"Consummate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... friend, I said, what consummate skill will our rulers need if the same principle holds ...
— The Republic • Plato
... to the generous nature as well as to the consummate ability of Liszt, that, while opposing partisans have fought bitterly over him—Thalbergites, Herzites, Mendelssohnites versus Lisztites—yet few of the great artists who have, one after another, had to yield to him in popularity have denied to him their admiration, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... architecture of the whole world, are beyond all praise. The exquisite work in the lady-chapel would in itself have been sufficient to establish Walsingham's reputation as an architect of the very highest order of merit; but it would have revealed nothing, if it stood alone, of the consummate constructive genius which he displayed in the conception of the octagon. Of the design itself we shall speak hereafter. No time was lost in removing the mass of ruins; and we can imagine, as the ground was cleared and the grandeur ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... unhappy marriage. Love is not blind, as many say. I believe the stronger one's love is, the more palpable the errors of its object. It was so with me, and it would be so with you. That you have conquered this attachment is the crowning blessing of my life, even should you choose never to consummate your engagement with Arthur. I will, at least, thank God that you are not the wife of a man whose violent passions, even as a child, could not be controlled, and who is destitute of a spark of religious principle. I will now read you ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... by them as a legitimate subject for a mystification, which, in our vernacular, means hoax,—elle se prete au ridicule, as they say, she lends herself, as it were, to ridicule; and to be convinced that they know how to take consummate advantage of the loan, it is only necessary to glance over "France in 1830." Every one who does so will, we feel confident, understand in the same manner as ourselves, the meaning of that "brilliant welcome," which Miladi, with so much complacency, informs us she ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... had thus brought his speech to its proper, and what would have been a perfect close, he suddenly changed his tone, and, in a strain of consummate and powerful irony, began to rally his antagonist. He assented to the gentleman's eulogium upon Lord Mansfield. It was deserved. He acknowledged the justice of his remarks in relation to himself (Hamilton) and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... made deep obeisance to the newly-enthroned sovereign, and lifting his long native spear, which he still retained, he swore vengeance most terrible upon the enemies of Mo, who had, with such consummate strategic skill, entered and attacked the city at the moment ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... state of mind was unintelligible, and he simply gave his father credit for being a consummate and accomplished hypocrite, who found a mantle of piety a very convenient one under which to conceal his real character. He had himself inherited the old man's dogged pertinacity and commercial instincts, and was by nature ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Neptune and more especially in Nereus, the personification of the calm and pleasant aspect of the mighty deep. Nioerd's wife, Skadi, is the Northern huntress; she therefore resembles Diana. Like her, she bears a quiver full of arrows, and a bow which she handles with consummate skill. Her short gown permits the utmost freedom of motion, also, and she, too, is generally ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... meaning. He was also too well schooled to betray alarm, but, dropping the butt of his rifle to the earth, with an air of confidence, he made a gesture of lofty courtesy. All this was done with the ease and self-possession of one accustomed to consider no man his superior. In the midst of this consummate acting, however, the volcano that raged within caused his eyes to glare, and his nostrils to dilate, like those of some wild beast that is suddenly prevented from ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... troopers chased them as far as the base of the cliffs, but never pressed them farther. For Cochise had developed into a consummate strategist and, for the first time in their history, the Apaches learned the art of making a ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... general's preliminary report of the battle of Fredericksburg. Although you were not successful, the attempt was not an error nor the failure other than an accident. The courage with which you in an open field maintained the contest against an intrenched foe and the consummate skill and success with which you crossed and recrossed the river in face of the enemy show that you possess all the qualities of a great army, which will yet give victory to the cause of the country and of popular government. Condoling ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... belong to the class of the ignorant and the predestined. They have caused their own misfortune and expended as much pains in producing it as the husband artist would have bestowed in bringing to flower the late and delightful blooms of pleasure. The time which an ignorant man passes to consummate his own ruin is precisely that which a man of knowledge employs in the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... down but up! To uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, The Master's lips a-glow! Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... late in the nineteenth century was mainly, though not wholly, ruinous, and some decades ago it was, at enormous expense, reconstructed by the late Lord Bute. All the lore of the architectural antiquarian was ransacked in order to consummate this feat. Indeed the wealth of detail accumulated and reproduced by him will be held by many people to have defeated its own ends. Ornaments, carvings, colorings, of which ancient castles may severally offer single or a few specimens, were here crowded together in such ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... Bolingbroke's dictation. The whole alliance was founded on unstable and unwholesome principles; it was sure to crumble and collapse sooner or later. There can be no question but that Walpole's invective precipitated the collapse. With consummate political art he had drawn his picture of Bolingbroke in such form as to make it especially odious just then to Englishmen. The mere supposition that an English statesman has packed cards with a foreign enemy is almost enough in itself at any time to destroy a great career; to turn a popular ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Washington had been committed to Commodore Barney, a most expert and gallant veteran of the Revolution, who handled his wholly inadequate little force with consummate skill and daring, both afloat and ashore. He was not, strictly speaking, a naval officer, but a privateersman who had made the unique record of taking eleven prizes in ten consecutive days with his famous Baltimore schooner Rossie. ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... then," said Mr. Poynter warmly, "I'll take it out of your hide." Which he proceeded to do with that consummate thoroughness which characterized his every action, husbanding the strength of his long, lean arms until a knife appeared in Themar's hand. Then in deadly silence Mr. Poynter reduced his treacherous assailant to a battered hulk upon ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... genius of the highest order. But besides being a great dramatist he was a consummate master of language. The choruses in Esther and Athalie are excellent examples of the kind of lyric that the tendencies represented by Malherbe permitted. The extract here given is from Esther, Act III. The approach to the language of ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... On her he depends for an orderly and lawful indulgence of his sex demands. The greatest longevity and best health are to be found among happily married fathers and mothers. No young woman should marry without a full knowledge of her sex duties to her husband. And she should never consummate ...
— Sex - Avoided subjects Discussed in Plain English • Henry Stanton
... use and those for funereal purposes. The first are massive, and might be worn for years without injury; the others are extremely delicate. All are made of the purest gold, and their decoration evinces the most consummate skill and taste on the part of the artist. There is, for example, a small flask, shaped something like an antique wine jar, and about five inches in height. It is of beaten gold, and is covered with a pattern intended to imitate the similarly ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... clearly demonstrate this organ to be a masterpiece of nature's work. And he must be very ignorant of what hath been discovered about it, or have a very strange cast of understanding, who can seriously doubt, whether or not the rays of light and the eye were made for one another with consummate wisdom, and perfect skill ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... resistance made at Coamo, a town on the main military road between Juana Diaz and the Spanish mountain stronghold at Aibonito. General Wilson effected the capture of this place with the most consummate skill. His plan was simple enough. It was nothing more nor less than an ordinary flank movement, such as Grant and Sherman used so successfully ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... forgotten, and leave nothing but hatred and eternal alienation. Men do not change in this way, and we may be quite sure that the pretended unanimity of the South will some day or other prove to have been a part of the machinery of deception which the plotters have managed with such consummate skill. It is hardly to be doubted that in every part of the South, as in New Orleans, in Charleston, in Richmond, there are multitudes who wait for the day of deliverance, and for whom the coming ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Mr. Gallatin was the chairman of the committee of fourteen, one from each State represented in the convention, to prepare the memorial which was presented in their behalf to Congress, the conclusions of which, presented with his consummate ability, demonstrated with mathematical precision that a duty of twenty-five per cent. was sufficient for all the legitimate purposes of government. Here he found himself in direct opposition to Mr. Clay, whose political existence was staked upon the opposite theory. ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... number of both stripes and stars. This bill was sent to the House, and then came exciting times. Some members thought it of great importance not to offend new States by giving them no recognition on the flag. Others called it dishonorable to waste time over what one man called "a consummate piece of frivolity," when matters "of infinitely greater consequence" ought to be discussed. Another declared that the Senate sent the bill for the want of something better to do. Yet another honorable member did not think it worth while either to adopt or reject ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... And the consummate casuist went on working a congenial vein until a less miserable sinner might have been persuaded that he had done nothing really dishonourable; but young Garland had the grace neither to make nor to accept ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... not act the Part of an impartial Spectator, if I Dedicated the following Papers to one who is not of the most consummate ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... with each other, he judged the latter to preponderate; and this the rather since he swore publicly, in an assembly of the people, that "he adopted him for the public good." Besides, in several of his letters, he extols him as a consummate general, and the only security of the Roman people. Of such declarations I subjoin the following instances: "Farewell, my dear Tiberius, and may success attend you, whilst you are warring for me and the Muses [326]. Farewell, my most dear, and (as I hope to prosper) ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... And to consummate, as it were, his threats of divine punishment so soon to be visited on the degenerate city, Jeremiah is directed to buy an earthenware bottle, such as was used by the peasants to hold their drinking-water, and to summon the elders and priests of Jerusalem to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... sober and profitable reflection; and the voice with which it appeals to our reflective powers is deserving of regard. This season is suggestive of thoughts and feelings which are not called forth by any other; standing, as it were, a pause between life and death; holding in its lap the consummate fruits of the earth, which are culled by the hand of prudence and judgment, some to be garnered in the treasury of useful things, while others are allowed to return to their primitive elements. When spring comes smiling o'er the earth, ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... devices of Satan to keep souls from Christ. The world and the flesh are his grand instruments of seduction, while his temptations and snares drown them in despair. Their wisdom is to resist manfully by faith in the serpent-bruiser, Jesus. He will consummate his victories by a glorious triumph over all the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... describing the toilette of the native, that of the men being limited to the one covering of the head, the body being entirely nude. It is curious to observe among these wild savages the consummate vanity displayed in their head-dresses. Every tribe has a distinct and unchanging fashion for dressing the hair, and so elaborate is the coiffure that hair-dressing is reduced to a science. European ladies would be startled at the fact that to perfect the coiffure ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... Friend, and Saviour. Where all these ways converge, and a soul enjoys the privilege of mystical contact, the compulsion of rational insight, and the moral reinforcement of personal Faith in Christ, religion comes to its consummate flower, and may with some right be ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... the method for financing your purchase, now comes the formal contract to buy. This is an agreement whereby you undertake to consummate the purchase at a future date, generally thirty to sixty days, at the agreed price. On executing such a contract, which should be reviewed by your lawyer before you, as buyer, sign it, expect to pay the seller through the broker ten per cent of the ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... (for the reader recognized it, no doubt, the moment we entered) is built of rich brown stone; and the whole of it—the lofty roof, the tall, clustered pillars, and the pointed arches—appears to be in consummate repair. At all points where decay has laid its finger, the structure is clamped with iron, or otherwise carefully protected; and being thus watched over,—whether as a place of ancient sanctity, a noble specimen of Gothic art, or an object of national interest and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... undergarment of fine wool, has a thick overcoat of hair that sheds off both the snow and the rain. Other provisions and adaptations in the dresses of animals, relating less to climate than to the more mechanical circumstances of life, are made with the same consummate skill that characterizes all the love work of Nature. Land, water, and air, jagged rocks, muddy ground, sand beds, forests, underbrush, grassy plains, etc., are considered in all their possible combinations while the clothing of her beautiful wildlings is preparing. No matter what the ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... number of earnest men who were not willing to yield the principle, and who would make a fight. It was the Centennial year, and the two Assemblies were meeting at the same time and in neighboring cities, ready to consummate the union if desired. But the previous discussion had stirred up the Southerners also, and they had discovered that the temper of the North was not all that had been represented. They were not at all sure that the ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... symphonic work, in which the piano is used as a voice in the orchestra, and used with consummate skill. The charm of the work lies in its simplicity. The pianist will tell you at once that it is essentially pianistic, a term that is much abused and means little. The traditional cadenza is there, but it is not allowed to step out of the frame, and so perfect is ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... do not adequately realize what consummate address and fair seeming can be assumed by a deceiving stranger until experience enlightens them, and they suffer for their credulity. The danger, especially to young girls traveling alone, is understood ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... there were other fragments, including one of his hands which had a well known scar, and perfectly identified it. Along with this came the story of burning flesh, and denials of cannibalism. Mr. Dibble speaks of Cook's "consummate folly and outrageous tyranny of placing a blockade upon a heathen bay, which the natives could not possibly be supposed either to understand or appreciate." That blockade, like others, was understood when enforced. The historian labors to work ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... expected to walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours, or to excel as a performer on wind-instruments. We impute to him no fault for this sort of incompetence. We should rather charge him with consummate folly, if he undertook a line of exercises for which he is so clearly unfitted. We do not wonder, in fact, when this unfortunate pulmonary constitution sends its possessor to an early grave. Why not apply the same philosophy to the brain, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... "Your capacity is supernatural. And now, if you please, I will give you a specimen of mine," and he related his adventure at the market. "O husband," she exclaimed when he had told his story, "had we not possessed such consummate wisdom and address, how could we have contrived means to repair our old house? In future vex not yourself about domestic concerns, since by the exercise of our talents we ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... consummate leader cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it is in his power to control success. 17. In respect of military method, we have, firstly, Measurement; secondly, Estimation of quantity; ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... He was one of my dearest college friends. He is a man of the utmost dignity of soul and consummate breeding." ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... king. What his subjects saw in Charles the Second was a pleasant, brown-faced gentleman playing with his spaniels, or drawing caricatures of his ministers, or flinging cakes to the water-fowl in the park. To all outer seeming Charles was the most consummate of idlers. "He delighted," says one of his courtiers, "in a bewitching kind of pleasure called sauntering." The business-like Pepys discovered, as he brought his work to the Council-board, that "the king do mind nothing but pleasures, and hates the very sight or thoughts of business." That Charles ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... things, let him never touch a romance or novel; these paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe happiness that man never tastes. How delusive, how destructive, are those pictures of consummate bliss! They teach the youthful mind to sigh after beauty and happiness that never existed; to despise the little good which fortune has mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave; and, in general, take the word of a man who has seen the world, and who has studied ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... stories selected by all of them I find the resemblances greater than the differences, and the latter seldom amount to more than a greater or a less excellence of workmanship and style. The "literary" magazines, it is true, more frequently surprise one by a story told with original and consummate art; but then the "popular" magazines balance this merit by their more frequent escape from mere prettiness. In both kinds, the majority of the stories come from the same mill, even though the minds that shape them may differ ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... they had mistaken their subject. The ringleaders would have given all they had to be well out of the scrape. Mr Rose ruled by kindness, but he never suffered his will to be disputed for an instant. He governed with such consummate tact, that they hardly felt it to be government at all, and hence arose their stupid miscalculation. But he felt that the time was now come to assert his paramount authority, and determined to do so at ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... Notman, that you are a consummate mistress of an art which is quite beyond poor me. Was Miss Eyrecourt present at the ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... impregnable, rich in the tempting luxuries of civilisation, an inexhaustible treasure-house of much that the neighbours greatly needed and could never find elsewhere. The best writers and scholars and teachers, the most consummate artists, the ablest commanders by land and sea, the deepest explorers of the mystery of State that have been known before or since, all the splendours of the Renaissance, and the fruits of a whole century of progress were there, ready to ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... and their arms paralysed; that when He wills He will go, not be dragged by them or any man, but go to a safe asylum, where foes can neither find nor follow. The officers do not understand what He means. They think that, bad Jew as they have always believed Him to be, He may very possibly consummate His apostasy by going over to the Gentiles altogether; but, at any rate, they feel that He is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... President and General Manager of the Alberta Farmers' Co-Operative Elevator Company was not a man to lose his sense of direction in a muddle of affairs. Into the situation which awaited him he waded with consummate tact, discernment and push; so that it was not long before his associates were pulling with him for the fullest weight of intelligent effort. The difficulties were sorted and sifted and classified, the machinery oiled ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the same narrative from the lips of Ancliffe, and it differed only in the essential details of the cowboy's consummate coolness. Ancliffe, who was an eye-witness of the encounter, declared that drink or passion or bravado had no part in determining Larry's conduct. Ancliffe talked at length about the cowboy. Evidently he had ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... gang numbers persons of respectability—outward, of course, and merely outward, as the robbery proves. But I argue, second, that we must have been observed at Franchard itself by some occult observer, and dogged throughout the day with a skill and patience that I venture to qualify as consummate. No ordinary man, no occasional criminal, would have shown himself capable of this combination. We have in our neighbourhood, it is far from improbable, a retired bandit of the ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is the master-key, unlocking every door in the secret chambers of his heart: Bismarck, all his long life, kept himself in power by his consummate knowledge ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... from the fomes: lastly, in her glorification she was also delivered from all affliction whatever. It appears (2) from the point of view of ordering to good. For at first in her sanctification she received grace inclining her to good: in the conception of the Son of God she received consummate grace confirming her in good; and in her glorification her grace was further consummated so as to perfect her in the enjoyment ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... polemical expression in its highest form, its mingled force and delicacy, its keenness and yet its lightness. We shall, however, endeavour to give as clearly as we can an account, first, of the controversy out of which the ‘Letters’ originated, and then of the consummate skill with ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... boy—a city Arab. To a Londoner any description of this boy would be superfluous, but it may be well to state, for the benefit of the world at large, that the class to which he belonged embodies within its pale the quintessence of rollicking mischief, and the sublimate of consummate insolence. ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... Piazza is just that—a meadow scattered with daisies, among which, as though forgotten, stand unbroken a Cathedral, a Baptistery, a Tower, and a Cemetery, all of marble, separate and yet one in the consummate beauty of their grouping. And as though weary of the silence and the light, the tower has leaned towards the flowers, which may fade and pass away. So amid the desolation of the Acropolis must the statues of the Parthenon have looked from the hills and ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... purest blood and yet possessed all the qualities that the absolute Russian is supposed to lack. He was punctual to the moment, sharply accurate in all his affairs, a shrewd psychologist but never a great talker and, above all, a consummate diplomatist. As I watched him dealing with the widely opposed temperaments and dispositions of all our company, soothing one, scolding another, listening attentively, cutting complaints short, comforting, commanding, soliciting, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... all forces hostile to the government. You will inform them that all propositions of theirs, not inconsistent with the above, will be considered and passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality. You will hear all they may choose to say, and report it to me. You will not assume to definitely consummate anything." ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... find them! The simple art of the bird consists in choosing common, neutral-tinted material, as moss, dry leaves, twigs, and various odds and ends, and placing the structure on a convenient branch, where it blends in color with its surroundings; but how consummate is this art, and how skillfully is the nest concealed! We occasionally light upon it, but who, unaided by the movements of the bird, could find it out? During the present season I went to the woods nearly every day for ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... actually touching like Arnolphe on the hidden springs of tragedy, the jealous husband in Jonson's play is only kept from trenching on the higher and forbidden grounds of passion by the potent will and the consummate self-command of the great master who called him up in perfect likeness to the life. Another or a deeper tone, another or a stronger touch, in the last two admirable scenes with his cashier and his wife, ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Village That Voted the Earth Was Flat." In this volume you will find many stories in many moods, and some of them are postscripts to earlier volumes of Mr. Kipling. I cannot believe that his war stories deserve as high praise as they have been accorded. This volume presents Mr. Kipling as the most consummate living master of technique in the English tongue, but his inspiration has failed him except for the single exception which I have chronicled. The volume is a memory rather than an actuality, and it has the pathos of a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... required for a successful leader-rider, that it was but seldom that they were found, as in his case, united in the same person. That my mother had met with no accident whilst driving was solely due to his own consummate skill, and his wonderful presence of mind. Little Byrne, however, was quite affable, and allowed me to try on his livery, including the coveted big silver arm-badge and his top-boots. In my borrowed plumes I ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... brow grew damp with unpleasant, memories; he seemed bent upon clearing his conscience once for all. But he succeeded only in convulsing his hearers. Women giggled, men wiped tears from their eyes and declared he was a consummate actor and the rarest, the most fantastic humorist they had ever listened to. They swore that Cuba had lost, in him, a peerless champion. When he had finished they cheered him loudly and the orchestra broke ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... this Most consummate of all hypocrites After instructing your chosen official advocate to stand forward with such a defence such an exposition of your motives to dare utter the word hypocrisy and complain of those who charged you with ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... because he has learned to float through life; and the laborer is equally happy on little because he has learned to wait without much labor. The gliding, easy motion of the gondola expresses the whole situation; and the gondolier who with consummate skill urges his dreamy bark amid the throng and in the tortuous canals for an hour or two, and then sleeps in the sun, is a type of that rest in labor which we do not attain. What happiness there is in a dish of polenta, or of a few ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... set forth in marble and in bronze the gentler and more social side of the divine nature. There is a sweet reasonableness in the words of Maximus of Tyre: 'The Greek custom is to represent the Gods by the most beautiful things on earth—pure material, the human form, consummate art. The idea of those who make divine images in human shape is quite reasonable, since the spirit of man is nearest of all things to God ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... as far as technical skill in cutting goes, was out and away beyond anything we could almost dream of at home, and all at 1s. 4d. a day, which is good pay here. One man cut with consummate skill geometrical ornaments on lintels to be supported by architraves covered with woodland scenes, with elephants foreshortened and ivory tusks looking out from amongst tree-trunks, and most naturalistic monkeys, peacocks, fruit, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... possess it. I shall be glad some day to redeem it, for it has come out of my soul. What a record it is of these happy, hopeful days! The divine dream shining in Endymion's face, his body entranced in sleep, his soul bathed in light, every curve flowing in consummate beauty—in some way it is my life. But, for Endymion, I must look upon a small bit of gold. [Her husband would not let her sell the ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... tremendously cheerful quite sportive. Anyone who'd only known him in Park Crescent would have been much surprised to watch him and listen to the things he said. Mrs. Browne seemed a bit puzzled, I thought, at last. Then we came to the kopjes where there was a consummate view. You could see a long way to the north across a hugely wide plain. Browne climbed up on the highest rock with me a sort of flat slab, whereon you might immolate a hecatomb. He seemed more exhilarated ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... in the presence of these tidings with the fundamental detachment that Mrs. Cor-vick's public regret quite failed to conceal: it gave me the measure of her consummate independence. That independence rested on her knowledge, the knowledge which nothing now could destroy and which nothing could make different. The figure in the carpet might take on another twist or two, but the sentence had virtually been written. The writer ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... telling him that she had been to pay a brief visit to her own relatives, who, she knew, were distasteful to him. He had, indeed, very soon discerned in them a love of intrigue, a desire to get the most they could out of him, and a disagreeable propensity to parasitism. With the consummate tact she showed in everything she did, Madame de Nailles kept her own family in the background, though she never neglected them. She was always doing them little services, but she knew well that there were certain ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... had been a crimping-agent for German troops during the American war, then a servant in London during the Gordon riots, then an agent for a spy, then a spy over a spy, I suspect to have been a consummate scoundrel, and doubly odious from speaking English ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... representing the Company for which he had been agent, and a final arrangement made for the restitution of about two hundred thousand dollars—his release not to take place until the money, or its value, was in the hands of his creditors. Nearly three months passed in efforts to consummate this matter, and at last the sum of one hundred and eighty thousand dollars was obtained, and the miserable, disgraced man set free. He went forth into the world again with the bitterness of a life-disappointment at his heart, and a feeling of almost murderous hate against the men whose confidence ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... I upbraid thee? Could I restore to thee what thou hast lost; efface this cursed stain; snatch thee from the jaws of this fiend; I would do it. Yet what will avail my efforts? I have not arms with which to contend with so consummate, ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... infinity of complicated useful purposes which they have already answered, and may have still farther to answer, under many dispensations of the material world, such an aboriginal constitution, so far from superseding an intelligent agent, would only exalt our conceptions of the consummate skill and power that could comprehend such an infinity of future uses under future systems, in the ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... careful workmanship, and crystalline lucidity. His skill in the coining of impressive aphoristic couplets is unrivalled: it is almost as good as a novel addition to truth to find an old maxim supplied with the winged words of such a consummate verbal artist. Pope is a writer who appeals directly to all readers, for he never hides poverty of thought in a cloud of ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... Bancroft tower Such vistas charm the eye 'Twere life's consummate, glorious hour But to behold—and die; Yet in the sparkle and the glow Is earth so very fair The spirit lingers, loath to go, ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... purpose of Philip in time to avert its worst consequences. The man whom Philip sent into the Netherlands at the head of the army, as a fit instrument of his purpose of vengeance, was the Duke of Alva, a personage who united the most consummate military skill with the disposition of a ruffian, ready to undertake any enterprise however base. Such was the man who, at the age of sixty, in the month of August, 1567, made his entry into the Netherlands at the head of an army of fifteen thousand men. One of his first acts ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... learned the true art of a statesman at the Emperor's court. I always thought you would—always said it. You saw the dilemma I was in, thus taken by surprise by that barbarian's mad scheme; afraid to refuse,—more afraid to accept. You extricated me with consummate address: that passion,—so natural to your age,—was a famous feint; drew off the attack; gave me time to breathe; allowed me to play with the savage. But we must not offend him, you know: all my retainers would desert me, or sell me to the Orsini, or cut my throat, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... forehead, sunken nose, and hard mouth, he looked like a Kalmuck Tartar; a pair of small, wide-awake black eyes, the crabbed irregular outline of his countenance, a voice like a cracked bell—the man's whole appearance, in fact, combined to give the impression that this was a consummate rascal. A honeyed tongue compensated for these disadvantages, and he gained his ends by talk. Cavalier, a stout, thick-set young fellow, looked more like the driver of a mail coach than a publisher; he had hair of a sandy color, a ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... must have been in waiting) half a dozen of the mutineers dashed through the doorway, and, before any of us could finger a weapon, we were in their grip. It was the simplest booby-trap that ever was laid, and yet it was prepared with consummate skill. He had come alone and unarmed; he had held us in converse; and when we had lost our sense of suspicion and precaution he had brought his men upon us. Down went the lid of the trap! ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... this immortal ballad's birth have been related with such fulness of detail by Wordsworth, and Coleridge's own references to them are so completely reconcilable with that account, that it must have required all De Quincey's consummate ingenuity as a mischief-maker to detect any discrepancy ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... which has elapsed since the commencement of our fiscal measures has developed our pecuniary resources so as to open the way for a definite plan for the redemption of the public debt. It is believed that the result is such as to encourage Congress to consummate this work without delay. Nothing can more promote the permanent welfare of the nation and nothing would be more grateful to our constituents. Indeed, whatsoever is unfinished of our system of public credit can not be benefited by procrastination; ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... was an exciting moment, and the bravest heart beat fast. A signal came, but not the one they looked for. At the very moment of action, the man whom Rose had left at the floor-opening in the kitchen gave the danger-signal! The alert leader had, with consummate care, told every man beforehand that he must never be surprised by this signal,—it was a thing to be counted upon,—and that noise and panic were of all things to be avoided as fatal folly in their operations. As a consequence, when this signal ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... perfect joy of heart—135 Those walks in all their freshness now came back Like a returning Spring. When first I made Once more the circuit of our little lake, If ever happiness hath lodged with man, That day consummate happiness was mine, 140 Wide-spreading, steady, calm, contemplative. The sun was set, or setting, when I left Our cottage door, and evening soon brought on A sober hour, not winning or serene, For cold ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... was made up for the lie and she did not possess that agility of purpose which, at a moment's notice, could enable her to twist her intentions—a mental somersault that needs the double-jointedness of cunning and all the consummate flexibility of tact. He might know that she had followed them, but she must never admit it. It seemed a feasible argument to her, in the whirling panic of her thoughts, that her admission would be fatal—just as the prisoner in the dock ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... the man was a consummate rogue, who had probably invited me to his house in order to keep me under observation, and possibly to prevent my getting scent of the intrigues pursued by his friend and ally, Princess Y——, I was still at a loss to understand ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... Marshall's handling of the case the consummate debater came to the assistance of the political strategist. Every one of his arguments in this opinion in support of judicial review will be found anticipated in the debate on the Repeal Act. What Marshall did was to gather these arguments together, winnow ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... soul. You would never have suspected his connection with Mr. Rickman, the Junior Journalist, the obscure writer of brilliant paragraphs, a fellow destitute of reverence and decency and everything except consummate impudence, a disconcerting humour and a startling style. But he was still more distantly related to Mr. Rickman the young man about town. And that made four. Besides these four there was a fifth, the serene and perfect intelligence, who from some height ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... shook me. It was consummate acting. That a man should play a part upon the very edge of life held in it something awesome, compelling attention. I drew myself together, feeling his eyes, sharp for all their floating sadness, upon me. Was he—? Was ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... firmness of character, he won a great place in history by the extraordinary activity of his temperament and the vigour and energy with which he threw himself into whatever work he set his hand to do. He was a consummate master of knightly exercises, delighting in tournaments, and especially in those which were marked by some touch of quaintness or fancy. He had the hereditary passion of his house for the chase. In his youthful campaigns in Scotland and in his maturer expeditions in France, he was accompanied ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... there as a forlorn hope for the final effort of the field. With great exertion and consummate skill upon the part of its Commander, a battery had been placed in position on the summit of the slope. Officers and men worked nobly, handling the pieces with coolness and rapidity. What they accomplished, ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... of April, after a week of conflicting rumours, we heard that Kut had fallen. As a nation we take reverses with consummate coolness. Whatever one thought inwardly, work went on as usual, and in the men's lines there was very little comment. Up to the last moment Rumour was optimistic. She spread a most mysterious yarn about the ship that tried to escape Turkish vigilance and get to Kut with supplies. It was, ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... that divided the two creeks, and in a short time had paddled past the trees and vines that hung over and partly covered the entrance to Beaver Dam. The boat was managed with consummate skill, now left, now right, through the sinuous waterway, and the two boys had gone fully half a mile, when, without warning, they were rudely jolted as the skiff grated harshly on a bar. Ordinarily, such an incident would have been without effect upon ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... to set his life upon the venture, and, disdaining all the fury of her numerous relatives, he must forcibly detach her from her family, kill or maim all her other suitors, sustain in a wounded and desperate condition a prolonged chase over the snow-clad Russian Steppes, and, ultimately, consummate his nuptials, if he can, with as many limbs as his lady's family have failed to collect off him. This is a courtship admirably fitted to evolve a hardy and Spartan race strong in the virtues ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... Atlanta was managed with the most consummate skill, the enemy being flanked out of one position after another all the way there. It is true this was not accomplished without a good deal of fighting —some of it very hard fighting, rising to the dignity of very important battles—neither were single positions gained ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... unhappy unless his affections have fairly free course. Life has been very disappointing to him in other respects. His greatest joys have come to him in this way. If he is able to consummate his present plan of union with the youth just referred to, he will feel that his life has been crowned by what is for him the best possible end; otherwise, he declares, he would not care to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... to give birth to an illustrious individual, Nature seems sometimes to make an essay of her powers with that material, before producing the consummate specimen. There was a remarkable Mr. Pitt before Lord Chatham; there was an extraordinary Mr. Fox before the day of the ablest debater in Europe; there was a witty Sheridan before Richard Brinsley; there was a Mirabeau before the Mirabeau of the French Revolution. And, to cite ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... number of The Current, in its article headed 'Books of the Month,' devoted about half a page to 'English Prose in the Nineteenth Century.' This notice was a consummate example of the flippant style of attack. Flippancy, the most hopeless form of intellectual vice, was a characterising note of Mr Fadge's periodical; his monthly comments on publications were already looked for with eagerness by that growing class of ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... plant from a life within; impeded and arrested sometimes, but patiently biding its time, and then steadily and irresistibly pressing outward; one leaf after another freeing itself from the detaining force. Only a few more remain to be unclosed, and we shall behold the consummate flower of fourteen centuries;—centuries in which the most practical nation in the world has steadily pursued an ideal! The ideal of individual freedom subordinated only to ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... experience which have gone to the making of our poetic literature—the way, ultimately, of Shakespeare, and of Wordsworth. But that temper of catholic fraternity which finds the stuff of poetry everywhere does not easily attain the consummate technique in expression of a rarer English tradition, that of Milton, and Gray, and Keats. Beauty abounds in our later poets, but it is a beauty that flashes in broken lights, not the full-orbed radiance of a masterpiece. To enlarge the grasp of poetry over the field ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... the fervid, the simply descriptive, in fact every variety of poetry derived directly from contemplation and feeling, are found in Schiller in countless single passages and in whole poems. * * * But the most remarkable evidence of the consummate genius of the poet is seen in The Song of the Bell, which, in changing metre, in descriptions full of vivacity where a few touches represent a whole picture, runs through the varied experiences in the life of man and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Mr Southey) "the following picture of consummate horror from notes to a poem written in twelve-syllable verse, upon the campaign of 1794 and 1795: it was during the retreat to Deventer. 'We could not proceed a hundred yards without perceiving the dead bodies of men, women, children, and horses, in every direction. ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... of your school seems to be that everything can be made perfect at once, without time, without experience, without practice, and without preparation, I have no doubt, with the aid of a treatise or two, You will make a consummate naval commander, although you have never been at sea in the whole course of your ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... until she saw that Alcatraz had wheeled and was bolting in hot pursuit. He came like the "devil-horse" that the Mexican called him, with his ears flattened and his mouth gaping; he came with such velocity that Cordova, running as only consummate terror can make a man run, seemed to be racing ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... before our swords," wrote Cromwell to his wife. Old Noll not only led the fighting, but the singing, and insisted on being in every charge where the Ironsides took part. He had not been trained in the art of war, but from the very first he showed consummate genius as a general. He aimed to strike the advancing army in the center, go straight through the lines, and then circle to either the right or the left, milling the mass into a mob, destroying it utterly. It was all ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... First Consul's government and achievements eminently successful. Bonaparte had inspired public confidence by the honesty of his administration and by his choice of officials, for he was served by such a consummate diplomat as Talleyrand and by such a tireless chief of police as Fouche. His speedy and victorious termination of the War of the Second Coalition and his subsequent apparent policy of peace had redounded to his credit. His sweeping ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... possible grace, he was doubly successful in it; at once greatly amusing his auditors, yet exhibiting Lady Mabel only as a witty girl, who had merely played the part allotted to her with mischievous pleasure and consummate tact. But he attained this at the cost of showing himself an easy dupe to her arts, and getting well laughed at for his pains. It cost L'Isle no small effort to do this. It was, in fact, a heroic, self-sacrificing act; ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... connected, was not to be suspected of dropping over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility of locomotion suggested the wild idea. Another noticeable circumstance in Mrs. Sparsit was, that she was never hurried. She would shoot with consummate velocity from the roof to the hall, yet would be in full possession of her breath and dignity on the moment of her arrival there. Neither was she ever seen by human vision to go at a ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... coat, he made a round of his rooms, opening windows. Those in the front of the apartment looked out from the second-story elevation upon East Thirtieth Street, between Fourth and Lexington Avenues. Those in the rear (he discovered to his consummate disgust) commanded an excellent view of a very deep hole in the ground swarming with Italian labourers and dotted with steam drills, mounds of broken rock and carters with their teams; also a section of East Twenty-ninth Street was visible through the space that had ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... Column of Progress where the sea-wind blows thru his locks, stands the Adventurous Bowman, the symbol of achievement. At the base of the column are seen figures representing the progress of men thru life. We watch them file past, but it is with this man of splendid daring, of consummate achievement, that we are most concerned. He has striven and has reached the top. He has only just pulled the chord of his bow, and his arrow has sped on. With confident eye he looks to see it hit the mark. The laurel wreath and palm of victory await ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James
... palpable to-day, and I am sure more complications and imbecilities are in store. If Mr. Seward had had good advisors for these nice and difficult questions, he would not have blundered in this way. Thus Charles Eames, who in the pleadings before the Superior United States Court has shown a consummate mastery in prize questions—Eames could teach Mr. Seward a great deal about the constitutional powers of the president to suppress the rebellion, and about the meaning and the bearing of international maritime laws, ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... their properties; that if they must die, it should not be by pen and paper, but by swords and daggers in a fair fight; that all their lives had been staked, and all should die or live together." He was overpowered by the others, and other papers were drawn up by the ready writer and consummate knave Sobhan Allee, but the one-eyed man contrived to get hold of all, one after the ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... thrown an indescribable charm over his plates. They are partly etched, frequently much assisted by the dry point, and occasionally, though rarely, finished with the graver; evincing the most extraordinary facility of hand, and displaying the most consummate knowledge of light and shadow. His free and playful point sports in picturesque disorder, producing the most surprising and enchanting effects, as if by accident; yet an examination will show that his motions are always regulated ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... Graham, "you must regard me as a consummate simpleton, or yourself a Goliath. This bottle is mine, and mine only. It is a great fortune for one, but of less value than a toadstool for two. I am willing to divide fairly. This secret would be of no service to a coward. He would not dare to use it. Your share of the ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... the pair are covered in one cloak; and Rey only fires at them at six paces' distance: he fires at hazard, without disquieting himself as to the choice of his victim; and the soldier, who was bold enough to undertake this double murder, has not force nor courage to consummate it. He flies, carrying in his hand a useless whip, with a heavy mantle on his shoulders, in spite of the detonation of two pistols at his ears, and the rapid steps of an angry master in pursuit, which ought to have ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of him, which is very fine, he insinuates, that tho' perhaps his Person may appear despicable and little, yet you'll find him an Hero of the most consummate Bravery and Conduct, and is almost the same Account Statius gives ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... of this when, in the "Prodigal Son," he penned the simplest and yet most eloquent of melodies to the words, "O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments," ending up with the words, set too simply for any but a consummate artist to sing with complete effect,—"Turn ye, turn ye—why will ye die?" The marvel truly is that we are already so dead, so immured and petrified in our hard self-satisfaction, when we might so easily develop the freedom, fluidity, and delicacy of fine response to these ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... who had been one of her best teachers and with whom, when a pupil, she had had many an argument, was kindly received, and fulfilled his commission with consummate skill. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... stand the deception no longer. He marvelled at Reddy's consummate lying and how he could ever stand that look on Worry's face. Bounding down-stairs four steps at a jump, Ken burst like a bomb upon the ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... Germany, at eighteen years of age, began to show the symptoms of a heart abandoned to impiety, infamous debauchery, treachery, and cruelty. He married, in 1066, Bertha, daughter to Otho, marquis of Italy, but afterwards, in 1069, sought a divorce, by taking his oath that he had never been able to consummate his marriage. The archbishop of Mentz had the weakness to be gained over by his artifices to favor his desires, in which view he assembled a council at Mentz. Pope Alexander II. forbade him ever to consent to so enormous an injustice, and pitched ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... practically Governor of Munster. He proceeded to Lismore, then the English capital of the province, and made that town the centre of those incessant sallies and forays which Hooker describes. One of these skirmishes, closing in the defeat of Lord Barry at Cleve, showed consummate military ability, and deserves almost to ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... the novel experience of speaking the truth only slightly modified, for that very morning Ferdy Rothschild had produced a purchaser who was willing to pay forty-six thousand dollars for Rashkin's house. This deal the purchaser proposed to consummate by taking the property subject to a first mortgage of thirty-three thousand dollars, by executing a second mortgage of seven thousand dollars, and by paying the six thousand balance of the purchase price ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... his gloves, his wonderfully small boots, were all the pink of perfection. He smoked very good cigars, and talked about life with an air of the most consummate experience, that gained him profound respect. Most boys hesitate about the choice of a profession, but Alexander had no such indecision. He had made up his mind to be an officer, with his father's consent, and guided by a sure instinct, as he had exactly ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al |
