"First-rate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... much like doing so; for I saw at once, by his speech, that he was Cornish; but I did not like to turn him away, for he said that he was willing, and accustomed to the sea. So I gave him a trial, and he has turned out a first-rate sailor. He is chary of speech, and not given to jest or laughter; but he is always quick, and willing to obey orders; taking whatever comes in good part, and bearing himself just the same, in ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... works, uncut, unthumbed, were preserved free from all pollution in the family archives, where they may still be for anything that I know. This piece of good luck promises to be hereditary; for all "my" compositions have the same amiable home-staying propensity. The truth is, my Father was not a first-rate genius; he was, however, a first-rate Christian, which is much better. I need not detain you with his character. In learning, goodheartedness, absentness of mind, and excessive ignorance of the world, he ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... panelled triforium a very keen eye may possibly detect in the lowest range of ornament a tendency—it is nothing more—to Renaissance ideas. Or it may only be fancy suggested by the stages further east. Certainly the nave, if not quite of first-rate merit, has a really striking effect, and is far better than most panel work of the time. The transepts are of the same style. They are finished north and south with apses, which are really graceful, though we miss the rose-windows which we should otherwise ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... a notion of the talents of HANS BURGMAIR—a painter, as well as engraver, of first-rate abilities. I will begin with what I consider to be the most elaborate specimen of his pencil in this most curious gallery of pictures. The subject is serious, but miscellaneous: and of the date of 1501. It consists of Patriarchs, Evangelists, Martyrs, male and female, and ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... her? A sickly, fractious thing! I saw enough of her in the old days. There! be quiet! I have done. If it hadn't been for her, I'd have asked you to come here to your old home; you and I should jog along together first-rate. But Sibylla bars it. She may be a model of a wife; I don't insinuate to the contrary, take you note, Mr. Verner; but she's not exactly a model of temper, and Verner's Pride wouldn't be big enough to hold her and me. Would ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... I heard a first-rate story, which, although it did not occur in this division, is too good to lose. A private soldier, named Cupp, who is a German, belonging to the 1st Missouri Cavalry, and now one of the body-guard of ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... western species and one of the most richly apparelled birds of the Rockies. It nests in all sorts of niches and crannies about the houses, often sits calmly on a telegraph wire and preens its iridescent plumes, and sometimes utters a weak and squeaky little trill, which, no doubt, passes for first-rate music in swallowdom, whatever we human critics might think of it. Before man came and settled in those valleys, the violet-greens found the crevices of rocks well enough adapted to their needs for nesting sites, but now they prefer cosey niches and crannies in human dwellings, ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... light of the prominence which in all his school stories he properly gave to out-of-door sports and athletic exercises, to have it, on the authority of his old school-fellow, that he excelled in all manly exercises. He was a first-rate football- player, and a good all-round cricketer; he was an excellent oar, and a fairly good swimmer; and until the last few months of his life no man could enjoy with more zest a game of quoits, or tennis, or a day devoted to the royal game of golf. In the ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... slipped across in gallant style, and confessedly in first-rate order and trim. Even the "Yanks" conceded this, with a rider, of course, to the effect that they "guess'd" the "Alert"—did'nt they mean the "Palos," I wonder—"would knock saucepans out of the whole bilin'." On account of the great number of men-of-war already at anchor ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... Mrs. Pollard have spent a day here, and brought with them Miss Napier. My father is charmed with her beauty, her voice, and her manners. We talked over Waverley with her. I am more delighted with it than I can tell you: it is a work of first-rate genius. ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... American architect. Soon they were on excellent terms with one another—indeed, it was with Gerald Burton that he found he had most to do. The young man naturally accompanied him to all those places where the presence of a first-rate interpreter was likely to be useful, and Gerald Burton also pursued a number of independent enquiries on his ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... 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 his hand, and rhymes ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... stopped at the door of my late inn, I felt much perplexed, and not at all disposed to enter so wretched an abode. I called for my things, and received them with an air of contempt, threw down a few gold-pieces, and desired to be conducted to a first-rate hotel. This house had a northern aspect, so that I had nothing to fear from the sun. I dismissed the coachman with gold, asked to be conducted to the best apartment, and locked myself up in it as ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... movement of the helm, grappled the San Nicolas. Incredible as it may appear, the crew of this one British seventy-four carried, sword in hand, both the enemy's ships, though of far superior force. "Extravagant as the story may seem," wrote Nelson, "on the quarter-deck of a Spanish first-rate I received the swords of the vanquished Spaniards, which, as I received, I gave to William Fearney, one of my bargemen, who placed them with the ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... clothes all right," he explained to the customer. "He is a first-rate cutter and fitter; he knows ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... its entirety. The Japanese are far in advance of the Chinese in their scenery and properties, and their pieces are sometimes capitally got up: a revolving stage enables them to shift from one scene to another with great rapidity. First-rate actors receive as much as a thousand riyos (about L300) as their yearly salary. This, however, is a high rate of pay, and many a man has to strut before the public for little more than his daily rice; to a clever young actor it is almost enough reward to be allowed to enter a company in which ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... Emperor is not a good poet. The majority of men are poets, only they happen to be bad poets. The German Emperor fails ridiculously, if that is all that is in question, in almost every one of the artistic occupations to which he addresses himself: he is neither a first-rate critic, nor a first-rate musician, nor a first-rate painter, nor a first-rate poet. He is a twelfth-rate poet, but because he is a poet at all he knocks to pieces all the first-rate politicians ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... 