"Feat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Gauge of Southern Railroads in 1886—By C.H. HUDSON.—The conclusion of the account of this great engineering feat, with tables of statistics and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... the eager faces bending forward on all sides, and everywhere a growing admiration. A tribe of prowess themselves, the Nakonikirhirinons knew a clever feat when ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... and that these phantasies come to expression not only in dreams but also in hysterical phobias and in other symptoms. If the dream continues and settles activities of the day and even brings to light valuable inspirations, we have only to subtract from it the dream disguise as a feat of dream-work and a mark of assistance from obscure forces in the depth of the mind (cf. the devil in Tartini's sonata dream). The intellectual task as such must be attributed to the same psychic forces which ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... painstaking, but they would often show more signs of genius if they had taken less. "You have taken too much trouble with your opera," said Handel to Gluck. It is not likely that the "Hailstone Chorus" or Mrs. Quickly cost their creators much pains, indeed, we commonly feel the ease with which a difficult feat has been performed to be a more distinctive mark of genius than the fact that the performer took great pains before he could achieve it. Pains can serve genius, or even mar it, but they ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... who would grow up into a thinking man. He was with his mother. He was in civilian clothes, but in his lapel he wore the broad ribbon—black with two white bars—of the Iron Cross. Somewhere, sometime in these recent months, this quiet lad had performed coolly some feat of great personal valor. The look of unsuppressible pride upon his mother's face, as she walked on his arm, ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... they only act as trustees. Lord Bateman was the Colonel of the Herefordshire Militia, who fired upon the citizens, and slaughtered a number of them; and his Lordship received one hundred guineas for this valiant and humane feat!! The Chamberlain's salary is raised, is doubled, in the year 1801, in consequence of the high price of provisions. Quere, has it been lowered again, now that the price of provisions is fallen? The item of July the 14th, 1812, is such as I do not believe ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... however, with the mythical death of Simon at Rome, owing to the prayers of Peter. Simon is here said to be conducted by daemons and to have flown ([Greek: hiptato]) upwards. The details of this magical feat ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... the "Yankee," like that throughout the fleet, was tremendous. Those in the North who had received both the news of the feat and the rescue at the same time, can hardly understand the revulsion of feeling which swept through the American ships gathered off Santiago. It was like hearing ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... men and women laughed to one side, while the white people smiled as though they had admired the feat as a fine specimen of falling from the sublime to the ridiculous. Bending down over the well, the larger students caught hold of the teacher's arms and ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... and sound on the eve of the 24th, completing his two hundred and ninety-one miles in just seven days; and that in the teeth of the bitter weather of a rejuvenated winter, without loss of man or horse, a feat worthy of the traditions of the Force of which he was the head, and of the Empire whose most northern frontier it was his ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... the words quickly followed. The quick arch wit of St. Patrick's put forth his hand, and his good example was followed by all the company, who each took a peach, when within his reach. Now, we must confess that we were almost tempted to essay a similar feat of onslaught on Mrs. Peachey's magic garden, but were, fortunately for all future sight-seers, withheld by the consciousness that those many rainbow liveried sweets to the eye, were not for ourselves or Covent-garden, but were the triumphs of a ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... never to injure living thing and felt his foot paralyzed from having accidentally trod upon an ant, (p. 30.) At twenty, thoughts of rebellion and greatness rose in his mind; at twenty-one, he seems to have performed his first feat of arms. He was a practised warrior when he served, in his twenty-seventh ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... ran toward the door; but, when he got near it, he paused, and a dire misgiving quelled him. A workman soon recognizes a workman's hand; and he saw Hillsborough cunning and skill in this feat, and Hillsborough cunning and cruelty lurking ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... call for a substantial reduction in Federal employment, a feat accomplished only once before in the last 10 years. While maintaining the full strength of our combat defenses, it will call for the lowest number of civilian personnel in the Department of Defense ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... constant habit of appeasing his hunger with soap and oakum between meals. In Palestine he tells of ants that came eleven miles to spend the summer in the desert and brought their provisions with them; yet he shows by his description of the country that the feat was an impossibility. He mentions, as if it were the most commonplace of matters, that he cut a Moslem in two in broad daylight in Jerusalem, with Godfrey de Bouillon's sword, and would have shed more blood IF HE ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... pounds are stretched on a six-foot frame, can husk a coconut with his bare hands in less than two minutes, no mean feat. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... kitchen service, of whom Dr. Caius wrote that "when any meat is to be roasted they go into a wheel, where they, turning about with the weight of their bodies, so diligently look to their business that no drudge nor scullion can do the feat more cunningly, whom the popular sort hereupon term Turnspits." Certainly the dog commonly used in this occupation was long of body and short of leg, very much ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... do the feat of valour, will not bring disgrace and stain, Nor is task in all this wide earth which a ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... Man had that look of intense glee on his face that meant someone was in for a very rough time. Since we were alone, it took no great feat of intelligence to figure it would be me. I talked first, bold attack being the best ...
— The Repairman • Harry Harrison
... this event a negative quantity. Long years afterwards he used to be chaffed about it, and stood it very badly. A few months since I chatted with one of the men who with myself took part in this plot. He still treasured it as a great diplomatic feat, and laughed immoderately at the recollection of the poor mate's troubles, and warmly complimented himself on the success of the enterprise, but added very seriously: "There is no knowing what might have happened had we all taken to napping. At the same time I am ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... playful effusions." The piece suggests that Lamb, in a wild mood, was turning his own "Angel Help" (see page 51) into ridicule—possibly to satisfy some one who dared him to do it, or vowed that such a feat could not be accomplished. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Rapidly he scaled the snow-packed hillside. Arriving at last at the foot of the rocky cliff, he began a minute examination of those cliffs. Once he climbed to a dizzy height by clinging to the crags. It was a cat-like feat which very few persons could perform, but he did it with consummate ease. At another time he dropped flat on his stomach and crept into a broad crevice between the rocks. He was gone for a long time, but finally appeared grimy with dirt ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... Now, Harry Warrington's first feat of war was in this wise. He and about 13,000 other fighting men embarked in various ships and transports on the 1st of June, from the Isle of Wight, and at daybreak on the 5th the fleet stood in to the Bay of Cancale in Brittany. For a while he and the gentlemen volunteers had the pleasure of ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gracefullest, and in every manner sweetest of the whole race of flowers. For a fortnight past I have found it in the swampy meadows, growing up to its chin in heaps of wet moss. Its hue is a delicate pink, of various depths of shade, and somewhat in the form of a Grecian helmet. To describe it is a feat beyond my power. Also the visit of two friends, who may fitly enough be mentioned among flowers, ought to have been described. Mrs. F. S——— and Miss A. S———. Also I have neglected to mention the birth of a little ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the country began to change. Grass appeared on its lower-lying stretches, then bushes, then occasional trees and among the trees a few buck. Halting the caravan I crept out and shot two of these buck with a right and left, a feat that caused our grave escort to stare in a fashion which showed me that they had never seen anything ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... phonograph that explains the features of the Canal Zone as the appropriate points are passed. Next to seeing the Canal itself, a sight of this miniature is the most interesting and instructive view possible of the great engineering feat. In one way it is even better than a trip through the Canal. It gives the broad general view impossible from any point ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... Bayeiye we met at Sebituane's Ford pretended to be unaffected by the bite of serpents, and showed the feat of lacerating their arms with the teeth of such as are unfurnished with the poison-fangs. They also swallow the poison, by way of gaining notoriety; but Dr. Andrew Smith put the sincerity of such persons to the test by offering them the fangs of a really poisonous variety, and found ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... and a long German sword in his hand, being by his head and shoulders taller than the crowd. Then he and his knights charged the Saracens, who by this time had taken a stand again on the river bank. It was a great feat of arms. No man drew long-bow that day or plied cross-bow. The Crusaders and the Saracens fought with mace and sword, neither keeping their ranks, but ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... definite problem, and to put suggestions into tangible form. We stated that all subjects could be taught with the books merely as helps and means to an end, and contend further for the doctrine that a working knowledge of books and subjects is far more desirable than accomplishing the feat of memorizing the printed page." Many teachers will be astonished by the doctrine which Superintendent Daniel evolves from this statement of educational theory. "The teachers were asked to conduct the work in such a manner ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... enough after we reached the Black Forest, and the fight was sufficiently warm to suit even enthusiastic Max. He and I were wounded; one of our men-at-arms was killed, and Franz's life was saved only by an heroic feat of arms on Max's part. The robbers were driven off; we spent a fortnight in a near-by monastery, that our wounds might heal, ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... tells him to screw his courage to the sticking place, and describes the deed itself. Infected by her masculine resolution, Macbeth at length consents to what he calls the "terrible feat." The word "terrible" here is surely more characteristic of the humane poet-thinker than of the chieftain-murderer. Even at this crisis, too, of his fate Macbeth cannot cheat himself; like Hamlet he is compelled to ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... from the windows, and, as strangers, went there to look on. One day, whilst at dinner, they began to ring, and as many of the officers had not witnessed the fact, they sought the windows. This excited the vanity of those in the belfry, who redoubled their exertions, and performed the feat successfully many times, although in some instances they narrowly escaped accident, by landing just within the outside coping. This brought us all to the window, and the next turn, more force having been given to the bell, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... wild colt just let loose. He faced Hill with a smile, and then, taking his long, overhand swing, he delivered the jump ball. Hill made no move. The umpire called strike. The crowd roared. Ken duplicated the feat. Then Hill missed the third strike. Gallagher walked up doggedly, and Ken smiled at him, too. Then using three wicked, darting ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... alike are lost: Not a pillar nor a post In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell; Not a head in white and black On a single fishing-smack, In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell. Go to Paris: rank on rank Search the heroes flung pell-mell On the Louvre, face and ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... by the hyphen into compound words: calling them the possessive forms of myself, thyself, himself, and so forth; as if one set of compounds could constitute the possessive case of an other! And again, as if the making of eight new pronouns for two great nations, were as slight a feat, as the inserting of so many hyphens! The word own, anciently written owen, is an adjective; from an old form of the perfect participle of the verb to owe; which verb, according to Lowth and others, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... seen worse computation." Thus lightly was dismissed a mathematical feat which, a few years earlier, before the days of I-P computers, would have been deemed worthy of publication in ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... said as to how Jordan was to be crossed. No doubt many a question and doubt had been muttered by the watch- fires, as the people looked at the muddy, turbid stream, swirling in flood. The spies probably managed to swim it, but that was a feat worthy to be named in the epitaph of heroes (1 Chron. xii. 15), and impossible for the crowd of all ages and both sexes which followed Joshua. There was the rushing stream, swollen as it always is in harvest. How were they to get over? And if the people of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... largely by pure bluff and by audacious handling of an inferior force, and so had prepared the way for the dramatic overthrow of three Osmanli army corps which transformed a situation that had been full of menace into one which became rich in promise. News of this dramatic feat of arms reached the War Office at the time, but without particulars. That the victor of this field, a field won by a masterpiece of soldiership, should remain a simple colonel, suggested a singular indifference on the part of authorities at the heart of the empire to ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... relation between England and Ireland. The federalism, again, of America or of Switzerland is the consequence of the existence of the States which make up the Federation. The United Kingdom does not consist of States. The world has heard of the difficulty of forming a republic without republicans: this feat would appear to be easy of performance in comparison with the achievement of erecting federation without the States which form its natural members. In America or in Switzerland federalism has developed because existing States wished ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... woodsman had in his long experience acquired something of this faculty. He comprehended the details, and, what is more, stored them away in his memory where he could turn to them readily. This was no small feat. ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... nor in the harbour. All at once her eye caught the well-known craft, which was not, however, far behind, but almost level with the others. Per must have rowed like a madman. She was well able to estimate the distance, and could appreciate such a feat of oarsmanship, and, entirely forgetting her pain and that she was alone, she turned round as if to a crowd of spectators, and pointing at the boats she said, with sparkling eyes, "Look at him! that's the ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... chimney-piece? Or do they with throbbing hearts 'draw' for the fateful name, or, weighting little inscribed slips of paper with lead or breadcrumbs, and dropping them into a basin of water, breathlessly await the name that shall first float up to the surface? Do they still perform that terrible feat of digestion, which consisted of eating a hard-boiled egg, shell and all, to inspire the presaging dream, and pin five bay-leaves upon their pillows to make ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... short-lived sport, as the greyhounds run into him immediately, and a tremendous struggle then ensues, which must be terminated as soon as possible by the knife, otherwise the dogs would most probably be wounded. I once saw Killbuck perform a wonderful feat in seizing. A buck elk broke cover in the Elk Plains, and I slipped a brace of greyhounds after him, Killbuck and Bran. The buck had a start of about 200 yards, but the speed of the greyhounds told rapidly upon him, and after ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Mrs. Abbott was altogether engaged in expecting the terrible announcement of her daughter's errors, the captain slipped them, kings, queens and knaves, high, low, jack and the game, without regard to rank, into the lady's work-basket. As soon as this feat was successfully performed, a sign was given to the commodore that the conspiracy was effected, and that disputant in theology gradually began to give ground, while he continued to maintain that jumping the rope was a sin, though it might be one of a nominal class. There is ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... path in the rocks, from the Castle of Banias to the oak grove, at a flying gallop, his horse striding "thirty feet" at every bound. I stand prepared to bring thirty reliable witnesses to prove that Putnam's famous feat at Horseneck was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... probably recognized by his musical feat, concluded his concert by stopping at the entrance to some woods which extended from the top of the rocks to the river, breaking, here and there, the uniformity of the fields. After gazing about him for some time, he left the road and, entering the woods on the right, stopped at the foot of a large ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... Forrest made his appearance on the Tennessee River opposite Johnsonville (whence a new railroad led to Nashville), and with his cavalry and field pieces actually crippled and captured two gunboats with five of our transports, a feat of arms which, I confess, excited ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... it would have been in fear and trembling; but we should have been obliged to take them had we gone ourselves, for they somehow found out that you had asked them, and they insisted upon going, and threatened to burn down Hamilton House in our absence if we did not take them, a feat which we doubt not they would have accomplished had they had a mind to. Indeed, I cannot tell you what these children are! Imagine their last device to extort concessions from their father. You know how nervous he is; well, if he will not do all that they require of him they ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... successive potato laid down. Then the boy was to pick them up and put them in the basket one at a time, the basket being placed beside the first potato. How far would the boy have to travel to accomplish the feat of picking them all up? We will not consider the journey involved in placing the potatoes, so that he starts from the basket ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... exposing it whenever he falls in with it; which is likely to be as often as he falls in with a Reverend Master of Arts nourished on mode and figure in the cloisters of Oxford. Considered merely as an intellectual feat, the Organum of Aristotle can scarcely be admired too highly. But the more we compare individual with individual, school with school, nation with nation, generation with generation, the more do we lean to the opinion that the knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it seemed as if even this not very exacting feat was beyond his powers. Instead of inserting his key in the lock, he stood staring in an attitude of frozen horror. He was a man who took most things in life pretty seriously, and whatever was the little difficulty just now seemed to have ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... the railroad to Yuen-nan Fu had been constructed, M. Doumer, the Governor-General of French Indo-China, who was a very energetic man, rode to Yuen-nan Fu in an extraordinarily short time. While the Europeans greatly admired his feat, the Chinese believed he must be in some difficulty from which only the immediate assistance of the Viceroy ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... America, and only two or three belong to Europe, where many of ours are tenderly cultivated in gardens, as they would be here, had not Nature been so lavish. To name all these species, or the asters, the sparrows, and the warblers at sight is a feat probably no one living can perform; nevertheless, certain of the commoner golden-rods have well-defined peculiarities that a little field practice soon fixes ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... that the state of my liver—due to a long residence in Burma—does not permit me to indulge in the luxury of port. My share of the '45 now reposes amid the moss in the tulip-bowl, which you may remember decorated the dining table! Not desiring to appear churlish, by means of a simple feat of legerdemain I drank your health and ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... influence of tradition and habit would not let me alone. I cared nothing for the Jervaises' opinion, but I resented the unfairness of it and had all the innocent man's longing to prove his innocence—a feat that was now become for ever impossible. By accepting Banks's invitation, I had confirmed the worst suspicions the Jervaises could ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... for his horse. Gentle reader, did you ever ride on horseback fifty miles in one night, on an empty stomach, after having ridden thirty miles during the day? If you never have accomplished such a feat, you don't know anything about suffering. O, to this day I can feel my stomach freeze itself to my backbone. We started soon after orders were given on a gallop, and if we walked our horses a minute during the whole ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... man would, if I allowed it, swallow at one meal as much as a sheep's skin could contain. As a gun is known by the loudness of its report, and ability to stand a large discharge of powder, to be of good quality, so is a man's power gauged by his capacity of devouring food; it is considered a feat of superiority to ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... the canyon and showed him her cave and Minervy's. And she had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing him doubled over the saddle-horn in a paroxysm of laughter when she led him to the historical washout and recounted the feat of the dead Indians with which he had made ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... to the story of that feat of Bhimasena of superhuman achievements! I have often heard of it in course of my conversation with the Pandavas (while I was with them). O foremost of kings, defeated at dice the Pandavas departed from hence and travelling for ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... be better satisfied than I to see Mr. Darwin's book refuted, if any person be competent to perform that feat; but I would suggest that refutation is retarded, not aided, by mere sarcastic misrepresentation. Every one who has studied cattle-breeding, or turned pigeon-fancier, or "pomologist," must have been struck ...
— Time and Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... in the day a breeze sprang up, that subsequently developed into the long-wished-for south-east trade-wind, thus enabling the good ship to bid adieu to the Doldrums and cross the equator, which feat she accomplished two days after ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... judged wrong. Gulo made the wood at length. With eyes of dull red, and breath coming in short, rending sobs, he got in among the trees. He did it, though the feat seemed impossible, for the trees had been so very far away. Got in among the trees—yes, but dead-beat, and—to what end? To be "treed" ignominiously and calmly shot down, picked off like a squirrel on a larch-pole. That was all. And ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... descending to the deck, he found that what seemed to him a by no means very difficult feat had attracted general attention. Not only did half a dozen of the sailors pat him on the back, with exclamations expressive of their surprise and admiration, but the other midshipmen spoke quite ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... castle standing on twelve golden pillars; and there must come regiments of soldiers and go through their drill. At eight o'clock the commanding officer must say, 'Shoulder up.'" "All right," said Jack; when the third and last morning came the third great feat was finished, and he had the young daughter in marriage. But, oh dear! there is worse to ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... the impossible feat of obliging both the politicians and the reformers. He was persuaded to make nominations to federal offices in New York without consulting either of the senators from that State, Conkling and Platt. Conkling appealed to the ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... helping. He should be obliged to play the impostor everywhere and with every one. He would mingle with men, shake their hands, share their friendships, eat their bread, and accept their favors—and deceive them under their very noses. Life would become one long trick, one daily feat of skill. Any possible success he could win would lack stability, would lack reality, because there would be neither truth ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... that!" ejaculates another bystander, as he smooths the long beard on his haggard face. "Strip her down!" The request is no sooner made, than Mr. O'Brodereque mounts the stand to perform the feat. "Great country this, gentlemen!" he speaks, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... peak, however, is a feat undertaken by only a few, and always with the aid of an experienced guide. The largest measure of real joy is found in the alpine "parks." The best known and most frequented is along the Paradise River. Tributary to it and reached from Longmire, are Indian Henry's, Van Trump, Cowlitz ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... Elements, the Air, Fancy alone laying the Line, marking the Extent, and shaping the Model. It would be difficult to enumerate what august Palaces and stately Porticoes have grown under my forming Imagination, or what verdant Meadows and shady Groves have started into Being, by the powerful Feat of a warm Fancy. A Castle-builder is even just what he pleases, and as such I have grasped imaginary Scepters, and delivered uncontroulable Edicts, from a Throne to which conquered Nations yielded Obeysance. I have made I know not how many Inroads into France, and ravaged the very Heart ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... since remembering the incident was to him an even greater feat of memory than recalling the name. It was a case of having to remember two ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... a billiard-table, kick his servants, neigh, and make a fearful noise for an hour. His domestics would then get him into bed, and after much sweating he would wake without the least memory of what had passed. As "jumping over a billiard-table" might appear an incredible feat, at least for an aged cardinal, it is proper to remark that the billiard-tables of those times bore about the same relation in size to our modern billiard-tables that the ancient spinnet did to a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... (I. 5, "The Flea"), the King of High-Hill, "being bitten by a flea, caught him by a wonderful feat of dexterity; and seeing how handsome and stately he was, he could not in conscience pass sentence on him upon the bed of his nail. So he put him into a bottle, and feeding him every day with the blood of his own arm, the little beast grew ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... arrives shortly after his contestant with the dead animal upon the sleigh. Fredericton is reached. A distance of eighty-five miles is trotted in six hours and thirty minutes, inclusive of twenty minutes for rest and dinner. This wonderful feat caused general astonishment. Hundreds drove from Fredericton to meet the contestants, while crowds gathered to see the effect thus produced upon the poor exhausted animals. Soldiers were in attendance upon their arrival, almost dragging them up the bank. Being rubbed and dosed they ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... was a difficult feat to strike correctly in the narrow jungle passage with the elephant in full speed; but the blow was fairly given, and the back sinew was divided. Not content with the success of the cut, he immediately repeated the stroke upon the other ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... 16, twenty-four hours after, the Committee returned the bill with the recommendation that it do pass. On March 19, with twenty-two Senators opposed to its passage, and eighteen favoring it, with twenty-one votes necessary for its passage, the bill passed the Senate. This apparently impossible feat was, in the last two weeks of the session, a comparatively easy task for ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... town. Some miles off arose a lofty peak known as Old Thundertop, which had a road running part way up its side. The summit was believed to be utterly inaccessible to mortal man until one day the Bird boys managed to accomplish the wonderful feat by the aid ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... to the Powers of Evil. Perhaps a word or two might have been said about the relations of "Paradise Lost" to other "epics." It manifestly belongs not to the same class of poems as the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," or even the "AEneid." Dobson's Latin translation of it is about the greatest feat ever performed in modern Latin verse, and it shows by a crucial experiment how little Milton really has in common with Virgil. "Paradise Lost" seems to us far more akin to the Greek tragedy than to the Homeric poems or ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... much talk'd of, a Heresie be, Of all it enslaves few true Converts we see; If hectoring and huffing would once do the Feat, There's few that would fail of a Vict'ry Compleat; But with Gain to come off, and the Tyrant subdue, Is an Art that is hitherto practis'd by few; How easie is Freedom once had to maintain, But Liberty lost ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... one; and I soon learned, by very short notes, that he hardly left his bed. When it was supposed that he would never leave his room again, he surprised the whole household by a great feat. I should have related before what a favorite he was with all the other patients. He was the sunshine of the house while able to get to the drawing-room, and the pet of each invalid by the chamber-fire. On Christmas morning, he slipped out of bed, and managed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... eight as Winifred entered the drawing-room. "It is quite a feat to be on time in this city of long distances," ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... a piece of maize bread at daybreak, and they eat nothing again till sunset, when bread and a little milk form their evening meal. Meat is eaten but rarely, and then they feast. The athletic feat of crossing rock-strewn surfaces, bounding from rock to rock at a great pace, rivalling their goats in sure-footedness at dizzy and precipitous heights, has lent their gait that perfect grace of motion which characterises the mountaineer, ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... unable to rise from the earth, and only accomplished flight by taking advantage of an eminence, sustained themselves without difficulty when once fairly embarked. I also found that the best flyers were not equal to the feat of keeping me company, when walking at my usual pace; hence I inferred that velocity was a necessary element in flight, and that gravity, so fatal to human attempts to fly, might be made a ...
— A Project for Flying - In Earnest at Last! • Robert Hardley
... heart-blasting contest had been five to nothing, and the sensational length-of-the-field run had clinched for the Harvard quarterback his right to All-American honors. The feat was talked about yet, wherever Harvard men gathered who had witnessed the spectacle of victory jerked from the grinning jaws of defeat. At the Harvard Club on Forty-fourth Street, New York, Carrington frequently ran into brother alumni who said, "I remember you ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... the god of love. What feat of Mars, or Hercules, Or bright Apollo, lies above Wit, wing'd ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... still undecided. She was very desirous of gratifying Rollo, but yet she had not courage to undertake quite so great a feat as to walk six miles. At length Mr. Holiday proposed that they should at least set out and ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... again, while the other girls watched and imitated as they sat or sprawled on the grassy bank. Sarah bent her whole mind to the acquiring of the proper arm action; lay face-down and kicked scientifically; then, convinced of her preparation for the feat, boldly ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... heaved into the air, and then whirled about the head of McTee like a mighty bludgeon. As the sailors rushed again, that living club smashed against them and flung them back. Even to the herculean strength of McTee it was a prodigious feat, but the danger gave him for the moment the power of a madman. Twice he swung the shrieking little sailor, and twice that body smashed back the attack, while Harrigan leaped to his feet in time to knock down a man ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... Blood's next feat was to carry off from the Tower the crown jewels. He was overtaken and arrested: and was then asked to name his accomplices. 'No,' he replied, 'the fear of danger shall never tempt me to deny guilt or to betray a friend.' Charles II., with undignified ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... you understand. But unfortunately he's been suddenly called out of town on the most urgent business." As he uttered these last words Mr. Bishop glanced in a peculiar manner partly at his nose and partly at Mr. Prohack; it was a singular feat of glancing, and Mr. Prohack uncomfortably wondered what it meant, for Charles lay continually on Mr. Prohack's chest, and at the slightest provocation Charles would lie more heavily ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... absurd to observe the incredulity of Europeans as to the possibility of cutting off a head with the kinjal: it is necessary to live only one week in the East to be quite convinced of the possibility of the feat. In a practiced hand the kinjal is a substitute for the hatchet, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... as if it were a kind of impiety not to float with the stream, a feat which any dead dog can accomplish. . ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... Estelle, I may tell you that seventeen and a half pounds of Catherine's yarn would have sufficed to stretch round the equator of the earth. No machine-spun yarn has ever come within measurable distance of this astounding feat, and I have never heard of any spinner in Europe or America equalling it; yet even this has been beaten when we were painting ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... this difficult feat without fair assurance, the King added as a sort of postscript to his decree that whoever tried to make the Princess laugh and failed should have two broad red stripes cut in his back, and salt should be ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... the afternoon we were close under the walls of Joppa. To enter this harbour, partially choked up as it is with sand, is described as a difficult feat. We were assured that we should see many wrecks of stranded ships and boats; accordingly I strained my eyes to the utmost, and could discover nothing. We ran safely in; and thus ended a little journey in the course of which I had seen many new ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... that time only one company of colored soldiers had served at a post east of the Mississippi. Even Major, later Brigadier-General, Guy V. Henry's gallop to the rescue of the Seventh Cavalry on December 30, 1890, with four troops of the Ninth Cavalry, attracted but little attention. This feat was the more remarkable because Major Henry's command had just completed a march of more than one hundred miles in twenty-four hours. But in the battle at Santiago, the four colored regiments won praise from all sides, particularly for their advance ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... during the second week, we proceed to sponge the baby's body; the hands are washed with soap and rinsed, and, only those who have performed this feat know just how tightly they hold shut their little fists. These hands must be relaxed, and all the lint, dirt, and perspiration be thoroughly washed away. The arms, shoulders, chest, and back are then ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... appearance of silhouettes. For I take it that Florence came creeping up behind them over the short grass to a tree that, I quite well remember, was immediately behind that public seat. It was not a very difficult feat for a woman instinct with jealousy. The Casino orchestra was, as Edward remembered to tell me, playing the Rakocsy march, and although it was not loud enough, at that distance, to drown the voice of Edward Ashburnham it was certainly sufficiently audible to efface, amongst the noises ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... that amidst the tumult he could make heard his orders and advice. More than once his double-barrelled rifle of English make—and which he loaded and discharged with wonderful rapidity—stayed the knife or axe which was menacing one of his men—a feat which was greeted each time with loud hurrahs. He was, in a word, what the adventurers had seen him from the beginning of this dangerous campaign, the chief who thought of all, and ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... thought of making a tunnel under the Thames, but the first one, designed and carried out by Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, was regarded, and rightly so, as a most wonderful feat of engineering. One was proposed in 1799, and a shaft was sunk in 1804, but the work went no further. The one now spoken of was approved by Act of Parliament 24 June, 1824, and the shaft was begun and the first brick laid on 2 ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... furious charge now unhorsed the picador, at which the chulos leaped into the ring, and distracted the bull's attention with their red cloths while the fallen picador scrambled over the barrier into safety, a feat which his heavy accoutrements rendered by ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... And I wore myself to a shadow trying to husband Jenny, rosy Jenny full of the ardor of life. For all my wisdom and grace of mind Gave her no delight at all, in very truth, But ever and anon she spoke of the giant strength Of Willard Shafer, and of his wonderful feat Of lifting a traction engine out of the ditch One time at Georgie Kirby's. So Jenny inherited my fortune and married Willard— That mount of ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... false Sextus; "will not the villain drown? But for his stay, ere close of day we should have sacked the town!" "Heaven help him!" quoth Lars Porsena; "and bring him safe to shore; For such a gallant feat of arms was never ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... the first grasshopper of early spring has not the devilish agility of his August descendant, he is sufficiently alert to make his capture no mean feat. It must be borne in mind that the grasshopper is not a fool, and that he appears to see best from the rear. Though he remains motionless while the enemy is slipping stealthily upon him, it by no means follows that he is not aware of ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... under the gentle influence of the gentle child, this great feat was accomplished, almost as effectually, although by no means so suddenly, as in the well-known case of Cymon and Iphigenia, the most noted precedent upon record of the process of reaching the head through the heart. Venus, and a beautiful Welsh ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford
... we heard another echo of Aunt Nancy. She had ridden on horseback through the Gap of Dunloe, no difficult feat in itself, and one achieved daily during Kallarney's tourist season by old ladies of various countries and creeds. In Aunt Nancy's case, however, it appeared that she had been able to enjoy that variety which is so gratifying a feature ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... with a vast armament and assaulting it, they at last captured it. It is said, however, that they bribed over to their interests some of its principal inhabitants, in which case its capture was not a feat of much difficulty; and the Franks on thus re-obtaining possession of Goa, hastened to construct around it extensive fortifications of vast height. After their acquisition of this place, their power became greatly increased, every day bringing some accession to it: for the Lord as he wills, so indeed ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... amused at the surprise she expressed at Jane's feat in climbing from Wangat. Evidently Jane's reputation is not that of a ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... Gana back to Isenland or not I do not know, but I know that in the days to come Queen Brunhild never forgave the hero for his daring feat. ...
— Stories of Siegfried - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... and all, inwards, and so down into his stomach, just as if you were to turn the finger of a glove inward from the tip till it passed into the hand; and so performs, every time he eats, the clown's as yet ideal feat, of jumping down his own ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... maintained was the greatest feat of oratory he had ever witnessed. Gathering his wandering wits together, Medland plunged again whole-heartedly into his speech, and slowly, gradually, almost, it seemed, step by step and man by man, he won back the thoughts of his audience. He wrestled with that strange paper rival and ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... tea she had poured for him, knocking the spoon to the floor in his eagerness to perform the feat gracefully. In bending to recover the spoon he struck the tea-table with his shoulder, and set the cups dancing. Having regained a measure of composure, he took a swallow of the hot tea and set it down with a gasp, precariously near the edge of the tea-table. Mrs. Peyton ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... besides others taken in merchantmen, which expect, as is usual, that the King should redeem them; but I think he will not, by what Sir G. Downing says. This our prisoners complain of there; and say in their letters, which Sir G. Downing shewed me, that they have made a good feat that they should be taken in the service of the King, and the King not pay for their victuals while prisoners for him. But so far they are from doing thus with their men, as we do to discourage ours, that I ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Adad-nirari I against the contemporary Babylonian kings had all resulted in the cession of fresh territory to Assyria and in an increase of her international importance. Up to the time of Tukulti-Mnib no Assyrian king had actually seated himself upon the Babylonian throne. This feat was achieved by Tukulti-Mnib, and his reign thus marks an important step in the gradual advance of Assyria to the position which she later occupied as the predominant power in ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... the competition which Hollyhock called 'The Zone of Danger' was that the Scots lassie or English girl, as the case might be, should perform a brilliant deed, a feat demanding skill, endurance, and nerve. But Hollyhock intended her zone of danger to be one really great and very terrible, something that was to take place at night. Very few girls in the school chose to compete for this prize, as they knew only too well that Holly would beat them into 'nothing ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... of the many disputed points in early geography whether or not Africa was circumnavigated at this early date. If the Phoenicians did accomplish such a feat they kept their experiences a secret as usual, and the early maps gave a very wrong idea of South Africa. On the other hand, we know they had good seaworthy ships in advance ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... arrived at the district of La Roche-Oysel, whose national guard had accomplished this feat of arms. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... weeks had rolled by since Adele had eased Jonah of sixty pounds, and the Antoinette ring we had given her to commemorate the feat was now for the first time in danger of suffering an eclipse. In a word, a new star ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... came wholly, astonishingly, from one side of his mouth—the left side. As a muscular feat it was a triumph. A deaf person on his right side would not have known he was speaking. The effect was secretive, extraordinarily confidential; enabling him to sell sprinklers, it ought to have helped him to make ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "having once accomplished the feat, and being fully aware of the great risk that is run, we shall be more prudent ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... among the monarchs of Europe. And that strange alliance was merely one move in a long game played by a consummate intriguer—a game which began disastrously at Boulogne and ended disastrously at Sedan, and yet was the most daring and brilliant feat of European statesmanship that has been carried out since the adventurer's great uncle ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... overgrown cats in it—cats which do not thrive well in this cold land, and which do not smell any too sweet and clean. The pyramid of fine-looking picture-elephants is an ugly live elephant or two standing on a beer-keg or two, which is a wonderful feat for elephants, of course, but not an entertaining one to human sight-seers; and as a final swindle, the cannon act is a man on a spring disguised as a wooden cannon, who is thus hoisted a few feet into the air, where he catches hold of ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... resurrected. Hercules was miraculously conceived from a divine father and was everywhere invoked as savior. Minerva had a more remarkable birth than Eve; she sprang full-armed from the brow of Jupiter. He did this remarkable feat ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... different localities. The idea of the movement is its soul; the practical working is no more than the body. But body and soul alike are subject to growth, and so it has been in the present case. The English University Extension Movement was in no sense a carefully planned scheme, put forward as a feat of institutional symmetry; it was the product of a simple purpose pursued through many years, amid varying external conditions, in which each modification was suggested by circumstances and tested by experience. And with the complexity of our operations our animating ideas have been striking ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... This feat was greeted with a roar of laughter. The player stared at the board in a dazed way, wondering what had become of the ring. When someone in the next bar threw it over the partition again, he realized what had happened and, turning to the company with a ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Euangelus: Polybius, familier frende to Scipio: Eupolemus: Iphicrates, Possidonius: and very many other worthy Capitaines, Philosophers and Princes of Immortall fame and memory: Whose fayrest floure of their garland (in this feat) was Arithmetike: and a litle perceiuerance, in Geometricall Figures. But in many other cases doth Arithmetike stand the Capitaine in great stede. As in proportionyng of vittayles, for the Army, either remaining at ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... that! Not absolutely a test sentence, perhaps, like 'Truly rural' or 'The intricacies of the British Constitution'. But nevertheless no mean feat." ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... and shake, a number of these adventurous news-gatherers remained aloft and never put foot to ground. Braver reporters threw their copy out of the door to the messenger-boys below, and every time this feat was accomplished the crowd, safely watching on the corners opposite, cheered and clapped their hands. A steady stream of writing dropped from that loft-door and poured all the morning into the offices of the evening newspapers; while the morning-newspaper ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... oldest Capuchin convent in Switzerland (1581). Altdorf is best known as the place where, according to the legend, William Tell shot the apple from his son's head. This act by tradition happened on the market-place, where in 1895, at the foot of an old tower (with rude frescoes commemorating the feat), there was set up a fine bronze statue (by Richard Kissling of Zurich) of Tell and his son. In 1899 a theatre was opened close to the town for the sole purpose of performing Schiller's play of Wilhelm Tell. The same year a new carriage-road was opened from Altdorf through ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... being only about seven years after their landing in Scotland, and to which I have referred before. In the tenth chapter of the said act they are described as—"An outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians, using no crafte nor feat of merchandise; who have come into this realm and gone from shire to shire and place to place in great company, and used great subtle and crafty means to deceive the people, bearing them in hand that by palmistry they could tell the men's and women's ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... idol, which was taken by Da Gama in a ship of Calicut, "an image of Mahomed" (372). Don Quixote too, who ought to have known better, cites with admiration the feat of Rinaldo in carrying off, in spite of forty Moors, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... worse, it was doubtful if she could climb back upon the limb. Muscular as she was, that was a feat that took real practice to accomplish. She swung there, like a pendulum, neither able to get up, nor ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... dark-complexioned, foreign-looking man, as he rubbed some rosin on the soles of his soft shoes, so they would not slip when he attempted some feat high up on a trapeze bar, or let himself down a rope head first, disdaining the ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... very notable match was in progress between "Judge" Billings and Mr. Pennington Sawyer, the real estate agent. They were the recognized champions. Both were accredited with the astonishing feat of ringing eight out of ten casts at twenty paces; if either was more than six inches away from the stake on any try the crowd mutely attributed the miss to inhibitions of the night before. Not only was the betting ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... those records say, travel in Space beyond the speed of light had not been accomplished; they believed such a feat an impossibility imposed by a condescending Nature that could be challenged too far. And they therefore knew no way of reaching beyond the planets of Ihelos and Thrayx for the food and resources that became so sorely ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... Americans. But there can be no doubt whatever that if he had got through in time to capture Quebec he would have become a national hero of the United States. He had the advantage of leading picked men; though nearly three hundred faint-hearts did turn back half-way. But, even with picked men, his feat was one of surpassing excellence. His force went in eleven hundred strong. It came out, reduced by desertion as well as by almost incredible hardships, with barely seven hundred. It began its toilsome ascent of the Kennebec towards ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... Iceland moss from cactuses, or bull-dogs from bull-finches: certain is it, too, that Julian, early submitted and resolutely broken in, would have made as great a man, as Charles, naturally meek, did make a good one; but for the matter of educating her boys, poor Mrs. Tracy had no more notion of the feat, than of squaring the circle, or determining the longitude. She kept them both at home, till the peevish aunt could suffer Julian's noise no longer: the house was a Pandemonium, and the giant grown too big for that castle of Otranto; so he must ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper |
