"Masterly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the plan of his work with a masterly hand in a few lines; he says, "It is interesting to transport one's self back to the times when Astronomy began; to observe how discoveries were connected together, how errors have got mixed up with truth, have delayed ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... dragoman somewhat coldly. "At that time any soldier who found his wife unfaithful, as we call it, could shoot her with impunity and receive the plaudits and possibly a presentation from the populace, though he himself may not have been impeccable while away—a masterly method of securing a divorce. But, as I told you, our procedure has changed since then; and even soldiers now have to go to work in this ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... when I had finished my verse, there was not one of the company but sprang from his place and sat down like schoolboys before me, saying, 'Allah upon thee, O our lord, sing us another song.' 'With pleasure,' said I, and playing another measure in masterly fashion, sang ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Period" (1905), which is volume XVI of "The History of North America", edited by F. N. Thorpe. The work of Rhodes is spacious and fair-minded but there are serious gaps in his narrative; Dunning's briefer account covers the entire field with masterly handling; Hamilton's history throws new light on all subjects and is particularly useful for an understanding of the Southern point of view. A valuable discussion of constitutional problems is contained in William A. Dunning's ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... at last, with sacred and reverent ceremony, was drawn aside, and revealed a portrait by Raphael,—the portrait of a lady, young and beautiful, and glowing with a tender sentiment which recalled to my remembrance these heads by Allston, not alone in the sentiment, but in the masterly beauty of the painting. M. Kestner told us he supposed the picture to be a portrait of that niece of Cardinal Bibbiena to whom Raphael was betrothed. The picture had come into his possession by one of those wonderful chances ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... work and minding your own business," her father had said, and it seemed to Lorraine after three or four days of it that he had summed up the life of a cattleman's daughter in a masterly manner which ought to be recorded among Famous Sayings like "War is hell" and "Don't give ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... at work on a picture of a canon with some Sioux Indians in the foreground, while I sat beside him, watching the play of his masterly brush. ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of Honesty is beautifully drawn by a masterly hand. The aged pilgrim, worn out with fatigue, can say without fear, 'I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me.' He blushed when his name was mentioned, and proved to be a most valuable acquisition ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Lesbia Faircloth, at the Inn, the Vicar's wife left out of the count.—If Sir Charles Verity and Damaris had hurried away, gossip would have run after them with liveliest yelpings. But this practise of masterly inactivity routed criticism. How far was it studied, cynical on the part of the father, or innocent upon that of the daughter, she could not tell one bit; but that practically it carried success along with it, she saw to be indubitable. "Face the music ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... community it is whispered that he is Napoleon, escaped from St. Helena, and travelling in disguise. An old woman with whom he deals has an avaricious cunning worthy of a Norman peasant. The dialogue between the two is a masterly commentary on the root of all evil. But although all Russia is reflected in a comic mirror, which by its very distortion emphasises the defects of each character, Gogol was not primarily trying to write a funny book. The various scenes at dinner parties ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... His Excellency, in after seasons, with a twinkle in his eye. 'My inconsistency must always have been distasteful to such a masterly man.' ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... at this early period, the singular heroism of Captain Nelson's character; as well in the slight but forcible delineation, sketched on the instant by Colonel Polson, as in the more leisurely and finished picture of Dr. Moseley's masterly composition. ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... fascinated by the cold directness of his speech, by the suggestion of strange things to come. The mask of their late gaiety had fallen away. Lady Caroom, grave and sad-eyed, was listening with an anxiety wholly unconcealed. Under the shaded lamplight their faces, dominated by that cold masterly figure at the head of the table, ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Anglo-Saxon appreciation of the same problem furnishes the reason why Goya was left free to pursue his artistic career instead of languishing in prison. His illogical brush filled the cathedrals of Saragossa, Seville, Toledo, and Valencia with masterly frescoes, while with the etching needle he produced many plates. Some of these, like the "Caprices," a series of eighty etchings, are filled with imagination alternately tragical and grotesque; while another series, representing bull-fights, throughout its thirty-three plates depicts the incidents ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... impossible to pity her; while of poor Percy, who it seemed "had been too much under his wife's thumb," she thought affectionately.... The hall and the two rooms on this floor where the people had gathered were exquisitely prepared. Isabelle could see Conny's masterly ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... of you, And gaue you such a Masterly report, For Art and exercise in your defence; And for your Rapier most especiall, That he cryed out, t'would be a sight indeed, If one could match you Sir. This report of his Did Hamlet so envenom with his Enuy, That he ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... mistake to suppose that none of the Irish Judges know any law. Our judiciary includes many masterly lawyers, and many adroit men of the world. But all of them are political appointments. Hence in ordinary cases a man will get clean justice. But the moment politics flutter on the breeze, the masked battery on the Bench is uncurtained to bellow forth anti-Nationalist ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... deeper into human nature than our writers dare. Her turning away her lover now is just the act of what the French call a masterly woman—maitresse femme. She has got rid of him to close the mouth of scandal; ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... building of the branch line from Oxford to Wolverhampton, via Worcester, the "O.W. and W.," or "Old Wusser and Wusser," as it was called, until taken over by the Great Western Railway. The latter, extending from London to Oxford, was, I believe, one of Brunell's masterly conceptions, being without a tunnel the whole way. But the new line had to pierce the Cotswolds before reaching the Vale of Evesham, and Tom had many yarns about the construction of the long Mickleton tunnel. Among them was a tradition of ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... self-defence that, if I had a very long summer in which to keep coming and dwelling long hours in the company of these frescos, I think I might live back into the spirit which invented the fables, and enjoy even more the amusing taste that was never tired of their repetition. Masterly conception and incomparable execution are there in histories which are the dreams of worlds almost as extinct as the dead planets whose last rays still reach us and in whose death-glimmer we can fancy, if we will, a unity of life with our own not impossible nor improbable. ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... indescribable solemnity, a profound bow to the hostess. He placed the flute to his lips and began to play, but not in his accustomed masterly style—not in those mild, floating melodies, those solemn sacred, and exalted strains which it was his custom to draw from his beloved flute. He played a gay and brilliant solo, full of double trills and rhapsodies; it was an astounding medley, which seemed to make a triumphal march ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Here is James's masterly summary of Fechner's general view in this regard. "The original sin, according to Fechner, of both our popular and our scientific thinking, is our inveterate habit of regarding the spiritual not as the rule but as an exception ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... page of MS. III some one, probably Bowles, has written:—'Upon the whole a very masterly production, and with judicious contractments might be rendered an interesting Drama ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... it is like Kossuth's rising of what he calls the peoples. Mountains, too, a regular camp-meeting of them. For the same reason, the same all-sufficiency of room, our shadows march and countermarch, going through their various drills and masterly evolutions, like the old imperial guard on the Champs de Mars. As for the hills, especially where the roads cross them the supervisors of our various towns have given notice to all concerned, that they can ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... all through. He brought his sheep along at a terrific rate, never missing a turn, never faltering, never running out. And the crowd applauded, for the crowd loves a dashing display. While little M'Adam, hopping agilely about, his face ablaze with excitement, handled dog and sheep with a masterly precision that compelled the admiration even of ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... here, too, was a man who might have made a far more enduring mark as a writer of English prose. At their best, his writings are admirable; they have the true stamp; the thought is masculine and the expression masterly; phrases engrave themselves on the memory; and we catch glimpses of a genuine thinker and no mere manufacturer of literary commonplace. On a more prolonged study, it is true, we become conscious of many shortcomings, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... not fear; but wonder, solemnity, and veneration. "It is to cherish a habit of looking upward, and seeing what is noble and good in all things." Its blessings are many. By it we can win a masterly judgment to determine the fitness of behavior and habits; it will keep us from thoughtless words and deeds; it will make us respectful to old age and appreciative of the past; and, in many other ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... find, that Persons the most accomplished in Ridicule are those who are very shrewd at hitting a Blot, without exerting any thing masterly in themselves. As there are many eminent Criticks who never writ a good Line, there are many admirable Buffoons that animadvert upon every single Defect in another, without ever discovering the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... acquaintance—not merely with Cicero and Virgil, but with the most interesting memoirs, state papers, and pamphlets of his own time"—a literature necessary to the Stratford lad, for his fictitious reputation's sake, since the writer of his Works would begin to use it wholesale and in a most masterly way before the lad was hardly more than out of his teens and into ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... conducted with reasonable despatch. It accounts for the dexterity invariably displayed by Parliament when new enactments are placed on the Statute-Book, for the simplicity of the language in which they are couched, and for that minimum of employment to the legal profession to which these specimens of masterly legislation subsequently give rise. The Eminent K.C. is, by the way, reputed to be a somewhat expensive luxury when you avail yourself of his services in your civil capacity, but he must be well worth ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... broke in Mottly impatiently; "what's the use of asking that? What you meant to inquire was the price we're expected to pay for this masterly ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... be contented," said the captain, closing the breech of his piece, and passing it to Mark. "Let's make a masterly ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... immortalized! Unwilling to hazard a formal description, I will merely attempt an outline. Far below, the silver waters of the Skell meander softly amongst statues of tritons, throwing up innumerable fountain streams. These are masterly executions after the ancient sculptors, and give the scene an air of Grecian classicality. Around these triumphs of art, rise lofty woods of graceful birch, varied by dark fir, and interspersed with erections ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... beyond a pleasant nod, for, in truth, conversation had no charms for her just then. If Donald had found you, hungry reader, modestly hidden in a corner, and with a masterly bow had handed you that well-laden plate, would you have felt like talking ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... said that Sir Philip Francis was not equal to the composition of those masterly letters; and it must be acknowledged that, though he made some very powerful and pointed speeches in the House of Commons, they wanted the penetration and the polish of Junius. But there are several letters by Sir Philip Francis ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... and overcome. Science guided and protected the daring invasion; and true American hearts, at every bristling danger, supported it, with an ardent courage and a calm fortitude scarcely equaled in the wars of nations. On the 15th of August, General Scott, by a masterly movement, turned the strong works of the Penon and Mexicalzingo, on which the enemy had labored and relied. On the 17th the spires of Mexico were in sight. The attack upon Contreras took place. It was one of ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... or monkey; it is rather that he and they have sprung from a common ancestry—are branches of the same stem. This conclusion is so momentous that the reasons for accepting it must be carefully considered. They were expounded with masterly skill in Darwin's Descent of Man in 1871—a book which was but an expansion of a chapter in ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... pow'ful hu'y to-night," said his companion, with some difficulty accommodating his own step to the preacher's masterly strides. He was a short man and his ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... possible, I should say that if the bold flight of steps which leads to the front entrance had been carried all round the building the effect would have been still more grand than it now is. The interior is adorned with paintings in imitation of bas relief, which are executed in the most masterly style. The grand Salle de la Bourse in the centre of the building, where the stock-brokers and merchants meet, is 116 feet in length by 76 in breadth, entirely paved with marble. The whole arrangements are such as to render it ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... ten excellent manuscripts which were found among Bunyan's papers after his decease in 1688. It had been prepared by him for publication, but still wanted a few touches of his masterly hand, and a preface in his characteristic style. He had, while a prisoner for nonconformity, in 1672, published a treatise upon this subject, in reply to Mr. Fowler, who was soon after created Bishop of Gloucester; but that was more peculiarly intended to prove that those who are justified ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... met with great success in all countries. They possess that lasting interest which attends all work based on keen observation and masterly analysis of the secret motives of ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... that the play of light and shade on the colour would help him out. Here part of the red is toned down by a beautiful soft tint, which makes the whole figure blend harmoniously with the greyish-green of the others. This man in red, too, has been treated in the same masterly manner of which I spoke above. If one looks at him attentively, it seems as if the man, who apparently might step out of the canvas at any rate, had been painted with one powerful sweep of the brush. How ...
— Rembrandt • Josef Israels
... excuse to kidnap his neighbor, so as to share my commerce. As the village was too small to supply the entire gang of fifty, I had recourse to the neighboring settlements, where my "barkers," or agents, did their work in a masterly manner. Traps were adroitly baited with goods to lead the unwary into temptation, when the unconscious pilferer was caught by his ambushed foe, and an hour served to hurry him to the beach as a slave for ever. In fact, five days were sufficient ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... satisfaction that a visit from their brother's friend would confer both upon Lady Fitz-pompey and himself, he requested permission for his nephew to renew the visit in which he had been 'so happy!' The Duke seconded the Earl's diplomatic scrawl in the most graceful round-text. The masterly intrigues of Lord Fitz-pompey, assisted by Mrs. Dacre's illness, which daily increased, and which rendered perfect quiet indispensable, were successful, and the young Duke arrived at his twelfth year without revisiting Dacre. Every ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... Webster's doctrine,—"the Union is paramount",—accepted for the second time the Republican nomination and platform, he summed up the issues of the war, as he had done before, in Webster's words. Lincoln, who had grown as masterly in his choice of words as he had become profound in his vision of issues, used in 1864 not the more familiar and rhetorical phrases of the reply to Hayne, but the briefer, more incisive form, "Liberty and Union", of Webster's "honest, truth-telling, ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... entertainments, such as races, walking matches, quoits, and like games. Commander J. V. Bleecker, en route to take charge of the Mercedes reclaimed in Manila Bay, was a masterly artist in sleight-of-hand performances, and ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... In the masterly couplet closing the sestet of No. XVIII, Mr. Irwin's verbal enthusiasm reaches its highest mark in an ultra-Meredithian rendition of "I am an easy mark," an expression, by the way, which would itself have to be elaborately translated in ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum • Wallace Irwin
... Private Mucklewame literary composition presents no difficulties. Here is a single example of his terse and masterly style:— ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... reader to works professedly psychological, in particular to Mr. James Mill's Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, where the principal laws of association, along with many of their applications, are copiously exemplified, and with a masterly hand.(270) ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... colonel, "I am going to execute a masterly retreat, as they used to say when a fellow ran away. I am going to get behind my company. They claim, you see, that Ranald ain't ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... Yorktown, are suspected of being spies, and put under arrest. Morgan risks his life to save them. The final escape, the thrilling encounter with a squad of red coats, when they are exposed equally to the bullets of friends and foes, told in a masterly fashion, makes of this volume one of the most entertaining ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... reaching Candy, we came to the river Mahavilaganga, which is spanned by a masterly bridge of one arch. The materials of the bridge are most costly, consisting of satin- wood. In connection with this structure, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... vivisect the father's heart with patient skill. But we poor dramatists, taught by impatient audiences to move on, and taught by those great professors of verbosity, our female novelists and nine-tenths of our male, that it is just possible for "masterly inactivity," alias sluggish narrative, creeping through sorry flags and rushes with one lily in ten pages, to become a bore, are driven on to salient facts, and must trust a little to our reader's intelligence ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... day he has only one thought and one wish,—to ruin Isaac D. Worthington. And he will do it if he can. Those who know—and among them is Mr. Balch himself—say that Jethro has never conducted a more masterly campaign than this, and that all the others have been mere childish trials of strength compared to it. So he sits there through those twelve weeks while the session slips by, while his opponents grumble, and while even his supporters, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... negotiations were of a protracted nature, and were several times in danger of falling through in consequence of the uncompromising attitude of Russia's representatives. Ultimately, however, thanks to President Roosevelt's masterly diplomacy and the conciliatory spirit of the Japanese, an agreement was arrived at, and the Treaty of Peace between Japan and Russia was signed ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... weeping, and trembling, was no mask, but truth. Elizabeth was frightened, she wept and trembled from fear, but she had sufficient presence of mind not to betray herself in words. It was fear even that gave her that presence of mind and enabled her to play her part in a manner so masterly that the regent was completely deceived. Taking the princess in her arms, she pressed her to her bosom, at the same time endeavoring to reassure and console her with tender and affectionate words, with reiterated promises of ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... of the small shop-keeping class—a Philistine of the Philistines—hence there was no call to feel surprise at his self-glorification over such a matter. But what shall we say of that writer whose masterly works on English rural life are familiar to everyone, who is regarded as first among "lovers of nature," when he relates that he invariably carried a gun when out of doors, mainly with the object ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... reinforcements could arrive. The Union forces north of Bull Run amounted now to nearly 75,000 men; Lee had 55,000, but there was no thought of delay. On the 29th and 30th Pope was crushed and routed completely in a series of maneuvers and battles which have been pronounced the most masterly in the whole war. For four days the discouraged and baffled troops and officers of the Union retreated or ran pell-mell across the northern counties of Virginia into Washington, to the dismay of Lincoln and the ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... and waiting only to close his eyes on all earthly objects, she crossed on the frail bridge, and was welcomed with cheers by the Ninth Corps, who looked upon her as their guardian angel. She remained with them until the evening of their masterly retreat, and until the wounded men of the corps in the hospitals were all safely across. While she was in Fredericksburg, after the battle of the 13th, some soldiers of the corps who had been roving about the city, came to her quarters bringing with great ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... lady) would sometimes talk to her about books, she'd cry out, "Prithee, don't talk to me about books; I never read any books but men and cards!" But let anybody read her book, and then tell me if she did not draw characters with as masterly a hand as Sir Joshua Reynolds.—Mr. Crisp to Fanny Burney ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... knickerbockers came and started trouble. He had a three-cornered fight on his hands, and no sympathy from any one, within two minutes. Then the man with the stomach and swagger—he whom Fred called Haroun-al-Raschid—took a hand in masterly style. He seized the police-man from behind, flung him out of the crowd, and nobody was troubled ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... recommend him for promotion to the grade of major-general to take rank from the date of his original appointment, declaring in support of his recommendation that he felt "under more than ordinary obligations for the masterly manner in which he discharged the duties of his position." Later he recommended that Smith be put first of all the army on the list for promotion, adding: "He is possessed of one of the clearest military heads in the army, is very practical and industrious," and emphasized it all with ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... stated it. Chemistry, Biology, and Sociology, leaving Astronomy and Physics aside for the present, are not yet Positive Sciences, in any such sense as Mathematics. The lack of exact analysis is apparent in all of Comte's generalizations, otherwise magnificent and masterly as they undoubtedly are. In respect to the matter under consideration, it renders his Classification unavailing for determining with sufficient precision and exactitude the character of any intellectual domain. History, while it is the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... other characters are merely passive agents; while the reader, to whom the facts are known, cannot help sharing their sense of mystery and surprise. We confess to a deeper respect for Mr. Taylor's power than we have felt before, when we observe with what masterly skill he contrives by a single incident to give sudden and important development to a character, which, however insignificant it had previously seemed, we must finally allow to have been perfectly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... how you disparage mercantile pursuits; some of the most masterly minds of the age were nurtured in the ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... warrant; for in Bach the ideas of stretto and of counter-subject almost exclude one another except in the very largest fugues, such as the 22nd in the second book of the Forty-eight; while Handel's fugue-writing is a masterly method, adopted as occasion requires, and with a lordly disdain for recognized devices. But the pedagogic rule proved to be not without artistic point in more modern music; for fugue became, since the rise of the sonata-form, for some generations a contrast with the normal means of expression ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... blend of magnificence and domesticity so typical of all that is best in English life. Aurora's eyes wandered from the massive emerald chandeliers, the envy of every connoisseur in Europe, to Raphael's masterly "Madonna," which, with a daring harmony by Sargent, filled the niches on either side of the great mantelpiece, itself a triumph of the art ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... Godolphin continued to employ Defoe as a government secret emissary and writer. He was again sent to Scotland in 1708, in relation to the suspected invasion of that country by the French; but he found time to keep his "Review" going. We see him "trimming" afresh, with masterly disregard to every appeal save that of his purse, when Godolphin surrendered the treasurer's staff, and Harley once more became prime minister. "My duty," says he, with that wonderful countenance of gravity, and that fine air of outraged ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... story has something of the Greek grandeur, simplicity and inevitableness. The plot is woven with the greatest skill; there is a directness in the construction which is masterly." ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... How masterly is he in all the points of his profession as evinced in a criminal court. With what "becks, and smiles, and wreathed nods," he passes by his brethren on the prosecuting side, and takes his seat of honour. How charmingly he nods to the judge when his lordship lays ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... presented, with some subsequent remarks on the Miscellanies here selected. And, indeed, it is not fanciful to perceive in each book a somewhat different presentment of the author's genius; though in no one of the four is any one of his masterly qualities absent. There is tenderness even in Jonathan Wild; there are touches in Joseph Andrews of that irony of the Preacher, the last echo of which is heard amid the kindly resignation of the Journey ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... future as are found in Isaiah. He is more occupied with the sins of his own age, and the heavy judgments of God that impend over his countrymen. His mission is emphatically to unfold the connection between national profligacy and national ruin. This he does with a masterly hand, holding up to the world, in the character and fate, of his countrymen, a mirror for all time, in which wicked nations may see themselves and the ruin which awaits them. The whole compass of profane history does not ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... had a little capital!" he cried aloud in despair. "Enough to support me until my Academy picture is finished." His Academy picture was a masterly study entitled, "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll," and he had been compelled to stop half-way across the Channel through sheer ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... fondness for natural explanations and his repugnance to admit the intervention of superhuman powers to a point where it is often difficult to follow him. I will give the narrative as briefly as possible. It will be found in full on pp. 348 to 362 of his masterly book. ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... that time heard quite enough, Tolly Trevor effected a masterly retreat, and returned to the place where he had left the horses. On the way he recalled with satisfaction the fact that Paul Bevan had once pointed out to him the exact direction of Simpson's Gully at a time when he meant ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... of our treaties with China and Japan will be watched with curiosity both in and out of doors, and we can only hope that nothing will be done to blunt the edge of that masterly decision by which these two giants of Eastern tale have been felled to the earth, and reduced to the level and bearing ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... had gone well. By one of the most daring and masterly manoeuvres that Ramiro had ever seen in his long and varied experience upon the seas, the little Swallow, with her crew of three men, had run the gauntlet of the fort which was warned and waiting for her; had sunk and sailed through the big Government ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... the voyage, though in secret many persons did not scruple to remark that in his chamber at Madrid his majesty would not have much cause to dread the storms at sea. Philip played his part with such masterly skill that the Belgian ambassadors at Madrid, Lords Bergen and Montigny, who at first had disbelieved in the sincerity of his pretended journey, began at last to be alarmed, and infected their friends in Brussels ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... bed-posts, seated himself comfortably, and, holding it well balanced, deliberately pried out one kernel at a time with his long chisel teeth, ate the soft, sweet germ, and dropped the hard part of the kernel. In this masterly way, working at high speed, he demolished several ears a day, and with a good warm bed in a box made himself at home and grew fat. Then naturally, I suppose, free romping in the snow and tree-tops with companions came to mind. Anyhow he began to look for a way of escape. ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... narrow space. His chronological order distributes them under the proper dates; and an elaborate index collects them under their respective heads. To this work, in a less perfect state, Dr. Robertson was gratefully indebted for that masterly sketch which traces even the modern changes of the Germanic body. The Corpus Historiae Germanicae of Struvius has been likewise consulted, the more usefully, as that huge compilation is fortified in every page with the original texts. * Note: For the rise and progress of the Hanseatic ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... to be found in Chesterton's masterly study of Charles Dickens it lies in the fact that in parts of the book the meaning is not always clear, or, rather, it is not always so at a first reading. Whether this may be justly termed a fault depends largely upon what the reader of a ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... monologue—a power largely due to the artistic treatment. The jealousy of Leontes, in 'The Winter's Tale', of Shakespeare, is nobility itself, in comparison with the Duke's. How distinctly, while indirectly, the sweet Duchess is, with a few masterly touches, placed before us! The poet shows his artistic skill especially in ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... chief experienced in the art of war, and famed for his valor on the ever-memorable heights of Abraham, where fell Wolfe, Montcalm, and, since, our much-lamented Montgomery, all covered with glory. In this fortunate interval, produced by his masterly conduct, our fathers, ourselves, animated by his resistless example, rallied around our country's standard, and continued to follow her beloved chief through the various and trying scenes to which the destinies ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... hour some ordinary old uneducated Negro tell those inimitable animal stories, brought to literary existence in "Uncle Remus," with such quaint humor, delicious conceit and masterly delineation of plot, character and incident that nothing but the conventional rating of Aesop's Fables could put them in the same class. Then, there are more Negro inventors than the world supposes. This faculty is impossible ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... met with in the history of home pressing. In the American colonies, on the other hand, it was a common feature of demonstrations against the gang. Boston was specially notorious for that form of reprisal, and Governor Shirley, in one of his masterly dispatches, narrates at length, and with no little humour, how the mob on one occasion burnt with great eclat what they believed to be the press-boat, only to discover, when it was reduced to ashes, that it belonged to one of their own ringleaders. [Footnote: Admiralty ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... concentrated on his ledger, the picture of the model bank-clerk. Then he flung down his pen, slid from his stool with a satisfied sigh, and dusted his waistcoat. 'A commercial crisis,' he said, 'has passed. The job of work which Comrade Rossiter indicated for me has been completed with masterly skill. The period of anxiety is over. The bank ceases to totter. Are you busy, Comrade Jackson, or ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... troops at his pleasure, moved them here or there, brought them forward, or kept them out of sight, had them wholly at his disposition, when, where, and how he pleased, whether to occupy a position or to gain a battle. His diplomacy was as masterly as his ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... three hours; but I do assure you that it cost me so much labour that it has whitened my hair." Mr. Hallam, stopping to admire the genius of GIBBON, exclaims, "In this, as in many other places, the masterly boldness and precision of his outline, which astonish those who have trodden parts of the same field, is apt to escape an uninformed reader." Thrice has my learned friend, SHARON TURNER, recomposed, with renewed researches, the history of our ancestors, of which Milton and ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... in his own domain, as an accumulator, his credit as a judge of testimony is nearly as high. The deciding test of his critical sagacity is the masterly treatment of the case against the Templars. They were condemned without mercy, by Church and State, by priest and jurist, and down to the present day cautious examiners of evidence, like Prutz and Lavocat, ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... composite nature. At the time it was published in 1879, the foreign policy of Lord Lawrence was a burning question, and in connection with the Afghan War then running its course, renewed attention was directed to the two essays, "Masterly Inactivity" and "Mischievous Activity," first published in The Fortnightly Review in December 1869, and March 1870, respectively, by a comparatively young Bengal Civilian, the late J.W.S. Wyllie, C.S.I. (1835-1870). Beyond the fact that these essays and certain other papers by ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... appreciate his merit. He was too natural for an artificial age. Among the pictures exhibited here is one from his famous series of the Harlot's Progress. It is too well known by the engravings to need description; but when the eight masterly pictures which compose this series were sold at auction during Hogarth's life, they brought the sum of fourteen guineas each! The March of the Guards to Finchley, so admirable in composition, so full of incident and character, so rich in humor, could not be sold by the artist, and he disposed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... chance a term in the result which indicates an effect of that kind. But if we look at the matter in its mechanical aspect, we perceive at once, without any profound mathematical research, that the retardation so hard to detect mathematically must necessarily take place. As Sir E. Beckett says in his masterly work, Astronomy without Mathematics, 'the conclusion is as evident without mathematics as with them, when once it has been suggested.' So when we consider the case of a wide flat ring surrounding ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... entrance into the darkened drawing-room changed that plan, too—changed it all so utterly, and so much for the better, that he almost smiled to think of the crudity of human combinations and inventions as compared to the masterly machinations of Fate. No need for him to complicate matters when here were pawns enough to play the game for him. No need for him to do anything except give them their initial velocity and let them tumble into one another ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... sensible members are abbreviated, while the dunces, to do them justice, make the most of their limited opportunities. Who knows, but that the peace of the world may be owing to it? For as there are about 230 representatives, we should have had, but for it, just as many masterly demonstrations of the title of the Republic to the whole of Oregon—and something more. In such a cause, they would make nothing of beginning with the creation of the world, and ending with the last protocol of Mr Buchanan! Decidedly, but for "the one-hour ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... the one term during which he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, I can recall only one thing, to which he often and laughingly alluded. Motley, as the Chairman of the Committee on Education, made, as he thought, a most masterly report. It was very elaborate, and, as he supposed, unanswerable; but Boutwell, then a young man from some country town [Groton, Mass.], rose, and as Motley always said, demolished the report, so that he was unable to defend it against the attack. You can imagine ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... nearly perfect of the tales, as well as the most truly representative of the writer's powers, let us try to guess its secret. In the first place, it is very short,—a single episode, succinctly and eloquently told. The descriptions of scenery and persons are masterly and memorable. The characters of these persons, their actions, and the circumstances of their lives, are as rugged, as grotesque, as terrible, and also as beautiful, as the scenery. Thus an artistic harmony is established,—the thing which is lacking ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... principal man in the firm, combining as he did the work of composer, reviser, and adaptor of plays with that of actor and working partner. We are thus dealing with a temperament or mentality not at all obviously original or masterly, not at all conspicuous at the outset for intellectual depth or seriousness, not at all obtrusive of its "mission;" but exhibiting simply a gift for acting, an abundant faculty of rhythmical speech, and a power of minute observation, joined with a thoroughly practical or commercial handling of ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... to be sufficiently absolute, depending nevertheless in great measure on the dispositions of the respective parties. Iligliuk was one of those women who seemed formed to manage their husbands; and we one day saw her take Okotook to task in a very masterly style for having bartered away a good jacket for an old useless pistol without powder or shot. He attempted at first to bluster in his turn, and with most women would probably have gained his point. ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... his hunger and his wife's catering. So on nearly every day in his life Mr. Polly fell into a violent rage and hatred against the outer world in the afternoon, and never suspected that it was this inner world to which I am with such masterly delicacy alluding, that was thus reflecting its sinister disorder upon the things without. It is a pity that some human beings are not more transparent. If Mr. Polly, for example, had been transparent or even passably translucent, ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... extreme right of the Confederate line rested in the vicinity of Five Forks. Beyond that it could not be extended. Already it began to crack. Along the works stretching from east to west, there was scarce a soldier every ten yards. Grant was only prevented from bursting through by the masterly handling of Lee's troops—the rapid concentration of masses at the points which he threatened. The cavalry was almost paralyzed. The destruction of the Weldon road southward to Hicksford, in December, had been a death-blow nearly, to that ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... done before with unapproachable success; and instead of writing inferior things at great length about the Life of Reason, it might be simpler to read and to propagate what Aristotle wrote with such immortal justness and masterly brevity. But times change; and though the principles of reason remain the same the facts of human life and of human conscience alter. A new background, a new basis of application, appears for logic, and it may be useful to restate old truths in new words, the better ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... everywhere you play your part with masterly skill, and the world, which is your audience, applauds your ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... her marriage to an Englishman of title, displays splendid qualities of courage, tact and restraint. As a study of American womanhood of modern times, the character of Bettina Vanderpoel stands alone in literature. As a love story, the account of her experience is magnificent. The masterly handling, the glowing style of the book, give it a literary rank to which very few ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... its masterly handling of contrasts equally gratifying to the scenic artist, the actor, and the composer, challenged admiration and won it in large measure at the Manhattan performances. From the ordinary theatrical point of view it would not be easy to pick a quarrel with the drama. It would be almost churlish ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... was nonsense, of course. And yet she played with the thought amusedly, enjoying the vision of the old lady's anger and confusion, and of the world's amazement at the masterly move of the quiet secretary. Richard would be generous, thought Harriet idly, Isabelle philosophical and indifferent, but how old Madame ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... he wrote to Lord Hartington, 'but not quite, adopt words received today from Granville. "It is clear, I think, that Gordon has our messages, and does not choose to answer them."' Nearly, but not quite! The qualification was masterly; but it was of no avail. This time, the sinuous creature was held by too firm a grasp. On August 26th, Lord Wolseley was appointed to command the relief expedition; and on September 9th, he arrived ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... attention. Hill on Trustees, is a practical treatise, which may here be read with advantage, as also Lewis on Perpetuities. Sugden on Powers, has been said to be second to no elementary law book. It is a masterly elucidation of the subtle doctrines of the law on the subject of Powers, and is held in the highest estimation. It will perhaps be better appreciated and understood, if with it, or after it, is taken up Chance's Treatise ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... Alnwick. It is considered to be, without a rival, the most beautiful tomb in this country. The canopy is composed of sumptuously carved stone, and while it is literally encrusted with ornament, it is designed in such a masterly fashion that the general effect, whether seen at a distance or close at hand, is always magnificent. The broad lines of the canopy consist of a steep gable with an ogee arch within, cusped so as to form a base at ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... put an end to her masterly inactivity." Lloyd chuckled so vindictively that Symonds glanced at him ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... them. That was the sorter's work. But with Eddie's socks it was different. They had not, as yet, required the work of her machine needle. She told her self, whimsically, that when the time came to set her crude work next to the masterly effects produced by the needle of Eddie's ma every fiber in her would shrink from the task. Of course Martha did not put it in just that way. But the thought was there. And bit by bit, week by week, month by month, the life, and aims, and ambitions, and good luck and misfortunes of this ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... eloquent and masterly speech. Johnson was most accurately acquainted with the characters of those who surrounded him; he was making a great bid for the recovery of that popularity which in some unexplained way—but largely through ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... the poet had heard in St. Petersburg from the famous Silbermann."(6) Through the whole book runs a humour not often found elsewhere in Mickiewicz; the reports of the debates in Jankiel's tavern and in Dobrzyn hamlet are masterly in their blending of kindly pleasantry with photographic fidelity to truth. The poet sees the ludicrous side of the Warden, the Chamberlain, the Seneschal, and the other Don Quixotes who fill his pages, and yet he loves them with the most tender affection. In his descriptions of external ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... he was master of fourteen languages. [432] His Arabic Dictionary (1884) and his Persian English Dictionary (1892) are well known, the latter being the best extant, but he will, after all, be chiefly remembered by his masterly rendering of Hariri. Dr. Steingass presently became acquainted with Burton, for whom he wrote the article "On the Prose Rhyme and the Poetry of the Nights." [433] He also assisted Burton with the Notes, [434] supervised the MSS. of the Supplemental ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright |
