"First-rate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mr. PODBURY, so you've come along here? That's right! And how do you like Milan? I like the place first-rate—it's a live city, Sir. And I like this old cathedral, too; it's well constructed—they've laid out money on it. I call it real ornamental, all these little figgers they've stuck around—and not two of 'em a pair either. Now, they might have had 'em all alike, and no one any the wiser up so high ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... pursue it. Of course we have no right to claim our happiness at the expense of others. But your father is safe for the present. No matter what your talent, you will not know enough, nor have had sufficient bare practice with your pen, to write even a short story of first-rate merit for ten years to come. You may count it a blessing that various causes are preventing you from rushing into print. At the end of that period your father will be ten years older. He will probably be much softened and will look at things differently; or he may be dead. Or ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... "She's a first-rate boat; but she ain't much side of yours," replied Bobtail, whose impressions in regard to the owner of the Penobscot were undergoing a rapid change. "She'll sail some, and ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... firing-line. Damn 'em. But I'll kick 'em right enough. Then there's Major Tixall—major, by gad—a slinking cut-throat, with a face the colour of pigs' liver. What he's majoring it for, Brocton and the devil alone know. The only good thing is we've got a first-rate drill sergeant. He's Brocton's toady, and for that I don't like him, but he does know his business, I ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... looks particularly cool and pretty in this climate. The Count de P—-r was there and his brother; the latter a gentlemanly and intelligent man, with a great taste for music, and whose daughter is a first-rate singer and a charming person. After dinner we rose, according to custom, and went into an adjoining room while they arranged the dessert, consisting of every imaginable and unimaginable sweetmeat, with fruit, ices, etc. The fruits I have not yet learned ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... wheels, the fore pair traversing by a primitive pin under the body, the hind pair attached to the vehicle itself. A pole, or, as it is called, a tongue, projects from the front, and can be easily detached; et voila tout! The expense is sixteen pounds currency, or about twelve sterling for a first-rate article, with swingle bars, or, as they are always called here, "whipple-trees," to attach the traces to. A set of double harness is six pounds, and two very good horses may be obtained for thirty more, making in all fifty-two pounds Canada money, or a little more than forty sterling, ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... and would divert the genius of the nation from trade and industry. It would hold out a dangerous lure to decoy the unwary to their ruin, by making them part with the earnings of their labor for a prospect of imaginary wealth. The great principle of the project was an evil of first-rate magnitude; it was to raise artificially the value of the stock by exciting and keeping up a general infatuation, and by promising dividends out of funds which could never be adequate ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... notwithstanding its somewhat open grain, it polishes well, and is prettily marked. There is a variety of shades in different logs varying from straw colour to blood-red, the former being more common; all are, however, equally esteemed. It is a first-rate wood for general purposes. In the London market it is classed with the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... I left my master, Doctor Irving, the purifier of waters, and lodged in Coventry-court, Haymarket, where I was continually oppressed and much concerned about the salvation of my soul, and was determined (in my own strength) to be a first-rate Christian. I used every means for this purpose; and, not being able to find any person amongst my acquaintance that agreed with me in point of religion, or, in scripture language, 'that would shew me any good;' I was much dejected, and knew not where to seek ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... any lady Whose conduct is shady Or smacking of doubtful propriety; When Virtue would quash her I take and whitewash her And launch her in first-rate society. I recommend acres Of clumsy dressmakers - Their fit and their finishing touches; A sum in addition They pay for permission To say that ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... poor boys were her steps, not good old Lamb's; whereas Felix always made a point of noticing them. Gus was nine years old that last time he was there, while I was ill, and he left such an impression as to make him the hero model.-Aye, Gus is first-rate." ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... contribute no more than zero to either side of the equation—or of the inequality. From the time she left the hands of the designers, a unit of maximum value, throughout the period of her gradual declension, many years will elapse during which a ship once first-rate will be an object of consideration to friend and foe. She will wear out like a garment, but she does not necessarily become obsolete till worn out. It may be added that the indications now are that radical changes of design are not to be ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... house of Prince Auguste d'Ahremberg, to see his collection. This is one of the best private galleries in Europe, though not particularly large. It is rich in the works of Teniers,[19] Woovermans, Both, Cuyp, Potter, Rembrandt, and the other masters of the country. Among others is a first-rate Gerard Douw (another ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... favor, so that the competition in the ranks of the actors and singers, at least, is very keen. At the same time, there is room for a certain class of persons—viz., those with good health, excellent physique, first-rate ability, self-control, sound moral principles, perseverance, industry, musical feeling, and artistic insight, with vocal organs trained like the muscles of the athlete, and, in the case of singers, sound musical knowledge and ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... at it again. Then he went toward the dock and looked down into its turbid waters, and returned again with a face of hopeless perplexity. "This is Lucas Wharf, and no mistake," he said. "I know the place first-rate, now. But what I can't make out is, What's got ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... "First-rate," agreed Tom. "But I— well, I simply can't help poking fun at him when he's around, he's such a dandy, and ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... room in her petticoat. But he did not notice it, nor did he notice that her shoulders were bare. For him there was but one woman in all the world. He spoke to the girl as a father would to his daughter. He told her to go to the restaurant and order breakfast, at once, a first-rate breakfast. Porter and Burgundy! The manager knew his taste. She was to give him ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... of him! why he is the most useful animal in the world:—an excellent saddle-horse; a first-rate jumper. He was not in my possession three weeks when I won the five pounds he cost me. My neighbour, Sir Edward, rode over here one morning on his famous horse Thunderbolt, and he thought proper to call my new purchase 'Beelzebub.' This ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... when I came home unusual late, Too hungry and too tired to feel first-rate, Her supper struck me wrong (though I'll allow She hadn't much to strike with, anyhow); And when I went to milk the cows, and found They'd wandered from their usual feeding ground, And maybe'd left a few long miles behind 'em, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... gun drill very fairly. This is so far satisfactory, and I think, if the whole country was not corrupt, they might go on well and quickly, but really it is most irritating to see the jealousies of the mandarins of one another. The people are first-rate, hard-working, and fairly honest; but it seems as soon as they rise in office they become corrupt. There is lots of vitality in the country, and there are some good men; but these are kept down by the leaden apathy of their equals, who hate to see ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... outspread horse-cloth; all about are whole stacks of fresh-cut hay, oppressively fragrant. The sagacious husbandmen have flung the hay about before the huts; let it get a bit drier in the baking sunshine; and then into the barn with it. It will be first-rate sleeping on it. ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... the flaming rhetoric of the Hebrew prophets until we think of them chiefly as indicters of a social order. They were not chiefly this but something quite different and more valuable, namely, religious geniuses. First-rate preaching would deal with Amos as the pioneer in ethical monotheism, with Hosea as the first poet of the divine grace, with Jeremiah as the herald of the possibility of each man's separate and personal communion with the living ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... was not a single house in St. Helen's,—not even a tent, and not one of the trees that you see here had been planted. Now we have three railroads meeting at our depot, a population of nearly seven thousand, electric lights, telephones, a good opera-house, a system of works which brings first-rate spring water into the town from six miles away,—in short, pretty ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... aforesaid—a bashful Teucer, over whom Professor Tyndall has, like a second Ajax Telamon, extended, with chivalrous haste, the shelter of his shield—does 'not hesitate to propose that one single ward or hospital under the care of first-rate physicians or surgeons, containing a number of patients afflicted with those diseases which have been best studied, and of which the mortality rates are best known, should be, during a period of not less than three to five ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... were living in a dream, out of which I was aroused by the announcement of my encounter with Tischer. Though he was a first-rate and vigorous fighter, he had been chosen by our chiefs for my first passage of arms because he was fairly short. In spite of being unable to feel any great confidence in my hastily acquired and little practised skill in ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... but, look ye, there's Follet, a fine man, a first-rate man, once worth half a million, but now not worth a guinea-pig. The man that sold him good wine in his better days sells him poor whiskey now; and the confounded dealer in fancy poisons has taken the houses of Mr. Follet, brick by brick, and piled them up in his ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... entered the boiler should have given 19,429,696 foot-pounds; so that the 2 millions given by the engine represent about 10 per cent. of the heat which has left the boiler. The foregoing figures refer to large stationary or marine engines, with first-rate boilers. When, however, we come to high-pressure engines of the best type, the consumption of coal is twice as much; and for those of any ordinary type it is usual to calculate 1 cubic foot, or 621/2 lb., ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... I should think he did. Why Mr. Leslie says if Jack had only the means of getting himself some good books, he would be a first-rate ornithologist, which means a man learned in birds, John," ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... what you mean, Mr Troubridge," answered the boatswain. "But, Lor' bless yer, sir, I don't think nothin' at all of a little spree like this here. Discipline's a first-rate thing, I admit; but a man can have too much of it, and it does him good to chuck it overboard now and again. Them chaps for'ard won't be none the worse for this here little outbreak of theirs, you'll see. We all enj'ys a bit o' ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... present-day evils as the socialists, are unwilling to accept the collectivist remedy. G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc speak of the "magic of property" as the real obstacle to socialism. Now obviously this is a question of first-rate importance. If socialism will destroy initiative then only a doctrinaire would desire it. But how is the question to be solved? You cannot reason it out. Economics, as we know it to-day, is quite incapable of answering such a problem, for it is a matter that depends upon ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... the greatest possible degree of ugliness and bad taste at the least possible expense, and certainly never included any notion of ornament in the details. Now, large sums are expended on places of worship, without reference to creed. First-rate architects are employed. Fine Gothic structures are produced. The rebuilding of the Greyfriars' Church, the restoration of South Leith Church and of Glasgow Cathedral, the very bold experiment of adopting a style little known amongst us, the pure Lombard, in a church for Dr. W.L. Alexander, ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... last year. The crops come in first-rate, and Josiah had five or six heads of cattle to turn off at a big price. He felt well, and he proposed to me that I should have a sewin' machine. That man,—though he don't coo at me so frequent as he probable ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... out. He is a first-rate man, and he has the whole thing down cold. Ballymolloy and his twenty votes will carry the election, and if Vancouver cares he can buy Mr. Ballymolloy as he has done before. He does care, if he is going to take the trouble to write articles ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... fence, acted as umpire to his heart's content. Ben was a promising pupil and made rapid progress, for eye, foot, and hand had been so well trained that they did him good service now, and Brown was considered a first-rate "catcher." ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... to drive a handsome team of four horses, and, of course, attracted a good deal of attention whenever he made his appearance in the streets. On one occasion the late Lord Sefton, who was through life a first-rate whip, drove up to Heywood's bank in his usual dashing style. Dr. Solomon was tooling along behind his lordship, and desirous of emulating his mode of handling the reins and whip, gave the latter such a flourish as to get the lash so firmly fixed round his neck as to require his groom's aid to release ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... best," he spoke slowly, with considering phlegm. "He's a first-rate boy as far as ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... broken bridges and such like. We crept past the Amira Kadal, or first bridge, about two o'clock, and tied up for lunch, revelling in the most perfect pears, peaches, and walnuts. As a rule the Kashmir fruit is disappointing; abundant and cheap certainly, but not by any means of first-rate quality. ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... for Greats, my girl, and done first-rate. But the strain's been a bit too much for you, and you've had another collapse of memory. You had one in the end of November. You've been uncommonly well ever since, and worked like a Trojan, but you've not been quite your usual self, and I'm glad you've ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... genius than any that followed it," and that "nothing but fragments of a single song[106] remain to us" from this first period—fragments, it may be added, which, though interesting enough, can, in no possible judgment that can be called judgment, rank as in any way first-rate poetry. So, too, the habit of comparing the Nibelungenlied to the Iliad and Kudrun to the Odyssey (parallels not far removed from the Thucydides-and-Tennyson order) may excite resentment. But the Middle High German verse of the twelfth and thirteenth ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... stomach for it; they delight in symbols and correspondences, in seeing a story told as if it were another and a very different story. I frankly confess that I have as a general thing but little enjoyment of it and that it has never seemed to me to be, as it were, a first-rate literary form. It has produced assuredly some first-rate works; and Hawthorne in his younger years had been a great reader and devotee of Bunyan and Spenser, the great masters of allegory. But it is apt to spoil two good things—a ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... this time, too, a great joy awaited her. Eugene had passed his examination, and promised them a visit to show them his epaulettes. His mother had his room newly fitted up, and his father placed some first-rate guns and a new hunting-dress in it as a present for him. On the day of his arrival he rode out to meet him, and it was a pleasant sight to see the two noble-looking men embrace, and then ride ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... snug little house and farm it. But I guess I shall do better at fishing. Give me a trig-built topsail schooner painted up nice, with a stripe on her, and clean sails, and a fresh wind with the sun a-shining, and I feel first-rate." ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... to go delving into the bosom of the earth. We thought you must be plumb deceased anyhow: we couldn't get a peep out of you. I was in favour of leavin' you lay myself. This yere butte seemed like a first-rate imposing tomb; and I was willing myself to carve a few choice sentiments on some selected rock. Sure I can carve! But Jed here allowed that you owed him ten dollars and maybe had some ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... York, Pennsylvania, has considerable interest in the branch of the Baltimore Railroad, from Lancaster. In 1849, he had a warehouse in York, and owned ten first-rate merchandise cars on the Road, doing a fine business. His son, Glenalvon G. Goodrich, a young man of good education, is a good artist, and proprietor of ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... a mate," giggled Johnson, "and you don't catch me shipping noways else. But I'll tell you what, I believe I can get you Arty Nares: you seen Arty; first-rate navigator and a son of a gun for style." And he proceeded to explain to me that Mr. Nares, who had the promise of a fine barque in six months, after things had quieted down, was in the meantime living ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... each other or of any German of first-rate importance, the Electors went to the second-class magnates again, and this time their choice fell on Henry, Count of Luxemburg. Carlyle derives this name of Luxemburg via Luzzenburg from Luetzelburg, ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... and more plentiful here than anything else, and the old dame at the yadoya of a fishing village cooks me a big skate for supper, which makes first-rate eating, in spite of the black, malodorous sauce she uses so ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... mean by a man of family?—O, I'll give you a general idea of what I mean. Let us give him a first-rate fit out; ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... replied Madame Desvarennes. "You have made enemies. Without speaking of projects which I had formed, I may say that my daughter has had offers from the best folks in Paris; from first-rate firms! ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... very bright," said Edward, "but only look here, what I have found! a beautiful razor! oh my! how sharp it is! Uncle James shaves with it every morning. I'll tell you a first-rate play, Horace. I will be a barber, and you shall come to me to be shaved. You know I will only make believe; ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... justice to the coffee and cigarettes. Both were excellent in their way, and Gregory was, in his way, an excellent husband. Jocantha rather suspected herself of making him a very charming wife, and more than suspected herself of having a first-rate dressmaker. ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... exceptional speed, it is true, but in doing so he has contracted an abnormal sort of movement for which it is impossible to find a name. It is something between a trot and a racking pace, and with it a first-rate trotter can make four kilometres (two miles and a half) in seven minutes and a half, and not much less, whatever may be said to the contrary. I know that certain time-keepers have marked this distance as having been done in seven minutes, but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... heap surprised. Chuck is a good fellow, I'll admit; but I've been dreaming of your marrying a prince or an ambassador, and Henderson comes like a jolt. Besides, Chuck will never be anything but a first-rate politician. You'll have to get used to cheap cigars and four-ply whisky. When ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... 1830, Paganini saved the Musical Festival, which would have failed but for his individual attraction, although supported by an army of talent in every department. All was done in first-rate style, not to be surpassed. There were Braham, Madame Stockhausen, H. Phillips, De Begnis, &c. &c., Sir G. Smart for conductor, Cramer, Mori, and T. Cooke for leaders, Lindley, Nicholson, Anfossi, Lidel Hermann, Pigott, and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... very little concern. Altogether I felt very strongly disposed to close with Brown's offer, the only really serious obstacle in the way being the fact that I felt I had a duty to perform to the three seamen who had formed part of our little company in the gig. First-rate fellows they were, all three of them, knowing their vocation to its smallest detail, and thoroughly at home aboard a ship in blue water, though ashore they were as guileless and helpless as babes, ready to fall an easy prey to the first land shark that ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind every man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he should ever harbor ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... appeared in 1804, was better than St. Clair, but such success as it enjoyed must have been due to the prevailing scarcity of first-rate, or even second-rate novelists, rather than to its own intrinsic merits. The public taste in fiction was not fastidious, and could swallow long-winded discussions and sentimental rhodomontade with an appetite that now seems almost incredible. The Novice is ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... lord of all the other men about that place, that he lived in the house which looked over the sea, and that the boy and girl who put me in with the yellow-toothed rabbit were his children. He was what the farmers called "a first-rate all-round sportsman," which means, my ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... M. Gillenormand, his consideration was of absolutely first-rate quality. He had, in spite of his levity, and without its interfering in any way with his dignity, a certain manner about him which was imposing, dignified, honest, and lofty, in a bourgeois fashion; and his great age added to it. One ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... been very successful literary speculations, because Renan is a first-rate artist. Mackay would have been a better artist in literature if he had not been so much overpowered by the immense ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... Rosemary Russet; it has the distinctive russet-bronze colouring, always indicative of flavour, with a rosy flush on the sunny side, and Dr. Hogg describes it further as, "flesh yellow, crisp, tender, very juicy, sugary and highly aromatic—a first-rate dessert apple, in use from December to February." In my opinion it comes next, though longo intervallo, to Cox's Orange Pippin, but it wants good land to make the best of it. It may with confidence be produced as a rarity across the walnuts and ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... first-rate lesson for most persons, who if they cannot do something of considerable moment are disposed to do nothing at all. They forget that it is the brief three-minute rests that enable the mountain-climber to press on till he reaches the top whereas longer periods of inactivity might serve ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... "Well the hay's first-rate!" said Earl, taking off his hat and sitting down in the nearest chair;—"I've been feedin' it out, now, for a good spell, and I know what to think about it. We've been feedin' it out ever since some time this side o' the middle o' November;—I never see nothin' sweeter, and ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... thought that was quite a little party at the time, but I suppose it will seem small potatoes when we get over there. I'm figuring on seeing some first-rate scrapping. How long have you been ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... years, Iceland was subsequently ruled by Norway and Denmark. Limited home rule was granted in 1874 and complete independence attained in 1944. Literacy, longevity, income, and social cohesion are first-rate by ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... brilliant and highly cultivated people, had seen everything, been everywhere, known everyone, looked into all the books that had been talked about, cast at least a glance at all the pictures which had made any stir. And she gathered impressions swiftly, and, moreover, had a natural flair for all that was first-rate, original, or strange. As she was quite independent in mind, and always took her own line, she had become an arbiter, a leader of taste. What she liked soon became liked in London and Paris throughout ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... better for him, ma'am," said the old doctor, promptly; "he'll make a first-rate sailor, and if Crayshaw's is all the schooling he's ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... and economy shown in Belgium. The cultivation and produce vary, in part, according as the soil is sand or clay; but the same kind of soil, in different parts of the country, produces different results. Cattle are largely raised and are of first-rate quality; Friesland produces the best, but there are also excellent stocks in North Holland and South Holland. In Drenthe, owing to the extensive pasturage, great numbers of sheep are raised. But perhaps the most important industry ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... for them. Politically, also, Constantinople is a very important place to most of the powers, who choose their representatives for the post from among the cleverest men they can find; and I will venture to say that there is scarcely a court in the world where so many first-rate diplomatists are gathered together as are to be met with among the missions to the Sublime Porte. Diplomacy in Constantinople has preserved something of the character it had all over the world fifty years ago. Personal influence is of far greater importance when negotiations are to ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... shore, the whole being covered at high-water renders it dangerous. On the opposite shore also appeared very high breakers; but there is nevertheless plenty of room and certainly a safe channel for a first-rate man ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... hundred and fifty miles from Independence. Our route at first was rough, and through a timbered country, which appeared to be fertile. After striking the prairie, we found a first-rate road, and the only difficulty we have had, has been in crossing the creeks. In that, however, ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... until their third year. At the fifth year they reach maturity, and then continue in their prime for as long as ten or fifteen years. Those grown upon the higher, and therefore cooler, ranges will sometimes remain in first-rate condition for even a ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... of you to be the first," whispered Dick; "and how nice you look, Nan! You always do, you know, but to-day you are first-rate. Is this a new gown?" casting an approving look over Nan's costume, which was certainly very fresh ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... presented his hospitable entertainers with a box at the play. No doubt it was a great delight to Chrissy; for it was in the days when actors were respectable artists and play-going was still universal. Chrissy in her freshness enjoyed the provincials as well as if they had been first-rate—took the good and left the ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... "This is the second time within a few hours your rifle has done good service. You'll become a first-rate hunter if you go on as you've begun. How that leopard came here it's difficult to say, unless it was driven from the hills, and has been wandering over the desert in search of prey; those creatures generally inhabit ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... my head, kissed my cheek, and told me I had done first-rate, and after hearing several others speak I calmed down ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... quite as dirty as that major. I had already learned something. I was determined not to report myself to any one until I had washed, slept, and eaten. It was snowing heavily when we arrived. With the help of a military policeman whom we met we found an hotel. He told us that it was a first-rate place; but he was no judge of hotels. It was very far from being good. We had, however, every reason to be thankful to that policeman. We secured two beds. While we were smoking our final pipes, two young officers turned up. They ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... And how distressed that author man who dwells too far aloof. His favourite words he always finds his friends misunderstand, With oaths, he reads his articles, moist brow and clenched hand. Impromtoo. The last line first-rate. When may I hope to see the Deacon? I pine for the Deacon, for proofs of the Pavilion—O and for a categorical confession from you that the second edition of the Donkey was a false alarm, which I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a word against Stanor! Who could say a word against such an elegant creature? He's been a good friend to me, and he's going to make a first-rate man when he gets to work, and has something to think about besides his beautiful self. America'll knock the nonsense out of him. At the end of two years, it will be another man who comes home, a man instead of a boy, just as you will probably be a ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... come to the shop. Gad, it would be half the fun of my fortune! How they would envy me, to be sure! How one should enjoy it! I wouldn't think of marrying till—and yet I won't say either; if I got among some of them out-and-outers—those first-rate articles—that lady, for instance, the other day in the Park—I should like to see her cut me as she did, with ten thousand a-year in my pocket! Why, she'd be running after me!—or there's no truth in novels, which I'm sure there's often a great deal in. Oh, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... mustn't take him seriously. Mr. Gueldmar," he said; "he's never serious himself, I'll give you his character in a few words. He belongs to no religious party, it's true,—but he's a first-rate fellow,—the best ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... wives. I hear lately that he has sold his property for 25,000 dollars to Brigham Young, and gone to England to make converts. How impressive he may be as an expounder of the Mormon gospel, I don't know. His beefsteaks and chicken-pies, however, were first-rate. James and I talk about Maine, and cordially agree that so far as pine boards and horse-mackerel are concerned, it is equalled by few and excelled by none. There is no place like home, as Clara, the Maid of Milan, ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... of In Memoriam may be, indeed is, regarded by robust, first-rate, and far from sensitive minds, as a "damned vacillating state." The poet is not so imbued with the spirit of popular science as to be sure that he knows everything: knows that there is nothing but atoms and ether, with no room for God or a soul. He is far from that happy cock-certainty, ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... harbours and railroads: but you are not employing their Leonardesque or golden faculty there,—you are only oppressing and destroying it. And the artistical gift in average men is not joined with others: your born painter, if you don't make a painter of him, won't be a first-rate merchant, or lawyer; at all events, whatever he turns out, his own special gift is unemployed by you; and in no wise helps him in that other business. So here you have a certain quantity of a particular sort of intelligence, ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... immoral. Laptev was, anyway, a Moscow man, had taken his degree at the university, spoke French. He lived in the capital, where there were lots of clever, noble, remarkable people; where there was noise and bustle, splendid theatres, musical evenings, first-rate dressmakers, confectioners. . . . In the Bible it was written that a wife must love her husband, and great importance was given to love in novels, but wasn't there exaggeration in it? Was it out of the question to enter upon married life without ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... case of an action brought for the non-fulfillment of a contract on a large scale for shoes, the question mainly was, whether or not they were well and soundly made, and with the best materials. A number of witnesses were called, one of them, a first-rate character in the gentle craft, being closely questioned, returned contradictory answers, when the Chief Justice observed, pointing to his own shoes, which were regularly bestridden by the broad silver buckle of ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... the early part of February, 1839, and although we found the climate of England exceedingly cold and unpleasant after the brilliant sunshine and warmth of South Africa, we managed to enjoy ourselves thoroughly during the ensuing two months. Then, with Nell's cordial approval, I put her to a first-rate school at Bath, where she remained until her eighteenth birthday, emerging therefrom a very beautiful, accomplished, ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... who was a sincere believer in the Law of Buddha and wished to build a new vihara for the monks, first convoked a great assembly. After giving the monks a meal of rice, and presenting his offerings (on the occasion), he selected a pair of first-rate oxen, the horns of which were grandly decorated with gold, silver, and the precious substances. A golden plough had been provided, and the king himself turned up a furrow on the four sides of the ground within which the building was supposed to be. He then endowed the ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... that perhaps it was "the pride of opinion." But when Adams got to his diary, which was the safety-valve of his ill-temper, he set a black mark against Mr. Gallatin's name in these words: "Gallatin is a man of first-rate talents, conscious and vain of them, and mortified in his ambition, checked as it has been, after attaining the last step to the summit; timid in great perils, tortuous in his paths; born in Europe, disguising and yet betraying a superstitious prejudice ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... pretty good hand with the file and drill, he got Bill to teach him how to caulk. He shaped first-rate, so one day we thought we'd leave him to it while we went off for a jaunt. Bill had bought an old shot-gun from a farmer, and we'd seen a lot of ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... Barker is rather short of apprentices, and he has no objection to taking you in place of one if you will make yourself useful. He is a first-rate seaman. You will imbibe a vast deal of useful knowledge and gain a free passage, and when we reach the Indies I shall be able, I doubt not, by means of my connections, to assist you in the first steps of what, I trust, will ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... commanding their voluble propensities if they would wish to pass for Englishmen. It is certain, more words would have been uttered in this little lugger in one hour, had her crew been indulged to the top of their bent, than would have been uttered in an English first-rate in two; but the danger of using their own language, and the English peculiarity of grumness, had been so thoroughly taught them, that her people rather caricatured, than otherwise, ce grand talent pour le ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... was delicately sounded, the big man explained that he himself had but recently made the acquaintance of his young kinsman; Jelnik was a first-rate chap, declared the doctor; immensely clever, as befitted his father's son; altogether likeable, but a bit of a ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... dislike her. Oh! she is wild! She knows absolutely nothing of the world. She can do everything we can't—or don't dare to try.—Men would like her. Papa's beginning to doat. He says she would have made a first-rate soldier. She fears blood as little as her morning cup of milk. One of the orderlies fell rather badly from a frightened horse close by our carriage. She was out in a moment and had his head on her lap, calling to papa to keep the carriage fast and block the way of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... draws human nature, delights in the opposition of character, and has, in fact, written a first-rate modern novel." ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... Foreign Office, "A strong Italy is the best thing in the world for you. A strong Italy is the surest of all barriers against France." There may be some truth in the assertion if Italy could spring at once—Minerva fashion—all armed and ready for combat, and stand out as a first-rate power in Europe; but to do this requires years of preparation, long years too; and it is precisely in these years of interval that France can become all-dominant in Italy—the master, and the not very merciful master, of her destinies in everything. ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... be kept secret; but the place of his birth was not far from Honaunau, where the bones of Keawe the Great lie hidden in a cave. This man was poor, brave, and active; he could read and write like a schoolmaster; he was a first-rate mariner besides, sailed for some time in the island steamers, and steered a whaleboat on the Hamakua coast. At length it came in Keawe’s mind to have a sight of the great world and foreign cities, and he shipped on a vessel bound ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Karl," he said to Kallem, "is at school here. I wish you would let him come, now and then, to your house. He is only nineteen years old, but he promises to be a first-rate composer. Your wife plays the piano beautifully. They ought to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... causes were at work a special misfortune had befallen the house of Girdlestone. Finding that their fleet of old sailing vessels was too slow and clumsy to compete with more modern ships, they had bought in two first-rate steamers. One was the Providence, a fine screw vessel of twelve hundred tons, and the other was the Evening Star, somewhat smaller in size, but both classed A1 at Lloyd's. The former cost twenty-two thousand ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of hours once a-week, and note down the number of the cabs and carts which jolt and jingle to the Broomielaw; or, if you like that better, to ascertain the quality of the soil three feet beneath your own wine-cellar; and you are booked for a month's residence in London, free quarters in a first-rate hotel, five guineas a-day, and all expenses paid. I confess that this regimen seems to me both profitable and pleasant. I have been here for six weeks feeding on the fat of the land, drinking claret which even a Leith man would scarcely venture to anathematize, white-baiting at Blackwall, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... he's first-rate blood, and a genuine sprig of the chivalry. He's a devil of a secessionist, sir. If ye were to hear that fellow make a stump speech on States' rights, you'd think him a Samson on Government. His father is the head of a good mercantile ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... whether I ought to regard it as a fortunate or unfortunate circumstance, that the first captain that I sailed with was a "ripper" for swearing and drinking. He was a professed infidel, a first-rate seaman, an excellent scholar, and took more care of the morals of his crew than many of those who have prayers twice a day; and ten thousand times more of their health, for he would not permit a man to expose himself for ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... fellow! Glorious! By Jove, first-rate!" shouted Bob in an ecstasy of delight. "There's a distillery there, you know, and a fishing village at the foot; at least there used to be six years ago, when I was living with the exciseman. There may be some bother about the population, though. The last ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... watched his son's progress in administration, saying nothing, waiting for the head clerk to endorse his opinion that there were the makings of a first-rate man in Joseph. He was careful not to ask any leading questions, but he could not refrain from letting the conversation drop, so that the clerk might have an opportunity of expressing his opinion of Master Joseph's business capacities. But the clerk made no remark: it might as well have been ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... M. de Guersaint, who had just ordered a cup of coffee; "it is surprising that one doesn't see more sick people here. All these folks seem to me to have first-rate appetites." ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... have some magnificent skating. There is not a particle of snow on the ice, and when it set there was a perfect calm, so that it is as smooth—as smooth—what shall I say?—as ice can be. Oh, we shall have some first-rate skating, and hockey, perhaps, and sleighing also, such as people have in Canada. John has had a sleigh built, such as he saw when he went over there in the last long vacation. He proposes to drive young Hotspur in it. We shall fly over the ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... soon as she could round the island on the larboard tack, so that the attempt to escape was not altogether so hopeless as might at first have appeared, had not the Venus gone round to intercept her. Zappa, of course, recognised the Ypsilante, and, knowing that her gunnery was not first-rate, he probably hoped that, as she could not venture into the shoal water, where the mistico was, she would not knock away any of his spars, and that he might manage to escape clear of her. The wind, however, as the two vessels approached each other, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... shop of Mimer, Siegfried was nowise in his proper element, ever quarrelling with his fellow-apprentices, nay, as some say, breaking the hardest anvils into shivers by his too stout hammering; so that Mimer, otherwise a first-rate smith, could by no means do with him there. He sends him, accordingly, to the neighboring forest to fetch charcoal, well aware that a monstrous dragon, one Regin, the smith's own brother, would meet him, and devour him. But far otherwise it ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... signify? What we enjoy or what we suffer depends upon the humour. The acting is not first-rate, but I have listened and laughed and cried, ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... something very terrible, between that hour and yesterday. Her father had been ill for some time, but the worst had been kept from her. She said yesterday that a poor person let her know quite accidentally that he was not only ill but dying. She went alone that morning to consult a doctor, one of those first-rate doctors whose word is law. Mr. Harman, it seemed, unknown to her, was one of this man's patients. He told her that he was hopelessly ill; that he could only live for a few months, and that any shock might end his days in a moment. She then told this doctor in confidence ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... places them under the earth, so that for pure cloud and dust they are unable to see the good noble gifts of actual life—I would the devil had it! The direction which Henrik is now taking grieves me seriously. I had rejoiced myself so in the thought of his being a first-rate miner; in his being instrumental in turning to good account our mines, our woods and streams, those noblest foundations of Sweden's wealth, and to which it was worth while devoting a good head; and now, instead of that, he hangs his on one side; sits with a pen in ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... rather ignoble to demolish a hope on which others build because it does not appear to us to be quite satisfactory, though we have nothing to offer in its stead? It is like plucking down a savage's wattled cabin. 'First-rate stone houses, if you please, or none at all,'—and, on being questioned as to where the materials are to come from, point for answer to the ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... In this first-rate romance, which is a sequel to "The Three Musketeers," and was published in 1845, we have D'Artagnan and the three musketeers in the prime of middle life. Their efforts on behalf of Charles I. are amazing, worthy of anything done when they were twenty years younger. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... the Achates of our AEneas, or rather the Hephaestion of our Alexander, was Fireblood. He had every qualification to make second-rate GREAT MAN; or, in other words, he was completely equipped for the tool of a real or first-rate GREAT MAN. We shall therefore (which is the properest way of dealing with this kind of GREATNESS) describe him negatively, and content ourselves with telling our reader what qualities he had not; in which number were humanity, modesty, and ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... Jacobs it was that put it in my mind to come here and tell you about Isaac. For the way Isaac died was like this. He and I were born in Spitalfields; he wasn't one of your greeners—he was a reg'lar good worker, first-rate general coat-hand, same as me. But he got with a hard master. And last winter season but one there came a rush. And Isaac must be working six days a week—and he must be working fourteen hours a day—and, more'n that, he must be doing his bastes overtime, two hours one time, and an hour or so, perhaps, ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "First-rate," the Major answered, drawing forward another rocker; and when he had sat down, he added: "Somewhat of an essence of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... have had a couple of rooms "parterre"—as the Germans call the rez-de-chaussee—and could have been as comfortable as he pleased. But no one ever attempted to account for Dr. Claudius at all. He was a credit to the University, where first-rate men are scarce,—for Heidelberg is not a seat of very great learning; and no one troubled to inquire why he did not return to his native country when he had obtained his "Phil.D." Only, if he meant ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... right away. But I don't know exactly what wagon to give you. I have two first-rate new pea-pods; but they are both out. However, I can let you have a nice easy Johnny-jump-up, ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... thought.[31] He had been a student of S.T. Coleridge, whom the Oriel men disliked as a misty thinker. He used to discuss Coleridge with a man little known then, but who gained a high reputation on the Continent as a first-rate Greek scholar, and became afterwards Professor of Greek in the University of Sydney, Charles Badham. Marriott also appreciated Hampden as a philosopher, whom the Oriel men thoroughly distrusted as a theologian. He might easily under different ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... give a good dinner, and do not know in what manner to set about it, you will do wisely to order it from Birch, Kuehn, or any other first-rate restaurateur. By these means you ensure the best cookery and ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... looks when he called himself well. On these good days he was always at Timber End, where his services were much needed. Lord Keith liked and esteemed him as a sensible prudent young man, and his qualities as a first-rate nurse were of great assistance to the Colonel. Lord Keith's illness was tedious and painful, the necessity of a dangerous operation became increasingly manifest, but the progress towards such a crisis was slow and the pain and discomfort great; the patient never moved beyond his dressing-room, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to first-rate, but could you take me home first? I have to let mother know where I am ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... "She's well; first-rate, thank ye. Come right in and we'll hunt her up," he said, leading the way. "I suppose she's puttering ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... hygiene is rapidly approaching, when the exhibition of drugs will be the exception instead of the rule in medical treatment. For this reason, the effect of climate on disease is rising into a subject of first-rate importance, and, no longer a prejudice or a tradition, submits to the investigations of science. The chief recent writers on what we already presume to call climatology, are Sir James Clark in England, Schouw in Sweden, and Carriere in France; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... am now going to give you my opinion of your works. I have read them all many times, and call them first-rate. Please go ahead. ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Cato as an orator something will be said in the next section. His miscellaneous writings, though none of them are historical, may be noticed here. Quintilian [27] attests the many-sidedness of his genius: "M. Cato was at once a first-rate general, a philosopher, an orator, the founder of history, the most thorough master of law and agriculture." The work on agriculture we have the good fortune to possess; or rather a redaction of it, slightly modernized and incomplete, but nevertheless containing a large amount of really ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... "Yes; a first-rate meal. And I think she will be a good mother. She seems to have any amount of milk—more than is comfortable for her, poor ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... an ax first-rate, and indeed, Thad could equal many an experienced woodsman in the accuracy of his strokes; while Maurice was ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... present moment were brighter than usual, and wore the peculiar expression of pleasure and self-confidence which is seen in the eyes of athletes, for they had been playing tennis, and they were both first-rate at the game. ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... so," Hsiang-lien proceeded, "it isn't convenient in here, so sit down and wait a bit. I'll go ahead, but come out of this yourself by and bye, and follow me to my place, where we can drink the whole night long. I've also got there two first-rate young fellows who never go out of doors. But don't bring so much as a single follower with you, as you'll find, when you get there, plenty of people ready at hand ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... one, first-rate. I'd leave college now and go in the Navy if there was another boy to follow out father's plans. But I can't bear to disappoint him. It's hard to go against your father when you are all he has. So I suppose I will go on and study law, and some day you will hear of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... worry to the Government, whom they consider bound to give them something light and easy, with 7s. 6d. or 8s. a day, and give rise abroad to the utterly false impression that there am times when it is hard for an industrious man to get work in Australia. Of course many of our immigrants have become first-rate workmen, but such men soon rise in the ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... week! Isn't that splendid? Only fancy, Mr. George Weston, Junior Clerk to Mr. Compton, at half-a-guinea a week! My fortune is made; and, depend upon it, mother, we shall get on in the world now, first-rate. Why, I shall only want—say, half-a-crown a week for myself, and then there will be all the rest for you. Now don't you think blind-eyed Fortune must have dropped her bandage this morning, and ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... start-off conceived a liking for these English fellows, to whom, for his father's sake, he played the part of genial host. With a lordly recognition of his superior years he pronounced them "first-rate youngsters, with lots of snap in them." And as the acquaintance progressed, Neal Farrar, with his erect figure, broad chest, musical voice, and wide-apart gray eyes,—so clear and honest that their glance was a beam,—proved a personage ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook |
