"Skilfully" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for what is to be seen in its streets and suburbs. Nowhere are there to be found so numerous a body of intelligent, ingenious, well educated workmen. The changes of fashion and the discoveries of science always find Birmingham prepared to march in the van, and skilfully execute the work needed in iron, in brass, in gold and silver, in all the mixed metals and in glass. When guns are no longer required at the rate of a gun a minute, Birmingham steel pens become famous all over the world. When steel buckles and gilt buttons have had their day, ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... with an invisible clearness as of Paradise, the winged heads and bodies of little angels are moving: the former gracefully grouped, the latter boldly and skilfully disposed. The celestial infants have followed all the way to the earth the rays of celestial light in its elusive gradations of colour under its imperceptible glazing. In the centre, in the act of ascent, the Virgin rises in ecstasy. One corner of a cloud, the crescent ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... in the things which belong to it. Have you then not practised speaking? and what else did you learn in the school? Syllogisms and sophistical propositions? For what purpose? was it not for the purpose of discoursing skilfully? and is not discoursing skilfully the same as discoursing seasonably and cautiously and with intelligence, and also without making mistakes and without hindrance, and besides all this with confidence? Yes. When then you are mounted on a horse and go into a plain, are you anxious at being matched ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... revelation of enthusiasm because he was himself so enthusiastic and his silence was mistaken for coldness. He hated the criminals with the simple names and showed them that he hated them and they in their turn, skilfully and with some very genuine humour, persuaded the school that he cut a ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... fisherman's daughter,—the occurrences narrated are such as might happen any day in any small community living near the sea. Novels constructed on this plan are less likely to be popular than those in which the interest is derived from a skilfully-contrived plot and a rapid and stirring succession of moving events. To what extent the work before us may be popular we wilt not undertake even to guess; for we have had too frequent experience of the capriciousness of public taste to hazard ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... of ground, talked so admirably like a countryman, and was so oddly crochety and cross and gruff and impossible to make terms with; and then Norton, who was the rich man he had come to see and who wanted the land, coaxed him so skilfully, and ordered all sorts of good things to be brought to him, when he found he had come a good way and was hungry; and the imaginary banquet was very funny, David making inquiries and comments over the dishes he did not know and Norton supplying him with ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... humus amassed during long centuries, that Mathieu did not even manure the ground as yet. Then, to right and to left, the former sandy slopes spread out all greenery, fertilized by the springs which ever brought them increase of fruitfulness. And the very woods afar off, skilfully arranged, aired by broad clearings, seemed to possess more sap, as if all the surrounding growth of life had instilled additional vigor into them. With this vigor, this power, indeed, the whole domain was instinct; it was creation, man's labor fertilizing sterile soil, and drawing from it ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... so skilfully taken, that when the sea rose to its height, all the officers and crew worked the capstan, and as the vessel was disengaged from the rock, it was ascertained that she drew no more water than when on the reef. But the sailors ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... from the time of his arrival, and he had corresponded with the C.M.S. from time to time on the subject. He had hitherto said nothing, but when the governor appealed to him with the plausible reasoning which he—an idealist also—could so skilfully use, the bishop fell in with the proposal, and broke through the reserve which he had hitherto maintained. Such, at least, is the explanation which is suggested by a careful study of the facts. The conflict was one of principles: communism against individualism. Like many other reformers, ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... lived on the most friendly terms with Undine, who was looked upon throughout the city as a princess whom Huldbrand had rescued in the forest from some evil enchantment. When she or her husband were questioned on the matter, they were wise enough to be silent or skilfully to evade the inquiries. Father Heilmann's lips were sealed to idle gossip of any kind, and moreover, immediately after Huldbrand's arrival, he had returned to his monastery; so that people were obliged to be satisfied with ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... first part of Grant's campaign. The next move was to swing the army southward to the line of the James River and prepare to move upon Richmond and its defences from that side. This change of base was one of General Grant's finest achievements, admirably planned, and so skilfully executed that for three days Lee remained in total ignorance of what his adversary was doing. The Second Connecticut withdrew from its position on June 12th, late at night, reached the river on the 16th, and, moving up it in transports, was disembarked and sent toward Petersburg, ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... with a passionateness which was quite out of keeping with her mask-like expression. It was like finding a pearl in an oyster, hearing her at the piano. She played certain airs from Fra Diavolo so skilfully that she seemed to be letting bandits into the house; and when she saw that Sylvia was following with deep appreciation she passed on to the Tower Scene, giving to the minor chords a quality of massiveness. Her ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... the book, Mr. Arthur B. Frost, deserves to have it said of him that he has done his work skilfully, tastefully and with nice appreciation of the humor of ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... world is more ghastly than these Italian roads, new, mechanical, belonging to a machine life. The old roads are wonderful, skilfully aiming their way. But these new great roads are desolating, more desolating than all the ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... skilfully rolled a cigarette with one hand. "I gave them to understand before I left that they would have to reckon with me if they tried any such trick," he remarked, cheerfully. "I guess that will keep the brutes quiet for a while. But let's get down to business. I have," he said ironically, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Westley Keyts, being skilfully awakened without scandal by his wife, drank a cup of strong coffee to clear his brain, and cordially consumed as many segments of cake as he was able to glean from passing trays, speculating comfortably, meanwhile, about the message of Emerson,—chiefly ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... king, crowned us, and placed us on the throne."[1] The papacy, which had secured a new hold over England by its alliance with John, made its position permanent by its zeal for the rights of his son. By identifying the monarchy with the charters, it skilfully retraced the false step which it had taken. Under the aegis of the Roman see the national spirit grew, and the next generation was to see the temper fostered by Gualo in its turn grow impatient of the papal supremacy. It was Gualo, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... Naturally she supposes Sally to be a wise enough child to know something about her own father. But the Wilson family were not completely in the dark about an unsatisfactory "something queer" in Sally's extraction; so that she credits that unconscious young person with having steered herself skilfully out of shoal-waters; but she is not sure whether to class her achievement as intrepidity or cheek. She is wanted in the intelligence department before she ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... years of age, but looks scarcely fifty; her head is surrounded by tresses of rich fair hair. She is dressed like a man; undertakes, in the capacity of messenger, the longest and most fatiguing journeys; rows a boat as skilfully as the most practised fisherman; and fulfils all her missions quicker and more exactly than a man, for she does not keep up so good an understanding with the brandy-bottle. She marched on so sturdily before me, that I was obliged to ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... labor. The body was girt at various circumferences with fine twine, to be afterward withdrawn through a thick coating of plaster, so as to separate the various pieces of the mould, which was at last completed; and after this Dr. Carnell skilfully flayed the body, to enable a second mould to be taken of the entire figure, showing every muscle of the ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... who had retired from active life, and went to the counting-room only to look after the junior partners—men who always shaved down town, and would not let any barber but Andre touch their faces. His hand was so soft and silky, his touch so tender and delicate, and his razors were so keen and skilfully handled, that he was a favorite ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... said, "that the people who live on the sea make better vessels, and know how to sail them more skilfully. We had a proof of that here at Vevey," (he pronounced the word like v-vais, agreeably to the sounds of the French vowels,) "last summer, which you might like to hear. An English gentleman—they say he was a captain in the marine—had a vessel built at Nice, and dragged over ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... The house of commons was losing its spirit of independence, and the control which it should have exercised on the executive was endangered by the growth of the king's personal authority. So long as George ruled the country successfully this danger was likely to increase. He had so skilfully strengthened his position that he had triumphed over domestic agitation. The just working of the constitution was finally restored through national calamity. American discontents were to lead to a revolt which the enemies of England used as an opportunity for attacking ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... wounds; many of the wounds were dangerous, all were painful; and gas gangrene, which the surgeon so hates to see, had to be fought again and again. The medical staff, seven in number, worked on day after day, and night after night, skilfully, tenderly, ruthlessly. There were also a great many operations, and scores of ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... in the name of France, crossed the country of the Natchez, with whom he made a treaty of friendship, and finally passed out into the Gulf of Mexico on April 9th, after a navigation of 1050 miles in a mere bark. The anticipations so skilfully conceived by Cavelier de la Sale, were realized. He immediately took formal possession of the country, to which he gave the name of Louisiana, and called the immense river which he had ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... moralizings, made up of the heel-taps of Operative legend and the fag-ends of Occult lore. Far from it! If this were the fact the present writer would be the first to admit it, but it is not the fact. Instead, the idea that an order so noble, so heroic in its history, so rich in symbolism, so skilfully adjusted, and with so many traces of remote antiquity, was the creation of pious fraud, or else of an ingenious conviviality, passes the bounds of credulity and enters the domain of the absurd. This fact will be further emphasized ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... dreadful shock to her. Yes, dear, we'll attend to her after a while. We'll have her with us right along, you know, whereas these unhappy boys may—may be—may soon meet a cruel death on the scaffold." Mrs. Campbell evaded the phrase "may be hanged" rather skilfully. To her trained oratorical sense it had seemed to ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... skilfully bandage the slightly damaged foot. He held it carefully, as though it were something very precious, but delicate as was his handling she could not help wincing once as the bandage accidentally brushed ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... question. Other Home Rulers, by an expert use of figures, show that there is a Home Rule majority in Ulster itself. To those who know Ulster their efforts fail to carry the slightest conviction. Figures, however skilfully chosen, articles in the press, however cleverly written, cannot destroy the facts of Ulster Unionist opposition to Home Rule, the intensity and seriousness of which is, I believe, only now beginning to be appreciated by His ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... curiously dry matter-of-fact way that makes really startling adventures seem the sort of thing that might happen to anybody. The story concerns the pursuit of a gang of men who are engaged in importing forged Treasury notes on a large scale and uttering them through skilfully organised agencies. The police and various civilians between them—there is no super-sleuth to weary us with his machine-like prowess—run the thing to earth, partly by skill and partly by good luck, and the civilians in particular ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... similar kind; and the knobs and embossed ornaments of this strange architecture are represented by the joints of the spine, and the more delicate tracery by the smaller bones of the human frame. The summits of the arches are adorned with entire skeletons, looking as if they were wrought most skilfully in bas-relief. There is no possibility of describing how ugly and grotesque is the effect, combined with a certain artistic merit, nor how much perverted ingenuity has been shown in this queer way, nor what a multitude of dead monks, through how ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... of men. Men do not demand genuine beauty, even in the most modest doses; they are quite content with the mere appearance of beauty. That is to say, they show no talent whatever for differentiating between the artificial and the real. A film of face powder, skilfully applied, is as satisfying to them as an epidermis of damask. The hair of a dead Chinaman, artfully dressed and dyed, gives them as much delight as the authentic tresses of Venus. A false hip intrigues ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... something too in the disposition of my guide, which gave me a confidence in him, not warranted by the occupations of his life; an easy and frank boldness, an ingenuous vanity of abilities, skilfully, though dishonestly exerted, which had nothing of the meanness and mystery of an ordinary villain, and which being equally prominent with the rascality they adorned, prevented the attention from dwelling ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the straps of his sandals he looked once more at the strange and savage assembly. There were some thirty men and women and several half-grown youngsters, garbed in wolfskins so shaped as to leave them free to run or climb. Shoes were skilfully fashioned like a great wolf-paw; skins were joined so cunningly that when the wearer loped along a hillside in the chill pale gold of the winter sunset, or skulked among the shadows of summer woods, any one would swear that ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... was preparing for his bride. Although he also confessed the stratagem by which he had secured the presence of Margherita, it was the news of Chigi's approaching marriage which determined Raphael to accede to his request. Though Agostino had worded his allusions to his betrothed so skilfully that they applied with equal fitness to either Imperia or Maria Dovizio, Raphael never doubted that he referred to the latter. The news simply confirmed the suspicions which he had long entertained, and with characteristic ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... saw the claws-of two owls, with the skin and leg feathers adhering, sewed together so closely and skilfully, by the Indian, women, as to resemble a nondescript with eight claws. It was only by a close inspection that we could discover ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... her, while his men set to work completing the interrupted preparation of the breakfast. Flannels were heated for the friction of the frail limbs; and brandy-and-water warmed, which Carmen administered by the spoonful, skilfully as any physician,—until, at last, the little creature opened her eyes and began to sob. Sobbing still, she was laid in Carmen's warm feather-bed, well swathed in woollen wrappings. The immediate danger, ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... with its lilacs and valley-lilies, its soft lights and perfect appointments, were old friends of mine and new acquaintances of hers, and with the guest of honor I shared their curiosity. Very skilfully Kitty led the chatter into channels where the draught was light, and obediently I did my best to follow. There was ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... would never betray it. Presently the conversation got to politics, the President, the situation at Albany. Conny, with her negligent manner and her childish treble voice, gave the talk a poke here and there and steered it skilfully, never allowing it to get into serious pools or become mere noise. In one of the shifts Cairy asked Isabelle, "Have you seen ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... "glorious first of June." It differs from the average boys' story in one important respect. The hero, instead of gaining a title and a fortune, refuses to rise above the class in which he was born, and attains no higher rank than that of a warrant-officer. The author skilfully introduces little touches and incidents, such as True Blue's conduct when at a theatrical performance, which make his career seem entirely natural and reasonable, and enlists the sympathy and approval of the reader. "He had not aimed high, ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... degree an expression of great earnestness, as if the mind were fixed on some lofty object. This is shown not merely by the introduction of divine beings into the circle of human sympathies, but particularly in the relation so skilfully indicated between the Holy Virgin and her worshippers, and in her manifest desire to communicate to those who are around her the sacred peace and tranquillity expressed in her own countenance and attitude, and implied in the ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... overcoat and hat, he plunged along through the snow, walking briskly. Old Heinrich had gone to bed when he reached the studio. There remained but a few hours of the night, but Karl could not bring himself to sleep. He paced restlessly up and down the studio, his mind tortured by the thoughts so skilfully implanted there by Millar. ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings."—New York ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... saying so, that it was not only rash but wrong to risk the lives of our friends in Brussels upon the chances of the discretion of the lad. I now see you were right, for there are few indeed who, placed as he was, would have carried out his mission as skilfully and well ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... succeeding hour was the question, for, while all save Perry and Ossie danced more or less skilfully, they knew no one to dance with. "If you ask me," remarked Cas Temple, yawning, "I call this dull. I'd rather be in ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... behind a neighboring island. The rest of the army then fell to work upon a great image of a horse. They built it of wood, fitted and carved, and with a door so cunningly concealed that none might notice it. When it was finished, the horse looked like a prodigious idol; but it was hollow, skilfully pierced here and there, and so spacious that a band of men could lie hidden within and take no harm. Into this hiding-place went Odysseus, Menelaus, and the other chiefs, fully armed, and when the door was shut upon them, the rest of the Grecian ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... published from advance sheets purchased from the English publisher. It is an excellent novel, full of incident and interest. The plot is artistic, and fascinates the reader to the end. The element of mystery is skilfully managed, increasing until the final denoument, which is original and unexpected. We commend it to the attention of the lovers of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... she sat with her eyes closed, and her head turned away, like one asleep or ill. The day dragged slowly on. Now and then she left the train, and bought a new ticket to carry her farther. Even had there been suspicions of her flight, it would have been impossible to have traced her, so skilfully had she managed. She had provided herself with a time-table of the entire route, and bought new tickets only at points of junction where several roads met, and no attention could possibly be drawn to any ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... beating down with his hands the huge dogs that sprang up at him in play and seemed trying to drive him back. Sir Arnold was smooth, spotless and carefully dressed as ever, and came forward with a well-composed smile in which hospitality was skilfully blended with sympathy and concern. Gilbert, who was as thorough a Norman in every instinct and thought as any whose fathers had held lands from the Conqueror, did his best to be suave and courteous on his side. Dismounting, he said quietly that ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... value of five Pounds. He left off all his old Acquaintance to a Man, and all his Arts of Life, except the Play of Backgammon, upon which he has more than bore his Charges. Irus has, ever since he came into this Neighbourhood, given all the Intimations, he skilfully could, of being a close Hunks worth Money: No body comes to visit him, he receives no Letters, and tells his Money Morning and Evening. He has, from the publick Papers, a Knowledge of what generally passes, shuns all Discourses of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Italian Opera in those days fostered a passion challenged to intrepidity from the heart of softness; gliding at the same time, and putting warm blood even into dull arithmetical figures which might be important to her lover, her hero fronting battle. She condensed Redworth's information skilfully, heartily giving it and whatever she had imbibed, as her own, down to the remark: 'Common sense in questions of justice, is a weapon that makes way into human heads and wins the certain majority, if ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... cushy one here.' On his heels came G.A.; his face was that of a man fresh from the Beatific Vision. Much later, when I had managed to get transport to push him away, I asked him, 'Got your stick, G.A.?' This was a stout stave on which he had carved, patiently and skilfully, his name, 'H.T. Grant-Anderson,' and a fierce and able-looking tiger at the top, then his regiment, then curving round it the names of the actions in which it had supported him: Sannaiyat, Iron Bridge, Mushaidie, ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... common level. On the pages of their books we find not the traces of the accidental, deeper penetrating into the life or more refined feelings, but the whole harvest of thoughts, impressions, dispositions, written skilfully, because studied deeply. We also leave something on these pages. Some people dry flowers on them, the others preserve reminiscences. In every one of Sienkiewicz's volumes people will deposit a great many personal impressions, part of their ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... their usual garments, afterwards in dazzling draperies; when supper was over, the table was removed, candlesticks were set on the floor in a symmetrical pattern, and a great quantity of chestnuts was scattered on the ground: these the fifty women skilfully picked up, running about gracefully, in and out between the burning lights; the pope, the Duke of Valentinois, and his sister Lucrezia, who were looking on at this spectacle from a gallery, encouraged the most agile and industrious ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... me think!" said the Captain, manoeuvring his horses skilfully as they swung into ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... imagination all that mass of fine emotion every woman, it may be, hides. She had read of love, she had thought of love, a thousand sweet lyrics had sounded through her brain and left fine fragments in her memory; she poured it out, all of it, shamelessly, skilfully, for me. I cannot give any sense of that talk, I cannot even tell how much of the delight of it was the magic of her voice, the glow of her near presence. And always we walked swathed warmly through a chilly air, along ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... the Prometheus put in again on the morrow, watched, doubtless, with eager eyes by the anxious mother and daughter on board the vessel. The little one was drugged into a heavy sleep, and laid at the bottom of a big basket, with vegetables skilfully piled above him. One of the British sailors took the precious burden, and the Consul strolled in front of it towards the harbour. There was nothing remarkable in the sailors wishing for a few fresh vegetables to vary the ship's fare, or ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... He faced her with a sense of dread—apprehensive of some disenchantment. She met him cordially, without the slightest reference to her make-up, which was less offensive than he had feared; but he winced, nevertheless, at the vulgarity of her part so skilfully suggested by paint and powder. She gave him her hand with a frank gesture. "You didn't applaud my scenes to-night," she said, with a smile as enigmatic as the one she used in ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... the white ring is visible; the whole deposit is then extracted, and a little snuff strewed in the empty space. The best plan is to call in the first black you may happen to see, as they all perform this operation very skilfully. ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... succeeded in gaining the populace of Rome, and they now constituted a power which prevailed in the city, whatever it might have been in the field. Skilfully managed by its leaders, it gave law to the Pontifical government. The Pope was not, however, powerless. A merely secular sovereign would have been crushed. He would have had no other resource than to abdicate. The Holy Father was not reduced to this extremity. He was still able to repel the ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... employed skilfully the contrast of pure chord sequence is seen in his setting of the "tag" of the play spoken ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... and hollows, where every soldier stood mid-leg deep in the dry and burning sand. Fortunately for the States' army, the wind was in its back, blowing both sand and smoke into the faces of its antagonists, while the already weltering sun glared fiercely in their eyes. Maurice had skilfully made use of the great advantage which accident had given him that day, and his very refusal to advance and to bring on a premature struggle thus stood him in stead in a variety of ways Lewis Gunther was now ordered, with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... speed; if a wild boar was to be reared, a badger digged out, a fox unkennelled, a marten bayed, or an otter vented, Herne was chosen for the task. No one could fly a falcon so well as Herne—no one could break up a deer so quickly or so skilfully as him. But in proportion as he grew in favour with the king, the young keeper was hated by his comrades, and they concerted together how to ruin him. All their efforts, however, were ineffectual, and rather tended to his ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... had taken his seat, the last trunk been strapped on behind, and the canvas covering drawn tightly over it, the mail bags safely stowed away in the capacious boot; and then big Jack Davis, gathering the reins of his six impatient steeds skilfully into one hand, and grasping the long-lashed whip in the other, sang out to the men who ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... read a page of the Faery Queene, if you read for that purpose, without perceiving the intentional alliterativeness of the words; and yet so skilfully is this managed, that it never strikes any unwarned ear as artificial, or other than the result of the necessary ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... even advisable, to treat these documents together as a unity: firstly, because they were actually combined, probably in the seventh century, into a unity (JE), and sometimes, as in the Joseph story, so skilfully that it is very difficult to distinguish the component parts and assign them to their proper documentary source; secondly, because, for a reason to be afterwards stated, beyond Ex. iii. the analysis is ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... laughed, and gathering up the folds of her travelling dress, managed to get so quickly and skilfully over the fence, that her brother, who was unfastening the gate, looked at her ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... easy matter to teach the ignorant the principles of religion. So true is the remark of Archbishop Usher—'Great scholars may think this work beneath them. But they should consider, the laying the foundation skilfully, as it is of the greatest importance, so it is the masterpiece of the wisest builder. And let the wisest of us all try, whenever we please, we shall find that to lay this ground-work rightly, to make the ignorant understand the grounds of religion, will ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... of hay that was drawn by the two horses whose harness had been cut to pieces, and then repaired by Denison's Eureka Cement. They all bought whips with that unfailing readiness which marks a rural crowd; they bought packages of lead-pencils with a dollar so skilfully distributed through every six parcels that the oldest purchaser had never found more than ten cents in his. They let the man who cured neuralgia rub his magic curative on their foreheads, and allowed the man who cleaned ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... superiors among dramatists and novelists. By the delineation of character, we do not mean the practice of drawing up epigrammatic catalogues of good and bad qualities, and appending them to the names of eminent men. No writer, indeed, has done this more skilfully than Tacitus; but this is not his peculiar glory. All the persons who occupy a large space in his works have an individuality of character which seems to pervade all their words and actions. We know them as if we ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... French lady, from whose indignant description of the proceedings below she gathered that the policemen were being regaled with bread and cheese, and beer; and that the attendance of a surgeon had been dispensed with, Paradise's wounds having been dressed skilfully by Mellish. Lydia bade her send Bashville to the Warren Lodge to see that there were no strangers loitering about it, and ordered that none of the female servants should return there until he came back. Then she ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... author has been amazingly successful in keeping her secret almost to the end. Yet the mystery attending a stolen diamond of great value is so skilfully handled that several perfectly innocent persons seem all but hopelessly identified with the disappearance of the gem. Cleverly, however, as this aspect of the story has been managed, it ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... to which I would not listen, lest my heart should seem to echo them, so taking part in the heathen prayer. Over the horse he signed Thor's hammer, and slew it with Thor's weapon, and the two men flayed and divided it skilfully, laying certain portions before the jarl, ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... threw in the gears and swung the ponderous machine to one side. The road was wide, and he made the turn skilfully. A moment later the car was speeding back the way it had come, leaving Tom standing on the highway, alone in the mud and darkness, with the ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... police-court scene described above, and the opening of the Green-street Commission, in February, 1868, prosecutions were directly commenced against the Irishman and the Weekly News for seditious writing. In the case of the former journal the proprietor tried some skilfully-devised preparatory legal moves and manoeuvers, not one of which of course succeeded, though their justice and legality were apparent enough. In the case of the latter journal—the Weekly News—the proprietor raised no legal point whatsoever. The fact ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... to a conversation that was going on between Nicko and the black prisoner. The language was a primitive guttural of some sort but Nicko was obviously using it skilfully. He grinned at Mike and said, "We were wrong about those people. They are fine characters. This is M'landa, a leader of the tribe known as the H'Lorkas—or at least that's as close as I can give it to you in Terran. He is ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... were studded with crystals cracked and dimmed by time. Lack of carpets disclosed floors of soft Majorcan sandstone cut in small rectangles like wooden blocks. The rooms still boasted the old-time splendor of vaulted ceilings, some dark, with skilfully fitted paneling, others with a faded and venerable gilding forming a background for the colored escutcheons which were emblazoned with the coat of arms of the house. In some rooms the high walls, simply whitewashed, were covered by rows of ancient paintings, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... amusedly, and said in Spanish, "Why, senor, one might think you were blind. You should look to your path even when you are very polite." And then she drew near me at the corner of the table, and rested her elbow against mine as skilfully and unobtrusively as Sadi ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... has been tried in all the ways, and can defy every experiment. This poison floats in water, it is the superior, and the water obeys it; it escapes in the trial by fire, leaving behind only innocent deposits; in animals it is so skilfully concealed that no one could detect it; all parts of the animal remain healthy and active; even while it is spreading the cause of death, this artificial poison leaves behind the marks and appearance of life. Every sort of experiment ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... me. Another stood by with the medicine and with a funnel through which, as soon as Mr. Hyde should insert the tube in one of my nostrils, the dose was to be poured. The third attendant stood near as a reserve force. Though the insertion of the tube, when skilfully done, need not cause suffering, the operation as conducted by Mr. Hyde was painful. Try as he would, he was unable to insert the tube properly, though in no way did I attempt to balk him. His embarrassment seemed to rob his hand of whatever cunning ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... life as a whole by making the best of each difficulty when it arises; to live in comfort by means of mutual concession and not to plague ourselves with unnecessary troubles: such are some of the principles indicated in those plays of Menander which Terence so skilfully adapted, and whose lessons he set before a younger and more vigorous people. The elucidation of these principles in the action of the play, and the corresponding interchange of thought naturally awakened in the dialogue and expressed with studied ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... hid the state of things very skilfully from Lydia's eyes. He told her that he was working, when he had no work to do; he laughed at her questions as to whether he had comfortable meals, when he had had no meal at all. The Bowers never invited him to come to the parlour now and sit at their table; they were so indifferent ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... Maritzburg to Durban, a distance of fifty-seven miles by road, is long and rather tedious travelling on account of the slow pace. The line (a single one), which seems to have been very skilfully engineered, is necessarily constructed with such steep gradients that this seems inevitable. The long stoppages at stations might be certainly improved. Durban is the prettiest as well as one of the cleanest, and most well-ordered towns I have seen in South Africa. ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... up her valise, threw a "So-long" to Carson, and with Miss Donovan close behind him, began making for the distant lights of the Timmons House. As they followed the road, which paralleled a whispering stream, the girl began to draw him out skilfully, and was amazed to find that for all of his rough appearance he was excellently educated and a gentleman of taste. Finally the reason ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... latterly by a feeling of pity and indignation because of the persistent ferocity with which the poor fellow was being persecuted, because of the cowardly, merciless war upon him, which was carried on so skilfully that public opinion, always credulous, always putting out its neck to see how the wind is blowing, was beginning to be seriously influenced. We must do Mora the justice to say that he was no follower of the crowd. When he saw the Nabob's face, always good-humored, but wearing a piteous, discomfited ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... worldly wisdom is genuine wisdom after its kind; we shall be the better instructed if we listen to its sage experience, if we listen, understand, and in all justice, censure. Ogniben can blandly and skilfully conduct a Chiappino to his valley of humiliation—"let him that standeth take heed lest he fall." But what would the wisdom of Ogniben be worth in its pronouncements on a Luria or a Colombe? Perhaps ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... sake of better instruction in the circumstances; over the whole of which Malcolm now went. But before he came to a close, he had skilfully introduced and enlarged upon the sorrows and sufferings and dangers of the laird, so as to lead the old man away from the quarrel, dwelling especially on the necessity of protecting Mr Stewart from the machinations of ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... up some steps, at last, and carried him into a high, bright room, where there were two or three cots, and a long glass case full of surgical instruments. They laid him on a cot, and some one swiftly and skilfully undressed him. A surgeon had come in, and now he examined Lemuel's leg. He looked once or twice ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... twenty-five, feet in length, through which the tenants crawl into their home. There is always a small window in the front of the igloo. The window space is not glazed, of course, but is covered with the thin, intestinal membrane of seals, skilfully seamed together. To a traveler across the dark and snowy winter waste, the yellow light from the interior lamp is visible, sometimes, a ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... brilliant, more splendid, eloquent, accomplished, than his rival, the great St. John could be as selfish as Oxford was, and could act the double part as skilfully as ambidextrous Churchill. He whose talk was always of liberty, no more shrunk from using persecution and the pillory against his opponents, than if he had been at Lisbon and Grand Inquisitor. This lofty patriot was on his knees at Hanover and St. Germains too; notoriously of no religion, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sheer wantonness he will throw a trap into a river, and again he will bury a trap in deep snow. Dead martens in traps are savagely torn from them. Those that can not be eaten on the spot are carried off and skilfully cached under two or three feet ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... trade-mark BLACKWOOD. His faith has been justified on carrying off with him on a quiet holiday, His Cousin Adair, by GORDON ROY. The book has all the requisites of a good novel, including the perhaps rarest one of literary style. Cousin Adair is well worth knowing, and her character is skilfully portrayed. As a foil against this high-minded, pure-souled unselfish girl, there are sketched in two or three of the sort of people, men and women, more frequently met with in this wicked world. But Cousin Adair is good enough ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... first maker of that instrument in England. Here, again, is evidence of his partiality for the form of Maggini, as he copied this maker in nearly all his Violoncellos. All the Violoncellos of Barak Norman have bellies of good quality; the modelling is executed skilfully, due care having been observed in leaving sufficient wood. His Tenors are fine instruments. Many of these were made years before he began the Violoncellos—a fact which satisfactorily accounts for the ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... invalid's knees, Brandes took his cue; and the conversation developed into a monologue on the present condition of foreign missions—skilfully inspired by the respectful attention and the brief and ingenious questions ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... heads concerning the rights of person and property, the counterparts of the "Dooms" of English history; the moral rules of the local priests in a simple state of society; and the ritual and discipline of a late ecclesiastical age. The compilation is not very skilfully done, so that we pass from the minutiae of a priest's vade mecum in a highly developed hierarchical period to the civil statutes of a rude patriarchal society, whose ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... of Lemuel's trustiness, and readily gave him their confidence and much of their history. He came to know them without being at all able to classify them with reference to society at large, as of that large tribe among us who have revolted from domestic care, and have skilfully unseated the black rider who remains mounted behind the husband of the average lady-boarder. Some of them had never kept house, being young and newly married, though of this sort there were those who had tried ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... third marriage, as she had turned her second, to the profit of her boy. A pledge of support from her husband explains the haste with which Henry pressed forward to his encounter with the king. The treason however was skilfully veiled; and though defection after defection warned Richard of his danger as Henry moved against him, the Stanleys still remained by his side and held command of a large body of his forces. But the armies no sooner met on the ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... suffered comparatively few casualties, the numbers steadily dwindled as no drafts were forthcoming. The enemy had very little artillery opposite this sector, and relied mainly for his defence on minenwerfers which he used liberally and skilfully, harassing the Battalion with an exceedingly heavy bombardment about ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... the English colonies and the keys to New France, Quebec, and Montreal, and in the skill with which the approaches by way of Lake Champlain had been defended by forts at every important point. If the French force was insignificant in number, it was, as a rule, skilfully managed, and in the early part of the struggle the English had no commander to compare with Montcalm for military genius. In some respects the French Canadians were more manageable in war than the English colonists. No legislative bodies existed in Canada to interfere with and thwart the plans ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... the tall, elegant-looking man, who sat so erect, and handled the reins so skilfully, would ever have suspected him of insanity, and more than one stopped to gaze after him and the little girl whose face, with the golden hair blowing about it, looked out from the white sun bonnet with so joyous an expression. On the homeward route they met ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... where he would be taught to work skilfully and to think wisely, Siegfried was sent, to be in all respects like the other pupils there. A coarse blue blouse, and heavy leggings, and a leathern apron, took the place of the costly clothing which he had worn in his ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin |
