Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Sunbeam
Her face appears to be wrapped in a veil of sunbeams: unblemished is her complexion, and her skin is without a wrinkle.
Sir William Jones.—Poem of Tarafa, Verse 10, Vol. VIII.
In the warm shadow of her loveliness,
He kisses her with his beams.
Shelley.—The Witch of Atlas, Stanza 2.
Here was a murder bravely carried through
The eye of observation, unobserved.
Cyril Tourneur.—The Atheist’s Tragedy.
A sunbeam passes through pollution unpolluted.
Eusebius.—De Demonstratione Evangelica, Book IV. Chap. 13. Fourth Article of the Creed.
[Lord Bacon.—Advancement of Learning, title Hist. of Nature; and Lillie’s Euphues, Book II.; Notes and Queries, N.S. Vol. III. Page 218; but in page 336 of the same volume, the idea is traced by Mr. Smirke to Tertullian.]
Christ alone, like his emblem the light, passed through all things undefiled.
Horne.—On Psalm xxvi. Verse 4; and on Psalm xviii. Verse 20.
And face to face standing,
Look I on God as he is, a sun unpolluted by vapours.
Longfellow.—From Bishop’s Tegner’s Children on the Lord’s Supper.
The sun, if he could avoid it, would not shine upon a dunghill; but his rays are so pure, Eliza, and celestial—I never heard that they were polluted by it.
Sterne.—Letter 87, to Eliza.
For a preserving spirit doth still pass
Untainted through this mass.
Vaughan.—Resurrection and Immortality, Stanza 2.