cimorene

In the middle of the hall he saw a handsome nobleman with greying hair seated upon a bed. His head was covered by a cap of sable – black as mulberry, with a purple peak – and his robe was of the same material. He was leaning on his elbow before a very large fire of dry logs, blazing brightly between four columns. Four hundred men could easily sit around that fire, and each would have a comfortable spot. A tall, thick, broad, brass chimney was supported by those strong columns.

–Perceval, The Story of the Grail, Chrétien de Troyes, 1182-1190 C.E.

Kay strode to the centre of the hall without his mantle, holding in his right hand a staff; he had a cap of fine cloth over his blond hair, which had been plaited into a braid – there was no more handsome knight in the world, but his beauty and prowess were spoiled by his evil tongue. His cloak was of a colourful and expensive silken material; he wore an embroidered belt whose buckle and links were all of gold – I recall it well, for the story bears witness to it.

–Perceval, The Story of the Grail, Chrétien de Troyes, 1182-1190 C.E.

Dinner was as incongruous as everything else. Detestable soup in a splendid old silver tureen that was nearly as dark in hue as Robinson Crusoe's thumb; a perfect salmon, perfectly cooked, on a chipped kitchen dish; such cut glass as is not easy to find nowadays; sherry that, as Flurry subsequently remarked, would burn the shell off an egg; and a bottle of port, draped in immemorial cobwebs, wan with age, and probably priceless.

–Some Experiences of an Irish R.M., Edith Somerville and Violet Martin writing as E.Œ. Somerville and Martin Ross (1898)

[H]e observed that Mr Wyse had a soft crinkly shirt with a low collar, and velveteen dress clothes: this pretty costume caused him to look rather like a conjurer.

–Mapp and Lucia, E.F. Benson (1931)

His clean-shaven face, with abundant grey hair brushed back from his forehead, was that of an actor who has seen his best days, but who has given command performances at Windsor. He wore a brown velveteen coat, a Byronic collar and a tie strictured with a cameo-ring: he wore brown knickerbockers and stockings to match, he wore neat golfing shoes. He looked as if he might be going to play golf, but somehow it didn't seem likely [...].

–Mapp and Lucia, E.F. Benson (1931)

The ship was, or had been, a three-masted barque; two of her masts were gone, and her bows stood high out of the water on the reef that forms one of the shark-like jaws of the bay. The long strand was crowded with black groups of people, from the bank of heavy shingle that had been hurled over on to the road, down to the slope where the waves pitched themselves and climbed and fought and tore the gravel back with them, as though they had dug their fingers in. The people were nearly all men, dressed solemnly and hideously in their Sunday clothes; most of them had come straight from Mass without any dinner, true to that Irish instinct that places its fun before its food. That the wreck was regarded as a spree of the largest kind was sufficiently obvious. Our car pulled up at a public-house that stood askew between the road and the shingle; it was humming with those whom Irish publicans are pleased to call "Bonâ feeds," and sundry of the same class were clustered round the door. Under the wall on the lee-side was seated a bagpiper, droning out "The Irish Washerwoman" with nodding head and tapping heel, and a young man was cutting a few steps of a jig for the delectation of a group of girls.

–Some Experiences of an Irish R.M., Edith Somerville and Violet Martin writing as E.Œ. Somerville and Martin Ross (1898)

On the other side of the water sat a very well designed, very strong, and very splendid castle. There is no reason for me to lie about it: the castle sat upon a cliff and was so well fortified that no finer fortress was ever beheld by eye of mortal man; and upon a bare rock was set a great hall entirely of dark marble. There were a good five hundred open windows in the great hall, and a hundred of them were filled with ladies and damsels gazing out into the meadows and flowering orchards in front of them. Most of the damsels were wearing clothes of samite, and most had donned tunics of many hues and silken robes with golden threads. The maidens stood thus at the windows, and those outside could see them from the waist up, with their lustrous hair and elegant bodies.

–Perceval, The Story of the Grail, Chrétien de Troyes, 1182-1190 C.E.