"Feat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... paddling and enjoying ourselves till the sunset told us that we must begin our herculean labour of hoisting the leg and crutches up the gangway back to the wood. I have performed many athletic feats since my cure, but nothing comparable to the feat of climbing with crutches up those paths of yielding sand. Once we found on the sand a newly shot gull. She took it in her lap and mourned over it. I guessed who was the poor bird's ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... Iowa, performed gastrotomy on a man, who, while attempting a feat of legerdemain, allowed a bar of lead, 10 1/8 inches long, 1 1/2 inches wide, and 9 1/2 ounces in weight, to slip into his stomach. The bar was removed and the patient recovered. Gussenbauer gives an account of a juggler who turned his head ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... from the fields when it is ripe, and actually swim the river to commit their depredations on the islands. It seems difficult to believe this, looking at this wide and heavy stream—though, to be sure, I did once see a young horse swim across the St. Lawrence, between Montreal and Quebec; a feat of natation which much enlarged my belief in what quadrupeds may accomplish when they have no ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... fixed on the master, and my one desire was to see him. To see him was easy, to speak to him was another matter, and I had to wait three weeks until I could hold a conversation in French. How I achieved this feat I cannot say. I never opened a book, I know, nor is it agreeable to think what my language must have been like—like nothing ever heard under God's sky before, probably. It was, however, sufficient to waste a good hour of the painter's ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... foibles that all flesh is heir to, such a really lovable one that she was fairly worshiped by mother, aunt and uncle, and every one of the negroes, from old Caleb, the testy and ancient coachman, to the veriest pickaninny, who thought it a great feat to catch hold with grimy fingers to the fluttering strings of the little girl's white apron when she came among them at Christmas and on other occasions to distribute sweets ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... lets loose when she can't think of a wrong number to give you. It has also points of resemblance to the periodic thud of the valve of a motor-tube when one is running on a deflated tyre. But there is no real standard of comparison. As a musical feat it is unique, and I for one am glad ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... of my public lectures, enabled me to remit large sums to confidential agents for the purchase of my obligations. In this manner, I quietly extinguished, little by little, every dollar of my clock liabilities. I could not have achieved this difficult feat, however, without the able assistance of enthusiastic friends—and among the chief of them let me gratefully acknowledge the invaluable services of Mr. James D. Johnson, a gentleman of wealth, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Other gentlemen have been generous with me. Some have loaned ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... the boys wanted to see him perform a feat like that, and Will quickly scampered into the water. Now, the wallow was very shallow all the way across, and Will was soon on the opposite side. The smaller boys, not knowing the depth of the water, supposed ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... that, old top!" he shouted at Sandy Dowd, who had made a magnificent steal to second, after getting first on a single, his slide amidst a cloud of dust being the grand climax of the feat; for though the catcher sent the ball down in a direct line to the baseman, still the red-headed Sandy had his hand on the bag at the time he was touched, and there was no disputing the "safe ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... stopping at all save to eat two or three times, at a continuous temperature of 50 deg. below zero or lower, to bring word that he had found a white man frozen to death on the trail; and on the Koyukuk that feat will always be counted to Albert the Pilot for righteousness. From the location and description of the dead man, there was no difficulty in identifying him. He was a wood-chopper under contract with the company to cut one hundred cords of steamboat wood against ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... pronounced it, im-madge-i-na-shun, with a volume of sound which filled a large building and made the quality he named seem the biggest thing in the universe. That in my experience was his loftiest oratorical feat; but I think the old shepherd rose to a greater height when, after a long pause during which he filled his lungs with air, he brought forth the tremendous word, dragging it out gratingly, so as to illustrate the sense in the ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... the breeze, making it difficult for one standing below to premise their course through the air and to catch one of them before it struck the ground or the water, that being one of the objects of the sport. When a visitor had accomplished this feat, he would sometimes mark his flesh with the burning stick that he might show the brand to his sweetheart as a token ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... In man and his allies, the vertebrates, the process of walking is a most difficult and apparently dangerous feat. To describe the mechanics of walking, the wonderful adaptation of the muscles and bones for the performance of this most ordinary action of life, would require a volume. The process is scarcely less complex in insects. Lyonnet found ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... drawing-room all the guests had arrived. He accomplished this difficult feat, which is considered an art in fashionable schools, with easy grace and unconsciousness and ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... yesterday (November 25), for a second attempt—the first having been a failure—to swim from Tithes Pier to Purchase Point Buoy. It was an unfavourable time of the year for such an unprecedented feat of natation, but the Hatfield Champion was confident of success. He is a perfect whale at long-distance immersions, and has been heard to talk of 'twenty years of resolute' swimming against stream as a comparative trifle. His ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... wisely wert thou prompted! This was no feat of mortal agency! That picture—Oh, that picture tells me all! With a flash of light it came, in flames it vanished, 15 Self-kindled, self-consum'd: bright as thy life, Sudden and unexpected as thy fate, Alvar! My ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the dinner-table by handing him a neat diagram of the school-room desks with the correct names of all but three or four of the scholars written on them. Such a feat of memory raised her several notches ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... only literal falsehood. He therefore resorted to metaphors which could by no chance be taken literally. And he has probably succeeded in leaving a body of work which cannot be made to operate to any other end than that for which he designed it. If this be true, he has accomplished the inconceivable feat of eluding misconception. If it be true, he stands alone in the history of teachers; he has circumvented fate, he has left an ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... playing an important part in the cotton raising industry. This was a cotton-picking machine covered by two patents granted to A. P. Albert, a native Louisiana Creole. Mr. Albert invented a second machine which is said to have the merit of perfect practicability, a feat not easy of accomplishment in that class of machinery. Special significance is attached to this case because of the inventor's experience in putting through his application for a patent. He was obliged to appeal from the adverse decision of the principal examiner to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... also be said about double paddles—that is, paddles with two blades—one at each end—as their use is becoming more general every year. With the double paddle a novice can handle a canoe, head on to a stiff wind, a feat which {176} requires skill and experience with a single blade. The doubles give greater safety and more speed and they develop chest, arm and shoulder muscles not brought into play with a single blade. The double paddle is not to be ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... This story shall draw a conclusion from it, and show at the same time that the premise is incorrect. That will be a new thing in logic, and a feat in story-telling somewhat older than the great wall ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... pieces, and to cast new ones in order to enable him to use the munitions previously captured. In three months he doubled the materiel and personnel of his artillery, at a distance of one thousand miles from his own frontiers,—a feat without a parallel in the annals ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... soon as he saw that Tiffles was actually about to perform the amazing feat of raising money, determined, as an act of common justice, to insist upon his receiving twenty per cent. of the total. Tiffles flatly refused, at first, saying (which was true) that he could work a great deal better if he had no personal interest in the scheme; but yielded, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... year 30 (or thereabouts) at Cana in Galilee. If I should live so long, I shall take great interest in the announcement of the performance of this operation, say, nine years hence; and, if there is no objection raised by chemical experts, I shall accept the fact that the feat has been performed, without hesitation. But I shall have no more ground for believing the Cana story than I had before; simply because the evidence in its favour will remain, for me, exactly where it is. Possible ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... be better satisfied than I to see Mr. Darwin's book refuted, if any person be competent to perform that feat; but I would suggest that refutation is retarded, not aided, by mere sarcastic misrepresentation. Every one who has studied cattle-breeding, or turned pigeon-fancier, or "pomologist," must have been struck by the extreme modifiability or plasticity of those kinds of animals and plants which have ...
— Time and Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... and all the breath is in common. Nothing, it would seem, could add to our misery; but we discover our error when the conductor squeezes a tortuous path through us, and collects the money for our transportation. I never can tell, during the performance of this feat, whether he or the passengers are more ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... was called, bundled out of the chaise when the door was opened, with a movement so closely resembling what would have ensued had he been dragged out by the collar, that one was tempted almost to believe that such a feat must have been accomplished all at ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Acts, and to some extent from the Clementines, finishing up, however, with the mythical death of Simon at Rome, owing to the prayers of Peter. Simon is here said to be conducted by daemons and to have flown ([Greek: hiptato]) upwards. The details of this magical feat are given ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... of a single man while under the escort of United States vessels. No navy troop transports were torpedoed on east-bound trips although three were sunk on the return trip with loss of 138 lives. To the American and British navies must go the credit for carrying through this stupendous feat, and in the work of assuring the safety of the troop transports the navy of the United States may claim recognition for the larger share, since 82 per cent of the escorts furnished were American cruisers and destroyers. It was a nerve-racking ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... performed in America, as no delusion, but as a fact, which might be verified by any one; and then gave some directions for making the experiment, which was forthwith attempted at the lady's house in Bremen, and with perfect success, in the presence of a large company. In a few days the marvellous feat, the accounts of which flew like wildfire all over the country, was executed by hundreds of experimenters in Bremen. The subject was one precisely adapted to excite the attention and curiosity of the imaginative and wonder-loving Germans; and, accordingly, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... hard work that had made his body vigorous and his muscles hard and strong. Slowly he drew himself up out of the clinging ooze which closed behind him with a sickening, sucking sound. Once clear of the mud, it was an easy feat to go up the rope hand over hand and soon he was standing beside Charley at the foot of the tree where they were speedily joined by ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the ascent of the almost perpendicular wall toward the summit several hundred feet above. I looked on in amazement, for, splendid climbers though the cave men of Pellucidar are, I never before had seen so remarkable a feat per-formed. Upwardly they moved without a pause, to disappear at last ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... certain hour, with a certain number of men—a ration-party, or a working-party, or a burial-party, or anything you like,—all I ask is that you will be there, at the appointed hour, with the whole of your following. That may not sound a very difficult feat, but experience has taught me that if a man can achieve it, and can be relied upon to achieve it, say, nine times out of ten—well, he is a pearl of price; and there is not a C.O. in the British Army who wouldn't scramble to get him! That's all, ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... sure that the Woongas knew that Wabi was the son of the factor of Wabinosh House. Therefore they would make every effort to recapture him, even though they had to follow far and a dozen lives were lost before that feat ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... class of bricklayers, are no great readers, otherwise we might suspect that the feat of the skipper-boys had conveyed some inspiration to Steeple Jack. Who is Steeple Jack? asks some innocent reader at the Antipodes. He is a little spare creature who flies his kite over steeples when there is anything ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... she told him; so beautiful, in fact, that until she had discoursed ten minutes he hardly recognized his own feat; but when he did he blushed inside as well as out with pleasure. Oh! music of music—praise from eloquent lips, and those ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... crying out, "I love you! I love you!" Truly Humphrey Van Weyden was at last in love, I thought, as her fingers clung to mine while I lowered her down to the boat. I held on to the rail with one hand and supported her weight with the other, and I was proud at the moment of the feat. It was a strength I had not possessed a few months before, on the day I said good-bye to Charley Furuseth and started for San ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... began to suspect that it was performed entirely by the power of magnetism. Upon his talking to me about the affair, I confirmed him in his opinion, and furnished him with a small magnet to put into the bread, and a large needle to conceal in the body of the bird. So this is the explanation of the feat which so much puzzled you a few ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... his life onward for a considerable time, Winterborne, though not absolutely out of his house as yet, retired into the background of human life and action thereabout—a feat not particularly difficult of performance anywhere when the doer has the assistance of a lost prestige. Grace, thinking that Winterborne saw her write, made no further sign, and the frail bark of fidelity that she had thus timidly ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... ground, and trying to break his armor to pieces; to dance and throw summersets; to mount upon a horse behind another person by leaping from the ground, and assisting themselves only by one hand, and other similar things. One feat which they practiced was to climb up between two partition walls built pretty near together, by bracing their back against one wall, and working with their knees and hands against the other. Another feat was to climb up a ladder ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... offenders Gessler erects a pole in the square of Altorf, upon which he places his hat and commands the people to do homage to it. Tell refuses, and as a punishment is ordered to shoot an apple from his son's head. He successfully accomplishes the feat, but as he is about to retire Gessler observes a second arrow concealed in his garments, and inquires the reason for it, when Tell boldly replies it was intended for him in case the first had killed his son. Gessler throws him into prison, whereupon ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... as interpreter of the Constitution, but we must not be deceived by fictions. The Supreme Court has legislated as truly, and perhaps more effectively than Congress. It has achieved, and from the nature of things was compelled to achieve, a feat forbidden to Congress; it has added to or enlarged the Articles of the Constitution. The good fortune of the United States gave to them in Judge Marshall a profound and statesmanlike lawyer, and the judgments of the ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... object that Van Dorn had in mind was the relief of Missouri. And he may have dreamed, that feat accomplished, that it would be possible to carry the war into the enemy's country beyond the Ohio; but, alas, it was his misfortune at this juncture to be called upon to realise, to his great discomfiture, the truth ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... they go out and witness the feat of devotion which we have quoted elsewhere.[23] They then see the Paradise and the lovely Ivorine, with whose beauty Bauduin is struck dumb. The lady had never smiled before; now she declares that he for whom she had long ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... had been sitting quiet and merely paddling, and almost letting the stream carry him down, the boat had trimmed well enough; but now, taking a long breath, he leaned forward, and dug his sculls into the water, pulling them through with all his strength. The consequence of this feat was that the handles of the sculls came into violent collision in the middle of the boat, the knuckles of his right hand were barked, his left scull unshipped, and the head of his skiff almost blown round by the wind before he could restore ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... exulted in the fact that the husband of her choice was able to please and entertain her mother-no easy feat. Moreover, as time went on and interest in the Graft Prosecution wore thin, it was evident that Mortimer had established himself firmly in his mother-in-law's graces. He was not only the perfect husband but the son ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... that only a woman of the social capacity—some people called it genius—of Mrs. Linton could accomplish such a feat as the bringing into the same room two persons who had given unmistakable evidence of possessing a conscience apiece—the woman who had sacrificed the man for conscience' sake, and the man who had sacrificed the woman under ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... following next. He could now better judge of the depth; and Fleetwood, having rolled away all the loose stones, he fell without injury. The Greek came next, and was caught in the arms of his companions; and Pietro, in like manner, dropped down, the rest saving him as he fell. This feat accomplished, they all breathed more freely; and crouching down on the ground to avoid being seen, they listened attentively to ascertain if any one was moving, before they again put themselves in motion. ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Change of Gauge of Southern Railroads in 1886—By C.H. HUDSON.—The conclusion of the account of this great engineering feat, with tables of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... the body completely over to the right, with the left heel resting on their steed's hind quarter, and fire as if at an enemy in pursuit, or turn clean round, and sitting astride facing the horse's tail, keep up a rapid fire. A favourite feat, among many others, is to throw their hat and rifle to the ground, wheel, and pick them up whilst going at the ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... they witnessed this marvelous feat and rushed forward to assist in the slaughter; but the boy motioned them all back. He did not wish any more bloodshed than was necessary, and knew that the heaps of unconscious Turks around him would ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... taking cover, perfected upon many a big-game expedition, enabled him successfully to accomplish the feat; so that, when the limousine, which he had watched go by during the morning, returned shortly after noon, the lack-lustre eyes were peering out through the bushes near ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... that this line offers as good a chance as any other and that at last the army will be given a fair run, and permitted to begin a general engagement and fight it out to the end. If Buller goes in and wins he will have accomplished a wonderful feat of arms, and will gain the lasting honour and gratitude of his country. If he is beaten he will deserve the respect and sympathy of all true soldiers as a man who has tried to the best of his ability to perform a task for which his resources were ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... son, and Aoife reared him and taught him all feats of arms that could be taught to a mortal, except one only, and of that feat only Cuchulain was master: "the way," said James Kelly, prefacing his ballad with such an explanation as I am now giving, "there would be none could kill him but his own father." And when the boy had learnt all and was the perfect warrior, Aoife sent him out to Ireland ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... human, and most divisions are sure sooner or later to arouse the vanity of contestants. The struggle, which begins without consciously personal motives, is apt to be strongly tempered by the determination not to be beaten. For thousands who can accomplish the difficult feat of triumphing humbly, there is hardly one who can submit to defeat generously; and against the humiliation of failure the human being instinctively strives with every power. Those who upheld the rival candidates were undoubtedly ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... Zealous (Captain Hood) was to have the honour of commencing the action, but Captain Foley passed her in the Goliath, and successfully accomplished that feat which the French had deemed impossible, and had done their best to guard against. Instead of attacking the leading ship—the Guerrier—outside, he sailed round her bows, passed between her and the shore, and cast anchor. Before he could bring up, however, he ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... Unfortunately, health is sometimes confused with physical strength and exercise is directed toward the stronger parts of the body with the effect of making them still stronger. Not only is health not to be measured by the pounds that one can lift or by some gymnastic feat that one can perform, but the possession of great muscular power may, if the heart and other vital organs be not proportionally strong, prove a menace to the health. This being true, one having his health primarily in view will use physical exercise, in part at least, as a means of ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... from being quick and clever like my brother, and able to rival the literary feat which I have recorded of him, many years elapsed before I was able to understand the nature of letters, or to connect them. A lover of nooks and retired corners, I was as a child in the habit of fleeing from society, and of sitting for hours together with my ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... one great feat in those three years—he had won over to himself his comrades, and that without, so to speak, actively laying himself out to do so. He had struck us all as something so very different from the rest of us, that, on his arrival and for some time afterward, there lingered some ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... a loaf to every bird, But just a crumb to me; I dare not eat it, though I starve, — My poignant luxury To own it, touch it, prove the feat That made the pellet mine, — Too happy in my ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... like so many on our links, can be a perfectly simple four, although the rolling nature of the green makes bogey always a somewhat doubtful feat; but, on the other hand, if you foozle your drive, you can easily achieve double figures. The tee is on the farther side of the pond, beyond the bridge, where the water narrows almost to the dimensions of a brook. You drive ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... seats, and to buy tickets for the negro-minstrel entertainment which is to follow, but which is not included in the price of admission. The boys would like to stay, but they have not the money, and they go out clamoring over the performance, and trying to decide which was the best feat. As to which was the best actor, there is never any question; it is the clown, who showed by the way he turned a double somersault that he can do anything, and who chooses to be clown simply because he is too great a creature to enter into rivalry ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... of his family and friends, and lay contentedly dozing and smiling when it seemed good to them to ignore him. Rachael found him the most delightfully amusing and absorbing element her life had ever known; she would break into ecstatic laughter at his simplest feat—when he yawned, or pressed his little downy head against the bars of his crib and stared unsmilingly at her. She would run to the nursery the instant she arrived home, her eager, "How's my boy?" making the baby crow, and struggle to reach ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... the feat was accomplished, "what do you think of that? That's a ess for Mr Smith, and a proper bloke he is. He do teach you to-rights, so I let you know, ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... you, it seems; then, the moment that he had the proof in hand of the abominable alliance of Natacha Feodorovna with the Nihilists who attempt the assassination of her father your intervention has permitted that proof to escape him. And you have boasted of the feat, monsieur, so that we can only consider you responsible for ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... difficulties of the situation, he saw what they in the distance could not see, that the evacuation was a practical impossibility. The most distant garrison held by Egyptians was at Senaar, and if Gordon could have got to that place, a feat which it is more than doubtful if even he could have performed, it is perfectly certain that with the wretched troops he would have had to command he could not have safely escorted the host of the ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... and telegraph would mean quite a feat for Nella-Rose at any time, and winter was in all likelihood already gripping the hills. To write and send a letter might be even more difficult. So Truedale reasoned; so he feverishly waited, but he was not idle. He rented a charming little suite of rooms, high up in a new apartment house, and ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... sat the steamer—a picture in black and silver. She lay there motionless as the trees on the beach, and the reason for her state was clear. Her forefoot soared stiffly aloft till it was almost clear of the water; her stern was depressed; her decks listed to port till it was an acrobatic feat ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... death that I know of: it is not a reflection of previous mythologies, it is congruous with the tastes of what we now consider rational beings, and might well fill their desires; and it tallies with our experiences—in dreams. Yet it is not a great feat of imagination; but in recent times no great genius has attacked the subject, and George Eliot would not have been expected to devote her imagination to it, which raises a slight presumption that what is told is really ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... and the animal were one. A thunder of applause followed as the horseman quietly resumed his place in the ranks, and after the corps had been dismissed Grant was sought out and congratulated on his remarkable feat. But his response was characteristic of the boy that was, and the man that was to be. "Yes, 'York' is a wonderfully good horse," ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... where the refuse had accumulated for many years. When Heracles presented himself before the king, and offered to cleanse his stables in one day, provided he should receive in return a tenth part of the herds, Augeas, thinking the feat impossible, accepted his offer in the presence ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... himself. Was there not a demand for his superabundant energy? A demand for the tremendous powers of endurance, of influence, of devotion which were stored up within him? As an athlete joys in trying a difficult feat, as an artist joys in attempting a lofty subject, so Raeburn in his consciousness of power, in his absolute conviction of truth, joyed in the prospect ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Two others, one of which carried a commodore's pennant, struck their colors. The remainder were dispersed. Seven fled to the northward and eastward, and anchored off the mouth of the little river Vilaine, into which they succeeded in entering at the top of high water in two tides,—a feat never before performed. Seven others took refuge to the southward and eastward in Rochefort. One, after being very badly injured, ran ashore and was lost near the mouth of the Loire. The flag-ship bearing the same name as that of Tourville burned at La Hougue, the "Royal Sun," ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... village a raft was moored, and from this the youthful swimmers were soon diving into the deep water like frogs. Every boy who could perform any feat of agility displayed it. One would turn a somersault in the water, and then dive from one side of the raft to another, one could float, and another swim on his back, while a third was learning to tread water. Some were fond of diving toes downward, others took ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... tunic, and having obtained permission after the fight was over to walk to Pretoria for medical assistance, he carried them safely to the capital, as well as the disastrous news of the engagement. Forty-two miles traversed by a wounded man on foot in eleven hours is in itself a feat worth mentioning, and one the value of which can only be really estimated by those who know what South African roads are in ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... it ain't every man that can take a rise in the world like me, and I don't put on airs, and hold myself above my old friends. Do you think that every man could step into such a family as I belong to, Mrs. Burrill? No one can say that John Burrill's a common fellow after that feat." ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... letter rife with fatherly romantic tenderness and with splendid praise of Hilary as foremost in the glorious feat which had saved old "Roaring Betsy" but lost (or mislaid) him and his three comrades, also bade her wait. Everything, he assured her, that human sympathy or the art of war—or Beauregard's special orders—could effect was being done to find the priceless heroes. In ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... at present, after three additional centuries of development for their delicate craft; for the learned Tobias Salander, the travelling companion of Paul Hentzner, finding himself at a Lord Mayor's Show, was eased of his purse, containing nine crowns, as skilfully as the feat could have been done by the best pickpocket of the nineteenth century, much to that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... that neither the doctor nor Cutler knew, that to avoid falling under the circumstances I was placed in, and to escape without capsizing the canoe, was a feat that no man, but one familiar with the management of those fragile barks, and a good swimmer, too, can perform. Peter was aware of it, and appreciated it; but the other two seemed disposed to cut their jokes upon me; and ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... cool breeze swept in at the window to soothe the fevered bodies within prison walls. What a chance of escape they had missed during the noisy hours of the storm, when not a soul was abroad in the place! Knowing the opportunity was there, they tried desperately to force the door. But the feat was far beyond all ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... marvellous feat was signalised by the appearance of four of the Italian's rib-bones, both his collar-bones, and one shin-bone. The Medical Committee treat this as a comparatively unimportant development of the fast, but to the outside public, who swarm to the exhibition, the Signor presents a decidedly dilapidated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... largest down-town establishments, and joined the Advance Guard. He had participated in nearly or quite all the battles shared in by that lucky corps, from Big Bethel, where they performed the wonderful feat of re-forming under fire in the space of four minutes, after having been thrown into complete disorder by the discharge from an ambuscade of artillery,—to the severe conflicts of the Peninsula, in McClellan's advance upon Richmond; and only once had he been wounded, even slightly. ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... duck-boards were raised to a height sufficient to stand above the water and presented at night (all movements are generally done at nightfall) an alluring task of maintaining balance on a narrow planking (couple of feat or so) adorned with no handrails or supports and invisible five feet away. When Fritz sends over gas and respirators have to be donned during the ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... end of the bench was occupied by a young lady, who was employed in watching the gambols of a little boy. There was something in her manner of looking at me, and exchanging a smile when her young charge performed some extraordinary feat of activity on the grass, that persuaded me she was not an American. I do not remember who spoke first, but we were presently in a full flow of conversation. She spoke English with elegant correctness, but she ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... the Bulgars used, their ecclesiastical vestments and sacred utensils had usually come to them as gifts from Russia; both before and after the political emancipation Russia's literature was most assiduously studied. And a pious care was taken of the places around Plevna that were memorable for a feat of Russian arms; the people down to this day speak about "The Holy Places." All was well until the death of Alexander II. No, all was not well—for the Russians had, in their design to make the Bulgars their ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... on twelve golden pillars; and there must come regiments of soldiers and go through their drill. At eight o'clock the commanding officer must say, 'Shoulder up.'" "All right," said Jack; when the third and last morning came the third great feat was finished, and he had the young daughter in marriage. But, oh dear! there is worse to ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... good verse to hear, Of the aged captives' cheer, Of two children fair and feat, Aucassin and Nicolette,— What great sorrows suffered he, And what deeds did valiantly For his love, so bright of blee? Sweet the song, and fair the say, Dainty and of deft array. So astonied wight is none, ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... you a charitable deed? has he been heroic in an act of mercy? has he given a contribution to an object of beneficence? has he performed some feat of gymnastics? has he made a good bargain in business? has he said or done something which has elicited the faintest praise from an observer?—with what a flourish he brags of each in its turn! Everybody and everything must stand aside while ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... a feat was performed by this simple, pious New England mother which was equal in its way to Wolfe's storming of the Heights of Abraham. It took no more genius and audacity of bravery for Wolfe to cheer his wondering soldiers up those steep precipices, under ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... brook below the terraces in front of the Hive, breathing the pure, balmy air of outdoors instead of the indoor air of the workshop, reclining on the thick greensward, when some two or three essayed the not very difficult feat of jumping the merrily running brook, from embankment to embankment, and dared Tirrell, one of the number, to follow. He was the oldest and a little less supple than the others; and in trying the jump deliberately landed about three inches short of ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... words she snaps her teeth together as if her mouth closed with a spring. It is impossible to describe how Mr. Bucket gets her out, but he accomplishes that feat in a manner so peculiar to himself, enfolding and pervading her like a cloud, and hovering away with her as if he were a homely Jupiter and she the object of ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... these great piles with the obelisk as the Egyptian conceived and executed it. The new Pharaoh ordered a memorial of some important personage or event. In the first place, a mighty stone was dislodged from its connections, and lifted, unbroken, from the quarry. This was a feat from which our modern stone-workers shrink dismayed. The Egyptians appear to have handled these huge monoliths as our artisans handle hearthstones and doorsteps, for the land actually bristled with such giant columns. They were shaped and finished ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... scheme of deliverance. He tackled the thing from all angles. He played it up as the greatest achievement that ever had been worked in behalf of a convict. Mr. Wagg, serving as board of appraisal of his own feat, kept boosting the value. It was evident that he was suspecting that Vaniman, out and free, was in the mood that is characteristic of the common run of humanity: urgent desire is reckless about price; possession proceeds to haggle ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... in the reign of Nero. 4. A fool's bolt is soon shot. 5. The tadpole, or polliwog, becomes a frog. 6. An idle brain is the devil's workshop. 7. Mahomet, or Mohammed, was born in the year 569 and died in 632. 8. They scaled Mount Blanc—a daring feat. ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... marshals, generals, monks, nuns, society ladies, workmen, sailors, dustmen, and street-girls levelling the ground with hoes and spades. Finally the King himself made up his mind to join in the work. That was the greatest feat of equalisation which mankind have carried out; the hills were made low, and the valleys filled. At last the great theatre of liberty was ready. At the altar of the Fatherland a fire of perfumed wood was kindled, and Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... the three then returned to the hall. After all the suitors had failed except Antinous, who did not deem that he should waste a feast-day in stringing bows, Odysseus begged that he might try, Penelope insisting on his right to attempt the feat. When she retired Eumaeus brought the bow to Odysseus, then told Eurycleia to keep the woman in their chambers while Philoetius ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... magnificent, and it appeared as if the metropolis of the world wished to show by the way in which she honoured a feat of navigation that it is not without reason that she bears on her shield a vessel surrounded by swelling billows. It is a pleasant duty for me here to offer my thanks for all the goodwill we, during those memorable days, enjoyed on the part of the President of the Republic, of Admiral LA RONCIERE ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... to form a ladder up the tree with the bamboos they had seen. With a little patience, he assured them, the feat could be accomplished; so they all eagerly set out to commence operations, Alice accompanying them; while the doctor continued his search for the vegetable food they so much required. He first, however, cut a stick from the thick end of a bamboo, for the purpose of digging edible roots, ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... and paid for and stowed in the back of the car. Oliver was just making ready for the somewhat difficult feat of backing the car around in the narrow space between house and barn, when there came a rattling of wheels through the gate and a loud, rasping voice was heard ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... wheel, where it was very fully occupied. She did start to put this impulse into effect, but an unusually violent deflection caused her to reconsider that intention. She determined to use the foot brake, a feat which was accomplished, under normal conditions, by pressing one foot firmly against a contraption somewhere beneath the steering post. She shot a quick glance downward, and to her alarm discovered not one, but three contraptions, all apparently designed ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... (one shudders to think of the school where he had graduated as Cordon bleu), and who delectebatur esse cum hominibus, loquens, interrogans, respondens familiariter omnibus, aliquando visibiliter, aliquando invisibiliter apparens. This last feat of "appearing invisibly" would have been worth seeing. In 1554, the Devil came of a Christmas eve to Lawrence Doner, a parish priest in Saxony, and asked to be confessed. "Admissus, horrendas adversus Christum filium Dei blasphemias evomuit. Verum cum virtute verbi Dei a parocho victus esset, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... one of the few men living, if not the only one, who has accomplished the feat of walking from one end of the kingdom to the other, without calling in the aid of any conveyance, or without crossing a single ferry, as his object was simply pleasure. His tour was not confined to the task of accomplishing the journey in the shortest possible time or distance, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Abingdon, glancing at her niece, 'she was trying to copy a feat which she had seen at the hippodrome, and was riding one pony and driving another tandem in front of her over ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... awhile on our way to this camp, gazing at these pinnacles of the North Peak, we fell to talking about the pioneer climbers of this mountain who claimed to have set a flagstaff near the summit of the North Peak—as to which feat a great deal of incredulity existed in Alaska for several reasons—and we renewed our determination that, if the weather permitted when we had reached our goal and ascended the South Peak, we would climb the North Peak ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... an idea that had been carefully thought out, he was given free rein to execute it. Tom Watson, one of the boys at the shop, constructed a miniature electric engine, and although the feat took both time and material, there was no quarrel because of that. The place was literally a workshop, and so long as there were no drones in it and the men toiled intelligently, Mr. Williams had no fault ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... outside, when we were startled by a steamship whistle. Out we all ran, and there, in the act of dropping her anchor, was the Pelican, the company's ship from England. In the heavy fog she had stolen in and whistled before the flag was raised, which feat Captain Grey, who commands the Pelican, regarded as a great joke on the post. Once a year the Pelican arrives from England, and the day of her appearance is the Big Day for all the Labrador posts, as she brings the year's supplies together with boxes and letters from home for the agents and the ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... there was never anything left in the Wharton bank-account, for Bob moved his wife to a more pretentious apartment on Riverside Drive and managed to increase their expenses so as to balance his earnings very nicely. It was quite a feat to adjust a fixed outlay to a varying income so that nothing whatever should remain, and he considered it a strong proof of his capacities ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... of nausea. Is he happy? you ask. As much so as one who has had the misfortune to obtain what he wanted can be. Speed is his passion. He races from point to point. In emulation of Leander and Don Juan, he swam, I hear, to the opposite shores the other day, or some world-shaking feat of the sort: himself the Hero whom he went to meet: or, as they who pun say, his Hero was a Bet. A pretty little domestic episode occurred this morning. He finds her abstracted in the fire of his caresses: she turns shy and seeks ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in words. This simple phrase recalled to Erik what a geographical feat he was in hopes of accomplishing, and without his being conscious of it restored him to good humor. It was true, after all, that the "Alaska" would be the first vessel to accomplish this voyage. Other navigators before ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... perfect toilets and perfect manners; she saw everyone as happy as she liked everyone to be; and the result was that her spirits took fire, and she was clever and fascinating beyond even herself. She carried everything before her, and performed the real feat of dominating the table by her beauty and cleveness, without being either presumptuous or vain. Aunt Polly replied to the delighted looks of her husband at the other end of the table, and the two only wished that Mr. Harrison ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... foolish on this occasion as ever in my life; and surely never was man placed in a more ridiculous position. After overcoming numberless obstacles, and escaping as many perils, I had brought the king here, a feat beyond my highest hopes—only to be baffled and defeated by a waiting-woman! I stood irresolute; witless and confused; while the king waited half angry and half amused, and madame kept her place by the entrance, to which ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... the pioneer of many human travellers in the same machine. The master himself was the next to perform the feat, and, watched by a large crowd, on October 22nd, 1797, he cut his parachute loose from his balloon at a height of three thousand feet. A cry of horror broke from the watchers as the parachute was seen to descend with awful swiftness. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... village, and there also is the Wishing Rock,—one of the most noted objects of interest, as a guide book would term it. "They say" that if one can run to the top without assistance, or touching the rock with the hands, then whatever one wishes will "come true". This feat it is almost impossible to accomplish, as the stone has been worn smooth by countless feet before ours; still the youthful and frisky members of our party must attempt the ascent, with a run, a rush, and a shout, while the elders look on, ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... assault soon followed, and the work was finally captured at seven p.m. Four guns and a standard were the trophies of the feat of arms. More than once during the night did the Turks advance with shouts of "Allah," but no serious attack was made. Thus, to my surprise, when I reached the Plevna valley this morning, I beheld a flagstaff up defiantly ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... we heard another echo of Aunt Nancy. She had ridden on horseback through the Gap of Dunloe, no difficult feat in itself, and one achieved daily during Kallarney's tourist season by old ladies of various countries and creeds. In Aunt Nancy's case, however, it appeared that she had been able to enjoy that variety which is so gratifying a feature of human experience. Notwithstanding ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... easily accommodated three, the "Autocrat" being a seven passenger car; but Patsy was perched in front beside Wampus, which was really the choicest seat of all, so there was ample room inside to "swing a cat," as the Major stated—if anyone had cared to attempt such a feat. Of course the wee Mumbles was in Patsy's lap, and he seemed to have overcome his first aversion of Wampus and accepted the little chauffeur into the circle of his favored acquaintances. Indeed, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... beforehand by her husband that, to please his father, she must be always ready for family prayers, which were read every morning by him just before breakfast. This she succeeded in doing, never failing once to be on time. As breakfast was at seven o'clock, it was no small feat for one not accustomed to such early hours. She said afterward that she did not believe that General Lee would have an entirely high opinion of any person, even General Washington, if he could return to earth, ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... proceeded to China, through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Gibraltar, and at the end of one year and sixty-eight days, after covering 45,000 miles, dropped anchor in Hampton Roads. The accomplishment of this feat, without precedent in naval annals, still farther contributed to the establishment of the prestige of the United States as a great ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... have no chance to do that," said Varney. "Miss Fortune can induce him to discharge his pistols in some feat of marksmanship and we will swoop down before he can ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... moment when it was a matter of life or death to be able to ride away. The horse fell on him, but struggled up again, and Tony managed to keep hold of it. It was in trying to remount that he discovered, by helplessness and anguish, that one of his legs was crushed and broken, and that no feat of which he was master would get him into the saddle. Not able even to stand alone, awkwardly, agonizingly unable to mount his restive horse, his life was yet so strong within him! And on one side of him rolled the dust and smoke-cloud ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... easy feat. Alice's quiet breathing sounded not many feet away, and after a time it seemed to get on Kathleen's nerves. She moved restlessly in her bed. Alice awoke, ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... scruple, under his lumping system, of overlaying colonial trade with upwards of one million and a half of army expenditure, one million and a quarter of which, in all probability, appertaining to, and forming part of the cost nationally at which foreign trade was carried on. The cunning feat was bravely accomplished by ranging Gibraltar, Malta, &c. &c., as trading and producing colonies, for the purpose of swelling out the colonial army cost; whilst, to complete the cheat cleverly, they were again turned to account in his comparative statistics ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... artistically jealous, as I took it, of the overwhelming effect of the end of the second act on the previous day, threw herself into the fourth act in quite a new way, and achieved the apparently impossible feat of surpassing herself. The compliments paid to Miss Fanny Brough by the critics, eulogistic as they are, are the compliments of men three-fourths duped as Partridge was duped by Garrick. By much of her acting they were so completely taken in that they did not recognize ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... outrage, or had been for some time reflecting on the evils of being priest-ridden, has not transpired; enough that he suddenly threw up his heels, pitching the reverend man over his head, and, having accomplished this feat, coolly dropped on his knees ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... woe! It's astounding, I grant you; one never expected such a feat of Pixie; but the years will pass—there's no holding them, unfortunately. How old is she, by the way? Seventeen, ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... slope, splintering rocks and spattering dirt as they bit at the heels of the rescuers. It was a desperate, do or die, neck or nothing, bit of daring and devotion—Nolan's third and Geordie's first experience in just such a feat. But the blood of the Graemes was up, and the younger soldier was not to be outdone by the old. The guards at the office burst into a cheer as the two came staggering up to the level, with poor Shiner groaning between them, and then quick work and hot was needed, for ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... indulge in the luxury of port. My share of the '45 now reposes amid the moss in the tulip-bowl, which you may remember decorated the dining table! Not desiring to appear churlish, by means of a simple feat of legerdemain I drank your health and future ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... performing, though, what was for them quite a feat, for each boy had fully made up his mind that he would not have to pay that sixpence. They looked at each other, and laughingly grimaced, and moved their lips rapidly, as if forming words, and abused the fish silently for not caring to be caught, but not a word ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... viewed from the west, was a stone wall in the form of a half-circle, around which the course and opposite balcony were bent in exact parallelism. Making this turn was considered in all respects the most telling test of a charioteer; it was, in fact, the very feat in which Oraetes failed. As an involuntary admission of interest on the part of the spectators, a hush fell over all the Circus, so that for the first time in the race the rattle and clang of the cars plunging after the tugging steeds were distinctly heard. Then, it would seem, Messala ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... the Riffelberg, much reminded me of that of Junnoo, from the Choonjerma pass, the former bearing the same relation to Monte Rosa that the latter does to Kinchinjunga. Junnoo, though incomparably the more stupendous mass, not only rising 10,000 feat higher above the sea, but towering 4000 feet higher above the ridge on which it is supported, is not nearly so remarkable in outline, so sharp, or so peaked as is Mount Cervin: it is a very much grander, but far less picturesque object. The whiteness of the sides of Junnoo adds also ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... Worn out, silent, exhausted, and almost despairing, the army of Hannibal presented the appearance of one which had suffered a terrible defeat, rather than that of a body of men who had accomplished a feat of arms unrivalled in ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... said the boy, drawing himself from Urian's arm, and walking a few steps away, with a becoming pride and reserve; for he was hurt at being spoken to as if he were afraid, and annoyed at having to confess the true reason for declining the feat. But Urian was not to be thus baffled. He went up to Clement, and put his arm once more about his neck, and I could see the two lads as they walked down the terrace away from the hotel windows: first Urian spoke eagerly, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... poor, illiterate tinker, was able to take the first place among writers of allegory, and to accomplish the extraordinary intellectual feat of producing a work which charmed alike the ignorant, who could not perceive its literary merits, and cultivated critics, who viewed it only from a literary standpoint, depended partly on his own natural gifts, and partly on the character of Puritan thought. To write a good allegory requires ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... attempted the feat seemed to him, the next morning, sheer insanity. Dancing, however, knew the treacherous face of the river wall. To his gigantic size and strength he united the sureness of a cat in climbing up or down ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... how could the Aztecs, when they saw the Spaniards desecrating the Phoenician temples and destroying the Phoenician idols, suppose that these people were of the "same race," and had come "to teach the same religion"? We care little for his inconsistencies; but the feat which he has here performed, by his "shadings," his "translations into Indian phraseology," and his medley of "pale faces," "great waters," "floating houses," "truncated pyramids," "hard taskmasters," "winds," "climates," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... coins, which they succeeded in bringing up every time, but I can scarcely believe that they caught them before they reached the bottom. They remained long enough under water each time, not only to pick the coin up, but also to look for it. The feat was certainly surprising, but not, as some travellers affirm, so remarkable that similar ones might ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... a resistance would be encountered equal to 12 pounds per square foot of surface to the wings. It is a fact, however, that kites, and hawks are often seen to continue suspended in the air several minutes without any apparent motion of the wings; but by what law or theory the feat is accomplished, natural philosophy has ventured no other conjecture than that the bird is endowed with the faculty of suspending occasionally its ordinary subjection to the laws of gravity. If any observing theorist will give any more rational conjecture ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... rolled by since Adele had eased Jonah of sixty pounds, and the Antoinette ring we had given her to commemorate the feat was now for the first time in danger of suffering an eclipse. In a word, a new ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... sup of punch now, Miss Tierney; shure you're fainting away entirely for the want of a dhrop." The lady addressed was wiping, with the tail of her gown, a face which showed the labour that had been necessary to perform the feat of dancing down the whole company to the tune of the "wind that shakes the barley," and was now leaning against the wall, whilst her last partner was offering her punch made on the half and half system: "Take a sup, Miss Tierney, then; shure you're ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... feel proud of the distinction the venture had brought to him on one hand, but there was reason for despair over the acquisition of $50,000. It made it necessary for him to undertake an almost superhuman feat—increase the number of his January bills. The plans for the ensuing spring and summer were dimly getting into shape and they covered many startling projects. Since confiding some of them to "Nopper" Harrison, that ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... how beautiful the country immediately surrounding Genoa is, should climb (in clear weather) to the top of Monte Faccio, or, at least, ride round the city walls: a feat more easily performed. No prospect can be more diversified and lovely than the changing views of the harbour, and the valleys of the two rivers, the Polcevera and the Bizagno, from the heights along which the strongly fortified walls are carried, like the great wall of China in little. ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... They had been the aggressors, and yet they now surrendered the initiative to Charles. Their retirement enabled the Count of Buren to march in with his Netherland division, and with him the troops of Albert and Hans of Hohenzollern. This march of Buren was the strategic feat of the war. He had led the hostile forces which were watching him a dance up and down the Rhine, and slipped across it unopposed. He had brought his troops three hundred miles, mainly through the heart of Protestant Germany, with no certain knowledge where he should ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... irascibility of temperament. His dress was brown, not black, and over his other vestments he wore, in honour of Calvin, a Geneva cloak of a blue colour, which fell backwards from his shoulders as he posted on to the pulpit. His grizzled hair was cut as short as shears could perform the feat, and covered with a black silk scull-cap, which stuck so close to his head, that the two ears expanded from under it as if they had been intended as handles by which to lift the whole person. Moreover, the worthy divine wore spectacles, and a long grizzled peaked beard, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... in charge planted his broad feet for the downward slide, and was hurled aboard more or less en masse by the fierce velocity of his heavy-laden wheelbarrow. Amidst the confusion and hazard of this feat a procession of other habitans marched aboard, each one bearing under his arm a coffin-shaped wooden box. The rising fear of Colonel Ellison, that these boxes represented the loss of the whole infant population of Ha-Ha Bay, ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... appearing, now and again, like a cork on the top of a billow. But the last of the ebb was helping him, and Jim Lewarne, himself at times neck-high in the surf, continued to pay out the line slowly. In fact, the feat was less dangerous than it seemed to the spectators. A few hours before, it was impossible; but by this there was little more than a heavy swell after the first twenty yards of surf. Zeb's chief difficulty would be to catch ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... been nothing had not Nickem secured the old woman who had sold the herrings,—and also the chemist, from whom the strychnine had been purchased as much as three years previously. This latter feat was Nickem's great triumph, the feeling of the glory of which induced him to throw up his employment in Mr. Masters' office, and thus brought him and his family to absolute ruin within a few months in spite of the ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... recreation, or of pleasure. The most beautiful actions of the human body, and the highest results of the human intelligence, are conditions, or achievements, of quite unlaborious,—nay, of recreative,—effort. But labour is the suffering in effort. It is the negative quantity, or quantity of de-feat, which has to be counted against every Feat, and of de-fect which has to be counted against every Fact, or Deed of men. In brief, it is "that quantity of our toil which ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... two days and three nights during the short day of November, going out of our way once as much as six miles. I cannot say what the distance was exactly, but it must have been at least seventy miles—a feat in cattle-droving unparalleled in my experience. After a day's rest I crossed the ferry with the cattle, assisted by the drover. The beasts were dreadfully jaded, and with difficulty reached their destination, within a mile of the market-stance. The journey ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... merely supplying them for the moment as he can, and living in squalor, filth, and extreme discomfort, yet daubs himself with grease and paint, and decorates his head with feathers, his neck with bear's claws, and his feat with gaudily-stained porcupine's quills? What of your black barbarian, whose daily life is a succession of unspeakable abominations, and who embellishes it by blackening his teeth, tattooing his skin, and wearing a huge ring in the gristle of his nose? Either of them will give up his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... are disadvantages in such a division of energy. Scott wanted to reach the Pole: a dangerous and laborious exploit, but a practicable one. Wilson wanted to obtain the egg of the Emperor penguin: a horribly dangerous and inhumanly exhausting feat which is none the less impracticable because the three men who achieved it survived by a miracle. These two feats had to be piled one on top of the other. What with the Depot Journey and others, in addition to these two, we were sledged out by the end of our second ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... eruptive, insistent Broadway, where every blink of the eye catches a new impression, where the brain becomes a passive, palpitating receptacle for ideas which are shot into it through all the senses; and where, between 'stepping lively' and 'watching your step,' a feat of contradictoriness only equalled in its exaction by the absorbing exercise of slapping with one hand and rubbing with the other, independent thought becomes an ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice |
