"Perfection" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... most entertaining Fables ever written in any language, and made them a model of literary perfection; yet our translators and compilers have somehow neglected him. His Fables are lyric poetry of a high order, and this alone has doubtless been a barrier to a better acquaintance with his work when transferred to our own tongue. Done into prose, ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... all resolves itself into this,' he would say; 'must I part with Stubbs, or keep him? Stubbs is the soul of punctuality, honesty, and efficiency,—a thorough business hand, and as humane as the general run. We can't have perfection; and if I keep him, I must sustain his administration as a whole, even if there are, now and then, things that are exceptionable. All government includes some necessary hardness. General rules will bear hard on particular cases.' This last maxim my father seemed to consider a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... advent with satisfaction. It gave a voyage that had been full of interest for him just the spice that it required to achieve perfection as an experience. His lordship was one of your gallants to whom existence that is not graced by womankind is more or less of a stagnation. Miss Arabella Bishop—this straight up and down slip of a girl with her rather boyish voice and her almost boyish ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... heads in a meek humiliation, and shiver in a strange unhealthy way at the slightest breeze, just as you may see Asiatics doing in our "land of mist and snow." But the natives regard those unhappy exotics with a fanatical pride, pointing them out to all comers as living witnesses to the perfection of the climate; they would gladly stone any irreverent stranger who should suggest a comparison between their sacred shrubs and the giants of Indian seas. The only inhabitant of the place who ever attained any eminence any where (he really was a good tailor), bequeathed a certain ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... obligations to Watt and Stephenson and many other heroes of industry who have aided in bringing the railroad to its present state of perfection. Their genius is the product of our civilization, and their legacies should be shared by all the people to the greatest extent possible. An earnest desire to aid in attaining this end has prompted this contribution to ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... contagion. He never, however, undertook to prepare and train himself for public speaking, as was done by Mr. Choate or Mr. Everett, or had the constant and varied practice under which the fine powers of Wendell Phillips came to such perfection. But his fame as an orator constantly increased, so that before his death no other man in Massachusetts was so much in demand, especially on those occasions where the veterans of the war were gathered to commemorate its ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... commandment to contradict them, and agree with the gospel, and to be so far from disagreeing with it, that it hath a great affinity with it as the mean to the end as that which is unperfect, without its own complement and perfection. Faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, quieting a man's conscience, is the very intent of the law, and the command was never given since Adam, to justify men by obedience to it, but to pursue men after Christ. And to satisfy you more fully, and ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... and within all the separate national literatures lay the common Christian-Latin literature of the early Middle Ages, undoubtedly the cause of the rather startling perfection of form shown by much of the work of ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... as well as the most approved method of bringing out to the fullest extent their natural tones or tints; he should also be able to improve the inferior kinds of wood, and to stain, bleach, or match any of the fancy materials to which his art is applied, in a manner that will produce the greatest perfection. The following information is given to facilitate a thorough knowledge ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead
... atmospheric moisture may have, and may yet preserve them for an indefinite period, and their history read aright, may testify not the present condition of the Australian School of Design, but the perfection which ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... fresh pleasures in every little care that he required. Happiness glowed upon her face as she obeyed the needs of the little being. As Etienne had come into the world prematurely, no clothes were ready for him, and those that were needed she made herself,—with what perfection, you know, ye mothers, who have worked in silence for a treasured child. The days had never hours long enough for these manifold occupations and the minute precautions of the nursing mother; those days fled by, laden with ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... ability to breathe so naturally, so unobtrusively, that neither breath nor lack of breath is ever suggested to the listener—this is the very perfection ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... whole multitude can not withhold their tears from joining in sympathy with Him. He is moderate, temperate, and wise; in short, whatever the phenomenon may turn out in the end, He seems at present to be a man of excellent beauty and Divine perfection, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... claim to have reached perfection. I only trust the book, such as it presents itself, will be of real help ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... although now, alas! all is turned about, and we are driven by many long and burdensome laws and works to become pious; and nothing comes of it. But Christ's burden is light [Matt. 11:30] and soon produces an abundant piety, which consists in faith and trust, and fulfils what Isaiah says: "A little perfection shall bring a flood full of all piety." [Isa. 10:32 (Vulgate)] That burden is faith, which is a little thing, to which belong neither laws nor works, nay it cuts off all laws and works and fulfils ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... burners for the consumption of acetylene for use in lighting by the incandescent system and in heating have been so much improved that they seem to be within measurable reach of a state of perfection, there appears to be but little use at the present time for a modified or diluted acetylene which formerly seemed likely to be valuable for heating and certain other purposes. Nevertheless, the facts relating to this so-called carburetted acetylene are in no way ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... need hardly say that errors in these matters of mutual comprehension have their palpable practical consequences. All social cohesion and co-operation rest on this comprehension, and are limited by its degree of perfection. Nay, more, all common knowledge itself, in so far as it depends on a mutual communication of impressions, ideas, and beliefs, is limited by the fact of this great liability to error in what at first seems to be one of the most certain kinds ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... son, more or less," interrupted the holy bonze. "You were wrong to expect perfection, and must abide by your bargain now. It is no use getting angry, all wives ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... the inferences we may draw from Herbert Spencer's assertion that people whose ancestors have worked with their hands possess heavy hands. Conversely, people whose ancestors have not worked hard with their hands possess small and fine hands. Hence the small delicate hands of Jews, the frequent perfection of form and invariable smallness of the hands of Gypsies, who have inherited their hands from high-cast Hindoos, and the so-called racial hands of real aristocrats. That hard work, even tumbling, piano ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... of the Emperor, a very young and very pretty woman, remarkable for the vivacity of her mind; the Countess de La Rochejaquelein, nee Duras, a very pious and very charitable woman, whose husband was a major-general. In fact, the circle around the Duchess of Berry was perfection. The greatest ladies of France were by her side, and the society of the Petit Chateau, as the Pavilion de Marsan was called, was certainly fitted to give the tone to the principal salons ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... an error to call these iambic odes "irregular," although they do not follow the classic rules with strophe, antistrophe, and epode. The enchanting "I have led her home," in "Maud," is an example of this kind of lyric at its highest point of perfection. ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... about this time I conceiv'd the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish'd to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... mentioned, the sisters had parts in the school play The Carnation Countess, the following winter. Tess was Swiftwing, the Hummingbird, and Dot, a busy, busy bee, a part that the smallest Corner House girl acted to perfection. Agnes, who had a bent for theatricals, was immensely successful as Innocent Delight, and Ruth, of course, did her part well. In "The Corner House Girls in a Play," the fourth volume, these adventures and ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... a little girl holding a basket of strawberries. One of his friends, who was at the time a great admirer of his genius, wishing to show the perfection of the picture, said to some people who were looking at it, 'These strawberries are so very natural and perfect, that I have seen birds coming down from the trees to peck them, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... glow as if the sky were opened. It must be owned, however, that the statuary, often time-worn and darkened from its original brilliancy by weather-stains, does not suit well as furniture for such splendid rooms. When we see a perfection of modern finish around them, we recognize that most of these statues have been thrown down from their pedestals, hundreds of years ago, and have been battered and externally degraded; and though whatever ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... attained by it; that this state of struggle was ordained for the sake of the advantages which it is actually seen to produce. The suffering which the conflict involves may indicate that God has made even animals for some higher end than happiness—that he cares for animal perfection as well as for animal enjoyment; but it affords no reason for denying that the ends which the conflict actually serves ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... freedom. In one of the later poems Gwion the Little transforms himself into a hare, a fish, a bird, a grain of wheat; but he is only the symbol of the strange shapes in which the Celtic fancy embodies itself in the romantic tales which reached their highest perfection in the legends ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... through an opening in the woods, a shaft of light, which centred on a hickory tree that stood alone in the meadow, and was then in the perfection of its golden autumn glory. It dripped with moisture, blazed and shimmered. The high lights were diamond tipped, and between them and the deepest shadow was every tint of orange and yellow, mingled and blended in those inimitable lines of natural foliage. Over it, through it, and around it, rolled ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... generations. From the tips of his fingers to the tips of his toes, in whose use he is surprisingly proficient, he is the artist all over. Admirable, however, as is his manual dexterity, his mental altitude is still more to be admired; for it is artistic to perfection. His perception of beauty is as keen as his comprehension of the cosmos is crude; for while with science he has not even a speaking acquaintance, with art he is on terms ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... colors, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein that runs through the body of it. Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a noble mind, draws out every latent virtue and perfection, which, without such helps, are never able to ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... method applied to philology, as we have seen it applied to other sciences, in the statement by Luther's great opponent, Cajetan, that the three languages of the inscription on the cross of Calvary "were the representatives of all languages, because the number three denotes perfection." ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... inventions are more observed and held in greater marvel, by reason of the delight that the novelty of the thing brings with it, than all the improvements made afterwards by any man whatsoever when works are brought to the height of perfection, for the reason that if a beginning were never given to anything, there would be no advance and improvement in the middle stages, and the end would not become excellent and of a marvellous beauty. Duccio, then, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... out was a parsley leaf; hence he is spoken of in the neighbourhood of Blackburn to this day as "Parsley Peel." The process of calico printing by what is called the mule machine—that is, by means of a wooden cylinder in relief, with an engraved copper cylinder—was afterwards brought to perfection by one of his sons, the head of the firm of Messrs. Peel and Co., of Church. Stimulated by his success, Robert Peel shortly gave up farming, and removing to Brookside, a village about two miles from Blackburn, he devoted himself exclusively to the printing ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... levies more regard was had to the strength and activity of the recruits than to their means or their morals. But the serviceableness of an army, like that of any other machine, depends above all on the ease and quickness of its movements; the soldiers of Caesar attained a perfection rarely reached and probably never surpassed in their readiness for immediate departure at any time, and in the rapidity of their marching. Courage, of course, was valued above everything; Caesar practised with unrivalled mastery the art of stimulating martial ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... countenance. During the second part of his life it was possible to paint or to chisel his broadened forehead, his admirably defined eyebrows, his straight nose, his close-pressed lips, his chin modelled with rare perfection, his whole face, in short, like a coin of Augustus. But that which neither his bust nor his portrait could render, which was utterly beyond the domain of imitation, was the mobility of his look; that look which is to man what the lightning is to ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... came from you, and was there not some joy in her face when you appeared that could not have put itself into words?" cried Allin Wharton eagerly, for he always resented the least suspicion of a non-perfection in Primrose. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... is certainly too rich for ordinary household use. Cosmas passes by this point in silence, which is a pity; it is just those intimate little touches that foster pleasant social relations and justify the chronicler's attitude of omniscience; our illustrated Press has reached perfection in that line. Mnata and Strzezislava flit across the stage and pass into oblivion without the benefit of gramophone and cinema. Then emerges one Bo[vr]ivoj, first of that name, who stands out more distinctly against the background of misty legend, probably by reason of his having ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... produced. Moore in 1735 enumerates correctly the chief points of excellence, but does not give any description of the several sub-breeds; and from this fact Mr. Eaton infers (6/41. 'Treatise on Pigeons' 1852 page 64.) that the Short-faced Tumbler had not then come to full perfection. Moore even speaks of the Jacobin as being the smallest pigeon. Thirty years afterwards, in 1765, in the Treatise dedicated to Mayor, short-faced Almond Tumblers are fully described, but the author, an excellent ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... glory which we have a right to claim. The reputation of our expedition depends wholly upon the success of our geographical work, and the more nearly our operations and those of the English approach perfection, and the more nearly our charts resemble each other, the more likelihood there is of our being accused of plagiarism, or at all events of giving rise to the thought that the English charts were necessary to aid us in constructing ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... Mary isn't perfection? Don't be too hard on the other girl. I'd be quite as useless if I ever had to work. I'd do just the same—have as many headaches as the firm would stand for, and marry the ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... County men might turn up? Who could be bothered with dactyls and spondees when goal-posts and touch-lines were far more to the point? And who could be expected to fix his mind on hexameters and elegiacs when the height of human perfection lay in a straight drop-kick or a fast double past the enemy's half-backs? However, the Doctor had made up his mind Latin verses should get their share of attention that morning, and the two head forms were compelled to ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... in his Life of Sir Henry Wotton, states that Thomas Wotton 'was a gentleman excellently educated, and studious in all the liberal arts, in the knowledge whereof he attained unto great perfection; who though he had—besides those abilities, a very noble and plentiful estate, and the ancient interest of his predecessors—many invitations from Queen Elizabeth to change his country recreations and retirement for a court ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... With the feeling of horror at the swift death of so many caused by so few, there was mingled a feeling of amazement at the scientific perfection of the submarine, its power, and its deadly work. Men said it was the end of dreadnoughts, battleships, and cruisers, but the history of the war has shown singularly few of these destroyed by submarines since the first novelty of the attack wore off. The world at the moment seemed ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... by Stilo was rapidly extended. Grammar became a favourite study with the Romans, as indeed it was one for which they were eminently fitted. The perfection to which they carried the analysis of sentences and the practical rules for correct speech as well as the systematization of the accidence, has made their grammars a model for all modern school-works. It is only recently ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... acknowledgment of the fact that human beings at various times, for their own ends, do indeed wear various masks; and let us not keep up the fight forevermore;—but here and now let us grant to Bismarck final absolution, not claiming for him the perfection ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... esteems that face of thine, To which Love's eyes pay tributary gazes; Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips and crystal eyne, Whose full perfection all the world amazes; But having thee at vantage,—wondrous dread! Would root these beauties as he ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... this gap is not one of stratification, or, perhaps, of time, but is shown by a strong distinctness in the character of the worked stones forming the weapons and implements of each people in respect to both material and degree of perfection. Considering further the probability (from known evidence) that the Innuit (Eskimos) once occupied all the interior of the continent, together with the ascertained fact that on the Atlantic coast this people quite recently extended as far south as Cape ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... complaisant—but with all this we are perhaps not very "tasteful." Let us finally confess it, that what is most difficult for us men of the "historical sense" to grasp, feel, taste, and love, what finds us fundamentally prejudiced and almost hostile, is precisely the perfection and ultimate maturity in every culture and art, the essentially noble in works and men, their moment of smooth sea and halcyon self-sufficiency, the goldenness and coldness which all things show that have perfected themselves. Perhaps our great virtue of the historical ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the lower limbs. To make this deformity all the more striking and all the more terrible, the victim of it was—as to his face and his body—an unusually handsome and an unusually well-made man. His long silky hair, of a bright and beautiful chestnut color, fell over shoulders that were the perfection of strength and grace. His face was bright with vivacity and intelligence. His large clear blue eyes and his long delicate white hands were like the eyes and hands of a beautiful woman. He would have looked effeminate but ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... it turned to a draught bitter to her and to others. There were more joys in this life than the fierce love for man: the joy over a child, which had been given to her and taken away; the joy of triumph, the joy—but why should she remember the others? Her joy had its own perfection. For all the tears and waste of living, this one passion had been given—a joy that warmed her body in the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... pounded and drank either with water or milk, or with both. Chocolate (of which I shall speak by and bye) is a compound drink, and is manufactured chiefly from the kernels of this plant, whose natural habitat would seem to be Guayaquil, in South America, though it flourishes in great perfection in the West Indies. It grows also spontaneously and luxuriantly on the banks of the Magdalena, in South America; but the fruit of those trees that are found in the district of Carthagena is preferred to all others, probably from ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... of the uncomplaining material pioneers are wrought of, the ones who so lived, loved, and labored that the hard-earned sweets of civilization grew to highest perfection about their graves, and proved the most enduring monument to their memory. She never murmured other than to ask occasionally: "Father, how much farther? Isn't it a ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... were left to ourselves, but as to submitting to Lucy's arrogance and sneers, I will not! Ernest requires me to apologize to his father and sister, and I told him I would not! I would die first! He does not love me or he would shield me from such trials. He thinks his sister is perfection, and I tell you I do absolutely detest her. Now, Beulah, there is no one else to whom I would mention my unhappiness. Mother does not suspect it, and never shall, even when she visits me. Uncle Guy predicted it, and I would not have ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... customary division of languages is into Monosyllabic, Agglutinative, Incorporating, and Inflectional, and this division will suit our purpose, though it must be used with care. It is held in the ordinary theory that these classes must represent successive stages of linguistic perfection, each in turn being higher in the scale than the other, they having grown one from the other as the race advanced. By the theory the monosyllabic is lower than the agglutinative, and inherently less useful. But the theory does not work out in practical application to the ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates
... characterized by supreme and absolute indifference (upekkha) which was slowly growing in all the various stages of the jhanas. The characteristics of this jhana are therefore upekkha and ekaggata. With the mastery of this jhana comes final perfection and total extinction of the citta called cetovimutti, and the sage becomes thereby an arhat [Footnote ref 2]. There is no further production of the khandhas, no rebirth, and there is the absolute cessation of all ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... Will I cause without a light To look nor ill nor well too plainly. 50 To another loveliest, As star in heaven Shall this destiny be given That of noblest men and best None against her love protest. 55 And the better to display The perfection of my spell I'll cause you all to marry well, That is, I mean, as best you may; And I'll turn night into day 60 All by this good art of mine, If the sun should chance to shine, And, too, light as air shall be Every foolish fantasy. I will cause you all to sleep ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... be the fifty-first—the words never more sincerely accepted, even when chanted to all the perfection of choral music, in the Sistine Chapel or in St. Peter's, than when, in the ears of constant sufferers for their Christian faith, ribald voices contemptuously sang or drawled the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... long professional experience Easleby had learned to control his facial expression; Starmidge was gradually progressing towards perfection in that art. But each man was hard put to it to check an expression of astonishment. And Easleby showed some slight sign of perplexity ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... white ruff which set off her peaked face and made it look even more withered and yellow; her hair was short, and over a silk skull cap was drawn a black reboso, the ends of which were embroidered in colour with odd designs. Her whole person was the perfection of neatness, and she was welcome from Bolinas to San Rafael for the good she did, as her knowledge of herb and even ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison
... said, he never again achieved a similar intense fusion of thought, feeling, and imagination. Apart from the opening Scenes, which have no dramatic connection with it, the Gretchen tragedy constitutes an artistic whole which by its perfection of detail and overwhelming tragic effect must ever remain one of the marvels of creative genius. Not less astonishing as a manifestation of Goethe's youthful power is the creation in all their essential lineaments of the three figures, Faust, Mephistopheles, ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... the immense quantities of ordnance required. The officers and men and the young women of the Signal Corps have performed their duties with a large conception of the problem and with a devoted and patriotic spirit to which the perfection of our communications daily testify. While the Engineer Corps has been referred to in another part of this report, it should be further stated that the work has required large vision and high professional skill, ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... was surprising and they seemed to be partially receptive to human thoughts, as Bill Humbolt had written. By the end of the fifteenth year their training had reached such a stage of perfection that a mocker would transmit or not transmit with only the unspoken thought of its master to tell it which it should be. In addition, they would transmit the message to whichever mocker their master's thought directed. Presumably all mockers received the message but only the mocker to whom it was ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... this quotation contains no mere "counsels of perfection," but principles which are indispensable for the Minister of Jesus Christ who would be not only reputable, popular, and in the superficial sense of the word successful, but—what his dear Master would have him be for His work. ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... a little distance from the sandy levels or alluvial flats of the sea-shore, the sea-loving coco-nut will not bring its nuts to perfection. It will grow, indeed, but it will not thrive or fruit in due season. On the coast-line of Southern India, immense groves of coco-nuts fringe the shore for miles and miles together; and in some parts, as in Travancore, they form the chief agricultural staple of the whole country. 'The State ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... as the fishes love water, were true to him to the last. Heijiuro was buried on Mount Koya. Kakushin wandered through the country as a priest, praying for the entry of Sogoro and his children into the perfection of paradise; and, after visiting all the shrines and temples, came back at last to his own province of Shimosa, and took up his abode at the temple Riukakuji, in the village of Kano, and in the district of Imban, praying and making offerings on behalf of the souls of Sogoro, his ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... which produced the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey", needs no description here: but it is very important to observe the effect of these poems on the course of post-Homeric epic. As the supreme perfection and universality of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" cast into oblivion whatever pre-Homeric poets had essayed, so these same qualities exercised a paralysing influence over the successors of Homer. If they continued to sing like their great ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... fiendish glee as I posted this on the bulletin board and then started for breakfast. I thought some soldier would read it, tell it to the men of his company, and in that way the fun would commence. My scheme worked to perfection, because some of the men of G Company, (mine was D) had seen me stick it up and had come post haste to read. I started the ball rolling in my own company and in about a minute there were fifty men around me all jabbering like ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... believe for a time, and in a time of trial fall away; [8:14] and that which fell among thorns signifies those who hear, and going away are choked by cares and riches and the pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. [8:15]But that on the good ground signifies those who, with a noble and good heart, hearing the word retain it, and ...
— The New Testament • Various
... indications of his pagan cast of mind, for they finally compromised by apprenticing him to an ecclesiastical architect. In this calling the youth worked with sympathy and ability; the results of this training may be seen in the perfection of his plots and in his fondness for graphic description of churches and other picturesque buildings. One curious feature of this training may be seen in Hardy's sympathy and reverence for any church building. As Professor William Lyon Phelps ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... broached his system of infidel philosophy, and brought it unto perfection, it was taken up by the celebrated Dr. Adam Weishaupt, professor of canon law in the University of Ingolstadt, and by him perfected as a system of light or illuminism. On the 1st of May, 1776, he founded, among the students ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... the line with unerring order and precision, as though it were a long curling whiplash straightening itself out to the tension of a giant hand. And so with each of the other two lines. All were formed simultaneously. Here was not only perfection of military evolution, but the poetry of rhythmic movement. The three lines were all formed within twenty minutes, ready for the ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... chapters of my book. I have every confidence he will be able to do me as much justice, from a literary point of view, as you, sir, no doubt will from a legal. I feel certain he will succeed in catching the style of the other chapters to perfection." ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... banter the time passed away till they reached Montreal, Mrs. Clarkson playing the shy widow to perfection, and, as may naturally be supposed, not only raising herself in the estimation of her brother-in-law, but drawing him in a strange manner within the radius of her ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... Skelton's rhyme Why come ye nal to Court, an attack chiefly on the Cardinal. The splendid raciness of Hugh Latimer's sermons belongs to oratory rather than to letters. The exquisite prose of Cranmer found its perfection in the solemn music of the Prayer-book of Edward VI. The translations of the Bible made no great advance on Wiclif. In the realm of verse, John Skelton was a powerful satirist with a unique manipulation of ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... an extremely well-chosen locality. The streets are broad; and those houses which are placed nearest to the river, possess, perhaps, the most luxuriant gardens in the world. Every kind of fruit known in the finest climates is here produced in perfection. Grapes and figs are in profuse abundance; melons and peaches are no less plentiful, and bananas and plantains seem to rejoice in the climate as ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... order to begin digesting, and the new-born lungs need but the contact with air in order to begin to breathe. The capacity for performing these perpetually repeated visceral actions is transmitted in perfection. All the requisite nervous connections are fully established during the brief embryonic existence of each creature. In the case of lower animals it is almost as much so with the few simple actions which make up the creature's ...
— The Meaning of Infancy • John Fiske
... fire; and the indented trial pieces of gold and silver, of the dates specified in the indenture, being produced by the proper officer, a sufficient quantity is cut from either of them for the purpose of comparing with it the pound weight of gold or silver by the usual methods of assay. The perfection or imperfection of these are certified by the jury, who deliver their verdict in writing to the Lord Chancellor, to be deposited amongst the papers of the Privy Council. If found accurate, the Mint Master receives his certificate, or, as it is called, quietus" ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... the disconsolate widow. She certainly looked the part to perfection; and it never occurred to any of them that a cat, with kittens, could not possibly have ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... Guiana. But the day we sailed for Halifax, Alfonso and his Georgiana came down to see us on the stelling. "Georgiana" was as black as a coal, but Alfonso had not boasted without reason of the cut of her clothes. She had an upright pretty figure, and her dress fitted it to perfection. It was a white dress, and she had a very gorgeous parasol, deeply fringed, and she wore a kerchief of many colours round her shoulders, and an equally bright silk one cleverly twisted into a little cap on her woolly head. Her costume was, in ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... to emulate it. The envious said it was due to the peculiar formation of his front teeth, the upper row being prominent, and the two middle teeth set far apart, as if one were missing. But this was jealousy; Sandy's perfection in the art was due to no favoritism of nature, but to constant and long-continued practice. Occasionally with his callous right hand, never removing his left from the lever, Sandy pulled an iron bar out of the fire and examined it critically. ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... for a waiter—at least Ogilvy said so. As for Neville, he had a single study to show—a full length—just the back and head and the soft contour of limbs melting into a luminously sombre background—a masterpiece in technical perfection, which was instantly purchased by a wise and Western millionaire, and which left the public staring ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... is to be found in all countries. Only in the English race, on both sides of the Atlantic, it is comparatively rare. That a vigorous race like the Danish, confined, as it is in modern times, within a narrow arena of action (and forbidden to do anything on that), should have developed it to a rare perfection seems, as I have already ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... vibrant patterns of his own making. The other school maintains with equal emphasis that form is not enough, that it wants a real and exciting story, that where a man's materials are rich and "big" the necessity for perfection is obviated; indeed, "rough edges" are a virtue. As one English novelist tersely put it to me: "I don't care for the carving of orange pips. All I ask of a writer is that his stuff should be big." Undoubtedly, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... it was perfection. "Every year," she wrote, "my heart becomes more fixed in this dear paradise, and so much more so now, that ALL has become my dear Albert's own creation, own work, own building, own lay-out... and his great taste, and the impress of his dear ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... considered himself as a citizen of the world. He owned himself more attached to England than to any other kingdom, but this preference was the effect of reflection, and not of prejudice; the British constitution approached nearer than any other to that perfection of government, the democracy of Athens, he hoped one day to see revived; he mentioned the death of Charles the First, and the expulsion of his son, with raptures of applause; inveighed with great acrimony against the kingly name; and, in order to strengthen his opinion, repeated forty ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... palm, the cherub with two faces, (the young lion and the man) "so that the face of a young lion was on the one side toward the palm, and the face of a man on the other side toward the palm." The vine and the pomegranite were there. In spite of the most profuse detail all was rendered with a perfection of minuteness, while throughout the whole of the interior the harmony of colour was beyond ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... the flawless poetry of recreation, the perfection of travel. To sit in a reclining chair on the screened-in forward deck of a beautiful boat, what time it was being propelled by some invisible silent machinery, up a shining river, reflecting wooded bluffs, was like taking flight on the magic carpet of my boyhood's ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... his parcel.] To you and your husband. To your husband in particular, because, although he may have fallen a little short of perfection during the last year—like some of the rest of us—yet I feel sure that during this coming year—[They have all been watching him curiously; he has now opened the parcel and displays a very bright brand new collecting box, ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones
... demeanour a secret fire of restlessness began to burn—an expectancy of something yet to come which should put the touch of perfection on his life, He spoke of it to Athenais, as they sat together, one summer evening, in a bower of jasmine, with their boy playing at their feet. There had been music in the garden; but now the singers and lute-players had withdrawn, leaving the master and mistress alone in the lingering twilight, ...
— The Lost Word - A Christmas Legend of Long Ago • Henry Van Dyke
... descent—or, if you prefer, ascent—from the root in a protozoon to the topmost twig or most recent offshoot, man. From that day till this Haeckel's persistent labors have been directed towards the perfection of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... the perfection of our criminal code, when we see that almost every criminal eludes the law, either by boldly avowing the crime, or by the tardiness with which legal prosecutions are carried on, or, lastly, by the convenient application ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... piece of ordnance in the middle of a desert was considered something to be proud of, and that reflected credit on the genius of Mr. Labram, who had planned it. Long Cecil (as it was called), in all its pristine perfection, was submitted to the public gaze, and was at once the cynosure of all eyes. On Friday it was tested, with complete success. The boom, at close quarters, was loud and alarming; and it required the despatch of a second shell to satisfy ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... Place, Dreams are an Instance of that Agility and Perfection which is natural to the Faculties of the Mind, when they are disengaged from the Body. The Soul is clogged and retarded in her Operations, when she acts in Conjunction with a Companion that is so heavy and unwieldy ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... easy to have a supply of horse-radish all winter. Have a quantity grated, while the root is in perfection, put it in bottles, fill it with strong vinegar, and ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... taken pride. They were gallant, well-grown, handsome boys, with a certain dash of cleverness,—more like their mother than their father; but they had not as yet done anything as he would have had them do it. But the girl, in the perfection of her beauty, in the quiescence of her manner, in the nature of her studies, and in the general dignity of her bearing, had seemed to be all that he had desired. And now she had engaged herself, behind his back, to the younger son of ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... provincialate which has just come to an end, that of Fray Pedro Arce, some reforms were accomplished as a result of his good example, for he is a friar who follows the rules of his order very scrupulously; but as he had no one to carry this beginning to perfection, for lack of friars such as himself, he did not achieve what he desired. His successor is named Fray Lorenzo de Leon; and he has begun to overthrow everything which his predecessor established, by oppressing the Castilian friars and encouraging the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... they seemed to moan and to creak as they moved out of their place. Soon he began to see that they were looking at him, and exulting over his misery. They, of an inferior nature, had had no gift which they could abuse and lose; and they remained in that honour and perfection in which they were created. Birds of the night flew out of them, reptiles slunk away; yet soon he began to be surrounded, wherever he went, by a circle of owls, bats, ravens, crows, snakes, wild cats, and apes, which were always ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... best. But, besides their general disposition to playfulness, there is a great propensity in them to become what the jockeys call vicious. High bred, hot in blood, exercised, fed and dressed so as to bring that heat to perfection, their tender skins at all times subject to a sharp curry-comb, hard brushing, and when they take sweats, to scraping with wooden instruments, it cannot be but that they are frequently and exceedingly irritated. Intending to make themselves felt and feared, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... dust to the centre: this grew; the water itself condensed, and soon arose a point above the expanse of ocean. The warmth of the sun developed moss and plants; fresh islands presented themselves; for centuries did a more powerful development and improvement show themselves, until the perfection was attained which ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... ago," Piers responded, "he was a teacher of chemistry at Geneva—I got to know him there. He seems to speak half a dozen languages in perfection; I believe he was born in Switzerland. His house down in Surrey is a museum of modern weapons—a regular armoury. He has ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... Mrs. Maldon, "I have perfect confidence in you." It was not quite true, because Rachel's protest as to Mr. Batchgrew, seeming to point to strange concealed incidents, had most certainly impaired the perfection of Mrs. ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... personality." All the religions this world has ever known, have been but the aftermath of the ethics of one or another holy person; "as soon as character appears be sure love will"; "the intuition of the moral sentiment is but the insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul"; but ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... the guild system brought to a greater perfection than in the free Imperial towns of Germany. Indeed, it was carried further in them, in one respect, than in any other part of Europe, for the guilds of journeymen (Cesellenverbaende), which in other places never attained any strength or importance, ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... atmosphere of the Stoic philosophy, derived from Cicero and Seneca. And along with this austere teaching there runs through them a warmer tone of Christian hope and trust; Lament XVIII is in spirit a psalm. To us of today, however, these poems appeal less by their formal perfection, by their learning, or by their religious tone, than by their exquisite humanity. Kochanowski's sincerity of grief, his fatherly love for his baby girl, after more than three centuries have not lost their power to touch our hearts. In the Laments ...
— Laments • Jan Kochanowski
... there is no possibility, and no design, of reformation. A God of infinite love would surely use the highest method, with the highest intention. If suffering was of a limited duration and conduced to our final perfection, we could understand it, and adore the Author of it. But who can see any beneficent design ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... man a character of inward excellence and outward gifts—some extraordinary seduction. But in vain. Fresh from months of solitude and from days at sea, her splendour presented itself to him absolutely unconquerable in its perfection, unless by her own folly. It was easier to suspect her of this than to imagine in the man qualities which would be worthy of her. Easier and less degrading. Because folly may be generous- -could be nothing ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... in Kshatriyas devoted to the observance of righteousness, in Vaisyas devoted to cultivation, and the Sudras devoted to the (menial) service of the three upper classes. I reside, with a heart firm and unchangeable, in Narayana, in my embodied self. In Him is righteousness in its perfection and full measure, devotion to the Brahmanas, and the quality of agreeableness. Can I not say, O lady that I do not reside in my embodied form, (in any of these places that I have mentioned, except Narayana)? That ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Sadducees, their heads full of the prophecies of greatness and deliverance, to which their minds gave a temporal, not a spiritual meaning, grew more and more enraged at every token that the lowly Nazarene was indeed the Saviour, the Hope of the whole world. Each token of perfection, each saying too pure for them, each undoubted miracle, only made them more furious, and for once they made common cause together. The Passover came. Herod Antipas came to Jerusalem to observe the feast, ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... beneath the burdens as you meet the toils of life, And your arms will ache a little as you labor down the way; But the rest of God's perfection waits beyond the bitter strife And He crowns the souls that struggle with His ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... she, "let us talk of him. You must not be influenced too much by my mother's words. She adores him, but her standard of perfection is so exalted few can attain it. The very excess of her love makes her alive to his defects. She knows your vivid imagination, and fears my lavish praises will lead you to expect a being of super-human excellence. Oh, another thing I wanted to tell you. ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... not again specify, yet again beseech the Reader to imagine: the reign of Fraternity and Perfection. Imagine, we say, O Reader, that the Millennium were struggling on the threshold, and yet not so much as groceries could be had,—owing to traitors. With what impetus would a man strike traitors, in that case? Ah, thou canst not imagine it: thou hast thy ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the Hall was to relieve Mr. Frampton's anxiety, and when he learned that his niece 422 was not the jilt he had deemed her, but quite perfection (for that was what I stated, with the same quiet certainty of promulgating an incontrovertible fact, with which I should have declared twice two to be four), his delight knew no bounds, and the way in which he shook my hands, and slapped me on the back, and told me, with many grunts, that ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... anybody could refuse anything to a little piece of perfection like that. Be quiet; no one asked your opinion. I tell you that you ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... is especially prone. As we ascend the scale of civilization, departing from a natural and adopting an artificial mode of life we find nature enacts due penalties for the transgression of her laws. The female among savage tribes has every advantage and opportunity to develop physical perfection, and her endurance suffers little, if any, by comparison with the male. How different is our modern system when the young girls are sent early to school and subjected daily to long hours of study, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... to the result. With this insignificant force, we shall then see the kingdom of Naples conquered, and the best generals and armies of France annihilated; an important innovation effected in military science; the art of mining, if not invented, carried to unprecedented perfection; a thorough reform introduced in the arms and discipline of the Spanish soldier; and the organization completed of that valiant infantry, which is honestly eulogized by a French writer, as irresistible in attack, and impossible to rout; [30] and which carried the banners ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... were dependent, and with which they had to conspire—affects the imagination even more than cases where we see nothing. We are tempted less to musing and wonder by the Iliad, a work without a history, cut off from its past, the sole relic and vestige of its age, unexplained in its origin and perfection, than by the Divina Commedia, destined for the highest ends and most universal sympathy, yet the reflection of a personal history, and issuing seemingly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... at all, but he is very manageable, the best quality a man can possess. Lucy manages Harry and everything else at Yoden to perfection. She expects another baby with the spring, but she is well and cheerful and ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... young Wiltons was punished, she generally owned to a sense of rejoicing. That did not, however, prevent her supplying the culprit with an excellent meal, and Ermengarde now raised the covers from a plump duck done to perfection, some green peas, and delicious floury new potatoes. A greengage tart, with a little jug of cream, also awaited the young ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... while the other—Mythology—is a thing of the imagination. In other words, Religion comes from WITHIN—from that consciousness of limited power, that inborn need of superior help and guidance, forbearance and forgiveness, from that longing for absolute goodness and perfection, which make up the distinctively human attribute of "religiosity," that attribute which, together with the faculty of articulate speech, sets Man apart from and above all the rest of animated creation. (See p. 149.) Mythology, on the other hand, comes wholly from ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... the gradual alteration in his attitude towards his hobby. This man perceived that the fancier's eye with which he regarded his darlings was becoming so powerful as to render his lover's eye in danger of being atrophied. The fancier's eye was lit by the brain—delighted only in "points," in perfection of specimen; the lover's eye was fed by the heart—glowed, not with pride over breed, but with affection for cats as cats. And Mr. Marrapit realised that for affection he was coming to substitute pride—that he was outraging the animals he loved by neglecting the less admirable specimens for those ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... battered by every wind from St. John's to Torres Straits. The Celestine was, herself, far from being a pleasure yacht. Her bluff bows were salt-rimed and her decks bleached and weather-bitten. But she towered above her steam-driven companions with such stalwart grace, such simple perfection, that Ken caught his breath, looking ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... Striving for perfection, I made twelve bows before I was quite satisfied with the result of my efforts. Thus, allowing one bow for each of us, and a second as a stand-by, I had eight bows for which I had no particular use. They did not quite come up to my standard, yet I did not care to destroy them; after ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... direct. The greatest ingenuity next to finding new uses for this almost omnipotent fluid has been displayed in inducing the forces of Nature, and even the sun, to produce it. Before describing the features of this perfection of civilization, let us review the steps by which society and the political world reached ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... too, and his wonderful acting; he had no rival. Nature had given him the talent which Art had cultivated to the highest perfection. Next come the Keelys' impersonations of every phase of dramatic life—originals in acting, ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... debut, Brahms now imposed upon himself a course of rigorous technical training, appeared seldom before the public and published no compositions; his object being to free himself from a narrow subjectivity and to give scope to his wide human sympathies and to his passion for perfection of utterance. It seemed to him that a plausible originality might degenerate into mere idiosyncrasy, and that universality of appeal should be a musician's highest goal. When he resigned his post and came before the public with his first large work, a concerto for pianoforte and ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... live Less lovely, nor this cruel beauty lose, And I perforce grow kind: I'll not survive The deep delicious poison of a smile Nor mortal music of the sighing bosom That slowly overcomes the fainting brain. It shall not dawdle downward to the grave; I'll pass upon the instant of perfection. No woman shall behold Poppaea fade: ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... a quality as necessary to the rise of an artist as genius. On the provincial boards of Toronto he studied and acted for the next few years, perfecting himself in his calling and preparing for wider fields. Then he acted the rollicking Irishman to perfection; the real live Yankee, with his genuine mannerisms and dialect, with proper spirit and without ridiculous exaggeration, and the Negro, so open to burlesque. The special charm of his acting in those ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... among authors, the reverse is the case, since the noblest productions of literature are almost equally attainable with the meanest. In books, therefore, imitation cannot be shunned too sedulously; for the very perfection of a model which is frequently seen, serves but more forcibly to mark the inferiority of ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... on a matter of State. It was unthinkable that he should be so near to her Majesty and not hasten to cast himself at her feet; and whilst gladdening the eyes of his body with the sight of her matchless perfection, the image of which was ever before the eyes of his soul, allow himself the only felicity life now held for him—that of protesting himself her utter slave. This, and much more of the kind, did he pour out, what time the Queen, embarrassed ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... another large parcel of line; and having brought two more lengths to perfection, I joined all together, and fixing one end on shore, by a pole I had cut for that purpose, I launched my boat, with the other end in it, taking a sweep the length of my net round to my stick again, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... square out the true course of knowledge; where discretion in the temper of passion brings experience to the best fruit of affection; while both the Theory and Practice labour in the life of judgment, till the perfection of art show the honour of understanding. She is the key of knowledge that unlocketh the cabinet of conceit, wherein are laid up the labours of virtue for the use of the scholars of wisdom; where every gracious ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... the normal. I am sure those who had the pleasure of listening to William Mason will recall the exquisite purity of his tone, the limpidity of his scales, the neat finish of his phrasing. Old style, I hear you say! Yes, old and ever new, because approaching more nearly perfection than the splashing, floundering, fly-by-night, hysterical, smash-the-ivories school of these latter days. Music, not noise—that's what we are after in piano playing, the higher piano playing. All the ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... in the Christian Church—a blood-thirsty oppressor, whose money is the "price of blood," and would "pollute" the treasury of the Lord, etc. etc. And, on the other hand, whether American slavery is a divine institution, the perfection of society for the African race, and essential to their happiness—while all Abolitionists are fit only for the madhouse or the penitentiary. These and such like are the forms the question of slavery assumes in Kansas, as well as in many of the free States, where there ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... occasions, neither the day nor the hour was fixed, until we were told on the evening of the 15th that we would set out early on the morning of the 16th. I passed the night like all the household of his Majesty; for in order to carry out the incredible perfection of comfort with which the Emperor surrounded himself on his journeys, it was necessary that everybody should be on foot as soon as the hour of departure was known; consequently I passed the night arranging the service of his Majesty, while my wife packed my own baggage, and had but just finished ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... early death was a blow to English literature, James Elroy Flecker, was born in London, November 5, 1884. Possibly due to his low vitality, Flecker found little to interest him but a classical reaction against realism in verse, a delight in verbal craftsmanship, and a passion for technical perfection—especially the deliberate technique of the French Parnassians whom he worshipped. Flecker was opposed to any art that was emotional or that "taught" anything. "The poet's business," he declared, "is not to save the soul of man, but ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... as it may be. If men were properly educated, and their faculties fully developed,' continued Herbert, 'the discovery of the antitype would be easy; and, when the day arrives that it is a matter of course, the perfection of civilisation ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... beauty which passes all understanding is also the peace which passeth understanding; but I think that whatever passes understanding, which is imagination, is terrible, standing aloof from humanity and from kindness, and that this is the sin against the Holy Ghost, the great Artist. An isolated perfection is a symbol of terror and pride, and it is followed only by the head of man, but the heart winces from it aghast, cleaving to that loveliness which is modesty and righteousness. Every extreme is bad, in order that it may swing to and fertilize ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... noise. This sort of work was so much against his plunging nature that he took long to learn it; but when, through hard practice and the loss of many a fine deer, he came at length to break himself in to it, he gradually progressed to perfection, and ultimately became the best stalker in the valley. This, and this alone, enabled him to procure game, for, being short-sighted, he could hit nothing beyond fifty yards, except ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... a thing out of which I personally have drawn all the sustenance I can draw from him; and, therefore, it (that part which I did not absorb) concerns me no more. And the same with Gautier. Mdlle. de Maupin, that godhead of flowing line, that desire not "of the moth for the star," but for such perfection of arm and thigh as leaves passion breathless and fain of tears, is now, if I take up the book and read, weary and ragged as a spider's web, that has hung the winter through in the dusty, forgotten corner of a forgotten room. My old rapture and my youth's delight I can regain only when I think ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... heele. He is well shod especially in the upper leather, for as for his soles, they are much at reparation, and often faine to be removed. Nature seems to have spent an apprentiship of yeares to make you such a one, for it is full seven yeares ere hee comes to this perfection, and be fit for the saddle: for then (as we,) it seemes to come to the yeares of discretion, when he will shew a kinde of rationall judgement with him, and if you set an expert rider on his backe, you ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... vital influence in retarding the material growth of those sections. The Southern States have received but a very small fraction (from ten to thirteen per cent) of foreign immigration. "A country where law and order prevail to perfection may find its material prosperity checked by a deadly and fatal climate; or, on the other hand, a people may destroy all the advantages accruing from matchless natural resources and climate by persistent disregard ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... the morrow with clothes and necklaces of jewels, and dressed her; after which the Caliph came in to her and sat down by her side, and his sister said to him, "Look on this handmaid in whom Allah hath conjoined every perfection of beauty and loveliness." So he said to Naomi, "Draw back the veil from thy face;" but she would not unveil, and he beheld not her face. However, he saw her wrists and love of her entered his heart; and he said to his sister, "I will not go in unto her for three days, till she be ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... and several attempts have been made to measure this velocity with accuracy. The most valuable of such attempts are those connected with the Charleston and Riviera shocks. Fortunately, owing to the perfection of modern appliances, and the number of observers all over the globe, these results are entitled to great confidence. The phenomena connected with the Charleston earthquake, which took place on the 31st of August, 1886, are ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... his pannels gilt, and his chimney-pieces carved: every thing was executed by the ablest hands: Bob's business was to follow the workmen with a microscope, and call upon them to retouch their performances, and heighten excellence to perfection. The reputation of his house now brings round him a daily confluence of visitants, and every one tells him of some elegance which he has hitherto overlooked, some convenience not yet procured, or some new mode in ornament or furniture. Bob, who had no wish but to be ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... Vanderwater. "I grant that as authorities to quote they are most excellent—the two foremost literary critics in the United States. Every school teacher in the land looks up to Vanderwater as the Dean of American criticism. Yet I read his stuff, and it seems to me the perfection of the felicitous expression of the inane. Why, he is no more than a ponderous bromide, thanks to Gelett Burgess. And Praps is no better. His 'Hemlock Mosses,' for instance is beautifully written. Not a comma is out of ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... no doubt, if there be such a thing as an atheist in the world; but for all his brags of perfection and security in his wickedness, I believe that at times God did let down fire from heaven into his conscience (Job 21:17). True, I believe he would quickly put it out again, and grow more wicked and desperate afterward, but this also turned to his destruction, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... beautiful as were the examples set forth in her writings, her own example was, if possible, still more beautiful. Her unerring sense of rectitude, her love of truth, her ready sympathy, her active and cheerful beneficence, her winning and gracious manners, the perfection of high breeding, make up a character, the idea of which, as it rests in my mind, I would not exchange for anything in her ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... create a new realm all his own. His Royal Academy, although presented by himself to the public as an 'artistic joke,' showed that he could not only use the brush on a large scale, but that he could compose to perfection, and after the exuberant humour of the show, nothing delighted and surprised the public more than the artistic quality and finished technique in much of the work, a finish far and away above the work of any caricaturist of ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... structure lying neglected and disgraced, but essentially unchanged in its perfection, before you. That slight and delicate-looking fabric has stood such a trial as hardly any slender contrivance, excepting always the valves of the heart, was ever subjected to. It has rattled for years ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... best work for the astronomer. The trial star map by the brothers Henry, of a portion of the Milky Way, which they felt unable to observe satisfactorily by the ordinary methods, is so near absolute perfection that it alone proves the immense superiority of the photographic method in the formation of star maps. Fortunately this subject, which is as vast as it is fundamental, is being taken up vigorously. The Henries are producing a special lens for the work; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... chiefly those of Nature—its sandy shore, its still woods and its placid bay. It is a place to fly to when the only conception of immediate happiness is to be still, to float idly upon water that has no waves to detract from the perfection of a dream of absolute rest, or to seek shelter and eloquent quiet in deep and shady woods. There are several winding paths that lead up the hilly promontory of Oakwood, and there are clearings upon the high ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... and rarely exceed eight inches. They are proportionably small in their stems, growing very thickly, associated in clumps. The fruit is of the same form, but for the most part larger and of a very dark purple. They are now ripe and in great perfection. There are two species of gooseberry here, but neither of them yet ripe: nor are the chokecherry, though in great quantities. Besides there are also at that place the box alder, red willow and a species of sumach. In the evening we ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... reality than another; in other words, that we do not seem to need for affirming, that what is true is true, any greater power than for affirming, that what is false is true. We have, however, seen that one idea has more reality or perfection than another, for as objects are some more excellent than others, so also are the ideas of them some more excellent than others; this also seems to point to a difference between the understanding and the will. Fourthly, it may be objected, if man does not act from ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... shrink before the prospect of a certain disenchantment. This curse attaches to many of his kind: the instant the prize is won there arise misgivings as to its value; and defects develop themselves hourly in what seemed faultless perfection before. It is boys' play to simulate being blase; but the reality makes mature manhood disbelieve any thing sooner than inevitable retribution. Very often the thought forced itself upon Keene's mind, "If I were to weary ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... Most Worshipful Grand Master," and "The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge." God alone is Almighty, but Masons have their "Thrice Illustrious and Grand Puissant," and their "Thrice Potent Grand Master." God alone is perfect, but Masons have a "Grand Lodge of Perfection" and a "Grand Elect Perfect and Sublime Mason." (Monitor, pp. 187, 219; Monitor of Free and Accepted Rite, pp. 52.) Christ is the great High Priest, and Aaron and his successors were his representatives, but Masons have a ...
— Secret Societies • David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher
... result of natural powers. Is the theory which our author means to inculcate a mere delusion, a mere arbitrary assumption? At one moment Sir Joshua attributes the hopelessness of the student to attain perfection to the discouraging influence of certain figurative and overstrained expressions, and in the next doubts his capacity for such an acquisition under any circumstances. Would he have him hope against hope, then? If he ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... hard to find any sphere of woman's activity in which she had not been leader. Believing that "the manifest intention of nature is the perfection of man," she faithfully did her part. In the laborious and the menial she served the colored poor, while she neglected no opportunity to open their spiritual vision. She fed, warmed, and clothed them; ministered to the sick; attended the dying; procured their coffins; spoke the comforting ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... distinguished from the ethical systems of other teachers by their positiveness. Others say, "Thou shalt not;" Jesus Christ says, "Thou shalt." They forbid and prohibit; He commands. They prescribe abstinence from evil; He, a constant approach to perfection. Buddhism is, in our time, often referred to as occupying a higher plane than Christianity; but its precepts are all negative, its virtues are negative, and its disciple is deemed most nearly perfect, ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody |
