"First-rate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... began to talk to herself, and to say: "There now, don't be foolish enough to notice every little caper of them boys," and then, she said: "I began to practise what I preached to myself. It worked first-rate, for I give over watchin' 'em, and we get ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... same, there's something to be said for it. She has a first-rate position since she got the King ... and I get first-rate tips! Take to-night, for instance; I'll bet they'll be carrying on till pretty near dawn. It upsets my habits, but I can't complain. I'll probably get a good New Year's ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... who have lived through a first-rate war, not in the field, but at home, and kept their heads, can possibly understand the bitterness of Shakespeare and Swift, who both went through this experience. The horror of Peer Gynt in the madhouse, when ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... outside with me. You'll find it hard work. It would be a first-rate idea if you'd fortify your strength by the little bit of nourishment which we can afford to take. No? Well, I'm sorry.—Here." He offered her the pieces of a sack he had cut in two for her. "Tie those about your feet to keep ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... a deep, navigable, and majestic stream; it has three fathoms upon the bar at low water; the rise and fall is, I believe, fifteen feet; there are docks here for Chinese junks of five or six hundred tons, and a first-rate ship of war might get up far above the town. The country, too, is populous, productive, and healthy. The southern branch of this river has been well surveyed, but the branch leading to the Marut country is little known; it has ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... Aaron was at the foot of the mountain making a false god, a golden calf, for the people to worship; yet Aaron got his commission, you know." At another time, when remonstrated with upon the appointment to place of one of his former opponents, he said: "Nobody will deny that he is a first-rate man for the place, and I am bound to see that his opposition to me personally shall not interfere with my giving the people a good officer." And on another similar occasion, when remonstrated with by members of his Cabinet, he said: "Oh, I can't afford to punish ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... perhaps half as much at the end of summer. This inclosure was entirely successful, very few salmon dying in it except those that had been attacked by disease before their introduction, and all the survivors were found to be in first-rate condition in November. This site was not afterwards occupied, because it was inconveniently located, and was exposed to the full force of violent winds sweeping across the ...
— New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century • Various
... think Gray a first-rate poet. He has not a bold imagination, nor much command of words. The obscurity in which he has involved himself will not persuade us that he is sublime[1183]. His Elegy in a Church-yard has a happy selection of images, but I don't like what are called his great ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... the most encyclopaedic all-round scholar now living. His new volume on the Origin of the Aryans is a first-rate example of the excellent account to which he can turn his exceptionally wide and varied information.... Masterly and ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... ball the Rockshire man also "slipped," but this time, though it was within easier reach, and for a first-rate fielder was even a possible catch, Riddell missed it, and two runs were made. "Look out there!" cried Bloomfield severely. "Well tried, sir!" cried some one, sarcastically. "Well missed, sir!" cried some one else, with painful truthfulness. Riddell saw the crisis. ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... experience as a lawyer he had to be content with fees that seem absurdly small; once, he rode from Springfield to Bloomington to argue a case, and got but five dollars for his services. But he was a first-rate man of business, and soon had a good income ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... 'the pleasure of criticism robs us of the pleasure of being keenly moved by very fine things' (iii. 327). 'It seems to me,' she writes (ii. 412), 'much better to read a man's own writings than to read what others say about him, especially when the man is first-rate and the others third-rate. As Goethe said long ago about Spinoza, "I always preferred to learn from the man himself what he thought, rather than to hear from some one else what he ought to have thought."' As if the scholar ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley
... listening, and we are as little disposed to be exacting in respect to form as though we were listeners in actual fact. Sterne's manner, in short, may be that of a bad and careless writer, but it is the manner of a first-rate talker; and this, of course, enhances rather than detracts from the unwearying charm of his wit ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Grotius, who here explains: "I will cause that all of them keep my Law in memory,—in the first instance, by the multitude of synagogues which, at that time, were built, and in which the Law was taught thrice a-week." Thrice a-week! Surely that will produce first-rate men, viz., such as are described in Isa. lviii. 2. It is not without meaning, that the words: "And I will be their God," &c., follow upon: "And I give my Law in their inward parts," &c. The Law is the expression ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... repeated. If Arina Prohorovna had not been there, things would have gone very badly. By degrees she gained complete control of the patient—who began to obey every word, every order from her like a child. Arina Prohorovna ruled by sternness not by kindness, but she was first-rate at her work. It began to get light... Arina Prohorovna suddenly imagined that Shatov had just run out on to the stairs to say his prayers and began laughing. Marie laughed too, spitefully, malignantly, as though such laughter relieved her. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... secretary who had been speaking before him—"Mr. Jacobs it was that put it in my mind to come here and tell you about Isaac. For the way Isaac died was like this. He and I were born in Spitalfields; he wasn't one of your greeners—he was a reg'lar good worker, first-rate general coat-hand, same as me. But he got with a hard master. And last winter season but one there came a rush. And Isaac must be working six days a week—and he must be working fourteen hours a day—and, more'n that, he must be doing his bastes overtime, two hours one ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Hallelujah, how beautiful is proof, And how distressed that author man who dwells too far aloof. His favourite words he always finds his friends misunderstand, With oaths, he reads his articles, moist brow and clenched hand. Impromtoo. The last line first-rate. When may I hope to see the Deacon? I pine for the Deacon, for proofs of the Pavilion—O and for a categorical confession from you that the second edition of the Donkey was a false alarm, which I conclude from hearing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... home 's long as he wanted to stay there. And together they managed to make room far 'em all, by a-buildin' a kind o' shed-like to the main house, intendin' to build when Spring come. And ever'thing went along first-rate, I guess; never heerd no complaints—that ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... 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
... scheme. He spoke of his wife almost with awe, when Mr. Fenwick left him to make this second attack. "She has never had nothing to say to none sich as that," said the farmer, shaking his head, as he alluded both to his wife and to his sister; "and I ain't sure as she'll be first-rate civil to any one as mentions sich in ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... (a passenger, God wot!) Whether my vessel be first-rate or not? The ship itself may make a better figure, But I that sail am neither less nor bigger. I neither strut with every favouring breath, 300 Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth. In power, wit, figure, virtue, fortune, placed Behind the ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... mate," giggled Johnson, "and you don't catch me shipping noways else. But I'll tell you what: I believe I can get you Arty Nares. You seen Arty; first-rate navigator, and a son of a gun for style." And he proceeded to explain to me that Mr. Nares, who had the promise of a fine barque in six months, after things had quieted down, was in the meantime living very private, and would be pleased to have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nothing appeared a difficulty, in his own 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. His answer was: ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... most decided manner; for it has put forth poetry by a young man, and that where we should least expect it—namely, in a prize poem. These productions have often been ingenious and elegant but we have never before seen one of them which indicated really first-rate poetical genius, and which would have done honour to any men that ever wrote. Such, we do not hesitate to affirm, is the little work before us; and the examiners seem to have felt it like ourselves, for they ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... right yet, Darsie, you'll see. The tenants like me. I'll settle down and make a first-rate squire when my time comes. And I'll make up to you then for all this worry and bother." For a moment his voice was significantly tender, then the recollection of his present difficulty swept over him once more, and he ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Italy, by a deputation to him at Paris, I happened to be there. Many Italians, besides the deputies, went on the occasion, and, among them, we had the good fortune to meet the Abbe Fortis, the celebrated naturalist, a gentleman of first-rate abilities, who had travelled three-fourths of the globe in mineralogical research. The Abbe chanced one day to be in company with my husband, who was an old acquaintance of his, where many of the chopfallen deputies, like themselves, true lovers ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... where each thirsty passer-by can drink some good water. Similar care is displayed in each part of the establishment, and especially in the management of the springs, so that a single drop of water may not be lost: indeed the whole island may be compared to a huge ship kept in first-rate order. I could not help, when admiring the active industry, which had created such effects out of such means, at the same time regretting that it had been wasted on so poor and trifling an end. M. Lesson has remarked with justice, that the English nation ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... my arrival soon spread among those who had been expecting it, though I neither saw nor had any direct communication with any of those who were to be my passengers. I had some difficulty in disposing of my wood, which was not a very first-rate article, but finally sold it, taking in payment the purchaser's note on sixty days, which I changed off for half cash and half provisions. As the trader to whom I passed the note had no hard bread, Sayres and myself went ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... show you how a man that understands one art understands every art. I made out from the gentleman's remarks that there is a man in the musical line named Wagner, who is what you might call a game sort of composer; and that the musical fancy, though they can't deny that his tunes are first-rate, and that, so to speak, he wins his fights, yet they try to make out that he wins them in an outlandish way, and that he has no real science. Now I tell the gentleman not to mind such talk. As I have just shown you, his game wouldn't be any use to him without science. He might ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... interest; "he was educated for an undertaker, and built up a first-class business; but he was always a beautiful speaker, and after a while he sorter drifted into the ministry. Of course it didn't pay him anything like as well, so finally he opened a drug-store, and he did first-rate at that too, though his heart was always in the pulpit. But after he made such a success with his hair-waver he got speculating in land out at Apex, and somehow everything went—though Mr. Spragg did all he COULD—." Mrs. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... here notice a few cases of looseness, either of thought or of expression, to be met with in these pages; a point of style to be particularly looked to when the occurrence or the absence of such forms one very sensible difference between the first-rate and the second-rate poets of the ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... guess not," he made answer, as he pursued his task. "So far as I can make out, this wouldn't be the place to start in at, if I WAS going to be a lawyer. A boy can learn here first-rate how to load cartridges and clean a gun, and braid trout-flies on to leaders, but I don't see much law laying around loose. Anyway," he went on, "I couldn't afford to read law, and not be getting any wages. I have to ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... 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, and a brain totally unburdened by the scholiast's dry-as-dust ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... backwoods style, and you may eat as much as you please, which is a rare luxury to one who has been stinted and starved at the hotels on the Continent. I remember, at one station beyond the Dovre Fjeld, Bennett's Hand-book says, "Few rooms, but food supplied in first-rate style when Miss Marit is at home. She will be much offended if you do not prove that you have a good appetite." On my arrival at this place, not wishing to offend Miss Marit—for whom I entertained the highest respect in consequence ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... through to be appreciated. They come and work very well for the first week. They slash down acre after acre, and stick to it almost day and night. In consequence the farmer puts on every man who applies for work, everything goes on first-rate, and there is a prospect of getting the crop in speedily. At the end of the week the mowers draw their money, quite a lump for them, and away they go to the ale-house. Saturday night sees them as drunk as men can be. They lie about the fields ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... spurring, refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocate its crew and founder at sea. It must involve physical inconvenience of the most demoralizing sort simply to be in one for any length of time. A first-rate man who has been breathing carbonic acid and oil vapour under a pressure of four atmospheres becomes presently a second-rate man. Imagine yourself in a submarine that has ventured a few miles out of port, imagine that you have headache and nausea, and that some ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... made his weakness hell to him—of these, too, we may be sure that the beginnings were to be seen in the boy at Ottery St. Mary, as indeed they were before his eyes in the person of his father, who, if not a first-rate genius, was, says his son, ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... "Oh, It's a first-rate sort. It has been opened by a good man. He's a right down jolly fellow, though he is a swell. There's boxing and all kinds of good games going ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... of the pack-outfit we bought at an auction sale in rather a peculiar manner. About sixty head of Arizona horses of the C. A. Bar outfit were being sold. Toward the close of the afternoon they brought out a well-built stocky buckskin of first-rate appearance except that his left flank was ornamented with five different brands. The auctioneer ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... a medical student in Edinburgh (since fully qualified), and well suited to the enterprise, being of a scientific turn of mind, as well as practical and energetic,—a first-rate rider, an oarsman, and a good sailor, whilst he had spent his vacations for ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... conspicuous vanity. I am, perhaps, taking a most unwarrantable liberty in presuming to offer you advice on so delicate a subject, or, indeed, in alluding to it at all; but, to tell you the truth, I have taken rather a liking for you in spite of—ah—ahem—that is—I mean that you struck me as being a first-rate fellow notwithstanding the little failing at which I have hinted. You are quite good enough every way to pass muster without the necessity for any attempt to clothe yourself with fictitious attributes of any kind. Of course, in the ordinary ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... the idea first-rate," said the third friend; and then he paused and added, seemingly as an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... 