Bustle

“ From this time, the bustle commences by the preparations for the coming scene: stalls erecting, windows cleaning and decorating, shepherds and drovers going forth for their flocks and herds, which are depastured for the night in the neighbouring fields, and every individual seems on the alert. ”

“ The bustle, put in its horrid appearance with extra yards of cloth, buttons, ribbons, all of which gave our dear old mother the appearance of a stranger. Of course, she was urged to comb her hair back as in the days of her simplicity, and decorate herself in modest apparel, without gold, or pearls, or costly array ”

“ Bustard, bus′tard, n. a genus of birds, sometimes made the type of a large family, usually ranked in the order of marsh birds like the cranes. [Fr. bistard, corr. from L. avis tarda, slow bird.]
Bustle, bus′l, v.i. to busy one's self noisily: to be active, often with more noise than actual work.—n. ”

“ An Arabian woman would expose her entire body in order to keep the lower part of her face hidden. The Chinese men, as a sign of rank and distinction, develop long finger-nails, and we can well remember when our own women wore ridiculously large bustles that looked very funny on the street. By the way, speaking of bustles, I wish to say that the habit of wearing them did not originate in any of the fashion-centres. Bustles have always been and now are the only article of apparel worn by the women of the New Hebrides. ”

“ A finely-rounded shoulder and exactly-developed bust is set off with a light satin bodice or corsage, cut low, opening shawl-fashion at the breast, and relieved with a stomacher of fine Brussels lace. Down the edges are rows of small, unpolished pearls, running into points. ”

“ He was a typical bushman, not one of those tall, straight, wiry, brown men of the West, but from the old Selection Districts, where many drovers came from, and of the old bush school; one of those slight active little fellows whom we used to see in cabbage-tree hats, Crimean shirts, strapped trousers, and elastic-side boots―'larstins,' they called them. They could dance well; sing indifferently, and mostly through their noses, the old bush songs; play the concertina horribly; and ride like―like―well, they could ride. ”

“ A shuffle in the bushes made the lovers pause; a curious shuffle such as a wounded bird makes in its efforts to escape.
"If the most noble will tarry, this slave will at least make the luck-offering to the bride," came the voice again, and to point its meaning the delicate brown hand held up a circular shallow basket heaped with rose-petals—heaped so lightly that the hand held it level, and it seemed to glide on the top of the bushes, heralding the grizzled head which slid after it with a faintly undulating movement. ”

“ I feel that our fetish is safe for three centuries yet. The bust, too—there in the Stratford Church. The precious bust, the priceless bust, the calm bust, the serene bust, the emotionless bust, with the dandy moustache, and the putty face, unseamed of care—that face which has looked passionlessly down upon the awed pilgrim for a hundred and fifty years and will still look down upon the awed pilgrim three hundred more, with the deep, deep, deep, subtle, subtle, subtle, expression of a bladder. ”

“ A mischievous sweetness lighted up the beautiful, almond-shaped dark eyes, bathed in liquid brightness, shaded by the long lashes and curving arch of eyebrow. Life and youth displayed their treasures in the petulant face and in the gracious outlines of the bust unspoiled even by the fashion of the day, which brought the girdle under the breast. ”

“ The nostrils are drawn up, and this feature is exaggerated in the bust. The nose of the cast is large, finely marked, aquiline, and delicately formed. That of the bust is short, mean, straight, and small. In their physiognomy and phrenology they are utterly different. The cast indicates the man of [Pg 275] thought, emotion, and suffering; the bust, of ease, enjoyment, and self-satisfaction. If the bust is to represent the living image of the dead poet, the answer is, death does not immediately alter the language once written on the ivory gate at the temple of thought. ”

“ A characteristic and withal a truly noble and ornamental object is the Great Bustard, on those vast stretches of silent corn-lands which form his home. Among the things of sport are few more attractive scenes than a band of bustards at rest. Bring your field-glass to bear on that gathering which you see yonder, basking in the sunshine, in full enjoyment of their siesta. There are four-or five-and-twenty of them, and how immense they look against the background of sprouting corn that covers the landscape: well may a stranger mistake them for deer or goats. ”

“ Any morning between eleven and twelve Bulstrode might have been seen in the Bois de Boulogne briskly walking along the Avenue des Acacias, his well-filled chest thrown out, his step light and assured; cane in hand, a boutonnière tinging the lapel of his coat; immaculate and fresh as a rose, he exhaled good-humor, kindliness, and well-being. ”

“ She is just a little bush girl, barely XX-one yet, and has scarcely ever been out of the bush in her life. She has lived her book, and I feel proud of it for the sake of the country I came from, where people toil and bake and suffer and are kind; where every second sun-burnt bushman is a sympathetic humorist, with the sadness of the bush deep in his eyes and a brave grin for the worst of times, and where every third bushman is a poet, with a big heart that keeps his pockets empty. ”

“ The wood, as you approach down the road from Mr. Motley’s gate, presents the aspect of a hill of pines, dark and massive; but, crossing the fence that keeps it from the highway, you are almost at once in the midst of a mingled growth of birch and beech and willows; beneath these passes the brook, near to whose bank was found, farther up, the body of the boy. Old Mr. Bussey, it would seem, was a man of droll, yet picturesque fancies, mingled with a sturdy sense of the useful; for no sooner are you free of the pasture land, and in among the trees, than you discover traces of his handiwork. ”

“ They march in procession, two abreast, and in three divisions; the young men in the van and the rear, dressed in white or other gay-coloured jackets or vests, and decorated with ribbons on their hats and sleeves; the young women are dressed also in light-coloured garments, and two of them bear each a holly bush, in which are hung several new hurling balls, the May-day present of the girls to the youths of the village. The bush is decorated with a profusion of long ribbons or paper cut in imitation, which adds greatly to the gay and joyous, yet strictly rural, appearance of the whole. ”

“ The dazzling white flesh of the women's necks and shoulders stood out in magnificent contrast against the men's almost invariably sombre costumes. The murmur of voices, the hum of the crowd, could be heard even in the middle of the garden as a sort of droning bass, interspersed with fioriture of shrill laughter or clamor of some rare dispute. ”

“ The bushes are slender, but they grow tall without climbing against the wall, and sway to and fro in the wind with a grace of youth and an inexpressible charm of beauty. How many lovers must have picked them on Sunday evenings, in all the bygone years, and carried them along the roads or by the pasture footpaths, hiding them clumsily under their Sunday coats if they caught sight of any one coming. ”

“ Sir David Brewster has shown how the rigid features of a white bust may be made to move and vary their expression, sometimes smiling and sometimes frowning, by moving rapidly in front of the bust a bright light, so as to make the lights and shadows take every possible direction and various degrees of intensity; and if the bust be placed before a concave mirror, its image may be made to do still more when it is cast upon wreaths of smoke. ”

“ Their flight is prolonged and often rapid, though invariably heavy, the neck and legs being outstretched; the Great Bustard rises from the ground slowly, the Little Bustard with a rattling noise, but they are frequently loth to leave it, crouching to escape detection on the similarly coloured soil. ”

“ On the thin grass sits a young nun, who follows dreamily the gay fluttering of two butterflies, which flit around at her feet. A black dress, harshly and abruptly crossed by a white cape, envelops the youthfully delicate form. The dying sapling on which she is leaning bends helplessly against the stubborn paling to which it is fastened with iron clamps. ”

“ THE BUTTERFLY.
A butterfly bask'd on a baby's grave,
Where a lily had chanced to grow:
"Why art thou here, with thy gaudy die,
When she of the blue and sparkling eye,
Must sleep in the churchyard low?" ”

“ Red is beautiful in the rose, ugly in the spot of blood on the floor. The sheen of sable in the ousel is beautiful, but the sheen of sable on the carrion-loving buzzard is ugly. If all serpents were harmless, gentle and intelligent, their lithe forms and gliding motions would be beautiful. ”

“ ALTERING PATTERNS FOR A FIGURE WITH AN UNUSUALLY SMALL BUST. For the woman with an unusually small bust it is wiser to make up the lining first in unbleached muslin before cutting into the regular lining. Where the bust is just a little under the average the alteration can be made at the underarm seam. ”

“ The busk, known since the fourth century, was introduced into France in the sixteenth century; men also wore busks or stomachers. The busk relates closely to the history of corsets. The middle of the sixteenth century is the epoch of transition from the corsage to the whaleboned waist, which constituted a sensible approach to the modern corset. ”

“ The princess did all her husband had told her, and then came back and repeated what the magician had said: ‘One must go into the wood,’ she repeated, ‘where is the beast called hydra, and cut off all his seven heads. In the head which is in the middle of the other six, if it is split [165] open, will be found a leveret; if this leveret is caught and his head split open there is a bird; if this bird is caught and his head split open, there is in it a precious stone. ”

“ She wore her furs, muff, and big enveloping stole, her hat with fur on it, and a veil. She was not in house or garden trim. The urban air of her toilet was a surprise to Bulstrode, and he took in her readiness for something he had not expected, something great, something decisive.
"It's good of you to come when you must be full of delightful ways of passing your time, Mr. Bulstrode," she said, "and I wanted so much to see you again." ”

“ What a pity she paints at all! What difference, after all, does it make what she does? She's so pretty and feminine!" She was a clinging, sweet creature, and the walk and the flower debauch he permitted himself, the long quiet hours of companionship with this lovely girl in the atelier, illumined, accentuated, and intensified Bulstrode's already fatuous appreciation of the spring in Paris. ”

“ Before we came upon the white patch we encountered a valley the most difficult of passage of any thing I ever yet met with in the shape of bush, its vegetation consisted solely of shrubs advanced to a larger standard that usual in this Country the ground I suppose in consequence of perpetual shade and want of circulation was covered with moss, and on this we were obliged to crawl under the thicket, while sliding down and climbing up the numerous steep descents and acclivities in which the place abounded. ”

“ Shielding ourselves in a low coppice of bushes from the peculiar light, which was sensibly increasing in strength and which seemed less softened by the interposition of veils of mist and cloud, we could just see, like a black ribbon painted along the horizon, a zone of tree tops. ”

“ Then one by one, and two by two, and three by three, and finally in whole showers, the little flowers of all the other little bushes fell off, and they looked very much like the little bush of which I am telling you, so that the little bush no longer felt sad.
All summer long all the little bushes grew and grew and grew. The birds came and built their nests among them. Peter Rabbit and his brothers and sisters scampered under them. The butterflies flew over them.
By and by came the fall, and with the fall came Jack Frost. ”

“ Long ago, of a summer morning, threading with soundless paddle and slow-sliding canoe one of the quiet streams that wound like a blue vein across the sunburned breast of those marshes, I found in the deep grasses, that everywhere grew breast high, an illimitable garden of flowers. ”

“ The habit they have of crawling up the bushes is so like that of a Field-Mouse, that I have more than once mistaken the one for the other, the Field-Mouse also being very fond of creeping up the stem of bushes. ”

“ Pedestals for busts are difficult to proportion properly. They must not be too wide at the top or they look clumsy, and if they are too narrow for their height, must be weighted at the bottom so as not to tip over too easily. ”

“ When the bustard is the object of pursuit, two men are required, one of whom carries a gun. The pack of bustard will be carefully watched during the afternoon, and not lost sight of when night comes until their sleeping-quarters are ascertained. When quite dark, the tinkling of the cencerro will be heard, and a ray of light will surround the devoted bustards, charming or frightening them—whichever it may be—into still life. ”

“ Studying a nest among the sage bushes is not so easy as one might imagine. This was so closely covered by the low-growing branches that I could see it only by holding them one side. Moreover the sage is what is called in the books a social plant; where there is one there [Pg 183] may be a thousand, as like each other as so, many peas. The particular bush that hid my chewink babies had to be marked, as one would mark the special tuft of grass that hides a bobolink's nest. ”