"Skilful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in, good analyst. It is the passion of the chess-player. Each of these is up to the shoulders in the grandest game you ever dreamed of. Other skilful men and other quick-witted women are there across the table with Chance a-meddling. The big plan must be carried out. The iron trumpery and the social folderol are bits of stuff that have to be juggled about in this business. They have no more intrinsic value than a bank of fog. Providence ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... some stitches in one of those old articles of dress that were dropping to pieces, and of which I have often been reminded since by the faded tatters of old banners that I have seen hanging up in cathedrals. Afterwards, Estella and I played at cards, as of yore,—only we were skilful now, and played French games,—and so the evening wore away, and I ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... out for this job," said he, "because you always worked so hard, and seemed so skilful and anxious, and because I observed that your boat always made the passage quicker than the others. You must not be angry when I tell you that I thought you had been ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... men were nearly always at war, either amongst themselves or against the white men. In battle they were very crafty and skilful. Those who fell into their hands were sometimes treated ...
— Highroads of Geography • Anonymous
... understood that his giant gait and movements were small outer evidences of this inner fact, wholly in keeping. That blundering stupidity, half glorious, half pathetic, with which he moved among his fellows was a physical expression of this psychic fact that his spirit had never learned the skilful tricks taught by civilization to lesser men. It was, in a way, awe-inspiring, for he was now at last driving back full speed for his ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... Huguely Avas improved. At this place every European ship bound for Bengal and the Ganges takes in a pilot. The climate is not counted very salubrious; but the adjacent country is fruitful to admiration, and here are considerable manufacture of cotton and silk. Without skilful pilots, the English would find it very difficult to navigate the different channels through which the river Ganges discharges itself into the sea at the bottom of the bay of Bengal. On the southern branch is a town called Pepely, where there was formerly an English factory, but this was removed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Centre, being weary of life, which is a dream, have resolved to force the waking. Having once before attempted in vain to take my life, I now attempt it again, and this time not in vain, for my hand has grown skilful with practice. I take my life because of no wrong done me by man or woman, nor because of any vain love; I take it solely because my days upon this earth being numbered through my distress of the lungs, I ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to man, and I insulted you. I left the house in order that I might not see you again. To the doorsteps down which he should have kicked me, your grandfather followed me with words of kindliest courtesy. If he had sped me with a kick so skilful that my skull had been shattered on the kerb, neither would he have outstepped those bounds set to the conduct of English gentlemen, nor would you have garnered more than a trifle on account of your proper reckoning. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... worn out; and the hunters were back, fresh and on fresh horses. The herd was kept from drinking till late in the afternoon and then driven to the Springs to swell themselves with a perfect water gorge. Now was the chance for the skilful ropers on the grain-fed horses to close in, for the sudden heavy drink was ruination, almost paralysis, of wind and limb, and it would be easy to rope and hobble ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... male students were animated by a wild and reckless spirit, the result of a fickle roving from town to town. The pretext for this course was the necessity of hunting up skilful teachers; but with many it was only love for a career of frolic and idleness. The oldest and strongest scholars, young men of twenty and upwards, each of whom had a different plea to urge, set the example. By the promise of a living free of cost and instruction in the rudiments ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... for hours. And at last, prodded and cajoled and bullied, the degenerated intelligence of Ruba had partially responded. His clumsy paws, once so skilful, coaxed the mechanism into life. The blasts emitted preliminary belches. The whole fabric of the ship quivered, like a sleeper ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... spent by our guest in bed. As if to justify Mademoiselle de Gringrimeau, she was no sooner under my care than she had a sharp illness; but Tryphena, who had been so instructed by my grandmother, Lady Walwyn, as to be more skilful than any doctor, declared that it was in consequence of the long disregard of health and strain of spirits, and so managed her that, though never strong, she improved much in health, and therewith in looks. ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of them," smiled Ailsa sleepily, soothed by the skilful brushing. "I have never had one cross word, one impatient look from Union or Confederate." She added: "They say in Washington that we women are not needed—that we are in the way—that the sick don't want us. . . . Some very important personage from Washington ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... the manners of the Court he lived in, by a virtuous character in his fine gentleman, as he would show his ignorance, by drawing a vicious one to please the present audience. Mrs. Bignell did her part very happily, and had a certain grace in her rusticity, which gave us hopes of seeing her a very skilful player, and in some parts, supply our loss of Mrs. Verbruggen.[87] I cannot be of the same opinion with my friends and fellow-labourers, the Reformers of Manners,[88] in their severity towards plays, but must allow that a good ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... purpose it was perhaps designed chiefly to serve, and intended to be used for the former only when an occasional rise of the waters might make a canoe necessary to the convenience of the maker. Such a vessel, managed by a skilful hand, might indeed bear the two females, with honest Ralph, through the foaming rapids below; but Roland felt, that to burden it with others would be to insure the destruction of all. He resolved, therefore, that no other should ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... you will long for it), that work will come to you in all sorts of ways. I do not believe much in duty-work; I think that work that tells is the spontaneous expression of the love within. Perhaps you have not been sick enough yourself to be skilful in a sick-room; perhaps your time for that sort of work hasn't come. I meant to get you a little book called "The Life of Faith"; in fact, I went down town on purpose to get it, and passed the Episcopal Sunday-school Union inadvertently. I think that little book teaches how everything we do may ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... looking dirty East Indians slunk about, very crafty, very insinuating, very ready and skilful to take what advantages they could. I felt a strong desire to kick every one of them out from these joyful concourses of happy people. Generally we sat down for a while in these markets, and talked to the people a little, and perhaps ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... towards me, and I retreated to a corner of the room, where stood a heavy base-ball bat, which had been presented to me for skilful playing. That corner was my ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... I wish it, and you can see how I set about it. You know the skilful manoeuvres I have had to use in order to introduce myself into his service; under what a mask of sympathy and conformity of tastes I disguise my own feelings to please him; and what a part I play to acquire his affection. I succeed wonderfully well, and I feel that ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... the eye, as if in his own house entertaining his friend Dillon. The latter occasionally made the very natural reflection that this brave and skilful man lay in the trap of just such a creature as Sister Claire. Suddenly there came a burst of sound from the next room, exclamations, the hurrying of feet, the crash of a chair, and the trying of the doors. A frenzied ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... trebled domestic budgets. It wasn't merely in the homes of ambitious middle-class folk that the cry went up,—"We must have more!" Isabelle herself had begun to feel that the Colonel might very well have given her a package of stocks and bonds at her wedding. Even with her skilful management, and John's excellent salary, there was so much they could not do that seemed highly desirable to do. "Everything costs so these days!" And to ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... hopes to dawn, when the earth, and the soul, shall have been purified by adverse blasts, by the baring of their nakedness to the unimpeded, searching light of heaven. No. 124, 'The Wanderer,' is a picture of similar character by the same skilful hand. Thoughtful, refined, and discriminating lovers of art cannot fail to find instruction and delight in these noble conceptions, and indeed it is chiefly in the possession of such persons that we find the truthful, conscientious, tenderly conceived, and poetical ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of humanity ought to be acquainted. Its interest, I need hardly urge, extends far beyond the pale of the medical profession, and no one who has reason to desire for friend or relative the kindly care or the skilful treatment required for a disordered mind, can do otherwise than wish gratefully to recognize those who, during well-nigh a century, have laboured to make this care and this treatment what they ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... that this should come. The only wonder is that it did not come before. Perhaps, indeed, the idea was often conceived in the minds of skilful, though dreamy and timorous inventors, but not developed, for fear of opposition. And opposition enough it has encountered,—alike from inertia, suspicion, and conservative hostility,—since first it assumed a practical position among American ideas, some ten years ago. But I do not care to dwell ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... its mouth of three colours; the one white, another black, and the third red. It opened its mouth and let the stone fall into Guido's lap. Having done this, it departed. Guido took the stone to a skilful lapidary, who had no sooner inspected it than he knew its virtues, and would willingly have paid him a hundred florins for it. But Guido refused; and by means of that singular stone, obtained great wealth, and was ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... little embroidered cap as she wore now. Her scarlet bodice, and blue-black skirt bordered with bright woven bands, were of the finest wool; the full-sleeved white linen under-dress had been spun and woven and embroidered by skilful and loving fingers. Nikolina had lost the roof from over her head, and a great deal more than that. Now she was giving her whole mind to the little ones of all ages from four to ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... the white man is ever forcing upon the red—a civilization which rarely fails to make a degenerate of him—he proves his manhood. There, contrary to the popular idea, he will be found to be a diligent and skilful worker and an affectionate husband and father. There, given health and game, no toil and no hardship will hinder him from procuring fur enough to pay off his indebtedness, and to lay up in store twice as much again with ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... tobacco. After all the juice is chewed out, they throw away the remaining dry mass. Many Europeans have got into the habit of chewing betel, so that they cannot leave it off, though it has proved fatal to some of them; for the natives are very skilful in preparing betel so as to do a man's business as effectually as a ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... finished in the room, and the result was as the detective anticipated, Leo led the way to the cellar. Here was presented to the visitors a complete revelation of the boy's character and tastes—a revelation which assured the skilful detective, deeply versed as he was in a knowledge of human nature, that Leo was not a boy to be in league with bad men, or knowingly to assist a robber in ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... late head librarian. The present head librarian M. PETIT RADEL, has given a good account of the Mazarine Library in his Recherches sur les Bibliotheques, &c. 1819, 8vo.; but he has been reproached with a sort of studied omission of the name of Liblond—who, according to a safe and skilful writer, may be well considered the SECOND FOUNDER of the Mazarine Library. The Abbe Liblond died at St. Cloud in 1796. In M. Renouard's Catalogue of his own books, vol. ii. p. 253, an amusing story is told about Hooke's successor, the Abbe ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... none of the tender means that a lover should adopt. I have offered her the humble homage of my great love, I have been assiduous near her, I have attended on her daily. I have had my love sung by the most touching voices, and expressed in verse by the most skilful pens. I have complained in passionate terms of my sufferings. My eyes, as well as my words, have told her of my despair and my love. I have laid my love at her feet; I have even had recourse to tears, but all in vain, and I have failed to see that in her soul she was in ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere
... dove; there were, in the groves around, the tones of the flute, the instrument which sounds the call to pleasure, and summons to the banquet chamber the festive procession and the bridal train. Beneath the shelter of tents, or of light booths with walls formed by the skilful interlacing of a green mass of boughs, through which the myrtle and the laurel spread their odours, dwelt the fair slaves of the goddess, those whom Pindar called, in the drinking-song which he composed for Theoxenus of Corinth, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... it; in this way they made quicker progress. Up a hill they went, and over fields, and in a small house upon a windy slope they found the mother of a family lying very ill. Here, after Caius had said all that there was to say, and Madame Le Maitre, with skilful hands, had done all that she could do in a short time, they left the ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... school and college are much superior to what they used to be. Part is no doubt due to more skilful methods of execution, but not all. I cannot doubt that the more wholesome and abundant food, the moderation in drink, the better cooking, the warmer wearing apparel, the airier sleeping rooms, the greater cleanliness, ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... probability set up by a library-hunting student, they are liable to be summarily rejected. We may venture upon the conjecture that the true result of this process is to assimilate the work of the critical historian much more nearly than he would for a moment allow to that of a skilful historic novelist. A romancer of insight and imaginative power, who studied his period, would be quite as likely to make a lucky selection of real incidents, motives, and characters, in a story of the Roman Empire ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... struck with the impossibility of the theory which makes this letter part of the assumed Ignatian forgeries. This hypothesis requires us to believe that a very uncritical age produced a literary fiction, which, for subtlety and naturalness of execution, leaves the most skilful forgeries of ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... hostess must keep the conversation going, if it lags, but this is not as definitely their duty at a formal, as at an informal dinner It is at the small dinner that the skilful hostess has need of what Thackeray calls the "showman" quality. She brings each guest forward in turn to the center of the stage. In a lull in the conversation she says beguilingly to a clever but shy man, "John, what was that story you told me——" and then she repeats ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... east of Maroilles. I sent urgent messages to the commander of the two French reserve divisions on my right to come up to the assistance of the First Corps, which they eventually did. Partly owing to this assistance, but mainly to the skilful manner in which Sir Douglas Haig extricated his corps from an exceptionally difficult position in the darkness of the night, they were able at dawn to resume their march south toward Wassigny ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... despite the raptures of sentimental people who sought to tickle their own vanity by pretending to perceive in it the marks of its high origin, had commonly awakened only a sigh of regret over the transitoriness of pictorial glory, fell at length into the hands of a skilful artist. By careful examination, this worthy person became satisfied that the painting was indeed all that had been claimed, but that its primal splendors had been obscured by the defacing brush of some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... been said that we must go back to Webster's reply to Hayne, and Fisher Ames on the Jay treaty, to find its equal in Congress,—praise which we might perhaps qualify, if any adequate report were left us of some of the noble orations of Adams. No one can be blind to the skilful use he has made of his materials, the consummate ability with which he has marshalled them, and the radiant glow which his genius has thrown over all. Yet, with the exception of his reference to the antislavery debate in Congress in 1817, there is hardly ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... safely into the long boat, and the Girdlestones, with Miggs and four seamen, occupied the gig. It was no easy thing to prevent the boats from being stove, as the waves alternately drove them from the ship's side or brought the two together with a force which seemed irresistible. By skilful management, however, they both succeeded in casting off and getting ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cherished scheme that Nan's marriage should take place from Mallow Court. Actually, Kitty had consented because she considered that the longer Nan could lead an untrammelled life at Mallow, prior to her marriage, the better, and thanks to her skilful management the date was now fixed for the ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... discovered Madame Lia d'Argeles's secret, the viscount watched Wilkie, ascertained where he spent his evenings, contrived a way of introducing himself into his society, and on their third meeting was skilful enough to render him a service—in other words, to lend him some money. From that moment the conquest was assured; for M. de Coralth possessed in an eminent degree all the attributes that were likely to dazzle and charm the gifted ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... its fragmentariness, its carelessness about persons, are intended, as are the slight parts in a skilful artist's handiwork, to emphasise the beauty and the sovereignty of that one central Figure on which all lights are concentrated, and on which the painter has lavished all the resources of his art. So God— for God is the Author of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... time," as almanacs say, young orchards were misty with buds, red maples on the highway shone in the clear light, and a row of bright tin pans at the shed door of the farm-house testified to a sturdy arm and skilful hand within,—arm and hand both belonging to no less a person than Miss Sally, 'Zekiel Parsons's only daughter, and the prettiest girl in Westbury; a short, sturdy, rosy little maid, with hair like a ripe chestnut shell, bright blue eyes full of mischief, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... How well the skilful gardener drew Of flowers and herbs this dial new! Where, from above, the milder sun Does through a fragrant zodiac run: And, as it works, the industrious bee Computes its time as well as we. How ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... research and discovery, we come upon clear and overwhelming proofs of the existence on this continent of a great, enterprising, skilful, and even artistic people, spread over an immense area, and leaving behind them the most positive testimony, not only of their existence, but of their manners and customs, their arts, their trade, their methods of warfare, and their religion and worship. Compared with this people, ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... did, my man, and I wish you the same. But there, we've such a skilful young doctor to look after us, we ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... A skilful analysis of social habits, customs, and follies. A common-sense view of life from its varied standpoints, ... ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... easy to make a man. It is said that the violin-makers in distant lands, by breaking and mending with skilful hands, at last produce instruments having a more wonderful capacity than ever was possible to them when new, unbroken and whole. Whether this be true or not of violins, it certainly is true of human lives. We cannot merely grow ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... any aid from civilians. They knew that the natives had over and over again beaten the Boers, and what natives could do would be, merely child's play to British soldiers. Sir George Colley was a brave officer, and I believe had proved himself a skilful one, but he knew nothing whatever of the Boer style of fighting, while we colonists understood it perfectly, and could match them at their own game. As it turned out, the British soldiers on that occasion did not, and it made ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... could, and trusting to Providence to save them from complete disaster. Now they were bounding over an antheap, now one of the horses was on his nose, but somehow they always escaped the last dire catastrophe, thanks chiefly to the little Hottentot's skilful driving. ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... of Mr. John Gilmary Shea of New York, to whose labors this department of American history has been so deeply indebted, and that of the Hon. Henry Black of Quebec. Nor can he refrain from expressing his obligation to the skilful and friendly criticism of Mr. ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... missionary to accept the governor's terms. The startled archdeacon asked for proof of the episcopal charges, but of course no proof was forthcoming. It was a matter of prejudged guilt. The bishop was not skilful in the negotiations, and at last lost his temper and demanded point-blank the surrender of the deeds.[9] Henry Williams felt that he was unjustly accused, and, still holding out for "substantiation or retractation," left the scene of the conference in a fit of indignation, which ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... watching the work, or ran to fetch water to the hissing, red-hot metal; and Marius too watched, as he took his hasty mid-day refreshment, a mess of chestnut-meal and cheese, while the swelling surface of a great copper water-vessel grew flowered all over with tiny petals under the skilful strokes. Towards dusk, a frantic woman at the roadside, stood and cried out the words of some philter, or malison, in verse, with weird motion of her hands, as the travellers passed, like a wild ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... achievements of Julius Caesar. After a while he exclaimed, as he smote with his hand, palm downwards, 90 Heavily on the page: "A wonderful man was this Caesar! You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but here is a fellow Who could both write and fight, and in both was equally skilful!" Straightway answered and spake John Alden, the comely, the youthful: "Yes, he was equally skilled, as you say, with his pen and his weapons. 95 Somewhere have I read, but where I forget, he could dictate Seven letters at once, at the same time writing his memoirs." "Truly," ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... he had galloped in the chase over the Pampas, had Dick Venner felt such a sense of life and power as when he struck the long spurs into his wild horse's flanks, and dashed along the road with the lasso lying like a coiled snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not like that leaving a wound behind it,—sudden as a pistol-shot, but without the telltale explosion,—is one of the most fearful and mysterious weapons that arm the hand of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... incurred unnecessary expense merely to save himself the trouble of going elsewhere. In this, however, it may be thought that there was something of pretence, as he was no doubt conscious of good looks, and aware probably that a skilful tailor might ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... fellowship with Jesus Christ, or of obedience to His commands, or in the absence from their hearts of the interceding Spirit, or in defective faith. In the discussion of these hindrances to prayer, the preacher lays open the heart, and with a skilful spiritual surgery, searches it to the very bottom. The incisiveness of her style, her courage and plain dealing with her hearers, tearing off the masks of sin and selfishness, the various guises in which these ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... damask, with pictures "of the Italian school"; what struck him was the way in which Medora Manson's shabby hired house, with its blighted background of pampas grass and Rogers statuettes, had, by a turn of the hand, and the skilful use of a few properties, been transformed into something intimate, "foreign," subtly suggestive of old romantic scenes and sentiments. He tried to analyse the trick, to find a clue to it in the way ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... Malay pirates, how his ship had caught fire, how he had helped a political prisoner escape from a South American republic. He never said a boastful word, but it was impossible to help seeing what a hero the man had been—brave, true, resourceful, unselfish, skilful. He sat there in his poor little room and made those things live again for us. By a lift of the eyebrow, a twist of the lip, a gesture, a word, he painted some whole scene or character so that we saw it as ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... early Professor Smith called with the House of Seven Gables. I read about half of it in the evening. One sees the hand of the artist as clearly in such a work as in painting, and the hand of a skilful one, too. I have read many books with more interest, but never one in which I was so diverted from the story to a study of the author himself. So far there is nothing exciting in it. I don't know who supplied the pulpit on ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... Amongst full-grown timber, a skilful runner can escape from an elephant by "dodging" round the trees, but in cleared land, and low brushwood, the difficulty is much increased, as the small growth of underwood which obstructs the movements of man presents no obstacle to those of an elephant. On the ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... none was more skilful than Broome in luring him on to fuller, unconscious self-revealing. He knew very well that, on this topic, and on many others, Roy could enlarge more freely to him than to his father. Youth is made that way. In his opinion, it was all to the good ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... a brave and skilful officer, put him in heart again. Antiochus had sixteen elephants; Theodotas advised him to conceal these as well as he could for the present, not letting their superior height betray them; when the signal for battle was given, the shock just at hand, the enemy's cavalry charging, and ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... Fair" deliberately put down his brushes, folded his arms, and waited defiantly until they had gone by; but others, wiser in their generation, went on painting calmly. Several workers were painting the new Raphael; one of them was a white-haired old gentlewoman, whose hand was trembling, and yet skilful still. More than once she turned to give a few hints to the young girl near her, who looked in some distress and doubt. Just the needful help was given, and then the girl plied her brush merrily, smiling the while with pleasure and gratitude. There seemed to be a genial, kindly ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... contrary drift; for, on descending again through a shower of snow, he found himself no further than Ben Howth, as yet only ten miles on his long journey. Profiting by his mistake, he thenceforward, by skilful regulation, kept his balloon within due limits, and successfully maintained a direct course across the sea, reaching a spot in Wales not far from Holyhead an hour and a half before sundown. The course taken was absolutely the shortest ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... course, that we are present at the birth of a new national consciousness in our people, but why is it that this national consciousness seems so tangled in evasion of reality and in deep inhibitions that stultify it? Mr. Frank suggests for the first time the root of the cancer, and like a skilful surgeon points out how it may be healed. His book is the first courageous diagnosis of our weakness, and I think that the attentive and honest reader will not feel that he is unduly harsh or spiritually alienated from us. Briefly put, he finds that our ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... fro colde, and began to hourde fruictes. Then happe found out fire, and reason gaue rule of profite, and disprofite, and necessitie toke in hand to sette witte to schoole. Who gatheryng knowledge, and perceiuyng hymself to haue a helpe of his sences, more skilful then he thought, set hande a woorke, and practised connyng, to supplie all defaultes, whiche tongue and lettres ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... clothing, including the house slippers and Glengarry caps worn by the little rescued boys. Even handkerchiefs and babies' long frocks are conjured out of a petticoat or muslin lining! The work, thus selected and arranged, is put into the hands of those who, though not skilful in originating, have the plodding patience to carry out the designs of the more ingenious, and so garments are produced to cover the shivering limbs of any destitute child that may enter the Refuge as well as to complete the outfits ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... There was also jingling of bells, and drums beaten by the men who surrounded them, and joined in the songs. To break the monotony, occasionally a sudden piercing scream was added. If the dance languished, haranguers and those most skilful in grimaces came to its aid. The movement consisted of a little jump, more or less lively according to the beat of the drum. It was danced on a beautiful green plain, under a cluster of pines. All the Indians ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... are followed by praise or highest congratulation; they who do it with a view to gain assume those which their neighbours can avail themselves of, and the absence of which can be concealed, as a man's being a skilful soothsayer or physician; and accordingly most men pretend to such things and exaggerate in this direction, because the faults I have ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... in Belgium ("the men of Spy"), in France, in Croatia, and at Gibraltar, so that a good deal is known of Neanderthal man. He was a loose-limbed fellow, short of stature and of slouching gait, but a skilful artificer, fashioning beautifully worked flints with a characteristic style. He used fire; he buried his dead reverently and furnished them with an outfit for a long journey; and he had a big brain. But he had great beetling, ape-like eyebrow ridges and ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... exist without one. He gave me a true picture of human life, of which, hitherto, I had formed but a very erroneous idea, teaching me, that a man of understanding, though destined to experience adverse fortune, might, by skilful management, arrive at happiness; that there was no true felicity without virtue, which was practicable in every situation. He greatly diminished my admiration of grandeur, by proving that those in a superior situation are neither better nor happier than those they command. One of his maxims ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... reference to David Rennes. She had no intention of giving the least hint of her own private conviction on the subject. She desired merely that Reckage should learn how the engagement might be broken off without giving unimaginable grief to the young lady. The move under this aspect was skilful and successful. Reckage received her words as a subtle appeal ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... herself installed as nurse, for as Dr. Forbes had feared, he had found it impossible to obtain anyone else. Margaret had a natural gift for nursing, and she had had a good deal of experience in sick rooms. She was skilful, gentle and composed, and Dr. Forbes nodded his head with satisfaction ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... you love better than our Father?" he said: and turned to his work, and painted a new fold in the robe, which looked as if a soft air had suddenly blown into it, and not the touch of a skilful hand. ...
— A Little Pilgrim • Mrs. Oliphant
... vigorous and skilful effort he clambered over the stern. The very boat! No doubt of it; no doubt whatever. It was the dinghy of the lighter No. 3—the dinghy left with Martin Decoud on the Great Isabel so that he should have some means to help himself if nothing could be done ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... sons—Michael and Alexander. The eldest was born in 1754. It was intended that he should have succeeded to the business; and, indeed, as soon as he reached manhood he was his father's right-hand man. He was a skilful workman, especially in the finer parts of joiner-work. He was also an excellent accountant and bookkeeper. But having acquired a taste for reading books about voyages and travels, of which his father's library was well supplied, ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... delicate tips of budding trees. It is up-hill work, as we all know, to battle with indolence and selfishness, and self-seeking and hard-hearted worldliness. Then the highest and holiest part of our nature has a bashfulness of its own. It is a heavenly stranger, and easily shamed. A nimble-tongued, skilful woman can so easily show the ridiculous side of what seemed heroism; and what is called common-sense, so generally, is only some neatly put phase of selfishness. Poor John needed the angel at his elbow, to give him the caution which he is represented as ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... whose mother kept a thread-and-needle emporium that was contained in a willow basket, and displayed to the public very near her fruit-stand, was skilful in the art of making paper flowers, and from time to time had presented Nelly with specimens of her skill, until everything in the house that could be pressed into service as a vase was filled with these never-fading and ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis
... delightful uses. And yet the impressions made upon the mind and the depth of feeling awakened in the heart by music are such as to render only a partial (a far from satisfying one) description of the same possible, even to those most skilful and eloquent in the use of language; for, in fact, ordinary language, after exhausting all of its many resources in portraying the mind's conceptions, in depicting the heart's finer, deeper feelings, ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... to the breezy hill; With courteous grace a resting place assign 'Neath rustling leaves and grape-empurpled vine, And led by craft in artless pride make known The lustrous lurements of their gorgeous zone, As in the field some skilful ranger sets The fraudful cordage of his specious nets, Places some fragrant viand in the snare, And captive takes the unsuspicious hare; So the bold strangers with superior will Lay their base plans with disingenuous ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... years, and in the tenth the Greeks conquered Troy, not in battle, but by means of a trick which had come into the mind of Odysseus. He told a skilful carpenter to build a wooden horse of gigantic size, and in it he hid the bravest Greek warriors. When he had done this he advised all the other Greeks to depart without leaving anything behind them, and so lead the Trojans to believe that they had given ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... experiences. "Did anything really happen?" he asked himself. Returning to the library with intent to study the situation he mused long upon the tumbled books, the horn, the tables, and the chairs. He put himself in Viola's seat in the attempt to conceive of some method whereby even the most skilful magician would be able to pull out tacks, rip stitches, and break tape—and then—more difficult than all, after manipulating the horn, reseat himself and restore his bonds, every tack, to its precise place. And his conversation with "Loggy," most amazing ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... case was called and Gillis did not appear, Burke promptly instituted an action against his bondsman, with an execution against his loose property. The watch that had been given him as Governor of the Third House came near being thus sacrificed in the cause of friendship, and was only saved by skilful manipulation. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... morning with one of my bilious attacks, which, under other treatment and circumstances, might have resulted seriously. But, through a kind Providence, I have been thrown among most attentive, and kind, and skilful friends, who have treated me more like one of their own children than like a stranger. Mrs. Vail has been a perfect mother to me; our good Nancy Shepard can alone compare with her. Through her nursing and constant attention I am now able to leave my room and have been downstairs to-day, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... Tull, an early well-known agricultural writer, who lived about the middle of last century, propounded the theory, that as the food of plants consisted of the minute earthy particles of the soil, all that was required by the skilful farmer was to see that his soil was properly tilled. He accordingly published a work entitled 'Horse-hoeing Husbandry,' in which he advocated a system of thorough tillage. ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... his line, and his monster went slowly upward, but it was evident that the weight of string it had already to bear was almost too much for it, and that it would not carry much more. It was a brave dragon, however, and in the French master's skilful hands, it is extraordinary how high it got up. At last it was evident that it was stationary, and required a great deal of manoeuvring to be kept at the height it ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... the past several years one of our most popular and skilful physicians and surgeons, gave the town a delightful surprise when he returned from an extended honeymoon tour in Colorado this week with his charming bride, nee Miss Carol Milford of St. Paul, whose family are socially ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... the veranda were Mr. Underwood and his sister, the one with his pipe and newspaper, the other with her knitting; but the newspaper had slipped unheeded to the floor, and though Mrs. Dean's skilful fingers did not slacken their work for an instant, yet her eyes, like her brother's, were fastened upon Darrell, and a shade of pity might have been detected in the look of each, which the occasion at first sight hardly seemed ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... mechanics, which had often been likened to an army, but these new customers were less profitable to the gardeners and farmers. The clothiers, the fullers, the tapestry-workers, the weavers, the cutlers, had all wandered away, and the cities of Holland, Friesland, and of England, were growing skilful and rich by the lessons and the industry of the exiles to whom they afforded a home. There were villages and small towns in the Spanish Netherlands that had been literally depopulated. Large districts of country had gone to waste, and cane-brakes ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... strength any more than a pugilist or pancratiast or other master of fence;—because he has powers which are more than a match either for friend or enemy, he ought not therefore to strike, stab, or slay his friends. Suppose a man to have been trained in the palestra and to be a skilful boxer,—he in the fulness of his strength goes and strikes his father or mother or one of his familiars or friends; but that is no reason why the trainers or fencing-masters should be held in detestation or banished from ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... medical man's, a Dr. Mair's, and remained there; for it was not thought safe to move me; they feared inflammation, and they feared locked-jaw. My father was written to, and came; and when he left after the danger was over he made arrangements with Dr. Mair to keep me on, for he was a skilful man, and wished to perfect the cure. I thought the prolonged stay in the strange, quiet house worse than all the rest. That feeling wore off; we grow reconciled to most conditions; and things became more tolerable as I ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... composed the Letters on a Regicide Peace, though the third and fourth of them were not published until after his death. There have been those to whom these compositions appeared to be Burke's masterpieces. In fact they are deplorable. They contain passages of fine philosophy and of skilful and plausible reasoning, but such passages only make us wonder how they come to be where they are. The reader is in no humour for them. In splendour of rhetoric, in fine images, in sustention, in irony, ...
— Burke • John Morley
... certain triumph his magnificent enterprise, and he was in constant alarm lest he should be suddenly assailed by an overwhelming French force. Had a man sat upon the throne of Henry III., at that moment, Parma's bridge-making and dyke-fortifying skilful as they were—would have been all in vain. Meantime, in uncertainty as to the great issue, but resolved to hold firmly to his purpose, he made repeated conciliatory offers to the States with one hand, while he steadily prosecuted his aggressive ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... wounding stroke of God. But now when a man is wounded, has his bones broken, or is made sick, and laid at the grave's mouth, who is of that esteem with him as is an able physician? What is so much desired as are the cordials, comforts, and suitable supplies of the skilful physician in those matters. And thus it is with the broken-hearted; he needs, and God has prepared for him plenty of the comforts and cordials of heaven, to succour and relieve ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... technical state of imaginative eclecticism and expression than I had indeed expected to encounter in so lavishly-applauded a work. Let it be granted in the first instance that the theme is an onerous one; the problem afforded by the venture should have been met in a manner skilful in art, commensurate with its righteous obligations and its lofty demands by the artist. The one fine attribute conspicuously lacking in the work is its illumination, generally too yellow; the fine quality of light, naturally directing the ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater
... faith in the ages of Fetichism, to its pseudo-presentment in the tenth century, and its actual subversion in the nineteenth. Every step. Our politicians might have picked up an idea or two there, I should think! Then he was so cool about it, so skilful! He fairly rubbed his hands with glee, enjoying the combat. And he was so sure that the Doctor was savagely in earnest: why, any one with half an ear could hear that! He did not see how, in the very heat of the fray, his eyes would wander off listlessly. ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... color illustrations. Birds, flowers, minerals, and the objects in daily use take on a new interest when their varied colors are brought into a conscious relation, and clearly named. A tri-dimensional perception, like this sense of color, requires skilful training, and each lesson must be simplified to the last point practicable. It must not be too long, and should lead to some definite result which a child can grasp and express with tolerable accuracy, while its difficulties should be approached by easy stages, so ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... original emotions transferred on to the doctor. Depending upon what person of his childhood he identifies with him, the patient develops either a strong affection or an intense antagonism to the physician, attitudes called in technical terms positive and negative transference. If the analyst is skilful, he is able to circumvent all the subterfuges of the resisting forces and to uncover and modify the troublesome complexes. Sometimes this can be accomplished at one sitting, but more often it requires long hours of conversation. Freud has spent three years on a single difficult case, ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... crawled up with more gloves, and even with tins of hot cocoa. Then through the gap into the German trenches, and there were screams of German soldiers, terror-shaken by the flash of light in their eyes, and black faces above them, and bayonets already red with blood. It was butcher's work, quick and skilful, like red-Indian scalping. Thirty Germans were killed before the Canadians went back, with only two casualties... The Germans were horrified by this sudden slaughter. They dared not come out on patrol work. Canadian scouts ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs |
