"Masterly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of external action in this piece. Prometheus merely suffers and resolves from the beginning to the end; and his sufferings and resolutions are always the same. But the poet has, in a masterly manner, contrived to introduce variety and progress into that which in itself was determinately fixed, and has in the objects with which he has surrounded him, given us a scale for the measurement of the matchless power of his sublime Titan. First the silence of Prometheus, while ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... made it worse! If she had sung a solo it would have been less humiliating," replied Mrs. Kirby, with a masterly change of front. "I was indignant! Christian, with her charming voice, only playing accompaniments and singing in the glees, and that unendurable Mangan girl posing as the Prima ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... that time heard quite enough, Tolly Trevor effected a masterly retreat, and returned to the place where he had left the horses. On the way he recalled with satisfaction the fact that Paul Bevan had once pointed out to him the exact direction of Simpson's Gully at a time when he meant to ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... pianists is Miss Teresa Malderton, who nearly fell a prey to that gay deceiver Mr. Horatio Sparkins (S.B.T. 5). Her contribution to a musical evening was 'The Fall of Paris,' played, as Mr. Sparkins declared, in a masterly manner. ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... portrait of his mother. Consider it now, not as a portrait, but as a single figure. What are the qualities of it which would be helped if there were more in it? The very simplicity of it makes the handling of it more masterly. ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... appreciate his merit. He was too natural for an artificial age. Among the pictures exhibited here is one from his famous series of the Harlot's Progress. It is too well known by the engravings to need description; but when the eight masterly pictures which compose this series were sold at auction during Hogarth's life, they brought the sum of fourteen guineas each! The March of the Guards to Finchley, so admirable in composition, so full of incident and character, so rich in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... ladies. Charlotte Cushman appeared as Meg Merrilies, Parodi and Dempster sang in concerts, Burton and Brougham convulsed their hearers with laughter, Booth gave evidence of the undiminished glow of his fiery genius by his masterly delineation of the "wayward and techy" Gloster, and Forrest ranted in Metamora, to the delight of his admirers. Colonel John W. Forney told a good story about a visit which he paid with Forrest to Henry Clay soon after the passage of the compromise measure. The Colonal unguardedly ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Creasy's masterly survey of the European situation at this period unfolds the Anglo-Spanish complications. His exhaustive account of the Armada and its ill-fated enterprise makes clear everything important in this famous ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... academy in his admirable Discourse on imitation, has set the folly of depending on unassisted genius, in the clearest light; and has shewn the necessity of adding the knowledge of others, to our own native powers, in his usual striking and masterly manner. "The mind, says he, is a barren soil, is a soil soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized, and enriched ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... generals will carry to-day's work out, my lad. That's it: Cracis has calculated upon its being like this, and this place will be instead of a retreat a masterly scheme ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... plea for forgiveness, representing that the writer had experienced nothing but deep repentance and sorrow since the time he had seen her last. He set forth his case in a masterly way, with little touching facts of his childhood, and lonely upbringing, with no mother to guide. He told her that her noble action toward him had but made him revere her the more, and that, in short, she had made a new creature of him by refusing to return ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Professor at the Oriental Institute, Woking. Though entirely self-taught, he was master of fourteen languages. [432] His Arabic Dictionary (1884) and his Persian English Dictionary (1892) are well known, the latter being the best extant, but he will, after all, be chiefly remembered by his masterly rendering of Hariri. Dr. Steingass presently became acquainted with Burton, for whom he wrote the article "On the Prose Rhyme and the Poetry of the Nights." [433] He also assisted Burton with the Notes, [434] ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... he wrote at least sixteen plays, among them "Every Man is his Humour" (1598), in which Shakespeare acted, "The Poetaster" (1601), which vexed Dekker, the tragedy of "Sejanus" (1603), "The Silent Woman" (1609), a farcical comedy, Dryden's favourite play, and his most elaborate and masterly work, "The Alchemist" (1610); he wrote also thirty-five masques of singular richness and grace, in the production of which Inigo Jones provided the mechanism; but his best work was his lyrics, first of which stands "Drink to me only with thine eyes," ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Boffin sitting in the arm-chair hugging himself, with his eyes upon the fire, acted as a restorative. Counterfeiting a sneeze to cover their movements, Mr Wegg, with a spasmodic 'Tish-ho!' pulled himself and Mr Venus up in a masterly manner. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... society! And what a simple person that elderly gentleman was, who, abruptly starting, asked, in rather an authoritative voice, 'And why should Lieutenant P—- be shunned by respectable society?' and who, after entering into what was said to be a masterly analysis of the entire evidence of the case, concluded by stating, 'that having been accustomed to all kinds of evidence all his life, he had never known a case in which the accused had obtained a more complete ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... withdraw his claims. This pamphlet being virulently attacked, and its author accused of bidding for a place at Court, Defoe made a spirited rejoinder, and seized the occasion to place his arguments in still clearer light. Between them the two pamphlets are a masterly exposition, from the point of view of English interests, of the danger of permitting the Will to be fulfilled. He tears the arguments of his opponents to pieces with supreme scorn. What matters it to us who is King of Spain? asks one adversary. As well ask, retorts Defoe, what it matters to ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... of POPE one acquires dignity and interest from the characters of both parties. It closed by producing the severest, but the most masterly portrait of one man of genius, composed by another, which has ever been hung on the satiric Parnassus for the contemplation of ages. ADDISON must descend to posterity with the dark spots of ATTICUS staining a purity of character which had ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... by foreign statesmen, was his production. Not only did he write most of it, but the least of what he wrote for it excels the best that was contributed to it by men so able as Jay and Madison. Every attempt that has been made to take from him any portion of the honor of this masterly work has failed, and it is now admitted that it can fairly be associated only with his name. "The total number of these essays," says Mr. John C. Hamilton, "by Hamilton's enumeration, approved by Madison, is seen to be eighty-five. Of this enumeration, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... the world. I remember on one occasion he took up the nebular or La Place theory, adopted it as the true one, and traced the rise and progress of the earth through the evolution of matter to its present condition, in a most comprehensive and masterly manner. At another time it was said: "John Quincy Adams will speak to you to-day on the political condition of your country," and with all the grace, dignity, and eloquence of the famous old Senator from Massachusetts when addressing the Senate of the United States, this medium delivered ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... elaborated scheme. There are no happy accidents or lucky flukes in his painting. It is as stark and solid as the work of Ingres or Mantegna. Some people call that sort of thing dry and intellectual; others call it masterly. ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... out his vocabulary of curses, Madge took it up, and completed it in masterly style, and there was really nothing for either of the detectives to say for a long time. But her breath was gone after a while, and she lapsed into sullen silence, closing her remarks ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... would have been the part of wisdom on the part of the young life saver to have taken to his heels and beat a masterly retreat. ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... whose contents have been drained, but fountains that still flow when the traveller who drank from them has passed on. Jarno, for example, a man of firm and definite outlines, and drawn here with masterly distinctness, without a blur or a wavering of the hand in the whole delineation, is yet the unexplained, unexhausted Jarno, when the book closes. He goes forward with the rest, known and yet unknown, a man of very definite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... the Visigoths, he determined to lead his nation to independent victory. In 395 and 396 he invaded Greece,[7] and Stilicho, the Vandal general of the Western Emperor, advanced against him. The strategy of Stilicho was masterly, and it would probably have gone hard with Alaric had not Stilicho been suddenly bidden by the Eastern Emperor, Arcadius, to withdraw his western troops. Again, in 396, Stilicho penned Alaric in the Peloponnesus, but for some unknown reason allowed him to escape into ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... whether he was in a position to foresee them—his route lay through an unknown land of barbarians—or whether any other plan, such as that of taking the coast road or of embarking at Cartagena or at Carthage, would have exposed him to fewer dangers. The cautious and masterly execution of the plan in its details at any rate deserves our admiration, and to whatever causes the result may have been due —whether it was due mainly to the favour of fortune, or mainly to the skill of the general—the grand idea of Hamilcar, that of taking up the conflict ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... was quite enraptured by the simple instrument; he would never have believed that anyone could play it with such masterly skill. ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... their inveterate enemies. Unfortunately, as is well known, this precaution, and even the aid of their Algonkin and French allies, proved inadequate to save them. The story of their disastrous overthrow, traced by the masterly hand of Parkman, is one of the most dismal passages of ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... reproduction of the actual words and deeds of the personages, the elaborate and carefully-concealed art of the composition, all deserve the highest praise. Here, for instance, is a fair average passage, showing Clarendon's masterly skill in summary narration and his equally masterly, though, as some hold, rather unscrupulous faculty ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... adventurous waiting was heaping up significance for the moment when at length he should cry, "Up, Guards, and at them !" What Cecil said of Raleigh, "He can toil terribly," has been styled "an electric touch"; but the "masterly inactivity" of Sir James Mackintosh, happily appropriated by Mr. Calhoun, carries an equal appeal to intuitive sense, and has already become proverbial. He is no sufficient hero who in the delays of Destiny, when his way ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... in his goodness and favour to me, knew no bounds, was pleased to bequeath to me all the family pictures at his late house, some of which are very masterly performances; with command, that if I died unmarried, or if married and had no descendants, they should then go to that son of his (if more than one should be then living) whom I should think would set most ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... trophies, till she was ushered into a small sitting-room, Lady Dunstable's particular den, crowded with photographs of half the celebrities of the day—the poets, savants, and artists, of England, Europe, and America. On an easel stood a masterly small portrait of Lord Dunstable as a young man, by Bastien Lepage; and not far from it—rather pushed into a corner—a sketch by Millais of a fair-haired boy, ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... Clarke's personality is given by a writer in the Sydney Bulletin: 'His wit was keen and polished, his humour delicate and refined, and his powers of description masterly.... His face was a remarkable one—remarkable for its singular beauty. Like Coleridge, the poet, he was "a noticeable man with large grey eyes," and one had but to look into them to perceive at once the light of genius.... He was one of the best talkers I have ever met. Like Charles ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... picturesqueness, and the delightful Moorish Garden,—A Dream of Granada, which were exhibited in 1874. A powerful picture, shown in 1875, of the Egyptian Slinger,[4] is illustrated later in this volume, but no reproduction can quite suggest the striking colouring of the original, and the masterly treatment of its light and shade, in the presentment of this lonely figure posed high on its platform against the clear evening sky. The delightful Little Fatima, and the Grand Mosque, Damascus, enlarged from the sketch previously alluded to, ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... Godfrey Raupert has cited some impressive cases in his Dangers of Spiritualism, Modern Spiritism, and The Supreme Problem. This is assuredly a side of psychic investigation which demands close study and prolonged investigation; and, in spite of the masterly analysis of some of these cases by Professor Flournoy in his Spiritism and Psychology (chap. iii.), I cannot but feel that there is yet much to be learned as to the nature of the intelligence manifested in these cases. And this was, as we know, ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... hitherto been silent, was a literary man. Unhappily, while this talk had proceeded, he had placed his hand upon Randal Leslie's celebrated pamphlet, which lay on the library table; and, turning over the leaves, the whole spirit and matter of that masterly composition in defence of the administration (a composition steeped in all the essence of party) recurred to his too faithful recollection. He, too, liked Randal; he did more,—he admired the author of that striking and effective pamphlet. And therefore, rousing himself from ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her expression of masterly placidity changed before her sister Caroline's announcement and her sister Rebecca Ann's gasp of terror ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Aguilar knew the female heart better than any writer of our day, and in every fiction from her pen we trace the same masterly analysis and development of the motives and ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... contrived to obtain that perfect mastery of his ponderous and intricate briefs, which secured him his repeated and splendid triumphs in court. Till within even the last eighteen months, or two years, if you had gone down one morning at half-past nine to Westminster, you might have heard him opening with masterly ease, clearness, and skill, a patent case, or some other important matter, before a special jury; and immediately after resuming his seat, you would see him go perhaps into an adjoining court of Nisi Prius, in which also he was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... between me and the silent little figure holding the candle aloft. As I have often said, he was a pretty swordsman, and at this crisis, with life at stake, and all the fury of the seven devils of disappointed vengeance to nerve his arm, his sword play was most masterly. ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... your own business," her father had said, and it seemed to Lorraine after three or four days of it that he had summed up the life of a cattleman's daughter in a masterly manner which ought to be recorded among Famous Sayings like "War is hell" and ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... scene as ever Claude immortalized! Unwilling to hazard a formal description, I will merely attempt an outline. Far below, the silver waters of the Skell meander softly amongst statues of tritons, throwing up innumerable fountain streams. These are masterly executions after the ancient sculptors, and give the scene an air of Grecian classicality. Around these triumphs of art, rise lofty woods of graceful birch, varied by dark fir, and interspersed with erections ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... usual. He was our professor in science. It was the general belief that he chose science for his life-work because it gave unusual opportunities for torture. He was believed to be a devoted vivisectionist; he certainly had methods of cruelty, masterly in their ingenuity. He could make a whole class raw with punishment in a few words; and many a scorching bit of Latin verse was written about his hooked ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and M. Turquet really imagine these views to be 'American,' it would be instructive for them to look into the masterly protests of the Catholic Archbishop of New York, against the doctrines of Mr. Henry George as adopted and expounded by Father McGlynn. The Catholic Church in the United States holds its own property, real and personal, and ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Alcide seized the horse's head, and, in an instant, his strong wrist mastered it. His companion and he had seen Michael's rapid stroke. "Bravo!" cried Alcide; "for a simple merchant, Mr. Korpanoff, you handle the hunter's knife in a most masterly fashion." ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... Blind Musician" that Korolenko attains perfection. This masterly psychological study does not present a very complicated plot. From the very start the reader is captivated by a powerful poetic quality, free from all artifice, fresh, spontaneous, and breathing forth such moral purity, such tender pity, that one ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... general philosophical position, it is important to understand that he is not a Hegelian, in the sense of being a close follower of that philosopher. One of his last works is that in which he deals in a masterly manner with the philosophy of Hegel. The title may be translated, "What is living and what is dead of the philosophy of Hegel." Here he explains to us the Hegelian system more clearly than that wondrous ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... passion, which was now as violent as it was wicked, soon drove him to conceive desperate measures. But, by masterly self-government, he kept them two days to his own bosom. He felt it was too soon to raise a fresh and painful discussion with Zoe. He must let her drink unmixed delight, and get a taste for it; and then show her on what conditions alone it ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the father bids the son put him down, so that the son may save himself by flight, as otherwise both will be lost. The son obeys, and as he goes casts a glance of farewell on his father. This is the moment depicted. The historical circumstance which Scott represents in his masterly way in The Heart of Midlothian, chap, ii., is of a precisely similar kind; where, of two delinquents condemned to death, the one who by his awkwardness caused the capture of the other happily sets him ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... you; And gave you such a masterly report For art and exercise in your defence, And for your rapier most especially, That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye, If you oppos'd them. Sir, this report ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... nothing but schoolboys," she said joyously. "I believe you are both looking forward to this midnight adventure! You'd be quite disappointed if there were no need for your masterly plot after all!" ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... any sort. But there is no saying how far his treatment of the boy might have contributed to prevent a cure. Tyrannical schoolmasters nowadays are to be found, perhaps, exclusively in such inferior schools as those described with such masterly and indignant edification by my friend Charles Dickens; but they formerly seemed to have abounded in all; and masters, as well as boys, have escaped the chance of many bitter reflections, since a wiser and more generous intercourse has ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... We read the reviews of books in the old Spectators and Athenaeums, and put in the words they say there about other people's books. We said we thought that chapter about Geraldine and the garters was "subtle" and "masterly" and "inevitable"—that it had an "old-world charm," and was "redolent of the soil." We said, too, that we had "read it with breathless interest from cover to cover," and that it had "poignant pathos and a convincing realism," and the "fine flower of delicate ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... promises, and created a home for himself. A few years after, he was elected governor of the State. It was during his term of three years that a most determined effort was made to change the constitution of the State so as to legalize slavery in it. It was chiefly through the firmness and masterly management of Governor Coles that ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... to take shelter under them. Since the researches of Lartet and Christy, it has been known as an established fact that these savages were indued with rare artistic skill. Their delineations with a flint point on ivory and bone, of the mammoth, reindeer, and horse, are so masterly that these men stand forth as the spiritual ancestors of Landseer and Rosa Bonheur. And what is also remarkable is that the race which succeeded, that which discovered the use of metal, was devoid of the artistic sense, and their attempts ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... showing of the model's beautiful limbs, suddenly fell on one side from the hip to the ankle of this remarkable figure of Truth. Here again the face was unmistakable, and the sculptor had taken immense pains to make this medallion a masterly portrait ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... hub-bub of greetings that lasted for several minutes, then Mrs. Todd took command of affairs in her usual masterly way. ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... emerging from the scourges of German invasion and of the Commune. As a correspondent of the New York Herald, under the personal direction of my chief, Mr. James Gordon Bennett—for whom I retain a deep-rooted friendship and admiration for his sterling, rugged qualities of a true American and a masterly journalist—it was my good fortune, during fourteen years, to share the joys and charms of Parisian life. I was in Paris during the throes of the Dreyfus affair when, at the call of the late Whitelaw Reid, I began my duties as resident correspondent of the New York Tribune. I saw ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... to have been always satisfied with his conduct of the war, deeming it prompt, energetic, vigorous, masterly. I did not, and could not, so regard it. I believed then—I believe this hour,—that a Napoleon I., a Jackson, would have crushed secession out in a single short campaign—almost in a single victory. I believed that an advance to ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... decarade, which expresses the departure of heavy vehicles at a gallop, is attributed to Villon, and it is worthy of him. This word, which strikes fire with all four of its feet, sums up in a masterly onomatopoeia the whole of La Fontaine's ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Charles I. at Hampton Court, which has been quoted hundreds of times. They will be thrilled by at least three stories of the supernatural told with the elan and consummate simplicity that exceeds art, and they will be charmed with the ingenuousness of the writer when she writes about herself, and her masterly little sketches by the way of such characters of the time as Sir Kenelm Digby and Lord Goring, son of the Earl of Norwich. Indeed, we venture to think they cannot fail to find the whole book delightful, because, though relating to a long-vanished past, it ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... said, "I have listened with great care to the masterly defence of that corporation on which our material prosperity and civic welfare is founded (laughter); I have listened to the gentleman's learned discussion of the finances of that road, tending to prove that it is an eleemosynary institution on a grand ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... With which masterly description in one phrase of all he could have done for the ill-starred debutante who had been hungry in the wrong place, Cecil lounged out of the club to drive with half a dozen of his set to a water-party—a Bacchanalian water-party, with the Zu-Zu and ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... offered for Mrs. Bascombe, after making it clear to her that he was going to do so and finding the running good. He put it in his masterly language and said that he'd be her willing slave, and hinted how, when he was gathered home, the farm would be her own for life and so on; and while knowing very well that John weren't going to be her slave or nothing ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... excellence as to regard this glorious composition without all the admiration due to it. I am dazzled by the flood of light which bursts from the opening heavens above, and affected by the dramatic interest of the group below. What splendour of colour! What variety of expression! What masterly grouping of the heads! I see all this—but to me Raffaelle's picture wants unity of interest: it is two pictures in one: the demoniac boy in the foreground always shocks me; and thus from my peculiarity of taste the ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... modifications induced in individuals and in peoples by many natural causes, organic or climatological, are based upon their physiological conditions. In the first chapters of Herbert Spencer's book on Sociology, there is a masterly investigation into the changes produced by climate, with its accidents and organic products, on the peculiar temperament of different peoples and races, and we must refer our ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... "There is in woman an easy gayety, which scatters the sadness of man." It may be said, on the other hand, that there is in the man of literary genius a masterly insight, joined with sympathetic tenderness and masculine strength, which administers to woman that reflective and glorifying interpretation, and that supporting guidance, whereof she continually stands in such need. What woman would ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... beautiful and often rare wood glued to a foundation of some cheaper kind. The tall clocks and cabinets of William and Mary's time and the wonderful work of Boulle in France are examples of marquetry, the fine furniture of Hepplewhite and Sheraton are masterly examples ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... accumulated. This is not the unavoidable ruin of shell-fire. No battle was fought here. The demolition was the wanton spite of an enemy who, because he could not hold the place, was determined to leave nothing serviceable behind. With such masterly thoroughness has he done his work that the spot can never be re-peopled. The surrounding fields are too poisoned and churned up for cultivation. The French Government plans to plant a forest; it is all that can be done. As years go by, the kindliness of Nature may cause ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... on the opposite side, and sunk in sad thoughts, was contemplating a large portrait of Henry the Eighth, the masterly production of Holbein. As he gazed on that countenance, indicative at once of so much dignity and so much ferocity; as he contemplated those eyes which shone with such gloomy severity, those lips ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... perhaps, but perceptible in more than one page of 'Sweet Bells Jangled.' Mabel felt her heart grow heavier as she read. Why had he chosen to deliberately lower his level like this? Where were the strong and masterly touch, the tenderness and the dignity of his first book? That had faults, too, even faults of taste—but here the faults had almost overgrown the taste! Surely if she read on, she would find the style attain the old distinction, and the tone grow noble and tender ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... physical sciences, some of them instead of answering questions, explained and exhibited the contents of the Museum. All showed the excellent results of out-door and laboratory work. They have learned to see. The visitors in the grammar room noted with especial pleasure a masterly explanation of cube root by means of blocks and figures that ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 3, September, 1898 • Various
... spoken a word. She watched not without surprise this series of forcible entries, which were accomplished with a really masterly skill. He guessed her thoughts and, turning round, ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... his humble duty to your Majesty, and has the honour to report that in the debate of last night Viscount Palmerston defended the whole Foreign Policy of the Government in a speech of four hours and three quarters.[22] This speech was one of the most masterly ever delivered, going through the details of transactions in the various parts of the world, and appealing from time to time to great principles of justice ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... ardor of discovery which still burned in the bosom of this contemporary and rival of Columbus, granted with alacrity his royal license for the fitting out of three ships to explore a north passage to the East Indies. The instructions for this voyage were drawn up in a masterly manner by Cabot himself, and the command of the expedition was given to sir Hugh Willoughby, and under him to Richard Chancellor, a gentleman who had long been attached to the service of the excellent sir Henry Sidney, by whom he was recommended to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... otherwise regarded by the leaders of that social clique in Quebec whose family compact he had resolutely condemned. Yet he had builded better than England or Canada or himself then knew, and his tireless energy and imagination left behind him the material for a sound structure. Besides the masterly report of his commission, a visible, if less important, monument to his beneficent work for Canada still stands in the magnificent terrace at Quebec, known to-day under an improved form and by another name, yet in a larger measure his conception ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... next morning we had the newspaper, the 'Alta California.' It gave a meagre outline of the address, but praised it warmly, and closed with the following observations: 'All left the church feeling that an elegant tribute had been paid to the creative genius of the Great First Cause, and that a masterly use of the English language had ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... satisfaction that a visit from their brother's friend would confer both upon Lady Fitz-pompey and himself, he requested permission for his nephew to renew the visit in which he had been 'so happy!' The Duke seconded the Earl's diplomatic scrawl in the most graceful round-text. The masterly intrigues of Lord Fitz-pompey, assisted by Mrs. Dacre's illness, which daily increased, and which rendered perfect quiet indispensable, were successful, and the young Duke arrived at his twelfth year without revisiting Dacre. Every year, however, when Mr. Dacre ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... and to place him in a position at which he could not complain without putting himself in the wrong. Public opinion would say that benefits had been heaped upon him, that the correct thing had been done correctly with the knowledge and approval of the legal advisers of his family. It had been a masterly thing, that visit to Townlinson & Sheppard. He was obliged to aid his self-control by a glance at the eyelashes. She was a new sort of girl, this Betty, whose childhood he had loathed, and, to his jaded taste, novelty appealed enormously. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "scene" has been, in fact, subsequently depicted by. the masterly pencil of J.M.W.TURNER, Esq. R. A: and the picture, in which almost all the powers of that surprising Artist are concentrated, was lately offered for sale by public auction. How it was suffered to be bought ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... in a very striking and interesting way by Sturla's other work, his essay in foreign history, the Life of King Hacon of Norway. The Hkonar Saga, as compared with Sturlunga, is thin, grey, and abstract. It is a masterly book in its own kind; fluent and clear, and written in the inimitable Icelandic prose. The story is parallel to the history of Iceland, contemporary with Sturlunga. It tells of the agonies of Norway, a confusion ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... of several Germans, by Kowalevsky, a Russian, by the Englishmen Ray Lankester and Willey, and by several Americans and Frenchmen. But behind the work of all these lies the pioneer work of Huxley, who first gathered the group of Ascidians together, and in a series of masterly investigations described its ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... Sadducees say there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both. And there was a great cry, and the Scribes that were on the part of the Pharisees, arose and strove, saying, "We find no evil in this man" &c. This, indeed, was a masterly manoeuvre, and produced the desired effect; and Paul by this shows his knowledge of the human heart, in trusting to make his Judges forget what he was accused of, by making an appeal to their sectarian passions. For, in truth, he was not accused concerning his opinion about "the hope, and ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... Owing to his great popularity in the North, his thorough knowledge of the laws of his own country, as well as of those which govern nations, united to his discretion, his great tact and experience, he has saved the country from a ruinous war with Great Britain. And by his masterly skill and energy among the Cherokees, united to his noble generosity and humanity, he has not only effected what everybody supposed could not be done without the most heartrending scenes of butchery and bloodshed, but he has effected ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... wrought not only in the authors of the Latin hymns, but also in Luther, who in our time has had the chief part both in writing the German choral hymns, and in setting them to tunes; as may be seen, among others in the German Sanctus (Jesaia dem Propheten das geschah) how masterly and well he has fitted all the notes to the text, according to the just accent and concent. At the time, I was moved by His Grace to put the question how or where he had got this composition, or this instruction; whereupon the dear man laughed at my simplicity, ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... stand two obelisks 100 feet high, and of one single block covered with hieroglyphics executed in a masterly style. It is at the feet of these obelisks that one may judge of the high degree of perfection to which the Egyptians had carried their knowledge in mechanics. We have seen that it costs fortunes to move them from their place. They were followed by two colossal statues forty feet high. After ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... ridiculous weaknesses; so that we are forced to admire and feel that we venerate, even while we are laughing? Swift was able to do nothing that approaches to this. He could draw an ill face, or caricature a good one, with a masterly hand; but there was all his power, and, if I am to speak as a god, a worthless power it is. Yours is divine. It ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... Webster's doctrine,—"the Union is paramount",—accepted for the second time the Republican nomination and platform, he summed up the issues of the war, as he had done before, in Webster's words. Lincoln, who had grown as masterly in his choice of words as he had become profound in his vision of issues, used in 1864 not the more familiar and rhetorical phrases of the reply to Hayne, but the briefer, more incisive form, "Liberty and Union", of Webster's "honest, truth-telling, ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... his satanic countenance and glittering eyes. But two words whispered by Fraisier in La Cibot's ear had prompted a daring piece of acting, somewhat beyond La Cibot's range, it may be, though she played her part throughout in a masterly style. To make others believe that the dying man was out of his mind—it was the very corner-stone of the edifice reared by the petty lawyer. The morning's incident had done Fraisier good service; but for him, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... who could do it with perfect delicacy and success. Our own age is more fortunate, on this single score at least, having a larger and far nobler proportion of female writers; among whom, since the death of George Eliot, there is none left whose touch is so exquisite and masterly, whose love is so thoroughly according to knowledge, whose bright and sweet invention is so fruitful, so truthful, or so delightful as ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... neither society nor the critics ever forgave him, and did not even do justice to his genius. His espousal of the popular cause in Europe embittered the conservative element, and the freedom of speculation in such masterly works as 'Cain' brought upon him the anathemas of orthodox England. Henceforth in England his poetry was judged by his liberal and unorthodox opinions. This vituperation rose to its height when Byron dared to satirize George ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... there are few which would misbecome the first academical collections; and if any thing could diminish our regret at the long suppression of those noble memoirs, which are destined to adorn future volumes of that of the Institute, it would be the masterly abstracts of them which from time to time appear in the ANNALES, either from the hands of the authors, or from the reports rendered by the committees appointed to examine them; which latter, indeed, are universally models of their kind, and have contributed, perhaps more than any thing, to the ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... strength, and absorbed in the immensity of his theme, his argument gathers force, till earth and heaven appear to be in motion before him! He ranges the universe, summons to his aid the power of God, lays his masterly hand upon every fact, gathers them in his grasp, condenses them before his hearers, and, in one overwhelming burst of eloquence, makes the whole bear upon the resurrection of Christ and of man! He refers them to the coming of his Lord, at which time will be the end ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... December, 1897, Dr. Sims Woodhead, president of the British Medical Temperance Association, gave a masterly address in London upon "Recent Researches on the Action of Alcohol." The lecture was illustrated by lantern slides. From the report given in The Medical Temperance Review of Jan., 1898, ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... for in the great sum of a useful life death is a multiplication instead of subtraction, and the tombstone, instead of being the goal of the race, is only the starting point. What means this rising up of all good men, with hats off, in reverence to one who never wielded a sword or delivered masterly oration or stood in senatorial place? Neither general, nor lord, nor governor, nor President. The LL. D., which a university bestowed, did not stick to him. The word mister, as a prefix, or the word esquire, as a suffix, seemed a superfluity. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... letter to Bowles in defence of Pope, alludes to Falconer's Shipwreck, and cites it in proof of the poetical use which may be made of the works of art. But it has justly been remarked by Hazlitt, in his very masterly reply, published in the 'London Magazine', that the finest parts of the Shipwreck are not those in which he appears to versify parts of his own Marine Dictionary, or in which he makes vain efforts to describe the vestiges of Grecian grandeur, but those in which, as in the ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... Luther of the eighteenth century and of the cultivated classes was Voltaire. As Luther had an antipathy to what was immoral, so Voltaire had an antipathy to what was absurd, and both of them made war upon the object of their antipathy with such masterly power, with so much conviction, so much energy, so much genius, that they carried their world with them—Luther his Protestant world, and Voltaire his French world—and the cultivated classes throughout the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... over and addressed by men of commanding ability, among whom Samuel Adams, "the man of the town-meeting," was foremost[3]. In those days great principles of government were discussed with a wealth of knowledge and stated with masterly skill ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... alacrity than usual in offering good advice to his father. His policy was rather that of masterly inactivity. Indeed, as the discussion waxed hot—his sisters' voices rising slightly in tone, while Lord Fallowfeild's replies disclosed a vein of dogged obstinacy—he withdrew from the field of battle and moved slowly round the room staring abstractedly at the pictures. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... begun. The crowd is awaiting news. They talk at random, catching at the words which please them, or shaping utterances which express their wishes. Longing for victory, they imagine it won. In masterly fashion, Zweig shows how a vague rumour spreads in the hallucinated mind of the multitude, to attain in an instant a certainty surpassing that of truth. Details pass from mouth to mouth; precise figures of the false victory are given. Jeremiah, the defeatist prophet, ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... were observed with great care. The engines were indicated in a masterly manner by a gentleman of great experience, as the cards—tracings of which we have seen—bear ample testimony. The temperature of the feedwater was 47 degrees; it should, in our opinion, have been heated, but we waive this point. The state of the barometer and temperatures of engine ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... plenty of literature upon the subject. First of all, in spirit and comprehension, the masterly, careful, copious, and patient works of Mr. Olmsted. But he, like Arthur Young in France, was only an observer. He could be no more. "Uncle Tom," as its "Key" shows, and as Mrs. Kemble declares, was no less a faithful than the most famous witness against ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the action of the Oedipus Tyrannus is frequently instanced by the critic as a specimen of judgement and skill in the selection and combination of the incidents; and in this point of view it is truly a masterly composition. The clearness, precision, certainty, and vigour, with which the line of the action moves on to its termination, is admirable. The character of Oedipus too is finely drawn, and identified with the development ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... this, however, so little comparative projection is given,—nay, the masterly group of Agamemnon, Nestor, and Ulysses, and, still more in advance, that of Achilles, Ajax, and Thersites, so manifestly occupying the fore-ground, that the subservience and vassalage of strength and animal courage to intellect and policy seems to be the lesson ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... imagination. At the time I used to wonder in what element lay the charm. Partly, of course, in his own profound appreciation of the author's meaning, partly also in his clear and correct emphasis, but most of all in the wonderful word-painting with which, by a few masterly strokes, he placed the whole scene before the mental vision. In theatrical representation, a man with a bush of thorn and lantern must 'present moonshine' and another, with a bit of plaster, the wall which divides Pyramus from his Thisbe; but in Mr. Lanier's readings, ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... general style is broad, square, and masterly. The peculiarities of the English ducal robes are sufficiently attended to, and sufficiently simplified; but the ermined part we esteem unfortunate (as much of it at least as is seen in the front view of the figure) ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... at the matter in its mechanical aspect, we perceive at once, without any profound mathematical research, that the retardation so hard to detect mathematically must necessarily take place. As Sir E. Beckett says in his masterly work, Astronomy without Mathematics, 'the conclusion is as evident without mathematics as with them, when once it has been suggested.' So when we consider the case of a wide flat ring surrounding a mighty planet like Saturn, we perceive that nothing could possibly save such ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... constitution rendered him, in all circumstances, keenly alive to the hearty and animal enjoyments of life, would still emerge, as the day declined, from their wretched apartment, and, trusting to his disguises, in which indeed he possessed a masterly art, repair to one of the better description of restaurants, and feast away his cares for the moment. William Gawtrey would not have cared three straws for the curse of Damocles. The sword over his head would never have spoiled his appetite! He had lately, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... imagination, like a very beautiful mistress, is indulged in the appearance of domineering; though the judgment, like an artful lover, in reality carries its point; and the less it is suspected of it, it shows the more masterly conduct, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... lightly etched and good; but they have not that free and certain hand which marks Mr Tayler's style in his drawings, where one wash of the brush hits off his object with great truth. "The Gypsy Boy," by Mr Knight, is very masterly in chiaroscuro, and certainly characteristic of the race. Effect of chiaroscuro seems to be his aim. It is marked in his "Old Fable" (which always means the newest) of "The Peasant and the Forest." It is thus given: "A peasant once went into an old forest of shady oaks, and humbly entreated the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... William Gillette's masterly dramatization of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective stories, is melodramatic even when the action is ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... would certainly have been taken, and though with some considerable loss of life, it might have prevented much subsequent greater loss. However, it appeared that he had resolved to attack the lines by regular approaches. General Washington, seeing the inevitable result, made a masterly retreat with the whole garrison across the sound to New York during the night, favoured by calm weather and a thick fog. Notice was brought in the morning to General Howe of what had occurred, and when one of his aides-de-camp, who was sent ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... according to that of Eduard Schmidt, 5.52; 'Lehrbuch der Math. Geographie', bd. i., s. 487); by the torsion balance, according to Reich, 5.44. In the calculation of these experiments of Professor Reich, which have been made with masterly accuracy, the original mean result was 5.43 (with a probable error of only 0.0233), a result which, being increased by the quantity by which the Earth's centrifugal force diminishes the force of gravity for the latitude ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... enlightened zeal and patriotic munificence of one Scottish gentleman, Mr. A. Henry Rhind of Sibster. The same fact is attested also by the highly valuable character of the systematic works on Scottish Archaeology which have been published of late years by some of our colleagues, such as the masterly Pre-historic Annals of Scotland, by Professor Daniel Wilson; the admirable volume on Scotland in the Middle Ages, by Professor Cosmo Innes; and the delightful Domestic Annals of Scotland, by Mr. Robert Chambers. The essays also, and monographs on individual ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... head-quarters for exploring the neighbouring Vals and their romantic scenery, the works which it possesses of the ancient and famous Val Sesian school of painters and modellers are most interesting. At the head of them stands first and foremost Gaudenzio Ferrari, whose original and masterly productions ought to be far more widely known and studied than they as yet are; and some of the finest of them are to be found in the churches and Sacro Monte ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... day-break—'Skiddaw touched with rosy light,' and the prospect from Nathdale Fell 'hoar with the frost-like dews of dawn:' thus giving a beautiful and well-contrasted Panorama, produced by the most delicate and masterly strokes of the pencil. Well may Mr. Ruskin, a fine observer and eloquent describer of various classes of natural appearances, speak of Mr. Wordsworth as the great poetic landscape painter of the age. But Mr. Ruskin has found how seldom the great landscape painters are powerful in ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... reverses, Cornwallis took the field and hurried to attack Greene, who, too weak to fight him, began a masterly retreat of 200 miles across Carolina to Guilford Courthouse, where he turned about and fought. He was defeated, but Cornwallis was unable to go further, and retreated to Wilmington, N.C., with Greene in hot pursuit. Leaving the enemy at Wilmington, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... Brigadier-General W. F. Smith, Chief Engineer, I feel under more than ordinary obligations for the masterly manner in which he discharged the duties of his position, and desire that his services be fully appreciated ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the space of one hour, in the course of which he made ten runs and Fenn sixty. By scoring odd numbers off the last ball of each over, Fenn had managed to secure the majority of the bowling in the most masterly way. ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... 'American Review', the following remarkable poem by Edgar Poe. In our opinion, it is the most effective single example of 'fugitive poetry' ever published in this country, and unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift and 'pokerishness.' It is one of those 'dainties bred in a book' which we feed on. It will stick to the memory of everybody ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... without pre-arrangement, just those phenomena which could stimulate his mind, already fit, to its highest flights. We have seen, too, how universal was Darwin's interest in nature, and how sympathetic a heart went with his scientific insight. He had yet to show how masterly was his patience, to work for yet twenty years, in order that he might not by premature publication of a crude theory risk defeat and throw science backward rather than forward. This long patient work was to be the triumph of ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... employed by Puritanism, not in the connected and fluid way in which St. Paul employs them, and for which alone words are really meant, but in an isolated, fixed, mechanical way, as if they were talismans; and how all trace and sense of St. Paul's true movement of ideas, and sustained masterly analysis, is thus lost? Who, I say, that has watched Puritanism,—the force which [179] so strongly Hebraises, which so takes St. Paul's writings as something absolute and final, containing the one thing needful,—handle ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... vagabonds—Antonio Buchini, his Greek servant with an Italian name, and Benedict Mol, the Swiss of Lucerne, who turns up in all sorts of improbable circumstances as the seeker of treasure in the Church of St. James of Compostella—only a masterly imagination could have made him so interesting. Concerning these there is nothing to supplement Borrow's own story. But we have attractive glimpses of Borrow in the frequently quoted narrative of ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... from Mr. Satow's masterly essay, 'The Revival of Pure Shinto,' published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. By 'gods' are not necessarily meant beneficent Kami. Shinto has no devils; but it has its 'bad gods' as well as ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... the hall-mark of genius itself. The plot is masterly in conception, the descriptions are all vivid flashes from a brilliant pen. It is impossible to read and not marvel at the skilled workmanship and the constant dramatic intensity of the incident, situations ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... an eloquent and masterly speech. Johnson was most accurately acquainted with the characters of those who surrounded him; he was making a great bid for the recovery of that popularity which in some unexplained way—but largely through the machinations of ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... coming and dwelling long hours in the company of these frescos, I think I might live back into the spirit which invented the fables, and enjoy even more the amusing taste that was never tired of their repetition. Masterly conception and incomparable execution are there in histories which are the dreams of worlds almost as extinct as the dead planets whose last rays still reach us and in whose death-glimmer we can fancy, ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... of the company but sprang from his place and sat down like schoolboys before me, saying, 'Allah upon thee, O our lord, sing us another song.' 'With pleasure,' said I, and playing another measure in masterly fashion, sang ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the dulcimer the poet had heard in St. Petersburg from the famous Silbermann."(6) Through the whole book runs a humour not often found elsewhere in Mickiewicz; the reports of the debates in Jankiel's tavern and in Dobrzyn hamlet are masterly in their blending of kindly pleasantry with photographic fidelity to truth. The poet sees the ludicrous side of the Warden, the Chamberlain, the Seneschal, and the other Don Quixotes who fill his pages, and yet he loves them with the most tender affection. In his descriptions of external nature—of ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... classed with "the men who have best known the vital principles and fundamental conditions of a government worthy of its name and mission." Hamilton's speech On the Expediency of Adopting the Federal Constitution, delivered in the Convention of New York, June 24, 1788, was a masterly statement of the necessity and advantages of the Union. But the most complete exposition of the constitutional philosophy of the Federal party was the series of eighty-five papers entitled the Federalist, printed during the years 1787-88, and mostly in the Independent Journal of New York, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... the case in college baseball. Tom at third and Dick at first had starred in their positions, while Bert in the pitcher's box with his masterly "fadeaway" had cinched the pennant, after a heartbreaking struggle with the "Greys" and "Maroons," their leading rivals. The story of how he had plucked victory from defeat in that memorable fight was already a classic ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... to repulse a fellow whom she thinks beneath her, if not by a flat at least by a flattening refusal; nor is it seldom that the "argumentum fistycuffum" resorted to on such occasions. I have more than once seen a disagreeable lover receive, from that fair hand which he sought, so masterly a blow, that a bleeding nose rewarded his ambition, and silenced for a time ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... was no easy task; for Ewell's Confederates had meanwhile come down from the north and driven in the Federal flank on the already hard-pressed front. The front thereupon gave way and fell back in confusion. But Hancock's masterly work was quickly done and the Federal line was reestablished so well that the Confederates paused in their attack and waited ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... go on; but the masterly way in which Mr. Rowe spoke of the world made me think he must have seen a good deal of it, and when we had looked our last upon the island, and had crept with lowered mast under an old brick bridge where young ferns hung down from the archway, and when we were ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... but "honorary degree of Doctor of Letters," is to be conferred by Dublin University on HENRY IRVING, for masterly management of vast correspondence. Let Oxford follow suit with a "Postmastership of Merton." Dr. L. O'TOOLE says, "I'm satisfied with 'L.L.L. Three Stars,' and plenty ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892 • Various
... answer, she had caught sight of a low, long, enticing divan, and onto this, with a gurgle of pleasure, she made a dive, placed two cushions for her head, put one little hand under her face, snuggled into an attitude of perfect comfort and deliberately went to sleep. It was masterly. ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... the tall, athletic form of Anthony, flourishing his whip in joyous salutation, a cheery, glad-eyed Anthony; and beholding her who sat so close beside him, I understood this so great change in him. Reining up in masterly fashion, he sprang lightly to earth and taking his wife in powerful arms, lifted her down, pausing to kiss her in midair, and then she had run forward to clasp Diana ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the supreme animation and belief in the divinity within—all these Raphael caught from Perugino. Both men were egotists, as are all men who do things. They had heard the voice—they had had a "call." The talent is the call, and if a man fails to do his work in a masterly way, make sure he has mistaken a lazy wish for a divine passion. There is a difference between loving the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... significantly adds, "Jesus, knowing that all things are now finished."[124] With masterly forethought, and self-control and deliberation He had done the thing He had set Himself to do. Never was yielding so masterful. Never was a great plan carried out so fully through the set purpose of one's enemies. His every ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... a man in the East who was neither a flatterer nor freebooter, but who by his own masterly perseverance worked his way to immense wealth, and to such power as wealth commands, though his high view of the social aims of mankind deterred him from mixing in political questions. Bon chien chasse ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... the victory strikes one. Its keystone was De Salaberry's masterly use of illusion. Of it was the choice of a thick wood to conceal his small force, their entrenchment behind the abatis and in bush positions, the unexpected fire from the left bank upon Purdy, the Indians in the woods, and, more than everything, the ruse of ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... attack upon the Teutonic bandits would arouse protests which might injure our cause. I, being no orator, had only my poor written speech, which, as I could not alter it, became dangerous. It was necessary to prepare the ground. Destree mounted the platform and, in a masterly improvisation, began by establishing a long, patient and scholarly parallel between Flemish and Italian art, between the great painters of Florence and Venice and those of Flanders and Brabant; and thence, by imperceptible degrees, he shifted his ground to the ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... began in such a style, that, from the first moment of her touching the lute, the caliph perceived she did it with a masterly hand. Afterwards accompanying the lute with her voice, which was admirably fine, she sung and played with so much skill and sweetness, that the caliph was quite ravished ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... Martia, by the handsome Edgar Hickman, who afterwards went to Africa, and of whom she never afterwards heard tidings; Lucia, by Master Walker, whose sister was her particular friend; Cato, by John Hunter, a masterly declaimer, but a plain boy, and shorter by the head than his two sons in the scene, etc. In conclusion, Starkey appears to have been one of those mild spirits, which, not originally deficient in understanding, are crushed by penury into dejection and feebleness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... school-days, had learnt that all knowledge is equipment for a literary life. He certainly made good use of his time, and the results can be seen in many of his works, notably in the "Tenebreuse Affaire," which contains in the account of the famous trial a masterly exposition of the legislature of the First Empire, or in "Cesar Birotteau," which shows such thorough knowledge of the laws of bankruptcy of the time that its complicated plot cannot be thoroughly understood by any ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... dipped a courtesy to him, dainty and sweet enough to conquer an angel, while the great jelly-bag shook himself almost to pieces in his eagerness to achieve a masterly bow. All this made me angry, not that I cared though Helene had coquetted with a dozen lads, an it had liked her. It was only the poverty of taste shown in being seen in the open High Street of Thorn along with such an ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... interruption. But the interruption must be brought about naturally. It would not do to come up behind them. That would seem too intrusive. He must manage to skip round deftly when the occasion offered, and by a piece of masterly strategy to come ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Delia, after dinner, made her father take her to the circus so that Francie should be left alone to receive her intended, who would be sure to hurry round in the course of the evening. The girl herself expressed no preference whatever on this point, and the idea was one of Delia's masterly ones, her flashes of inspiration. There was never any difficulty about imposing such conceptions on poppa. But at half-past ten, when they returned, the young man had not appeared, and Francie remained only long enough to say "I told you so!" with a white face and march off to her ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... at Rome the PROPAGANDA, the great missionary heart of the whole masterly system. Noiselessly, by the multiform orders of monks and nuns, as through so many veins and arteries, it sends out and receives back its vital fluid. In its halls, the whole world is distinctly mapped out, and ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... companion, as they strayed on. "Of course, nothing would please her—as a bitter rival—more than to hear her sister-in-law's singing abused. That touch about lighter things was masterly when she herself only sings Wagner for a few. But how do ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... work: there was no over-eagerness, no suspicious warmth, above all (and this gave her art the grace of a natural quality) there were none of those damnable implications whereby a woman, in welcoming her friend's betrothed, may keep him on pins and needles while she laps the lady in complacency. So masterly a performance, indeed, hardly needed the offset of Miss Gaynor's door-step words—"To be so kind to me, how she must have liked you!"—though he caught himself wishing it lay within the bounds of fitness to transmit them, as a final tribute, to the one woman he knew ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... undefined, assume an exaggerated and gigantic outline, half lost amid the clouds,—so now, through the obscurity of fable, we descry the dim and mighty outline of the HEROIC AGE. The careful and skeptical Thucydides has left us, in the commencement of his immortal history, a masterly portraiture of the manners of those times in which individual prowess elevates the possessor to the rank of a demigod; times of unsettled law and indistinct control;—of adventure—of excitement;—of daring qualities and lofty crime. We recognise in the picture features familiar ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Alonzo of Alcazar, when he deserted Sebastian, king of Portugal, turned renegade, and joined the emperor of Barbary. The cause of his desertion was that Sebastian gave to Henri'quez the lady betrothed to Alonzo. Her name was Violante (4 syl.) The quarrel between Sebastian and Dorax is a masterly copy of the quarrel and reconciliation between Brutus and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... capacity—can chew but can't swallow," Garlock said then, lighting two cigarettes and giving Belle one. "How's that for a masterly job of calibration?" ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... sail and then another stealing round the end of the quay gave him fresh courage. Timothy Sweeny and Peter Walsh had done their work on shore. He was determined not to fail in carrying through his part of a masterly scheme. ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... my endeavour," wrote the poet,—a somewhat enigmatical phrase—"while in bed with a fever." A considerable number of the poems may be grouped together as expressions or demonstrations of various passions, central among which is the passion of love. A few, and these conspicuous for their masterly handling of novel themes, treat of art, and the feeling for art as seen in the painter of pictures or in the connoisseur. Nor is the interpretation of religious emotion—though in a phase that may be called ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... by the suspicion of which he felt himself the object at home, and by the hatred with which he was regarded in the provinces; outraged in his inmost feelings by the murder of Escovedo; foiled, outwitted, reduced to a political nullity by the masterly tactics of the "odious heretic of heretics" to whom he had originally offered his patronage and the royal forgiveness, the high-spirited soldier was an object to excite the tenderness even of religious and political opponents. Wearied with the turmoil of camps without battle and of cabinets without ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "Such masterly eyes are not common among our gentlemen. You will be quite her phoenix; and how much 'Thomson's Seasons' you will have to hear! I dare say you ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge |
