"Matchless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to love them, love to desire them, and both desire and love to understand them? This is the Book of books, as David said of Goliah's sword, 'There's none like that.'" The Bible is, indeed, what that great philosopher, the Honorable Robert Boyle, called it, "that matchless book." We have often thought that the sublime descriptions which it gives of God, the humbling and exalting doctrines which it reveals, and the high-toned morality which it inculcates, are of themselves proofs decisive of its divine authority. ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... highly cultured, an organization so finely strung, we expected the rarest blossoms, the divinest melodies. The flowers lie before us, mere buds, from which the green calyx of immaturity has not yet curled, and in whose cold heart the perfume is not born; the melodies vibrate around us, matchless in mechanism, wondrous in miraculous accord, but as destitute of the soul of harmony as the score of Beethoven's sonata in A flat to unlearned eyes. If his analyses and criticisms are keen and graceful, they are unreliable and contradictory, for he was often influenced by ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and excited faces before him, "is it any wonder the Green Mountain Boys are so gallant and brave in fighting for their wives and sweethearts, when such is a specimen? Will you join them in defence of their homes and country, and help fulfil this matchless girl's expectations when we meet that taunting foe at Bennington, as by God's favor we will? If so, then let it now be told in three cheers for the good cause, and as many more as you please for The ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... a couple of long shots, which had the effect only of setting them off again over the prairie. After another run this matchless dog closed and seized the wolf by the haunch, but again retreated to avoid the fierce return chop. Then there was another stand at bay, and again a race over the snow. Every few hundred yards this scene was repeated, the dog managing so that each ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... upon the Judge by force of screaming, to assure him that he had been, simple as he sat there, engaged in seven plots in Cromwell's time; and, as he proudly added, with some of the tallest men of England. The matchless look and air with which Sir Geoffrey made this vaunt, set all a-laughing, and increased the ridicule with which the whole trial began to be received; so that it was amidst shaking sides and watery eyes that a general verdict of Not Guilty was pronounced, and the prisoners ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... his adored one? Your hero can always hit a man just where he pleases—vide every novel in Mr C's collection. The hero becomes misanthropical, the heroine maniacal. The former marries an antiquated and toothless dowager, as an escape from the imaginary disgust he took at a sight of a matchless woman; and the latter marries an old brute, who threatens her life every night, and puts her in bodily fear every morning, as an indemnity in full for the loss of the man of her affections. They are both romantically miserable; and then comes on your tantalising scenes of delicate distress, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... from time to time as she glanced up at her cousin, whose fair hair against the dark cushion of the old chair caught and held the charm of the fire's own warmth in its gleaming strands. Jeannette's eyes were matchless by lamplight; her cheeks and lips were glowing from the outdoor life of the day and evening; her smile was a thing to imprison hearts and hold them fast. If she spoke little no one thought of her as silent, and the charm of her low laughter at the sallies ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... keen pleasure, as every step and little movement showed her figure in a slightly different attitude and light, indiscreetly moulded in the perfection of her matchless gown. In less than two minutes she had finished her trip round the room and was standing beside him, her elbows resting on the mantelpiece, while she moved a beautiful Tanagra a little to one side and then to the other, trying for ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... Grave not only expresses, as no one else has expressed, the quality of Wordsworth's genius, but in single lines assigned to each, the same service is done for Milton, Shakespeare, Shelley, Coleridge, and Byron. This is a matchless illustration of the kind of criticism that is in itself genius; for we may quarrel with Mr. Spingarn as much as we please on his general dogmatic principle of the identity of genius and taste; here we have so admirable an example ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... miracle of beauty, with a small fortune for a poor man carried about her in silk, lace, and jewelry. No woman present was the object of such special attention among the men as this fascinating and priceless creature. She sat fanning herself with a matchless work of art (supposed to be a handkerchief) representing an island of cambric in the midst of an ocean of lace. She was surrounded by a little court of admirers, who fetched and carried at her slightest nod, like well-trained dogs. Sometimes they brought ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... it, it appears at a little distance of a darker blue than the sky itself; and at such a time, being on its surface, and looking with divided vision, so as to see the reflection, I have discerned a matchless and indescribable light blue, such as watered or changeable silks and sword blades suggest, more cerulean than the sky itself, alternating with the original dark green on the opposite sides of the waves, which last appeared but muddy in comparison. It is a vitreous greenish ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... was the glory of his life—this matchless son, his brighter counterpart carved in breathing ivory, touching his arm, and balancing himself proudly on the swaying floor of the chariot. As the horses pranced around the ring, a great shout of applause filled the ...
— The Lost Word - A Christmas Legend of Long Ago • Henry Van Dyke
... they have gathered in their little harvest—if it has not been appropriated first by some of the pasha's tax-collectors or by roving parties of Bedouins—robber-tribes from the adjoining Syrian and Arabian deserts, who, mounted on their own matchless horses, are carried across the open border with as much facility as the drifts of desert sand so much dreaded by travellers. The rest of the country is left to nature's own devices and, wherever it is not cut up by ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... triumphant way; he would even have bestowed forgiveness on his greatest enemy if he had met him then;—for the divine joy of love was singing in his heart and raising him to the serene and glorious empyrean of heroes and gods. Oh matchless magic of the human heart, which confounds all the hypotheses of science, and ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... last to the Sultan's town-house, which is full of lovely things, especially those brought from Japan. Such delightfully hideous monsters in bronze and gold, such splendid models, magnificent embroideries, matchless china, rare carvings, elaborate tables and cabinets, are seldom found collected together in one house. After a long examination of all these pretty things, Tom arrived, and then we had to show them to him all over again. ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... destined to see him sooner or later, though she stayed at home with almost morbid fidelity to a resolution she had made. He rode out the Quemado Road one matchless December day when the very air would have seemed sufficient to produce flowers without calling the ungracious desert into service. Sylvia sat in her boudoir by an open window and watched him approach. She immediately guessed that ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... sov'reign love, that first began The scheme to rescue fallen man! Hail, matchless, free, eternal grace, That gave ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... plantation who heard the barking of the blood hounds and felt the lash of the task master, likewise he realized that such was not his place. He sought his place, and to-day America holds in sacred memory that eloquent and matchless ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 3, September, 1898 • Various
... Learning You acquir'd in Your Non-age, has manifested to the World, that a Scholar, and a fine Gentleman are not Inconsistent, and rendered You so matchless an Ornament to the University of Oxford, particularly to Christ-Church-College, ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... account the report of the Mongols, which was brought by the spies of Mahomed, Sultan of Khwarizm, when invasion was first menaced by Chinghiz: "The army of Chinghiz is countless, as a swarm of ants or locusts. Their warriors are matchless in lion-like valour, in obedience, and endurance. They take no rest, and flight or retreat is unknown to them. On their expeditions they are accompanied by oxen, sheep, camels, and horses, and sweet ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... mouths wide open, as if fascinated, upon the preacher who, moving up and down with quick, lithe steps, was telling them a story. A wonderful story, too, it seemed, the wonder of it apparent in the riveted eyes and fixed faces. It was the immortal story, matchless in the language, of Joseph, the Hebrew shepherd boy, who, sold into slavery by his brethren, became prime minister of the mighty empire of Egypt. The voice tone of the minister, now clear and high, ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... the most foolish thing I ever did was to give my wife a French teacher. As long as she slaughtered the dictionary and tortured the grammar I adored her. Our conversations were simple. They revealed to me her surprising gracefulness and matchless elegance; they showed her to me as a wonderful speaking jewel, a living doll made to be kissed, knowing, after a fashion, how to express what she loved. She reminded me of the pretty little toys which say 'papa' and 'mamma' when ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... in gray fell upon them in overpowering force and drove them back in broken fragments. Wild with triumph, the Southern riflemen rushed after them and also hurled back other riflemen that were coming up to their support. But on the plain they encountered the matchless Northern artillery. A battery of sixteen heavy guns met their advancing line with a storm of canister, before which they were compelled to retreat, leaving ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... all, where is the gain or wisdom of blowing smoke upon a diamond? The sun itself has holes in it too large for half a dozen worlds like ours to fill, but wherein is that great luminary thereby unfitted to be the matchless centre of our system, the glorious source of day, and the sublime symbol ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... metaphysics and pithy proverbs, psalms of unrivalled grandeur and pastorals of exquisite loveliness, parables fraught with solemn meaning, the mournful wisdom of the preacher, the exultant faith of the apostle, the matchless eloquence of Job and Isaiah, the apocalyptic ecstasy of St. John. At a time when there was as yet no English literature for the common people, this untold wealth of Hebrew literature was implanted in the English mind as in a virgin soil. Great consequences have flowed from ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... them, and writes like an inspired poet. No Pole can speak on this subject without being transported into a transcendental rapture that illumines his countenance with a blissful radiance, and inspires him with a glowing eloquence which, he thinks, is nevertheless beggared by the matchless reality. ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... with matchless art and whim, He gave the power of speech to every limb; Though masked and mute conveyed his quick intent, And told in frolic's ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... Pericles changed the government of Athens to a pure democracy. And then, by the magic of his influence, it sprang from its ashes in a form so beautiful, it was known as the "City of the Gods." The matchless temples and colonnades which arose on the Acropolis, adorned by the sculptures of Phidias, are still the wonder ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 25, April 29, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... John Rutledge, Jr., from South Carolina. Madison and Fisher Ames did not return, and their loss was serious to their respective parties. Madison was incontestably the finest reasoning power, and Ames, as an orator, had no equal in our history until Webster appeared to dwarf all other fame beside his matchless eloquence. Parties were nicely balanced, the nominal majority being on the Federal side. Harper and Griswold retained the lead of the administration party. Giles still led the Republican opposition, but ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... 1714 Addison, now separated from Steele, who was carrying on a political paper called the Englishman, added an eighth volume to the Spectator. Its contents are more uniformly serious than those of the first seven volumes, and it contains, besides Addison's matchless papers, some only inferior to these, especially four by Mr Grove, a dissenting minister in Taunton. It is recorded in "Boswell" that Baretti having, on the Continent, met with Grove's paper on "Novelty," it quickened his curiosity to visit Britain, for he thought, if such ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... had grown, in the mother's care, Like a bud in the shine and shower That drinks of the wine of the balmy air Till it blooms into matchless flower; Her waist was the rose's stem that bore The flower—and the flower's perfume— That ripens on till it bulges o'er With its ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... madam, summon up your dearest spirits: Consider who the king your father sends, To whom he sends, and what's his embassy: Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem, To parley with the sole inheritor Of all perfections that a man may owe, Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen. Be now as prodigal of all dear grace As Nature was in making graces dear When she did starve the general world beside, And prodigally ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... good man," said Alvarez, "a matchless spy and trailer, but it cannot be helped. I suppose it was a quarrel with some savage like himself. I would investigate the matter, but we have not time now. Come, Luiz, we will take out the prisoners, and then to ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... riches of matchless Peru, To revel in splendour as emperors do, I'd forfeit the whole with a hearty good will, To dwell in a cottage ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... up content and rapture she did not know, or want to know. But at last the wonder of those eyes came nearer—nearer! She felt the dear pressure of the familiar lips upon her own. A fragrance enveloped her, an exquisite joy overbrimmed her, as a voice—the beloved, unforgotten voice of matchless music—spoke. It said: ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... was indeed. A gem of the finest period of early Gothic architecture, adorned with all trophies which love, fear and contrition could compel from the art of the ages. Glorious colored lights swept down in shafts from matchless stained glass, and the high altar was a blaze of richness, while beautiful paintings ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... wits, or harpsichords, Theology, fine arts, or finer stays, May be the baits for gentlemen or lords With regular descent, in these our days, The last year to the new transfers its hoards; New vestals claim men's eyes with the same praise Of 'elegant' et caetera, in fresh batches— All matchless creatures, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the song of a bird and tried to attune your own thoughts to its unrestrained and untaught melodies? There are no true skylarks in America, and therefore you may never be able to repeat the experience of the poet or fully to appreciate the "harmonious madness" of his matchless poem; for no other bird is so literally the embodiment of song as ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... my taste for mountaineering, I had climbed but a short time previously. An interesting ascent it had been, first of all through that Eastern Switzerland around the pretty town of Broussa, and then over the snow and rocky debris to the summit, whence a matchless panorama is to be seen. The squadrons, one French and one English, forming a strong force of ships, were at that time on guard at the mouth of the Dardanelles. I went back to my duty in ours, which was still as active and incessantly drilled as ever. The English squadron, commanded by Sir ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... perfect human being, physically, intellectually and morally, he had ever seen. Then there is Browning's Domett—the prototype of Waring—and Keats's friend James Rice, and Stevenson's friend Ferrier—that's a matchless little biographical fragment, Stevenson's letter about Ferrier—those are the sort of figures I mean, the men who charmed and delighted everyone, were brave and humorous, gave a pretty turn to everything they ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... long and broadening fan-like from below her to the far distance, where the evening mists were beginning to gather the white light of the moon, while the great mountains of the southeast were still red with the last blood of the dying day—a view of matchless peace and surpassing beauty, such as she had never yet seen. Just then, she looked down, and there, at her feet, were the brown roofs of Muro. Her dream seemed to be suddenly realized, and she had found the room of which she had so often made the picture ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... Couldst thou but feel it pulse and bound Whene'er my ear is charmed to hear Thy gentle tongue's melodious sound— Couldst thou but see how these fond eyes Rejoice to look upon thy face When like a dream before them rise Thy matchless form and wondrous grace— How deeply, thirstily they drink Thy dew-bright eyes, whose flashing glance Doth like a luring firefly dance (Along an island's shadowy brink Where rippling waters, restless waters, Sing their low, unchanging song Upon the pebbles all night ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... youth hoped to escape. While the snow would reveal his trail so plainly that it could be followed without the least difficulty, yet his own fleetness ought to enable him to keep so far in advance of the Sioux that they could not gain another shot at him. True, he was deprived of his matchless pony, but the red men were also on foot, and therefore they stood on equal terms, with the opening in favor of ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... I knew I was to be your son-in-law, I thought you a matchless woman. Add to the admiration I had for your great qualities the affection which your goodness has inspired, and you will understand that I am both proud and happy to have ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... approve in all the relative duties and personal conduct of a man, when beheld in his domestic career. It is, indeed, a source of deep thankfulness, the admirer of Burke's genius in public, has no reason to blush for his character in private; and that when we have listened to his matchless oratory upon the arena of the House of Commons, we have not to mourn over dissipation, impurity, and depravity amid the circles of private history. Our theory, then, is, that beyond what his distinctive ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... gradually ceases. The young are out of the nest and must be cared for, and the moulting season is at hand. After the Cricket has commenced to drone his monotonous refrain beneath your window, you will not, till another season, hear the Wood-Thrush in all his matchless eloquence. The Bobolink has become careworn and fretful, and blurts out snatches of his song between his scolding and upbraiding, as you approach the vicinity of his nest, oscillating between anxiety for his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... His relations with His friends and enemies the quality that crowns His method of living and challenges our thought is the gentleness of His bearing. Matchless the mingled strength and beauty of His life, yet gentleness was the flower and fruitage of it all. For in Him the lion and the lamb dwelt together. Oak and rock were there, and also vine and flower. Weakness is always rough. Only giants ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... masterly manner, contrived to introduce variety and progress into that which in itself was determinately fixed, and has in the objects with which he has surrounded him, given us a scale for the measurement of the matchless power of his sublime Titan. First the silence of Prometheus, while he is chained down under the harsh inspection of Strength and Force, whose threats serve only to excite a useless compassion in Vulcan, who is nevertheless forced to carry them into execution; then his solitary ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... the high-souled men—Cowper, Lamb, FitzGerald, Hearn—for where else shall we find one to stand the test of self-revelation? Happily, one of the blithest, manliest, completest spirits of our times was a matchless writer of letters—Stevenson. Aching for absolute honesty of style and making clearness almost synonomous with good morals, he has given us in the Vailima collection and in the two larger volumes of his correspondence an almost unexampled ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... activeness did lack, Now's laid aside like an old Almanack; But for the present only's out of date, 'Twill have at length a far more active state. Yes, tho' with dust thy body soiled be. Yet at the resurrection we shall see A fair EDITION, and of matchless worth. Free from ERRATAS, new in Heaven set forth. 'Tis but a word from God the great Creator, It shall be done when he ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... physical impossibility in Lough Derg. I verily think that if mortification of the body, without conversion of the life or heart—if penance and not repentance could save the soul, no wretch who performed a pilgrimage here could with a good grace be damned. Out of hell the place is matchless, and if there be a purgatory in the other world, it may very well be said there is a fair rehearsal of it in the county ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... over Prometheus, she makes her way to the cave of Demogorgon, "that terrific gloom," who seems meant to typify the Primal Power of the World. Hence they are snatched away by the Spirit of the Hour at which Jove will fall, and the coming of change pulsates through the excitement of those matchless songs ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... "A matchless one! At half-past three, when the heat is less intense, your lordship will find the horses harnessed. You will have plenty of time to get to Desio before sunset, and be back ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... collated by the untiring brain that now watched over France. The sum of 1,123,000 francs had been expended on the coronation robes of Emperor and Empress, and far more on crowns and tiaras. The result was seen in costumes of matchless splendour; the Emperor wore a French coat of red velvet embroidered in gold, a short cloak adorned with bees and the collar of the Legion of Honour in diamonds; and at the archbishop's palace he assumed the long purple robe of velvet profusely ornamented with ermine, while his brow ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... who could never look on merit with an oblique eye. His worship of Mrs. Siddons, as unparalleled in her genius, was life-long, and his descriptions of her acting convey a more vivid idea of its peculiar qualities and matchless effect than any others we can remember to have read. Talma comes next in his regard as "the most finished artist of his time, not below Kean in his most energetic displays, and far above him in the refinement of his taste and the extent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... his youth spent three years in England, and mastered the philosophy of Bacon, Newton, and Locke, the Deism of the English Freethinkers, and the English theory of political liberty. That these doctrines, recommended by Voltaire's mordant genius and matchless style, and circulating in a community prepared by tyranny to receive them, acted as a powerful solvent on the intellectual basis of French society, is indeed likely enough. But to pursue the theme would carry us too far back into the eighteenth century. In dealing with the recollections ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... Who has the fame of Italy redeemed: Too good for his vile age, he stands alone; One of the fierce Allobroges, Whose manly virtue was derived Direct from heavenly powers, Not from this dry, unfruitful earth of ours; Whence he alone, unarmed,— O matchless courage!—from the stage, Did war upon the ruthless tyrants wage; The only war, the only weapon left, Against the crimes and follies of the age. First, and alone, he took the field: None followed him; all else were cowards ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... plane-trees which shaded the numerous walks there assembled the master-spirits of the age. This was the favorite resort of poets and philosophers. Here the divine spirit of Plato poured forth its sublimest speculations in streams of matchless eloquence; and here he founded a school which was destined to exert a powerful and perennial influence on human minds and hearts in all ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... a matchless specimen of sagacious forecast. It provides for the descent of property, for the appointment of territorial officers, and for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty by securing religious freedom in the inhabitants. It prohibits legislative interference with private ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... it—my sensitive child! But on the material side, Mr. Archer, if one may stoop to consider such things; do you know what she is giving up? Those roses there on the sofa—acres like them, under glass and in the open, in his matchless terraced gardens at Nice! Jewels—historic pearls: the Sobieski emeralds—sables,—but she cares nothing for all these! Art and beauty, those she does care for, she lives for, as I always have; and those also surrounded ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... musketry, and this again by loud yells. Looking round I saw a swarm of strange figures sweep into the yard, half women as to their dress, for they wore little petticoats that barely reached their knees, but matchless fighting men as to their behaviour. On they came, with the pace of hounds, the courage of bucks, and the force ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... Grant has put it, with the matchless simplicity of greatness: "I do not believe I ever would have the courage to fight a duel. If any man should wrong me to the extent of my being willing to kill him, I should not be willing to give him the choice of weapons with which it should be done, and of the time, place, and distance ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... But the cedar bow must be cared for like a delicate machine; overstring it, and it breaks; twang it without an arrow, and it sunders the cords; scratch it, and it may splinter; wet it, and it is dead; let it lie on the ground, even, and it is weakened. But guard it and it will serve you as a matchless servant, and as can no ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... commence a six days' sale of the third portion of the important stock of prints of Messrs. Smith; comprising some of the works of the most eminent engravers of the continental and English schools, including a matchless collection of the works of the Master of Fontainebleau, engraver's proofs of book plates, and a few ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various
... the overwhelming, the irresistible attraction which St. Francis exercised is to be found in his matchless simplicity, in his sublime self-surrender. He removed mountains because he believed intensely in the infinite power of mere goodness. While from the writhing millions all over Europe—the millions ignorant, neglected, plague-stricken, ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... few chapters afterwards—that of the Abbess and Novice of the Convent of Andouillets! The adult male person is not so much shocked at the coarseness of this story as astounded at the bathos of its introduction. It is as though some matchless connoisseur in wine, after having a hundred times demonstrated the unerring discrimination of his palate for the finest brands, should then produce some vile and loaded compound, and invite us to drink it with all the relish with which he seems to be swallowing it himself. ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... manly feats of strength. No other youth could throw the spear with so great force, or shoot the arrow with surer aim. No other youth could run more swiftly, or ride with more becoming ease. His gentle mother took delight in adding to the beauty of his matchless form, by clothing him in costly garments decked with the rarest jewels. The old, the young, the rich, the poor, the high, the low, all praised the fearless Siegfried, and all vied in friendly strife to win his favor. One would have thought that the life of the young prince could never be aught ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... held in reverence. Never before hath such a marvelous display of universal erudition been heard within these schools. By my faith, I am absolutely wonder-stricken, and not I alone, but all. In proof of which I need only tell you, that coupling his matchless scholarship with his extraordinary accomplishments, the professors in their address to him at the close of the controversy have bestowed upon him the epithet of 'Admirable'—an appellation by which he will ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Monastery of Spazac—hesitate at such a time? For myself, I wanted to hurry on, and to come at once to the fight with my country's foes; and well I knew that the Gospodar Rupert, with a lion's heart meet for his giant body, would press on with a matchless speed. We of the Blue Mountains do not lag when our foes are in front of us; most of all do we of the Eastern Church press on when the Crescent wars against ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... palpitating semblance of a warrior of long ago. The strangely living lips, the dusky hollows where thoughtful eyes gleamed darkling. The glint of armor half covered by velvet and fur. A gloved hand that seemed to caress a sword hilt, that caught one crashing ruby light upon its pommel—the matchless Heim Vandyke—the silent, attentive watcher who had seen his sacking of the dead; who seemed, with those deep eyes of understanding, to realize and know it all—the futile clash of human wills, the little day of love and hate, the infinite mercy, ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... help me from that faintness which had followed my struggle with the Thing? Whose was the exquisite, individual fragrance contained in the ball I held? I had a vision of a figure, surely light and soft of movement, haloed with such matchless hair as the braid I had captured, stealing step by timid step across my room; within my reach while I lay inert. Perhaps her face had bent near mine in her doubt of my life or death; hidden eyes had studied me in the ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... inclined to see in it but an allegory, and there are others who go so far as to say that Beatrice never existed. What uncertainty can there be regarding her life, when Cino da Pistoja wrote his most celebrated poem, a canzone to Dante, consoling him for her loss? The following stanza from Rossetti's matchless version is proof enough for all who ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... admiration, not ten yards distant. I took his measure at a glance,—a large male, with dark legs, and massive tail tipped with white,—a most magnificent creature; but so astonished and fascinated was I by this sudden appearance and matchless beauty, that not till I had caught the last glimpse of him, as he disappeared over a knoll, did I awake to my duty as a sportsman, and realize what an opportunity to distinguish myself I had unconsciously let slip. I clutched ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... gallant son of Pandu, whom the happy Pritha bore, Mark! the heir of INDRA'S valour, matchless in his arms ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... lived in Stratford during the last years of his life as a highly esteemed and worthy man, and that he died in 1616 and was buried in Trinity Church. These are the facts in the records of Shakspere's life. They, however, are not the important facts. The main fact in his life is his work, the matchless collection of literary masterpieces that bear the imprint of his genius. It is also well to keep in mind that our paucity of definite documentary records is not characteristic of Shakspere alone. We may know little of Shakspere, but we know less of Marlowe, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... no reference to the Auxiliary meeting, and when the biscuits and the maple syrup and two cups of matchless tea had nerved the elder up, his curiosity got the better of his prudence—for even elders are human and curiosity knows no gender—and he asked what they ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... making but a mere mockery of a stout fight, to compare to the royal game of bear-baiting, which hath been graced by your Highness's countenance, and that of your royal predecessors, in this your princely kingdom, famous for matchless mastiffs and bold bearwards over all Christendom? Greatly is it to be doubted that the race of both will decay, if men should throng to hear the lungs of an idle player belch forth nonsensical bombast, instead of bestowing their pence in encouraging the bravest image of war that ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... the matter? There sat his matchless hundred, still and straight as stone Egyptians, welcoming his every word; yet some influence not his was having effect and, strangest of all, was ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... said it; you shall choose something. Will you have those vases?" and she pointed to an almost matchless ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... steed! of matchless speede, A sword of metal keene—All else to noble minds is drosse, All else on earth is meane!" ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... Finguerlin handed Lisette over to me, although she had cost five thousand. For several months she gave me a great deal of trouble; it took four or five men to saddle her, and she could not be bridled without being blindfolded and having all four legs tied; but once on her back one found her a matchless ride. ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... the blacksmith down at the village to make a first-rate pressing-iron. Oh, Isak was ready to do anything, do all that she asked in every way; for he could see well enough that Inger had learned a heap of things now, and matchless clever she was grown. She spoke, too, in a different way, a little finer, using elegant words. She never shouted out to him now as she used to: "Come and get your food!" but would say instead: "Dinner's ready, if you ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... diamonds, and burnishing the motionless flood of water, till a new and mighty firmament is reflected in the wave; as if Nature, rising early from her couch, paused to gaze with admiration on her resplendent image reflected in the depths of her own matchless mirror. The profound stillness, too, broken only by the measured sweep of the oars, fills the soul with awe; whilst a tranquil but unbounded happiness steals over the heart of the traveller as he gazes out upon the distant horizon, broken here and there ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... son of Priam, a true knight; Not yet mature, yet matchless; firm of word; Speaking in deeds and deedless in his tongue; Not soon provok'd, nor being provok'd soon calm'd; His heart and hand both open and both free; For what he has he gives, what thinks he ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... this garden fair And from its beauty rapture drew, How many others breathed its air, And, glorying in its matchless view, Had plucked its roses ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... was, who would have thought it, a girl gifted with matchless artfulness, and perceiving that Pao-yue had requisitioned her services, she speedily began to devise extreme ways and means to inveigle him. When evening came, and dinner was over, Pao-yue's eyes were scorching hot and his ears burning from the effects of two cups of wine that he had taken. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the time, when all the northern land Was sinking under Christiern's ruthless hand; When patriotism from Sweden's hills sublime With tearful eyes o'erlook'd the subject clime, And saw where Stenon and a matchless few, To her bright race unalterably true, Regardless of the thunders launch'd by Rome, Self-titled arbitress of future doom, O'er a waste realm her shatter'd flag unfurl'd, Conspicuous to the whole applauding world. ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... contrast with the darkness outside, we seemed to be in a vast, many-pillared hall. The stream close by afforded water for our blessed teapot; venison frizzled with mild, appetizing sound upon the ends of pine sticks; matchless beans allowed themselves to become seductively crisp upon our tin plates. That supper seemed to me then the quintessence of gastronomy, and I am sure Cotter and I must have said some very good after-dinner things, ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... the tall grasses and the beautiful array of alpine plants delight the eye. These ferns and grasses give a rich green color to the varigated slopes where nature blends so many harmonious colors in matchless grandeur in this great ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... New Atlantis, Sir Thomas More saw the fair walls of Utopia rising in the future, Plato defined the boundaries of the ideal Republic, Augustine wrote of the glories of the Civitate Dei, and Tennyson with matchless music has ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... understood from the beginning to the end as examining, with intense anxiety, the effect of her own words on his mind and countenance; as watching for that relenting spirit, which she hopes to awaken either by reason or persuasion. She begins by an appeal to his mercy, in that matchless piece of eloquence, which, with an irresistible and solemn pathos, falls upon the heart like "gentle dew from heaven:"—but in vain; for that blessed dew drops not more fruitless and unfelt on the parched sand of the desert, than do these heavenly words upon the ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... porter, who, she said, would look after us like a father. With a matchless celerity he and Mr. Riley tore down the pile of luggage. The porter put them on a barrow and disappeared with them very swiftly ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... aught to please the sense, Nor sound of tuneful lyre, by Phoebus touch'd, Nor Muses' voice, who in alternate strains Responsive sang: but when the sun had set, Each to his home departed, where for each The crippled Vulcan, matchless architect, With wondrous skill a ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... the field with scarcely fifty men; that the master of the horse, an authority equal to that of consul, had been routed and put to flight; that the dictator, because he had never engaged in a pitched battle, was esteemed a matchless general; that the Bruttii, the Apulians, part of the Samnites and of the Lucanians had revolted to the Carthaginians. That Capua, which was the capital not only of Campania, but after the ruin of the Roman power by the battle of Cannae, of Italy also, had delivered itself over to ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... of vision passes before my mind's eye. I see your peasant labourer delve and plough, sow and reap, sweat beneath the summer's sun, or grow prematurely old before the winter's blast. I see your noble mechanic, with his manly countenance and his matchless skill, toiling at his bench or his forge. I see one of the workers in our factories in the north, a woman—a girl it may be—gentle and good, as many of them are, as your sisters and daughters are—I see her intent upon ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... of alliteration, as may be noted especially in the matchless lyrics interspersed throughout "The Princess." A single ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... the present situation represents a sad economic waste—of the energies of a fine race destined to rust away, and of the lives of tens of thousands of valuable beasts brought into existence only to die of old age. If these matchless herders and cattle breeders could be brought into relation with the world's markets everybody would be ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, and Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine. Lincoln was already a marked man in his party, especially in the West, his brilliant joint debate with Judge Douglas during some months in 1858 having brought out his matchless good sense and good nature, his rare knowledge of our history and law, and his high quality as thinker and speaker. Born in Kentucky in 1809, removing to Indiana in 1816, to Illinois in 1830, reared in extreme poverty ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... fine corridor which runs round two sides of the quadrangle of the Castle, and forms a matchless in-door promenade, is Theed's beautiful group of the Queen and the Prince, conceived and worked out after his death, with the solemn parting of two hearts tenderly attached as the motive of the whole. The figures are not only ideally graceful while the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... time the matchless image of my stage-coach companion was lost in the loving embraces and tender greetings of my family. I felt it truly refreshing, after six years of exile from my own kith and kin, to be caressed and made much of; to be told by three deliciously beautiful, exquisitely graceful ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... master as he rode away to the war on one of the thoroughbreds, a matchless rider on a matchless horse. How could he now allow their grandson and son, in this rusty suit, with this rusty colt at which the stable-boys jeered, to match himself against the finest men and horses in the country? He must keep him from ...
— Bred In The Bone - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... when, in a mood of lyrical and rapt ecstasy, she began her opening song, "In Lichter Waffen Scheine," her face was upon the instant forgotten. She became a Voice—pure, miraculous, all-compelling; and the listeners seemed to hold breath while the matchless melody wove ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... November night, when the tingle of the air, and the beauty of the moonlight, should have aroused any healthy being to a sense of life's joy in the matchless late autumn of New York, Larcher met his friend on Broadway. Davenport was apparently as much absorbed in his inner contemplations, or as nearly void of any contemplation whatever, as a man could be under the most stupefying influences. He politely ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... great principle; and it is the principle that, if we look, we shall find embedded in the very heart of James Chalmers' text. No law of life is more vital. Let us return to that evangelistic meeting held on that drenching night at Inverary, and let us catch once more those matchless cadences that won the heart of Chalmers! 'The Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... he said faintly, and in Moore's clear, sweet voice the music of that matchless story fell ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... many scores of specimens which were actually priceless, inasmuch as any rumour of a public sale would have excited amateurs to the verge of lunacy, and almost any psychopathic might have established a new record for madness at an auction of this matchless collection. ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... memory of this poor, timid creature for saving that dear remembrance of "Matchless Mitchel." How many, like him, have thought they were preaching a new gospel, when they were only reaffirming the principles which underlie the Magna Charta of humanity, and are common to the noblest utterances of all the nobler creeds! But spoken by those solemn lips to those stern, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... alone, O God, I fear, In Thee do I confide; Thy presence is to me more dear Than all things else beside. Thy virtue, power, life, and light, Which in my heart do shine, Above all things are my delight: O make them always mine! Thy matchless love constrains my life, Thy life constrains my love, To be to Thee as chaste a wife As is the turtle-dove To her elect, espoused mate, Whom she will not forsake, Nor can be brought to violate The bond she once did make; Just so my soul doth cleave to Thee, As to her only head, ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... freed her from the unchristian yoke, With him his gentle daughter came; Nor there, since Menelaus' dame Forsook her lord and land, to prove What woes await on lawless love, Had fairer form adorned the shore Than she, the matchless stranger, bore.[op] ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... her wondrous hair And eyes that are stormy with fitful light, The delicate hues of brow and cheek Are unmarred all, rose-clear and bright; That matchless frame yet holds at bay The crouching bloodhounds, ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... there?" Dare any man say that the judges of our high Courts are not upright, intelligent and learned? Who then can justly complain? Yet the stripling of yesterday—the bold projector—the unprincipled ad ambitious, with a host of deceived followers, with matchless effrontery, arraign the conduct of these magistrates and loudly demand that they be driven from their ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
... materials are springing up among you every month, spiritual and physical, for a state such as "eye hath not seen nor ear heard?"—railroads, electric telegraphs, associate-lodging-houses, club-houses, sanitary reforms, experimental schools, chemical agriculture, a matchless school of inductive science, an equally matchless school of naturalist painters,—and all this in the very workshop of the world! Look, again, at the healthy craving after religious art and ceremonial,— the strong desire to preserve that which ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... surprise, And wake to ecstasy each slumbering thing? Shall life and thought flash new in wondering eyes, As when the seer transcendent, sweet, and wise, World-wide his native melodies did sing, Flushed with fair hopes and ancient memories? Ah, no! That matchless lyre shall silent lie: None hath the vanished minstrel's wondrous skill To touch that instrument with art and will. With him, winged poesy doth droop and die; While our dull age, left voiceless, must lament The bard high heaven had ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... brochure? how does that help us to represent our own life, our manners, our customs, our ideas, our English types, our English world? Such a field for comedy, for tragedy, for portraiture, for satire, as they all make-such subjects as they would yield! Think of London alone—what a matchless hunting-ground for the satirist—the most magnificent that ever was. If the occasion always produced the man London would have produced an Aristophanes. But ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... important gatherings and peaceful rendezvous of persons of social standing, even after the first two Acts of Secularization had been passed in after years. But these noble entertainment's, wealth of luscious fruits, golden sheaves, luxuriant pastures and fleecy lambs, were as the least gifts of these matchless institutions, for we can never exaggerate the marvels wrought for the betterment of the heathen natives, or the fairer fruits of the countless heroic virtues practiced within these enclosures. The Indians clung to the Fathers like little children to their parents, and ...
— Chimes of Mission Bells • Maria Antonia Field
... Beatrice herself she seemed changeless, moved by no passion and swayed by no impulse. Was she altogether passionless, or was this her matchless self-control? Brandon thought that it was her nature, and that she, like her master Langhetti, found in music that which satisfied all passion and ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... rabble? Are there not psychological truths of immensely greater importance? What sane man imagines for a moment that the pleasure he derives from seeing that greatest of all tragedians, Edwin Booth, in one of Shakespeare's matchless tragedies, is dependent upon his believing that this or that character is actually killed? Why, even the day of the cranberry-juice dagger is long since passed. When Miss Davenport shrieks in 'Fedora,' the shriek is literal—'real,' you would call ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... more than most boys of his day knew. So that in time he came to see in the storms and calms, more than simply bad times and good; and in the clear blue sky and starry dome, in the magical unfoldings of the dawn and the matchless pageants of the sunset, more than ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... floors are rotten, shaky and unsafe. The rafters are worm-eaten. The windows are broken. The damp wall-papers are running to a sickly green. Of roof there is almost none. For the lover of beauty or the landscape painter these ruins have little charm. But to us these tottering walls are of matchless interest, for within these walls Count Zinzendorf, the Renewer of the Brethren's Church, spent the years ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... aid of his disciple's highest faculties than did Brownson. Habituated his whole life long to the ardent study of the greatest topics of the human understanding, he was able to teach all, as he had taught young Hecker, how to think, discern, judge, penetrate, decide about them with matchless power; and he clothes his conclusions in language as adequate to express them as human language well can be. Clearness, precision, force, purity, vividness, loftiness are terms applicable to Dr. Brownson's literary style. ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... his breath. One brilliant picture was dawning on his mind—himself mounted on great black Diablo and swinging over the hills at a matchless gallop. ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... aside like an old almanack;— But for the present 's only out of date, 'Twill have at length a far more active state. Yea, though with dust thy body soiled be, Yet at the resurrection we shall see A fair EDITION, and of matchless worth, Free from ERRATAS, new in Heaven set forth; 'Tis but a word from God, the Great Creator, It shall be done, when ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... his countenance, and who durst defy the Omnipotent in arms. His ambition was the greatest, and his punishment was the greatest; but not so his despair, for his fortitude was as great as his sufferings. His strength of mind was matchless as his strength of body; the vastness of his designs did not surpass the firm, inflexible determination with which he submitted to his irreversible doom, and final loss of all good. His power of action and of suffering was equal. He was the greatest power that was ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... impelled by one will. More, many more birds of the marsh attract and draw one, but inland is the mocking-bird, and after a walk along the shore, always my feet turned to the groves and the fields where the matchless bird ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... nothing which I ought to assert for our sex when I say that the collective womanhood of a people like our own seizes with matchless facility and certainty on the moral and personal peculiarities and character of marked and conspicuous men, and that we may very wisely address ourselves to such a body to learn if a competitor for the highest honors has revealed that ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... princesses weave the web, spin, and do all the drudgery of a modern washerwoman; and rarely allows them any share of social intercourse with the other sex. Yet the very foundations on which he has constructed his two matchless poems are women. It appears also from all the dramatic writers of ancient Greece, whose aim was "to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature, to shew the very age and body of the time its form and pressure," that notwithstanding their ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... heard of this famous Cathedral, my expectations were raised to the highest point; but it surpassed all the idea that I had formed of it. On entering the building, we lost all thought of the external appearance by the matchless beauty of the interior. The echo produced by the tread of our feet upon the floor as we entered, resounding through the aisles, seemed to say "Put off your shoes, for the place whereon you tread is holy ground." We stood with hat in ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... know why the introduction was made, and stir our curiosity to hear what the character will say. Then these introductions are themselves so wonderfully vivid, are given with such brilliancy of outline, that they are little works of art in themselves, like the matchless pen ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... to present his compliments to Miss Minford, and to assure her, from the depths of his heart, that his feelings toward her are only those of the purest admiration for the matchless charms of her mind and person. He takes this method of explaining himself, because he has observed with great sorrow that Miss Minford has shown a desire to avoid him on several recent occasions, when they have accidentally ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Her manner, by the matchless social stoicism of her sex, was entirely suited to a drawing-room, but Evan's reply fell somewhat far short of such a standard, as he only said: "What the devil in hell does all this ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... not read. I pity most profoundly those on whom the light of knowledge has never shone kindly; and yet I have a comic sort of misgiving lest in a short time a common cry may be, "Ah, if I was only not a scholar!" The matchless topsy-turvydom which has marked the passage of the last ten years, the tremendously accelerated velocity with which labour is moving towards emancipation from all control, have so confused things in general that an observer must stand back ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... where he told her he would place her with an ancient Lady, with whom he had contracted a Friendship at his first coming to London; adding, that she was a Lady of incomparable Morals, and of a matchless Life and Conversation. Philadelphia took him in the best Sense, and was very desirous to be planted in the same House with her, hoping she might grow to as great a Perfection in such excellent Qualifications, as she imagined 'em. About ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... her defence of Captain Bouchette, convinced him that he was in the presence of one who, when occasion required, would be likely to play the part of a heroine. And what added to his silent enthusiasm was her matchless beauty as she sat opposite him, her shapely bust rising grandly above the little table and curving gracefully to its task, while the head, poised just a trifle to one side, revealed a fair white face upon which the light ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... just received from Stowe, were destined to convert a common into pleasure-grounds, under the direction of his accomplished taste, which "made the wilderness smile," and transformed a remote country nook into a scene of singular and matchless beauty. ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... of heaven. Her features are like sculptured marble and her mouth is a trembling, curving Cupid's bow. (PETER, ASIDE: "What kind of a thing is that?") Her creamy skin is as fair and flawless as the petals of a white lily. Her voice is like the ripple of a woodland brook and her slender form is matchless in its symmetry. (DAN: "That's Valeria's way of putting it, but Uncle Roger says she don't show her feed much." FELICITY: "Dan! if Uncle Roger is vulgar you needn't be!") Her hands are like a poet's dreams. She dresses so nicely and looks so stylish in her clothes. Her favourite ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Here are the matchless tales of All-Father Odin, who crosses the Rainbow Bridge to walk among men in Midgard and sacrifices his right eye to drink from the Well of Wisdom; of Thor, whose mighty hammer defends Asgard; of Loki, whose mischievous ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... the stones on its way to the near-by Catawba; and its peaceful brawling, and the evensong of a pair of clear-throated warblers poised on the topmost twigs of one of the trees, should have been sweet music in the ears of a returned exile. But on that matchless bride's-month evening of dainty sunset arabesques and brook and bird songs, I was in little humor ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... us—that matchless optimist, Sandy Sawtelle—sounds a flat note in the symphony of disillusion. His humanness rebounds more quickly than ours, who will not fawn upon life for twenty minutes yet. Sandy comes back to the table from the hook whence he had lifted ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... breath had been very fitful, and a momentary irradiation of flesh was all that it had disclosed of her face. That consisted of two matchless lips and a cheek only, her head being still enveloped. She threw away the stick, took the glass in her hand, the telescope under ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... small effect. The old man at the last moment evidently relented so far in his matchless severity as to leave Marcia Amherst ten thousand pounds (and a sealed envelope, which Mr. Buscarlet hands her), on the condition that she lives out of England; and to Philip Shadwell ten thousand pounds more,—and another sealed envelope,—which the attorney also ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... the drudgery of the blockading service, not only with zeal, but with the heartiest good humour, springing out of an anxious desire to manifest at once his respect and his affectionate devotion to the matchless officer who had so judiciously taught him the ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... lying there, in their order, just as they fell, and some money and care might set them all up again in their places; yet there is not in Greece the patriotism or even the common sense to enrich the country by this restoration, matchless in its certainty as well as in ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... those who are familiar with the general habits of genius will appear the poet's matchless industry and perseverance in his pursuits, the worthiness and dignity of those pursuits, his generous submission to tasks of transitory interest. But as Southey possesses, and is not possessed by, his genius, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... valet and the footman put an end to this idle talk. The will was executed, and locked up. Our conversation turned on Rothsay's travels by sea. The cruise had been in every way successful. The matchless shores of the Mediterranean defied description; the sailing of the famous yacht had proved to be worthy of her reputation; and, to crown all, Rothsay had come back to England, in a fair way, for the first time in ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... sees them in the drawings of Constantin Guys, carrying on its box an enormous coachman, furred like a cossack, and by his side a diminutive groom, like Toby, "the late Beaudenord's tiger," I saw—or rather I felt its outlines engraved upon my heart by a clean and killing stab—a matchless victoria, built rather high, and hinting, through the extreme modernity of its appointments, at the forms of an earlier day, deep down in which lay negligently back Mme. Swann, her hair, now quite pale with one ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... of the loving little child-wife, Dora, is more attractive than the too unfailing wisdom and self-sacrificing goodness of the angel-wife, Agnes. The scenes of the courtship and housekeeping are matchless; and the glimpses of Doctors' Commons, opening those views, by Mr. Spenlow, of man's vanity of expectation and inconsistency of conduct in neglecting the sacred duty of making a will, on which he largely moralizes the day before he dies intestate, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... was one of matchless beauty. The clouds that swung low in the early morning had floated higher and higher till they hung now in shining billows above the highest balsam-crowned peaks in ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... had been found by Pierrot Desbarats, who, laughing to scorn the superstitious fears of his fellow-villagers, had brought it home in triumph. It was his purpose to go, at some convenient season, to Halifax, and there sell the matchless crystal, of whose value the priest had been able to give him some idea. But that very spring ill luck had crossed the threshold of Pierrot's cabin, a threshold over which he was even then preparing to lead Marie Beaugrand as his bride. Two of his oxen died ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... saw him at last. He came suddenly upon me as I was crossing a field in returning from a visit to Nancy Brown, which I had taken the opportunity of paying while Matilda Murray was riding her matchless mare. He must have heard of the heavy loss I had sustained: he expressed no sympathy, offered no condolence: but almost the first words he uttered were,—'How is your mother?' And this was no matter-of-course question, for I never told him that I had a mother: he ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... in the coach who interceded with prayers for his life, the Biscayan might have been beheaded right then and there. Don Quixote finally agreed to spare his opponent's life on one condition: that he present himself before the matchless Lady Dulcinea in the village of El Toboso, and it would be for her to determine his punishment. The ladies having promised that their protector should do anything and everything that might be asked of him, ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... because the Colored people themselves had been the most vexatious problem in North America, from the time of its discovery down to the present day; because that in every attempt upon the life of the nation, whether by foes from without or within, the Colored people had always displayed a matchless patriotism and an incomparable heroism in the cause of Americans; and because such a history would give the world more correct ideas of the Colored people, and incite the latter to greater effort in the struggle of citizenship and manhood. The single reason that there was ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... choice and of immortal seed! Nor deem that acts heroic wait on chance 340 Or easy were as in a boy's romance; The man's whole life preludes the single deed That shall decide if his inheritance Be with the sifted few of matchless breed, Our race's sap and sustenance, Or with the unmotived herd that only sleep and feed. Choice seems a thing indifferent: thus or so, What matters it? The Fates with mocking face Look on inexorable, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... they have preserved throughout the winter. The red cardinal chatters among the cane; the blue jay screams in the pawpaw thicket, perhaps disturbed by the gliding of some slippery snake; while the mock-bird, regardless of such danger, from the top of the tall tulip-tree, pours forth his matchless melody in sweet ever-varying strain. The tiny bark of the squirrel, and the soft cooing of the Carolinian dove, may be heard among other sounds—the latter suggestive of earth's noblest passion, as its utterer is the emblem of devotion itself. At night other sounds are heard, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... speaker of great pathetic eloquence, and has written several valuable pamphlets. In 1844, Mr. Garnett appeared before the Judiciary Committee of the Legislature at the capital, in behalf of the rights of the colored citizens of the State, and in a speech of matchless eloquence, he held them for ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... magnificent, but it will do very well for the temporary sojourn of a young man of letters who has much greater things in confident expectation, who is a good deal talked of, who can gather clever and worthy people at his table, and whose matchless wife would attract men of taste to a very ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... groaned Kate. "Once let a boy begin to dote on a colt, particularly if he calls it his colt, and he can soon see beauty, size, speed, everything else in it, in matchless perfection. It's a kind of disease, a horse-disease that gets into his eye. Tom's got it badly. Please excuse ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... to the strong grounds of Morristown he led his small but gallant band; and through an eventful winter, by the high efforts of his genius, whose matchless force was measurable only by the growth of difficulties, he held in check 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 ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing |
