United States or Russia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In September, the Shagreen Skin, arranged by Judicis, was played at the Ambigu-Comique, with tableaux of almost literal imitation, yet bringing to life again, in the denouement, the chief dramatis personae, and making the whole drama a dream. At the Comedie Francaise, in 1853, Barriere and de Beauplan produced a five-act prose play drawn from the Lily in the Valley.
'The Abbe Busoni, said La Carconte. 'He was a foreigner? 'An Italian, from the neighborhood of Mantua, I believe. 'Let me see this diamond again, replied the jeweller; 'the first time you are often mistaken as to the value of a stone. Caderousse took from his pocket a small case of black shagreen, opened, and gave it to the jeweller.
The Shagreen Skin is the adventure of a young man who, after sowing his wild oats and losing his last crown at the gaming table, goes to end his troubles in the river, but is prevented from carrying out his intention by being fortuitously presented with a piece of shagreen skin, which has the marvellous property of gratifying its possessor's every wish, yet, meanwhile, shrinks with each gratification, and in the same proportion curtails its possessor's life.
It is a little box- wood Triton, carved with charming liveliness and truth; I have often compared it to a figure in Raphael's "Triumph of Galatea." It came to me in an ancient shagreen case, how old it is I do not know, but it must have been made since Sir Walter Raleigh's time. If you are curious, you shall see it any day.
As they were about to seat themselves, at the invitation of the notary, Samuel pointed to the register bound in black shagreen, and said: "I was ordered, sir, to deposit here this register. It is locked. I will deliver up the key, immediately after the reading of the will."
"Purchasers of the Tractors," said one of their ardent advocates, "would be among the last to approve of them if they had reason to suppose themselves defrauded of five guineas." He forgot poor Moses, with his "gross of green spectacles, with silver rims and shagreen cases." "Dear mother," cried the boy, "why won't you listen to reason? I had them a dead bargain, or I should not have bought them.
Towards eight o'clock, when Paris was awakening to the business of the day and taking down its shutters, she entered a cutler's shop in the Palais Royal, and bought for two francs a stout kitchen knife in a shagreen case.
'You gave a receipt, Mr. Ward, said the coroner. 'Will you tell us where it is likely to be? 'It must be either on or in my uncle's desk, or in his pocket. Will some one look for it? I wrote it in his memorandum book a curious old black shagreen book, with a silver clasp. I left it open on the desk to dry. A policeman went to search for it; and the coroner asked what the entry had been.
While Felice's hands were busy over a shagreen jewel case filled with hideous garnet and gilt breast-pins and bracelets of the sixties, Margot leaned from the casement and called, "Bele, oh, Bele! You careless boy! Bring some wood for Miss Felice! Make a fire up here! It's damp!"
"This is my dismissal, I presume," responded Raikes sourly as he replaced the gem, from which he seemed unable to remove his thieving eyes. "Here, take this damned thing; it has demoralized me," and placing the shagreen case, with its priceless contents, in the hands of the evilly-smiling Sepoy, he disappeared through the doorway.
Word Of The Day