"First-rate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a first-rate engineer. I'm amazed. He was with us ten years before you entered the employ—worked up from oiler; in fact, I must have an explanation of your action ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... magnitude, only 1.5" apart, p. 200 deg.. Having separated them with a power of two hundred and fifty diameters on the four-inch, we may try them with a high power on the three-inch. We shall only succeed this time if our glass is of first-rate quality and the air ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... have shown dash and self-confidence. Turks were almost negligible yesterday once you got ashore. To-day there was nothing to stop determined commanders leading such fine men as yours. Tell me what is wrong with the 11th Division. Is it the Divisional Generals or Brigadiers or both? I have a first-rate Major General I can send at once and can also supply two competent Brigadiers. You must get a move on or the whole plan of operations is in danger of failing, for if you don't secure the AJA LIMAN ANAFARTA ridge without delay the enemy will. You must use your personal influence to insist ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... had heard what our clergyman could say for us. Our only relations had emigrated to Australia, and were not doing well there. My mother's death would leave me, so far as relatives were concerned, literally alone in the world. "Give this girl a first-rate education," said our elderly customer, sitting at our tea-table in the back parlor, "and she will do. If you will send her to school, ma'am, I'll pay for her education." My poor mother began to cry at the prospect of parting with me. The old gentleman said: "Think of it," and got up to go. He gave ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... see here had been planted. Now we have three railroads meeting at our depot, a population of nearly seven thousand, electric lights, telephones, a good opera-house, a system of works which brings first-rate spring water into the town from six miles away,—in short, pretty ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... out of whom such a genius could be fashioned, I have not ceased to regret the death of the author of this volume. For Zola is the supreme type in our day of the novelist-journalist, the man who begins by getting up his facts at first-hand with the care and the exhaustiveness of a first-rate journalist, and who then works them up with the dramatic and literary skill of a great novelist. Charles Reade was something of the kind in his day; but he has ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... and keeps racehorses. The chaps about him all covered with chains and rings and brooches, were in the duffing line—sold brimstoned sparrows for canary-birds, Norwich shawls for real Cashmere, and dried cabbage-leaves for cigars. Now each has a first-rate house, horses and carriages, and a play-actress among them. Yon chap, with the extravagantly big mouth, is a cabinet-maker at Cambridge. He'll bet you a thousand pounds as soon as look ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... you've been in for Greats, my girl, and done first-rate. But the strain's been a bit too much for you, and you've had another collapse of memory. You had one in the end of November. You've been uncommonly well ever since, and worked like a Trojan, but you've not been quite your usual self, and I'm glad ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... a rabbet or mitered joint is used in the sides, but if the side pieces are butted or dadoed, the rabbet for the bottom shows. This may be cleverly concealed by an insert, but that is patchwork, and not first-rate construction. ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... made up of yeomanry regiments which had been doing excellent service in the Libyan Desert, watching for and harassing the elements of the Senussi Army, had to be trained as infantry. These yeomen did not take long to make themselves first-rate infantry, and when, after the German attack on the Somme in March 1918, they went away from us to strengthen the Western Front, a distinguished General told me he believed that man for man the 74th would prove the finest division in ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... is tough, unless from a young cow; and the Indians make little difference in drying it for winter use, as they have good teeth and always a first-rate appetite. The skins are dried and tanned by the squaws, who lay them on the grass; and I saw an old gray-haired squaw toiling away with a sharp instrument, made of the end of a gun-barrel, something like a carpenter's gouge, and this had a bone handle, with which she kept scraping off the inside ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... case of hunger and other physiological stimuli which are conditioned from within. The individual acts for the advantage of the group rather than for his personal advantage, and the stimulus to this action must be furnished socially. Group preservation being of first-rate importance, no group would survive in which the public showed apathy on this point. Lewis and Clarke say ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... career before his entry into the East India Company's service. He was born in Pembrokeshire in humble circumstances, and went to sea at an early age. According to one account, he served in Hawke's ship, but, wherever his training was received, it had made him a first-rate seaman. In 1747, he entered the Company's marine service, being then about ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... handled an ax first-rate, and indeed, Thad could equal many an experienced woodsman in the accuracy of his strokes; while Maurice was ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... Called him Kiowa. Pa made a deal with a Mex mustanger; he got some prime stuff he caught in the Panhandle. One mare, I 'member—she was a natcherel pacer. Yeah, you might say as how we was gittin' a start at a first-rate string. Me an' m' brothers, we was breakin' ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... spite of your prejudices, are a very superior nation to us. Their skill and knowledge are both infinitely higher. Every man in France is a first-rate cook—in fact, they are a nation of cooks; and one of our late travellers assures us that they have discovered three hundred methods of dressing eggs, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... studied the others. He had not seen men like these in Canada, where some of the Indians owned good farms and those who hunted had first-rate guns and canoes. Shanks and his son were ragged and dirty. They slouched and looked slack and dull, although now and then the younger man's eyes gleamed cunningly. ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... him! why he is the most useful animal in the world:—an excellent saddle-horse; a first-rate jumper. He was not in my possession three weeks when I won the five pounds he cost me. My neighbour, Sir Edward, rode over here one morning on his famous horse Thunderbolt, and he thought proper to call my new purchase 'Beelzebub.' This rather provoked me; and I offered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... returning to his hotel, found Gusty there before him, in great delight at having seen a "splendid" horse, as he said, which had been brought for Edward's inspection, he having written a note on his arrival in town to a dealer stating his want of a first-rate hunter. ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... and looked up at it again. Then he went toward the dock and looked down into its turbid waters, and returned again with a face of hopeless perplexity. "This is Lucas Wharf, and no mistake," he said. "I know the place first-rate, now. But what I can't make out ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... answer is, "It depends upon the quality of the audience." An audience composed largely of trained concert-goers, many of whom are themselves musicians, can listen to a program composed of interesting works and presented by a first-rate artist even though it extends through a period of two and a half hours, although on general principles a two-hour program is probably long enough. But one made up mostly of people who have had very little musical ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... the river we entered the cars of the Ohio Central Railroad, but alas! we had no Mr. Tyson, and no sofas or tables or balconies, and were again simple members of the public, destined to enjoy all the tortures of the common cars. These however were in first-rate style, with velvet seats, and prettily painted, with brilliant white panelled ceilings; and we here fell in again, to my no small comfort, with the venders of fruit and literature, or "pedlaring," as it is called, which forms a pleasant ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... It's nearly four now. We've shut the house for the night. You're in a first-rate house, my dear, and if you behave yourself, you'll make money—a lot more than you ever could at a dive like Zeist's. If you don't behave well, we'll teach you how. This building belongs to one of the big men in politics, and he looks after my interests—and he ought to, considering the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... stealing consultations with the mirror opposite, making sure she hadn't, in the last few minutes, gone off in her looks. Not that her comeliness bade fair ever to prove the cause of any real excitement. Mama Therese made a first-rate dragon: she was very much on the job of discouraging enterprising young men, and this without respect for union hours or overtime. And when she wasn't functioning as the ubiquitous wet-blanket, Papa Dupont understudied ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... of 'STATE PROSECUTIONS; or, the Plotters Outwitted,' will be again performed, and positively for the last time; on which occasion that first-rate performer, Mr. W. F. Stawell, will (by special desire of a distinguished personage) repeat his well-known impersonation of Tartuffe, with all the speeches, the mock gravity, etc., which have given such immense ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... conclusion was at bottom merely a process of decay that had begun with the death of the Saviour.—These gospels cannot be read too carefully; difficulties lurk behind every word. I confess—I hope it will not be held against me—that it is precisely for this reason that they offer first-rate joy to a psychologist—as the opposite of all merely naive corruption, as refinement par excellence, as an artistic triumph in psychological corruption. The gospels, in fact, stand alone. The Bible as a whole is not to be compared to them. Here ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... telegraph to your Rio Janeiro friend to-morrow morning, if you like,' said Smithson, presently, 'and tell him to send a first-rate skipper and crew. Lady Lesbia has made up her mind to see St. Malo Regatta, and with such a sacred charge ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... The consequence, as regards sensation, is that in the one ease blue is predominant, and in the other orange or red. Our best microscopes can readily reveal objects not more than 1/50000th of an inch in diameter. This is less than the length of a wave of red light. Indeed a first-rate microscope would enable us to discern objects not exceeding in diameter the length of the smallest waves of the visible spectrum. [Footnote: Dallinger and Drysdale have recently measured cilia 1/200000th ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... satchel, umbrella and capbox, was felicitating in the luxury of a whole seat, and the near neighborhood of a very nice young man, who listened with well-bred interest while she told of her troubles concerning the sheep pasture, and how she was going to New York to consult a first-rate lawyer. ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... to dance well, very well, is, for an agreeable young man who is without fortune, a great advantage in society. One of my pupils, sir, has recently married extremely well. He was a very ordinary kind of youth, who had tried everything and had succeeded in nothing; but he was a first-rate waltzer, and he danced away with ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... native apothecary has done his best for poor Cowper and me. My hurts are merely scratches, but he is badly cut about, though quite cheerful. I need not ask you to relieve us as soon as possible, as you will know that Rutton Sing's tomb is not a first-rate position for defence. I have sent a warm remonstrance to the Rajah, demanding that he shall visit us in person and express his regret for the outrage, but I repeat frankly that I do not understand his attitude. ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... anything fevery about me," said Mrs. Jake, with an air of patient self-denial; and though both her companions were most compassionate at the thought of her real sufferings, they could not resist the least bit of a smile. "I declare you've done one first-rate thing, if you're never going to do any more," said Mrs. Jake, presently. "'Liza here's been talking for some time past, about your straightening up the little boy's back,—the one that lives down where Mis' Meeker used to live you know,—but I didn't seem to take it in till he come over here yisterday ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... not employing their Leonardesque or golden faculty there,—you are only oppressing and destroying it. And the artistical gift in average men is not joined with others: your born painter, if you don't make a painter of him, won't be a first-rate merchant, or lawyer; at all events, whatever he turns out, his own special gift is unemployed by you; and in no wise helps him in that other business. So here you have a certain quantity of a particular sort of intelligence, produced for you annually by providential laws, which you can ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... is a first-rate story, with more legitimate thrills than any novel we have read in ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... respectfully a pupil of the great painter, "I have seen some cholera patients whose convulsions were rather fine, and their dying looks first-rate!" ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... know about that. I'm willing to work, and the traveling suits me first-rate. They pay me a good salary, too—thirty dollars per week and ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... day my father, who was a lawyer, offered some suggestions to one of his slaves, a fairly good carpenter, who was building us a barn. The old Negro heard him with ill-concealed disgust, and replied: 'Look here, master, you'se a first-rate lawyer, no doubt, but you don't know nothin' 'tall 'bout carpentering. You better go back ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... devoted much of his time and money to doing good to his country. Among the many praiseworthy institutions founded and entirely supported by him was the college for orphans, the Dabetsane Daneshe, and the Eftetahie School. The colleges occupy beautiful premises, and first-rate teachers are provided who instruct their pupils in sensible, useful matters. The boys are well fed and clothed and are made ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... even to the professional robber. On the other hand, in former times, men were transported for very trivial offences: poaching, with its consequences, formed the leading crimes of the English counties; yet many poachers were otherwise first-rate men, both in disposition and physical development. The modern convicts are, more generally, criminals in the popular sense. The abolition of capital punishments, and the erection of penitentiaries at home, left the penalty of transportation ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... little manners and a little sense. All that's ever restrained me, sir, was lack of sand. The few bad things I've kept out of, I kept out of simply because I knew if I went into 'em I'd bog down. It's not a half hour since I'd have liked first-rate to be worse than I am, but I didn't have the sand for that, either. Why, sir, I'm worse to-day than I ever was, only it's deeper hid. If men went to convict camps for what they are, instead of what they do, ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... Mr. What's-his-name's health on my own account. I want to thank him for his story, which had only one mistake in it. Melchior should have kept the effervescing papers to put into the beer; it's a splendid drink! Otherwise it was first-rate; though it hit me rather hard. I want to say that though I didn't mean all I said about being an only son, (when a fellow gets put out he doesn't know what he means,) yet I know I was quite wrong, and the story is quite right. I want particularly to say that I'm ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... much too steady and conscientious, besides being too much accustomed to first-rate society, to stoop to anything ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... when, at the commencement of this century, it became possible to construct larger refracting telescopes, there was nothing to be discovered that could have been discovered with the means at their disposal. So far as we now know, a good three-inch telescope, nay, a first-rate two inch one, will show far more than our great-grandfathers ever saw, or dreamed of seeing, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... 'First-rate it is, first-rate. Have you seen it? "Our Camp in Tirah." Natives cooking in the foreground, fellows standing about smoking, and a whole pile of tinned stores dumped down in one corner, exactly as they would be, don't you know! Oh, I think the Committee made a very good choice indeed, ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... vindicate and panegyrise his old colleague Milton. His anonymous 'Account of the Growth of Arbitrary Power and Popery in England' excited a sensation, and a reward was offered for the apprehension of the author and printer. Marvell had many of the elements of a first-rate political pamphleteer. He had wit of a most pungent kind, great though coarse fertility of fancy, and a spirit of independence that nothing could subdue or damp. He was the undoubted ancestor of the Defoes, Swifts, Steeles, Juniuses, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... this particular period of her life. If so, abroad she should certainly live. Before resolving, however, on anything permanently on this head, he thought that he might judiciously consult those six first-rate London physicians, whom, in the first moment of his excitement, he had been desirous of ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... leave, the place, and go to her mother, a long way off, as she was, all along, so sickly, and she herself but a lone woman here; well she's going to sell that nice cow, and let the field that joins our little paddock, which she holds on lease. Now, I know that cow is a first-rate milker, and I thought if you would buy her, as I have a good deal of time, I could soon clear the five pounds, which is all she asks for it; she will calve in a month, and Mrs. Conway will take all the ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... tired of walking, and would like very much to ride. Furthermore, I had observed that they had among them many fine horses and mules. I then took two small sticks, and imitating as nearly as possible the manner of the chief, placed one in his hand, which I told him was nothing more or less than a first-rate horse, and then the other, which signified a good large mule. I closed by saying that I was ready to exchange presents whenever ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... be so disagreeable to her, if she hears me play the piano all day—for nothing, too. I am a first-rate hand, if I only had a ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... and with such a keen sense of appropriate time and place as made it quite sure that none of the three should ever know what was said of them. The caution of an old fox is rash temerity compared with the circumspection of a first-rate gossip; and when the gossips were tired of discussing Folco Corbario and his wife and her son, they talked about other matters, but they had a vague suspicion that they had been cheated out of something. A cat that has clawed all the feathers off ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... and then mother came in and invited them all to come and take supper with me, the Tuesday before I started. We invited Rectus to come up from the city, but he did not make his appearance. However, we got on first-rate without him, and had a splendid time. There was never a woman who knew just how to make boys have a good ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... after service, to join him in the organ-loft and to discuss various matters of interest connected with our own church and the outside world. He was a most charming companion; a first-rate organist and master of theory, and a man of large ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... without the extreme science and economy shown in Belgium. The cultivation and produce vary, in part, according as the soil is sand or clay; but the same kind of soil, in different parts of the country, produces different results. Cattle are largely raised and are of first-rate quality; Friesland produces the best, but there are also excellent stocks in North Holland and South Holland. In Drenthe, owing to the extensive pasturage, great numbers of sheep are raised. But perhaps the most important industry of Holland is the ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... condemning this second marriage as a disgraceful mesalliance; but it is not very easy to see in what respect it was so. In social position she had certainly had the advantage over Mr. Thrale, being the daughter of a Carnarvonshire baronet of ancient family. But a first-rate musician was surely the equal of a brewer. After Johnson's death she published a volume of her reminiscences of him, which may be allowed to have been worthy neither of him nor of her, and which was ridiculed by ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... dramatic scenes. Let the novelist first, therefore, with scrupulous fidelity and with minute regard for the possible significance of every observable detail, fill his notebooks, amass his materials, master his subject. After Flaubert, a first-rate sociological investigator is three-fourths of a novelist. The rest of the task is to arrange and set forth these facts so that they shall tell the truth about life impressively, in scene and dramatic spectacle, the meaning of which shall be implicit in the ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... three main purposes. Institutions under which Europe has lived for centuries, above all the Church, have been discussed with a good deal more fullness than is usual in similar manuals. The life and work of a few men of indubitably first-rate importance in the various fields of human endeavor—Gregory the Great, Charlemagne, Abelard, St. Francis, Petrarch, Luther, Erasmus, Voltaire, Napoleon, Bismarck—have been treated with care proportionate to their significance for the world. ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand. ...
— The Importance of Being Earnest - A Trivial Comedy for Serious People • Oscar Wilde
... heard of this climate, and he wanted to try trapping. He got on first-rate until the illness came so bad on him, and Pete's done well ever ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... ashore and have a snug little house and farm it. But I guess I shall do better at fishing. Give me a trig-built topsail schooner painted up nice, with a stripe on her, and clean sails, and a fresh wind with the sun a-shining, and I feel first-rate." ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... me to the Capetown races, at Green Point, on Friday. As races, they were nichts, but a queer-looking little Cape farmer's horse, ridden by a Hottentot, beat the English crack racer, ridden by a first-rate English jockey, in an unaccountable way, twice over. The Malays are passionately fond of horse-racing, and the crowd was fully half Malay: there were dozens of carts crowded with the bright-eyed women, in petticoats of every ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... capable of judging what in many respects it is not. It cannot be more than one; it cannot be limited either in space or time; it cannot be other than at least as self-consistent as its manifestations in nature are invariable. Now, from the latter deduction there arises a point of first-rate importance in the present connexion. For if the so-called First Cause be intelligent, and therefore all secondary causes but the expression of a supreme Will, in as far as such a Will is self-consistent, the operation of all natural causes must be uniform,—with ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... man," said Ted, when he had disposed the last bit of drapery according to an ingenious colour-scheme, in which Audrey's hair sounded a brilliant staccato note—"a first-rate artist—who was asked to decorate a lady's room. What do you think he did? He made her take all the pictures off the walls, and he covered them over with little halfpenny Japanese fans, and stuck little halves and quarters ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... was known to have made a bad book for the Leger or the Great Ebor, his friends openly expressed their contempt for his mental powers; but no one despised him because an expensive university training had made him nothing more than a first-rate oarsman, a fair billiard-player, and a distinguished thrower of the hammer. He was just what a country gentleman should be in the popular idea—handsome, broad-shouldered, long-limbed, with the fist and biceps of a gladiator, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... inventory. He declared he had. No: the number of slaves was not accurately set down: he had omitted the daughters. The executor was overwhelmed with horror, and asked time for thought. He went round among the creditors, appealing to their mercy: but they answered that these young ladies were 'a first-rate article,' too valuable to be relinquished. He next offered, (though he had himself six children, and very little money,) all he had for the redemption of his nieces; alleging that it was more than they would bring in the market for house or field labor. This was ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... read books through? he asked indignantly of some one who expected from him such supererogatory labour. His memory enabled him to accumulate great stores of a desultory and unsystematic knowledge. Somehow he became a fine Latin scholar, though never first-rate as a Grecian. The direction of his studies was partly determined by the discovery of a folio of Petrarch, lying on a shelf where he was looking for apples; and one of his earliest literary plans, never carried out, was an edition of Politian, with a history ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... raged at him, and you could see dozens of them stretch their fists above the sea of torch-lighted faces and shake them at him; and it was all a wild picture, and stirring to look at; and the priest was a first-rate part of it, too, for he stood there in the strong glare and looked down on those angry people in the blandest and most indifferent way, so that while you wanted to burn him at the stake, you still admired the aggravating ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... are going out fishing this morning, Harold?" Mr. Welch said. "I hope you will bring back a good supply, for the larder is low. I was looking at you yesterday, and I see that you are becoming a first-rate hand at the ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... behind those prison-gratings, he cannot. He goes to the market and comes back, goes to the Jesuit College and comes back, goes to the banker's and gets money. In his encounters with the sun he is like a prize-fighter coming up to time. Every round finds him weaker and weaker, still his pluck is first-rate, and he goes at it again. It is not until three, P.M., that he wrings out his dripping pocket-handkerchief, slouches his hat over his brows, and gives ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... say, Rip: 'Havin' good sport, gentlemen, are ye?' You remember the farmer! Your health, parson! We haven't had our sport yet. We're going to have some first-rate sport. Oh, well! we haven't much show of birds. We shot for pleasure, and returned them to the proprietors. You're fond of game, parson! Ripton is a dead shot in what Cousin Austin calls the Kingdom of 'would-have-done' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... marry her? A sickly, fractious thing! I saw enough of her in the old days. There! be quiet! I have done. If it hadn't been for her, I'd have asked you to come here to your old home; you and I should jog along together first-rate. But Sibylla bars it. She may be a model of a wife; I don't insinuate to the contrary, take you note, Mr. Verner; but she's not exactly a model of temper, and Verner's Pride wouldn't be big enough to hold her and me. Would you have taken up your abode with ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... another necessary condition.[112] The process only goes on in a slightly alkaline solution. The substance which acts as this salifiable base is lime. The presence of a sufficient quantity of carbonate of lime in the soil will thus be seen to be of first-rate importance. This furnishes an explanation of one of the many benefits conferred by lime on soils. The activity of nitrification in many soils may be hindered by the absence of a sufficiency of lime salts, and in such cases most striking results may follow the application of moderate dressings of ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... after the return of the second expedition of the Cabots no voyages to the coasts of Canada of first-rate importance were made by the English. This does not mean, however, that nothing was done by other peoples to discover and explore the northern coasts of America. The Portuguese were the first after the Cabots to continue the ...
— The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada • Stephen Leacock
... relation of my own, who was very intimate with her before her marriage, has often described her to me as being of a very modest, retiring, religious disposition, very clever with her pencil, and as having received a first-rate education from masters in Paris. These gifts, natural and acquired, made her a remarkable young person, amidst the crowd of frivolous idlers who at that time formed "good society," not only in Paris, but even in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... flames. The second task demanded no unusual exertions. The Federals, as yet, manifested no intention of marching upon Winchester, nor was the Confederate cavalry in need of immediate assistance. The force numbered 300 sabres. The men were untrained; but they were first-rate horsemen, they knew every inch of the country, and they were exceedingly well commanded. Lieutenant-Colonel J.E.B. Stuart, who had been a captain of dragoons in the United States army, had already given token of those remarkable qualities which were afterwards ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... "First-rate," I said, when I had finished. "Not a weak line in it. Not a single weak line. And there's nothing to prevent its being taken even in this d——d England, I think. The title's the worst part. You'll have to ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... a few years later, had a first-rate school for the education of their daughters in "Edgeworth," a noble seminary established by Governor Morehead ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... well, I was very comfortable where I was, settin' in the hotel room there, smoking my pipe. GREEN the Guide gave us, "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," in first-rate style—he is a singer, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... Asaph, with a little hesitation, "considerin' the circumstances, I should say that in a case like this about fifteen hundred a year, a first-rate house with not a loose shingle on it nor a crack anywhere, a good garden and an orchard, two cows, a piece of meadow-land on the other side of the creek, and all the clothes a woman need ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... latter, who, like Alberoni, her crafty adviser, belonged to the intrepid race of political gamesters, did not hesitate for a single instant to commence her regal play with the execution of such a master-stroke. Elizabeth of Parma felt herself to be too first-rate a personage to condescend to figure side by side on the same stage with ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... coast of Guinea, and there only; but for a length of stem, which gradually tapered, I have no where met with any to compare to them. The wood was of a hard substance, and if not too heavy, would have made good masts; the dimensions of some of these trees being equal to a main-mast of a first-rate man of war. The shore was covered with drift wood of a very large size, most of it cedar, which makes a brisk fire; but is so subject to snap and fly, that when we waked in the morning, after a ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... York, Pennsylvania, has considerable interest in the branch of the Baltimore Railroad, from Lancaster. In 1849, he had a warehouse in York, and owned ten first-rate merchandise cars on the Road, doing a fine business. His son, Glenalvon G. Goodrich, a young man of good education, is a good artist, and proprietor ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... the Moore expedition now being introduced gives the main axis of the lake a more northeast and southwest direction. The Hore map has met the fate that usually overtakes the early surveys of every region. It rendered good service as long as it was the best map; but the Moore expedition had first-rate appliances for computing longitudes, and as Captain Hore lacked these, it is not strange that his map has been ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... gladly devote more space than I can here spare to a review of this little book, so perfectly does it corroborate every word which I have said already as to the moral and intellectual value of such studies. Richard Shield, making himself a first-rate "lepidopterist," while working with his hands for a pound a week, is the antitype of Mr. Peach, the coast-guardsman, among his Cornish tide-rocks. But more than this, there is about Shield's book a ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... in as satisfactory a mood as I had ever been in my life; for the night was favorable, and the men hearty and in first-rate condition. ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... to fret over. Her face don't look like it. Well, mother, you feel pretty smart to-night, don't you? You look first-rate." ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... a first-rate advocate, and, I need not say, was at all times scrupulously fair. He had a high sense of honour, and was replete with a quiet, subtle humour, which seemed to come upon you unawares, and, like all true humour, derived no little of its pleasure from its surprise. In addition to ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... is this between Korosko and Abou Hammed, that Said Pasha ordered the route to be closed; but it was re-opened upon the application of foreign consuls, as the most direct road to the Soudan. Our Bishareen Arabs are first-rate walkers, as they have performed the entire journey on foot. Their water and provisions were all exhausted yesterday, but fortunately I had guarded the key of my two water-casks; thus I had a supply when every water-skin was ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... what it is cracked up to be. I know lots of fellows who would make first-rate kings, and I don't know but what I would make quite a hit in that line myself. But I wouldn't take the job if I could get it. I'd sooner be chief of police or a corporation lawyer. There's more money in it and ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... I told her it wuz a first-rate state, and a satisfactory one for wimmen; but still it had its trials, and she had found it so. She said that I insisted its serenity wuz sometimes broken in upon, and she had found it so. The last day at my house had tottled her faith, and ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... mind—I don't know as either one of 'em is, come to think of it; and she ain't much of a cook; but as she says, it's only suppers and breakfasts, and it's all dust and ashes anyway. It ain't worth while to make trouble, and I git on first-rate." ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... was also to give a ballet; and as there was only a small number of first-rate dancers, it was necessary to separate the entrees [Footnote: See Prefatory Memoir, page xxx., note 12] of this ballet, and to interpolate them with the Acts of the Play, so that these intervals might give time to the same dancers to appear in different ...
— The Bores • Moliere
... "Edinburgh Review" (No. 231) has been hurried by his eagerness to vindicate Lord Macaulay. Moreover, this struck me to be as good a form as any for re-examining the subject in all its bearings; and now that it has become common to reprint articles in a collected shape, the comments of a first-rate review can no ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Mara was arrayed in a little blue flounced dress, which stood out like a balloon, made by Miss Roxy in first-rate style, from a French fashion-plate; her golden hair was twined in manifold curls by Dame Pennel, who, restricted in her ideas of ornamentation, spared, nevertheless, neither time nor money to enhance the charms of this single ornament to her dwelling. ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... cover the nakedness of his walls, a couple of straw-bottomed chairs, a truckle-bed with a quilt riddled by the moths, a box in the corner of the chimney and rags of every sort stuck upon it, a small tin lamp to which a bottle served as support, and on a shelf some dozen first-rate books. I sat talking there for three-quarters of an hour. My man was as bare as a worm, lean, black, dry, but perfectly serene. He said nothing, but munched his crust of bread with good appetite, and bestowed a caress from time to time ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... first-rate plan," said Joanna. "Now I like that. The men won't forget it. Where are you going to have ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... learn, from the very few survivors of the ships that caught fire and blew up, who, in an open boat, reached the Superb at the time she was taking possession of the San Antonio, that, in the confusion of the action, the Hermenegildo, (a first-rate ship,) mistaking the Real Carlos for an enemy, ran on board of her, and shared her melancholy fate. Services of this nature cannot well be expected to be performed without some loss; but though we have to lament that Lieutenant Edward Waller, and fourteen seamen ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... the immortal soul it mattered nothing, but to the mortal social unit it made life the easier, made the passage of ideas, the intercourse of individualities, the readier, and, in general, facilitated spiritual and intellectual, as well as social, communication. To be first-rate in your instincts, in all your fibres, and third-rate in your opportunities,—that was ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... No. 310. First-rate portrait of a Railway Director looking directly at the spectator, and saying, "Of course, I'm the right man in the right place, i.e., on the line." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... where a first-rate bird manual can be obtained. It affords me sincere pleasure to recommend two works of the kind that cover the entire avian field for residents of the United States. They are new, up-to-date, and convenient. To those who live east of the Mississippi River I would commend Mr. Frank ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... you to sing a bit, while I rub away at this old gun," he said. "Sing 'Star of Peace'; it'll sound first-rate out here;" as though he had never heard it out there before, when, as a matter of fact, scarcely a day passed but she sang it ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... about the outside of the platter than the contents thereof. To be sure, it's what I might have expected. It's a way you architects have. You can no more help thinking how a house is going to look, than a woman can help hoping her first baby will be a beauty. I allow it would be a first-rate thing if we could have some streaks of originality, just a trifle more of variety, and a few glimpses of really good taste, along with the crumbs of comfort; and I'm willing to admit that your moves in that direction, as far as I can follow them, are all right. ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... made a first-rate courier to a millionaire," he said, with scornful candour, but without abusing the disposition of things which had ordered his being a gentleman. Subsequently, from his having sat so long over his wine without moving a leg, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... buffalo steak now first-rate," said Dave, smacking his lips. "It would touch the spot ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... we are, doing everything and anything for money, and selling our souls and bodies by the pound and the inch after wasting half the day haggling over the price. Decidedly, whether you think Jesus was God or not, you must admit that he was a first-rate political economist. ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... its ships and their crews were as fine as any afloat. Had the Spanish navy been manned like ours the two would have been of about equal strength. Ours boasted the more battleships, but Spain had several new and first-rate armored cruisers, besides a flotilla of swift torpedo boats. The Spaniards were, however, poor gunners, clumsy sailors, awkward and careless mechanics; while American gunners had a deadly aim, and spared no skill or pains in the care or handling ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... No wonder he nearly went out of his mind when he found he must leave it all intact and in first-rate working order for you to enter into. If he lives until he is as old as Methuselah he will never ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... of Mevagissey, in the county of Cornwall, in England, betook himself to the United States in the last year of the last century. He had always been a most upright man, as well as a first-rate fisherman; and his family had made a rule—as most respectable families at that time did—to run a nice cargo of contraband goods not more than twice in one season. A highly querulous old lieutenant of the British navy (who had served under Nelson and lost both, arms, yet kept "the rheumatics" ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... said. "I'm not first-rate, of course; I'm good second-rate; about as good as Thackeray, I ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... immemorial the female Gypsies of Moscow have been much addicted to the vocal art, and bands or quires of them have sung for pay in the halls of the nobility or upon the boards of the theatre. Some first-rate songsters have been produced among them, whose merits have been acknowledged, not only by the Russian public, but by the most fastidious foreign critics. Perhaps the highest compliment ever paid to a songster was paid by Catalani herself to one of these daughters of Roma. It is well ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... estimation, but who could effect very little after all. He was what is called by some a compositor, in the Queen's printing house, then conducted by a Mr. James Watson. In the course of our conversation that night, I told him I was a first-rate classical scholar, and would gladly turn my attention to some business wherein my education might avail me something; and that there was nothing would delight me so much as an engagement in the Queen's printing office. Linton made no difficulty in bringing about that arrangement. ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... odd and strange. What with her crazes for Christian Science, and Uric Acid and Gurus and Mediums, one wonders if she is quite sane. So sad! I should be dreadfully sorry if she had some mental collapse; that sort of thing is always so painful. But I know of a first-rate place for rest-cures; I think it would be wise if I just casually dropped the name of it to Mr Robert, in case. And this last craze seems so terribly infectious. Fancy Mrs Weston dabbling in palmistry! ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... and a first-rate manager. . . He's right. It's the only way. You can't resist the claim of sentiment, and you must even risk the voyage to Malata. . . " Renouard's voice sank. "A lonely spot," he added, and fell into thought under all these eyes converging on him in the sudden silence. ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... listened gravely, with an inward smile, and told his deacon that he would attend to his suggestion. After the deacon had gone, he tumbled over his manuscripts, until at length he came upon his first-rate old sermon on "Human Nature." He had read a great deal of hard theology, and had at last reached that curious state which is so common in good ministers,—that, namely, in which they contrive to switch off their logical faculties on the narrow side-track of their technical ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... by crossing, may plainly be recognised in the increased size and beauty which we now see in the varieties of the heartsease, rose, pelargonium, dahlia, and other plants, when compared with the older varieties or with their parent-stocks. No one would ever expect to get a first-rate heartsease or dahlia from the seed of a wild plant. No one would expect to raise a first-rate melting pear from the seed of a wild pear, though he might succeed from a poor seedling growing wild, if it had ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... Rollins, "Jerrold's no such slouch as you make him out. He's lazy, and he likes to spoon, and he puts up with a good deal of petting from the girls,—who wouldn't, if he could get it?—but he is jolly and big-hearted, and don't put on any airs,—with us, at least,—and the mess like him first-rate. 'Tain't his fault that he's handsome and a regular lady-killer. You must admit that he had a pretty tough four years of it up there at that cussed old Indian graveyard, and it's only natural he should enjoy getting here, where there are theatres ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... indeed," she answered; "and I know something of your foothill folks. I've been a book agent. Oh, indeed? You know that. Well, I did first-rate, but that was the book, which sold itself—a beautiful book. Maybe you know it—The Milk of Human Kindness? When we're better acquainted, I'd like to read you," she looked hard at Ajax, "some o' my ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... governor sent the head to the King, with a report stating that he had, at the peril of his life, and after immense toil, hunted down and destroyed this formidable rebel; and his Majesty, as a reward for his valuable services, conferred upon Furreed-od Deen a title and a first-rate dress of honour. Soon after, in the same month of July 1841, his Majesty the King of Oude's second regiment of infantry, under the command of a very gallant officer, Captain W. D. Bunbury, was encamped near the village of Belagraon, when information was brought that certain ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... She is in the wine trade, and brought a cargo safely up last week, and will start again the day after tomorrow. She carries a crew of eight hands; and I have made inquiries about the captain, and hear a very good report of him, and he seemed to me a first-rate fellow. When I mentioned the name of the Henriette he said that he knew her well, and was acquainted both with the present captain and with your Jean. He had heard, from Lefaux, that her former owner had been denounced, and had been obliged to fly from Nantes to a chateau ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... in question makes a good deal by his bees, and the honey of these parts is first-rate. On the whole, small as is their pay, these parish priests cannot be badly off, seeing that they get extra money by their garden produce, and largely, also, by baptismal and other church fees. Then ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... (Vol. I, p. 187). With a reputation in England second only to Mrs. Siddons, this brilliant actress was added to the American stage by Mr. Wignal, of the Philadelphia Theatre, who had gone abroad in 1796 to recruit his company and, if possible, to engage some first-rate actors in London. Mrs. Merry arrived at New York in October, 1796, and made her first appearance in the Western World in December in the character of Juliet. She was the daughter of John Brunton, of the Norwich Theatre, and the wife of "Della Crusca" Merry, the well-known ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... say, 'must have at least one gentleman in it to do the entertaining and the dining out. We have Mr. Clifford. He's a first-rate man at one of ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... terrify her so, she had no peace." And Betsy Seddon's Janie had torn her frock as there was no bearing, and even the Dan Hewletts were going back. Little Judy had cried to go, and her Aunt Judith had trimmed up the heads of her sisters, for Dora Carbonel had not been a first-rate hair-cutter, and it was nearly the same with every one, except the desperate truant, Ben Shales, and the cobbler's little curly girl, who was sent all the way to Downhill to Miss Minifer's genteel academy, where she learnt bead-work and ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Fanny,' continued my mother, 'in sober seriousness you have been most fortunate in engaging the affections of a nobleman such as Lord Glenfallen, young and wealthy, with first-rate—yes, acknowledged FIRST-RATE abilities, and of a family whose influence is not exceeded by that of any in Ireland. Of course you see the offer in the same light that I do—indeed ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... first shock of Revolutionary arms, he was soon made brigadier, the initial step in his rapid promotion. Showing himself an accomplished fighter at Trenton, Princeton, Germantown, Monmouth, and the battle of Rhode Island, and a first-rate organizer as quartermaster-general of the army, he had long been Washington's right-hand man; and his superior now sent him south with high hopes and ringing words of recommendation to the ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... his bloody face, refusing to let him wipe it. John Thresher said to me at night, 'Ay, now you've got a notion of boxing; and will you believe it, Master Harry, there's people fools enough to want to tread that ther' first-rate pastime under foot? I speak truth, and my word for 't, they'd better go in petticoats. Let clergymen preach as in duty bound; you and I'll uphold a manful sport, we will, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in this world with a first-rate opinion of himself and the rest of mankind. No man ever started with a larger capital of good nature, human benevolence, and common honesty, than honest John. Few men ever started with better general prospects, for "a good time," and plenty of it, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... indestructible mass of ascetic merit. And the king saw that the asylum was like unto the region of Brahman. Here were bees sweetly humming and there were winged warblers of various species pouring forth their melodies. At particular places that tiger among men heard the chanting of Rik hymns by first-rate Brahmanas according to the just rules of intonation. Other places again were graced with Brahmanas acquainted with ordinances of sacrifice, of the Angas and of the hymns of the Yajurveda. Other places again were filled with the harmonious ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... a guinea to go toward that long-standing account, his army tailor's bill, and post obits had long ago forestalled the few hundred a year that, under his mother's settlements, would come to him at the Viscount's death; but Cecil had never known in his life what it was not to have a first-rate stud, not to live as luxuriously as a duke, not to order the costliest dinners at the clubs, and be among the first to lead all the splendid entertainments and extravagances of the Household; he ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... it, nor did he notice that her shoulders were bare. For him there was but one woman in all the world. He spoke to the girl as a father would to his daughter. He told her to go to the restaurant and order breakfast, at once, a first-rate breakfast. Porter and Burgundy! The manager knew his taste. She was to give ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... going to happen when it is good enough to cease? I hope"—an uncomfortable thought occurred to me—"I hope Pugh hasn't picked up some pleasant little novelty in the way of an infernal machine. It would be a first-rate joke if he and I had been endeavoring to solve the puzzle of ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... geographical bearings, Philip came to the conclusion he must be either a seafaring man or an escaped lunatic. So he answered him to the point. "I should think," he said quietly, "as Miss Blake's are extremely respectable lodgings, in a first-rate quarter, and with a splendid view, you'll probably have to pay ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... place to place, with their caravans of wild beasts and yellow chariot of unhealthy-looking musicians, whose performance consisted of a very small quantity of trumpet, and a very great deal of drum. First-rate things in bands, drums are; they make so much noise, and hide such a multitude of mistakes. Besides, one tune will last so much longer with a judicious intermixture of drum. So Mr and Mrs Blewcome went about ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... drive a handsome team of four horses, and, of course, attracted a good deal of attention whenever he made his appearance in the streets. On one occasion the late Lord Sefton, who was through life a first-rate whip, drove up to Heywood's bank in his usual dashing style. Dr. Solomon was tooling along behind his lordship, and desirous of emulating his mode of handling the reins and whip, gave the latter such a flourish as to get the lash so firmly fixed round ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... of General Grant, could be written in a few weeks, but a solid historical biography of him, with a critical examination of his campaigns, has not yet been written, and perhaps never will be. A literary venture of Lowell and his friends in 1843, to found a first-rate literary magazine, proved a failure; and it is to be feared that he lost money by it. [Footnote: See Scudder's Life of ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... having had the chief command of the Baltic Fleet during the Crimean War. He was a charming fellow, slight and smart-looking, very carefully dressed, as resolute in command as he was formal as to politeness, a consummate seaman, managing his ship in first-rate style. I sailed a great deal with him, and learned much from him, and from the very first I felt a personal affection for him, which was never belied, and which he reciprocated. An extra bond of sympathy existed between us—when I was ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... a city some day," prophesied Brook as he put on an old overcoat that had hitherto survived the ravages of time; "you see all our comrades who have discovered that farming is not their vocation are hiving off into it, and many of them, being first-rate mechanics, they have taken to their trades, while those with mercantile tendencies have opened stores. You shall see that things will shake into their proper places, and right themselves in time, and this will ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... George, after a laugh at this sample of eloquence unadorned, "Mr. Steen does not err on the side of flattery in his commendations of a candidate. But what makes him such an authority with the farmers? Is he a first-rate agriculturist?" ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sustain the great reputation of Miss Martineau, both as a sound scientific observer on questions of moral and political philosophy, and as a writer of first-rate descriptive powers."—Examiner. ...
— The Author's Printing and Publishing Assistant • Frederick Saunders
... result—for our carelessness might have cost us very dearly—I was about to turn away when I saw that Maignan had mounted and was preparing to follow. I stayed accordingly to see the end, and from my elevated position enjoyed a first-rate view of the race which ensued. Both were heavy weights, and at first Maignan gained no ground. But when a couple of hundred yards had been covered Fresnoy had the ill-luck to blunder into some heavy ground, and this enabling his pursuer, who had time to avoid it, ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... accidentals, variations of time, &c., we shall find his attention must have been exercised on many more occasions than when he was actually striking notes: so that it may not be too much to say that the attention of a first-rate player has been exercised—to an infinitesimally small extent—but still truly exercised—on as many as ten thousand occasions within the space of five minutes, for no note can be struck nor point attended to without a certain amount ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... seaman in sail will probably make a useful sledger: but at this time Scott can hardly have foreseen that Bowers was to prove "the hardest traveller that ever undertook a Polar journey, as well as one of the most undaunted." But he had already proved himself a first-rate sailor. Among the junior scientific staff too, several were showing qualities as seamen which were a good sign for the future. Altogether I think it must have been with a cheerful mind that Scott landed ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... bunch. All of them are old timers, except two fellows that came in two days ago. One of them is named Garwood, who comes from out West somewhere. The other is Lester Lee from somewhere down on the coast of Maine. I don't know much about them yet, but I like them first-rate from what I've seen of them so far. I think we're going to be a regular happy family, as soon as we get going, and I'm mighty glad you fellows are going to be in ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... was takin' it all in. Not that I was feelin' lonesome, or anything like that. I likes to see any sort of fun, even if it ain't just my kind. And besides, there was more or less in the bunch that I knew first-rate. But I don't care about pushin' to the front until ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... he pursued, "being aware of the—I would say, desolate—position of our young friend, offers to place her at a first-rate establishment where her education shall be completed, where her comfort shall be secured, where her reasonable wants shall be anticipated, where she shall be eminently qualified to discharge her duty in that station of life unto which it has ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... lower grades of the diplomatic service in European countries. Until lately we had no highest grade answering to that of "ambassador," perhaps because when our diplomatic service was organized the United States did not yet rank among first-rate powers, and could not expect to receive ambassadors. Great powers, like France and Germany, send ambassadors to each other, and envoys to inferior powers, like Denmark or Greece or Guatemala. When we send envoys to the great powers, we ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... nests in all sorts of niches and crannies about the houses, often sits calmly on a telegraph wire and preens its iridescent plumes, and sometimes utters a weak and squeaky little trill, which, no doubt, passes for first-rate music in swallowdom, whatever we human critics might think of it. Before man came and settled in those valleys, the violet-greens found the crevices of rocks well enough adapted to their needs for nesting sites, but now they prefer cosey niches and crannies in human dwellings, and appear to ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... amusing, moralising penitent, male and female, to the shades below—the "fabulae manes" with whom Quevedo held converse. As my copy of the Visions is an anonymous translation, and evidently far from being a first-rate one, I shall not be surprised if I receive as an answer,—"Mistaken as to your fact, read a better translation:" but as in spite of its manifold, glaring defects, I have no reason to suspect that the text is garbled, I think I may venture ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 24. Saturday, April 13. 1850 • Various
... inner fences, being sufficiently cheap and easily set up. But they will not keep out wild pigs, and cattle, accustomed to force their way through the thickets of the bush, mistake wire fences for mere supple-jack, and walk straight through them. Wattles interlaced on stakes make first-rate protection, but they can only be used with economy when the supply of them is ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... Behaviour of a Coquet in low Life, and how she received the extraordinary Notice that was taken of her; which I found had affected every Muscle of her Face in the same manner as it does the Feature of a first-rate Toast at a Play, or in an Assembly. This Hint of mine made the Discourse turn upon the Sense of Pleasure; which ended in a general Resolution, that the Milk-Maid enjoys her Vanity as exquisitely as the Woman of Quality. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Dublin University; and I have no hesitation in saying, that young men educated in Irish hedge schools, as they were called, have proved themselves to be better classical scholars and mathematicians, generally speaking, than any proportionate number of those educated in our first-rate academies. The Munstor masters have long been, and still are, particularly celebrated for making ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... loving servant who wanted to tie himself into knots if that would please the son of his great captain. Fionn went home on the robber's shoulder, and the robber gave great snorts and made great jumps and behaved like a first-rate horse. For this same Fiacuil was the husband of Bovmall, Fionn's aunt. He had taken to the wilds when clann-Baiscne was broken, and he was at war with a world that had dared ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... a first-rate fit-out for hunters; and with the jolly basket of lunch Mrs. Mullin gave us, we can get on tip-top for two or three days," said Tommy, eager ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... be doing the most unwise thing possible to stand in the light of my going. If I were at something that I liked, that I was not worked to death at; if I did not owe a shilling; if my prospects here, in short, were first-rate, and my life a bower of rose-leaves, I should do well to throw it all up ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... patience I could get a damask rose even now by inquiring about from farmhouse to farmhouse. In time some old farmer, with a good old taste for old roses and pinks, would send me one; I have half a mind to try. But, alas! it is no use, I have nowhere to put it; I rent a house which is built in first-rate modern style, though small, of course, and there is a "garden" to it, but no place to put a damask rose. No place, because it is not "home," and I cannot plant except round "home." The plot or "patch" the landlord calls ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... doubtless, will exploit her in Biskra. You may have her for two years. By that time she may toss her own handkerchief. Then she reverts to me. I shall take her to Cairo, where second-rate Englishmen and first-rate ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... nice in my life till I met him," the girl continued incoherently—"I had always been poor and pinched and wretched and second-rate; even my pictures were never first-rate, though I worked and worked all I knew to make them so. And then I met Cecil Farquhar, and I loved him, and everything became different, and I didn't mind being second-rate if only he would care for me. And he did; and I thought that I should always be as happy as I ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... theme not the work but the worker, upon the good old principle "Abuse the plaintiff's attorney." These arts fully account for the downfall of criticism in our day and the deafness of the public to such literary verdicts. But a few years ago a favourable review in a first-rate paper was "fifty pounds in the author's pocket": now it is not worth as many pence unless signed by some well-known scribbling statesman or bustling reverend who caters for the public taste. The decline and fall is well expressed in the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... in the locker, and bring along anything you think would be nice? We'll make a fire and have supper on the beach—if it isn't first-rate, you'll be responsible!" ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... sure I don't know, for I am pretty certain that the Episcopalians won't give up their bishops, and the Presbyterians won't have them on any account. However, that's neither here nor there—at least it does not affect the fact that Wordsworth is a first-rate man, and a fine preacher. I dare say you know he is a nephew or grand-nephew of the Poet. He is a most venerable old man, and worth looking at, merely for his exterior. He is so feeble with age that he can with difficulty ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... carried a first-rate sword and a splendid coat of mail; and when they found me, my brave father told me what had happened, and what the magistrates had said to him. Then he kissed me on the forehead and both eyes, and gave me his hearty blessing, saying: "May the power of goodness of God be your protection;" and reaching ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... risk of dying by starvation at home." For his worshippers too a most questionable thing! If doing Hero-worship well or badly be the test of vital wellbeing or illbeing to a generation, can we say that these generations are very first-rate?—And yet our heroic Men of Letters do teach, govern, are kings, priests, or what you like to call them; intrinsically there is no preventing it by any means whatever. The world has to obey him who thinks and sees in the ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... frontier of France was broken. It was to an almost forlorn hope that the British Army was committed when it took its place on the left of the French northern armies at Mons to encounter for the first time since Waterloo the shock of a first-rate European force. But for its valour and the distraction caused by the Russian invasion of East Prussia, Paris and possibly the French armies might ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard |
