United States or Curaçao ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The frock coat, soaked by many a down-pour, with its brandebourgs, the frogs of which were indiscreet enough to show their skeletons, testified by its cut to departed elegance. The satin stock-cravat fortunately concealed the shirt, but the tongue of the buckle behind the neck had frayed the satin, which was re-satined, that is, re-polished, by a species of oil distilled from the wig.
Not one who seizes the first impulse, your friend, no! not at all! Thus for entire days I have polished and re-polished a paragraph without accomplishing anything. I feel like weeping at times. You ought to pity me! Ask Theo. However, let us understand one another. But the bourgeois, what is the use in it for them? Of course there must be certain ones among humanity who stick to chastity.
On the eve of the 9th of Thermidor, when it was a question of life or death, he enters the tribune with a set speech, written and re-written, polished and re-polished, overloaded with studied ornaments and bits for effect, coated by dint of time and labor, with the academic varnish, the glitter of symmetrical antitheses, rounded periods, exclamations, omissions, apostrophes and other tricks of the pen.
The more we know about habit, the more we realize that character is pretty well "set" by middle life. The creative period of human life ends all too soon. Character is not an abstract possession separable from human tasks and needs. It is not like a work of art which can be polished and re-polished. But, when all is said and done, ethics must abide by the facts of the case.
The impression is then entirely spoiled, but the plate may be re-polished. * This can be remedied, however, if it is immediately washed over with the same solution that is on the plate, so that the surface shall not become cool; continue for a short time to apply the lamp under, and agitate the plate slightly, and it will soon be free from all imperfections and give a fine clear tone.
Gold stars on azure ground, and all vivid coloring and gilding, are freely used. The new "reredos," or altar screen, is one marvelous crystallization of sculptures. The ancient Purbeck marble pillars have been scraped and re-polished, and form a fine contrast to the white marbles on which they are set.
But the most striking object of all in the midst of this array of new furniture was a great square, thick-set secretaire, which had been re-polished in vain, for the cracks and notches in the marble top and the scratches on the old mahogany front, quite black with age, still showed plainly.
He must have felt that with this ultimate shock the line had snapped, and have experienced the welcome ease of the drowning swimmer who has ceased to struggle. Blythe walked to the next corner and stood there while he brushed the sand from his garments and re-polished his glasses. "I've got to do it oh, I've got to do it," he told himself, aloud.
In less than three weeks there was not a cup, saucer, or plate in the ship that Watty had not washed; not a "brass" that he had not polished and re-polished; not a copper that he had not scraped; not an inch of the deck that he had not swabbed. But it must not be supposed that he groaned under this labour. Although reckless, hasty, and inconsiderate, he was not mean-spirited.