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
... Flower first-rate, and told his mother so. A young woman never cares anything for an unlicked cub, nine years younger than herself, unless Fate has played pitch and toss with her heart's true love. And then, the tendrils of the affections being ruthlessly lacerated and uprooted, they cling ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... close of their perusal, they with one voice, explained that this was a first-rate song on crab-eating; that minor themes of this kind should really conceal lofty thoughts, before they could be held to be of any great merit, and that the only thing was that it chaffed people ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... it was a first-rate plan. It was noticed afterward that he moved from a plain seat in the gallery to a cushioned and carpeted seat in the center aisle. Whether he paid any more contribution than he had before paid of pew rent, nobody but the parson knows. But nobody ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... ejaculations in party platforms to the contrary. He had a Republican candidate for Governor in mind who would be faithful to his interests; but this candidate was put aside in the convention in deference to the sentiment that only a man of first-rate mental and moral calibre could command the allegiance of independent voters, whose co-operation seemed essential to party success. The Republican state convention was held three weeks prior to the date fixed for that of their ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... shakedown in the longboat. She's got nothing in her except her own gear—which we can clear out. The jolly-boat is turned over on top of her, making a capital roof to your house, so that you'll sleep dry and comfortable. Why, she'll make a first-rate cabin for ye, and you'll have her all to yourself. There's some boards on the top of the galley that we can lay fore and aft on the boat's thwarts, and there's plenty of sails in the sail locker to make ye a bed. Why," he exclaimed, in admiration of his own ingenuity, "when all's done ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... How good you are at guessing, John Gabriel! Yes, she tells me that Mrs. Wilton has taken such a fancy to her, and she is to go abroad with her and study music. And Mrs. Wilton has engaged a first-rate teacher who is to accompany them on the journey—and to read with Frida. For unfortunately she has been a good deal neglected in some branches, ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen
... Mick, and keep the nails in his mouth. I pounded my thumb the first day I tried, and the biggest blood-blister I ever saw grew; so I had to give up hammering. Sam says if he can't be a Congressman, he means to be a first-rate shingler, and get the job of shingling all the spires in the country. I sha'n't be that, anyway. If I can't get on better with my arithmetic, and get to be an Admiral, I shall keep a stable, and let my father ride my horses—regular circus horses, and calico-spotted ones—very ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... general cultivation, North and South, East and West, I would recommend the Charles Downing, Monarch of the West, Seth Boyden, Kentucky Seedling, Duchess, and Golden Defiance. These varieties are all first-rate in quality, and they have shown a wonderful adaptation to varied soils and climates. They have been before the public a number of years, and have persistently proved their excellence. Therefore, they are worthy of a place in every garden. With ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... putting into the harbour of Santa Cruz for this purpose; and Mick and I were much struck by the fact of the black ladies who carried the baskets of coal on their heads along the jetty from the shore to the ship, doing the job, too, in first-rate style and as good as any gang of wharfingers at home, all of them wearing the most expansive crinolines, which, with their thin dresses and black stockings, of nature's own provision, had a very ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... I tell you what I'll do. I can help you and you in turn can assist me. I have no attraction here for Saturday night. You can therefore make use of what scenery you require, under the circumstances, without the drop curtain; but I have a first-rate green baize in the storeroom and I will loan all of it to you. My property room is well stocked, and you can have the use of the props. Moreover, I'll send my stage manager up to Gotown to ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... his noble client had a great deal of business to transact. Lothair was to know his position in detail preparatory to releasing his guardians from their responsibilities, and assuming the management of his own affairs. Mr. Putney Giles was a first-rate man of business. With all his pleasant, easy manner, he was precise and methodical, and was not content that his client should be less master of his own affairs than his lawyer. The mornings passed over a table covered with dispatch ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... is also a first-rate weapon in a skilful hand for procuring small birds. I must confess I cannot use it as well as some young friends of mine, who knock over nearly every sitting bird they aim at, and even now and then are successful with such difficult shots as at ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... associating some one with him who could make up these deficiencies. If he could find just the person that pleased him, he was ready to advance capital and credit to an amount somewhere within the neighborhood of twenty thousand dollars. For some months he had been thinking of Jacob, who was a first-rate salesman, had a good address, and was believed by him to possess business habits eminently conducive to success. The fact that he had once failed, was something of a drawback in his mind, but he had asked Jacob the reason of his ill-success, which was so plausibly explained, ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... are, Cap. That's a first-rate idea," agreed Kit the irrepressible. "Next trip we'll start looking for streams that were and are not; we're in the bed of one now for ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... Inquiry is considerably strengthened by the opinion of a writer of great information and first-rate ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... bowman of another boat, "We have a fellow in our crew who never drinks, smokes, chews, swears, nor fights; but he's a jolly good fellow, strong as a lion, could lick any of us if he has a mind to, and a first-rate worker. I never saw such a boy." Both captain and crew agreed that James was a peacemaker, and that he carried out his purpose without making enemies. Thorough and prompt in everything, and unwilling to be a party to any wrong-doing, he was regarded as a model worthy of imitation ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... and, after travelling a mile and a half on their tracks, found them at a small water-hole passed by us yesterday. Saddled up and reached camp at eleven o'clock, and found all well. Yesterday morning the dogs caught an emu, off which we made a first-rate breakfast, not having had anything to eat since ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... ecclesiastical articles of faith or religious dogmas, which are either pure fictions (resting on no empirical evidence), or simply irrational (contradicting the law of causality). As instances of rational hypotheses of first-rate importance may be mentioned our belief in the oneness of matter (the building up of the elements from primary atoms), our belief in equivocal generation, our belief in the essential unity of all natural phenomena, as maintained by monism (on which compare my General Morphology, vol. i. pp. ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... believe the Delhi will run away from us, Louis," said the captain as the millionaire joined him, curious to know what he was doing. "She isn't loaded for her best sailing, but she is doing first-rate for ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... this moment Peter came in from the mill, and the two young ladies thanked him till he got red to the tips of his ears. It was nothing at all to do, he said, and he was glad the young master was none the worse, and a first-rate climber he was, that he was, and him such a little bit of a fellow. And so the girls went away, very much more cheerful ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... its four arterial streams—the Nile and Niger, the Congo and Zambeze. I neglect the Limpopo, called in its lower bed Espirito Santo, Manica, Manhica (Manyisa), and Delagoa River; the Cunene (Nourse) River, the Orange River, and others, which would be first-rate streams in Europe, but are mere dwarfs in the presence of the four African giants. The Nile and Niger, being mainly tenanted by Moslemized and comparatively civilized races, have long been known, more or less, to Europe. The Zambeze, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... he took it for granted that anyone could recognise these bulbs for what they were. But Mrs. Bartlemy did not; for she had spent the most of her life in various garrisons, which afford few opportunities for gardening. None the less, she was, for a soldier's wife, a first-rate housekeeper; and, supposing these bulbs to be onions of peculiar rarity, she forthwith issued invitations to the elite of the Island, and ordered over a leg of Welsh mutton from the mainland. I will not attempt ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... we've seen you here, sir," said the attendant, supporting his foot, and screwing on the heel of the skate. "Except you, there's none of the gentlemen first-rate skaters. Will that be all right?" said ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... 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 ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... swing. It was a first-rate one, with a broad, comfortable seat, and thick new ropes. The seat hung just the right distance from the floor. Alexander was a capital hand at putting up swings, and the wood-shed the nicest possible spot in which ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... child; I feel first-rate. I guess that bad spell I had at bedtime is going to do me for to-night; but I am thirsty, so when you get me fixed up you can go to bed. You must be tired to death, my dear girl," he added, as Dexie busied herself about him. "What time is it? Not past two, surely? Why, I must be turning over ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... he, when I had done my sad story; "'tis a pity! he was a goot officer! And Matame Mironoff, she was a goot lady and first-rate at pickled mushrooms. And what became ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... banteringly yet tenderly, "we were just getting along first-rate with these uncommonly mixed liquors. You mustn't cry off again, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... make no essential difference, provided always that there is no semblance of a keel. But once the keel is introduced the whole constructional idea is changed and the ways of savages are left behind. A first-rate keeled canoe, built of white cedar, brass shod and copper fastened, fitted with air tanks and life-line, a lateen sail and portage handles, is the very perfection {26} of a handy little cruiser for all sorts of inland waters. ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... said. 'You're doing first-rate, Ken. That's as far as we can go on this ledge. We've got to drop to the lower one now. Don't worry. It's not as bad as that first drop we had to do ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... humor as one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquillity. It is among the most effectual, and its effect is so well imitated and aided, artificially, by politeness, that this also becomes an acquisition of first-rate value. In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue. It is the practice of sacrificing to those whom we meet ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... 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
... judge; for his after-life left scanty room for book-work, and of the vast quantity of information which his strong memory ever placed at his disposal, the far greater proportion must have been accumulated now. He made himself a first-rate mathematician; he devoured history—his chosen authors being Plutarch and Tacitus; the former the most simple painter that antiquity has left us of heroic characters—the latter the profoundest ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... "First-rate," said Pierre, looking at Dolokhov, who with a bottle of rum in his hand was approaching the window, from which the light of the sky, the dawn merging with the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... as characteristic of the principal plenipotentiaries: as a rule, they eschewed first-rate men as fellow-workers, one integer and several zeros being their favorite formula, and they took no account of the flight of time, planning as though an eternity were before them and then suddenly improvising as though afraid of being late for a train or a steamer. These peculiarities ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... endurance; and a mixture composed of pounded glass and rice gluten is rubbed over it. Having been dried in the sun, the prepared string is now wound upon a handsome reel of split bamboo inserted in a long handle. One of these reels, if of first-rate manufacture, costs a shilling, although coarser ones are very cheap; and of the nuck, about four annas, or sixpence worth, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... has always been the royal residence, and the other palaces have in consequence become somewhat neglected. My dwelling was really splendidly situated, and beautifully furnished; it would have been first-rate, if, from the first moment of my entrance, a fearful annoyance had not made ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that it never changed, even when he was sipping his soup or smoking a cigar. His preciseness became a byword between us. His grandmother, indeed, had been a German. Nature had endowed him with all sorts of talents. He danced capitally, was a dashing horseman, and a first-rate swimmer; did carpentering, carving and joinery, bound books and cut out silhouettes, painted in watercolours nosegays of flowers or Napoleon in profile in a blue uniform; played the zither with feeling; ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... pool or marsh, we shall soon learn to know the sound of his voice, especially when perhaps he and five hundred of his family are, with their heads half out of the water, amusing themselves in the performance of a concert, each striving to outdo his neighbour in the loudness of his tones. He is a first-rate swimmer; and when driven out of the hole in which he passes the warm hours of the day, he plunges into the water, and skims along the surface some distance before he dives below it. Only on such occasions, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... however, pays in many respects a tribute that is no more than just to the memory of Lord George, and his book affords material for an impartial judgment. At that period the noble lord was a distinguished patron of the turf: all England knew him as a sporting gentleman, a first-rate judge of horses, and an extensive winner on the course. In allusion to his habits in these respects, it became a popular sneer that the Conservatives required "a stable mind," after the versatile performances of Sir ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... right; girls in good health could not go on like that. If I were you, James, I would take them up to a first-rate London physician, the very best that can be had for money. Those girls are highly organised, highly sensitive; their nerves are highly strung. They want something to bring them down," said Aunt Mary; but catching at that moment sight of her sister's face, she laughed consumedly, ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... continue. And what is 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 how to ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... contemporaries and immediate predecessors) first appeared in his Apology, 4to. 1740, and were transferred verbatim, as far as I have been able to consult them, to the subsequent editions of that very entertaining and excellent work. If Colley Cibber were not a first-rate dramatist, he was a first-rate critic upon performers; and I am disposed to place his abilities as a play-wright much higher than the ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... "And a first-rate seaman, one who had seen long and honorable service, as became a man charged with the interests of a house so important as that of Morrel & ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... possessed of an instrument, as it were, precisely adapted to his end, which was to make worthless property valuable at the smallest possible expense, in fact, at the lowest cost price. He had secured a first-rate architect and a first-rate accountant, both men of spotless integrity, both young, energetic and unusually industrious. He paid nothing for their services and he entirely controlled their expenditure. It was clear that he would do his utmost to maintain an arrangement ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... My wife, you see, does not say much; she is short and abrupt in her manner; but she means well, for all that. I will flap my wings at once, that they may hear us coming." Then stork-papa flapped his wings in first-rate style, and he and the swans flew away to ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... a set of it from her singing; for it had never been set before. I am fixed that it shall go in Johnson's next number; so Charlotte and you need not spend your precious time in contradicting me. I won't say the poetry is first-rate; though I am convinced it is very well; and, what is not always the case with compliments to ladies, it is not only ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... farmer in Pennsylvania wrote me that he wanted "to raise a first-rate crop of potatoes." I answered him as follows through the ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... to the marriage of the devoted couple, transported the whole party to what was really a grand last scene, which everybody did wait for. There was some congruity, some dramatic construction, in such Pantomimes; and then the acting. For it was acting, and first-rate acting. ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... of men to be kept on an estate to preserve it in first-rate order after it has come into bearing, must depend of course upon the size of the plantation, but in general one man for every one hundred trees will be found sufficient, provided there be some four or five thousand trees. On a small ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... am now going to give you my opinion of your works. I have read them all many times, and call them first-rate. Please ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... returning from his Continental episode of life, to settle down to his desk,—his heart had been always there. The death of his father gave him, as a birthright, a high position in a respectable though second-rate firm. To make this establishment first-rate was an honourable ambition,—it was his! He had lately married, not entirely for money,—no! he was worldly rather than mercenary. He had no romantic ideas of love; but he was too sensible a man not to know that a wife should be a companion,—not merely a speculation. He did not care for beauty ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... like all these things first-rate; but I have no expectation that such a thing will ever happen. Such ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... pause.) Yes, I should often come to the shop. Gad, it would be half the fun of my fortune! How they would envy me, to be sure! How one should enjoy it! I wouldn't think of marrying till—and yet I won't say either; if I got among some of them out-and-outers—those first-rate articles—that lady, for instance, the other day in the Park—I should like to see her cut me as she did, with ten thousand a-year in my pocket! Why, she'd be running after me!—or there's no truth in novels, which I'm ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... are useful to all nations, but nowhere do they appear to me to be more indispensable than amongst a democratic people. In an aristocracy order can always be maintained in the midst of liberty, and as the rulers have a great deal to lose order is to them a first-rate consideration. In like manner an aristocracy protects the people from the excesses of despotism, because it always possesses an organized power ready to resist a despot. But a democracy without provincial institutions has no security against these evils. How can a populace, unaccustomed ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... mountains are particularly wet, because, unlike the mountains in other parts of the country, the substratum is a stiff retentive clay. At that time there was not a spot of mountain or bog upon Lord Hertfort's estate that was not let by the acre. About one-third of the land is of first-rate quality; there are 15,000 or 16,000 acres of mountain, and about the same quantity ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... champion," as Billy's opponent was introduced, stepped into the ring he received a hearty round of applause, whereas there was but a scattered ripple of handclapping to greet the mucker. It was the first time he ever had stepped into a ring with a first-rate fighter, and as he saw the huge muscles of his antagonist and recalled the stories he had heard of his prowess and science, Billy, for the first time in his life, felt ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in 1804, was better than St. Clair, but such success as it enjoyed must have been due to the prevailing scarcity of first-rate, or even second-rate novelists, rather than to its own intrinsic merits. The public taste in fiction was not fastidious, and could swallow long-winded discussions and sentimental rhodomontade with an appetite that now seems almost incredible. The Novice is said to ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... 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 ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... furnished a first-rate dinner, and his usual tap of excellent wine. ('Vino del Popolo' he called it.) The 'Osteria' had filled; the combatants were placed opposite each other on either side of a small table on which stood two 'mezzi'—long glass bottles holding about a quart ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... him, ma'am," said the old doctor, promptly; "he'll make a first-rate sailor, and if Crayshaw's is all the schooling he's had, ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... were given to the 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 ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... a first-rate seaman, but a poor navigator, for he was almost destitute of education; indeed he was as rough-looking in appearance and manners as any of the men before the mast. How Captain Aggett had consented to his ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... we use the same studio, and if I seemed fearful he would be angry at once. He's a strange nature, Thorpe. Morbid and secretive, yet a good friend and a first-rate living companion. You see, we've separate bedrooms, of course, but we've only the one big room that's studio and sitting-room combined. We have to use it together, but as our friends are pretty much the same ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... that is collected for use and not for show the thin-paper books are almost an unmixed blessing. They cost little for what they contain. Their reduction in thickness is often associated with a reduction in height and width, so that they represent an economy of space all round. A first-rate example of this is furnished by the Oxford India Paper Dickens, in seventeen volumes, printed in large type, yet, as bound, occupying a cubical space of only 13 by 7 by 4-1/2 inches and weighing only ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... foul. We been digging here for too long. We ain't no prairie dogs to go delving into the bosom of the earth. We thought you must be plumb deceased anyhow: we couldn't get a peep out of you. I was in favour of leavin' you lay myself. This yere butte seemed like a first-rate imposing tomb; and I was willing myself to carve a few choice sentiments on some selected rock. Sure I can carve! But Jed here allowed that you owed him ten dollars and maybe had ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... now four hundred and fifty miles from Independence. Our route at first was rough, and through a timbered country, which appeared to be fertile. After striking the prairie, we found a first-rate road, and the only difficulty we have had, has been in crossing the creeks. In that, however, there has been ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household—and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity—but ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... "Yes, and he's a first-rate boy," said Ida, with whom the young apple merchant was evidently a favorite. "He's good to his mother. You see, his mother is sick most of the time, and can't work much; and he's got a little sister—she ain't more than four or five years old—and Charlie supports them by selling things. ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... fairly. This is so far satisfactory, and I think, if the whole country was not corrupt, they might go on well and quickly, but really it is most irritating to see the jealousies of the mandarins of one another. The people are first-rate, hard-working, and fairly honest; but it seems as soon as they rise in office they become corrupt. There is lots of vitality in the country, and there are some good men; but these are kept down by the ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... menagerie opens at eight o'clock in the morning; it takes me a good hour to get myself up for the day; and we don't shut up until ten o'clock at night; so you see my professional duties are very confining, and a real, live African gorilla is not supposed to have first-rate credit with the people who poke stale sandwiches and peanuts through his ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various |
