national importance. At the desk ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... crystals of carbon, made inside the earth. Rock-crystals, which you know probably under the name of Irish diamonds, are crystallized quartz; and so, with slightly different colourings, are agates, opals, jasper, onyx, cairngorms, and many other precious stones. Iron, copper, gold, and sulphur, when melted and cooled slowly build themselves into crystals, each of their own peculiar form, and we see that there is here a wonderful ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... quaint and daring designs for shop fronts, the infinite arts employed to "set off" goods, and the surprising, never-ceasing varieties of art-manufacture—whether in chocolate or the popular Algerian onyx—bewilder strangers. Does successful Mr. Brown, who, having doffed the apron of trade, considers it due to himself to become—so far as money can operate the strange transformation—a fine fleur; does he desire also to make of plain, homely Mrs. Brown a leader of fashion and a model of expensive ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... the east of Baragaza, formerly the capital of the country, there was brought to the latter place for exportation, chiefly the following articles: onyx stones, porcelaine, fine muslins, muslins dyed of the colour of the melon, and common cotton in great quantities: from the Panjab there were brought for exportation, spikenard of different kinds, costus, bdellium, ivory, murrhine cups, myrrh, pepper, &c. The imports were wine, of ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... disposition generale de cette breche lui donne donc quelques rapports grossiers avec le granit globuleux de l'ile de Corse; et, par ses couches rubanees, concentriques, elle a quelque chose de l'aspect des Agathes-Onyx...Les bancs de gres divers dont je viens de parler, constituent, a bien dire, la masse entiere du pays qui nous occupe, etc. (Volume 1 page 110. See also Freycinet ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... to the shaft with tough and durable strings of sinews; shell beads, pipes, bone awls, punches, needles, etc.; stone fetiches in semblance of animals, the like of which were never seen on land or sea; ornaments of shell, turquoise and onyx, and even a kind of jade; sandals and mats of yucca fibre, and exquisitely delicate feather robes,—these are some of the things that the excavators have found. Corn-cobs, melon rinds and grass seeds may be added to ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... a declaration of war," said poor Francis, twisting an Italian onyx which adorned his irresolute hand. "I would not ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... ingenuity to explaining the stones of the breastplate of Aaron, and those that shine in the foundations of the New Jerusalem, as described by St. John; indeed, the walls of Sion are set with the same jewels as the High Priest's pectoral, with the exception of the carbuncle, the ligure, agate, and onyx, which are named in Exodus, and replaced in the Book of Revelation by chalcedony, sardonyx, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... onyx, representing a devil's head. 2nd. Green jasper intaglio, with red veins. 3rd. Entirely gold, bearing figure of a hideous griffin. 4th. A sea-green monster diamond, with small diamonds round it. 5th. Antique cornelian intaglio of dancing figure of a satyr. 6th. An angular ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... is about the only ornament that can be worn, save a delicate onyx cameo. Flowers: white water-lilies, camellias, or the darkest, duskiest, damask roses, and none of these in such profusion as ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... which, under the hands of the Etruscan cutter, lost at once all specific character. He might be Scarabaeus anything: he is not pilularius; and, instead of being made of basalt, porphyry, smalt, and very rarely of pietra dura, as in Egypt, he is engraved in carnelian, onyx, sardonyx, and all the rare and lovely varieties of pietra dura,—which, being essentially the same, change their names with their colors,—but mainly in an opaque carnelian, admirably calculated to show off the beauty of the workmanship. The change from use to ornament is abrupt, and perceivable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... beads, twenty-two of which are of superior size to the rest, and of eighteen pendants, shaped like the bud of a flower, and delicately chased.[1226] There are others where gold beads are intermixed with small carnelian and onyx bugles, while the pendants are of gold, like the beads; or where gold and rock-crystal beads alternate, and a single crystal vase hangs as pendant in the middle; or where alternate carnelian and gold beads have as pendant a carnelian cone, a symbol of ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... He had small feet, of which he was intensely proud, podgy white hands on which he wore the most exquisite rings. He changed his rings every day, like a Roman Emperor; was reported to have summer and winter rings—onyx and the coolest looking intaglios set in filagree for warm weather—fiery rubies and diamonds in massive bands of dull gold for winter. He was said to devote half-an-hour every morning to the treatment of ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... needed to mould it into gracious shapes; the sharp chisel must cut into the marble, to fashion by keen, driving blows the fair statue; the fine, piercing instrument, "the little diamond-pointed ill," it is that traces the forms of beauty on the hard onyx. There had been sorrow in the tale of my friend, temptation at least, if not sinful yielding, labor and pain, which had broken down the fair mind itself,—but it had all created a gracious form for the memory to dwell on, an undying association with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various |
