"Skilful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was held among the Hebrews at a later period of their history. They also appear to have successfully applied it to the cure of diseases. The whole of David's power over the disorder of Saul may, without any miraculous intervention, be attributed to his skilful performance upon the harp. In 1st Samuel, c. xvi., we read that Saul's servants said unto him, "Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee: Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man who ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... 1865, Mrs. Mary C. Vaughan, a skilful and practiced writer, whose tastes and sympathies led her to take an interest in the work, became associated with the writer in its preparation, and to her zeal in collecting, and skill in arranging the materials obtained, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... consider all these precious predictions, so numerous in the Scriptures, the prophecies of His Glory. The God of this age Satan is unfolding the glories of this present age which is almost at the end, with a skilful master hand. He knows how to blind the eyes not only of those who believe not, but of many who are Christians. He makes everything so attractive and many of God's people have fallen into his snares. ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... vocalized. The other branch of the Aryan family retained the vowel between the guttural sound and the terminal n. Hence we have the Gothic kunnan, kaenna, Anglo-Saxon cunnan, German kennen, to examine, to know. Hence, also, our can, to know, to be able; cunning, knowing, skilful; and know, to perceive, to have knowledge of. While we pronounce know without the guttural sound, the word itself and the significance it embodies necessitate the continued use of the k. The sound of know, as we use it, gives no idea of sight or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... proved most useful. He acted as interpreter on shore or aboard whenever an interpreter was wanted. He was active in the opening of packing-cases, careful and skilful in handling glass and china. He planned store-rooms for the provisions which came ashore, arranged the wine in cool cellars, ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... ball and quoits on the side. Jane was admitted to all these. She was strong and active, but she lacked the skill of her friend Harriet. The latter's playing in basketball and tennis was a revelation to the guardians who had never known a high school girl who could play such an even and skilful game. It was a foregone conclusion that Harriet was in a fair way to earn more beads by her accomplishments in the games of ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... others approach lest, lacking his own nice conceptions, they bring about a result he had so earnestly sought to avoid, and the vase lose its perfect symmetry. But, alas! called from his work never to return, it is completed by less skilful hands, a less delicate conception, and, while the result is pleasing, the perfect harmony of proportion is wanting, and those who see it feel conscious of its incompleteness, yet scarcely ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... making flames, but it is thrilling to get sparks from flint. Once a child brought an old tinder box with steel and flint, but even then we were not skilful enough to get up a flame. Still it is something to have tried, and we are left with a respectful admiration for those who could so easily do ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... reason than the latter, since in the one we have an intelligent and designing Cause, such as accounts for the existence of other minds and the manifold marks of design in Nature, whereas in the other all the phenomena of thought, and feeling, and volition, as well as all the instances of skilful adjustment and adaptation, must be resolved into the power of self-existent, but unintelligent ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... crowd, performs acts that many of its members, as individuals, would never be guilty of. Its average intelligence is very low; it is inflammatory, vicious, idiotic, almost simian. Crowds, properly worked up by skilful demagogues, are ready to believe anything, and ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... narrower sense among us than among other nations: we seem to restrain it only to the book, whereas, indeed, any artisan whatsoever (if he knew the secret and mystery of his trade) may be called a learned man: a good mason; a good shoemaker, that can manage St. Crispin's lance handsomely; a skilful yeoman; a good ship-wright, &c. may be all called learned men, and indeed the usefullest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... EASY; or, Practical Instructions for Diners Out. Illustrated with Engravings of Fish, Flesh, and Fowl, and appropriate instructions, whereby a complete and skilful knowledge of the useful art of Carving may be attained, and the usages of the Dinner Table duly observed. By ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... coming from such a source, Crowsfeather could not do less than express his thanks, and his readiness to hear what further might be in reserve for him. Peter then alluded to le Bourdon's art, describing him as being the most skilful bee-hunter of the West. So great was his art in that way, that no Indian had ever yet seen his equal. It was Peter's intention to make him exercise his craft soon, for the benefit of the chiefs and warriors present, who might then return ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... glad to tell you, was an exceedingly humane and upright man. He showed great kindness to Danae and her little boy, and continued to befriend them until Perseus had grown to be a handsome youth, very strong and active and skilful in the use of arms. Long before this time King Polydectes had seen the two strangers—the mother and her child—who had come to his dominions in a floating chest. As he was not good and kind, like his brother the fisherman, but extremely wicked, he resolved to send ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... father came to her, and then the story, or as much of it as she could bring herself to tell him, had to be repeated. He was not in truth much surprised at Mr Slope's effrontery; but he was obliged to act as though he had been, to save his daughter's feelings. He was, however, anything but skilful in his deceit, and she saw ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... concerned, a sort of Horn (hence its name), with a cup mouthpiece, and finger holes for the intermediate notes of the scale. Hawkins gives pictures of a treble, a tenor, and a bass cornet, copied from Mersennus, who remarks that the sounds of the cornet are vehement, but that those who are skilful, such as Quiclet, the royal cornetist (i.e., of France, 1648) are able so to soften and modulate them, that ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... priest) then said, "Open your mouth." When Lono opened his mouth, the kahuna spat into it, [6] by which he would become proficient in the calling he had chosen, and in which he eventually became, in fact, very skilful. ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... The rules which govern the production of evidence did not permit Tressamer to put a further question to the witness, but he was skilful enough to do what accomplished the same result. He called across the barristers' table, in a ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... schooner, under Columbian colours, came to an anchor off the town. By the aid of mechanics, obtained from this vessel, the settlement was put into a superior state of defence, while the sufferings of the wounded were alleviated by the assiduous attentions of a skilful surgeon. After conferring upon the settlers countless obligations during a term of four weeks, Captain Wesley's vessel sailed, bearing with it the sincerest ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... in beds of this age, I concluded that this great group had been suddenly developed at the commencement of the tertiary series. This was a sore trouble to me, adding as I thought one more instance of the abrupt appearance of a great group of species. But my work had hardly been published, when a skilful palaeontologist, M. Bosquet, sent me a drawing of a perfect specimen of an unmistakeable sessile cirripede, which he had himself extracted from the chalk of Belgium. And, as if to make the case as striking as possible, ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... in time of need. Mr. Edwards was away and Robert had been overworked. When Dr. Smith arrived, he found him suffering from an attack of intermittent fever, and hastened to render aid. Under the Doctor's skilful treatment he speedily recovered. On the 10th of March another son was added to the Moffat family, and shortly afterwards Mary was suddenly taken seriously ill, and became so weak, that for many days her ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... the way of severity, not even, if necessary, from extermination, his outlook is one of deep despair. He calculates the amount of force, of money, of time, necessary to break down all resistance: he is minute and perhaps skilful in building his forts and disposing his garrisons; he is very earnest about the necessity of cutting broad roads through the woods, and building bridges in place of fords; he contemplates restored churches, ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... contemporary narrative that has ever been penned. Herbert was the quaintest of the saints. He lived in the days of Charles the First and James the First, a High Churchman who had Laud for his friend. Shy, sensitive, high-bred, shrinking from the world, he was at the same time a man of business, skilful in the management of affairs, and yet a man of morbid delicacy of imagination. The picture of his life at Little Gidding, where he and Mr. Farrer instituted a kind of hermitage, or private chapel of devotion, in which the whole of the ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... in the room. Some fresh arrivals occupied his hostess's attention, and Borrowdean, with a resigned shrug of the shoulders, prepared to depart. He had come, hoping for an opportunity to be alone for a few minutes with the Duchess, and himself a skilful tactician in such small matters, he could not but admire the way she had kept him at arm's length. And then the opportunity for a master stroke came. A servant sought him out with a card. A man of method, he seldom left his rooms without instructions as to where ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of hunting scenes, and always he manages the hunt with the skill of a master. The confusion of the rough-and-tumble fight between the wild beasts and the horses, dogs, and men in Rubens' pictures seems to untangle itself under his glorious color and skilful arrangement. This is a picture you must see. When you go to New York City never fail to visit the ...
— The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant
... suddenly from the track; and bearing sharply to the left, under the manege of a skilful helmsman, was running down under the ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... in testimony of the high sense entertained by Congress of the gallantry, good conduct and services of Captain Stewart, his officers and crew, in the capture of the British vessels of war, the Cyane and Levant, after a brave and skilful combat. ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... get two glasses. We'll drink this up, and then we'll get some more at the saloon, and—we'll paint the town red." He rose and fetched two glasses from a cupboard and set them on the table. Then he took his sheath knife from his belt, and, with a skilful tap, knocked ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... numerous and more vaguely conceived, and the whole system seems more confused than that of the Kayans or Kenyahs. It is probable that the Klemantan tribes have borrowed freely from these more powerful neighbours. Many of them are very skilful in wood-carving, and it is probably largely owing to this circumstance that they make a larger number of images in human form. Some of these are kept in the house, while others stand before the house like those before the Kayan houses. The former ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Doon, Highland Mary, and Auld Lang Syne. He had a rich, full voice, and entered heartily into the spirit of his lyrics. I have since listened to the same melodies from the lips of Dempster, than whom the Scottish bard has had no sweeter or truer interpreter; but the skilful performance of the artist lacked the novel charm of the gaberlunzie's singing in the old farmhouse kitchen. Another wanderer made us acquainted with the humorous old ballad of "Our gude man cam hame at e'en." He applied ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... more desirous to inform and strengthen his mind, than to indulge the luxuriancy of his imagination. He chuses to discover, and correct errors in the works of others, rather than to illustrate, and add beauties of his own. Like a skilful artist, he is fond of probing wounds to their depth, and of enlarging them to open view. He aims to be severely useful, rather than politely engaging; and as he was either not formed, nor would take pains to excel in poetry, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... The latter were in their turn screened in their lower part by a belt of low scrub—so that upon looking at that oasis one could hardly realize that it had not been geometrically laid out by the hands of a skilful gardener. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... and awe upon the pile where the first colonies of Europe offered their worship to the unknown God. The temples of the mighty and skilful Roman, comparatively of modern date, have crumbled to dust in its neighbourhood. The churches of the Arian Goth, his successor in power, have sunk beneath the earth, and are not to be found; and the mosques of the Moor, the conqueror of the Goth, where and what are they? ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... mother made him answer; "Woe to me, my life is wretched. If you mock the Saari women, Bring to shame the modest maidens, You will bring yourself in conflict, And a dreadful fight will follow. All the noble youths of Saari, Full a hundred skilful swordsmen, 100 All shall rush on thee unhappy, Standing all alone ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... these details, so accurately photographed, not only prove that M. Michu was a resolute, faithful servant, capable of the profoundest secresy and the most disinterested attachment, but for the really skilful reader of mystic symbols foretell his ultimate fate—namely, that he will be the victim of a false accusation. Balzac, however, ventures into still more whimsical extremes. He accepts, in all apparent seriousness, the theory of ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... was sensuous villain enough to have contemplated, at any moment before the marriage with Cytherea, the return of his first wife, when he should have grown weary of his new toy? Had he believed that, by a skilful manipulation of such circumstances as chance would throw in his way, he could escape all suspicion of having known that she lived? Only one fact within his own direct knowledge afforded the least ground for such a supposition. It was that, possessed by a woman only in the ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... designed a simple and compact modification of it, such as should enable any attentive lad to execute all the detail parts of the machines in so unerring and perfect a manner as not only to rival the hand work of the most skilful mechanic, but also at such a reduced cost as to place the most active hand workman far into the background. The contrivance I refer to is usually known as "Nasmyth's Steam Arm." None but those who have had ample opportunities of watching the process of executing the detail ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... foremost of victorious persons, I will snatch (for thee) this prosperity of Yudhishthira, the son of Pandu, at the sight of which thou grievest so. Therefore, O king, let Yudhishthira the son of Kunti be summoned. By throwing dice a skilful man, himself uninjured, may vanquish one that hath no skill. Know, O Bharata, that betting is my bow, the dice are my arrows, the marks on them my bow-string, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... work had been thoroughly done the boy took his rake and started making fine the soil for the bed. Myron had learned well how to handle his tools. These lessons of handling tools The Chief had taught the boys for he felt that a tool should be a skilful instrument in the hand. "A gardener should wield his hoe as well as a surgeon does his scalpel," The Chief had often said. So the boys were proud of really knowing ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... in various forms of sewing,—the most skilful in a sort of embroidery, like that which forms the border of pia handkerchiefs. A few were reading and spelling. One poor blind girl sat amongst them, with melancholy arms folded, and learned nothing,—they told us, nothing; for the instruction of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... scoffingly they sing about me! Quickly could I requite them! What of the boat so bare and frail, that floated by our shore? What of the broken stricken man, feebly extended there? Isolda's art he gladly owned; with herbs, simples and healing salves the wounds from which he suffered she nursed in skilful wise. Though "Tantris" The name that he took unto him, as "Tristan" anon Isolda knew him, when in the sick man's keen blade she perceived a notch had been made, wherein did fit a splinter broken in Morold's head, the mangled token ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner
... to have seen him or heard. He poured his own drink and shoved the bottles toward his friend, who helped himself with skilful celerity. ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... both idleness and poverty nearly impossible. Human labor, as a general thing, is a positive pleasure only when the hand and brain work in concert. Hence, the more you increase well-devised and efficient machinery, which requires and rewards intelligent oversight and skilful direction, the more you increase the love of labor. We have already manufacturing communities so well supplied with tasks for brains and hands, that everybody works, or would do so but for Circe and her seductive hollow-ware. We are beginning to push machinery into agriculture, where it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... sudden change of temperature, and was taken down the next morning with one of my bilious attacks, which, under other treatment and circumstances, might have resulted seriously. But, through a kind Providence, I have been thrown among most attentive, and kind, and skilful friends, who have treated me more like one of their own children than like a stranger. Mrs. Vail has been a perfect mother to me; our good Nancy Shepard can alone compare with her. Through her nursing and constant attention I am now able to leave my room and have been downstairs to-day, and hope ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... art portraying thy father's heart; as thou describest, even so is it shaped in its entrails, in this black hypocrite's breast. Oh, the art of hell has deceived me! The abyss sent up to me the most the most spotted of the spirits, the most skilful in lies, and placed him as a friend by my side. Who may withstand the power of hell? I took the basilisk to my bosom, with my heart's blood I nourished him; he sucked himself glutfull at the breasts of my love. I never harbored evil towards him; wide open did I leave the door ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and carried off a number of women and children to their wigwams. Fort Pitt at the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monongahela rivers—the site of the present city of Pittsburg—was in serious peril for a time, until Colonel Bouquet, a brave and skilful officer, won a signal victory over the Indians, who fled in dismay to their forest fastnesses. Pontiac failed to capture Detroit, and Bouquet followed up his first success by a direct march into the country ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... lightning, should they befall, have no effect in damping the general enjoyment or preventing its continuance till after the sun has set. The motive for perforating the arms of the young men is to make them skilful hunters; at each perforation the sufferer is cheered by the promise of another sort of game or fish which the surgical operation will infallibly procure for him. The same operation is performed on the arms and legs of the girls, in order that they ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... rudder—which I took from that time—and to get Mrs. Atherfield, her child, and Miss Coleshaw, passed on to sit next me. As to old Mr. Rarx, I put him in the bow, as far from us as I could. And I put some of the best men near us in order that if I should drop there might be a skilful hand ready to ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... is not our purpose to make mention, save of one only, a little square piano, which came down from the upper regions of the house (the state grand piano having been disposed of previously); this the young lady tried with a rapid and skilful hand (making the officer blush and start again), and for it, when its turn came, her ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Darwin is in his own department of natural knowledge, who would not be disturbed by the thorough demonstration of his theory. Nay, they would not even be in the least painfully affected at witnessing the generation of animals of complex organization by the skilful artificial arrangement of natural forces, and the production, in the future, of a fish, by means analogous to those by which we ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... which the princess shall say to me I will obey it for her.'" And he hearkened unto all she said. And he commanded, "Let these two Persea trees be cut down, and let them be made into goodly planks." And he hearkened unto all she said. And after this his majesty sent skilful craftsmen, and they cut down the Persea trees of Pharaoh; and the princess, the royal wife, was standing looking on, and they did all that was in her heart unto the trees. But a chip flew up, and it entered into the mouth of the princess; she swallowed it, and after many ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... had some taste for the arts. Many fine pictures already hung upon his walls. Knowing this, a certain picture-broker threw himself in his way, and, by adroit management and skilful flattery, succeeded in turning the pent-up and struggling current of the old gentleman's feelings and thoughts in this direction. The picture-dealer soon found that he had opened a new and profitable mine. Mr. Alexander ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... parliament. His aim was obviously to break up the new ministry, and possibly to ensure the formation of some new combination in which his own ambition might be satisfied. As we shall shortly see, his schemes failed chiefly through the more skilful strategy of the man who was always his ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... three kinds of physicians. Of these the ampives, who are skilful herbalists, are the best, and have even some skill in the pulse and other diagnostics of disease. The vileus pretend that all contagious diseases are produced by insects or worms, and are therefore often called cutampiru, which signifies vermiculous ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... Sanskrit Lauha-kara>, a worker in iron. In the Central Provinces the Loharhas in the past frequently combined the occupations of carpenter and blacksmith, and in such a capacity he is known as Khati. The honorific designations applied to the caste are Karigar, which means skilful, and Mistri, a corruption of the English 'Master' or 'Mister.' In 1911 the Lohars numbered about 180,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berar. The Lohar is indispensable to the village economy, and the caste is found over the whole rural ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... friend of humanity ought to be acquainted. Its interest, I need hardly urge, extends far beyond the pale of the medical profession, and no one who has reason to desire for friend or relative the kindly care or the skilful treatment required for a disordered mind, can do otherwise than wish gratefully to recognize those who, during well-nigh a century, have laboured to make this care and this treatment what they are ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... these may have been the bones of that wife. When it was finally clear of the ground on which it had grown for so many generations, the great plant was lifted on to a large mat, and after it had been packed with wet moss by Stephen in a most skilful way, for he was a perfect artist at this kind of work, the mat was bound round the roots in such a fashion that none of the contents could escape. Also each flower scape was lashed to a thin bamboo so as to prevent it from breaking ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... teaching school at Jaybird Canon, and was a little more awkward with the running rigging of the Lively Polly than I was. Captain Booden was, therefore, the main reliance of the little twenty-ton schooner, and if her deck-load of firewood and cargo of butter and eggs ever reached a market, the skilful and profane skipper should ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... listening; he had fallen into a brown study, turning the piece of metal in his skilful, wonted, knotty fingers, with their ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... the first time we made the acquaintance of the most skilful weapon in use by the natives. They throw the boomerang with unerring precision, and had we not heard of the manner of its working, and been apprised of the necessity of avoiding its flight, by the warning voice of Smith, one ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... said, "I am a physician, and a skilful oculist. I have come hither to take care of you, and I am fully convinced that I shall ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... the edict of 1861, in the same year in which our own struggle for the emancipation of our Southern slaves began, the peasants were made free and were granted the right to purchase the lands occupied by them at the time. "Enfranchisement was effected in Russia in a manner far more skilful than in our own country, where it was accomplished through the terrible agency of a civil war. Yet the Russian people have been, perhaps, less satisfied with its results. Since then the serfs have been compelled to work ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... skilful gardener drew Of flowers and herbs this dial new! Where, from above, the milder sun Does through a fragrant zodiac run: And, as it works, the industrious bee Computes its time as well as we. How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... bell-voiced m, the tranquil broad a, the penetrating e, the cooing u, the emotional o, and the beautiful combinations of alternate rock and stream, as it were, that they give to the rippling flow of speech,—there is a fascination in the skilful handling of these, which the great poets and even prose-writers have not disdained to acknowledge and use to recommend their thought. What do you say to this line of Homer as a piece of poetical full-band music? I know ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to Britishers, an affair of excitement, and a real breath of Western life. They told us that the cattle kings are moving away from this area to the more spacious and lonely lands of the North; but the exhibition the Prince witnessed showed that the daring and skilful spirit of the cowboys ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... not come to them consciously at the moment, there being little time to think, but it was evident as soon as, diving out of the circle of light into the sheltering darkness, they crouched down and waited for the next move, that a somewhat skilful ambush had been effected. The other members of the gang, who had fled with such remarkable speed, had by no means been eliminated altogether from the game. While the questioning of Mr. Repetto had been in progress, they had crept back, unperceived except by Mr. Repetto himself. It being too dark ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... great crisis of Goldsmith's literary life. In Christmas week, 1764, he published a poem, entitled the "Traveller." It was the first work to which he had put his name; and it at once raised him to the rank of a legitimate English classic. The opinion of the most skilful critics was, that nothing finer had appeared in verse since the fourth book of the "Dunciad." In one respect the "Traveller" differs from all Goldsmith's other writings. In general his designs were bad, and his execution good. In the "Traveller," the execution, though deserving ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... except we charged right up the hill, in the face of the inferior but well-posted enemy. When this was not in favour at the moment, I employed myself in collecting stones and supplying them to my companions, for it seemed to me that every boy, down to the smallest in either school, was skilful in throwing them, except myself: I could not throw halfway up the hill. On this occasion, however, I began to fancy it an unworthy exercise of my fighting powers, and made my first attempt at organizing a troop for an up-hill charge. I was now a tall boy, ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... had not been veterans, and if the right wing had not been under the immediate command of so sturdy and unconquered a veteran as General Thomas, the defeat might have become a rout. As it was, the army retreated with some discouragement but in good fighting force, to the lines of Chattanooga. By skilful disposition of his forces across the lines of connection between Chattanooga and the base of supplies, General Bragg brought the Federals almost to the point of starvation, and there was grave risk that through the necessary falling back of ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... of one of the Christian helpers in the Friends' Mission I secured a very comfortable boat to take me and my reduced following to Ichang for twenty-five dollars Mexican. The boat was all that could be desired, and the captain, or "lao-pan," proved skilful and obliging, but unfortunately he was not, as is usually the case, the owner of the boat, and still more unfortunately, one of the owners, a rather old man, was serving with the crew. Nothing happened, but I had at times an uncomfortable feeling that nobody was in authority ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... moment I hesitated. What Sir John said was quite true; he was a sound and skilful obstetrician of the old school. Moreover, he evidently intended to hold out the olive branch by this kind offer, which I felt that I ought to accept. Already, having conquered in the fray, I forgave him ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... the long reed spear, which is apt to be weak and awkward to carry, we would substitute two darts of cornel-wood; (10) the one of which the skilful horseman can let fly, and still ply the one reserved in all directions, forwards, backwards, (11) and obliquely; add to that, these smaller weapons are not only stronger than the spear but ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... was quick in appraising them at their correct relative values. Some would be good for a dinner given in her honor, others for a dance. The humblest could be counted on for a theatre-party or a "tea." She was skilful, too, in presenting her orphan state with a touching vividness that enlisted their sympathies on behalf of "poor Jack's," or "poor Gertrude's," pretty little girl, according to the side of the house on which ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... shall we tune our voice to sing? Or touch our harps with skilful hands? Shall hymns of joy to GOD, OUR KING, Be sung ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... to Mrs. Graham, and Mary, the nature of his mental affection, and the absolute necessity that there was for his being placed where the most skilful and judicious management of his case could be had. After some time, he gained their reluctant consent to have him taken to the Alms-House. A carriage was then obtained, and he forced into it, amid the tears and remonstrances of the wife and daughter, who had already repented ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... treatment and manipulation determines in large measure not only the desired flavor, but the distinguishing character of the tea, its rank as a green, a black, or an "English Breakfast Tea," all three of which may be evolved by skilful manipulation from the same tea bush, at the ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... time entertained after the fashion of the French salons, inviting people of wit and learning to meet in her drawing-room for discussion. Her artistic work was really remarkable. Encouraged by the advice and help of Horace Walpole, she became a skilful copyist, and it is said imitated the works of some earlier painters with a genius that ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... lower went the Mermaid. The wind was now blowing with the force of a tornado, and, as the craft had to slant in order to descend, it felt the power of the gale more than if it had scudded before it. But, by skilful use of the directing tube, the professor was able to keep the boat from turning over. As they came further down toward the earth the force of the wind was felt less and less, until, as they came within two hundred feet ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... faith in the ages of Fetichism, to its pseudo-presentment in the tenth century, and its actual subversion in the nineteenth. Every step. Our politicians might have picked up an idea or two there, I should think! Then he was so cool about it, so skilful! He fairly rubbed his hands with glee, enjoying the combat. And he was so sure that the Doctor was savagely in earnest: why, any one with half an ear could hear that! He did not see how, in the very heat of the fray, his eyes would wander ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... before the Royal Commission showed that it was otherwise. They are practically unanimous in the opinion that all branches of the mounted troops were inefficient, except the artillery, whose work so far as horses are concerned is akin to that of the skilful but unsporting farm ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... vast majority of the negroes had no chance, but Farquhar pressed the point that Peter himself disproved his own statement. At the time Peter felt there was an clench in the Illinoisan's logic, but he was not skilful enough to analyze it. Now the mulatto began to see that Farquhar was right. The negro question was a matter of individual initiative. Critics forgot that a race was ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... Abraham soon grew drowsy. Tess was not skilful in the management of a horse, but she thought that she could take upon herself the entire conduct of the load for the present and allow Abraham to go to sleep if he wished to do so. She made him a sort of nest in front of the hives, in such ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... the captain," Mr. Dinsmore said in parting; "I can assure you that Arthur is a skilful physician and surgeon, and we have several negro women who thoroughly understand nursing. Beside my wife, Elsie and I will oversee them and do all in our power for the comfort and restoration of ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... having made a model of a press, which seemed to him to combine all the requirements of printing, according to his ideas at that time, he concealed it under his cloak, and walking to the town, went to a skilful turner in wood and metal, named Conrad Saspach, who lived in the Mercer's Lane, asking him to make the machine of full size. He requested the workman to keep it secret, merely telling him that it was a machine by the help of which ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... horde rolled on over the wide plains of Russia. The Ostrogothic resistance was at an end; and soon the invaders were on the banks of the Dniester threatening the kindred nation of the Visigoths. Athanaric, "Judge" (as he was called) of the Visigoths, a brave, old soldier, but not a very skilful general, was soon out-manoeuvred by these wild nomads from the desert, who crossed the rivers by unexpected fords, and by rapid night-marches turned the flank of his most carefully chosen positions. The line of the Dniester was abandoned; the line of the Pruth was lost. It was plain ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... the old lady under the church floor and stuffed the pussy that everybody, kittens, boys, girls and people loved. By and by, when the cat's tail and fur fell to pieces, and ears tumbled off, and its glass eyes dropped out, a skilful artist chiselled a statue of Dub-belt-je', which still stands over the tomb in the church. Every year, on Santa Klaas day, December sixth, the children put a new collar around its neck and talk about the cat that ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... long the nearest Hospital Supply Depot could count on a steady output of work from Homewood. Mrs. Hunt and Norah used to come as polishers; Miss de Lisle suddenly discovered that her soul for cooking included a corner for carpentry, and became extraordinarily skilful in the use of chisel and plane. When the autumn days brought a chill into the air, Mr. Linton put a stove into the workshop; and it became a kind of club, where the whole household might often be found; they extended their activities ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... beauty of form! She is thrown in with a rare happiness and painted with an exquisite delicacy of touch and tint. The blue drapery upon the green landscape defines her sufficiently without making her stand out too much, leaving the figure and the landscape to mingle without disturbing each other in skilful harmony. All of this is in most finished execution, a little elaborate, perhaps, and the expression of the face reflects the sweet, sad memory of the Beloved, whose Gospels she is reading, just as one reads again tender letters of ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... plot failed because a Negro named William Paul began to make enlistments without authority. He revealed the secret to a household servant, just the very man he should have left to the skilful manipulations of Peter Poyas or Denmark Vesey. As an evidence of the perfection of the plot it should be stated that after a month of official investigation only fifteen out of the thousands ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... but then women are deceitful by nature, and very skilful in disguising their faults—at least so I ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... wish to make you happier I am not bent on unredeemed self-sacrifice. You have been the most skilful ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... the estate, was the naturally useful and elegant manner in which the great poet has laid out the plantations—first, with respect to the bounding or enclosing line; and secondly, with regard to the skilful distribution of the trees, both for the contrast of light and shade, and for the protection which the strong affords to the weak.[8] The horizontal profile of the house is fine, crowded with towers and clustered chimneys: it looks half castle, half monastery. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... whether from Pelasgic or Achaean influence, adopted at an early period the Hellenic grammar; and, under the skilful hands of the bilingual Ennius, became that polished interpreter of thought, which yields in regularity and majesty to the Greek alone. The Cumri either retained, which is more probable, a still more ancient, or invented a grammar, now peculiar to themselves. This, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... their remains. The writings of Shelley would furnish matter for a hundred volumes: they are an admirable museum of ill-arranged curiosities—they are diamonds, awkwardly set; but one of them, in the hands of a skilful jeweller, would be inestimable: and the poet of the future, will serve him as Mercury did the tortoise in his own translation from Homer—make him 'sing sweetly when he's dead!' Their lyres will be made ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Skilful counsel will succeed in ingratiating themselves from the very beginning, but they will endeavor to do so only with the jury as a whole. Nothing is more unfortunate than to bestow attention upon a particular juryman: that is to flirt with a juror. If he has not yet been sworn in with the ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... all was war and rebellion with the tollman, assault and battery, damages, broken panes, and what not; but with skilful management, and a few words in the private ear of Mr Rory Sneckdrawer, the penny-writer, we got matters southered up when we were in our sober senses; though I shall not say how much it cost us both in preaching and pocket, to make the man keep a calm ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... there for some time resting, and evading as best he could the skilful questions of the landlady. The wagons moved off first, jolting and creaking their way to Holebourne, and the cook, after making a modest luncheon of bread and cheese and smoking a pipe, got on the ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... "you tell me your bullfighters are very brave men and skilful. It seems I have offended you by saying that bullfighting is a poor sport. What is the name of the best matador you have for ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... low. I have heard it maintained in a learned college faculty that young men who were on the average nineteen years of age, were not fit to begin the study of economics or philosophy, even under the guidance of skilful teachers, and that no young man could nowadays begin the practice of a profession to advantage before he was twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. Now, Washington was at twenty-one the Governor of Virginia's ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... bills; I am not so skilful in arms to know what they meant, (military men know what they are,) that were provided to be sent into Ireland for the use of the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... By skilful flattery, not unmixed with truth, she persuaded him that he was the man destined to free England once more; and so one morning he set out alone, accompanied only by Martin Lightfoot and a dozen house-carles, to spy out the land and see what might be done. Within a week he landed ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds. |
