An equally important factor has been the standing problem of the native races, which forms the background of South-African politics.

By the eighteenth century the influence of Malory was scarcely felt at all; but his imaginativeness, as interpreted by Tennyson, in The Idylls of the King, and by William Morris, in his Defence of Guinevere, has given to the Anglo-Saxon world a new romantic background for its thoughts.

There were also tall pines here and there in the grove, and their green furnished a fine dark background for the gay colors.

But the very curses of those that hate her make a kind of superhuman atmosphere about Helen in this play; she fills the background like a great well-spring of pain.

The mists, which had followed me from England, had collected behind the Rock, and the sun, still hidden by its huge bulk, shone upwards through them, making a luminous background, against which the lofty walls and jagged ramparts of this tremendous natural fortification were clearly defined.

§1. Is there an Idea behind the War?The object of the preceding chapters has been to provide the historic background without which it is impossible to understand either the motives of our opponents or the events which led up to their quarrel.

Their smiles held a background of gravity.

She saw the background and the pits of Brightonthat which underlies and hides behind, and is not seen.

Oh, and her face may be thought the while Colored by art, red rose on white!" "Coloring," replied the Master, "requires a pure and clear background.

As to that ceremony, the plans had long ago been understood; nothing more was needed than to tell Walter Drury his study afforded a better background and setting for this particular wedding than a cathedral could provide.

I've picked up rather a decent collection of old mahogany and prints, Sheffield plate and Lowestoft chinathat sort of thingthat needs a certain background to show it off.

Collected & edited by Philip S. Foner, with a biographical essay, notes & introductions presenting the historical background of Paine's writings.

The Plaice and other flat-fish, as we noticed in Lesson 2, are coloured and marked like the sand and pebbles of their home; and they can even change colour to suit their background.

Taking the Royal Academy group first, the absolute roughness of the groundwork supplies an admirable background to the figures, which seem to emerge from it as though the whole of them were there, ready to be disentangled.

Long slopes of clay color were interlocked with dark browns sprinkled with golden yellow; slate blue and grey, mixed with greens and purples, and the pure, deep ultramarine blue of distant peaks finished the background.

Gorgeous Sea-anemones of all shapes and sizes add to the brightness; and even the Shrimps, Prawns, and Crabs are coloured to fit their background.

Women like Laura never forget the fitting background.

But who can do as the merchant does, who, with his resources, Knows the methods as well by which the best is arrived at? Look at that house over yonder,the new one; behold with what splendor 'Gainst the background of green stand out the white spirals of stucco!

London was as good a background as any for an unknown Mrs. May, so she provided herself with it, and then, moving her arm abruptly, her gold bag fell on the floor.

Eight great disks, having gold backgrounds, and representing radiating suns, double-headed eagles, and the shields, gules and argent, the armorial bearings of Lübeck, are spread out gorgeously upon this quaint architecture.

They rendered the gray-clad figure of the girl vague and ethereal, like a mist above a stream; they darkened the dull-hued couch on which she rested into a liquid, impalpable black; they hazed the draped background of the corner into a far-reaching distance; so that finally to Galen Albret, staring with hypnotic intensity, it came to seem that he looked upon a pure and disembodied spirit sleeping sweetlycradled on illimitable space.

"Gimme a hoss any day fer gittin' places!" "Jake, my regard fer your rep as Anderson's foreman makes me want to hug the background," replied Bill.

Even in "Sin and Sorrow" and "A Protégée" whole passages merely illustrate the background against which the plot is set rather than help forward the action itself.

While the general theme of the group is different and implies a somewhat changed historical background, the characteristic ideas and literary forms of 40-55 also recur here.

Bellini, indeed, before him had studied nature and introduced landscape backgrounds into his pictures, but more for picturesqueness of setting than as an integral part of the whole; they are far less suggestive of the mood appropriate to the moment, less calculated to stir the imagination than to please the eye.