Careful Words

glittering (adj.)

He holds him with his glittering eye,

And listens like a three years' child.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): The Ancient Mariner. Part i.

  Its constitution the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence.

Rufus Choate (1799-1859): Letter to the Maine Whig Committee, 1856.

All plumed like estridges that with the wind

Baited like eagles having lately bathed;

Glittering in golden coats, like images;

As full of spirit as the month of May,

And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 1.

  It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,—glittering like the morning star full of life and splendour and joy. . . . Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men,—in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797): Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 331.