"Masterly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when it was read through. "If ink was a shilling a drop, you couldn't have been more chary of it. There's not an 'a', 'an', or 'the' throughout, nor a comma, nor an adjective, and the contractions are masterly. We're all born commercial clerks, ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... new, but the idea which it embodies, though it at first existed rather as a nice poetic instinct than as a scientifically based thought, is at least as old as the times of Herder and Coleridge. In a passage quoted from the former writer by Dr. M'Cosh, in his very masterly work on typical forms, I find the profound German remarking of the strange resemblances which pervade all nature, and impart a general unity to its forms, that it would seem "as if on all our earth the form-abounding ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... Mr. Ratcliffe. I am glad to have a chance of telling you how much I was impressed by it. It seemed to me masterly. Do you not find that it has ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... to that man were a note to the Safe Deposit people and the key of the safe. Now we know that's not so, because no one ever brought any letter to the Safe Deposit people and nobody's ever opened the safe. Halfpenny, too, believed, during the period of the police officials' masterly silence, that that man had put himself in communication with them. Now we know that the police have never heard anything whatever of him, have never traced him. I'm convinced that if we could unearth that man we should learn something. But how to do ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... musical development which took place during the eighteenth century. The blossoming of music was so manifold, so diversified, so irrepressible in every direction, that there was not one single province of it, wherein new and masterly creations were not brought out. The central figures of this period were those of the two Colossi, Bach and Haendel; after them Haydn, the master of genial proportion and taste; Mozart, the melodist of ineffable sweetness, and ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... too soon yet to tell her everything that was in his heart, he reasoned. All could be lost by one false step. So, with his masterly self-control, he resisted all temptation to fold her in his arms, ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... new writers are so good to old women. No story to excite our poor nerves; no improper characters to cheat us out of our sympathies, no dramatic situations to frighten us; exquisite management of details (as the reviews say), and a masterly anatomy of human motives which—I know what I mean, my dear, ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... Unfortunately Lincoln's attitude of masterly inactivity could not be kept up for so long, for a problem, bequeathed him by his predecessor, pressed upon him, demanding action, just where action might, as he well knew, mean a match dropped in the heart of a powder-magazine. ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... instinct with tragedy and thus in his hands assume this grandeur without effort. The power of sheer style to ennoble is better seen in Sully Prudhomme's tours de force of philosophic poetry—when he unfolds his ideas upon 'Justice' or 'Happiness', for instance, under the form of a debate where masterly resources of phrase and image are compelled to the service of a rigorous logic; or in the brief cameo-like pieces on 'Memory', 'Habit', 'Forms', and similar unpromising abstractions, most nearly paralleled in English by the quatrains of ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... the adventure; he has examined the causes and the consequences of the prevailing unrest; he has collected ample evidence, and he has consulted all the best authorities, Indian and European, on the subject. His masterly analysis of all this material shows wide acquaintance with the facts, and rare insight into the character and motives, the aims and methods, of those who are engaged in stirring up the spirit of revolt against the British Government. He has pointed to ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... OF AIR, Sixth Edition. 'A graceful, vivacious comedy, true to human nature. The characters are traced with a masterly hand.'—Times. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... amply sufficient of itself to stamp the writer as a powerful man. The startling schemes and plots which preceded the overthrow of the great Roman Republic, afford ample scope for his well-practised pen, and we may add he has not only been fortunate in producing a work of such masterly pretensions, but Mr. Herbert is equally so in the good taste, energy, and tact of his enterprising publisher. The book is admirably brought out, and altogether may be set down as one of Peterson's 'great hits' ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... the four as they are here presented, with some subsequent remarks on the Miscellanies here selected. And, indeed, it is not fanciful to perceive in each book a somewhat different presentment of the author's genius; though in no one of the four is any one of his masterly qualities absent. There is tenderness even in Jonathan Wild; there are touches in Joseph Andrews of that irony of the Preacher, the last echo of which is heard amid the kindly resignation of the Journey to Lisbon, in the sentence, "Whereas envy of ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... fainting vegetation. I borrowed Mr. Tiltman's hose because it was the best and longest in the neighborhood and was provided with a patent nozzle which was so versatile that there was actually no detail in its business which it did not perform in a most masterly way. I shall never forget the feeling of exultation with which I stood on that expansive lawn and sprayed the parched grass and drooping shrubbery. I fancied I could see the thirsty blades and leaves reach up to drink ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... the corner bears date 1535, to which year the figures of Justice and Charity may be assigned. The other figures are Prudence and Temperance, the latter of which resembles Strength in character. The remaining subject, a Pieta, is like Charity and Justice, and is masterly. Three spaces are empty. The doge's seat, until the fall of the Republic, was on the right of the principal entrance to the choir, as Sansovino says. It had on its back a figure of Justice, now in the Museo Civico. He also says that ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... Pennsylvania Hospital, of Philadelphia, which since its foundation in 1751 has pursued a career much like our own, treating mental cases in the general hospital from the very beginning, and since 1841 maintaining a separate department for mental diseases in West Philadelphia. Dr. Owen Copp, the masterly physician-in-chief and administrator of that department, was to have been here, but unfortunately has been detained. Our morning exercises having come to an end, Dr. Russell asks me to say that your inspection of ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... time any soldier who found his wife unfaithful, as we call it, could shoot her with impunity and receive the plaudits and possibly a presentation from the populace, though he himself may not have been impeccable while away—a masterly method of securing a divorce. But, as I told you, our procedure has changed since then; and even soldiers now have to go to ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... necessary to these council officials, and which found no place in the lectures on law, were formed into a special body of doctrine. After such men as Morhof and Thomasius had prepared the way,(148) Frederick William I., himself a clever cameralist, and author of the masterly financial system of Prussia, took the important step of founding, at Halle and Frankfurt on the Oder, special chairs of economy and cameralistic science; which, considering the time, were very ably filled by Gasser and Dithmar. (1727.) ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... employs a special medium, obeying the laws of beauty proper to that medium. The vehicles of the arts, roughly speaking, are material substances (like stone, wood, metal), pigments, sounds, and words. The masterly handling of these vehicles and the realisation of their characteristic types of beauty have come to be regarded as the craftsman's paramount concern. And in a certain sense this is a right conclusion; for dexterity in the manipulation of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Hamlet) and the Jesus insulte followed, and then came the Gitanos, L'Enfant a l'Epee, and the portrait of Mme. Manet. This series of works is admirable. It is here where he reveals himself as a splendid colourist, whose design is as vigorous as the technique is masterly. In these works one does not think of looking for anything but the witchery of technical strength; and the abundant wealth of his temperament is simply dazzling. Manet reveals himself as the direct heir of the great Spaniards, more interesting, more spontaneous, ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... rose at her entrance into the darkened drawing-room changed that plan, too—changed it all so utterly, and so much for the better, that he almost smiled to think of the crudity of human combinations and inventions as compared to the masterly machinations of Fate. No need for him to complicate matters when here were pawns enough to play the game for him. No need for him to do anything except give them their initial velocity and let them tumble into one another ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... the very best cliches (my own and others)—"supersubtle analysis," "intimate psychology," "masterly handling," "incomparable artistry"—I found nothing that it didn't seem a sort of impertinence to apply to JOSEPH CONRAD's Chance, which METHUEN has just had the good luck to publish. For the whole thing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... and Delilah get along very well together. Grace has always made a study of clothes, because it is the only way in which she can find an outlet for her artistic tastes. And she is interested in Delilah's methods. She says that they are masterly. ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... more stead, as the horse of Bois-Guilbert was wounded and those of Front-de-Boe and Athelstane were both tired with the weight of their gigantic masters, clad in complete armor, and with the preceding exertions of the day. The masterly horsemanship of the Disinherited Knight, and the activity of the noble animal which he mounted, enabled him for a few minutes to keep at sword's point his three antagonists, turning and wheeling with the agility of a hawk upon the wing, keeping his enemies as far separate as he ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... evidently turned in eager expectancy upon the folds which the hands are clasping, in the hope that the roving tormentor has at last been captured. "What an astonishing freak of genius!" exclaimed Mr. Larned. "For genius it certainly is. The color and the drawing of the figure are simply masterly, and the entire tone of the picture is wonderfully rich; indeed, for a water-color, it is quite marvellous. This is one of Fortuny's celebrated pictures, but how the 'Ecole des Beaux Arts' would in the ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... surrounded by the most expensive city in Europe. When he had left them in Venice it was with an irrepressible suspicion that something was going to happen; but the only thing that could have taken place was again their masterly retreat. "How is he? where is he?" he asked of Mrs. Moreen; but before she could speak these questions were answered by the pressure round hid neck of a pair of arms, in shrunken sleeves, which still were perfectly capable of an ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... a perfect resemblance of Johnson is not to be found in any age, parts of his character are admirably expressed by Clarendon in drawing that of Lord Falkland, whom the noble and masterly historian describes at his seat near Oxford;—'Such an immenseness of wit, such a solidity of judgement, so infinite a fancy, bound in by a most logical ratiocination.—His acquaintance was cultivated by the most polite and accurate men, so that his house was an University in less volume, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... combination of images is so masterly, that it is sufficient to set this poem above censure; and, therefore, it is not necessary to mention many other delicate touches which may be found in it, and which would deservedly be admired in any ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... hand and voice carried consolation wherever she went. Many a scene have I witnessed there more affecting than any tragedy, in which I knew not which most to admire, the heroism of the sufferers or the tender humanity of the consoler and nurse. In all her arrangements she showed that masterly administrative faculty in which women are far superior to men. When she came to the Pellegrini, all was in disorder; but a few days sufficed to reduce a chaotic confusion to exact and admirable system. Hers was the brain that regulated all the hospitals. Always ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Italian, classic and modern, which are relative and not absolute, it is instructive to note the great likeness between these two epochs. The limits of their culture will stand out more clearly, if, by the aid of Helbig's researches and Burckhardt's masterly account of the Renaissance, we range the chief points of ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... reproduction of voluminous manuscript authorities, distant travel, the purchase of rare books and family papers, and sometimes years of busy reference, observation, and study, lucrative only in prospect. The same amount of culture and facile vigor of composition which less prosperous authors expend on a masterly review would suffice to make them famous historians, if blessed with the pecuniary means to seek foreign sources of information, or gather about them scattered and rare materials wherewith to weave a chronicle of the past. Hence, not only has History become the chosen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... were, and some even now are, masterly rhetoricians. The bent of the race was always strongly to controversy and discussion. Their ignorance of any description of writing made them cultivate debate. Their complacent indifference to time made deliberative assembly a prolonged, never-wearying joy. The chiefs met in council like ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... for an instant a school-masterly touch in Captain Hahn. "You see? They've got him; not a hitch anywhere. Organization, method, foresight; ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... little man, "very much so indeed. We have opened all the public-houses in the place, and left our adversary nothing but the beer-shops—masterly stroke of policy ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... lives of these women of such extraordinary mentality runs a marked trail of unsatisfied craving for a full, rounded, complete, and beautiful life, and the unrest and loneliness resulting from the lack of it. Through these masterly psychological sketches, one cannot help but see that the higher the mental development of woman, the less possible it is for her to meet a congenial mate who will see in her, not only sex, but also the human being, the friend, the comrade and strong individuality, who cannot and ought not lose ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... other indeed than he who had thrown the hat in, and not fetched it out for a shilling, thus menaced with discovery made use of a masterly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... colour would help him out. Here part of the red is toned down by a beautiful soft tint, which makes the whole figure blend harmoniously with the greyish-green of the others. This man in red, too, has been treated in the same masterly manner of which I spoke above. If one looks at him attentively, it seems as if the man, who apparently might step out of the canvas at any rate, had been painted with one powerful sweep of the brush. How firm is the treatment of the hand loading the gun; how true the shadows on the red hat and ...
— Rembrandt • Josef Israels
... Challoner's hard-gotten millions, the heiress, too, it was evident, of his attitude toward the world, the flesh and the devil; Peter Challoner, by profession banker and captain of industry, a man whose name was remembered the breadth of the land for his masterly manipulation of a continental railroad which eventually came under his control; an organizer of trusts, a patron saint of political lobbyists, a product of the worst and of the best of modern business! This girl ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... it himself, then begins anew with fresh vigor; for all the spirits he is driving before him as Fata Morgana,[18] ugly masks, in fact, if he can but make them turn about; but he laughs that they seem to others such dainty Ariels. His talk, like his books, is full of pictures; his critical strokes masterly. Allow for his point of view, and his survey is admirable. He is a large subject. I can not speak more or wiselier of him now, nor needs it; his works are true, to blame and praise him—the Siegfried ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... which were associated with the two crimes which I have already recorded, still, the nature of the case and the exalted station of his client gave it a character of its own. Indeed, apart from the nature of the investigation which my friend had on hand, there was something in his masterly grasp of a situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning, which made it a pleasure to me to study his system of work, and to follow the quick, subtle methods by which he disentangled the most inextricable mysteries. So accustomed was ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... answered the master of the place, as he took the rapier from Tom; and the next minute the youth from the country stood in silent admiration and amaze, whilst the two blades crossed and flashed, and twined and clashed, with a precision and masterly deftness which aroused his keen delight and envy. To become a proficient like that would be something worth living for; and his quick eyes studied the movements and methods of the two adversaries, till he felt he had begun to have some little ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... will put an end to her masterly inactivity." Lloyd chuckled so vindictively that Symonds ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... British Government fell the effect on the Allied cause would be bad, and might be extremely bad. But that's not the real explanation. The real explanation is that no one wants the Government to fall because no one wants to step into the Government's shoes. However, thanks to Tranto's masterly presence of mind in afflicting Sampson with a disease that kills like prussic acid, the Government can no longer give Sampson a title, and the danger to the ...
— The Title - A Comedy in Three Acts • Arnold Bennett
... delicate field that it seemed the help of no one hand or heart could be spared. We felt that we had them all; from the palace of the Sultan to beloved Robert College, from the American Legation to the busy rooms of the American Board, with its masterly treasurer, Peet, were the same outstretched hands of protection and care for our ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... a flat at least by a flattening refusal; nor is it seldom that the "argumentum fistycuffum" resorted to on such occasions. I have more than once seen a disagreeable lover receive, from that fair hand which he sought, so masterly a blow, that a bleeding nose rewarded his ambition, and silenced for ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... attentively to the evidence, and have perceived that the weight of it, the overwhelming weight of it, is in favor of the plaintiff Hyde. I have listened also to the remarks of counsel, with high interest—and especially will I commend the masterly and irrefutable logic of the distinguished gentleman who represents the plaintiff. But gentlemen, let us beware how we allow mere human testimony, human ingenuity in argument and human ideas of equity, to influence ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... useful life death is a multiplication instead of subtraction, and the tombstone, instead of being the goal of the race, is only the starting point. What means this rising up of all good men, with hats off, in reverence to one who never wielded a sword or delivered masterly oration or stood in senatorial place? Neither general, nor lord, nor governor, nor President. The LL. D., which a university bestowed, did not stick to him. The word mister, as a prefix, or the word esquire, as a suffix, seemed a superfluity. He was, in all Christendom, plain Peter Cooper. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... historical analysis of nationality in the nineteenth century. The conclusion reached is that "the theory of nationality is more absurd and more criminal than the theory of socialism," but though the summing up is unfavourable, the whole essay is a masterly exposition of the national idea by one of the greatest of historical students. It forms a very ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... Challoner and her three daughters had sustained severe losses, and the three girls, instead of losing courage, had put their shoulders to the wheel, and had actually set up as dressmakers at Hadleigh, carrying on their business in a most masterly fashion, until the unexpected return of their relative, Sir Harry Challoner, from Australia, with plenty of money at his disposal, broke up the dressmaking business, and ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... ancient burthen had been taken off the Republic by the masterly policy of the Advocate. A great source of dread for foreign complication ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... course he was a little staggered; and, probably, his own notion at this moment is, that he would rather never see your face again, than dream of such a thing. Ma, ci vuol pazienza! My notion is, that you will have him nibbling at the hook again before long. That little hint about the nephew was masterly. Depend upon it ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... their theories by reason and by fact. There is no better illustration of his painstaking investigation than his writing 250 constitutional histories as the foundation of his work on "Politics." In this masterly work will be found an exposition of political theories and practice worthy the attention of all modern political philosophers. The service given by Aristotle to the learning of the Middle Ages, and, in fact, to modern ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... impeachment. Many metaphysical niceties are handing about in conversation, to show that it cannot be sustained. To show the contrary, it is evident, must be the task of the republicans, or of nobody. Monroe's book is considered as masterly by all those who are not opposed in principle, and it is deemed unanswerable. An answer, however, is commenced in Fenno's paper of yesterday, under the signature of Scipio. The real author not yet conjectured. As I take these papers merely to preserve them, I will forward them to you, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... him as poet for the Yorktown Centennial, 1881, and his "brilliant and masterly poem was a fitting companion piece to the splendid oration delivered upon that occasion by the renowned orator, ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... quarterback on the Andover team, seemed fairly inspired as he urged his team on. Eddie Holt was called upon time and again. He was making strong advances, aided by French, Hine and Porter. Together they worked out a touchdown. But Lawrenceville rallied and for the rest of the game their teamwork was masterly. Bat Geer, who was later a Princeton Varsity player, Charlie de Saulles and Billy Dibble, each scored touchdowns, making three altogether ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... had to do with the Battle of Waterloo," said "Old Thack," forty years after. But you will never believe it after reading those masterly touches concerning the battle, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... dealt with the subject. These works are not available now, and we cannot say how much of what Jaimini has written is his original work and how much of it borrowed. But it may be said with some degree of confidence that it was deemed so masterly a work at least of one school that it has survived all other attempts that were made before him. Jaimini's Mima@msa sutras were probably written about 200 B.C. and are now the ground work of the Mima@msa system. Commentaries were written on it by various persons such as ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... Saturday till Monday, having been at the Grove on Friday. George Villiers at the Grove showed me a Dublin paper with an attack on Stanley's proclamation, and also a character of Plunket drawn with great severity and by a masterly hand; it is supposed to be by Baron Smith, a judge who is very able, but fanciful and disaffected. He will never suffer any but policemen or soldiers to be hanged of those whom he tries. George Villiers came from Hatfield, where ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... of Balgowan, a descendant of the Marquis of Montrose and of Graham of Claverhouse. The youngest sister, Louisa, later became Countess of Mansfield, and her portrait, by Romney,—a seated profile figure with flowing draperies,—is that artist's most masterly work. ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... few hasty remarks without expressing a wish that one of your correspondents in particular would take up this subject, to handle which in a masterly manner, his position is a guaranty of his ability. I refer to the gentleman holding the office of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... long war, with its various campaigns, has become familiar to the world's readers through the masterly account of Caesar himself, known to "every schoolboy" who advances to the dignity of classical studies. In the end the country between the Pyrenees and the Rhine was subjugated, and for several centuries ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... of child-purity with the same delicate but masterly hand shown in Dr. Allen's other writings."—Union Signal of July ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... and these traits of his character have given rise to a number of rather inconsequential stories. He was a most excellent conductor of orchestra, and Doctor Burney mentions having heard him lead a band in such a bold and masterly manner as he had never before witnessed. Soon after leaving London Veracini was shipwrecked, and lost his two Stainer violins, which he stated were the best in the world. These instruments he named St. Peter and ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... 48th Bengal Native Infantry, and her Majesty's 13th Light Infantry, under Brigadier Sale. I ordered forward three troops of horse artillery, the camel battery, and one foot battery, to open upon the citadel and fortress, by throwing shrapnel shells, which was done in a masterly style under the direction of Brigadier Stephenson. My object in this was to make the enemy shew their strength in guns, and in other respects, which completely succeeded, and our shells must have done great execution, and occasioned great consternation. Being perfectly satisfied on the point of ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... that there was plenty of time for the encounter to progress, with Aleck still calm and cool, warding off the blows struck at him most skilfully, and mastering his desire to retaliate when he could have delivered others with masterly effect. ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... most part, and treated in a masterly but quite peculiar style. The skies were sombre, the foregrounds singularly elaborate, the color stern and forcible. Angry sunsets barred by lines of purple cirrus stratus; sweeps of desolate heath bounded by jagged peaks; steep mountain passes crimson with faded ferns and half-obscured ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... and weeding, and reaping the rice, barley, and other crops. They do most of the digging where that is necessary, the men confining themselves to ploughing and wood-cutting. At the latter employment they are most expert; they use the axe in the most masterly manner, but their mode of cutting is fearfully wasteful; they always leave some three feet of the best part of the wood in the ground, very rarely cutting a tree close down to the root. Many of them are good charcoal-burners, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... own production. In this, he addressed the author under the title of your lordship with such solemnity, that the public swallowed the deceit, and bought up the whole impression. The wise politicians of the metropolis declared they were both masterly performances, and chuckled over the flimsy reveries of an ignorant garretteer, as the profound speculations of a veteran statesman, acquainted with all the secrets of the cabinet. The imposture was detected in the sequel, and our Hibernian pamphleteer retains ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... and his passion, which was now as violent as it was wicked, soon drove him to conceive desperate measures. But, by masterly self-government, he kept them two days to his own bosom. He felt it was too soon to raise a fresh and painful discussion with Zoe. He must let her drink unmixed delight, and get a taste for it; and then show her on what conditions alone it ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Gibbons' tune called 'Angels.' The original is a most ingenious combination of rhythms; and its masterly beauty could not be guessed from the inane form into which it is degraded in Hymns Ancient and ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... color and individuality, this story of true love cannot fail to attract and hold to its happy end the reader's eager attention. The word pictures are masterly; while the poise of narrative and description ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... would arouse protests which might injure our cause. I, being no orator, had only my poor written speech, which, as I could not alter it, became dangerous. It was necessary to prepare the ground. Destree mounted the platform and, in a masterly improvisation, began by establishing a long, patient and scholarly parallel between Flemish and Italian art, between the great painters of Florence and Venice and those of Flanders and Brabant; and thence, by imperceptible degrees, he shifted ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... on the pianoforte with four-years-old fingers, and composing an opera at the age of eight; Theresa Milanollo, playing the violin at four years, with such eminent skill that Baillot said she must have played it before she was born; Rembrandt, drawing with masterly power before he could read." The same authority says, in reference to the fact that some of these prodigies do not become famous in their after years, and that their genius often seems to flicker out, leaving them as ordinary children: "That is easily understood. They come ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... least three stories of the supernatural told with the elan and consummate simplicity that exceeds art, and they will be charmed with the ingenuousness of the writer when she writes about herself, and her masterly little sketches by the way of such characters of the time as Sir Kenelm Digby and Lord Goring, son of the Earl of Norwich. Indeed, we venture to think they cannot fail to find the whole book delightful, because, though relating ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... (with a playful allusion to democratic principles) to scramble into the first Brown conveyance in the line, instead of waiting till the cold-and-gin congested nose of one's own coachman gleamed under the portico of the Academy. It was one of the great livery-stableman's most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... superiority of the Modern School). Now here, Uncle, look at this. Look at the way the figure looms out of the canvas, look at the learning in the simple sweep of the drapery, the drawing of it, and the masterly grace of the pose—you don't mean to tell me you don't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... had been spoken of contemptuously by the Abbe le Blanc. But the first is assuredly Roubillac, whose monument to Mrs. Nightingale, however, belongs to a later date than the Etat des Arts, though he had already achieved the masterly figure of Eloquence on the Argyll monument. The only other sculptor referred to by Rouquet is Gabriel Cibber, whose statues of Madness and Melancholy, long at Bedlam, and now at South Kensington, certainly deserve his praise. But Cibber died in 1700, and belongs to the Caroline epoch. ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... southwest collect his routed forces, checked but not conquered; he again advances on his recreant foe and seizes the vacant throne without a struggle. Ill-fated northeast! hadst thou but ruled with moderation when thou hadst gained, with masterly manoeuvre, the throne of the air; hadst thou reserved thy forces against surprise, and not, with prodigal profuseness, lavished them on thy harmless subjects, thou hadst still been monarch of the sea and air; all ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... you wish, without books, without rules, to fish successfully, to the left or to the right, up or down stream, in the masterly manner that halts at no difficulty, then fish before, during and after a storm, when the clouds break and the sky is streaked with lightning, when the earth shakes with the grumbling thunder; it is then that, either through hunger or terror, all the fish forget ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Lives of Milton have been written since, based on these materials and those collected from a few other sources. The most famous and in some ways the best, in spite of its unfairness, is that of Johnson, to be found in his Lives of the Poets. The best short modern Life is Mark Pattison's masterly, though occasionally wilful, little book in the English Men of letters Series. For the library and for students all other biographies have been superseded by the great work of David Masson, who spared no labours to investigate every smallest detail of the life of Milton and to place the whole ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... elegant and pure, original and animated, rising sometimes to the height of the noblest thoughts, gay and grave, pointed and serious. Avoiding, by richness in turns and expression, the uniformity native to the subject, La Bruyere riveted attention by a succession of touches making a masterly picture, a terrible one sometimes, as in his description of the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a beautiful specimen of silver-work, eighteen inches long, with a group of silver figures on it representing Religion, with the Bible in her hand, giving liberty to the slave. The slave is a masterly piece of work. He stands with his hands clasped, looking up to Heaven, while a white man is knocking the shackles from his feet. But the prettiest part of the scene was the presentation of a gold ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... questions, explained and exhibited the contents of the Museum. All showed the excellent results of out-door and laboratory work. They have learned to see. The visitors in the grammar room noted with especial pleasure a masterly explanation of cube root by means of blocks and figures that ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 3, September, 1898 • Various
... heart filled with hope, Fillmore Flagg began the recital of the story he had given to George Gaylord on the terrace bench. With frequent glances of encouragement from Fern Fenwick, his inspiration and eloquence grew upon him. He gave a masterly statement of the work, his preparation, hopes and plans. Delighted beyond measure with the undisguised appreciation and approval of this charming woman, whose very destiny in the vista of a coming future, seemed to him ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... of a masterly simplicity, and Sir Tancred had been sure that the child would not be forthcoming till the reward satisfied the cupidity of the child-stealers. He had reason to believe that the present reward did satisfy the cupidity of the child-stealers; ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... Satow's masterly essay, 'The Revival of Pure Shinto,' published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. By 'gods' are not necessarily meant beneficent Kami. Shinto has no devils; but it has its 'bad gods' as well ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... iv Chap. 7, p. 351, both for a masterly confutation of the Paleyo-Grotian evidences of the Gospel, and a decisive proof in what light that system was regarded by the Church of England in its best age. Like Grotius himself, it is half ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... the Swiss constitution, when placed side by side with our own, at first shows certain decided short-comings. The Constitution of the United States is an eminently logical, well-balanced document, in which a masterly distinction is made between the executive, legislative, and judicial functions of government, and between matters which belong by nature to organic law, and those which may safely be left to the statute law. In the Swiss constitution, however, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... between Turks and Germans, but we must not, I am afraid, build very high hopes on it, for Germany has dealt with the situation in a masterly manner. Jemal was already Minister of Marine as well as commander of the Syrian army, so the Emperor asked him to pay another visit to Berlin, and he has been visiting Krupp's works and German naval yards, and we shall ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... to utter it. The latter part of the evening, however, he paid us for this, by a series of sketches, in his finest style of railing and raillery, of modern French literature, not one of them, perhaps, perfectly just, but all drawn with the finest, boldest strokes, and, from his point of view, masterly. All were depreciating, except that of Beranger. Of him he spoke with perfect ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... return; for that sort of work is a hard task to me. If you will excuse the shortness of my first contribution-and I know I can promise nothing more for July—I will endeavour a longer article for our next. Will you permit me to say that I think Leigh Hunt would do the article you propose in a masterly manner, if he has not outwrit himself already upon the subject. I do not return the proof—to save postage—because it is correct, with ONE EXCEPTION. In the stanza from Wordsworth, you have changed DAY into ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... white I mean, of course, that excess or absence of pure color which when translated into pure black and white would express the meaning of the subject-matter, as one of Raphael Morghen's engravings on steel gives you the feeling and color in his masterly rendering of ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... Viewed as a whole, this collection is generally called 'The Book of the Rose,' but at times 'En Irrande Hind' (A Stray Deer). Of this, the two dramas, 'Signora Luna' and 'Ramido Marinesco,' contain some of the pearls of Swedish literature. Uneven in the plan and execution, they are yet masterly in dialogue, and their dramatic and tragic force is great. Almquist's imagination showed itself as individual as it is fantastic. Coming from a man hitherto known as the writer of text-books and the advocate of popular social ideas, the volumes ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... venture upon the errand of mercy—then Timmie Lovejoy, the dramatic opportunity having come, would, with proper regard for his own importance, make the astounding revelation. It would be quite thrilling (he thought); moreover, it would be a masterly joke on his father, who took vast ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... picture: the workman, with his superb hand, brown and sinewy, yet elegant and shapely as a duchess's, and the fingers almost as taper, and his black eye that glowed like a coal over the model, which grew under his masterly strokes, now hard, now light: the enchanting girl who sat to him, and seemed on fire with curiosity and innocent admiration: and the simple rural beauty, that plied the needle, and beamed mildly with demure happiness, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... divan, and onto this, with a gurgle of pleasure, she made a dive, placed two cushions for her head, put one little hand under her face, snuggled into an attitude of perfect comfort and deliberately went to sleep. It was masterly. ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... It was a masterly move and achieved with such precision on his part that she had scarcely time to be surprised or excited before she was lying, still in his arms, in a motor and travelling rapidly through the darkness. He uncovered her face then and gave her his blunt ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... style is broad, square, and masterly. The peculiarities of the English ducal robes are sufficiently attended to, and sufficiently simplified; but the ermined part we esteem unfortunate (as much of it at least as is seen in the front view of the figure) as it disturbs the contour of the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... volume, are all posthumous. Wherefore it will not be strange, if the reader shall meet with some passages in them that are less perfect and complete, since he did not intend them for the press, and that they want those finishing strokes, which such a masterly pen was able to give them. The good effects his discourses had upon the hearers, and the importunity of many judicious and experienced Christians to have them published, that they might have the same influence on ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... of free-stone, well hewn, with a colonade round it, from whence are entries into the several apartments; but above all, the long gallery is very remarkable, being adorned with the pictures of all the Scotch kings, from Fergus the first, done by masterly hands. Here Mr. Carew met the rebels, but having no mind to join them, he pretended to be very sick and lame; however, he accosted them with, God bless you, noble gentlemen! and the rebels moving on to Carlisle, he hopped after them, and from thence to Manchester, and there had a ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... in experience like other phenomena, so that morality, or the totality of the laws which at any given moment of historic evolution are applied to human practice, is dependent on customs." I may also refer to the masterly exposition of this aspect of morality in Levy-Bruhl's La Morale et la Science des Moeurs (there is ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... world. I remember on one occasion he took up the nebular or La Place theory, adopted it as the true one, and traced the rise and progress of the earth through the evolution of matter to its present condition, in a most comprehensive and masterly manner. At another time it was said: "John Quincy Adams will speak to you to-day on the political condition of your country," and with all the grace, dignity, and eloquence of the famous old Senator from Massachusetts when addressing ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... by some masterly maneuvering and some stiff fighting at Venta de Pozo, on the Carrion, and on the Huebra, that Wellington drew off his ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... his masterly statement, the Prime Minister rose and complimented him on his zealous desire to benefit the people of Ireland, but at the same time declared that the Government did not think employment on the construction of railways the best suited to meet the general distress in that country; he ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... lectures on education in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, and wrote various articles on it in the newspapers. He gave himself also to the study of the philosophy of education. His most noteworthy contributions in this direction are, his review of Beneche's masterly work on education, in the Foreign Quarterly, and two lectures "On the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Burke said of this performance,—"The House, the nation, and Europe are under great and serious obligations to the honorable gentleman, for having brought forward the subject in a manner the most masterly, impressive, and eloquent." "It was," said Bishop Porteus, who was present, "a glorious night for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... "Such masterly eyes are not common among our gentlemen. You will be quite her phoenix; and how much 'Thomson's Seasons' you will have to hear! I dare say you have ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge |
