"Skilful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wrong in the text. I cannot help again drawing the reader's attention to the skilful portraiture of the model Moslem Minister, the unfortunate Ja'afar. He is never described in the third person; but the simple dialogue always sets him off as a wise, conciliatory, benevolent, loveable ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... title given that lord by King James II. He was of the bed-chamber to King William; he was so to King George I.; he was so to King George II. This Lord was very skilful in all the forms of the House, in which he discharged himself with great ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... Aglaya and Gania together. Perhaps she achieved some result; perhaps, also, she made the mistake of depending too much upon her brother, and expecting more from him than he would ever be capable of giving. However this may be, her manoeuvres were skilful enough. For weeks at a time she would never mention Gania. Her attitude was modest but dignified, and she was always extremely truthful and sincere. Examining the depths of her conscience, she found nothing to reproach herself with, and this still further ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... amidst ploughed-up mountains of chalk ooze, a torn and battered mass of machinery, wholly submerged at high water, and holding in its interstices nine hundred drowned brave men, all strong and skilful, all once capable of doing ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... laugh at his words, intelligent pastor, and answer: "Sit thee down, and contentedly trust me both body and spirit; For, in holding the reins, my hand grew long ago skilful, Long has my eye been trained in making the nicest of turnings; For we were practised well in driving the carriage in Strasburg, When I the youthful baron accompanied thither; then daily Rolled the carriage, guided by me, through the echoing gateway, Out over dusty ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... with the self-same instrument, without a new creation, he may effect his obscurest designs. Thus he sweeteneth the water with a word, preserveth the creatures in the ark, which the blest of his mouth might have as easily created;—for God is like a skilful geometrician, who, when more easily, and with one stroke of his compass, he might describe or divide a right line, had yet rather do this in a circle or longer way, according to the constituted and forelaid principles of his ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... certainly made our relationship to England very much worse, while it also materially increased the danger of our position from the standpoint of world-politics. The Buelow-Tirpitz notion of a Risikoflotte,[*] may, however, only have been practicable on condition that our diplomacy were sufficiently skilful to avoid war, as long as the "risk" idea in England was not able, of ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... chair in the room was at its usual place before the table, the canal was unnavigable. When the chair was not in use, it reposed on top of the bed, though sometimes he sat on the chair when cooking, reading a book while the water boiled, and even becoming skilful enough to manage a paragraph or two while steak was frying. Also, so small was the little corner that constituted the kitchen, he was able, sitting down, to reach anything he needed. In fact, it was expedient to cook sitting down; standing ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... mason could be a serious candidate for the Presidentship, but they are alarmed at its instability. They have never known a republic live for more than a few years, or die except in convulsions. The Republican party, however, though small, is not to be despised. It is skilful, determined, and united. And the Socialists and the Communists, whom we have omitted in our enumeration as not belonging to the educated classes, would supply the Republican leaders with an army which has more than ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... this history might—nay, would—have been able to absorb a vivid and masterly account of the great struggle, with a careful description of the tactics by which victory was achieved. They would have been told the disposition of the various regiments, the stratagems, the dashing advances, the skilful retreats, and ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... hero must be eclipsed. Further, Homer was an itinerant minstrel, who had to adapt himself to the sympathies and traditions of the different portions of the country. Peloponnesus was the seat of power, and its chiefs acquired a prominent position in the Iliad by what on the grounds we may deem a skilful arrangement. But most skilful of all is the fine adjustment of the balance as between Greek and Trojan warriors. It will be found on close inspection of details that the Achaian chieftains have in truth a vast military superiority; yet by the use of infinite art, Homer has contrived that the Trojans ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... art—half-blown rose-buds were placed in the myrtle wreath; and what with one, and what with another little innocent art of the toilet, a most happy effect was produced. Louise looked particularly well in her simple, tasteful, bridal dress—for the greatest part of the work of her own skilful hands—and the content, and the beautiful repose which diffused itself over her countenance, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... cocks with skilful delicacy, taking care not to wound themselves. A solemn silence reigns; the spectators seem to be changed into hideous wax figures. They present one cock to the other, holding his head down so that the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... crowds. The crowd, as a crowd, performs acts that many of its members, as individuals, would never be guilty of. Its average intelligence is very low; it is inflammatory, vicious, idiotic, almost simian. Crowds, properly worked up by skilful demagogues, are ready to believe ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... fishermen used as a place for drying fish. Between some fish which they found drying on the rocks and Mrs. MacLeod's stores they lived in comparative luxury for the next few days. Ned Burke, the valet, was told off as cook; but he soon found that the Prince was far more skilful in the art of cookery than himself. It was his Royal Highness who suggested the luxury of butter with the fish, and who made a quite original cake by mixing the brains of a cow with some meal, giving orders to 'birsle the bannock weel, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... of a mile to leeward of the line, and the intervals were irregular and ill-observed. These circumstances arose from several causes, neither of which proceeded from any fault in the commander-in-chief, who was both an experienced seaman and a skilful tactician. But his captains were new to each other, and some of them were recently appointed to their ships; it being just as much a matter of course that a seaman should ascertain the qualities of his vessel, by familiarity, as that a man should learn the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... replied Ellen; "but it was dreadful to see the ship on board which I knew him to be sailing away to attack so renowned and skilful a captain as Monsieur Thurot—then, to have to wait so long for the issue ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... than those overcome at Minot's Ledge. Indeed, a lighthouse standing in its strength, perhaps rising out of a placid summer sea, or towering from a crest of rock which it seems incredible the sea should have ever swept, gives little hint to the casual observer of the struggle that brave and skilful men had to go through with before it could be erected. The light at Tillamook Rock, near the mouth of the Columbia River, offers a striking illustration of this. It is no slender shaft rising from a tumultuous sea, but a spacious dwelling from which springs a square tower supporting the light, the ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... phlebotomizing tiltings. The figure and shape of the leaves thereof is not much different from that of those of the ash-tree, or of agrimony; the herb itself being so like the Eupatorian plant that many skilful herbalists have called it the Domestic Eupator, and the Eupator the Wild Pantagruelion. These leaves are in equal and parallel distances spread around the stalk by the number in every rank either of five or seven, nature having so highly ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... met with in my life. When I went to live in H—-for a time the whole town was full of talk about him, as he happened to be just then in the midst of one of the very craziest of his schemes. Krespel had the reputation of being both a clever, learned lawyer and a skilful diplomatist. One of the reigning princes of Germany—not, however, one of the most powerful—had appealed to him for assistance in drawing up a memorial, which he was desirous of presenting at the Imperial ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... the reader of course knows; and has perhaps admired for his last supreme outbreak of common sense. It was a rather favourite bit of humour with Dickens; and I find it pleasant to think that he never saw the description given of it by a trained and skilful French critic, who has been able to pass under his review the whole of English literature without any apparent sense or understanding of one of its most important as well as richest elements. A man without the perception of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... character. In the days of anarchy which came upon France with the brief but ill-omened triumph of the Girondins, Amiens was the first of the French provincial cities to resist and denounce the too successful attempt of Danton and the commune of Paris to terrorise France by a skilful abuse of the imbecility of Roland. The authorities of Amiens were the first to protest against the outrageous pretensions of the 'commissioners,' who came there with Roland's commissions in one hand, and the secret instructions of Roland's ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... of his bright eyes and his skilful hands; for the soft, tiny foot intrusted to him was a mere baby, that had to find its way through a strange, dark world; and, what was more, it must not only be guided, but also fed and tended carefully: so the bright eyes go before, and the brown fingers dig out a roadway, and the foot that ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews
... therein a draught which dreamy Beltane perforce must swallow, and thereafter the dreamy languor fell from him, what time Sir Fidelis fell to bathing and bandaging the ugly gash that showed beneath his knee. Now as he watched these busy, skilful fingers he knew a sudden, uneasy qualm, and forthwith ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... thou wilt go, Taming thy hate, forgetting thy revenge. The fools! Or wilt thou go? Wilt thou? I could almost believe thou wilt. For thou no longer art the proud Medea, The royal seed of Colchis' mighty king, The wise and skilful daughter of a wise And skilful mother. Else hadst thou not been patient, borne their gibes So long, even ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... saw that his men were strong enough for all the work of war, and bold enough to meet their enemies with scorn, expert and skilful in the use of the weapons each man bore, and all of them perfect in obedience and discipline, the desire grew in his heart to be up and doing and achieve something against the foe. He knew well how often a general has found delay ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every blessing of society, depend so much upon an upright and skilful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... time and attention; and last, but not least—probably most—they would then come to their medical studies prepared for that learning from Nature which is what they have to do in the course of becoming skilful medical men, and for which at present they are not in the slightest degree ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... drew away and turned toward the mid-river, so that her guns no longer bore, the enemy manned theirs again and riddled her with a quartering fire as she moved off. At about this time the ram Manassas charged her, but, by a skilful movement of the helm, Lieutenant Roe, who was conning the Pensacola, avoided the thrust. The ram received the ship's starboard broadside and then continued down, running the gauntlet of the Union fleet, whose shot penetrated her sides as though ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... asked me to make them better. Here again she came to my aid. I had said that the row of stockings were hung on a string by the fire, which was a recollection of my own, but she could tell me whether they were hung upside down. She became quite skilful at sending or giving me (for now I could be with her half the year) the right details, but still she smiled at the editor, and in her gay moods she would say, 'I was fifteen when I got my first pair of elastic-sided boots. Tell ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... forms a great cloud of spray. The water then dashes on with renewed vitality between the walls of a canyon fourteen hundred feet deep, and most gorgeously painted by nature in such a variety and lavishness of tints that they defy the most skilful ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... after continuing this game for a little while. 'Yes, I see that you are a true Prince,' for strange to say, he was as skilful at her game as ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... Skilful alike with tongue and pen, He preached to all men everywhere The Gospel of the Golden Rule, The new Commandment given to men, Thinking the deed, and not the creed, Would help us in our utmost need. Tales of a Wayside Inn: ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... which she indulged her artistic fancy was large and bare, with stuccoed walls on which she herself had thrown quaint and fantastic pictures of goddesses and of beasts, and groups of charioteers and gladiators, drawn with a skilful hand. The room derived its light solely from above, where, through a wide opening in the ceiling, came a peep of cloud-covered sky. There was little or no furniture about, and the floor of iridescent ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... call the burnt walls of the Parliament House there), what rational British soul but is forced to institute the mournfulest constitutional reflection? Some years ago the Canadas, probably not without materials for discontent, and blown upon by skilful artists, blazed up into crackling of musketry, open flame of rebellion; a thing smacking of the gallows in all countries that pretend to have any "Government." Which flame of rebellion, had there been no loyal population to fling ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... children being taught to get the best exercise out of the games, and to become skilful in ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... the home which could amuse and instruct children. The eldest daughter was very handy at all sorts of entertaining occupations; she had a delicate sense of the artistic, and was quite skilful with her pencil. ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... of Beauvais, see his Speculum Naturale, lib. xvi, cap. 21. For Cardinal d'Ailly's view, see his treatise De Concordia Astronomicae Veritatis cum Theologia (in his Ymago Mundi and separately). For general statement of De Cusa's work, see Draper, Intellectual Development of Europe, p. 512. For skilful use of De Cusa's view in order to mitigate censure upon the Church for its treatment of Copernicus's discovery, see an article in the Catholic World for January, 1869. For a very exact statement, in the spirit of judicial fairness, see Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... chronology had conjectured to be a model for Beaumont and Fletcher, was in fact imitated from models which they had made. In other words, Professor Thorndike has shown that one may account for all the changes in Shakspere, after 1600, by merely assuming that the most skilful and instinctive imitator among the early Elizabethan dramatists, remained to the end an instinctively imitative follower ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... muleteer with his train of animals entered the courtyards of the Fonda at Jeres. Gerald was standing on the steps of the inn. He had altered the fashion of his hair, had fastened on large bushy eyebrows which he had obtained from a skilful perruquier in Cadiz, and a moustache of imposing size turned up at the tips; he wore high buff leather boots, and there was an air of military swagger about him, and he was altogether so changed that at the first glance ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... with certain abbreviations, is an almost exact duplication of the first part and emphasizes the main tonality of G major. That Haydn was not forced to this literal repetition through any lack of fancy is shown by the skilful amplification of the first theme, in measures 177-184. The whole movement sparkles with sunshine; and those ponderous "heavy-weights" who criticise it because it is not deep or "soulful" are looking for qualities which the music does not pretend ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... again next evening, Lestrade was furnished with much information concerning our prisoner. His name, it appeared, was Beppo, second name unknown. He was a well-known ne'er-do-well among the Italian colony. He had once been a skilful sculptor and had earned an honest living, but he had taken to evil courses and had twice already been in jail—once for a petty theft, and once, as we had already heard, for stabbing a fellow-countryman. He could talk English perfectly well. His reasons for destroying the busts were still unknown, ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... both the English and the German tables. To read your correspondent one would imagine that I had confined myself to money figures when tabulating English trade, and to weights when giving the corresponding instances from Germany. Your correspondent was so preoccupied with my skilful conveyance of false impressions that he apparently overlooked the misleading nature of many of ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... Turkey, the dalesman was often the prey of the mountaineer. It was in the mountain districts where were preserved the recollections of Scander Beg, and where the manners of ancient Laconia prevailed; the deeds of the brave soldier were sung on the lyre, and the skilful robber quoted as an example to the children by the father of the family. Village feasts were held on the booty taken from strangers; and the favourite dish was always a stolen sheep. Every man was esteemed in proportion to his skill and courage, and a man's chances of making a good ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had formerly lived) bestowed on him seventy ploughs or families of land for building a monastery;[1] this the saint founded on the mouth of the river Were, whence it was called Weremouth. When the monastery was built, St. Bennet went over to France, and brought back with him skilful masons, who built the church for this monastery of stone, and after the Roman fashion; for till that time stone buildings were very rare in Britain, even the church of Lindisfarne was of wood, and covered over with a thatch of straw and reeds, till bishop Eadbert procured both the roof and the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... microscopy in the unphilosophical Victorian manner as his "hobby." A birthday present of a microscope had turned his mind to technical microscopy when he was eighteen, and a chance friendship with a Holborn microscope dealer had confirmed that bent. He had remarkably skilful fingers and a love of detailed processes, and he had become one of the most dexterous amateur makers of rock sections in the world. He spent a good deal more money and time than he could afford upon the little room at the top of the house, in producing new lapidary apparatus and ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... Richelieu has been more skilful than you," said La Perouse naively, "and I have always heard that he had ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... with an array of empty pans, tubs, and baskets; of sharp knives and heaped-up barrels of apples. A circle of laughing faces completed the scene, and the barrels of apples were quickly emptied by the many skilful hands. The apples intended for drying were strung on linen thread and hung on the kitchen and attic rafters. The following day the stout crane in the open fireplace was hung with brass kettles which were filled with the pared apples, sweet and sour in proper proportions, the sour at the bottom ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... Esmond looked decidedly inviting, with its clean, uncut pages, and then there was really a handsome work-bag for Aunt Madge, fashioned by Olivia's skilful fingers out of a yard of cretonne. Olivia had already received her Christmas presents, and had nothing to expect. Her new outfit, and Dot's pelisse, and Martha's wages were all birthday and Christmas gifts. Nevertheless when Marcus came on Christmas ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... graceful manner would soon be acquired. When called upon to preside over their own homes there would less frequently be heard the apology, "Father always carved at home, and I have had no practice." The only recollection that I now have of a dinner at a friend's some years ago is the easy and skilful way a young son of my hostess presided at the head of the table, while the father occupied the place of guest ...
— Carving and Serving • Mrs. D. A. Lincoln
... are so nice in their calculations, and so particularly skilful in all manner of games, that no person would dare to enter the lists with them, were they even assured that no unfairness would be practised. Besides, they make a vow, to win four or five guineas a day, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... shields;[866] the toilet articles, mirrors, hand-bells, buckles, candlesticks, &c.;[867] the furniture, tall candelabra, tripods, and thrones.[868] The bronze is of an excellent quality, having generally about nine parts of copper to one of tin; and there is reason to believe that by the skilful tempering of the Phoenician metallurgists, it attained a hardness which was not often given it by others. The Cyprian shields were remarkable. They were of a round shape, slightly convex, and instead of the ordinary boss, had a long projecting cone in the ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... undoubtedly a very reprehensible character, Miss Penrhyn, but I don't think that I am worse than most men." He recognized at once that it would be folly to tell the usual lie: she would simply laugh in his face. He must accept the situation, plead guilty and make a skilful defense. Later, when he had established himself in her confidence, he would ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the hideous bill-board advertisements which defaced the landscape along the lines of the principal roads. He found a willing ally in this idea in Mr. J. Horace McFarland, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, one of the most skilful photographers in the country, and the president of The American Civic Association. McFarland and Bok worked together; they took innumerable photographs, and began to publish them, calling public attention to the intrusion ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... intelligence. He was able to multiply 213 by 373 in his head instantaneously, or turn English pounds into German marks without help of pencil or paper; he understood finance and railway business thoroughly, and the machinery of Russian administration had no secrets for him; he was a most skilful pleader in civil suits, and it was not easy to get the better of him at law. But that exceptional intelligence could not grasp many things which are understood even by some stupid people. For instance, he was absolutely unable to understand ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... can, notwithstanding, cut it short with perfect impunity, by suitable remedies, and thereby prevent numerous unpleasant symptoms and effects, which are often present when the disease is left to nature. Syphilis has its several stages, each marked by characteristic symptoms; but the skilful treatment of the first stage prevents, how beneficially we all know, the appearance of the others. We must then in small-pox, as well as in other diseases, beware how we confound a common and even natural, ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... escaped shipwreck in the descent of that vast stream, the navigation being too difficult and perilous, as we are told by Condamine, who descended it in 1743, to be undertaken without the aid of a skilful pilot. Yet the daring Spaniards accomplished it safely. Many times their vessel narrowly escaped being dashed to pieces on the rocks or in the rapids of the stream. Still greater was the danger of the voyagers from the warlike forest ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... said to the miller, "That is a talent that pleases me well; if she be as skilful as you say, bring her to-morrow to the palace, and I will put her ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... ne'er glowed with tenderness for Theseus? What boots it to affect a pride you feel not? Confess it, all is changed; for some time past You have been seldom seen with wild delight Urging the rapid car along the strand, Or, skilful in the art that Neptune taught, Making th' unbroken steed obey the bit; Less often have the woods return'd our shouts; A secret burden on your spirits cast Has dimm'd your eye. How can I doubt you ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... portion of which was commanded by the Duke of Alencon. At the battle of Marignano the troops of the latter formed the rearguard, and, on perceiving that the Swiss were preparing to surround the bulk of the French army, Charles marched against them, overthrew them, and by his skilful manouvres decided the issue of the second day's fight. (1) The conquest of the duchy of Milan was the result of this victory, and peace supervening, the Duke of Alencon ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... the tea leaf. And the nature of man's treatment and manipulation determines in large measure not only the desired flavor, but the distinguishing character of the tea, its rank as a green, a black, or an "English Breakfast Tea," all three of which may be evolved by skilful manipulation from the same tea bush, at ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... witness. He described in his own fashion the finding of Archibald McBride's body. Then a few skilful questions by Moxlow brought out the fact of his having met John North on the Square immediately before his own gruesome discovery. The little lamplighter was excused, and Colonel Harbison took his: place. He, in his turn, quickly made way for ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... "You are very skilful," he remarked, pointing to the puncture; "I compliment you." Then, changing his tone, he continued: "We have allowed you to do this in order that you may be thoroughly convinced of the impossibility of injuring us. Now you shall have a further example of our power. Order your warriors to dismount ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... decease, and a severe casualty deemed fatal by skilful physicians, we discovered that the Principle of all healing and the law that governs it is God, a divine Principle, and a spiritual not material law, and regained health."—Preface to Science and Health, first ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the long reed spear, which is apt to be weak and awkward to carry, we would substitute two darts of cornel-wood; (10) the one of which the skilful horseman can let fly, and still ply the one reserved in all directions, forwards, backwards, (11) and obliquely; add to that, these smaller weapons are not only stronger than the spear but far ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... in the chase over the Pampas, had Dick Venner felt such a sense of life and power as when he struck the long spurs into his wild horse's flanks, and dashed along the road with the lasso lying like a coiled snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not like that leaving a wound behind it,—sudden as a pistol-shot, but without the telltale explosion,—is one of the most fearful and mysterious weapons that arm the hand of man. The old Romans knew how formidable, even in contest with ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... nothing better than to see the queen. He knew himself so skilful in speech that, could it be at all, he must ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... apparent what she was trying to do. Alex Shelby was there, you remember, and when she saw him talking to Lloyd every chance he got, she didn't want it to appear that she was being neglected by the man who had brought her, and with a little skilful manoeuvring she managed to bag the lieutenant's attention. I've been wanting to ask you for some time, why is it that she seems so ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Lilly's skilful housewifery always irritated Aaron: it was so self-sufficient. But most irritating of all was the little man's unconscious assumption of priority. Lilly was actually unaware that he assumed this quiet predominance ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... found a throng with wreaths and garlands bound, And one who blew with clear, harmonious sound Upon a hollow reed. Amidst the folk A goodly ox, unfettered by the yoke, Stood gayly decked with flowers in skilful wise As though prepared for godly sacrifice. When they beheld the noble-visaged man, They bade him join the festal rites of Pan; For some at heart believed that he might be, In mortal guise, a heavenly deity; And much they marveled at his kingly mien, As with the throng he sought the forest green. ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... both made up to me was disgusting. But I know the girl is just a tool in her mother's hands. Her mother seemed actually passive in comparison. For skilful wheedling I could fall down and worship that woman; I really admire her. As long as the girl was with us she kept herself in the background and put the girl at me. It was simply ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Bibliophile Jacob)—the structure commenced in our own land by Horace Walpole, Monk Lewis, Mrs. Radcliffe, and Maturin, but left imperfect and inharmonious, requires, now that the rubbish which choked up its approach is removed, only the hand of the skilful architect to its entire renovation ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... thought he was mad. Taking, however, his fossil foot in one hand, and dragging Laurillard's arm with the other, he led him up-stairs to present him to his wife and sister-in-law, saying, 'I have got my foot, and M. Laurillard found it for me.' It seems that this skilful operation confirmed all M. Cuvier's previous conjecture concerning a foot, the existence and form of which he had already guessed, but for which he had long and vainly sought. So occupied had he been by it, that, when he appeared to be particularly absent, his ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... like mercury, one of most powerful and excellent things in the world in skilful hands; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... night it had been shown that I was the more skilful swordsman, yet now he stood without the least sign of fear. If he had formerly retreated, on being disarmed, it was from situations in which he had figured ridiculously, and could not endure to remain ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... left alone, Now thy beloved, heaven-ravish'd spouse is gone, Whose skilful sire in vain strove to apply Medicines, when thy balm was no remedy,— With greater than Platonic love, O wed His soul, though not his body, to thy bed: Let that make thee a mother; bring thou forth The ideas ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... return to the old comradeship. "I believe you, Tom, in the face of all the—the unlikelinesses. But please don't try me again. After what has happened—" she stopped in deference to something in his eyes, half anger, half bewilderment, or a most skilful ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... superintended the construction of the canal, removed the first turf, Sept. 10, 1794. The progress was slow and attended with many embarrassments. The purchase of land from more than one hundred proprietors demanded skilful diplomacy. Most of the lands used for the canal were acquired by voluntary sale, and conveyed in fee-simple to the corporation. Sixteen lots were taken under authority of the Court of Sessions; while for thirteen neither deed nor record could be found when the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... when he crossed bayonets with Frank. The latter had made himself expert by long training under skilful French instructors, and, besides, was the most finished boxer in the regiment. At thrust and parry, feint and riposte, advance and retreat, he ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... art thou, Hyndla! methinks thou dreamest, since thou sayest that my man is on the dead-road with me; there where my hog sparkles with its golden bristles, hight Hildisvini, which for me made the two skilful dwarfs, Dain and Nabbi. From the saddle we will talk: let us sit, and of princely families discourse, of those chieftains who from the gods descend. They have contested for the dead's gold, Ottar the young ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... however, a brave and skilful officer, put him in heart again. Antiochus had sixteen elephants; Theodotas advised him to conceal these as well as he could for the present, not letting their superior height betray them; when the signal for battle was given, the shock just at hand, the enemy's cavalry charging, and their phalanx ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... other unclean animals: "Of their flesh ye shall not eat, and their carcasses ye shall not touch." In the revised version of Deuteronomy, xiv. 8, the words of the prohibition are identical, and a skilful refiner might possibly satisfy himself, even if he satisfied nobody else, that "carcase" means the body of a live animal as well as a dead one; and that, since swineherds could hardly avoid contact ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... mention the name of Mr. John Gilmary Shea of New York, to whose labors this department of American history has been so deeply indebted, and that of the Hon. Henry Black of Quebec. Nor can he refrain from expressing his obligation to the skilful and friendly criticism ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... full upon them, and the Ariel staggered as the waves beat against her sides. She ploughed along gallantly, however, under the skilful guidance of Lester, riding most of the waves, although now and then her nose would dive through a big one and enough water would come on board to keep Bill and Teddy busy bailing her out. All were thoroughly drenched, but no one thought of his discomfort, so intent were they all on reaching the ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... Japan, and this country will send separate groups of representatives, with separate instructions, unequal status, and very probably conflicting views upon many subjects, to the ultimate peace discussions. It is quite conceivable—it is a very serious danger—that at this discussion skilful diplomacy on the part of the Central Powers may open a cleft among the Allies that has never appeared during the actual war. Have the British settled, for example, with Italy and France for the supply of metallurgical coal after the war? Those countries must have it somehow. ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... him. Evacuation Hospital No. 6 sprang up in an hour, almost, on the dreadful August day when four thousand wounded lay on stretchers between the railway station and the gate of the little park across the way; and it has gradually grown into the model of what such a hospital may become in skilful and devoted hands. ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... footsteps from the waste Of dark oblivion; thus collecting all The various forms of being to present, Before the curious aim of mimic art, Their largest choice; like Spring's unfolded blooms Exhaling sweetness, that the skilful bee May taste at will, from their selected spoils To work her dulcet food. For not the expanse Of living lakes in Summer's noontide calm, Reflects the bordering shade, and sun-bright heavens, 360 With fairer semblance; not the sculptured gold More faithful keeps the graver's lively trace, Than he ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... ought not to abuse his strength any more than a pugilist or pancratiast or other master of fence;—because he has powers which are more than a match either for friend or enemy, he ought not therefore to strike, stab, or slay his friends. Suppose a man to have been trained in the palestra and to be a skilful boxer,—he in the fulness of his strength goes and strikes his father or mother or one of his familiars or friends; but that is no reason why the trainers or fencing-masters should be held in detestation or banished from the city;—surely ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... tact and delicacy William of Orange afterwards reposed in the most difficult and important negotiations, an orator whose discourses on many great public occasions attracted the attention of Europe, a soldier whose bravery was to be attested afterwards on many a well-fought field, a theologian so skilful in the polemics of divinity, that, as it will hereafter appear, he was more than a match for a bench of bishops upon their own ground, and a scholar so accomplished, that, besides speaking and writing the classical ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... testifies that there is the same Nature in all of them; that is, of Males and Females, and that the Females do as commonly breed without the Use of the Male, as with it. And many Persons assert the same, and especially your skilful Hunters. ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... freedom of industry and the security of person and property. Its middle class rose to greatness. Out of that class sprung the noblest poets and philosophers, whose words built up the intellect of its people; skilful navigators, to find out for its merchants the many paths of the oceans; discoverers in natural science, whose inventions guided its industry to wealth, till it equalled any nation of the world in letters, and excelled all in trade and commerce. But its government was become ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... have been watching the progress of man in his efforts to 'make himself at home' in the world. We have seen him becoming more skilful and more masterful century by century, till in these latter days the whole world is, as it were, at his service. He has planted his flag at the two poles: he has cut a pathway for his ships between Asia and Africa, and between the twin continents of America: he has harnessed torrents and cataracts ...
— Progress and History • Various
... to refer, as no part of it can, with any propriety or justice, be overlooked by any one who proposes to subject this matter to a searching examination. It shows the progress and the successful result of these inquiries and experiments of Dr. Wells, and of those skilful and liberal professional gentlemen who co-operated with him. It shows that the opinion was then entertained by Dr. Marcy, that the constituents of the gas were more nearly allied to the atmospheric air than were those of ether vapor—that the former was more agreeable ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... as well as he could, either on the harpsichord or the theorbe. The theorbe was an admirable instrument which is now to be found only in museums,—a sort of enormous guitar with a long neck and multiple strings which offered great opportunities to a skilful artist. ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens
... marked the night and day. With arms more skilful-not with hearts more true, Or souls more brave to battle for the right- The white the unjust warfare did pursue, Till, inch by inch, the red man ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... feeding began. Peggy raised his head while Mammy opened his mouth by inserting a skilful finger where later the bit would rest, then slipped in the milk-sopped woolen rag. After a few minutes the small beastie which had never known fear, understood and sucked away vigorously, for he had not fed ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... not only in the practical part of his profession, but in all the sciences connected with it, being able to discharge all the offices necessary in a ship as occasion required, even that of the surgeon. In his conduct as a naval commander he was skilful and valiant, just to his owners, kind to his seamen, loyal to his sovereign, and merciful to his enemies after victory. His many glorious exploits justly entitle him to high fame; and he died, at fifty-five, in the ardent pursuit ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... is attributed to the two Eves, whose chefs d'oeuvre must, and can easily, be distinguished from the tolerably frequent imitations put into the market from time to time, some probably nearly coeval with the original examples. Prior to the Eves, however, France had more or less skilful artists in this line of industry. In the Frere sale at Sotheby's in 1896 occurred a copy of Philelphus De Liberorum Educatione, printed by Gilles Gourmont in 1508, in the original stamped leather covers, with the name of Andre Boule on the ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... misty impression materialises as he works, and there grows under his hand a portrait which draws from us an instant smile of recognition, broadening as we perceive the veiled humour and satire that lurk beneath the skilful emphasis which has been laid upon ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson
... chase through the darkness. But the heretic devils, as the Spaniards called them, were skilful sailors. Menendez could not catch them, and when day dawned he gave up the chase and moodily ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... term of suspense thus the foreign-born baby was denounced and welcomed, the circumstances lamented and the mother congratulated, in a breath, all under cover of the happiest misunderstanding, as effective as the cabalism of Prospero's wand among the Neapolitan mariners, by the skilful Irish development on a grand scale of the rhetorical figure anastrophe, or a turning about ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... being at the pains of making the movements and putting them together? Why does not an empty case serve as well as another? And how comes it to pass that whenever there is any fault in the going of a watch, there is some corresponding disorder to be found in the movements, which being mended by a skilful hand all is right again? The like may be said of all the clockwork of nature, great part whereof is so wonderfully fine and subtle as scarce to be discerned by the best microscope. In short, it will be asked, how, upon our principles, any tolerable ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... the previous winter, in the evening, when the Reeds were gathered before their big log fire, they had talked of the wonderful adventure, while Mrs. Reed's skilful fingers fashioned such garments as would be needed for the journey. And while she sewed, Grandma Keyes told the children marvelous tales of Indian massacres on those very plains across which they were ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... really skilful physician in the neighborhood, a man of superior ability. Attached at one time to the beautiful court of Prince Eugene, he had been obliged to flee from Milan, and had taken refuge in ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... virtuous character in his fine gentleman, as he would show his ignorance, by drawing a vicious one to please the present audience. Mrs. Bignell did her part very happily, and had a certain grace in her rusticity, which gave us hopes of seeing her a very skilful player, and in some parts, supply our loss of Mrs. Verbruggen.[87] I cannot be of the same opinion with my friends and fellow-labourers, the Reformers of Manners,[88] in their severity towards plays, but must allow that a good play acted before a ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... many of them. They send them us as straight as they can from the front. But the surgeons are wonderfully skilful. It's simply marvelous ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Bertha to Osburga, 590 to 849—say 250 years—is passed by the Saxon people in the daily more reverent learning of the Christian faith, and daily more peaceful and skilful practice of the humane arts and duties which ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... himself. Plots were laid, were detected, were baffled; counter-plots were constructed upon the same basis, and with the benefit of the opportunities thus offered. Finally, Zebek-Dorchi was invited to the imperial lodge, 10 together with all his accomplices; and, under the skilful management of the Chinese nobles in the Emperor's establishment, the murderous artifices of these Tartar chieftains were made to recoil upon themselves, and the whole of them perished by assassination at a great imperial 15 banquet. For the ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... "that the comparison of ideals to furniture is particularly appropriate. They are the draperies of the mind, and they hide the nakedness of truth. Your fireplace is ugly, your mere necessary shelves and seats but planks and crudity, all your surroundings so much office furniture, until the skilful hand and the draperies come in. Then a few cunning loopings and foldings, and behold softness and delicacy, crudity gone, and life well worth the living. So that you cannot ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... accuracy determined; and he equipped all his ships with the compass, by which their steering was entirely determined. He brought from Majorca (which, as we have seen, was the centre of practical map-making in the fourteenth century) one Mestre Jacme, "a man very skilful in the art of navigation, and in the making of maps and instruments." With his aid, and doubtless that of others, he set himself to study the problem of the possibility of a sea voyage to India round ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... hundred (500) rounds have been fired from the right vent, it is to be closed by filling it with molten zinc or lead, and the left vent is to be bored, which will require a skilful mechanic. ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... chips only Mr. Wilner could make. On holidays, when dozens of family parties came out by every train from town, he could hardly keep up with the demand for his potato chips. And with a waiting crowd around him our partner was at his best. He was as voluble as he was skilful, and as witty as he was voluble; at least so I guessed from the laughter that frequently drowned his voice. I could not understand his jokes, but if I could get near enough to watch his lips and his smile and his merry eyes, I was happy. That any one could talk so fast, and in English, was marvel ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... but those were a kind of fearful glances, which dreaded to be caught, and for the most part her eyes were down on the drawing and on the hands busied with it. Hands, we know, tell of character; and Esther's eyes rested with secret pleasure on the shapely fingers, which in their manly strength and skilful agility corresponded so well to what she knew of their possessor. The fingers worked ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... pulled two or three of these from her coat pocket and passed them over to the men. "They sure look mighty good to me," she chuckled. "The truth of the matter is that that mine ain't never been worked right. We can knock it so skilful, though, Gallito, that the boys'll be glad to let us have it for 'most nothing. Jus' look 'round the hall, Bob, an' see if you can see ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... borrowed, and delivered it. It is obvious that this person or club of persons could compel purchases of the shares which he or they alone possess, at whatever price he or they think proper to demand; and since such things can be done by skilful combinations under able generalship, they have been done, and were a favorite scheme during the eventful years between the sixties and the eighties. The corners in Harlem, Hudson, Erie and Northwest, in which Vanderbilt, Drew, and Gould achieved such success for themselves ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... vast majority of the negroes had no chance, but Farquhar pressed the point that Peter himself disproved his own statement. At the time Peter felt there was an clench in the Illinoisan's logic, but he was not skilful enough to analyze it. Now the mulatto began to see that Farquhar was right. The negro question was a matter of individual initiative. Critics forgot that a race was ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... quadroon women of middle age were generally in easy circumstances, and comfortable in their mode of living. They owned slaves, skilful hairdressers, fine washerwomen, accomplished seamstresses, who brought them in a handsome revenue. Expert themselves at all kinds of needle-work, and not deficient in taste, some of them rose to the importance ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... the appearance of such a ship and crew might well impress a young man trained in the ways of a ship of the style of the Alert. Long observation has satisfied me that there are no better seamen, so far as handling a ship is concerned, and none so venturous and skilful navigators, as the masters and officers of our whalemen. But never, either on this voyage, or in a subsequent visit to the Pacific and its islands, was it my fortune to fall in with a whaleship whose appearance, and the appearance of ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the four white swans heard with great joy, and coming to the shore they placed themselves under the care of the saint. And he led them to his cell, and there they dwelt with him. And Kemoc sent to Erin for a skilful workman, and ordered that two slender chains of shining silver be made. Betwixt Finola and Aed did he clasp one silver chain, and with the other did ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... summer, Mr. Curtis had borne in mind that he should need a skilful farmer to till his land, one who understood the science as well as the art of farming to the best advantage. He greatly approved Thomas Grant's industry, and the zeal he manifested in all that concerned his master's interests; but he feared the man was so attached to the old ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... will relieve your anxiety, or abate your fears. The truth is, our poor friend is in a most precarious state of health, and quite given over by the faculty. Her physician here, who is esteemed very skilful in consumptive cases, assured me from the first that it was a lost case; but as your brother seemed unwilling to know the truth, he was not so explicit with him, and only represented her as being in a very critical situation. Poor man! ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore |
