HAILSTONE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Hailstone

... who are credited with genius have, indeed, been sometimes very 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 ...

— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... concurrent incident was presented to the reader as coldly and curtly as a historic hailstone, striking him but to glance off, and not like a real, breathing story, as it was, appealing strongly to his heart. The following facts, which have been kept inviolate in this office for nearly twenty years, and only brought to light here because those most ...

— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe