"Masterly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... formidable hostile legions, conducted by a 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 of ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... submission to arbitrary laws," as the anarchists say, and thereby fancy themselves "free," even free-spirited. The singular fact remains, however, that everything of the nature of freedom, elegance, boldness, dance, and masterly certainty, which exists or has existed, whether it be in thought itself, or in administration, or in speaking and persuading, in art just as in conduct, has only developed by means of the tyranny of such arbitrary law, and in all seriousness, it is not ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... have been delightful to him, of course, to have the tailor's son messing at the same table, and claiming him when he pleased with a familiar 'Ah, brother!' and prating of their relationship everywhere. Strike had been a fool: in revenge for it he laid out for himself a masterly career of consequent wisdom. The brewer—uxorious Andrew Cogglesby—might and would have bought the commission. Strike laughed at the idea of giving money for what could be got for nothing. He ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... additional floors of variegated marble, putting up new book-cases, &c., none of them restorations, but all extensions of the Library, which, apart from the value of its books and manuscripts, is a unique and masterly exposition of ancient and modern Art. Here are single Vases, Tables, Frescoes, &c., which would be the pride of any other city: one large vase of Malachite, a present to Pius IX. from the Russian Autocrat, and unequaled out of Russia, if in the world. I should judge ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... further questions; he hoped he would read the masterly dissenting opinion of Justices McLean and Curtis. Penhallow returned impatiently that he had no time, and that the slavery question were better left to the decision ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... attained the age at which reflection commences, than Europe with astonishment beheld him filling the first place in the councils of his country, and manage the vast mass of its concerns with all the vigour and steadiness of the most matured wisdom. Dignity, strength, discretion, these were among the masterly qualities of his mind at its first dawn. He had been nurtured a statesman, and his knowledge was of that kind which always lies ready for practical application. Not dealing in the subtleties of abstract politics, but moving in the slow, steady procession of reason, his conceptions ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... power and cruel manner of their nation's going to war, but also from their ingenuity. For they seem to excel the inhabitants of Tongataboo in that respect, if we might judge from several specimens of their skill in workmanship which we saw, such as clubs and spears, which were carved in a very masterly manner, cloth beautifully chequered, variegated mats, earthen pots, and some other articles, all which had a cast of superiority in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... with him. He even proposed to put me on the Barrack Square for a month, a suggestion which caused my Adjutant (who was interfering as usual) to smile quite unpleasantly. I just looked them straight in the face and said nothing. This, I think, was little short of masterly on my part, since I knew all the time, and knew that they know, that there was in fact no Barrack Square thereabouts to put ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... to suppose, that Mazarine would leave such a question to be voted 'pro' and 'con', and decided by thirty emissaries in London! And, how could he have reconciled Mazarine's having any share in Charles's death with his own masterly account, pp. 98, 99, 100? Even Cromwell, though he might have prevented, could not have effected, the sentence. The regicidal judges were not his creatures. Consult the Life of Colonel ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... most famous Madonna pictures are large compositions, crowded with figures of extravagant attitudes and expression. The fame of these more pretentious works rests not so much upon their inner significance as upon their splendid technique. They are unsurpassed for masterly handling of color, and ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... adoption of the new Constitution. Had this opposition been well-organized, it could unquestionably have defeated the Constitution, even against its brilliant protagonists, Hamilton, Madison, Jay, and a score of other masterly men. ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... unpleasant word to say, ladies," he said, at last, still controlling his feelings with a masterly effort. Then offerings a hand to the mother, he bowed respectfully and said "Good-by;" and to her, who now turned with evident feeling evinced in her lovely face at the idea of a long parting, he offered his hand, which was frankly pressed, while he said: "I ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... up to touch their knees, and reach out boyish arms to welcome them. Two young men, with half-draped busts and waving hair blown off their foreheads, anticipate the type of adolescence which Andrea del Sarto perfected in his S. John. We might imagine that this masterly panel was intended to represent the arrival of Messer Aragazzi in his home. It is a scene from the domestic life of the dead man, duly subordinated to the recumbent figure, which, when the monument was perfect, would have dominated the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... lay the charm. Partly, of course, in his own profound appreciation of the author's meaning, partly also in his clear and correct emphasis, but most of all in the wonderful word-painting with which, by a few masterly strokes, he placed the whole scene before the mental vision. In theatrical representation, a man with a bush of thorn and lantern must 'present moonshine' and another, with a bit of plaster, the wall which divides Pyramus from his Thisbe; but in Mr. Lanier's readings, a poet's ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... comparative estimate. The fine Spenserian openings (which Byron copied almost slavishly in the form of the stanza he took for Harold), the famous beginning of the stag, the description of the pass (till Fitz-James begins to soliloquise), some of the songs (especially the masterly 'Coronach'), the passage of the Fiery Cross, the apparition of the clan (not perhaps so great as some have thought it, but still great), the struggle, the guard-room (which shocked Jeffrey dreadfully)—these are only some of the best things. But I own that I turn from the best of them to ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... Hall, there hangs, at this time, such a Something. A composition of such marvellous beauty, of such infinite variety, of such masterly design, of such vigorous and skilful drawing, of such thought and fancy, of such surprising and delicate accuracy of detail, subserving one grand harmony, and one plain purpose, that it may be questioned whether the Fine Arts in any ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... years ago. Mr. Mill was not then in favor of universal suffrage; he advocated the enfranchisement of the male sex only. Mr. Neal claimed the right for women also. He was happy to learn that since then Mr. Mill has thrown all the weight of his influence and his masterly intellect in favor of universal suffrage. He then entered into an elaborate discussion of some of the objections brought against woman suffrage, and, much to the surprise of many present, showed that the rights which women demand are just and reasonable, and ought to be granted. John ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... cool friendliness with big men, and clever men, her calm assurance as to which hats she liked, and which hats she didn't, her utter belief in everything that was of Melrose or von Behrens, and her calm contempt for everything that was not, were masterly in Leslie's eyes. ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... this subject by quoting from the summing up by Prof. Kerrich (Principal Librarian to the University of Cambridge in 1820), in his masterly Essay on Architecture, where he gives the different forms of what he calls the "Mysterious Figure," used in the most noted Gothic buildings: he says, "I would in nowise indulge in conjectures as to the reference these figures might possibly have to the most sacred mysteries ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... suppression of that slave-trade, to the foreign branch of which alone more than one thousand victims are daily sacrificed; and in reference to which it has justly been said, 'that all that has been borne to Africa of the boasted improvements of civilized life, is a masterly skill in the contrivance, and an unhesitating daring in the commission of crimes, which the mind of the savage was too simple to devise, and his heart too gentle to execute.' There are no doubtful indications that ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... of Gorsuch's designs was obtained will probably ever remain a secret; and I doubt if any one outside of the little band who so masterly managed the affair knows anything of it. This was wise; and I would to God other friends had acted thus. Mr. Williams's trip to Christiana, and the many incidents connected therewith, will be found in the account of his trial; for he was subsequently arrested and thrown into the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... his masterly pictures of public school life he drew much from his experiences at the City of London School, except, perhaps, in a few details, such as the rivalry which he describes so vividly as existing between the fifth and sixth forms in his delightful book, "The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's." ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... comment need be added in explanation of this petition, which, though drawn with evident haste, is no less remarkable for temper and good feeling, than for the masterly clearness with which the evils complained of are laid bare. Historians will be careful for the future how they swell the charges against Wolsey with quoting the lamentations of Archbishop Warham, when his Court of Arches was for a while superseded by the Legate's Court, and causes ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... descended into Egypt a second time with twelve thousand Turks and eleven thousand Arabs. Yet his forces were still inferior to the confederate armies of the Franks and Saracens; and I can discern an unusual degree of military art, in his passage of the Nile, his retreat into Thebais, his masterly evolutions in the battle of Babain, the surprise of Alexandria, and his marches and countermarches in the flats and valley of Egypt, from the tropic to the sea. His conduct was seconded by the courage of his troops, and on the eve of action a Mamaluke [42] exclaimed, "If we cannot wrest Egypt ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Lessing pronounces the "Captivi" to be the finest comedy ever brought upon the stage; he translated this play into German, and it has also been admirably translated into English. The great excellence of Plautus was the masterly handling of language, and the adjusting the parts for dramatic effect. His humor, broad and fresh, produced irresistible comic effects. No one ever surpassed him in his vocabulary of nicknames and his happy jokes. Hence he maintained ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... invasions, as the first thing. He was himself, as appeared by-and-by, a fighter of the first quality, when it came to that; but never was willing to fight if he could help it. Preferred rather to shift, manoeuvre, and negotiate, which he did in most vigilant, adroit, and masterly manner. But by degrees he had grown to have, and could maintain it, an army of twenty-four thousand men, among the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... temperaments—the choleric, the sanguine, the phlegmatic, and the melancholy. Behmen's treatise has been well described by Walton as containing the philosophy of temptation; and by Martensen as displaying a most profound knowledge of the human heart. Behmen sets about his task as a ductor dubitantium in a masterly manner. He takes in hand the comfort and direction of sin-distressed souls in a characteristically deep, inward, and thorough-going way. The book is full of Behmen's observation of men. It is the outcome of a close and long-continued study of character and conduct. ...
— Jacob Behmen - an appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... the standard work of reference on this subject. As a judicial summary of an exceedingly difficult and controversial subject it is masterly, while in the matter of clearness of exposition it has ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... American writing are to be found in their political articles, which are, generally speaking, clear, argumentative, and well arranged. The President's annual message is always masterly in composition, although disgraced by its servile adulation of the majority. If we were to judge of the degrees of enlightenment of the two countries, America and England, by the President's message and the King's speech, we should be left immeasurably in the back-ground—the message, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... though it may be that one's appetite grows less lusty, it does seem that in all the earlier chapters there is some undue proportion of thin and rather tepid preparation for episodes quite clearly on the way, so that in the end even the masterly vigour of the much advertised Pimpernel, in full panoply of inane laughter and unguessed disguise, failed to astound and stagger me as much as I could have wished. Lord Tony was a healthy young Englishman with no particular qualities calling for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... took the field and hurried to attack Greene, who, too weak to fight him, began a masterly retreat of 200 miles across Carolina to Guilford Courthouse, where he turned about and fought. He was defeated, but Cornwallis was unable to go further, and retreated to Wilmington, N.C., with Greene in hot pursuit. Leaving the enemy at Wilmington, Greene went back to South Carolina, and by September, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... 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 ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her family name for him; away from home she always said "Deacon"), "you haint gone off to sleep, be you? I should feel masterly cut up ef my cake should be heavy, an' everybody on the grounds will know it's mine from the marks o' my name I'm goin' to put on the frostin',"—by which she meant her initials done in red, white, and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... oxen consisted of blankets and bedding and a small, light tent of their sheeting about four by six feet in size. We rose early and worked hard till about the middle of the forenoon getting all things ready. They had been in a state of masterly inactivity so long in this one camp that they were anxious to leave it now forever. Only in progress was there hope, and this was our last and only chance. We must succeed or perish. We loaded the animals ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... introduction to the history of the Company of the Staple is to be found in Mr Malden's aforesaid introduction to The Cely Papers, which also contains a masterly account of the political relations of England, France and Burgundy during the period. I have constantly relied upon Mr Malden's account of the working of the Staple system. Other useful short accounts of the wool trade and the Stapler's Company may be found in the following works: ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... foreigner may presume to judge of Hoffmann's language and literary style, it would appear to be chiefly distinguished by strong grace, ease, naturalness, and nervous vigour. German critics acknowledge its charms, calling it a model of clearness and masterly skill and elegance. Perhaps its beauties are best seen, that is in a more chastened form, in Kater Murr. Repetitions, however, and exaggerations in description of sentiment tend, at times, to mar the reader's ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... to bestow upon this most intricate and masterly analysis of the great feminine revolution of the sixteenth century ... There are chapters that we find ourselves wishing everybody might read; the admirable essay, for instance, on the 'Embroidery of Life,' and that other chapter discussing ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... particularly the lower classes. It is curious to hear this great oculist talk of couching the cataract by which the Netherlands were blinded, and hindered from seeing in its proper colors the beautiful vision of the French republic, which he has himself painted with so masterly an hand. That people must needs be dull, blind, and brutalized by fifteen hundred years of superstition, (the time elapsed since the introduction of Christianity amongst them,) who could prefer their former state to the present state of France! The reader will remark, that the only difference ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... sugar question, has no doubt been read and commented upon, in their various ways, and according to their different impressions—shall we say prejudices?—by our readers. The performance, it is upon all hands agreed, was masterly, and, as far as eloquence is concerned, that the accomplished statesman who uttered this remarkable speech did ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... against France until his army on the Turkish borders arrived in Swabia. Some were found who believed this odd farrago; but those who watched the calculating balance of Hapsburg policy saw in it one more excuse for a masterly inactivity. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... machines which they were employed to work. "This vacuum method," he says, "of transmitting power dates from the time of Papin; but it remained a dead contrivance for about a century until it received the masterly ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... Emperor Napoleon. He was unquestionably possessed of extraordinary abilities, fitting him for eminence in many and diverse capacities, but it cannot be said that he was of the first rank of illustrious generals, as the world has been led to suppose, chiefly by the masterly but partial delineations of his career in the Peninsula by General Napier. He had a genius for war which qualified him for every position in connection with it but that of leader in the field. The subtle and irreversible ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... wrote a masterly little note, perfect in its correctness, and yet instinct with the power and knowledge of a commander who had a mind of his own. He wrote as follows, and told me to hand the message to the ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... conclusions are extraordinary; the intellectual ability of the councilors being purged and exalted by their ardent religious faith. The "Body of Liberties," written out in 1641 by Nathaniel Ward, handles the entire subject of popular government in a masterly manner. It was a Counsel of Perfection molded, by understanding of the prevailing conditions, into practical form. The basis of its provisions was the primitive one which is traced back to the time when the Anglo-Saxon tribes met to choose their chiefs or to decide on war or other matters of ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Dominic (which had already been treated in a masterly manner by Fra Guglielmo, in the "arca" at Bologna, and by Traini in his picture at Pisa), Fra Angelico has, in some scenes, given a fuller development, but with less dramatic sentiment; exactly the good and bad points which are more clearly shown in his ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... Foundation of Worldly Laws, his devotional commentary, Exposition of the Passion according to St. John, and, last, though not least, his volume of discourses on the Gospel lessons for the year, entitled Postillia. Of these works the most famous was his masterly Net of Faith. He explained the title himself. "Through His disciples," said Peter, "Christ caught the world in the net of His faith, but the bigger fishes, breaking the net, escaped. Then others followed through these same holes made by the big fishes, and the net ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... for central New York what Mr. Cable, Mr. Page, and Mr. Harris have done for different parts of the South, and what Miss Jewett and Miss Wilkins are doing for New England, and Mr. Hamlin Garland for the West.... 'David Harum' is a masterly delineation of an American type.... Here is life with all its joys and sorrows.... David Harum lives in these pages as he will live in the mind of the reader.... He deserves to be known by all good Americans; he is one of them in boundless energy, in large-heartedness, in shrewdness, ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... on. Phorenice put down the rebellion in masterly fashion, and gave the conquered a choice between sword and service. They fell into her ranks at once, and were faithful to her from that moment. I tell you, Deucalion, there is a marvellous fascination about ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... Leek had not troubled him long ago. What could he do? He could do nothing. That was the tragedy: he could do nothing. He could but rely upon Alice. Alice was amazing. The more he thought of it, the more masterly her handling of these preposterous curates seemed to him. And was he to be robbed of this incomparable woman by ridiculous proceedings connected with a charge of bigamy? He knew that bigamy meant prison, in England. The injustice ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... pourtrayed in a rapid and most masterly manner the sin and the disastrous consequences of rebellion; pointed out the necessity that existed for vigilance and defined their respective duties to God, and to those who, by his permission, were set in authority ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Challoner and her three daughters had sustained severe losses, and the three girls, instead of losing courage, had put their shoulders to the wheel, and had actually set up as dressmakers at Hadleigh, carrying on their business in a most masterly fashion, until the unexpected return of their relative, Sir Harry Challoner, from Australia, with plenty of money at his disposal, broke up the dressmaking business, and ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... general philosophical position, it is important to understand that he is not a Hegelian, in the sense of being a close follower of that philosopher. One of his last works is that in which he deals in a masterly manner with the philosophy of Hegel. The title may be translated, "What is living and what is dead of the philosophy of Hegel." Here he explains to us the Hegelian system more clearly than that wondrous edifice ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... marble, in the museum of London. Mr. Douglass is also the sole owner of the printing establishment from which the paper is issued, and was promoted to this responsible position, by the power of his talents. He is a masterly letter writer, ably edits his paper, and as a speaker, and orator, let the scenes of a New York tabernacle, within two years, answer instead. Mr. Douglass is highly respected as a citizen and gentleman ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... pretty picture: the workman, with his superb hand, brown and sinewy, yet elegant and shapely as a duchess's, and the fingers almost as taper, and his black eye that glowed like a coal over the model, which grew under his masterly strokes, now hard, now light: the enchanting girl who sat to him, and seemed on fire with curiosity and innocent admiration: and the simple rural beauty, that plied the needle, and beamed mildly with demure happiness, and shot a shy glance upward ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... knowledge.[127] Then there were those two incorrigible vagabonds—Antonio Buchini, his Greek servant with an Italian name, and Benedict Mol, the Swiss of Lucerne, who turns up in all sorts of improbable circumstances as the seeker of treasure in the Church of St. James of Compostella—only a masterly imagination could have made him so interesting. Concerning these there is nothing to supplement Borrow's own story. But we have attractive glimpses of Borrow in the frequently quoted narrative of Colonel Napier,[128] and this is so illuminating that I venture to reproduce it at ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... act opens with a beautiful choral embroidery in which different choruses, most striking in contrast, are interwoven with masterly skill. It is a picture, in music, of the old Paris. The citizens rejoice over their day's work done. The Huguenots shout their lusty Rataplan, while the Papist maidens sing their solemn litany ("Ave Maria") on their way to chapel; and as they disappear, the quaint tones of the curfew ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... always interesting to discuss a "case" with him. I do not mean that he discussed his cases with me, but I used to ask him how to deal with some intellectual or moral problem, and his insight seemed to me wonderfully shrewd, sensible, and clear. He had a masterly analysis, and a power of seeing alternatives and contingencies which always aroused my admiration. He was less interested in the personal element than in the psychological; and I used to feel that his strength lay in dealing with a case scientifically and ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Quebec. The two generals met with no opposition in disembarking their troops; and by a happy concurrence in the execution of a well-concerted plan, Colonel Haviland joined them with his detachment the next day. The strength of these combined armies, and the masterly disposition made by the commanders, convinced M. de Vaudreuil that resistance would be ineffectual, and he demanded a capitulation; and on the 8th of September, 1760, Montreal, Detroit, Michili-Mackinac, and all other places within the government of Canada, were surrendered ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... of Nancy Ellen's face, while she read the most restrained yet impassioned plea that a man of George Holt's nature and opportunities could devise to make to a woman after having spent several months in the construction of it. It was a masterly letter, perfectly composed, spelled, and written; for among his other fields of endeavour, George Holt had taught several terms of country school, and taught them with much success; so that he might have become a fine instructor, had it been in his blood to stick to anything long enough ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of Finance has laid before you in a masterly statement the financial situation and has explained the resources that we have obtained from the issue of Treasury bonds and advances from the Bank of France, which have enabled us to bear the expenditure imposed by the war, so that we have not had any need to resort to a loan. ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... an end to her masterly inactivity." Lloyd chuckled so vindictively that Symonds glanced at ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... even a stupid, subject interesting, but a really bad flaw in a subject cannot be treated out. Happily the man who has sense enough to treat a subject well will generally have sense enough to choose a good one, so that the case of a really repulsive subject treated in a masterly manner does not often arise. It is often said to have arisen, but in nine cases out of ten the treatment will be found to ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... remuneration for his labor. From holding horses outside, he came to be a waiter upon the actors within, where he must have been a very close observer of what was said and done; for his brilliant career began from that hour, and he went on from step to step until he produced the most masterly dramatic works, such as the world will not let die. There is no doubt that he was a born poet, but it was his faculty to read men and things that at last waked the dormant powers of the poet into life. He saw, investigated, understood, mastered, and finally applied every particle of information ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... moment," she said, "that the intelligent public will ever reject a great novel or story dealing with the war. The masterly treatment of any subject, the new point of view, the swift compelling breathless drama that is your peculiar gift, must triumph over any mood of the moment. Moreover, when you are back in California you will see these ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... many 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 contributed much ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... erect and completely unaffected attitude,—that is the subject. The execution is simply superb. Every line is strong and effective: the modelling, the poise of the figure and the breadth of the shadows in dry point, are masterly. The Salon articles, five in number, are from the pen of M. Ph. Burty, the most radical, incisive and original writer on the staff—champion of the Impressionists, bitter enemy of the Academics and warm admirer of any fresh, sincere and individual talent. In his short review of the work of American ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... dead, who has a masterly gift of noble and stirring eloquence, finds it in "a certain collocation of consonants." Why it is that a change of a single word, or even of a single syllable, for any other which is an absolute synonym in sense, would ruin the best line in Lycidas, or injure terribly ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... rather Coleridge, tells us that in Biron and his Rosaline we have the first hesitating sketch of the masterly Benedick and Beatrice of "Much Ado about Nothing"; but in this I think Coleridge goes too far. Unformed as Biron is, he is Shakespeare in early youth, whereas in Benedick the likeness is not by any means so clear. In fact, Benedick is merely an admirable stage silhouette and needs to ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... days the English army followed hotly in pursuit, and several skirmishes occurred; but Soult effected a most masterly retreat, saving his army, when it seemed upon the brink of destruction, by leaving his guns and baggage behind him, and leading his men by paths over mountains supposed to be impassable for any large body of men. He lost altogether 6000 men in this short campaign. This included ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... "The masterly man's attitude to the world is not exclusively this or that: whatsoever is right, to that he will be ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... of this grand hymn of faith forgets the incident of Gladstone writing a Latin translation of it while sitting in the House of Commons. That remarkable man was as masterly in his scholarly recreations as in his statesmanship. The supreme Christian sentiment of the hymn had permeated his soul till it spoke to him in a dead language as eloquently as in the living one; and this is ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... were in his instance. His mien, his manner, the expression of his countenance, his youthfulness—I do not mean his youth merely, but his youthfulness of mind, which he never lost to the last,—his joyous energy, his reasonings so masterly, yet so prompt, his tact in disposing of them for his purpose, the light he threw upon obscure, and the interest with which he invested dull subjects, his humour, his ready resource of mind in emergencies; gifts such as these, so rare, yet so popular, were necessary for his success, and ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... theory of the sun's heat, and in 1854 Professor William Thomson applied his admirable mathematical powers to the development of the theory; but six years previously the subject had been handled in a masterly manner by Mayer, and all that I have said about it has been derived from him. When we consider the circumstances of Mayer's life, and the period at which he wrote, we cannot fail to be struck with astonishment at what he ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... ditch, and then to my relief the horse bolted. Swaying like a ship in a gale, the whole outfit lurched out of sight round the corner of hill where lay my cache. If Amos could stop the beast and deliver the goods there, he had put up a masterly bit of buffoonery. ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... pondered over the plan of campaign which Buonaparte had designed for the Army of Italy; and the vigour of the conception, the masterly appreciation of topographical details which it displayed, and the trenchant energy of its style had struck conviction to his strategic genius. Buonaparte owed his command, not to a backstairs intrigue, as was currently believed in the army, but rather to his own commanding powers. While serving ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... one of their hardest enemies; and his Zeal-of-the-Land-busy, Justice Over-doo, and Dame Pure-craft, have never been surpassed in masterly delineation of puritanic cant. The dramatists of that era certainly did their best ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Monday, having been at the Grove on Friday. George Villiers at the Grove showed me a Dublin paper with an attack on Stanley's proclamation, and also a character of Plunket drawn with great severity and by a masterly hand; it is supposed to be by Baron Smith, a judge who is very able, but fanciful and disaffected. He will never suffer any but policemen or soldiers to be hanged of those whom he tries. George Villiers came from Hatfield, where he had a conversation with the Duke of Wellington, who told ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... Ratisbon could have been her teacher? To whom did she owe this masterly training? As if by a miracle, he knew not whether from looking or listening, he found a combination of notes which he had long been seeking for the motet on which he was working. When he had registered it, and she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... latter place, and built up its full strength by incorporating a large number of men and guns. General Gatacre, who had retrieved his reverse at Stormberg by forcing Commandant Olivier to vacate his almost impregnable position without striking a blow, and later by his masterly move in swooping down on Bethulie Bridge and preventing the Boers from wrecking the line of communication between Lord Roberts and his supplies from Capetown, only remained long enough with his old command to see them equipped in a manner fit to take the field, and then retired in favour of General ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... origin and development of the world. I remember on one occasion he took up the nebular or La Place theory, adopted it as the true one, and traced the rise and progress of the earth through the evolution of matter to its present condition, in a most comprehensive and masterly manner. At another time it was said: "John Quincy Adams will speak to you to-day on the political condition of your country," and with all the grace, dignity, and eloquence of the famous old Senator from Massachusetts when addressing the Senate of the United States, this medium delivered ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... a masterly sketch of the condition of woman in uncivilized life, in which the subject is illustrated by the most apposite quotations from the works of different travellers and historians. It is the writer's opinion that in uncivilized life, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... Gauvain, but he does so in consequence of yielding to a heroic and self-devoting impulse of humanity. Cimourdain, true to his temperament, insists on his instant execution. Gauvain, true also to his temperament, is seized with a thousand misgivings, and there is no more ample, original, and masterly presentation of a case of conscience, that in civil war is always common enough, than the struggle through which Gauvain passes before he can resolve to deliver Lantenac. This pathetic debate—"the stone of Sisyphus, which is only the ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... year. From that moment to the present, he has never slackened head, hand, or foot, in the prosecution of his business; while the publication of his Annals of the Aldine Press places him among the most skilful and most instructive booksellers in Europe. It is indeed a masterly performance: and as useful as it is elegantly printed.[130] M. Renouard is now occupied in an improved edition of Voltaire, which he means to adorn with engravings; and of which he shewed me the original drawings by Moreau, with many of the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... old keeper of the prisons; not because he knew what had been done—for he did not—but because, knowing the underground floors as he did, it would be next to impossible to keep the transaction from him. Then, with masterly ingenuity, the procurator had new maps drawn for delivery to a new keeper, with the omission, as we have seen, of cell VI. The instructions given the latter, taken with the omission on the map, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Occasionally, during this performance, the war cry was given by the surrounding warriors, but the combatants held their peace; in fact they could not afford to open their mouths, lest an opening should be made. It was a most masterly performance, and we were ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... flames. The throne of the boy-king really rested for support on the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, Eadwine and Morkere; and William, crossing the Thames at Wallingford and marching into Hertfordshire, threatened to cut them off from their earldoms. The masterly movement forced the Earls to hurry home, and London gave way at once. Eadgar himself was at the head of the deputation who came to offer the crown to the Norman Duke. "They bowed to him," says the English annalist pathetically, "for need." They bowed to the Norman as they ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... them in our district: the Chalicodoma of the Walls (Chalicodoma muraria), whose history Reaumur gives us in a masterly fashion; and the Sicilian Chalicodoma (C. sicula) (For reasons that will become apparent after the reader has learnt their habits, the author also speaks of the Mason-bee of the Walls and the Sicilian Mason-bee as the Mason-bee of the Pebbles and the Mason-bee of the Sheds respectively. ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... 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 ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... courtesy of Professor Prawling, F. R. S., who has supplied us with the MS. of his recent lecture before the Psycho-Economical Society, we are in a position to give our readers a full account of that masterly and epoch-making address, of which, strange to say, no adequate notice has so far ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... by appearances, like the rest of the world; and I will make the best atonement I can, by publicly contradicting the scandal which has assailed your friend wherever I meet with it. In the meantime, allow me to congratulate you on the masterly manner in which you have opened the full fire of your batteries on me at the moment when I least expected it. You would have done great things in my profession, ma'am, if you had happened to ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... invitation, there was nothing in its sound to distinguish it from the rest of the names, and the invitation went duly. As a result there came to the exhibit a little group called "The Outcasts," which was really a masterly thing and sent the director, Signor ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... thirty-three feet in height. The pavement is of white marble slightly veined with blue. The entire hall is bordered with a scroll of Sienna or yellow, centred with rosettes of puce-coloured marble, inlaid in the most masterly style of workmanship. The walls are of Scagliola, and the ceiling is supported by a succession of white marble pillars. From the hall are the avenues leading to the state apartments—drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, throne-room, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... interesting material which Mr. Clodd has got together and woven into a symmetrical story of the progress from ignorance and theory to knowledge and the intelligent recording of fact is prodigious.... The 'goal' to which Mr. Clodd leads us in so masterly a fashion is but the starting point of fresh achievements, and, in due course, fresh theories. His book furnishes an important contribution to ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... the extrapolated line to the point on the northern continent toward which they were headed. Under other circumstances, with a shade more luck, the story would eventually have been told and retold as a heroic and masterly reversal of a lost situation. But within sight of victory, tired body and tired nerves clamped a control bar with a shade too much pressure. The ship, which had almost levelled ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... administrative work was not a success: his high-handed deportation of some of the rebel leaders was strongly condemned, and he was very quickly recalled. But he had had time to study and understand the situation, and he presented a masterly Report on Canada, which is one of the classics in the history of British imperialism. His explanation of the unhappy condition of Canadian politics was not (as some were tempted to say) that the colonists had been given too much liberty, ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... Pierre says, "There is in woman an easy gayety, which scatters the sadness of man." It may be said, on the other hand, that there is in the man of literary genius a masterly insight, joined with sympathetic tenderness and masculine strength, which administers to woman that reflective and glorifying interpretation, and that supporting guidance, whereof she continually stands in such need. What woman would not be proud and grateful ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... experience like other phenomena, so that morality, or the totality of the laws which at any given moment of historic evolution are applied to human practice, is dependent on customs." I may also refer to the masterly exposition of this aspect of morality in Levy-Bruhl's La Morale et la Science des Moeurs (there is an ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and the mysterious power over nature indicated by the turning of water into wine, by the miracle of the loaves and fishes, calming the storm, if facts, are facts unparalleled in any other biography, but seem possible, however unintelligible, when considered as emanating from such a masterly and commanding ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... by far the most stirring and dramatic of all the author's Italian stories.... The plot is a masterly one, bringing at almost every page a fresh surprise, keeping the reader in suspense to the very end."—The ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... must always be regarded as an important element in estimating the degree of civilization of a nation, and its position in the social scale. Mr. Macaulay, in his masterly picture of the state of England at the period of the accession of James II., has not failed to notice this subject as illustrative of the condition of the working classes of that day. He tells us that meat, viewed relatively with wages, was "so dear that ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 4, Saturday, November 24, 1849 • Various
... not on our level as to knowledge and the past of womankind. She knew not of their masterly position in the law of ancient Egypt. Gynaeocracy and matriarchy, the woman the head of the savage or prehistoric group, were things hidden from her. She "glanced at the Lycian custom," but not at the Pictish, a custom which would have ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... of men wearied out with labour, and the deaths of those criminals called tyrants and revolutionaries, and the deaths of those revolutionaries called criminals. It is to something of all this that Victor Hugo wishes to open men's eyes in LES MISERABLES; and this moral lesson is worked out in masterly coincidence with the artistic effect. The deadly weight of civilisation to those who are below presses sensibly on our shoulders as we read. A sort of mocking indignation grows upon us as we find Society rejecting, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fine a picture as ever the eye looked upon. The horse with his tail scattered upon the ground, with crest erect and breathing nostril, quivering under the impulse of his masterly rider; the rider himself, with his glancing helmet and waving plumes, his bronze complexion, his firm and graceful seat, and his eye fixed in ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... like a person dizzy with the heighth of his station, it staggers and falls headlong. When the mind of such a person ripens, and his judgment arrives at its full maturity, we have reason to expect that the strain of his competition will be more confident and masterly; but his imagination, cramped by the rules which have been formerly laid down, will be still desirous of breaking the old fetters, rather than felicitous of inventing new ones. Though therefore it must be acknowledged that the same Faculty ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... (i.e., at an increased depth of excavation) "on these veins, either in gold product or in strength. The formation of the country is on too grand a scale, geologically, to admit of a doubt on this point, so vital to mining success." Mr. Campbell, whose masterly survey and analysis of the whole gold-region forms, with the colored section accompanying it, the basis for a general and thorough understanding of the whole subject, adds (Report, p. 5) that "the yield ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... line of that masterly retreat of Soult's before the superior forces of Wellington, to which Napier has done ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... which he says was inspired by Drake,[3] relates that when Drake put out of Plymouth to receive Howard 'he sallied from port to meet him with his thirty ships in equal ranks, three ships deep, making honourable display of his masterly and diligent handling, with the pinnaces and small craft thrown forward as though to reconnoitre the ships that were approaching, which is their office.' Nothing, however, is more certain in the unhappily vague accounts of ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... modern equivalent for the Middle Ages oubliette," and even Indians who were not wholly in sympathy with her views were aflame with indignation at her cruel "martyrdom." The Government of India, whilst acquiescing in the action of the Provincial Governments, maintained an attitude of masterly inactivity, and neither in India nor at home was an authoritative word forthcoming as to the birth of the reforms scheme known ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... Tim, with a taste for Poetic Drama, a dash of the supernatural in it; and Maria, with a magnificent inactivity that ruled the world by waiting for things to happen, then claiming them as her own. Her masterly instinct for repose ran no risk of failure from misdirected energy. And to all three secrecy, of course, was essential: "Don't never tell the others, Uncle! ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... on the other. Lasher's New York Independent companies first broke ground for it about the 1st of March, and continued digging there as well as on the redoubt around the hospital until May 16th, when they were relieved, with Washington's "thanks for their masterly manner of executing the work on Bayard's Hill."[59] In the March return this battery is called the "Independent Battery," and it also received the name of "Bunker Hill," which was retained by the British ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... days was one of the great men of Scotland, if not the greatest. He was recognized in the Council as overshadowing his associates, in personal excellence, public-spiritedness, trustworthiness, and executive ability. He was a fine scholar, masterly statesman, wealthy landlord, brave soldier, and faithful Covenanter. His magnificent estate lay in Argyleshire, where the mountains are fringed with lochs in the most picturesque manner. The scenery is charming. One summer evening as our ship ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... tales uncompleted; we have less than the half of it; but he wrote enough to show to the best his manifold qualities. There appear in perfect light his masterly gifts of observation, of comprehension, and of sympathy; we well see with what art he can make his characters stand forth, and how skilfully they are chosen to represent all contemporaneous England. The poet shows himself full of heart, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... vegetation. I borrowed Mr. Tiltman's hose because it was the best and longest in the neighborhood and was provided with a patent nozzle which was so versatile that there was actually no detail in its business which it did not perform in a most masterly way. I shall never forget the feeling of exultation with which I stood on that expansive lawn and sprayed the parched grass and drooping shrubbery. I fancied I could see the thirsty blades and leaves reach up to ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... highroad, Blantyre had given me my head; but now, with a light hand and a practiced eye, he guided me over the ground in such a masterly manner that my pace was scarcely slackened, and we ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... is essential that our edition be well supplied with notes. There is one which fulfils this condition and in addition provides a most scholarly text, more closely approaching the original than any other which has appeared hitherto. This is the masterly translation of John Ormsby, which appeared in four octavo volumes in 1885. It contains a valuable history of the work, together with a life of Cervantes, and the appendices to the last volume contain a bibliography ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... standing still; and every hour of that adventurous waiting was heaping up significance for the moment when at length he should cry, "Up, Guards, and at them !" What Cecil said of Raleigh, "He can toil terribly," has been styled "an electric touch"; but the "masterly inactivity" of Sir James Mackintosh, happily appropriated by Mr. Calhoun, carries an equal appeal to intuitive sense, and has already become proverbial. He is no sufficient hero who in the delays of Destiny, when his way is hedged up ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... students' powers for personal benefits, but to promote culture, to the end that a larger service may be rendered to human progress. "An education," says President Hill, "that fails in producing lofty character, sustained and nourished by a pure faith, may, indeed, fill the world with capable and masterly men in their vocation; but, unless it can soften the heart of success and open the palm of power, it only strengthens the grasp of greed, and misses the ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... silence, 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
... ever set afloat. Among its contributors, may assuredly be classed many men of eminent talents; yet to their abilities the surprising success and influence of this work is scarcely to be ascribed. It is the result rather of the consistent spirit which has always inspired its masterly critiques. One principle has ever regulated its management; it is a simple rule, but an effective one: every author is reviewed by his personal enemy. You may imagine the point of the critique; but you would hardly credit, if I were to inform ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... was the establishment of a principle they wanted, not coddling. Three weeks went by in the same debilitating peace. The twins were smiled on and left wholly free. They had almost come to believe in a bloodless victory, when Mrs. Baldwin struck—a masterly attack where they were weakest. Her weapon was—not welcome ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... taste, of power of invention, or true and earnest eloquence! 'The Days of Bruce' is a composition of her early youth, but full of beauty. Grace Aguilar knew the female heart better than any writer of our day, and in every fiction from her pen we trace the same masterly analysis and development of the motives and feelings of woman's nature. 'The Days of Bruce' possesses also the attractions of an extremely interesting story, that absorbs the attention, and never suffers it to flag till the last page is closed, and then the reader will lay down the volume ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... and Ariadne" is, perhaps, more what I have described as a pattern-picture, and is of a much later type. The full flush of colour and pagan joy of the Renaissance is here paramount, expressed with the masterly freedom of drawing and magnificent colour sense of the great Venetian master. Yet, looking through the life, the movement, the swing and vitality of the figures, and the power and poetry by which the story is conveyed, we shall find a fine ornate design, ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... thought so," he muttered, after he had left the house—"a masterly stroke, that; a masterly stroke! This villain Jew Mike is the cher amie of Sow Nance, as she is called; and Nance is in the confidence of Tickels; what wonder that the dirty slut recommended her pal and paramour to the old ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... few hasty remarks without expressing a wish that one of your correspondents in particular would take up this subject, to handle which in a masterly manner, his position is a guaranty of his ability. I refer to the gentleman holding the office ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... once said to a French savant, "My dear philosopher, it is not so easy to write on human flesh as on paper." Much more difficult is the task of our ministers, whose religious, social, and financial work leaves them little of that learned leisure enjoyed by Anglican divines, who by their masterly works have made the entire Christian Church their debtor. But in the period we are reviewing, despite the demands made on the time of the ministers, many have written that which will not easily be forgotten. The Church that nurtured Dr. Moulton, whose edition of Winer's "Greek Grammar" is ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... Crusader adopted the plan of masterly inactivity, by simply holding on tight and doing nothing. He did not shout for help, because, being bull-doggish in his nature, he preferred to fight in silent ferocity. Exasperated as well as worn by this method, Bill became reckless, and made several wild plunges to regain his feet. He did ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... years he devoted himself industriously to his profession, appearing in public only to defend with masterly eloquence the course of President Washington with reference to the insolent conduct of Citizen Genet, the French Agent. In 1795, he was again elected to the Legislature, "not only without his approbation, but against his known wishes;" but yielding to the desires of his friends he took his seat ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... the tension in the air. One by one the company became masters of themselves once more. Miss Trimble, that masterly woman, was the first to recover. She raised herself from the floor—for with a confused idea that she would be safer there she had flung herself down—and, having dusted her skirt with a few decisive dabs of her strong ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... have been able not only to give expression to the moving forces of their time, but to react against them. They were rebels as well as conquerors, and this fact lends an extraordinary interest to their work. Like some subtle unexpected spice in a masterly confection, a strange, profound, unworldly melancholy just permeates their most brilliant writings, and gives ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... society. Therefore, from this universality of character, his Lecture will ever be worthy the perusal of every person who would wish to avoid being contemptible or ridiculous: for {111}there is no person but may be liable to some vice or folly, which he will find exposed by this masterly, pleasant, ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... life, neither society nor the critics ever forgave him, and did not even do justice to his genius. His espousal of the popular cause in Europe embittered the conservative element, and the freedom of speculation in such masterly works as 'Cain' brought upon him the anathemas of orthodox England. Henceforth in England his poetry was judged by his liberal and unorthodox opinions. This vituperation rose to its height when Byron dared to satirize George III., and to expose mercilessly in 'Don Juan' ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... pleasure must the great Bedfordshire artist have contemplated his masterly pages as day by day he added to them the portrait of some new scoundrel, or painted with dexterous and loving hand the wholesome outlines of some honest man, or devised some new phrase which like a new note or new colour would delight ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... was presented in a masterly manner before the National Convention of 1889 by U. S. Senator Henry W. Blair (N. H.); and it was discussed by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Minor. See present volume, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... astonishing likeness. I dressed as I had seen the great man in the field. I wore a wig slightly tinged with gray, a blue coat, buff waistcoat and sash and sword and the top boots and spurs. When I strode across the room in the masterly fashion of our great Commander, the Doctor clapped ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... the White Lady of the Shrieking Pit in order to keep the villagers away from the place where the stolen money was hidden. Mr. Cromering had been much impressed—he said so—with the logical skill and masterly deductive powers by which Colwyn had reconstructed the hidden events of the night of the murder, like an Owen reconstructing the extinct moa from a single bone, but he was loath to accept that part of the theory which seemed to throw doubt on the ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... shore of commonplace incidents that could not interest him, and fairly launched on a theme that did, he instantly became oblivious of everything but the book in his hand. The masterly manner in which he analysed the genius of the author, his lucid interpretation of the story, and the ease with which he translated into our language the most subtle and imaginative passages of the Spanish ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... length left the Edinburgh school and continued her education at Glasgow, where at St. Margaret's College classes in medicine had recently been opened. A fellow-student writes: "Never very keenly interested in the purely scientific side of the curriculum, she had a masterly grasp of what was practical." She took her ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... that a few days later Winston Churchill introduced his Bill, which, being a Government Bill, took precedence of ours and became law as the Trade Boards Act. In 1910 again, on the Home Office Vote, an occasion on which Dilke always made a masterly review of the industrial history of the year, he asked me to second him, and to deal particularly with lead-poisoning in the Potteries. He always tried to detach Labour questions from party. It was entirely owing to him that I took an ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... The plea was a masterly one, eloquent and dramatic, and it thrilled the young soul of Lincoln. Full of the subject, the young debater sought Mr. Breckinridge after the court adjourned, and extended his long arm and ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... prevented the valuable collection of MSS. once belonging to Sir Julius Caesar from being destroyed; they had actually been sold to a cheesemonger as waste-paper for L10. He rescued the whole collection, and drew up a masterly catalogue of it, and when sold by auction the result was L356. For some years he was librarian to the Earl of Shelburne, afterwards first Marquis of Lansdowne. Sam's great talents at 'cataloguizing' ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... instructive to listen to his observations on the beauties and merits of these masterpieces of Raphael. A Madame Bouiller, an interesting French emigrant is also occupied on the same subjects. She is patronized by West, who has given her permission to study here; and says that he never saw such masterly artist touches of the crayon as hers. Her style is large heads, after the size and manner of the French; therefore the figures in the Cartoons are particularly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... after the elephant's disappearance I was about to say, one morning, that I should have to strike my colors and retire, when the great detective arrested the thought by proposing one more superb and masterly move. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... A masterly example of Byron's command of strong thought and close reasoning in verse:—as the next is equally characteristic of Shelley's wayward intensity, and 204 of the dramatic power, the vital identification of the poet with other times and ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... escape his enemies Sir Walter had had recourse to artifices unworthy the great hero that he was, now that all hope was lost he conducted himself with a dignity and cheerfulness beyond equal. So calm and self-possessed and masterly was his defence from the charge of piracy preferred at the request of Spain, and so shrewd in its inflaming appeal to public opinion, that his judges were constrained to abandon that line of prosecution, and could discover no way of giving his head to ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... enthusiastic applause and in their vociferous demands for a vote. The opposition were paralysed by the desertion of one whom they had regarded and trusted as a leader against the radical element and were left without answer to the masterly array of facts and ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... a bungling makeshift. He left it a perfect art. He wrote the first perfect short stories in the English language. He first gave the short story purpose, method, and artistic form. In a careless reading one can not realize the wonderful literary art, the cunning devices, the masterly effects that those entrancing tales conceal. They are simple and direct enough to delight us when we are children, subtle and artistic enough to be our marvel when we are old. To this day they are the wonder and admiration of the French, who are the ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... impartial hearing, is indeed like meeting with Saul among the prophets. If there be one name which has been doomed to run the gauntlet, and against which every pert and insolent political declaimer has had his fling, it is that of this unfortunate writer; yet in his short but masterly and unanswerable "Advertisement to the Jurymen of England, touching Witches, together with a difference between an English and Hebrew Witch," first published in 1653, 4to., he has addressed himself so cogently and decisively ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... greetings that lasted for several minutes, then Mrs. Todd took command of affairs in her usual masterly way. ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... made, when the Ariosto was last publicly exhibited, that it might be that Portrait of a Gentleman of the House of Barbarigo which, according to Vasari, Titian painted with wonderful skill at the age of eighteen. The broad, masterly technique of the Cobham Hall picture in no way accords, however, with Vasari's description, and marks a degree of accomplishment such as no boy of eighteen, not even Titian, could have attained. And then Vasari's "giubbone di raso inargentato" is not ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... the miserable and the despised, and in a masterly arraignment of commercialism, protests against social conditions, against the grinding of the faces of the poor and weak, and the self-pollution of the rich and strong, in their mad lust for place and power. It is to be doubted strongly ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... said Elizabeth, "do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault—because I will not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Xenophon: guiding principles, rule of Health, rule of Forethought. Religious trust in the divine, and for things beyond man's control; orderly masterly working out of problems within his power. Economic, diplomatic, anchinoetic, archic ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... once an intention of giving an edition of Bacon, at least of his English works, and writing the Life of that great man. Had he executed this intention, there can be no doubt that he would have done it in a most masterly manner. Mallet's Life of Bacon has no inconsiderable merit as an acute and elegant dissertation relative to its subject; but Mallet's mind was not comprehensive enough to embrace the vast extent of Lord Verulam's ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... approximately correct. Its mysterious quality evades us; and we have to be content with outward characteristics and accompaniments, leaving the thing itself an unsolved riddle. At the same time Mr. Herbert Spencer's masterly elucidation of the chief phenomena of Life has placed philosophy and science under many obligations, and in the paragraphs which follow we shall have to incur a further debt ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... in his masterly study of Joris Karl Huysmans, considers the much misunderstood phenomenon in art called decadence. "Technically a decadent style is only such in relation to a classic style. It is simply a further development of a classic style, a further ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... those delicate Finishings, and minute Strokes, which make up great Part of the Merit of engraving on Copper, are not to be found in those cut on Wood in Chiaro Oscuro; yet there is a masterly and free Drawing, a boldness of Engraving and Relief, which pleases a true Taste more than all the little Exactness found in the Engravings on Copper Plates ... and indeed has an Effect which the best Judges very ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen
... for, exclusive of the statues and busts in the garden, and the vast collection in the different apartments, almost the whole outside of the house is covered with curious pieces in basso and alto relievo. The most masterly is that of Curtius on horseback, leaping into the gulph or opening of the earth, which is said to have closed on receiving this sacrifice. Among the exhibitions of art within the house, I was much struck with a Bacchus, and the death of Meleager, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... seeking so insistently. Mayo himself had done a little seeking. He inquired at the post-office, but there was no mail for him. If no papers had been abstracted from the Marston archives, if this affair were some new attempt at guile on the part of Fogg, the promoter had certainly done a masterly bit of acting, Mayo told himself. He determined to keep his own counsel and wait ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... bolted well, and Howard experienced a lively satisfaction, quite out of proportion, he felt, to the circumstances, at finding that he could shoot a great deal better than his pupil. The old knack came back to him, and he toppled over his rabbits cleanly and in a masterly way. ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... doubt, Sir, but you will wish to know what has been the result of all the pains of an indulgent father, and a masterly teacher; and I wish I could gratify your curiosity with such a recital as you would be pleased with;—but that is what I am afraid will not be the case. I have, indeed, kept pretty clear of vicious habits; and in this respect, I hope, my conduct will not disgrace the education I have gotten; but ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... students of Shakespeare, but of real wit or humour the German possesses not an atom. Take, for instance, the modern novels of Suderman, of Rudolph Herzog, of Rudolph Stratz, of Bernard Kellerman, of Paul Heyse, and you will find intense seriousness, tragedy, pathos, masterly drawing of character, and absolutely no fun from cover to cover. As for the "Fliegende Blaetter," the German "Punch," it is the sickliest imitation of humour possible to conceive. Foremost in science, the German is yet a ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson |
