United States or Greece ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
To men like themselves, seamen, accustomed day after day, for months at a time, to the sight of the open sky, the boundless sea, the invigorating breath of the salt wind, and the feeling of a heaving deck beneath their feet, it was a novelty to be trudging upon firm ground along a forest path, enveloped in the mystery of soft green twilight, with dense masses of foliage overhead shutting out all sight of the sky except at infrequent intervals, their horizon bounded by the leafy brake within arm's reach of them on either hand, and to breathe the hot, close atmosphere of the woods, pungent with many strange odours; to listen to the silence of the forest, accentuated rather than broken by the sounds of their passage, and the low singing hum of innumerable myriads of invisible insects; to start as a sudden whirr of wings directed their attention to some brilliant plumaged bird seen for an instant flashing athwart their ken like a living gem and then vanishing they scarcely knew whither; to behold the countless strange forms and curious colours of the flowers that sprang beneath their feet or hung in festoons from the lofty branches overhead; to hear the mysterious sounds that occasionally came to them from the forest on either hand; and to slake their thirst by devouring the strange but luscious fruits indicated by their friends the Cimarrones and partaken of at first doubtfully and with extremest caution.
The drawing-room and dancing saloon brilliantly lighted by chandeliers, and beautifully decorated with festoons of dark bright evergreens and wreaths of gorgeous autumn leaves and bouquets of splendid autumn flowers, stood ready with wide open doors to welcome the company. At the hall door, at the head of the servants, stood Mr.
Accompanied by the French ambassador, amid a group of English exiles, and advancing under a waving roof of flags and festoons, hastily improvised in his honour, the least worthy of the Stuarts arrived in Dublin, and took up his residence at the castle. His sojourn there was certainly no royal bed of roses!
They saw at a glance that the tempting festoons were no longer within their reach! They were not going to leave the ground, however, without assuring themselves of this fact; and several of the largest approached boldly under the scaffolds, and commenced leaping up to try the height.
An old stove, rusty with the nicotine contributed by farmers during the previous season while waiting by its glowing sides for their cotton to be sold, stood straight up in a bed of sand, and festoons of cobwebs clung to the upper sashes of the murky windows.
Before these were ranged the knights and ladies, the latter clothed in the fantastically rich costume of that time, with high erections on their heads, from which floated long festoons of cloth, and glittering with the emblems of their families on their storied robes.
As she spoke they came to a milliner's shop, the windows of which were decorated with ribbons and lace, and festoons of artificial flowers. "Oh, mamma, what beautiful roses! Won't you buy some of them?" "No, my dear." "Why?" "Because I don't want them, my dear." They went a little farther, and came to another shop, which caught Rosamond's eye.
At no other function during the entire Exposition were such elaborate illuminations attempted on the part of any state commission. The interior decorations consisted of the National and Exposition colors, gracefully wound here and there about the pillars, supplemented by festoons of smilax, which was used in profusion in the entrance hallway.
There were beads forming hearts, beads in festoons and medallions, beads framing either ornamental designs or objects under glass, such as velvet pansies, wax hands entwined, satin bows, or, at times, even photographs of women yellow, faded, cheap photographs, showing poor, ugly, touching faces that smiled awkwardly.
The windows were wide open, but no one looked out of them, the muslin blinds fluttered in the wind, the Gloire de Dijon roses nodded upon the wall, the Virginia creeper hung in crimson festoons over the porch; but there was not a living creature to be seen.
Word Of The Day