Literary notes about bauble (AI summary)
Across many writings, the term "bauble" is deployed to evoke a sense of superficial ornamentation or trivial allure that contrasts with lasting, substantive value. It often represents an object of fleeting beauty—something dazzling yet ultimately insubstantial ([1], [2]), used either literally as a shiny trinket or metaphorically to highlight human vanity and fickleness ([3], [4]). In some passages, it forms a token of sentimental or symbolic significance, a modest offering that encapsulates deeper emotions ([5]), while in others it underscores the notion of mere superficiality masking real worth. This layered use of the word enriches scenes with both tangible sparkle and abstract commentary on the nature of value in life.
- Pleased with this bauble still, as that before; Till tired he sleeps, and life’s poor play is o’er.
— from An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires by Alexander Pope - Yet this pearl of great price, how often is it treated as lightly and carelessly as if it was any bauble of Brummagem!
— from The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother by George H. (George Henry) Napheys - " Life, which seems so precious to us, they spurn as if but a bauble.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden - Vain each bright bauble by ambition prized; Unwon, 'tis worshipp'd—but possess'd, despised.
— from Poems (1828) by Thomas Gent - In memory of this Day, dear friends, Accept the modest token From one who with the bauble sends A love that can't be spoken.
— from Songs and Other Verse by Eugene Field
