"First water" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... A novel of the first water, clear and clean, is this thrilling story of the pioneers, the men and women who laid the foundation of the ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... suggestion, I would strongly advise that this question of my joint (or several) appointment should be severely taken up by London Press as matter of simple justice to India. This is without prejudice to the already appointed Laureate as a swan and singing bird of the first water. All I desire is that the Public should know of another—and, perchance, even rarer—avis, who is nigroque simillima cygno, and could be obtained dog cheap for a mere song or a drug in the marketplace, if only there is made a National Appeal ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... mechanically. "I wonder do you think I'm a fool! Sysonby himself won the Brighton sweepstakes in nineteen-four. It was the beginning of his racing career, and an easy win. This animal here is a plug; an out-and-out plug of the first water. He never saw Hamburg Belle or Sysonby—they never mated. This plug's a seven-year-old, and he couldn't do seven furlongs in seven weeks. He never was class, and never could be. I don't want to ride a cow, I want a horse. Give me that two-year-old black ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... The dam-making began, and when it was fairly under way, the Manager thought that the hour had come for the pumps. There was no fresh inrush into the mine. The tall, red, iron-clamped pump-beam rose and fell, and the pumps snored and guttered and shrieked as the first water poured ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... constrained at the sight of my stout person, and showed it, which was a mistake. Now, what is he doing in Petersburg? He has not been there for ten years, at least. He has no friends there. He revived a minute acquaintance with the Countess Lanovitch, who is a fool of the very first water. Before I came away I heard from Catrina that he had wheedled an invitation to Thors out of the old lady. Why, ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... first water he paused, but would not allow Whirlwind to kneel to help him dismount. He let himself down rather gingerly and did not suffer therefrom. At the side of the little stream he examined his injury. The swelling was markedly less and ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... and some carrots (scraped and shaped into cones) in separate pans. Then put them together in an earthenware close covered pan to simmer together in butter and gravy, the first water having been well drained from them. Season with pepper and salt and let them cook gently for ten or twelve minutes; do not uncover the pot to stir it, but shake it every now and then to prevent the ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various
... cricketing groups, I found reproductions of such works as "Love and Death" and "The Blessed Damozel," in dusty frames and different parallels. The man might have been a minor poet instead of an athlete of the first water. But there had always been a fine streak of aestheticism in his complex composition; some of these very pictures I had myself dusted in his study at school; and they set me thinking of yet another of his many sides—and of the little incident to ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... stranger had arrived at Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square with the preconceived idea—where obtained from Heaven knows—that its seemingly commonplace, mean-minded, coarse-fibred occupants were in reality ladies and gentlemen of the first water; and time and observation had apparently only strengthened this absurd idea. The natural result was, Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square was coming round to the stranger's ...
— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome
... against speeding?" asked Dunham with concern. "First water mobile I ever saw. Take his ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... and the old woman passed forth from the hall to bring water for his feet, for that first water was all spilled. So when she had washed him and anointed him well with olive-oil, Odysseus again drew up his settle nearer to the fire to warm himself, and covered up the scar with his rags. Then the ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... Billy Durgin, who reported this interview to me in a manner of able realism, that these men were both crooks of the first water. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... whose sacerdotal avocations lay completely in the background and who could give the best hours of the day and night to the pleasures or duties of society, was best represented in our day by the Rev. William Harness and the Rev. Henry White. Mr. Harness was a diner-out of the first water; an author and a critic; perhaps the best Shakespearean scholar of his time; and a recognized and even dreaded authority on all matters connected with the art and literature of the drama. Mr. White, burdened only with the sinecure chaplaincies of the Savoy and the House of Commons, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... old folk-songs, unfathered but deathless, which seem to have risen out of the very heart of the people. Good sense is a fund slowly and painfully accumulated by the labor of centuries. It is a jewel of the first water, whose value he alone understands who has lost it, or who observes the lives of others who have lost it. For my part, I think no price too great to pay for gaining it and keeping it, for the possession of eyes that see and a judgment that discerns. One ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... marry well. Here am I, who you were persuaded was born to disgrace you, no very burning discredit when all is said and done; here am I married, and the marriage recognized to be a blessing of the first water—A1 at Lloyds." ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... philosophy. It is true that Coronado's moral education had been neglected or misdirected; that he was either born indifferent to the idea of duty, or had become indifferent to it; and that he was an egotist of the first water, bent solely upon favoring and gratifying himself. But while his nature was somewhat chilled by these things, he had the hottest of blood in his veins, he possessed a keen perception of the beautiful, and so he could desire ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... disposed for conversation); and that however rowdy you may be by natur', it does use you up com-plete, and that's a fact; and makes you quake considerable, and disposed toe damn the [)e]ngin[)e]!—All of which phrases, I beg to add, are pure Americanisms of the first water. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... effect when done, as light as syllabub, as distinct as a picture, fills me with envy. Each man among us prefers his own aim, and I prefer mine; but when we come to speak of performance, I recognise myself, compared with you, to be a lout and slouch of the first water. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and there with olive trees—curious, by the way, to find olives so high!—in the receding waters the vagrant raven cheerfully picking out the eye of a defunct pterodactyl. The heavy clouds rolling off the sodden world—they must have indeed been heavy clouds, nimbus of the first water—as they had raised the world's water-level 250 feet per day during "the flood" ... surely a ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... cried D'Artagnan, letting his arms fall as a conquered man gives up his sword; "ah! my friend, you are not only a herculean topographer, you are, still further, a dialectician of the first water." ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the Comte de Charolois, because then she would have remained with her friends. Her father has given her several jewels. The King's present is superb. It consists of fourteen very large and fine diamonds, to each of which are fastened round pearls of the first water, and together they form a necklace. The Grand Duchess advised her niece well in telling her not to follow her example, but to endeavour to please her husband ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... Pat, "Peg's a brilliant of the first water; give her a glass of max, and she'll be herself in two minutes:" at the sound of this, animation was almost instantaneously restored, and Tom and his friends having ascertained that she had sustained no bodily harm, gave the generous Irishman a reward for his ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... hundred and forty Christians. He was with Ochiali when that eminent rover seized Saint-Clement's galleys, and was with difficulty restrained from anticipating his admiral in boarding the St. Ann. He soon gained the reputation of a Corsair of the first water, and "a person, who, for our sins, did more harm to the Christians than any other." In 1578, while cruising about the Calabrian coast with eight galleots in search of prey, he sighted the Capitana of Sicily and a consort, with ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... simultaneously with this and with each other, struck me with force; one of them the truth of Outreau's description of her, the other the fact that the person bringing her could only have been Lady Beldonald. She was a Holbein—of the first water; yet she was also Mrs. Brash, the imported "foil," the indispensable "accent," the successor to the dreary Miss Dadd! By the time I had put these things together—Outreau's "American" having helped me—I was in just such full possession of her face ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James
... first water,' replied Mr. Falkirk looking down into her eyes. 'To which some people add, ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... the newest stranger—the lion of the day, the gorgeous journeyman tailor from Quincy. He was a simpering coxcomb of the first water, and the "loudest" dressed man in the state. He was an inveterate woman-killer. Every week he wrote lushy "poetry" for the journal, about his newest conquest. His rhymes for my week were headed, "To MARY IN H—l," meaning ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lily? Why, when the day departs, does it let the folding doors of heaven stay open so long, when it might go in so quickly? One summer morning I saw an army of a million spears, each one adorned with a diamond of the first water—I mean the grass with ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... Roger. This young woman passed belief. I decided that she was an actress of the first water and ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... Grantham argued. "Lucy and I are quite out of the running, but I honestly believe that he takes as much notice of us as he does of any of you. If he has intentions, he 'doesn't act the part,' which is pure New York of the first water." ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... handful, of sweet Marjoram a quarter of a handful; put all these with the aforenamed into an earthen pot well leaded; so let them stand to infuse twenty four hours; so distil it in a Limbeck, keeping the strongest water by it self, put some sugar finely beaten into your glasses. If your first water be too strong, put some of the second to it as you use it. If you please you may tye some Musk and Ambergreese, in a rag, and hang it by a thread in ...
— A Queens Delight • Anonymous
... noncombatants who have assumed this task of arousing the war spirit are foreigners. A delicate task, this arousing resentment against one set of foreigners without arousing it against all. It means diplomacy of the first water. Thus, the foreign press is very insistent that the Huns be got rid of. One English paper naively remarks: "We do not like to see Germans free to wander about our streets at will." Which is well enough in its way, although it must be galling to the Chinese to have outsiders refer to the ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... Mexico and Yucatan, prepared from the bark of a tree called by the Mayas baal-che. The whites speak of the drink as pitarilla. It is quite popular among the natives, and they still attribute to it a sacred character, calling it yax ha, the first water, the primal fluid. They say that it was the first liquid created by God, and when He returned to His heavenly home He left this beverage and its production in charge of the gods of the rains, the ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton
... remember, and it had been intimated in public that the ministers would do well not to appear at the polls. Of course, after that, we had to appear by self or proxy. Still, Naguadavick was not then a city, and this standing in a double queue at town-meeting several hours to vote was a bore of the first water; and so, when I found that there was but one Frederic Ingham on the list, and that one of us must give up, I staid at home and finished the letters, (which, indeed, procured for Fothergill his coveted appointment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... a brief description of a marvelous accomplishment. I did not pause to mention the factories and mills that were attached to this city, nor have I told you that in less than one thousand years after this first water city was finished, there were floating, on the oceans of Plasden, no less than two hundred cities of various sizes, each a manufacturing center devoted to one or more lines ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... writing of events which took place years ago, but I have seen no reason to change the opinion then formed, that Mr. Parasyte, the principal, was a "toady" of the first water; that he was a narrow-minded, partial man, in whom the principle of justice had never been developed. He was a good teacher, an excellent teacher; by which I mean only to say that he had a rare skill and tact for imparting knowledge, the mere dry bones of art, science, ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... several days he took much pains in writing an article for the paper describing the events leading up to and including the capture of the village. And in the narration Bill Hickson was an important character. He had again proved himself a hero of the first water by insisting that the boat proceed when the first attempt was made to land, and by being the first man ashore when a landing was finally effected. He was a leader in everything that was done. He marched at the head of the squad when they marched through the streets of the ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... diamond ring of considerable value; each of the merchants followed his example in making me rich presents; the magistrates also sent me tokens of their approbation; and the grand vizier sent me a diamond of the first water, with a line written by his own hand, 'To the man who has saved Constantinople.' Excuse me, gentlemen, for the vanity I seem to show in mentioning these circumstances. You desired to hear my history, and I cannot, therefore, ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... couldn't leave the churn, for there was his little babe crawling about on the floor, and "if I leave it," he thought, "the child is sure to upset it." So he took the churn on his back, and went out with it; but then he thought he'd better first water the cow before he turned her out on the thatch; so he took up a bucket to draw water out of the well; but, as he stooped down at the well's brink, all the cream ran out of the churn over his shoulders, and so ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... her as one who has made a study of a certain class of objects looks at a fine specimen, as a jeweller looks at a gem of the first water. This man, with the genius for priesthood, was a connoisseur in souls. "Emmar wouldn't have thought it no harm to keep the money the Danites gave her," and he added more reflectively, "nor would I." There was admiration ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... those days missed (or failed over) Daniel, I thought it incumbent on me to gird myself up to its eight hundred pages. A more dismal book, even to skim, I have seldom taken up. The hero—a prig of the first water—marries one of those apparently only half-flesh-and-blood wives who, novelistically, never fail to go wrong. He cannot, in the then state of French law, divorce her, but he is able to return her on her mother's hands. Going ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... fire and water with different meanings, according to the ideas we wish to express. When we say "do not touch the fire," or "put your hand into the water," we are regarding fire and water as material things; when we say "the house is on fire," or speak of "a diamond of the first water," we are thinking of the condition or state of a burning body, or of a substance as transparent as water. When we say "put out the fire," or "his heart became as water," we are referring to the act of burning, or are using an image which likens ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... the door of the redoubtable Wong. Another, the fellow who chanced to take up his quarters at Smith's Hotel, is a delegate sent here specially to hunt out Wong, and destroy him. I asked him how he meant to set about it, but his scheme is vague. He's an opportunist of the first water. 'Me catchee and killee Wong Li Fu one time,' was his best effort. I'm going to confront Len Shi with these two in Bow Street. They may worm something out of him. But will they own up if they do? Dashed if I know. The Oriental mind is on ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... and that had flowed from knightly veins in the wars of the Crusades. Robert De Quincey came into England with William the Conqueror, uniting with whose fortunes, he fared after the Conquest as a feudal baron, founding the line of Winchester; and that he was a baron of the first water is evident from the statement of Gerard Leigh,—that his armorial device was inscribed (and how inscribed, if not memorially and as a mark of eminent distinction?) on the stained glass in the old ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... she told of her engagement, and whose hand was icy cold as she held it up to the lamp-light to show the large diamond which flashed from the fourth finger as proof of what she said. The stone itself was of the first water, but the setting was old, so old that a connoisseur in such matters might wonder why Judge Markham had chosen such a ring as the seal of his betrothal. Ethelyn knew why, and the softest, kindliest ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... to Alexandria, and boarded with a gentleman by the name of Brown. He had a nice family, a good house, and he was a clever gentleman, and a "hardshell" Baptist of the first water. ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... himself, he sent for a locksmith, who, in a very short time caused the lid to spring open, when, to Arthur's surprise and delight it was found to contain a number of precious stones of great value, in fact it was the Begum's jewel case, containing diamonds of the first water, rubies of unusual size, and pearls of great price, which, on being taken to a jeweler, proved to be worth, somewhere about ten thousand pounds. Arthur, although by no means a man of business habits, knew ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... "But don't keep us waiting all day. The presses are like animals—they have to be fed, you know. First editions don't wait for gum-shoe men, even if they're of the first water. And I've got a city editor who has a temper like a bear with a sore nose in huckleberry time. So loosen up as soon ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... and his crawling myrmidons were rascals of the first water and that the Shazlis were infamously treated is very evident. It is also clear that Burton was more just than diplomatic. We cannot, however, agree with those who lay all the blame on Mrs. Burton. We may not sympathise with her religious views, but, of course, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... and the 'Illustrated London News.' I refer to John Oxenford. He did much good work in his day, and his contributions to Punch assisted greatly to increase its reputation. He was a wit of the first water." ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... that they may be so; or who of us would escape? None but fiends will triumph over the death of any man in sin. Men are not fiends; they must and will always feel for their fellow-men, let them die as they will. No doubt Brummell was a fool—a fool of the first water, but that he was equally a knave was not so certain. Let it never be certain to blind man, who cannot read the heart, that any man is a knave. He died on the 30th of March, 1840, and so the last of the Beaux passed away. People have claimed, indeed ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... the preceptor's son and uttered a loud shout. Repeatedly shouting in joy, "Thou art slain, Thou art slain!" Pandya (with that lance) crushed to pieces the diadem of Drona's son adorned with foremost of jewels and diamonds of the first water and the very best kind of gold and excellent cloth and strings of pearls. That diadem possessed of the splendour of the Sun, the Moon, the planets, or the fire, in consequence of the violence of the stroke, fell down, split into fragments, like a mountain summit riven by Indra's ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... 842. The first water that falls in June is supposed to cure all skin diseases; and I am informed "it is dretful good for the ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... home again, not desiring to meet gardeners and have my little hour of quiet talked about, still less my dressing-gown and slippers; so I picked a bunch of roses and hurried in, and just as I softly bolted the door, dreadfully afraid of being taken for a burglar, I heard the first water-cart of the day creaking round the corner. Fearfully I crept up to my room, and when I awoke at eight o'clock and saw the roses in a glass by my side, I remembered what had happened as though it ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... box of silver out of the house secretly, whilst all the family were up, and the servants were moving about, was so great that this part of the affair had to be carried on in a manner different from the usual programme of pirates of the first water. Even the boys had to admit this; and they yielded to old Balla's advice on this point, but made up for it by additional formality, ceremony, and secrecy in pointing out the spot where the ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... she heard. And there lived in the same village a clever rogue, who had for some time watched for an opportunity for getting something from this simple woman during her husband's absence. So one day, when he had seen the old miser ride out to inspect his lands, this rogue of the first water came to the house, and fell down at the threshold as if overcome by fatigue. The woman ran up to him at once and inquired whence he came. "I am come from Kailasa,"[10] said he; "having been sent down by an old couple living there, for news of their son and his wife." "Who are ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... Mexican boy catch their horses for them and have ridden up the valley to watch for the cattle. I stayed behind to make my first water color, and then—I thought you would be coming back soon, so I tried to cook supper instead. I'm a pretty good housekeeper—at home," ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... The first water-pipes used in New York City were bored logs; he fought against these, and finally induced the city to use iron pipes. As there was no iron pipe at this time made in America, he inaugurated a company to cast pipe. Very naturally ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... of a different stamp; some of them survivors of and devotees to past revolutions, ... others mere bawlers, who by dint of repeating year after year the same set of stereotyped declamations against the Government of the day have sneaked into the reputation of revolutionists of the first water. After the 18th of March some such men turned up, and in some cases contrived to play preeminent parts. As far as their power went, they hampered the real action of the working class, exactly as men of that sort have hampered the full development of every previous revolution. ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... plain truth. Josiah Crabtree, you are a trickster of the first water, but if I can prevent your trickery I am going to do it." Tom turned to Mrs. Stanhope, who was now crying violently. "Won't you go below and let me have it out with ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... almost disreputable, in their jocund pliability, their readiness to lend themselves to improper uses. But Latin—ah, Latin was different! Even at his preparatory school, where he was known as a swot of the first water, he had displayed an unhealthy infatuation for that tongue; he loved its cold, lapidary construction; and while other boys played football or cricket, this withered little fellow used to lark about with a note-book, all by himself, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... in the world and distiller of celestial dews. Who knows in how many unremembered nations' literatures this has been the Castalian Fountain? or what nymphs presided over it in the Golden Age? It is a gem of the first water which Concord wears ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... Flowers, half an ounce of Mace, half an ounce of Cloves, half an ounce of Nutmegs, all bruised, steep these together four days in an earthen Pot, and covered very close, distil them in an ordinary Still well pasted, and do it with a very slow fire; save the first water by it self, and the small by it self, to give to Children; when you have occasion to use it, take a spoonful thereof, sweetned with Loaf-Sugar; this Water is good to drive out any Infection from the heart, and to comfort ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... a product as the typical spoilt child of a Bohemian household: that is, all her childish affectations of conscientious scruple and religious impulse have been applauded and deferred to until she has become an ethical snob of the first water. Her father's sense of humor and her mother's placid balance have done something to save her humanity; but her impetuous temper and energetic will, unrestrained by any touch of humor or scepticism, carry everything before them. Imperious and dogmatic, she ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... sentence of death in the prison at Bordeaux she attracted the attention of Tallien, the son of the Marquis of Bercy's butler and ci-devant lawyer's clerk, who had blossomed into "a Terrorist of the first water." He obtained her release and she became his mistress. She took advantage of the equivocal but influential position which she had attained to engage in a vile traffic. She and her paramour amassed ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... Abbe Carlos Herrera, the Corentin of Spain, as I suppose. This explains everything. The Spaniard is a demon of the first water, who has tried to make a fortune for that little young man by coining money out of a pretty baggage's bolster.—It is your lookout if you think you can measure your skill with a man who seems to me the very ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... excuse even want of resemblance. He soon began to be astonished at the wonderful rapidity and success of his execution. As to the sitters, they were in ecstasies, and proclaimed him every where a genius of the first water. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... are fliers of the first water—and not only in the air. They carry the whole technique of their job at their finger tips. The result of K.'s washing his hands of the Air is that the Admiralty run that element entirely. Samson is Boss. He has brought with him two Maurice Farmans and ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... tells us somewhere, with the tone of a pedagogue, if you have not done anything worthy of being recorded, at least write something worthy of being read. It is a precept as beautiful as a diamond of the first water cut in England, but it cannot be applied to me, because I have not written either a novel, or the life of an illustrious character. Worthy or not, my life is my subject, and my subject is my life. I have lived without dreaming that I should ever take a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and persons of Sir J. Campbell of Ardkinglas, who is now here.[422] He is happy in escaping from his notorious title of Callander of Craigforth. In my youth he was a black-leg and swindler of the first water, and like ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... to life and limb. But we soon discovered that he had mastered the accomplishment of sitting on air, and was as safe on his invisible seat as we on our hard benches; old as he was, he seemed to glory in the exploit—exploit, it must be allowed, of the first water. ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... over your ducks, or rabbits, prepared in this manner: peel some onions, and boil them in plenty of water; then change the first water, and boil them two hours: take them up and put them in a colander to drain, and afterwards chop them on a board; then put them in a sauce-pan, sprinkle a little flour over them, and put in a large piece of butter, with a little milk or cream. Set them over the fire, and when the ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph
... thought so!" said Falloden wrathfully. "He is an impossible person. He wears a frilled shirt, scents himself, and recites his own poems when he hasn't been asked. And he curries favour—abominably—with the dons. He is a smug—of the first water. There is a movement going on in college to suppress him. I warn you I may not be able to keep out ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seemed also bound for Bragford, and showed some little eagerness to travel in the same carriage with Tom, who attributed the compliment to his lately-constructed coat and general appearance as a swell of the first water. "He don't often get such a chance," thought Mr. Ryfe, accepting with extreme graciousness the other's civilities as to open windows and change of seats. He even went so far as to take a proffered cigar from the case of his fellow-traveller, which he would have ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... eccentric and contradictory courses, accelerated his fate, by rendering the work of the tracking party so much more tedious and difficult. Had he, on finding how absolutely he was astray, remained at the first water he reached, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... with cold water, and require thirty minutes very slow boiling, from the time the water boils, for each pound; if it is very salt, pour off the first water and put it in another of boiling water, or it may be soaked one night in cold water. After meat commences to boil the pot should never stop simmering and always be replenished from ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... well," usually ten to twenty feet deep. This type does not usually pierce any impervious layer and thus reach a water-bearing stratum, otherwise inaccessible. The water is found almost at the surface, and the depth of the well is only that necessary to reach the first water layer. A very good example of this kind of well is to be found on the south shores of Long Island Sound, where a pipe can be driven into the sand at any point, and at a depth of a few feet an abundant and cheap supply of water may be secured. The amount of water ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... corn in pieces"; and thinking some evil spirit turned the arms. As soon as maize was plentiful, English mills for grinding meal were started in many towns. There was a windmill at Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1631. In 1633 the first water-mill, at Dorchester, was built, and in Ipswich a grist-mill was built in 1635. The mill built by Governor John Winthrop in ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... distinction! A town of enterprise and character! Ever since the first water-power mill in this country; the first powder mill in this country; the first chocolate mill in this country, and thus through a whole line of "first" things—the first violoncello, the first pianoforte, the first artificial spring leg, and the first railroad to see the light of day saw it ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... Southern Cross, which had first attracted their attention, the figurative crucifix of the heavens; while the "scorpion," itself, upreared its head aloft, surmounted by a brilliant diadem of stars that twinkled and scintillated in flashes of light, like a row of gems of the first water—the body of the fabled animal being marked out in fine curves, in which fancy could trace its general proportions, half-way down the heavens. In a more southerly direction, still, the parallel stars of the ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... haste to get baptized and naturalized. His son, now an Hungarian nobleman, cut a fine figure at court and gallantly distinguished himself in the Turkish wars against his former compatriots, his exploits winning for him the estate of Hidvar and the title of baron. His son again was a miser of the first water who could be enticed neither to court nor into the houses of his neighbours. He was continually scraping money together and was not over particular in the choice of his scraper. By adroit chicanery he acquired possession of the gold mines of Verespatak, which he exploited with immense advantage, ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... Volumnius, taking Dardanus, Brutus's armor-bearer, with him, went out to see what it was. They returned in a short space, and inquired about the water. Brutus, smiling with much meaning, said to Volumnius, "It is all drunk; but you shall have some more fetched." But he that had brought the first water, being sent again, was in great danger of being taken by the enemy, and, having received a wound, with ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... "Our first water mills were of that description denominated tub-mills. It consists of a perpendicular shaft, to the lower end of which an horizontal wheel of about four or five feet diameter is attached, the upper end passes through the bedstone ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... Uganda, went straight over hill and dale, the heights covered with high grass or plantain groves, and the valleys with dense masses of magnificent forest-trees surrounding swamps covered with tall rushes half bridged. Proceeding on, as we came to the first water, I commenced flirtations with Mtesa's women, much to the surprise of the king and every one. The bridge was broken, as a matter of course; and the logs which composed it, lying concealed beneath the water, were toed successively by the leading men, that those who followed should ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Indeed, I'm obliged to be school-master, and geographer, and admonisher, to Sheikhs, marabouts, merchants, to all and every body. The subject of religion was now introduced, and I found the Governor, though a Marabout, of the first water, did not know that the Christians read and studied the sacred books of the Jews. I told his Excellency, Christian Marabouts must read and study the sacred books of all religions, and Christian talebs frequently read the Koran to acquire a knowledge of ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... wrote to Bob Cross, acquainting him with what had passed, and begging him to come round by the first water conveyance, and bring my chest and bedding with him. I then walked down to the dockyard to have a look at the Manilla, which was, as I had heard, a splendid vessel; went up again to order a mate's uniform, and returned ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... cupidity. This was our plan, but unhappily we were not destined to visit La Bonte's Camp in this manner; for one morning a young Indian came to the fort and brought us evil tidings. The newcomer was a dandy of the first water. His ugly face was painted with vermilion; on his head fluttered the tail of a prairie cock (a large species of pheasant, not found, as I have heard, eastward of the Rocky Mountains); in his ears were hung pendants of shell, and a flaming red blanket ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... second 'Osmener', the third 'Pummuckner'. These kind of acorns they vse to drie vpon hurdles made of reeds with fire vnderneath almost after the maner as we dry malt in England. When they are to be vsed they first water them vntil they be soft & then being sod they make a good victuall, either to eate so simply, or els being also pounded, to make loaues or lumpes of bread. These be also the three kinds of which, I said before, the inhabitants vsed to make ...
— A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land Of Virginia • Thomas Hariot
... egg-boilers that are placed on the table, see that the water is boiling hard at the time you put in the eggs. When they have been in about four or five minutes, take them out, pour off the water, and replace it by some more that is boiling hard; as, from the coldness of the eggs having chilled the first water, they will not otherwise be done enough. The boiler may then be placed on the table, (keeping the lid closed,) and in a few minutes more they will be sufficiently cooked to ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... Arab and Phoenician trade-routes, and the Portuguese occupation, and the rest of the history of that unpromising seaboard. The way he behaved in his researches showed the man. He worked hard at the Labonga language-which, I believe, is a linguistic curiosity of the first water-from missionary books and the conversation of tame Kaffirs. But he never thought of paying them a visit in their native haunts. I was constantly begging him to do it, but it was not Tommy's way. He did not care a straw about political experience, ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... various ways. It was a regular struggle for existence. Those who came first got the least disagreeable work. Wood was scarce on the Hoogeveld where we happened to be, and the water was muddied by the first water-carriers. When the sun was very warm we made a shelter with our guns and our blankets. Our meals were simple. They consisted of meat and 'mealie-pap' morning, noon, and night, often for weeks without salt. We made coffee of burnt grain ground in a coffee-mill. ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... confess, too, you were distanced," said Lady Jane, at the same time, most terribly provoked, to be quizzed on such a matter; that I, a steeple-chase horseman of the first water, should be twitted by a couple of young ladies, on the score of a most manly exercise. "But come," said his lordship, "the first bell has rung long since, and I am longing to ask Mr. Lorrequer all about my old college friend of forty years ago. So, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... the contrary she is really no better (indeed a good deal worse) than she should be. And as if this disillusion were not enough the poor girl gets almost simultaneously the further shock of learning that the same adored parent, supposed by her to be a tragedienne of the first water, is in fact no more than a handsome stick, and unable (as they say) to act for nuts. Jesting apart, I am bound to admit that Lady TROUBRIDGE has risen admirably to the demands of her theme, and written a story both direct and appealing. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... can keep my temper, and he cannot keep his. He has one advantage over most knaves, that he is not only a knave of the first water, but he is sometimes a fool, too. If it were only decent and right to take him into Downing's saloon, and give him just one more glass of whiskey than the blackguard would care to pay for, I could ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... mind at work. Is she only a silly charming child, or an embryo flirt of the first water? Whatever she is, at all events, she is very new, very fresh—an innovation! He continues to ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with him. I thought I had best meet him on his own ground, so I said, "Your clients, sir, are happy in having so resolute a guardian of their confidence. I am myself ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... still remembered by the old-timers. There was a strong spirit of emulation between the companies, which added greatly to their efficiency, each striving to be first at the fire, as it was considered an honor to have first water on the same. At the tap of the fire alarm men could be seen running from all quarters to the engine-houses, as the first man at the engine-house had the honor of carrying the pipe into the fire, which was ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... have been a genius of the first water, but he was at least wise enough to know that he could not both have his cake and eat it. His discovery of Jeffreys' villainy was a most appetising cake, and it wanted some little self-denial to keep his own counsel about ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... refinement suggested by intimacy with a Grand Duke, so, in the same way, she had taken some casual remark by my father, had worked it up delicately, given it a 'turn,' a precious title, set in it the gem of a glance from her own eyes, a gem of the first water, blended of humility and gratitude; and so had given it back transformed into a jewel, a work of ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... ball of the Polo Club, and that was a social function of the first water—in the eyes of the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... it was Morgan, didn’t you?—you are undoubtedly a scoundrel of the first water. I make the remark ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... the circulation of our paper 250,000 during the next six months. To accomplish which we will give absolutely free a genuine FIRST WATER Diamond Ring, and the Home Companion for one year, for only $2.00. Our reasons for making this unprecedented offer are ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... "jewels" on the way to Gloucester from Bath through Cold Aston and Stroud; but if I were properly up in history, no doubt I should have noted more than I did; yet Gloucester itself was a diamond of the first water. I feared to be disappointed in the Cathedral, so soon after exquisite Wells and the Abbey at Bath, which I loved. But as soon as I got inside it was quite otherwise, especially as I had Sir Lionel to show me things, and he knew Gloucester of ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... appeared, all walking quickly towards the spot where Barry was still patiently waiting. The man who was leading he at once recognized as the captain of the brig—the four who followed at his heels were common seamen by their dress, and ruffians of the first water by their appearance. Each carried a bundle under his arm, and one a small chest on his shoulder; he was evidently the wealthy man ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... constantly bringing railing accusations against them; and they work harder—get up sooner, go to bed later—than the whole of them. They jump at midnight if their services are required by either a wild Irishman in Canal-street or a gentleman of the first water in any of our mansions. It is not a question of cloth but of souls with them. They are afraid of neither plague, pestilence, nor famine; they administer spiritual consolation under silken hangings, as ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... remainder of the bridegroom's wardrobe. In whatever niggardly array the bride came to her lord's arms, he, at {131} least, was pranked and decked in all the apparel of a young gallant, an exquisite of the first water, for this was only one of several rich suits which he provided for his marriage outfit; and then follows a list of costly gloves and presents, and all the lavish outlay ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various
... two miles further, when Washington signified his determination to encamp at the first water they should find. The guide said nothing, but kept doggedly on. After a little while they arrived at an opening in the woods, and emerging from the deep shadows in which they had been travelling, found themselves in a clear meadow, rendered still more light by the glare of the snow ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... bay, I gave him a fourth, which finished him. This leopard was a very fine old male; in the conflict, the unfortunate Alert was wounded, as usual, getting his face torn open; he was still going upon three legs, with all his breast laid bare by the first water-buck. ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... up with Cheyenne, if you keep movin'. He won't travel fast with a pack-hoss along. He'll most like camp at the first water, about twenty-five miles south. But you can pack some grub in your saddle-bags, and play safe. And take a ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... articles of personal luggage belonging to both of them, which had not yet been removed. The first object that rewarded his search was a splendid diamond pin which he remembered having seen in Platzoff's scarf. Ducie picked it up and looked cautiously around. No one was regarding him. "Of the first water and worth a hundred guineas at the very least," he muttered. Then he put it in his waistcoat pocket and went on ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... quite so communicate as she could have been, and, therefore, fixed the sad event upon the gay Charley Brandon, in whose constellation of gay doings it would, indeed, be a romantic diamond of the first water. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... description of the process by which these reefs or rocks become beautiful and picturesque islands. Mr. Montgomery's poetical talent is altogether of the highest order, or, to use a familiar phrase, his Pelican Island is "a gem of the first water." How exquisite is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various
... to listen. Diana's impressions of the country-side, which presently caught her ear, evidently roused her pugnacity. She threw herself on all the girl's rose-colored appreciations with a scorn hardly disguised. All the "locals," according to her, were stupid or snobbish—bores, in fact, of the first water. And to Diana's discomfort and amazement, Oliver Marsham joined in. He showed himself possessed of a sharper and more caustic tongue than Diana had yet suspected. His sister's sallies only amused him, and sometimes he improved on them, with epithets ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... advanced, deeply bowing to right and left, parabolas of light exhaled from her coronet like falling stars. When King and Queen were seated, their State robes flowing in purple waves and ripples of ermine to the very steps of the dais, the picture was complete. Single gems of the first water glistened like dewdrops in the Queen's ears, while upon her bosom as she breathed the three great Turgeneff diamonds caught and defiantly threw back the light. They became the center ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... contrast with the magnificence and dash of his attire, for he was dressed, regardless of expense, as a Hungarian magnate of the first water, and he rejected with sombre scorn all attempts made by friends to commiserate him. His nearer acquaintances knew for a certainty that he would thus remain seated on top of an empty wine cask until the very close of the ball. For whenever the black devils of drink cast ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... anthologists had unjustly, even unaccountably, neglected our English carols, and promised myself to redress the balance. I hunted through many collections, and brought together a score or so of pieces which, considered merely as carols, were gems of the first water. But no sooner did I set them among our finer lyrics than, to my dismay, their colours vanished; the juxtaposition became an opposition which killed them, and all but half a dozen had to be withdrawn. ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that as they were spies, and French spies at that, they richly deserved to be scalped alive. Such milk-and-water, half-way measures might do for pale-faces, but were not the sort of entertainment to be relished by a genuine Indian brave of the first water, or, to speak more to the point, ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... slapped his thigh, "Kaunitz! behold the key. Eh, eh, I have it now; not long ago the Empress despatched a special ambassador to Versailles,—one Anton Wenzel Kaunitz, a man I never heard of. Why, this Moravian count is a genius of the first water. He will combine France and Austria, implacable enemies since the Great Cardinal's time. Ah, I have it now, monsieur,—Frederick of Prussia has published verses against the Pompadour which she can never pardon—eh, against the Czaritza, too! Why, what a thing ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... care. It was not to be wholly removed at the time of cleaning, and it was not to be walked on, or indented, or in any other way consolidated or destroyed. In fact, in some cases, the wasting of the first water after cleaning has been advocated, for the reason that not a sufficient amount of this organic film would be left on top of the sand to begin the filtration process ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... never use them. That is positive enough, I hope? Though I cannot admire his style, I admire the man who wrote to me, 'Re Tennyson—your remarks anent his "In Memoriam" make me sick': for though re is not a preposition of the first water, and 'anent' has enjoyed its day, the finish crowned the work. But here are a few specimens ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... volumes which the year has brought to our table this one stands out facile princeps—a gem of the first water, bearing upon every one of its pages the signet mark of genius.... All is told with such simplicity and perfect naturalness that the dream appears to be a solid reality. It is indeed a Little ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... young lambs were bleating on the sheltered innings and making bright clean spots of white beside the ewes' fog-soiled fleeces, when the tegs had come down from their winter keep inland, and the sunset fell in long golden slats across the first water-green grass of spring. The years had aged him more than they had aged Joanna—the marks on her face were chiefly weather marks, tokens of her exposure to marsh suns and winds, and of her own ruthless applications of yellow soap. Behind them ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... The wily Indian, perhaps knowing the habits of the race he had forsaken, had been prowling about among the sullen prisoners. He openly laughed at them for the plight in which he found them, taunting them as cowards of the first water. ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... came to the table, proved to be a very excellent one indeed. It consisted of broiled chicken, some most excellent fried potatoes, eggs, fresh and very nice bread, and some honey. For drink, they had at first water; and at the end of the meal some French coffee, which, being diluted with boiled milk that was very rich and sweet, was ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... a flirtation there can be little doubt, but the Prince's object may have been part of the political intrigue, rather than carnal intercourse with a woman of nearly fifty years of age. Josephine, always sorry for herself, a sieve of the first water, susceptible to flattery, blind to device, yearning for admiration and pity, was rejoiced to find attention extended to her from any quarter, but coming from the Royal House of Prussia or any other royal personage it was a dazzling compliment to the high esteem in which she believed ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... said that he is the master of the mot juste, has never been a dealer in words. His wares have been, not glass beads, but polished gems; not the most rare and precious, perhaps, but of the very first water of their kind. ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... properly belongs to the age before, is a phenomenon in the history of English literature. His pungent wit, his extraordinary ingenuity, and his command of words are rare endowments, but he has no poetic vein that yields jewels of the first water, and his place is not a high one in the path which leads upward to the ethereal regions of ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... required for the new inventions, where the workers were all huddled together instead of working in their scattered homes; and large populations grew up around these new and artificial manufacturing centres. Their locality was, however, determined by natural causes; at first water-power was the best available force to drive the new machines, and consequently towns sprang up along the banks of rivers. But Watt's application of steam- power to machinery soon supplanted water; and for steam-power coal and iron were the greatest necessities. Factories therefore tended to congregate ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... and friendly to Bonaparte; thither he came every day, and mixed with the social circles, which gathered in the evening in the drawing-rooms of the beautiful, witty Madame de Permont; and where men even of diverging political sentiments, aristocrats and ci-devants of the first water, were to be found. But Madame de Permont had forbidden all political discussion in her saloon; and General Bonaparte, now compelled to inactivity, dared no more show his anger against the Committee of Safety, or against the Convention, ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... appearance as though he should likewise have had his face corked—and he wore in a puffed maroon scarf a stone that flashed enough for half a dozen ordinary diamonds—whether it really was of the first water ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... listened, I was dangerously near admiring him. He was certainly exaggerating; but it couldn't all be brag. The life of this spy of the first water, of international fame, must be rather marvelous; to defy one's enemies with success, to journey calmly through their capitals, to stroll undetected among their agents of justice—were not things any fool could do. He carried his life in his ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... gas-producing vegetables, gravy, fruits which abound in cellulose, such as apricots and peaches, hard stems, xylocarp ribs of leaves, the strong smelling and sharp tasting parts of some kinds of vegetables, as for instance, new potatoes, cabbage (in the cooking of which the first water must be poured off), hot soups and spicy herbs, spices of all kinds, high game, sausages, bacon, yeast pastry, drinks too hot or too cold, strong coffee (in the place of which fruit coffee is recommended), stale raisins and almonds, nuts, too much candy, much liquid with meats, and excitement of ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... Glen, who, in 1825, had been engaged by the Bible Society to translate the Old Testament into Persian. The clever Scot, of whom Borrow was informed by a competent judge that he was 'a Persian scholar of the first water,' was probably too heretical for the Society which recalled him, much to his chagrin. 'He is a very learned man, but of very simple and unassuming manners,' wrote Borrow to Jowett.[100] His version of the Psalms ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... it bluntly, because the young man now staying at Government House is no more the Marquis of Beckenham than I am. He is a fraud, an impostor, a cheat of the first water, put up to play his part by one of the cleverest ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... world is as yet a romance to him. The fellow is interesting, because in him can be seen the genesis of a considerable element of the houseboat fraternity. I wonder how long it will be before his partner has him broken in as a river-pirate of the first water. ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... this portrait on vellum, done in crayons or body-colour, make it a gem of the first water. The drawing was done in black chalk, and the tints have been rubbed in with coloured crayons or given with the point where lines of colour were required. The work has the delicacy of a water-colour and the strength of oils. The broad, soft, red hat, though so fine a bit ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... halt at the first water," said the brigadier. "What an unholy place to camp in! Well, if there are no Boers it doesn't matter. It's lucky that we had a turn-up against those fellows to-day. They will hardly stomach a night-attack with the echo of ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... merae nugae; but even if the humour be not of the first water, it will compare well with the humour of epigrams of any age. Martial knows he is not a great poet.[681] He knows, too, that his ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... coach box. One, a tall young fellow, looks at a distance like a field-officer in a flashy uniform, but is only an English footman in a gaudy livery, who needs the training of a London winter or two, in a fashionable household, to make him a flunky of the first water. The other, an old man, with a severe countenance, is plainly dressed, but, with a less brilliant exterior, has a more respectable air than his companion. He, too, is the man in authority as, from time to time, he directs the party and urges them on ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... a step at a time, and then for several paces. Conscious that he could carry away only an infinitely small portion of the riches, Ashman found himself in the unparalleled situation of casting aside the smaller gems and taking only those that were large and of the first water. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... at the lower end with a circle of pins bent backward like half-opened umbrella ribs. The squid—for some unknown reason—likes, and wraps himself round, this thing, and is hauled up ere he can escape from the pins. But as he leaves his home he squirts first water and next ink into his captor's face; and it was curious to see the men weaving their heads from side to side to dodge the shot. They were as black as sweeps when the flurry ended; but a pile of fresh squid lay on the deck, ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... be settled in life, that he took to the unfortunate flax-dressing business in Irvine. That is something of an unlovely and mysterious episode in Burns's life. Suffice it to say in his own words: 'This turned out a sadly unlucky affair. My partner was a scoundrel of the first water, and, to finish the whole business, while we were giving a welcome carousal to the New Year, our shop, by the drunken carelessness of my partner's wife, took fire and burned to ashes, and I was left, like a true poet, not ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... fifty years, I see myself as a boy, whose education has been interrupted, and who intellectually was left, for some years, altogether to his own devices. At that time I was a voracious and omnivorous reader; a dreamer and speculator of the first water, well endowed with that splendid courage in attacking any and every subject, which is the blessed compensation of youth and inexperience. Among the books and essays, on all sorts of topics from metaphysics to heraldry, which I read at this time, two left indelible impressions on my mind. One was ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... indeed an Adonis—splendidly shaped in every limb, delightfully plump and firm white flesh, rosy cheeks, sparkling blue eyes—but Frank was so engrossed with his jewel of a prick, which was a perfect gem of the first water, nearly eight inches long when erect, as white and hard as ivory, yet of velvety softness to the touch, and set in a bed of soft, curly, golden-brown hair, which ornamented the roots and shaded the full bag of ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... folk who had failed in every other line of business, took up land long before even the road to the dam was finished. These people waited in a pitiful state of hardship five years for water. They blamed the Service and they fought for first water. ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the captain was found dead on the highroad between Gaillon and Mantes. His murderers had stripped him of all his apparel, forgetting, however, in his right boot a jewel which was discovered there afterward, a diamond of the first water and of ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... him—ventured to preach a sermon on the Duties of Royalty. The "Quarterly," "so savage and tartarly," came down upon him in the most contemptuous style, as "a joker of jokes," a "diner-out of the first water," in one of his own phrases; sneering at him, insulting him, as nothing but a toady of a court, sneaking behind the anonymous, would ever have been mean enough to do to a man of his position and genius, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... we would allow parasites to breed on our own bodies." But we must go farther than this, and introduce all sorts of restrictions on matrimony, until finally it comes to be a matter to be arranged under rigid laws by a jury of elderly persons—all, we may feel perfectly sure, "cranks" of the first water. ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... of Schubert's pianoforte compositions to 2 Sonatas, the G major Fantasia (a Virgilian poem!), the splendid "Wanderer"-dithyramb (C major Fantasia), 2 books of Impromptus, Moments Musicals and all his Valses (among which there are gems of the first water). All this will be sent to you forthwith; and in addition ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... turned night into day in a picturesque fashion, particularly those houses which have been pressed into the service of trade in the Rue Richelieu. Champfleury smoked his short pipe and discussed with me the prospects of French politics. His father was, he told me, an old Bonapartist of the first water, but had been moved to exclaim, a short time before, after reading the papers day after day, 'Pourtant, avant de mourir je voudrais voir autre chose.' We parted very affectionately at ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner |
