"Mastered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... much given to "spinning tops." His good abilities, however, and his ready intelligence had carried him successfully through the curriculum of his early career. He was a good draughtsman, an excellent rider—having thoroughly mastered the successor to the famous "Uncle Tom" at the riding-school of St. Cyr—and in the records of his military service his name had several times been included in the ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... which her home lay, and she slackened her footsteps slightly. She felt that she had been unwise in challenging him; that she ought to try persistently to win him over. It was repugnant to her, still it must be done even yet. She mastered herself for Ingolby's sake ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... my cheeks, my temples burned, and what I should have replied to this taunt, I know not, for passion had completely mastered me. When Lord Callonby again entered the room, his usually calm and pale face was agitated and flushed; and his manner tremulous and hurried; for an instant he was silent, then turning towards my uncle, he took his ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... mother shook her head. ''E'll never get over bein' bested by the men. 'E's always been so masterful all 'is life, an' they've mastered 'im at ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... hands in his. She was stronger than he was now. Her eyes mastered him. A low cry broke from him, and he drew her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... on Pangenesis I found hard reading, and have not quite mastered yet, and there are also throughout the discussions in Vol. II. many bits of hard reading on minute points which we, who have not worked experimentally at cultivation and crossing as you have done, can hardly see the importance of, or their ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... characters to those who knew them not, but who were anxious to learn. Sometimes with a lead pencil on a piece of board or birch-bark, the characters were drawn and slowly and carefully gone over, time and time again, until they were completely mastered. When pencils gave out, the end of a burnt stick, or a piece of coal from the fire, had to serve ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... to shoot. That is the way one masters one's nerves, little sister. Mine are entirely mastered: I am now absolutely in control. The Boche presented me with five hundred shots while I maneuvered. They were ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... Ted suddenly gasped, feeling his legs give way under him. By a supreme effort of will he mastered his legs in time to dart into ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... had used. If such temperaments do not deserve the name of madness, they are near akin to it. Lionel spoke with emotion: it all but over-mastered him, and he went back to his place by ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... His presence excited such enthusiasm among the people, the mariners, and the soldiers, that the shore uninterruptedly resounded with shouts of "Long live the Emperor!" and these shouts, repeated from mouth to mouth, could not but teach those, who had flattered themselves with having mastered the will of Napoleon, how easy it would be for him, to shake off his chains, and laugh at their vain precautions. But faithful to his determination, he firmly resisted the impulse of circumstances; and the continual solicitations made him, to ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... we had a harder arithmetic lesson than usual, completely baffling our small brains. Upon comparing notes at recess, none of us had mastered it. ...
— The Old Castle and Other Stories • Anonymous
... powerless to resist the might of thought! It must unclose before it, revealing to sight and bringing to enjoyment its riches and its depths." It is the work of a master-mind, as every one must feel who tackles to the study of it, and of one who has mastered the subject of it as not another in England, or perhaps even in Germany, has done. The grip he takes of it is marvellous and his exposition trenchant and clear. It was followed in 1881 by his "Text-book to Kant," an exposition which his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... laugh himself, and the chorus became general, at something in the combination of Faith and her words. But Faith's confusion thereupon mastered her so completely, that perhaps to shield her the doctor requested silence and attention and began to read; of a lady who, he said he was certain, had borrowed ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... some minutes thoughtfully leaning his arm on the mantelpiece. It was no unimportant debate in the Lords that night, and on a subject in which he took great interest, and the details of which he had thoroughly mastered. He had been requested to speak, if only a few words, for his high character and his reputation for good sense gave weight to the mere utterance of his opinion. But though no one had more moral courage in action, the ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... troubled with infinite deale of thoughts, but all to no purpose for the ease of my sicknesse; sometimes despairing, now againe in some hopes. I allwayes indeavoured to comfort myselfe, though half dead. My resolution was so mastered with feare, that at every stroake of the oares of these inhumans I thought it ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... in her hands at the time, her nervous tendency to roll it coming upon her. She tried to summon sufficient courage to explain, but fear mastered her completely; she lifted the apron to her eyes ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... He mastered arithmetic, geography, grammar, and rhetoric. He also began the study of Latin. Besides this, he was a great reader of all kinds of books, and he added something every day to his general stock ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... untied the tag of rusty, black ribbon binding together the packet of tattered, dog's-eared, little chap-books which for so long had reposed in the locked drawer of Julius March's study table beneath the guardianship of the bronze pieta. With very conflicting feelings he had mastered the contents of those same untidy, little volumes, and learned the sordid, and probably fabulous, tale set forth in them in meanest vehicle of jingling verse. Vulgarly told to catch the vulgar ear, pandering to the popular superstitions of a somewhat ignoble ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Elizabeth. One is making money and the other is spending it. You've mastered one and I've mastered the other. Which ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... above any other art stirs the sense. Probably the Greek myth of Orpheus and his lute was not a myth after all; perhaps Orpheus had mastered the occult knowledge of this great power. Surely it would be worth some learned scientist's while to investigate from a psychological point of view how it is, and why it is, that certain chords cause certain emotions, and give base or elevating ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... eternal flux, and in loving which he should find a perfect and eternal joy. Riches, honor, the pleasures of sense—these held no true and abiding bliss. The passion with which van den Ende's daughter had agitated him had been wisely mastered, unavowed. But in the Infinite Substance he had found the object of his search: the necessary Eternal Being in and through whom all else existed, among whose infinite attributes were thought and extension, that made up the one poor universe known ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... chord was at the tightest, just as the feathers quivered, and the barb thrilled, about to leap from the terse string, the tall form of the soldier sprang up into the clear moonlight from the underwood, and crying "Hold! hold!" mastered her bowhand, with the speed of light, and dragged her ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... about it. I haven't mastered all the details yet, so as to give a smooth performance, but I can make an ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... you are not to drink it; any cup; and a visit to Mrs. Wishart was a very sweet cup to Lois. The letter filled her thoughts all the way home; and she took it to her own room at once, to have the pleasure, or the pain, mastered before she told of it to the rest of the family. But in a very few minutes Lois came flying down-stairs, with light in her eyes and a sudden colour ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... gradually softened. "You might have been worse employed; I compliment and congratulate you," said he; and then added: "Whether you have really caught the idea and mastered the technique or not, it is too soon to say. But I'll say frankly that this article is worth more to me than everything else that you've written for the ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... reconciliation took place on terms humiliating to Bacon, who never more ventured to cross any purpose of anybody who bore the name of Villiers. He put a strong curb on those angry passions which had for the first time in his life mastered his prudence. He went through the forms of a reconciliation with Coke, and did his best, by seeking opportunities of paying little civilities, and by avoiding all that could produce collision, to tame the untameable ferocity ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... come will say of us now living that we mastered our moment, that we helped make the world safe ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... were as zealous as they were invaluable. By her quick grasp of the details of administration, by the marvellous tact and skill she exercised, and by the energy she threw into her undertaking, every difficulty was mastered. At this present time many hundreds of men, who were ten years ago facing a desperate foe, can reflect gratefully, if sadly, that they owe their lives to the generous and unselfish efforts of a brave woman who is no longer with us; for, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... was formidable; he could rise and slay and eat, vampire-like, as in the tale of Asmund and Aswit. He must in such case be mastered and prevented doing further harm by decapitation and thigh-forking, or by staking and burning. So criminals' bodies were often ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Lincoln worked literally day and night, sitting up night after night until the crowing of the cock warned him of the approaching dawn. So hard did he study that his friends were greatly concerned at his haggard face. But in six weeks he had mastered all the books within reach relating to the subject—a task which, under ordinary circumstances, would hardly have been achieved in as many months. Reporting to Calhoun for duty (greatly to the amazement of that gentleman), ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... Arjuna, of white steeds, having transgressed him, penetrated into our array, the slightest fault does not, for that, attach to the preceptor. Phalguna is accomplished in weapons, possessed of great activity, endued with youth; he is a hero who has mastered all arms; he is distinguished for the celerity of his movements. Armed with celestial weapons and mounted on his ape-bannered car, the reins of whose steeds again were in the hands of Krishna, cased in impenetrable ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... his long fight! He had mastered the human emotions of his soul at last. The battle had been such that he sat here now, weak and spent. He sat looking at the face which had meant so much ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... whips No. 3; and No. 3 whips No. 1; so around in a circle. This is not a mistake; it is often the case. I remember," he continued, "we once had feeding out of a large bin in the centre of the yard six cows who mastered right through in succession from No. 1 to No. 6; but No. 6 paid off the score by whipping No. 1. I often watched them when they were all trying to feed out of the box, and of course trying, dog-in-the-manger ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... to be mastered is this: A vine should bear only a limited number of clusters,—say from 30 to 80. A shoot bears clusters near its base; beyond these clusters the shoot grows on into a long, leafy cane. An average ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... get little beyond such sense impressions, whereas the highly developed scientific conception of nature that obtains to-day is far beyond a mere collection of sense impressions. Nature, indeed, is subdued and mastered by man; why then degrade man to the level of a universe he has mastered? To produce from the phenomena of nature a scientific conception of nature demands the activity of an independent, originative power ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... the water, which looked white and glassy, now rushing by us, and threatening to drive the canoe on to the rocks just behind, or else to capsize us, and sweep the party headlong down the long water slope up which we had been so toilsomely drawn. And I believe we should have been mastered, for what with three passengers and the chests, the canoe was heavily laden; but Gunson suddenly pressed himself close to the last Indian, reached out one strong arm, and grasped his paddle, swaying with him, and bringing the full force of his ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... Annie's hospitality gave out utterly, and in spirit she had incontinently turned an unwelcome guest out of doors. Now that she had really won a vantage-ground that could be used effectively, all her Christian and kindly purposes were forgotten in the self-absorption that had suddenly mastered her. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... familiar' to her, and which invariably succeeded in making less graceful persons than she was, feel wretchedly awkward and unhappy about the management of their hands and feet. With a smiling upward and downward glance, she mastered Sir Morton Pippitt's 'striking and jovial personality,'—his stiffly-carried upright form, large lower chest, close-shaven red face, and pleasantly clean white hair,—"The very picture of a Bone-Melter"—she thought—"He looks as if he had been boiled all over himself—quite a nice well- washed ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... to meet a winter's, but a year's requirements. Where strength was essential, only the best of timber was chosen, and well within the time limit the materials for corral and branding chute were at hand on the ground. One task met and mastered, all ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... which seized the Intelligenzia of Russia after the last abortive revolution, when the Constitution which was no constitution was wrung out of the grand dukes. Even suppose the revolution had succeeded, the intellectuals must have asked themselves, even suppose they had mastered the grand dukes and captured the army, would they have done more than altered the machinery of government, reduced the quantity of political injustice, amended the principles of taxation, and possibly changed the colours of the postage stamps? Could ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... Then he mastered the trick and stepped back to study the final results. He didn't look bad. Maybe a little gaunt and in need of a good haircut. But his face hadn't aged as much as he had thought. The worst part was the pasty white where his beard had covered his face, but a few days under Meloa's sun would fix ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey
... beast," said Wally, when the shattered forces mastered once more in his study, "but he's a just beast. He gave ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... effected little, and presently fresh Graeco-Macedonian squadrons began to hold it in check. It was, however, the need to ensure command of the sea and free all lines of communication behind him that determined Alexander's plan for the next campaign. If he mastered the whole coast-line of the Levant, the enemy's fleet would find itself left in the air. The Syrian coast was accordingly his immediate objective when he broke up from Gordium for the campaign of 333. He was through the Cicilian Gates before the Persian king, Darius III., had sent up a force adequate ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... an established fact, Thaw and Cowdin, who had mastered the Nieuport, managed to be sent to the Verdun front. While there Cowdin was credited with having brought down a German machine and was proposed for the Medaille Militaire, the highest decoration that can be awarded a ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... But he mastered the language at last, and then his moral mastery over the strange people amongst whom he had been thrown commenced. He found a firm ally in the Queen, who, first attracted by the flavour of the pills and other delicacies ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... stretched tense as harp-strings, were vibrating to a new tune. His blood spun through his veins till his ears roared with the rush of it. Never had he conceived of such savage exultation as that which mastered him at that instant. The knowledge that he could kill filled him with a sense of power that was veritably royal. He felt physically larger. It was the joy of battle, the horrid exhilaration of killing, the animal of the race, the human brute suddenly aroused and dominating every instinct and tradition ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... I—may have the privilege of offering ourselves to God to labour in prayer, and bring down these blessings to this earth. Shall we not beseech God to make all this truth so living in us that we may not rest till it has mastered us, and our whole heart be so filled with it, that the practice of intercession shall be counted by us our highest privilege, and we find in it the sure and only measure for blessing on ourselves, on the ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... held, and the struggle for it had seemed Titanic, albeit only a detail of a rearguard action. There had been guns there that had harried them all the previous day. It had become a matter of necessity to silence those guns. So the effort had been made, a glorious effort crowned with success. They had mastered the garrison, they had silenced the guns; and then, within an hour of their victory, disaster had come upon them. Great numbers of the enemy had swept suddenly upon them, had surrounded them and ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... witnessed since the year 1859. What prodigious accessions to the sum of our common understanding have we seen in the natural and the humane sciences; and what marvelous uses of scientific knowledge for practical purposes have we discovered! We have mastered in these latter days a thousand secrets of nature. We have freed the mind from old ignorance and ancient superstition. We have penetrated the secrets of the body, and can almost conquer death and indefinitely ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... appeared to be the ruling spirit; for youth is a force in itself. For my own part, however, I have always inclined to the belief that it is the quiet member of the family who manages and guides the household from the dim background of social obscurity. And although Madame de Clericy appeared to be mastered by her quick-witted, quick-spoken daughter, it was usually her will and not Lucille's that gained the ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... to speak and to compose speeches which will have an effect upon the courts. And this was only the beginning of their wisdom, but they have at last carried out the pancratiastic art to the very end, and have mastered the only mode of fighting which had been hitherto neglected by them; and now no one dares even to stand up against them: such is their skill in the war of words, that they can refute any proposition ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... along," said Cousin Giles; "we agreed not to spend our time on details till we had mastered the geography of ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... The mother has answered, "Well, my dear, you shall have a half-penny, if you will stay at school." "No, I want to go and play with Billy or Tommy;" and the mother at length has taken the churl home again, and thus fed his vanity and nursed his pride, till he has completely mastered her, so that she has been glad to apply to the school again, and beg that I would take ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... me; he ran a great risk of being shot. The mate turned on O'Carroll with an oath, and the captain snapped his pistol at me, but fortunately he had already discharged it, and in another instant I brought him, as he attempted to grapple with me, to the ground. O'Carroll had mastered the mate, and the other men stood staring at us, but offering no opposition. "Is this the way for men to behave who have just been saved from death, to make yourselves worse than the brute beasts? This—this is the cause of it!" exclaimed O'Carroll, kicking a cask from which a stream of spirit was ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... Vesuvius quickly followed, but all three entered the New Orleans-Natchez trade on the lower river and were never seen again at the headwaters. As yet the swift currents and flood tides of the great river had not been mastered. It is true that in 1815 the Enterprise had made two trips between New Orleans and Louisville, but this was in time of high water, when counter currents and backwaters had assisted her feeble engine. In 1816, however, Henry Shreve conceived the idea of ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... medicines and appliances directed for our patients by my partner and myself. In all cases his caution was extreme and we had no fear of his making mistakes. The ordinary operations of extracting a tooth or breathing a vein when a bumpkin presented himself as a patient, he speedily mastered. The absurd practice of going to be bled on any occasion that might strike the fancy of the party, without the advice of the doctor, was not at that time so completely obsolete as in this advanced age I hope it is, and ought to be. I remember, during ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... experienced the usual privations and vicissitudes attendant on pioneer life. The new country and poverty of his parents prevented his receiving a common English education, and it was not until after he was of age that he mastered Murray's syntax ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... Comedy. And yet, such is its extraordinary distinction, no poem has an intellectual and emotional substance more independent of its metrical form. Its complex structure, its elaborate measure and rhyme, highly artificial as they are, are so mastered by the genius of the poet as to become the most natural expression of the spirit by which the poem is inspired; while at the same time the thought and sentiment embodied in the verse is of such import, and the narrative of ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... fighting of all sorts to be easily daunted, and the places of those who fell were quickly supplied by others who rushed forward to work their guns. Before, however, they could load and fire them, the boats' crews, springing on shore, rushed forward and attacked them, hanger in hand, and quickly mastered ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... and fit his own ax with a handle, grind and swing it properly, as well as cradle, scythe and sickle. They must be able to select good seed grain, boil sap, and cure meat. They must know animals, their diseases and treatment, and when they have mastered all he can teach them, and done each thing properly, they may go for their term at college, and make their choice of a profession. As yet I'm sorry to say but one of them has come back to ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... into Polish, and intended to sell it at home. He convulsed me with his struggles to put cockney English and slang into good Polish, for he had saved up a list of words for me to explain to him. Hay-stack and bean-pot were among them, I remember; and when he had mastered the meanings he fell upon ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... circling around on their strong white wings; as I realise the strength, the force, the liberty, in nature; the growth and progress which accompanies life; I feel I have never really lived. Nothing has ever felt strong, either beneath me, or around me, or against me. Had I once been mastered, and held, and made to do as another willed, I should have felt love was a reality, and life would have become worth living. But I have just dawdled through the years, doing exactly as I pleased; making mistakes, and nobody troubling ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... clutches of a lion. Even when we are alone, and uninfluenced by other people except in so far as we remember their wishes, we yet generally conform to the usages which the current feeling of our peers has taught us to respect; their will having so mastered our original nature, that, do what we may, we can never again separate ourselves and dwell in the isolation of our own single personality. And even though we succeeded in this, and made a clean sweep of every mental influence which ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... deduction. We of the school of science have cautioned you repeatedly to postpone the Day of Conquest until we should have mastered the secrets of sub-rays and of infra-rays. Unheeding, you of war have gone ahead with your plans, while we of science have continued to study. We know a little of the sub-rays, which we use every ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... an inflection and a sweeping glance at me which I found charged with meaning. But I knew well enough that I had for all time mastered a certain measure of her ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... took up a fan and gently fanned Tai-y. But at the sight of the trio plunged in perfect silence, and of one and all sobbing for reasons of their own, grief, much though she did to struggle against it, mastered her feelings too, and producing a handkerchief, she dried the tears that came to her eyes. So there stood four inmates, face to face, uttering not a word and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... gentlemen," said the builder, seriously, "I am sure you will understand that we have mastered a new feature, of great value in submarine boating." The three Navy officers ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... Having mastered the realm of physical law, the youth is thrust into the realm of laws domestic and social. He runs up against his mates and friends, often overstepping his own rights and infringing the rights of others. Then some stronger arm falls on his, and drives him back into his own territory. ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... a soldier, and a brave one; but he was also a man, and at this moment his fears mastered his courage so completely that the cold drops burst out from every pore. The idea of being dragged out of his miserable concealment by wretches, whose trade was that of midnight murder, without weapons or the slightest means of defence, except entreaties, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... him half way, and suggested the word at which he stumbled. He was greatly touched by the account, even in the imperfect manner in which the youth could give it; and there was no doubt that he was a man of enlarged mind and beneficence, who had not only mastered the fifty sciences, but had ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whosoever in spite of Reason are mastered by, that is pursue, any object, though in its nature noble and good; they, for instance, who are more earnest than they should be respecting honour, or their children or parents; not but what these are good objects and men are praised for ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... tea-party in the days of her spinsterhood. She was a pretty, weak little woman, whose education had never gone beyond the routine of a provincial boarding-school, and who believed that she had attained all necessary wisdom in having mastered Pinnock's abridgments of Goldsmith's histories and the rudiments of the French language. She was a woman who thought that the perfection of feminine costume was a moire-antique dress and a conspicuous gold chain. She ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... questions, he replied with brevity. When they lashed themselves into rhetorical fury, he smiled and "sat tight" till the storm was over. He was not a good speaker, and he had no special skill in debate; but he invariably mastered the facts of his case. He neither overstated nor understated, and he was blessed with a shrewd and sarcastic humour which befitted his comfortable aspect, and spoke in his twinkling eyes even when ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... Blackburn's scowl, aware of the impotent rage the latter felt over the worst insult that could be offered an honest cattleman. For an instant he watched Blackburn keenly, his lips sneering; and then when he saw that Blackburn had mastered his ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered with a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and truly, I hold it a sin to ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... to say, "Then you win his heart," but the words would not come, and a loathing hatred of the cold-hearted child who had a property in Raymond so mastered her that she welcomed the interruption, and did not return ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sure to keep it all quiet, let no one know but Father and Joan. You might carelessly tell it to anyone in fun, and I don't wish it to be known. Especially don't let any of the family know. Time enough if I live out my Oxford year, and have really mastered the matter pretty well. Remember this is taken up with a view to elucidate and explain what is so very hard in Hebrew. Hebrew is to be the Hauptsache, this the Hulfsmittel, or some day I hope one of several such helps. It is very important ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Others did not dawn fast enough to suit Malcolm, while the ease with which he mastered the songs of the orchard and reproduced them, in a few days set him begging to be taken to the swamp to hear the bird that sang "from the book." Leslie Winton was added to the party that day. Malcolm came from the land of the tamarack obsessed. James, William, and the tutor did not care for ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... reaction of a particle of the sensorium when stimulated, just as contraction, etc., is the specific reaction of a muscular fibre when stimulated by its nerve. The psychologists make the fools of themselves they do because they have never mastered this elementary fact. But I am not sure whether I have put it well, and I wish you would give your mind to it. As for me I have not had much mind to give lately—a fortnight's spoon-meat reduced me to inanity, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... the matter is that hardly any one has ever yet mastered the fact that the world is round. The world is round—like an orange. The thing is told us—like any old scandal—at school. For all practical purposes we forget it. Practically we all live in a world as flat as ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... should take lessons from a painter and a sculptor. For an actor to represent a Greek hero it is imperative he should have thoroughly studied those antique statues which have lasted to our day, and mastered the particular grace they exhibited in their postures, whether sitting, standing, or walking. Nor should he make attitude his only study. He should highly develop his mind by an assiduous study of the best writers, ancient and modern, which will enable ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... exercises interesting to him. That the transition from home to the school may be easy, he should first occupy himself with those topics and studies that are presented to the eye and to the ear, and may be mastered, so as to produce the sensation that follows achievement with only a moderate use of the reasoning and reflective faculties. Among these are reading, writing, music, and drawing. This is also the time when object lessons ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... vibratory activities that whelmed all irregularities of lesser vibrations in its own swelling tone. He made certain sigils, gestures and movements at the same time. For several minutes he continued to utter these words, until at length the growing volume dominated the whole room and mastered the manifestation of all that opposed it. For just as he understood the spiritual alchemy that can transmute evil forces by raising them into higher channels, so he knew from long study the occult use ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... the English accomplished something decisive. They sent an army to Fort Lawrence, attacked Fort Beausejour, forced its timid commander Vergor to surrender, mastered the whole surrounding country, and obliged Le Loutre himself to fly to Quebec. There he embarked for France. The English captured him on the sea, however, and the relentless and cruel priest spent many years in an English prison. His later years, when he reached France, do ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... the Far West, having mastered its internal resources, the nation turned at the conclusion of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century to deal with the Far East to engage in the world-politics of the Pacific Ocean. Having continued ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... without qualification by the Universal Races Congress at London in 1911 that there is no inherently superior race, therefore no inferior race. From every race some individuals have mastered the same curriculum and passed the same tests, and in some instances members of so-called "uncivilized" races have stood higher than the average "civilized" student; therefore they have the same inherent ability. Certain peoples have remained undeveloped because ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... themselves a part of Fate. But in the fluctuating history of slavery, with its final catastrophe, we seem to be looking at elemental movements; masses of men drifting under impulses, with no leadership adequate to the occasion. The men who seemingly might have mastered the situation, and brought it to a peaceful and right solution, either could not ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... him. He is a murderer. He told me so, when his conscience mastered him. He told me why he feared the hole. He drank of the hot spring, and when he got a bellyache, he thought he was dying. Then he told me that he was one of the hands on the Argonaut, a dozen years ago, and that there was ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... get out at the right station. The fares are very reasonable. The stationmasters are the only visible and tangible members of the Dutch aristocracy. The disposition of one's luggage is very simple when once it has been mastered. The time tables ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... be mastered, but if mastered is not crushed. He questions each moment of his own sufferings, each moment of his people's oncoming doom. He debates with God on matters of justice. He wrestles things out with God and emerges from each wrestle not halt and limping like Jacob of old, but ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... changed in our century. Contrast the state of such labor a century ago with what it is now. Then the handicraftsman worked in his own home, surrounded by his family, upon a task all the processes of which he had mastered, giving him thus a sense of interest and pride in the work being well and thoroughly done. Now he leaves his home early and returns to it late, working during the day in a huge factory with several hundred other men. The subdivision ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... in a high voice. "By God, it makes no difference—only one thing." He paused. Then with a wrench he went on, "Alves, did you—did you—" But he could not make himself utter the words, and before he had mastered his hesitation ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... that quotation condensed is this: that this slavery element is a durable element of discord among us, and that we shall probably not have perfect peace in this country with it until it either masters the free principle in our government, or is so far mastered by the free principle as for the public mind to rest in the belief that it is going to its end. This sentiment, which I now express in this way, was, at no great distance of time, perhaps in different language, and in connection with some collateral ideas, expressed by Governor Seward. Judge Douglas ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... it over again, and understood that if the King recommended me to be firm, it was because he needed to be firm himself. I soon mastered my emotion, and looked at things in their real light. It was easy to see that sanctimonious fanatics had forced the King to act. Bossuet was not sanctimonious, but, to serve his own ends, proffered himself as spokesman and emissary, being anxious ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... one does for himself, and in which instruction and tuition can only point the way, encourage the student to advance, and remove obstacles; vigorous, persevering study is one of the best elements of training. Study is also used in the sense of the thing studied, a subject to be mastered by study, a studious pursuit. Compare KNOWLEDGE; ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... and to thank you for being so beautiful. And if it doesn't displease you, Kamala, I would like to ask you to be my friend and teacher, for I know nothing yet of that art which you have mastered in the ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... woman, certainly. You are the victim of some fiendish counterplot by the man, who has not quite mastered what the woman is driving at. By placing you in dire peril he compels the woman to speak to save you, and ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... in the midst of the ambassador's discourse; but then, mindful of the rules of etiquette, he mastered himself, still listening, however, with ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to the mastering of that one accomplishment. But here is where her cleverness showed most. It was not that she really did everything, and did it perfectly. It was that she never attempted anything which she had not mastered. For example, she never played whist, because she had no memory, no finesse, and because she played games of chance so much better. She could never settle herself down to a multitude of details, but she could plan and execute a coup of such brilliancy that it would make your ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... altogether thoroughly approved of being a signaller. Often there was work to be done, in daylight by semaphore arms, or international flag code; and at night by morse lamps, carefully shaded. Mac fumbled about and fell over himself at times before he mastered the mysteries of flag signals—the knots, the halyards ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... place, bar accidents, with wonderful speed: but that is about all he is good for. His health as a whole is so surprisingly feeble that he has to be treated with as much care as a delicate exotic. 'In regard to animals and plants,' says Sir George Campbell, 'we have very largely mastered the principles of heredity and culture, and the modes by which good qualities may be maximised, bad qualities minimised.' True, so far as concerns a few points prized by ourselves for our own purposes. ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... should better understand the difficulties of drawing for publishers if I first mastered the technical art of reproduction, with the assistance of the engraver aforesaid I rapidly acquired sufficient dexterity with the tools to engrave my own drawings, and this I continued to do until I left ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... governing. There are several lusts in the soul that cannot be mastered, if hope be not in exercise-especially if the soul be in great and sore trials. There is peevishness and impatience, there is fear and despair, there is doubting and misconstruing of God's present ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... the cripple came to the sick man, and received his first lesson; and every day, at an appointed hour, he was in Mr. Croft's room, eager for the instruction he received. Quickly he mastered the alphabet, and as quickly learned to construct small words, preparatory to combining them ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... soon appraised of the subject of their conversation, as, calling to Sola, Tars Tarkas signed for her to send me to him. I had by this time mastered the intricacies of walking under Martian conditions, and quickly responding to his command I advanced to the side of the incubator where ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... IDEA OF THE SUBJECT.—Strip off the detail and get down to the root of the thing. See the really important point. Then, after this has been clearly perceived and mastered, arrange the details in their proper relations to the fundamentals. The subject will thus have a skeleton, and upon this the details will be placed. A subject of study thus viewed may be compared to the human body, with its bony skeleton ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain
... life of the person being the soil in which they flourish. But Desires understood, and set off from the Real Man, are akin to baked-seeds—they have been subjected to the heat of spiritual wisdom and are thus robbed of their vitality, and are unable to bear fruit. In this way the understood and mastered Desire bears no Karmic ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... the subjects for the London matriculation were quite new to me, especially "English." But with the fresh incentive and new vision of responsibility I set to work with a will, and soon had mastered the ten required subjects sufficiently to pass the examination with credit. But I must say here that Professor Huxley's criticisms of English public school teaching of that period were none too stringent. I wish with all my heart that others had spoken out as ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... twinkling, and by a single blow, had wrecked her plans, duped her allies, betrayed her brother, made her name a laughing-stock, robbed Ireland of a last chance of freedom! who had held her in his arms, terrified her, mastered her! Oh, why had she swooned? Why had she not rather, disregarding her womanish weakness, her womanish fears, snatched the knife from him and plunged it into his treacherous breast? ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... the love of such a man. She admitted that the girl was extremely fascinating, and had seemed to Valeria to have the faults of an impetuous rather than of a bad nature. She cherished that singular desire of many strong-willed women, to be ruled and mastered by the man she loved, and she had entirely failed to understand her husband's attitude towards her. She resented it as a sign of indifference. She was like the Chinese wives, who complain bitterly of a husband's neglect when he omits to beat them. She taunted ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... is welcome to the hall As the hang-bird is to the elm-tree bough; No longer scowl the turrets tall. The summer's long siege at last is o'er: When the first poor outcast went in at the door, She entered with him in disguise, And mastered the fortress by surprise; There is no spot she loves so well on ground; She lingers and smiles there the whole year round; The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land Has hall and bower at his command; And there's no poor man in the North Countree ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... already know, akin to our own thought and familiar to our ear; and how, finally, in his annotations, he seeks to explain and to obviate many a detail which might remain obscure, rouse doubt, and be offensive. Through this triple endeavor one can see clearly that he first has mastered his subject, and then he also takes the most praiseworthy pains to put us in a position in which his insight can be communicated to us, that we also may share ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... contrary, Dickens seems to have attained the mastery of powers which formerly more or less mastered him. He has fairly discovered that he cannot, like Thackeray, narrate a story as if he were a mere looker-on, a mere "knowing" observer of what he describes and represents; and he has therefore taken observation simply as the basis of his plot and his characterization. As we read "Vanity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... brother, who is pleased to say, I am no dunce: how inexcusable should I be, if I was, with such a master, who teaches me on his knee, and rewards me with a kiss whenever I do well, and says, I have already nearly mastered the accent and pronunciation, which he tells me is a ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... and he think a woman's doubts so vague and shallow as to be always mastered by a ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... him in amazement, I hesitated to comply; but, seeing he was in earnest, crossed to Mary Leavenworth and sat down by her side. She was weeping, but in a slow, unconscious way, as if grief had been mastered by fear. The fear was too undisguised and the grief too natural for me to ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... love and hatred he felt for Lysia stole over him more strongly than ever in the sultry air of this strange night, . . this night of sweet delirium, in which all that was most dangerous and erring in his nature woke into life and mastered his better will! A curious, instinctive knowledge swept across his mind,—namely THAT SAH- LUMA'S EMOTIONS WERE THE FAITHFUL REFLEX OF HIS OWN,—but as he had felt no anger against his rival in fame, so now he had no jealousy ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... people. It is no one's fault, just because it is every one's fault—the fault of the system. But it is not the will of God; and therefore the existence of such an evil is proof patent and sufficient that we have not yet discovered the whole will of God about this matter; that we have not yet mastered the laws of true political economy, which (like all other natural laws) are that will of God revealed in facts. Our processes are hasty, imperfect, barbaric—and their result is vast and rapid production: but also waste, refuse, in the shape ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... agility in escape. The boys learned to shoot accurately the long rifles of their time, with a log or a forked stick for a rest, and a moss pad under the barrel to keep it from jerking and spoiling the aim. They wrestled with each other, mastered the tricks of throwing an opponent, and learned the scalp hold instead of the toe hold. It was part of their education to imitate the noises of every bird and beast of the forest. So they learned to lure ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... printer in his native Boston, at thirteen; a journeyman in Philadelphia at seventeen; working at the case in London at nineteen; back to the Quaker City, and set up for himself at twenty-six; he had long since mastered all the details of a great business, prepared to put his hand to any thing, from the trundling of paper through the streets on a wheel-barrow to the writing of editorials and pamphlets, and had earned for himself a position as the ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... blow the battle ceases. Alexander leaps at the Count and holds him so that he cannot move. Of the others nothing need be said, for they were easily mastered when they saw the capture of their lord. All are made prisoners with the Count and led away in disgrace, in accordance with their deserts. Of all this the men outside knew nothing. But when morning came they found their companions shields lying among the slain when the battle was over. ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes |