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 in ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... health, were there for economy, grew shy of so excellent a player; and though Gawtrey always swore solemnly that he played with the most scrupulous honour (an asseveration which Morton, at least, implicitly believed), and no proof to the contrary was ever detected, yet a first-rate card-player is always a suspicious character, unless the losing parties know exactly who he is. The market fell off, and Gawtrey at length thought it prudent to extend ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... words in this place about "Old Gray." Why he was always called "Old Gray" is more than I know. His colour could not have suggested the name, for he was a bright roan, almost a bay. He was by no means a pretty animal, being raw-boned, and never seeming to be in first-rate condition; but he was endowed with remarkable sagacity and great endurance, and was, moreover, a fleet trotter. When my father began the work for himself he was a part of his chattels, and survived his master several years. Father drove him ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... first-rate imitation, that's a certainty; but it ain't the only one around that's first-rate. For instance, they make olive-oil out of cotton-seed oil, nowadays, so that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... brought him in something, so that he might 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 to ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... cabin of an old vessel that came ashore here in a southerly gale years ago. Uncle Tom jacked it up a foot, put in a good floor, and made it into a first-rate camp. It's got bunks for half a dozen, and at a pinch could hold more. The roof's a bit leaky, but we'll soon fix that. There's a good stove, and always plenty of driftwood on the beach. It's a mighty snug place ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... are aware,—are you not?—that there are often said to be as many forms of laws as there are of governments, and of the latter we have already mentioned all those which are commonly recognized. Now you must regard this as a matter of first-rate importance. For what is to be the standard of just and unjust, is once more the point at issue. Men say that the law ought not to regard either military virtue, or virtue in general, but only the interests and power and preservation of the ...
— Laws • Plato
... accounts of the latter, which from time to time came home. Tom's schoolfellows knew almost as much about Jack's adventures as those who, in subsequent years, read them in print, and they all agreed that he must be a first-rate chap. ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... twentieth century for you. Indeed all the social and very much of the political history of England may be reconstructed from her architecture alone; and so I make no apology for calling Thomas Paycocke's house first-rate historical evidence. ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... year at the very least—and then there are the splendid dinners, the two boys at Eton, the prize governess and masters for the girls, the trip abroad, or to Eastbourne or Worthing, in the autumn, the annual ball with a supper from Gunter's (who, by the way, supplies most of the first-rate dinners which J. gives, as I know very well, having been invited to one of them to fill a vacant place, when I saw at once that these repasts are very superior to the common run of entertainments for which the humbler sort of J.'s acquaintances get cards)—who, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... out of all this while you are young," he said. "There's nothing to compare with stopping a charging lion at twenty yards. I've done it, my boy. You can come back for all this pow-wow afterwards." He gave the diplomatic service as a second choice. "There you are," he said, "first-rate social position, nothing to do, theatres, operas, pretty women, colour, life. The best of good times. Barring Washington, that is. But Washington, they say, isn't as bad as it used to be—since ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... experience as a lawyer he had to be content with fees that seem absurdly small; once, he rode from Springfield to Bloomington to argue a case, and got but five dollars for his services. But he was a first-rate man of business, and soon had a good income from ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... the first principles of political economy among European gentlemen of otherwise first-rate education and abilities in India is quite lamentable, for there are really few public officers, even in the army, who are not occasionally liable to be placed in the situations where they may, by false measures, arising out of such ignorance, aggravate the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... closed book to me. Following my revival-meeting experiences came a few days spent in a sort of moral exaltation during which I eschewed all my habits of which conventional morality disapproved, save masturbation, and felt no small satisfaction with my moral conditions. I became a first-rate Pharisee. Toward the women who had figured in my day dreams I suddenly conceived the chastest affection, resolutely smothering every sensual thought and fancy when thinking of them, and putting in place of these elements ideal love, self-sacrifice, knightly devotion—Sunday-school ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... There are many first-rate sportsmen in Ceylon who could furnish anecdotes of individual risks and hairbreadth escapes (the certain accompaniments to elephant-shooting) that would fill volumes; but enough will be found, in the few scenes which I have selected ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... man came to Garotte, who had a widespread reputation. His name was Bill Hitchcock. A marvellous shot, a first-rate poker- player, a good rider—these virtues were outweighed by his desperate temper. Though not more than five-and-twenty years of age his courage and ferocity had made him a marked man. He was said to have killed half- a-dozen men; and it was known that he ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... first administered, there are such girls as Sally Martin and Polly Horton; but they not being every man's girls, as Bob Lovelace tells us, and our adventurer, perhaps, not having money, address, or patience, to come to the ultimatum with those first-rate ladies of pleasure, he very sagely concludes, that one woman is as good as another, especially as the same Bob Lovelace, so experienced in the ways of women, informs him, that that prime gift differs only in its external customary visibles, and that ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... will do for baby; I've thought of a first-rate plan; I'll borrow a stocking of grandma— The longest ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... denied that men of undoubted talents, and even poets of true, though not of first-rate, genius, have from a mistaken theory deluded both themselves and others in the opposite extreme. I once read to a company of sensible and well-educated women the introductory period of Cowley's preface to his Pindaric Odes, written in imitation of the style and manner of the odes of Pindar. ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... had endured must have been even still more insupportable to him than to any of us. In the regiment, S. was considered preeminently the Society officer. He went to all the receptions, all the afternoon teas, all the bridge parties, all the dinners. He was an adept at tennis and golf and a first-rate shot. His elegance was proverbial, and the beautiful cut of his tunics, breeches, jackets, and coats was universally admired. The way his harness was kept and the shape of his high boots were a ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... forecastle), and showing a few yellow fangs in a shrewd smile, explained craftily that he "had seen some of their pants." The backsides of them—he had observed—were thinner than paper from constant sitting down in offices, yet otherwise they looked first-rate and would last for years. It was all appearance. "It was," he said, "bloomin' easy to be a gentleman when you had a clean job for life." They disputed endlessly, obstinate and childish; they repeated in shouts and with inflamed faces their amazing arguments; ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... Hindity-mengro to sell all his buttons at the rate of three-halfpence a-piece, in order to have wherewithal to make himself thoroughly royal. Each of these Hindity-mengre has his blow- pipe, and some of them can execute their work in a style little inferior to that of a first-rate working goldsmith. The rings, after being made, are rubbed with a certain stuff out of a phial, which gives them all the appearance of gold. This appearance, however, does not long endure, for after having been ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... modern discoveries have been commented on and illustrated by Prof. Maspero in his great history. But the discoveries that have been made since this publication have been very important,—those at Abusir, indeed, of first-rate importance, though not so momentous as those of the tombs of the Ist and IId Dynasties at Abydos, already described. At Abu Roash and at Giza, at the northern end of the Memphite necropolis, several expeditions have had considerable ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... forget that day! I arrived home late at night, or rather early in the morning, worn out with the evening's entertainment. I had been much praised for the way I had performed my part, and some of the company had declared I should make a first-rate actress, and I thought to myself that they little knew how soon I was to become one. As I drove home, I felt in a perfect whirl of excitement. The day had come at last. Was I glad? I hardly knew—I tried to think I was; but somehow I felt sick at heart; I could not ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... ever ceases. They are about thirty-five miles away. The whole country is quite peaceful, and the crops coming on splendidly. The farm produces delicious brown eggs—and you should see—and taste—the omelets the farmer's wife makes! Coffee too—first-rate! How these French women work! Our men are always helping them, and the children hang ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... heard of this climate, and he wanted to try trapping. He got on first-rate until the illness came so bad on him, and Pete's done well ever ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... rocking foot slipped from the footboard it struck on the floor with the sound of a sprung wooden shoe. Pelle jumped up—"she bumped so," he said, bewildered. "What? No, you certainly dreamed that!" Kalle looked, smiling, under the rockers. "Bumped!" said Lasse. "That ought to suit you first-rate! At one time, when you were little, you couldn't sleep if the cradle didn't bump, so we had to make the rockers all uneven. It was almost impossible to rock it. Bengta cracked many a good wooden shoe in trying ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... up, was just dead, and Mr. Kenge came to tell me that Mr. Jarndyce proposed, knowing my desolate position, that I should go to a first-rate school, where my education should be completed and my comfort secured. What did I say to this? What could I say ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... lunched and dined with great contentment, voting Jacotot a first-rate chef, which he undoubtedly was. He was, however, a better cook than ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... through to be appreciated. They come and work very well for the first week. They slash down acre after acre, and stick to it almost day and night. In consequence the farmer puts on every man who applies for work, everything goes on first-rate, and there is a prospect of getting the crop in speedily. At the end of the week the mowers draw their money, quite a lump for them, and away they go to the ale-house. Saturday night sees them as drunk ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... for a canter over Gum Plain, and beyond the first span of the mountain, where the way is over sand, shaded on both sides by the dark thicket of the gum tree and the forest scrub. She had brought her habit with her, and as she had been taught to be a first-rate horsewoman up at her father's cattle station, I resigned the saddle, and the horse, feeling such a light weight and such a dainty hand, was off like a bird. It was good to watch her as we drove far ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... England seems a not less incongruous act than to set about renovating the adjoining crags themselves," and well might he sigh over the destruction of the grand old tower of Endelstow Church and the erection of what the vicar called "a splendid tower, designed by a first-rate London man—in the newest style of Gothic art and full ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... 'em first-rate," she said, speaking low so as not to wake the baby. "Mamie, Ellen, Jamie, Fred, George—say thank you, and ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... nary home, and nary friend; only my mother"—Bert hesitated, and grew serious; then suddenly changed his tone—"and Hop Houghton. I told him to meet me here, and we'd have a first-rate Thanksgiving dinner together; for it's no fun to be eatin' alone Thanksgiving Day! It sets a feller thinking of everything, if he ever had a home and then hain't got ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... like the late Mr. Gough, such a collection as may be found from p. 217 to 239 of the catalogue, would be considered a very first-rate acquisition. I am aware that the Gothic wainscot and stained glass windows of Enfield Study enshrined a still more exquisite topographical collection! But we are improved since the days of Mr. West; ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... please, sir," said Jack, "we captured that ship with the cutter the night after we went away—I'm not a first-rate navigator, and I was blown to the Zaffarine Islands, where I remained two months for want of hands: as soon as I procured them I made sail again—I have lost three men by sharks, and I have two wounded in ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... there any difference? The transitoriness is the same, and the eternal consequences are eternal alike in both; and yet there is a very solemn sense in which the one man's life has utterly perished, and the other's abides. Suppose a man, educated to be a first-rate man of business, dies. Which of his trained faculties will he have scope for in that new order of things? Or a student, or ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... of dying by starvation at home." For his worshippers too a most questionable thing! If doing Hero-worship well or badly be the test of vital wellbeing or illbeing to a generation, can we say that these generations are very first-rate?—And yet our heroic Men of Letters do teach, govern, are kings, priests, or what you like to call them; intrinsically there is no preventing it by any means whatever. The world has to obey him who thinks and sees in the world. The world can alter the manner of that; can either ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... reputation is so difficult to establish as that of first-rate poetic excellence. During the last fifty years, many meritorious competitors for bardic renown have successively aspired to public favour, and have each in their turns exhibited their fancy-woven bouquets, as containing a more beautiful assemblage of "flowers of all hue," as Milton divinely ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... there are decanters of wine, and all that sort of thing set out as grand as if Kit and his friends were first-rate company; and there is little Jacob walking, as the popular phrase is, into a home-made plum cake at a most surprising rate, and keeping his eye on the figs and oranges ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... encouraged to proceed, after making his salutations, he said, in a more subdued tone, holding up a great red apple, "See what the man, where we buy our things, sent you, mother. He called me to him, and said, 'Give that to your mother, and tell her it will be first-rate roasted.'" ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... the boasted literary and religious people of Edinburgh have bought and read Father Coleridge's delightful book. A hundred? Ten? Five? I doubt it. Or how many have so much as borrowed from the circulating library Mrs. Cunninghame Graham's first-rate book? Of Teresa's Letters, that greatest living authority on Teresa says—'That long series of epistolary correspondence, so enchanting in the original. It is in her letters that Teresa is at her best. They reveal all her shrewdness about business and money matters; her ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... keep cool." Molly Welch was rather excited herself, and she was chewing gum at a high speed as she stood beside him, looking up at the floating silver cone. "Now watch," she exclaimed suddenly. "She's coming down on the bar. I advised her to cut that out, but you see she does it first-rate. And she got rid of the skirt, too. Those black tights show off her legs very well. She keeps her feet together like I told her, and makes a good line along the back. See the light on those silver slippers,—that was a good idea I had. Come ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... considerable disadvantage in rising to address the House after having listened for upwards of five hours to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. But the question is one, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, of first-rate importance; and as I happen from a variety of circumstances to have paid some attention to it, and to have formed some strong opinions in regard to it, I am unwilling even that the Bill should be brought in, or that this opportunity should pass, without saying ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... mite if he was our deliverer," went on Mrs. Forbes. "I saw it in Mrs. Evringham's eye that he suited her, the first night that she met him here at dinner. I like him first-rate, and I don't mean him any harm; but he's one of these young doctors with plenty of money at his back, bound to have a fashionable practice and succeed. His face is in his favor, and I guess he knows as much as any of 'em, and ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... the second mate take one of the berths in the cabin?" suggested the new mate. "He is a first-rate fellow, and I reckon he's a better sailor than I am, for he's been to sea about all ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... with you first-rate," replied Noddy. "I want to do something, and earn some money for myself. I ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... bereavement (too heavy a sob) parental grief mad son MADISON Maderia frustrating first-rate wine (defeating) feet toe the line row MONROE row boat steamer side-splitting (divert) annoy harassing HARRISON Old Harry the tempter (the fraud) painted clay baked clay tiles TYLER Wat Tyler poll tax compulsory (free will) free offering burnt ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... better born than you or me, colonel. A lad of excellent parts and first-rate education. Bring him on, and he will do you and ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... 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 ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... good looks. I have written a descriptive account of her to Dr. Mackenzie, and he will prepare his patient for her arrival. She is to go up the day after to-morrow. We are lucky to get her, for she is quite first-rate, and she has only just finished with a long consumptive case, now on the mend and ordered abroad. So you see, Jeanette, all is shaping well.—And now, my dear girl, you have a story of your own to tell me, and my whole ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... 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 ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... of mine a few days ago showed me his new house with much pride. He asked me what I thought of it. I told him I liked it first-rate. Then I went home and wept all night. It was my ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... mora, so that, being free to go everywhere and anywhere, he was of course completely happy. From his pen emanate four ballads on the times of the four seasons, which, although they could not be looked upon as first-rate, afford anyhow a correct idea of his sentiments, and a true account of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... starting a subject with a question like this: "Do you know the meaning and derivation of the term 'bric-...-brac?'" "Do you believe in ghosts?" "What do you think of a ladies' club?" "Do you believe in chance?" "Is there more talent displayed in learning the violin than in playing a first-rate game of chess?" etc. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... a good nap, mother dear, I feel first-rate, and Frank can see to me if I want anything. Do, now," he added, with a persuasive nod toward the couch, and a boyish relish in stirring up ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... seized the English factories, and made himself master of much of the coast regions between Madras and Calcutta; while a French squadron of nine ships, most of which, however, belonged to the East India Company and were not first-rate men-of-war, was on its way to Pondicherry with twelve hundred regular troops,—an enormous European army for Indian operations of that day. The English naval force on the coast, though fewer in numbers, may be considered about equal to the approaching French squadron. It is scarcely ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... write books! Well, they said I wasn't to tell anybody, and I ain't told anybody but you, and I thought as you was a writer, and pretty busy, I guessed you wouldn't want to waste your time over his book. They say, folks do, that it's first-rate, as far as it goes; but you see it don't never get any farther, and it never will. I thought I'd better tell you about it," said Wilson, his plebeian, kindly face crimson with a delicate pity that would have done honor to an aristocrat, and still working assiduously at the little ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... volume we have already availed ourselves. Some of the engravings are in a vigorous and first-rate style of excellence; the binding, too, is somewhat gay for so grave a title—being crimson silk. Our favourites are a Voyage Round the World, by Montgomery, one of the best poems of the year; Faustus, with a Visit to Goethe; Angel Visits, by Mrs. Hemans; The Departed, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... way. So indifferent, or perhaps hopeless, are Englishmen in regard to cookery that they drink a strong champagne throughout dinner, content to drown the insipid taste of the food in the fine flavour of a drink upon which they can rely. An Englishman dining at a first-rate restaurant will usually spend twice as much for wine as for food, whilst a Frenchman will reverse the proportions. Another difference is one for which women are responsible. In Paris a party of French men and women at a table in a good restaurant enjoy their food, laugh and talk with one another, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... 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, ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Deserve it! What have I ever done wrong! Wasn't my fault the firm went bankrupt and I couldn't get another job. I've a first-rate character—I'm respectable—what's the use? I want to ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... first-rate row, isn't there? Natives troublesome, and Russia near, and that sort of thing?" George's manner showed ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... practice plagiary, having so large a fund of wit of his own, that he needed not to borrow from others. Were a foreigner to form a notion of the merit of the English poets from reading Langbaine, they would be in raptures with Randolph and Durfey, and others of their class, while Dryden, and the first-rate wits, would be quite neglected; Langbaine is so far generous, that he does all he can to draw obscure men into light, but then he cannot be acquitted of envy, for endeavouring to shade the lustre of those whose genius has broke through obscurity without his means, and he does ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... the space of a month hung gloomily over the civilized world, black with far worse evils than those of simple war, has passed from over our heads without bursting. The fear has not been realized, that the only two first-rate Powers who are also free nations would take to tearing each other in pieces, both the one and the other in a bad and odious cause. For while, on the American side, the war would have been one of reckless persistency in wrong, on ours it would have been a war in alliance with, ...
— The Contest in America • John Stuart Mill
... roared and the waves broke in thunder on the beach, Wolfe was standing up in the stern-sheets, scanning every inch of the ground to see if there was no place where a few men could get a footing and keep it till the rest had landed. He had first-rate soldiers with him: grenadiers, Highlanders, ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... arranged and Frank, on returning with his gun, found the others ready to make a start. Just as he had said the arrangement pleased him first-rate, for he really did want to get out of town until a late hour that night. It was not at all to the liking of the football captain to be carried around on show, just as if he were a hero on exhibition; especially when he avowed that he deserved not ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... at the start, so as not to offend his adversary; he would not cut it short, but would pass him at the finish; and he was so pleasant—he would soothe his adversary, praising his horse. He kept tumbler-pigeons of a first-rate kind. He would come out into the court, sit down in an arm-chair, and order them to let loose the pigeons; and his men would stand all round on the roofs with guns to keep off the hawks. A large silver basin of water used to be placed at the count's feet, and he ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... "She is first-rate," he said. "You can always get money from her. She is as rich as a Jew, she can give you five thousand roubles at a time and she is not above taking a pledge for a rouble. Lots of our fellows have had dealings with her. But she is ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... middle-English lyrics. Finally, the German minnesingers knew and appreciated troubadour lyrics, and imitations or even translations of Provencal poems may be found in Heinrich von Morungen, Friedrich von Hausen, and many others. Hence the poetry of the troubadours is a subject of first-rate importance to the ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... caused widespread famine. Over the next quarter century, 20% of the island's population emigrated, mostly to Canada and the US. Limited home rule from Denmark was granted in 1874 and complete independence attained in 1944. Literacy, longevity, income, and social cohesion are first-rate by ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the number by chance, he said, was to lose himself in millions of combinations, which would absorb the life of a first-rate calculator. But if he could in no respect reckon on chance, was it impossible to proceed by reasoning? Decidedly not! And so it was "to reason till he became unreasoning" that Judge Jarriquez gave himself up after vainly seeking repose in a few hours ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... I bought a first-rate Target revolver—a Colt—with which I knew I could make accurate shooting. I would not trust my life to one of those unscientific productions which are just as likely to shoot a friend as an enemy, and are more in the nature of pop-guns than defensive ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... "First-rate. I've made a number of inquiries about him in both places, and nobody has a word to say against him; very quiet, minds his own business, a man of few words; just about my sort of a man, I should judge," Mr. Underwood concluded as he rose from ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... decisive rejection of this theory and unshaken adherence to the date from Rome. He remarks that the oldest Church tradition is all for Rome; that the Epistle itself evidently refers to its place of origin as to a place of first-rate importance and extent, in which any advance of the Gospel was a memorable and pregnant event; and that the allusion to "Caesar's household" (though it is not so quite decisive as it might at first sight appear to be) "cannot without much straining of language and facts be made ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... displayed in each part of the establishment, and especially in the management of the springs, so that a single drop of water may not be lost: indeed the whole island may be compared to a huge ship kept in first-rate order. I could not help, when admiring the active industry, which had created such effects out of such means, at the same time regretting that it had been wasted on so poor and trifling an end. M. Lesson has remarked with justice, that the English ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... nation not eminent for the gifts on which they depend, will more or less suffer by this shortcoming. In poetry, however, they are after all secondary, and energy is the first thing; but in prose they are of first-rate importance. In its prose literature, therefore, and in the routine of intellectual work generally, a nation with no particular gifts for these will not be so successful. These are what, as I have said, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... all there were the jewellers' shops, with all the treasures of the earth displayed therein, and such large silver watches hanging up in every pane of glass, that if they were anything but first-rate goers it certainly was not because the works could decently complain of want of room. In good sooth they were big enough, and perhaps, as the saying is, ugly enough, to be the most correct of all mechanical performers; in Mr Pinch's eyes, however they were smaller than Geneva ware; and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... "There, sir, that's a first-rate fit-out for hunters; and with the jolly basket of lunch Mrs. Mullin gave us, we can get on tip-top for two or three days," said Tommy, eager ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... that. Why, sir, he has drilled him so well that now he needs hardly speak at all. I have seen that little wrinkled ape made to take the ship out of Pangu Bay on a blowy morning and on all through the islands; take her out first-rate, sir, dodging under the old man's elbow, and in such quiet style that you could not have told for the life of you which of the two was doing the work up there. That's where our poor friend would be still of ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... the incumbent, is a member of the choir, and if all the other individuals in it had her musical knowledge, an improvement would soon follow. The organ is a very good one. It was given by the late T. Miller, Esq., and H. Miller, Esq., and placed in the church in 1844. Recently it has been put in first-rate condition, for organs, like the players of them, get worse for wear, by T. H. and W. P. Miller, Esqrs. The organist knows his work, and is able to perform it ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... a great humorist and a great sportsman and a great preacher, William Guthrie was a great writer. A great writer is not a man who fills our dusty shelves with his forgotten volumes. It is not given to any man to fill a whole library with first-rate work. Our greatest authors have all written little books. Job is a small book, so is the Psalms, so is Isaiah, so is the Gospel of John, so is the Epistle to the Romans, so is the Confessions, so is the Comedy, so is the Imitation, so are the Pilgrim ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... individualism and to form groups of these men: but the majority of these groups had immediately resolved themselves into literary clubs, or split up into absurd factions. The best of them were mutually destructive. There were among them some first-rate men of force and faith, men well fitted to rally and guide those of weaker will. But each man had his following, and would not consent to merging it with that of other men. So they were split up into a number of reviews, unions, associations, which had all the moral virtues, save ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... of telling me your fancies. I like to hear them, though, I dare say, I spoke as if I was annoyed. But we will ask Mrs. Thornton if she can tell us of a good doctor. We won't throw away our money on any but some one first-rate. Stay, we turn up this street.' The street did not look as if it could contain any house large enough for Mrs. Thornton's habitation. Her son's presence never gave any impression as to the kind of house he lived in; but, unconsciously, Margaret had imagined that tall, massive, handsomely dressed ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... men are first-rate. It is impossible to pay too high a tribute to the manner in which they settled down to this job of submarine hunting, and to the intelligence, resource, and courage which they have exhibited. They came on the scene at the opportune moment. ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... evening closed in upon us; at which time, entering the Narrows, the satin-vested youth felt himself quite nonplused, despite his taking off his beaver, and trying to scratch for knowledge; in short, had it not been for Captain Harrison, who is a first-rate seaman and navigator, as all who ever sail with him are ready to testify, we might have remained out all night: fortunately, his superior skill got us safe in, and no easy task I assure you is it, either to find the channel, or to thread your way through ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Felipe put our engine in first-rate condition while we were going up and down the Nile; and both of them say the Maud ought to make half a knot better time than before," continued the captain. "I am confident we are fully the equal ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... Praxinoe! That first-rate singer, the Argive woman's daughter, is going to sing the Adonis hymn. She is the same who was chosen to sing the dirge last year. We are sure to have something first rate from her. She is going through her airs ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... they check the play a little, to be more decorous in passing by the stranger. He stops to look at them with a pleased expression of countenance, and then says, addressing the driver, with a face of much seriousness, "That's a first-rate horse of yours. Would you like to sell him? He seems to be very spirited." The horse immediately begins to prance and caper. "You must have paid a high price for him. You must take good care of him. Give him plenty of oats, and don't drive him ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... is also a first-rate weapon in a skilful hand for procuring small birds. I must confess I cannot use it as well as some young friends of mine, who knock over nearly every sitting bird they aim at, and even now and then are successful with ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... in the Church of England. A lawyer does not sin in seeking to be a judge, or in compassing his wishes by all honest means. A young diplomat entertains a fair ambition when he looks forward to be the lord of a first-rate embassy; and a poor novelist when he attempts to rival Dickens or rise above Fitzjames, commits no fault, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... in style with Johnie Faa makes it possible that they are as old as the middle of the seventeenth century. None of the pastoral ballads, indeed, can show any credentials which would suggest an earlier date than the second half of the sixteenth century, nor can any of them lay claim to first-rate poetic merit.[74] ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... novelist first, therefore, with scrupulous fidelity and with minute regard for the possible significance of every observable detail, fill his notebooks, amass his materials, master his subject. After Flaubert, a first-rate sociological investigator is three-fourths of a novelist. The rest of the task is to arrange and set forth these facts so that they shall tell the truth about life impressively, in scene and dramatic spectacle, the ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... writes, "that the deer are very lively, and if you want to show your foreign friends some first-rate British Sport, you can't do better ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... thrice-famous "Double-Marriage" of Prussia with England; which once had such a sound in the ear of Rumor, and still bulks so big in the archives of the Eighteenth Century; which worked such woe to all parties concerned in it; and is, in fact, a first-rate nuisance in the History of that poor Century, as written hitherto. Nuisance demanding urgently to be abated;—were that well possible at present. Which, alas, it is not, to any great degree; there being an important young Friedrich inextricably wrapt up in it, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... prevent them from speaking; but the lieutenant telling them to say what they wished, they at once begged that they might be allowed to join the frigate. They were both fine active-looking lads, and seemed cut out to make first-rate seamen. The ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... exclusively officered by Indians. The effect upon the whole Native Army of some such measure as I have indicated would be excellent; and though we could never hope to retain India merely by the sword against the combined hostility of its various peoples, the Native Army must always be a factor of first-rate importance, both for the prevention and the repression of any spasmodic outbreak of revolt. It is no secret that reiterated attempts have been made to shake its loyalty, and in some isolated cases not altogether ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... feller has taken himself off for good," he observed, after listening to the doctor's brief statement. "That's first-rate, couldn't be ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... we should get along without Dr. Holtum—we young ones, I mean," he remarked. "He enters so much into all our fun, and then he is so very clever too, a first-rate scientist. They have a 'menagerie,' as large and interesting as your own, at Collaster. And the twins—they are a little older than your lovely little niece, but she would find them companionable, for she is older than her years, I think. ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... such works, though the greatest yet produced, should approach abstract perfection; that there is certainly something left for us to carry farther, or complete; that any given generation has just the same chance of producing some individual mind of first-rate calibre, as any of its predecessors; and that if such a mind should arise, the chances are, that with the assistance of experience and example, it would, in its particular and chosen path, do greater things than had ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... heart can thus wall out the ultimate irrationality which the head ascertains, the erection of its procedure into a systematized method would be a philosophic achievement of first-rate importance. But as used by mystics hitherto it has lacked universality, being available for few persons and at few times, and {75} even in these being apt to be followed by fits of reaction and dryness; and if men should agree ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... up a name or two if you want 'em," muttered Wealthy. Then, seeing that Mrs. Bright looked troubled, she was sorry she had spoken, and made haste to add, "However, the medicine may be first-rate medicine, and if it does you good, Mrs. Bright, we'll crack it up ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... countries, France, England, and the United States, we find, as we have just said, those of the last country to be the most numerous, while some of the French papers have the largest subscription; and the whole establishment of a first-rate London paper is the most complete. Its activity is immense. When Canning sent British troops to Portugal, in 1826, we know that some papers sent reporters with the army. The zeal of the New York papers also deserves ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... enormous girth, it spreads abroad its huge flat branches hither and thither, covering a vast space of ground with its "shadowing shroud,"[226] and presenting a most majestic and magnificent appearance. Its timber may not be of first-rate quality, and there is some question whether it was really used for the masts of their ships by the Phoenicians,[227] but as building material it was beyond a doubt most highly prized, answering sufficiently for all the purposes required by architectural art, and at the same time delighting ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... little surprised myself at the length to which this examination of one small piece of Sir Walter's first-rate work has carried us, but here I must end for this time, trusting, if the Editor of the Nineteenth Century permit me, yet to trespass, perhaps more than once, on his readers' patience; but, at all events, to examine in ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... line, they all sang its praise. "First-rate! excellent!" they cried, "the natural talents of your second son, dear friend, are lofty; his mental capacity is astute; he is unlike ourselves, who have read books but ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the pack-outfit we bought at an auction sale in rather a peculiar manner. About sixty head of Arizona horses of the C. A. Bar outfit were being sold. Toward the close of the afternoon they brought out a well-built stocky buckskin of first-rate appearance except that his left flank was ornamented with five different brands. The ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... not dry now. It was dry to us that winter because we did not want to know any thing about it. Any book will be dry when we don't care to read it. I have found that no study is dry which I really want to know about. I like grammar first-rate now." ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... first three miles slipped away first-rate; Then bronc began fer to lose his gait. But I warn't oneasy an' didn't mind With tenderfoot more'n a mile behind. So I jogged along with a cowboy song Till all of a sudden I heard that gong A-ringin' a warnin' in my ear— Ting, ting, ting, ting,—too infernal near; An' ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... is the best?' said Arthur, squeezing hard both her hands, as he used to do in fond, teasing schoolboy days. 'I shall not say one without the other. Such a pair is not to be found in a hurry. You only wanted breaking-in to be first-rate, and ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 New ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... used 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 ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... that! I meant nothing, dearie; only I'm a 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 is ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... was not a man to slumber on a circumstance which, in his opinion, seemed to be important, without having handled and dissected it, with the patience of a first-rate anatomist; in spite of all he could do (and it was a privilege or defect of his organization), every material impression that his mind received presented itself for analysis, by its most prominent features, in such a manner that poor Chicot's brain suffered considerably on account of such peculiarity, ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... Pritchard, can't you shut down at once on that vaudeville business and set her to studying under a first-rate teacher?" he demanded. "She ought not to lose a minute. Of course she is rather small—too bad she isn't taller—but for all that I believe such a voice will carry her anywhere. I shouldn't wonder if she should turn out a star ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... safely up last week, and will start again the day after tomorrow. She carries a crew of eight hands; and I have made inquiries about the captain, and hear a very good report of him, and he seemed to me a first-rate fellow. When I mentioned the name of the Henriette he said that he knew her well, and was acquainted both with the present captain and with your Jean. He had heard, from Lefaux, that her former owner had been denounced, ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... respectable S—-, who had the management of his property—I remembered to have heard this worthy, with whom I occasionally held discourse, philosophic and profound, when he and I chanced to be alone together in the office, say that all first-rate thieves were sober, and of well-regulated morals, their bodily passions being kept in abeyance by their love of gain; but this axiom could scarcely hold good with respect to these women—however thievish they might be, they did care for something besides gain: they cared for their ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... colour and light play such a predominant part is bound to produce valuable landscapes. In this new form, the love of country expressed itself far more sincerely than in the earlier historical compositions. Under the influence of Henri Boulanger, Belgium produced, in later years, a number of first-rate landscape painters such as Verwee, Courtens, Gilsoul, Baertsoen and Emile Claus. Flemish landscapes exert a far greater attraction than the Walloon hills, and, generally speaking, the Flemish element ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... me every game. I had no idea that he was so good. He says he does not intend to play for the racket, but if he did he would have a first-rate chance. I was in the last ties last year and I ought to have a good chance this, but either I am altogether out of practice or he is wonderfully good. I was asking him, and he said in his lazy way that they had got a decent racket-court at his place, and that he had been knocking the ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... welcome it. And there are others, like the reviewer, who 'have time and an interest in nomads,' who were certain to consult it. But in addition to these special classes the book did good service in some cases, by deepening the impression already made by other first-rate delineations of missionary enterprise and endurance, and in others by creating respect for missions and missionaries in minds hitherto strange to that feeling. In various editions very many thousands of the book have been sold during the nine years ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... a real sense of the duty I owed to my future employers, whomsoever they might be, in making myself a first-rate hand in the cutting, shaping, and sewing line, I would not have found courage in my breast to have helped me out through such a long and dreary time. The change from our own town, where every face was friendly, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... be fashionable, had got a new stove placed in the fire-place of "'tother room," which means, what in Scotland is termed "ben" the house, and in England "the parlour." This was the first evening of its being put in operation. I observed the old gentleman (a first-rate specimen of a blue nose) looked very uncomfortable and fidgetty. For a time he sat twirling his thumbs in silence, when suddenly a thought seemed to strike him: he left the room, and shortly after the draught-hole of the stove grew dark, ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... thinking of a girl, exactly," said Bartley, with a little sadness. "I mean that, if you're not in first-rate spiritual condition, you're apt to get floored if you ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... he said in a letter to Lord Haddington dated the 22nd of May, 1843, "that all our old vessels of war, save the class of eighty-gun ships and a few first-rate and large frigates, are almost worthless; whilst our steam department is deficient in most of the properties which constitute effective vessels. No blockades worthy of the name can now be maintained by fleets of sailing ships; nor can accompanying steamships ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... added respectfully a pupil of the great painter, "I have seen some cholera patients whose convulsions were rather fine, and their dying looks first-rate!" ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... qualities, by the world at large for the serious loss which society sustains, and the disappointment of the expectations of what he one day might have been. He occupied as large a space in society as his talents (which were by no means first-rate) permitted; but he was clever, lively, agreeable, good-tempered, good-natured, hospitable, liberal and rich, a zealous friend, an eager political partisan, full of activity and vivacity, enjoying ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... Sndfjord, married in 1831 a sister of Welhaven, and in 1839 was transferred to Manger, near Bergen. Both the places mentioned were very convenient for zological study, which Sars resumed at once and continued unbrokenly. His earliest published work appeared in 1829; it was of first-rate importance, and his reputation was soon established everywhere in the world of learning. In 1853 he sought retirement from the Church, and in 1854 was professor of zology in the University, where he continued ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... course," said Mr. Browne, who seemed pleased by her admission. To do him justice, he would not undermine a classmate, although he had other rules of conduct which might eventually require a little straightening out. "Worthy's a first-rate fellow, a little quick-tempered, perhaps, and inclined to go his own way. He's got a good mind, and he's taken to using it lately. He has come pretty near being suspended once ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... gratitude. Perhaps a residence abroad would be best for Lady Glencora at this particular period of her life. If so, abroad she should certainly live. Before resolving, however, on anything permanently on this head, he thought that he might judiciously consult those six first-rate London physicians, whom, in the first moment of his excitement, he had been desirous of ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... other colleagues made the task of the prime minister one of unusual difficulty, a fact which was recognized by contemporaries. Charles Greville in his Memoirs says, "In the present cabinet are five or six first-rate men of equal, or nearly equal, pretensions, none of them likely to acknowledge the superiority or defer to the opinions of any other, and every one of these five or six considering himself abler and more important than their ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... year was first-rate," he continued, "but somehow Hallin damps you down, at least he did me last year; what you want just now is fight—and, my word! Mr. Wharton ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... found too strong. In flavouring soups with these vegetables, the first care should be to see that they are thoroughly cleansed. In using celery, too much of the green part should be avoided if you wish to make first-rate soup. In using the onions, if they are old and strong, the core can be removed. In using carrot, if you are going to have any soup where vegetables will be cut up and served in the soup, you should always peel off the outside ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... 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 ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... boys who had become acquainted with him; but there are those every-where who seem, by some strange fatality, to choose the most unworthy of their acquaintances for their associates; and there were several boys in Lawrence who looked upon Charles as a first-rate fellow and a ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... went away, the landlord came behind his chair, kissed his hand, and said he hoped to live to be a lord and to see his wife a lady; at which Charles laughed. They had had a good supper by this time, and plenty of smoking and drinking, at which the King was a first-rate hand; so, the captain assured him that he would stand by him, and he did. It was agreed that the captain should pretend to sail to Deal, and that Charles should address the sailors and say he was a gentleman in debt who was running away from his creditors, and that ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... assured her that for one beauty in France, hundreds might be counted in England, where gentlemen were, therefore, not so easily satisfied; and that a woman regarded by them only as an ordinary person would pass for a first-rate beauty among French beaux, on account of the great scarcity ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... circle by way of reasoning on a circle. But {123} what I have chiefly to do with is the force of instance which he has lent to my assertion that men who have not had real training in pure logic are unsafe reasoners in matter which is not familiar. It is hard to get first-rate examples of this, because there are few who find the way to the printer until practice and reflection have given security against the grossest slips. I cannot but think that his case will lead many to take ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... will only meet Touaricks, and these are our friends. You have only to pay a small trifle of toll in different parts of the route and you are quite safe. Sometimes you don't pay this." Essnousee will reach Ghat in twelve, whilst a quick caravan requires from eighteen to twenty days. With first-rate camels the journey could be performed in eight or ten days. Strange infatuation! I felt an almost irrepressible desire to accompany Essnousee as I was, and to plunge anew into all the hardships and ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... in a pair—Nos. 7 and 8. They had their heads together over a mark, and were debating what it meant, if it did mean anything. It was a long shot, but Chippy did not hesitate. He took a ball in each hand and hung for a second on his aim. He was a first-rate thrower. ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... better that a girl should return from school a first-rate reader, than a first-rate performer on the pianoforte. The accomplishment, in its perfection, would give more pleasure. The voice of song is not sweeter than the voice of eloquence; and there may be eloquent readers, as well as eloquent speakers. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... teacher, advocate, or official. Here, however, after leaving the intermediate school, it was necessary for him to take a conscientious valuation of his mental capacity; and he arrived at the conclusion that it would be better to become a first-rate factory-overseer than a mediocre teacher or official. And he could carry out this—perhaps too severe—resolve without socially degrading himself, for in Freeland manual labour does not degrade as it does in Europe ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... first put our proposed venture into my head. When I told him of my idea he at once agreed to accompanying me, saying that he should be content with any wages I could afford to give him. Though a first-rate seaman, he cannot be much of a navigator, so that had you, Ned, not come out I should have been obliged to get another mate; and now that you have come, we ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston |
