"Masterpiece" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... childish hands were playing. When on the eve of the battle of Moskowa, Napoleon was giving his final orders for the tremendous struggle of the next day, a courier, M. de Bausset, arrived suddenly from Paris, bringing with him this masterpiece of Gerard's; at once the General forgot his anxieties in his paternal joy. "Gentlemen," said Napoleon to his officers, "if my son were fifteen years old, you may be sure that he would be here among this multitude of brave men, and not merely in a picture." Then he had the portrait ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... suggested Phil, "or some of these wealthy fellows would be buying them all up and putting them in their art galleries. This view would create quite a sensation in New York City, don't you think? Fifty thousand dollars is not much for a few feet of masterpiece, but this can be had for a few dollars an ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... and Panther." This is the masterpiece of a famous writer now living {67b}, intended for a complete abstract of sixteen thousand ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... Melissa Hked to be helped, she said; she didn't believe one bit in woman's rights; no, indeed; she was a great deal too fond of being taken care of for that. And who wouldn't take care of her,—that delicate little thing,—like some choice small masterpiece of cunning workmanship? Why, she almost looked as if she were made of Venetian glass, and a fall on deck would shatter ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... calumny's masterpiece. It was a rare stroke of art to get an old dotard of a member of Congress to publish, twelve days before the election, that Mr. Clay had agreed to vote for Mr. Adams, and that Mr. Adams had agreed to reward him by the office ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... what courage!" continued the young detective. "Ah! there's no denying it, his system of defense—of absolute denial—is a masterpiece. It is perfect. How well he played that difficult part of buffoon! At times I could scarcely restrain my admiration. What is a famous comedian beside that fellow? The greatest actors need the adjunct of stage scenery to support the illusion, whereas ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... of the human heart, and perpetual raillery that yet is not devoid of delicacy and compassion. Moliere is a most charming man in every respect; I gave him a few hints for his 'Tartuffe,' and such is his gratitude that he wants to make out that, without me, he would never have written that masterpiece." ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... something—that the world would follow where I had led!"—The old force, fire, joyous enthusiasm had bounded into his voice. But it died away, and it was with a settling to sadness he said, "You see, little girl, if there was a wonderful picture you had conceived—your masterpiece, something you had reason to feel would stand as one of the world's great pictures, if you had begun on it, were in the heat of it, and then had to give it up, it would not quite satisfy you, would it, dear, to settle down and write some textbooks ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... stirred by an emotion that must thrill the hearts of all great artists when, in the pride of their youth and their first love of art, they come into the presence of a master or stand before a masterpiece. For all human sentiments there is a time of early blossoming, a day of generous enthusiasm that gradually fades until nothing is left of happiness but a memory, and glory is known for a delusion. Of all these delicate and short-lived emotions, none so resemble love as the passion of a young ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... "Dunciad," Swift published his "Gulliver's Travels," and Gay set the town wild with his "Beggar's Opera." We are far from any thought of classifying the "Beggar's Opera" as a work of art on a level with the "Dunciad" or "Gulliver's Travels," but in its way it is a masterpiece. It is thoroughly original, fresh, and vivid. It added one or two distinctly new figures to the humorous drama. It is clever as a satire and charming as a story. One cannot be surprised that when it had the attraction of novelty the public raved about it. To say anything about ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... of violence. Never had so much stinging bitterness, so many falsehoods, such bigoted abuse flowed from pen before. Vuillet commenced by narrating the entry of the insurgents into Plassans. The description was a perfect masterpiece. He spoke of "those bandits, those villainous-looking countenances, that scum of the galleys," invading the town, "intoxicated with brandy, lust, and pillage." Then he exhibited them "parading their cynicism in the streets, terrifying the inhabitants with their savage cries and seeking ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... remarkable skill. The former is divided into a nave and four aisles, transepts, and a shallow chancel, by four rows of Corinthian columns, with a small dome over the intersection. The interior is very beautiful, and this church is generally considered to be Wren's masterpiece. S. Mary Abchurch, is nearly square in plan, has no columns and is covered with a domical ceiling, but so skilfully treated that the effect ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... entirety, is an honest, frank, and convincing enunciation of republican truths. It is an unselfish and sober appeal for justice to another member of the Negro race. Bereft of all rhetorical embellishments, as the speech is, it may well pass for a masterpiece of logical thought and dynamic expression. It is the forerunner of even ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... great masterpiece, an Elephant; The only harmless great thing: Yet Nature hath given him no knee to bend: Himself he up-props, on himself ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... without study from nature—a sketch rather than a completed work of art, but a sketch to be slowly developed into the reliefs of the Farragut pedestal, the angels of the Morgan tomb, the caryatids of the Vanderbilt mantelpiece, and, at length, into such a masterpiece as the "Amor-Caritas." In each of these developments the work becomes less picturesque and more formal, the taste is purified, the exuberance of decorative feeling is more restrained. The final term is reached in the caryatids for the Albright Gallery at Buffalo—works of his last ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... For Poirot, uttering a hoarse and inarticulate cry, again annihilated his masterpiece of cards, and putting his hands over his eyes swayed backwards and forwards, apparently ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... calculate on anything. Least of all with George Tanqueray. Except that he'll never achieve anything that isn't a masterpiece. If ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... him into tolerable English verse. And I have no hesitation in asserting, that any competent judge, who is such by virtue of understanding the original, would pronounce her translations of Giusti to be a masterpiece, which very few indeed of contemporary men or women could have produced. I have more than once surprised her in tears occasioned by her obstinate struggles with some passage of the intensely idiomatic satirist, which ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... neat, myself." He had some reputation in the under-world for his manner of dressing, and he regarded this latest achievement as his masterpiece. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... translation. If his object was to overthrow the great Greek poet, it must have been a bitter disappointment to Marivaux to see that his burlesque passed almost unnoticed by his contemporaries and was soon forgotten. The same year he wrote a Telemaque travesti, a parody on the masterpiece of Fenelon. This work was not published until 1736, when it was received with such disapprobation that he ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... his great wonder, there stood the shoes all ready made, upon the table. The good man knew not what to say or think at such an odd thing happening. He looked at the workmanship; there was not one false stitch in the whole job; all was so neat and true, that it was quite a masterpiece. ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... of its rain. The day was a masterpiece of good weather. A brilliant throng mounted to the platform, an admiral, sea-captains and lieutenants, officers of the army, a Senator, Congressmen, judges, capitalists, the jubilant officers of the ship-building corporation. And ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... does not completely realise. She may be likened to a child playing with symbols which, in the hand of the enchanter, would be of tremendous import. Her treatment of Isoude, for example, in "The Lay of the Honeysuckle," is quite perfect in tone, and, indeed, is a little masterpiece in its own fashion. But her sketch of Guenevere in "The Lay of Sir Launfal" is of a character that one does not recall with pleasure. To see how Arthur's Queen might be treated, we have but to turn to the ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... potter having produced a masterpiece as a present to his lady destroyed the design, so that the service he gave her might be unique. After gazing at these curious old pieces, with dates of 1754, 1728, and so forth, the mind becomes attuned to such times, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... The vestibule contains a superb mosaic, brought home from Venice, in 1798, by one of the Boiscorans, who had degenerated, and followed the fortunes of Napoleon. The balusters of the great staircase are a masterpiece of iron work; and the wainscoting in the dining-room has no rival ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... original here follows Villon's masterpiece, the matchless Ballad of the Ladies of Old Time, so incomparably rendered in the marvellous version of D. G. Rossetti; followed in its turn by the succeeding poem, as inferior to its companion as is my attempt at translation of it to his triumph in ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... only a study in unisons? There is the C-sharp minor Prelude. In it Brahms is anticipated by a quarter of a century. The Polonaise in F-sharp minor was damned years ago by Liszt, who found that it contained pathologic states. What of it? It is Chopin's masterpiece in this form and for that reason is seldom played in public. Why? My children, do you not know by this time that the garden variety of pianoforte virtuoso will play difficult music if the difficulties be technical not emotional, or emotional and ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... action. But first he had to fulminate. Much irritation had been caused by mock proclamations mysteriously appearing on the walls of the residences of the new generals, and Gage now determined to issue one in earnest. He called Burgoyne to his aid, and the literary general drafted a masterpiece. It was published on the ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... enjoyment, and not only instrumentally and vocally. In other words we realise that good listeners and appreciative understanders of music are, in their way, as essential as executants. "Shocking as it may seem, hundreds of children 'learn music' for the length of their school life and never hear a masterpiece, and indeed, hear no music at all except such as their own untrained musical sense and half-trained fingers can compass."[21] In increasing measure the teaching of music appreciation is coming into vogue, and as an aid to this the piano-player and gramophone are ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... transatlantic democracy never sufficiently explained her apathy on social questions. She had a mental image of that son of the Crusaders who was to suffer her to adore him, but like many an artist who has produced a masterpiece of idealisation she shrank from exposing it to public criticism. It was the portrait of a gentleman rather ugly than handsome and rather poor than rich. But his ugliness was to be nobly expressive and his poverty delicately proud. She had a fortune of her own which, at the ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... walked to the front, and made my best bow. Then I said: 'I waited until yesterday because I knew absolutely nothing about my subject'—the audience laughed—'and I could find nothing either here or in the library at home, so last night I reviewed Saintine's masterpiece, "Picciola."' ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... A lovely woman is a work of art, but like any other masterpiece, she is a luxury I can't afford. Anyway, this mug of mine rather put me out of the running in the only leagues I've wanted to play in. Incidentally, you introduced yourself as Miss ...
— The Deadly Daughters • Winston K. Marks
... of the cutest, wittiest and most amusing of childish sayings, whims and pranks, all at the expense of a bachelor uncle. The book is elaborately illustrated, which greatly assists the reader in appreciating page by page, Habberton's masterpiece. ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... had happened; and England had found its worship once more—the necessary culmination of unimpeded subjectivity. From the provinces had come the like news. In cathedral after cathedral had been the same scenes. Markenheim's masterpiece, executed in four days after the passing of the bill, had been reproduced by the ordinary machinery, and four thousand replicas had been despatched to every important centre. Telegraphic reports had streamed into the London papers ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... artists together, under pain of death by newspaper articles. Ninon the second would have been magnificently impertinent, overwhelming in luxury. She would have set up opinions. Some prohibited dramatic masterpiece should have been read in her drawing-room; it should have been written on purpose if necessary. She would not have been liberal; a courtesan is essentially monarchical. Oh, what a loss! She ought to have embraced her whole century, and she makes ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... the like, are, when great work is concerned, questions for the study and the lecture-room, for the literary historian and the professional critic, rather than for the reader, however intelligent and alert, who wishes to enjoy a masterpiece, and is content simply to enjoy it. It does not really matter how close to anything else something which possesses independent goodness is; the very utmost technical originality, the most spotless purity from the faintest taint ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... It's not quite right about the chair legs, they get so mixed up. Perspective never was my strong point," said Pixie, holding out a sheet and pointing to the masterpiece in question with the end of ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... free from Spain. Hitherto, William of Orange had ruled as King Philip's "stadtholder," and even the war against the monarch had been carried on in his name. Nay, the document establishing the University, a paper, which with all the earnestness that dictated it, deserves to be called an unsurpassed masterpiece of the subtlest political irony, purported to issue from King Philip's mouth, and it sounds amusing enough to read in this paper, that the gloomy dunce in the Escurial, after mature deliberation with his dear and faithful cousin, William of Orange, has ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hath made his masterpiece. Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope the Lord's anointed temple and stole thence the life ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... who had been watching him furtively, wondering why a student should sit in front of the "Sacrifice of Lystra" and gnaw lips and nails and moustache, and scowl and glare at that masterpiece, saw him rise suddenly to his feet with an air of resolution, spin on his heel, and set off with a quick step out of the gallery. He looked neither to the right nor the left. He passed out of ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... years to find materials for and to perfect; the white men were in ivory, the black in walnut, and were two opposing squadrons of French troops and of mounted Arabs. Beautifully carved, with every detail of costume rigid to truth, they were his masterpiece, though they had only been taken up at any odd ten minutes that had happened to be unoccupied during the last three or four years. The chessmen had been about with him in so many places and under canvas so long, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... which they spring and in which they are swallowed up. We shall then be armed, on the one hand, against the solemn bore who requires us to admire his imitation of an old master because it is in the tradition; on the other, against the portentous "Ist," whose parthenogenetic masterpiece we are not in a state to relish till we have sucked down the pseudo-philosophic bolus that embodies his eponymous "Ism." To each we shall make the same reply: "Be so good as to remove your irrelevant label and we will endeavour to judge your ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... certain area of the camp, and this was to be erected, together with the necessary gates and other details within fourteen days. If we could complete it within a shorter time no complaint would be raised. But he would not allow another day beyond his limit. Major Bach must have been a masterpiece in this particular phase of human endeavour, inasmuch as his anticipated period, as we learned, could not have been reduced ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... exquisite enjoyment. To furnish it he had sacked towns she never heard of, and had rifled two cathedrals, because the notion that the wife of Demetrios should own a Christian chapel appeared to him amusing. The Virgin, a masterpiece of Pietro di Vicenza, Demetrios had purchased by the interception of a free city's navy. It was a ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... I. If we could represent the buck in the act of upsetting us, it would be our 'masterpiece,' wouldn't it? But I am afraid that is further than our ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... cathedral. The lights and sunshine of the out-of-doors made the contrast more impressive and in the wonder of the moment the girls drew closer together. Gone was all their levity now, buried deep beneath an overwhelming reverence for this great architectural masterpiece—exalted resting place of England's ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... town, and they had arranged to read it aloud together. By now, thought Peter, it must be lying on his friend's table. The thought saddened him. And James, guessing what was in Peter's mind, was saddened too. But he did not waver. He was in no mood to read MacBean's masterpiece that night. In the twenty minutes of silence after leaving Miss Forrester he had realized that "Grace" rhymes with "face", and he wanted to sit alone in his study and write poetry. The two men parted with a distant nod. I beg your pardon? Yes, you are right. Two distant ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... this title had long since disappeared, in the destruction of Jerusalem; and tradition, prone to assign to well-known authors of illustrious deeds many good feats accomplished by those who remain nameless, had ascribed the compilation of this early masterpiece of judicial wisdom to Godfrey de Bouillon. It had been sacredly kept in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and guarded by a decree ordaining that it should not be opened except in the presence ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... politics and in literature. After the loss of Icelandic freedom there is no more left of Germania, and the Sturlunga Saga which tells the story of the last days of freedom is the last word of the Teutonic heroic age. It is not a decrepit or imitative or secondary thing; it is a masterpiece; and with this true history, this adaptation of an heroic style to contemporary realities, the sequence of German heroic ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... preceded by short stories, "Lillian Morris," "Yanko the Musician," "After Bread," "Hania," "Let Us Follow Him," followed by two problem novels, "Without Dogma," and "Children of the Soil," and crowned by a masterpiece of an incomparable artistic beauty, "Quo Vadis." Eleven good books adopted from the Polish language and set into circulation are of great importance for the English-reading people—just now I am emphasizing only ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... passion" in a petty environment such as they were in, a tiny world of gossip-mongers and evil tongues! Imagine having to hide like a criminal to express a noble emotion! No, when she loved, she loved in the open, with the sublime immodesty of the masterpiece that scandalizes bumpkins with its naked beauty! How impossible it would be, finding herself nibbled at constantly by gossiping fools, quite beneath her contempt. She would feel the scorn and the indignation ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Doctor Butler's happiness was secure. That new berry was so much richer and sweeter and more generous than the familiar FRAGRARIA VESCA of Europe, that it attracted the sincere interest of all persons of good taste. It inaugurated a new era in the history of the strawberry. The long lost masterpiece of Paradise was restored to its true place in the ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... "the surrendering of an ancient dependency like Heligoland, and which has since been strongly fortified, to satiate a shadowy claim of the GERMAN EMPEROR to the Island of Zanzibar." To satiate a shadowy claim is good. Space forbids quotation of more than one additional sentence from this masterpiece. "Let me conclude by saying, that I trust whoever may succeed me in North-West Wilts will wear ELIJAH's mantle with the same pleasure as I have already done." What that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 26, 1891 • Various
... starlit rill, I took a turn, and told him of the commonplaces of my world so far away, whereat he laughed gloriously again. The greater the commonplace the larger his joy. The humblest story, hardly calculated to impress a griffin between watches on the main-deck, was a masterpiece of wit to that gentle savage; and when I "took off" the tricks and foibles of some of my superiors—Heaven forgive me for such treason!—he listened with the exquisite open-mouthed delight of one who wanders in ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... mine Audacity," said the knight, resuming the affected manner which was become a second nature to him; "nevertheless this fosse is curiously well shaped, and might be the masterpiece of Nature's last bed-maker, I would say the sexton—Wherefore, let us be thankful to chance or some unknown friend, who hath thus provided for one of us the decencies of sepulture, and let us proceed to determine which shall have the advantage ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... lost him; at Blois, where she married her second, the "good" Louis XII., who divorced an impeccable spouse to make room for her, and where she herself died. Transferred to the cathedral from a demolished convent, this monument, the masterpiece of Michel Colomb, author of the charming tomb of the children of Charles VIII. and the aforesaid Anne, which we admired at Saint Gatien of Tours, is one of the most brilliant works of the French Renaissance. It has a splendid ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... way unique. In the first place it is remarkable for its literary excellence. Compared with the barbarous macaronic jargon of the contemporary official language it shines forth as a masterpiece of pure, pithy and original Danish. Still more remarkable are the tone and tenor of this royal law. The Kongelov has the highly dubious honour of being the one written law in the civilized world ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... is, I consider, due to the public, but whether I have been justified by results or whether, under the sacred mask of Drama, I have erred unpardonably, are points which, so long as this revival draws attention to a forgotten masterpiece, can be of no very ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... which hung from the roof of St. Lorenz? With such an example before him, what might not the boy hope to achieve through talent and persevering labor? And Gabriel felt his own heart burn as he looked with wistful eyes upon that masterpiece of ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... these lines (July, 1918) the station at Chateau-Thierry is all of that city that remains in our hands. The bridge head has become the most disputed spot on the map of Europe; "The Elephant" a heap of waste in No Man's Land, while doubtless from the very place where Corot painted his masterpiece, a German machine gun dominating the city is belching forth its ghastly ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... in reply to the same inevitable imputation, and would not be brought to admit that the two cases were other than parallel. But, except for this single instance of oversight or perversity, her defence was throughout a masterpiece of indomitable ingenuity, of delicate and steadfast courage, of womanly dignity and genius. Finally, she demanded, as she had demanded before, a trial either before the states of the realm lawfully assembled, or else before the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... This masterpiece of Defoe is before its time by a hundred years; nothing can be found in the realm of the English prose short-story to approach it in symmetry until the Ettrick Shepherd ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... But the masterpiece of the costume, and one that did great credit to the ingenuity of Fraeulein, was a pair of wings that were fastened to Patty's shoulders. They were made of fine net, covered with fringed tissue paper, which had the ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... miscellaneous pieces are among the very best humourous poetry of this generation. We have laughed at nothing lately more than at 'Ars Postera,' at 'A New Blue Book,' at 'To a Boy-Poet of the Decadence,' and at 'To Julia in Shooting Togs.' But, after all, Mr. Seaman's masterpiece up to date is certainly 'To the Lord of Potsdam.' ... This will live, or we are greatly mistaken, among the most effective examples of ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... earth the cashier would behave when they loosed him out for the Bank Holiday. Then he set to and wrote hard at the Quarterly Catalogue. In all London there was not a more prolific or versatile writer than Savage Keith Rickman. But if in ninety-two you had asked him for his masterpiece, his magnum opus, his life-work, he would mention nothing that he had written, but refer you, soberly and benignly, to that ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... from the sense of being made ridiculous. The prisoners were dressed in uniform,—'jacket, waistcoat, and trousers of a sulphur or mustard yellow, and a shirt of blue-and-white striped cotton.' St. Ives thought that 'some malignant genius had found his masterpiece of irony in that dress.' So much is made of this point that one reads with unusual interest the letter in which Stevenson bewails his 'miserable luck' with St. Ives; for he was halfway through it when a book, which he had ordered six months before, arrived, upsetting all his previous ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... that enveloped his throat gleamed a turquoise, of such value as a jeweller might have kept for fifty years before he could find a customer rich and frivolous enough to buy it. The very head of his cane was a masterpiece of art, and the man himself, so elegant despite his strength, and so fresh despite his years!—it is astonishing how well men wear when they think of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and entrapping her into a marriage, are admirably drawn, as is its companion or counterpart, when Badman, in his widower-hood, suffers an infamous strumpet to inveigle him into a miserable marriage, as he so richly deserved. The death-bed scene of the pious broken-hearted Mrs. Badman, is a masterpiece. In fact the whole is a series of pictures drawn by a most admirable artist, and calculated to warn and attract the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... by east wind or west wind, north wind or south wind, according as each blew last and hardest; the other thirty-six—the rose: in its midsummer splendour with fold upon fold of delicate symmetric structures, making a masterpiece. ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... concentration accomplishes this without the necessity of any artificial methods of development, or the production of abnormal psychic states. You easily concentrate your full attention when you witness an interesting play, or listen to a beautiful rendition of some great masterpiece of musical composition, or gaze at some miracle of pictured or sculptured art. In these cases your attention is completely occupied with the interesting thing before you, so that you have almost completely shut out the outer world of sound, sight, and thought—but ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... the east end of this church is considered by Herr Luebke to be 'the masterpiece of the epoch.' 'It is to be found,' he says, 'at one extremity of a building, the other end of which is occupied by the loveliest steeple ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... idea that our eyes have followed attains its supreme expression in our domestic bees, it must not be inferred therefrom that the hive reveals no faults. There is one masterpiece, the hexagonal cell, that touches absolute perfection,—a perfection that all the geniuses in the world, were they to meet in conclave, could in no way enhance. No living creature, not even man, has achieved, in the centre of his sphere, what the bee has achieved in her ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... The importance of Lessing's masterpiece in comedy, "Minna von Barnhelm," is difficult to exaggerate. It was the beginning of German national drama; and by the patriotic interest of its historical background, by its sympathetic treatment of the German ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... the elements of poetic beauty join to make The Passing of Arthur a masterpiece. Sublime sentiment thrills through the stanzas. A stately meter gives a solemn, rhythmic swing to the noble lines. Sonorous words add to the grandeur. Apt phrases and beautiful figures of speech seize the imagination and enchain the fancy. Rare and choice ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... that some valuable books are partially insane; some, mostly religious, partially inhuman; and very many tainted with morbidity and impotence. We do not loathe a masterpiece although we gird against its blemishes. We are not, above all, to look for faults, but merits. There is no book perfect, even in design; but there are many that will delight, improve, or encourage the reader. On the one hand, the ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that," said Beale, radiant with delight; "you're a fair masterpiece, you are; you earned it honest if ever a kid done. Pats you on the napper, she does, and out with 'arf a dollar! A bit of all right, I ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... gentleman; and having established Clarissa with her lamp and books, sank lazily back into his corner, and gave himself up to a continued contemplation of the fair young face, almost as calmly as if it had been some masterpiece of the painter's art in a ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... consistency. The whole civilized world has read the "Reflections on the French Revolution," whose sale, in one year, achieved the enormous number of 30,000 copies, in connection with medals or marks of honour from almost every Court in Europe. Now, of all the replies made to this masterpiece of reasoning and reflection, Mackintosh's "Vindiciae Gallicae" was incontestably the ablest and profoundest. And yet, the greatest of all his intellectual opponents thus addresses Burke, as appears from "Memoirs" of Mackintosh, volume i. page 87:—"The enthusiasm ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... restored by the Dean of Faculty, who succeeded in soothing the prisoner, and who then addressed the Judges, pleading for indulgence to his unhappy client in most touching and eloquent language. The speech, a masterpiece of impromptu oratory, concluded with a temperate yet strongly urged protest against the reading of ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... a commonplace—a rather modest volume with most of us, summed up on a tombstone generally, easily enough, but we are bound to believe after all is said and done that the great masterpiece among reference books, for every man,—the one originally intended by the Creator for every man to use,—is the reference book of his own life. We believe that the one direct and necessary thing for a man to do, if he is going to be a good reader, is to make, this reference book—his ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the ship tack about. I deemed it better, however, to keep off from the shore till daylight, when they could see where they were; but the captain relying more upon Jan's opinion, and wishing to accomplish half a masterpiece, by going into Falmouth in the dark, and surprising the people there to whom the ship was consigned, and so to pass hereafter as a good and skillful captain, insisted upon sailing in, and so they went ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... attained to. So he painted all round these newly born a company of ancients, who were in those days called prophets and sybils, whose majesty was that of the mind alone at its intensest. And this painting was acknowledged through ages and ages to be the summit and masterpiece of art. Of course we cannot believe such a tale literally. It is only a legend. We do not believe in archangels; and the notion that thirty thousand years ago sculpture and painting existed, and had even reached the glorious perfection they have reached ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... sky. At top of the sign, now nearly finished, was traced, in large characters, 'Break of Day;' a precaution as indispensable to point out the artist's design, as the inscription, 'Dutch and Flemish Beer,' was to announce the articles dealt in by the owner of the house upon which this masterpiece ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... no one had ever heard before. The penalty for failure was the threshing-machine. Nobody failed. And I want to say right here that never in my life have I sat at so marvellous a story-telling debauch. Here were eighty-four men from all the world—I made eighty-five; and each man told a masterpiece. It had to be, for it was ...
— The Road • Jack London
... Wylo's masterpiece in portraiture—the one revelation of the human form divine which he permitted himself to accomplish in other than transient sand, was a fancy picture of one of his many sweethearts—a lady in a very old hat and nothing more, with a few boomerangs thrown in ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... in few of his other pictures, in the masterpiece that is offered to the admiration of all in the great collection ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... in this partnership message adds a simple bold touch of colouring that makes the picture a masterpiece, the masterpiece. This King who serves, and is nearest of kin to us, is also nearest of kin to God. He is not only of the blood royal, and the blood human, but of the blood divine. He was with God before calendars came into use. He was the ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... sympathetic listener, to whom he could pour out his plans and his innermost longings. Otherwise his life was as solitary as it was cloistered. He confined himself to his room for days at a time, working fiercely at the manuscript of the play, Cromwell, which he felt to be a masterpiece. ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... of Aklis, Zaragal, beholding this masterpiece of Dob, which was served to the guests in the Great Hall on the fortieth evening, was fair to exclaim ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "This world is a pretty good old place if you don't regard the 'shalt nots,' but isn't it long enough to live the allotted time? What do we want to do it all over again for, that is, provided we do all the pleasant things while we have the chance? I don't want to see any play twice, even a masterpiece. I wouldn't want to live again unless I had been a Christian in this life and felt that I wanted to come back and do a lot of the things I had just heard about and ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... one of the writers most philosophically delightful and most delightfully philosophic, complained of the carelessness with which human beings were procreated; 'Shame!' he cried 'that he who copies the divine physiognomy of man receives crowns and applause, but he who achieves the masterpiece, the prototype of mimic art, feels that like virtue he must ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... them and their enterprise I felt a hearty respect. When we had surveyed everything within doors I was asked to look at the mostra—the sign that hung over the entrance; a sort of griffin in wrought iron, this, too, copied from an old masterpiece, and reminding one of the fine ironwork which adorns the streets of Siena. Don Pasquale could not be satisfied until I had privately assured him of my genuine admiration. Was it, he asked, at all like a chemist's shop in London? My reply certainly gratified him, but I am afraid ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... prince. For this reason, they had given him the surname of King Bizarre, the only title by which he is known in history, as is seen in the Great Chronicles of the Kingdoms and Principalities of the World Which Have Never Existed, a learned masterpiece which has immortalized the erudition and criticism of the reverend father, Dr. ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... we have already spoken in a general way. "Absalom and Achitophel" is of course the masterpiece, and cannot be too highly praised as a gallery of portraits, and for the daring force and felicity of its style. Why enlarge on a poem, almost every line of which has become a proverb? "The Medal" is inferior only in condensation—in spirit and energy it is quite equal. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... have all the charm of a romance. No novel indeed is half so delightful as that picture, at once affectionate and satirical, tender and humorous, extravagant and delicately shaded, of the student life enjoyed together for a few short months by the inseparable friends. To make extracts from a masterpiece of such consummate workmanship is almost painful. Future biographers of Shelley, writing on a scale adequate to the greatness of their subject, will be content to lay their pens down for a season at this point, and let Hogg ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... deny that the polity of the Church of Rome is the very masterpiece of human wisdom. In truth, nothing but such a polity could, against such assaults, have borne up such doctrines. The experience of twelve hundred eventful years, the ingenuity and patient care of forty generations of statesmen, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... painted before he had left his forest home; others were of more recent date. All the people and all the painters praised them. But there was one that they liked better than the others; and when he heard them call it his masterpiece, he went and sat down opposite to it, that he might think over again some of the thoughts that he had had ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... it; going from newspaper office to newspaper office Prince and Morrison saw to that, using their influence as big buyers of advertising space and even insisting upon reading proof on their own masterpiece. ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... most ardent purist must now despair of getting at the spelling of Chaucer himself — has been discarded for that of the reader's own day. It is a poor compliment to the Father of English Poetry, to say that by such treatment the bouquet and individuality of his works must be lost. If his masterpiece is valuable for one thing more than any other, it is the vivid distinctness with which English men and women of the fourteenth century are there painted, for the study of all the centuries to follow. But we wantonly balk the artist's own purpose, and discredit his labour, when we keep before his ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... bent, Raleigh was homo utriusque linguae, and his works in verse, unequal as they are, occasionally touch the loftiest summits of poetry. It is very much the same in his prose. His minor books, mostly written hurriedly, and for a purpose, have hardly any share of the graces of style; and his masterpiece, the famous History of the World, is made up of short passages of the most extraordinary beauty, and long stretches of monotonous narration and digression, showing not much grace of style, and absolutely no sense of proportion or ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... flings wide the doors for us and, passing reverently inside, we are confronted by the magnificent equestrian statue of Mr. Bookham Pryce, the founder of the firm. This masterpiece of the Post-Cubist School was originally entitled, "Niobe Weeping for her Children," but the gifted artist, in recognition of Mr. Pryce's princely offer of one thousand guineas for the group, waived his right ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... phrases it, he descended into hell; that is, he began those weary wanderings in exile which ended only with his life, and which stirred in him the deeps that found expression in his mighty poem, the Divina Commedia.[1] Throughout his masterpiece he speaks with eager respect of the old Roman writers, and of such Greeks as he knew—so we have admiration of the ancient intellect. He also speaks bitterly of certain popes, as well as of other more earthly tyrants—so we have the dawnings of democracy and of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... however, the fierce desire to place his children well. The Ophelia he carried to Balakirev and Nicholas Rubinstein, who sat over it one whole night examining, discussing, rejoicing at its splendor, its delicacy, the perfection of the reconceived masterpiece. Next morning Nicholas sent its composer word that he would play it at the fifth concert of his regular series, on the afternoon of March 4th. And Ivan was satisfied; for these concerts were the musical events of Moscow; and the new work was assured of a performance as perfect as he ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... the masterpiece of Ferguson's genius, was not a grave manifesto such as ought to be put forth by a leader drawing the sword for a great public cause, but a libel of the lowest class, both in sentiment and language. [361] It contained undoubtedly many just charges against the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he will wait for her, disguised as a monk in white, accompanied by a Capuchin, his pupil Ascanio.—Unhappily the rival Fieramosca has entered unseen, and overheard all. The ensuing terzetto is a masterpiece. While the lovers are bidding each-other farewell Balducci returns; and Cellini has scarcely time to hide behind the window-curtain before he enters. The father is surprised to find his daughter still up and Teresa, seeking for an excuse to send him away, feigns to be ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... Another masterpiece in the Hague Gallery is a small painting by Gerard Dou, the painter of the celebrated "Dropsical Woman," which hangs in the Louvre between pictures by Raphael and Murillo. He is one of the greatest painters ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... are far wrong when they prefer the chink of gold to the strumming and piping which, until now, the world, turning up the whites of its eyes, has called music. I, who had been piping and strumming with the rest, suddenly rushed out of the throng, and thrusting my masterpiece in their faces, told them that it was music. Was it their fault if they turned their backs and would not believe ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... word, Mr. Francis Osbaldistone," she said, seating herself in one of the great chairs in the library, like a judge upon the bench, "your character improves upon us. Last night's performance was a masterpiece. You contrived to exhibit in the course of one evening all the various qualifications of your several cousins—the gentle and generous temper of Rashleigh, the temperance of Percie, the cool courage of Thorncliff, John's skill in dog-breaking, Dickon's aptitude for betting—all ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... ever hope to be, now that the first glow of his prime was past, might fashion an image of our decadence, or our arrest, so grandly, so perfectly dull and uninteresting, that it would fix all the after-ages with the sovereign authority of a masterpiece? Here, he tremblingly glowed to realize, was opportunity, not for him, indeed, but for some more modern, more divinely inspired lover of the mediocre, to eternize our typelessness and establish himself among the many-millioned ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... refuses, however, to connect this industry with a desire for ethical instruction. Their efforts are said to have been limited to the tracing of ideographs and the composition of verselets. A perfectly formed ideograph possesses in Japanese eyes many of the qualities that commend a pictorial masterpiece to Western appreciation. Saga achieved the distinction of being reckoned among the "Three Penmen" of his era,* and he carried his enthusiasm so far as to require that all the scions of the aristocracy should be instructed in the Chinese classics. Junna had less ability, but his admiration was not ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... comedy pleased long ago, Is not enough to make it pass you now. Yet, gentlemen, your ancestors had wit; When few men censured, and when fewer writ. And Jonson, of those few the best, chose this As the best model of his masterpiece. Subtle was got by our Albumazar, That Alchymist by this Astrologer; Here he was fashion'd, and we may suppose He liked the fashion well, who wore the clothes. 10 But Ben made nobly his what he did mould; What was another's lead becomes his gold: Like an unrighteous ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... to inquire what new beauties you have discovered in Vondel's 'Lucifer.' You have not had time, I take it for granted, to begin the comparison between this masterpiece of our native tongue and ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... ever claim the chief interest; details should not distract attention from it. In art, subordination of the parts to the whole is an art of itself. Everything must be fitted to the larger lineaments that should characterize a masterpiece. ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... ever so resolutely bounded from the summit of spiritual altitude to the rapt orb of heaven. He had gone to the two extremes. From the rankest weeds of the pit he had extracted the finest essence of charity, the mordant liquor of tears. In this canvas was revealed the masterpiece of an art obeying the unopposable urge to render the tangible and the invisible, to make manifest the crying impurity of the flesh and to make sublime the infinite distress of ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... South Seas was granted, and the company, being incorporated by act of parliament, assumed the title by which it has ever since been known. The minister took great credit to himself for his share in this transaction, and the scheme was always called by his flatterers "the Earl of Oxford's masterpiece." ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... clerks was the one he played off upon Godard, presenting him with a butterfly just brought from China, which the worthy man keeps in his collection and exhibits to this day, blissfully unconscious that it is only painted paper. Bixiou had the patience to work up the little masterpiece for the sole purpose ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... the money, under the rose, in two or three different payments, and permitted the Duc de Bouillon to lend him his house at Pontoise, completely furnished, and the garden of which, on the banks of the river, is admirable and immense, a masterpiece of its kind, and had been the delight of Cardinal Bouillon, being perhaps the only thing in France he regretted. With such fine assistance the Chief- President—on bad terms with his companions, who had openly despised him for some time—perfectly made it up with them. He kept at Pontoise open ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... etc., and ending "Un reste de chaleur tout pret a s'exhaler," that I think in it Racine has not only united the excellencies of Euripides, Sappho and Theocritus in describing the passion of love, but has far surpassed them all; that speech is certainly the masterpiece of French versification and scarcely inferior to it is that beautiful and ingenuous confession of love by Hippolyte to Aricie. What an admirable pendant to the love of Phedre! In Hippolyte you behold the innocence, ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... obviously impossible that a masterpiece should be executed under the rules laid down by convention. It would never be finished. Mr. Chiltern was coming to lunch, and it was not the first time. On her appearance in the doorway he halted abruptly in his pacing of the drawing-room, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... iron. And your bomb-proof Headquarter Bureau, the iron skull that's to hold the working brain of the place ... with underground telegraphic and telephonic communications with all the forts and outposts. It's colossal! A masterpiece of cool, deadly, lethal forethought.... I thought I was incapable of the delicious shiver of expectation that the schoolboy enjoys, sitting in the stalls of dear Old Drury, waiting for the curtain to rise on ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... and when Sam Clemens wrote abroad burlesque of the old man's contributions, relating a perfectly impossible trip, supposed to have been made in 1763 with a Chinese captain and a Choctaw crew, it was regarded as a masterpiece of wit. ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Chancellorship, in 1827. For the spirited interest of its style, the clear and precise detail of fact, and the simple yet elegant course of its manner, it is surpassed by no work of the present century. It is regarded by eminent critics as a masterpiece of biography, and may justly rank with the first books of that character in the English tongue. It has probably been as serviceable to perpetuate the name of the author, if not more so, than the numerous profound and equitable ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... have struck the writer as the best he has come across are Master Briar, Clonmel Monarch, Clonmel Marvel, Dumbarton Lass, Tone Masterpiece, Mistress Royal, Master Royal, Tone Chief, Huckleberry Lass, Fielden Fashion, York Sceptre and Clonmel Floriform. Nearly everyone of these is now, either in the flesh or spirit, in the United States ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... now appeared to be four mouths to feed in the family instead of the customary three. He hoped she would heed his words and exercise greater prudence in the management of her household—and the courteous inflection of his tones as he voiced his hope was a masterpiece of sarcasm. It left his wife pale and resigned, his ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... otherwise than admire him for the ingenuity of the means by which he sought to attain his end. It was in its way a masterpiece of imagination, for one that throve upon banking, to conceive that scheme of the Company of Death, with its trumpet-call to youth and courage and the noble heart. It was excellently clever, too, of Messer Simone so to engineer his contrivance that while he seemingly included in its ranks the young ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... declareth the work of his hands" (Ps. xvlii). Yet not only the heavens, but also the earth shows us, at every step, the omnipotence of God, His wisdom and love. Mountain and valley, forest and field, river and ocean, they all remind us of God, their creator. Every flower of field and meadow is a great masterpiece, which ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... it, being familiar with man's floating prisons from the frequent descriptions given to them by John Adams, and especially from a drawing made by him, years ago, on the back of an old letter, representing a full-rigged man-of-war. This masterpiece of fine art had been nailed up on the walls of John Adams's hut, and had been fully expounded to each child in succession, as soon after its birth as was ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... cares of the world strepitumque Romae,—["And the roar of Rome."]—to the sweet shades of Pentonville or the remoter plains of Clapham—conducts some delighted visitor over the intricacies of that Daedalian masterpiece which he is pleased to call his labyrinth or maze,—now smiling furtively at his guest's perplexity, now listening with calm superiority to his futile and erring conjectures, now maliciously accompanying ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... out of whose path to life and freedom we had stepped glanced from the line of lowered steel to the open gates and the forest beyond, and understood. For a full minute he waited, moving not a muscle, still and stately as some noble masterpiece in bronze. Then he stepped from the shadow of the wall and moved past us through the sunshine that turned the eagle feather in his scalp lock to gold. His eyes were fixed upon the forest; there was no change in the superb calm of his face. He went by the huddled dead and the long line ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... the issue of religious differences and alluded specially to the recent Papal decrees over which so much controversy had raged. The Bishop of Raphoe rose to reply and expounded, as an ex-professor of Canon Law, the true bearing of these documents. His speech was a masterpiece; its candour and its lucidity commended itself to all hearers, but most of all to the Ulstermen, who applauded at once Lord Oranmore's comment that the odium theologicum had been replaced by divina caritas; and at a very late stage in our proceedings, Mr. ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... am astonished," said Mrs Western; "this is, indeed, a masterpiece of assurance. With your leave I may possibly make some use of this letter." "You have my full liberty," cries Lady Bellaston, "to apply it to what purpose you please. However, I would not have it ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... all the government clauses were carried. There were many amendments on the paper which took precedence of Mr. Woodall's, but these were hastily gone through or withdrawn, and in the middle of the morning sitting of June 9, he rose and moved the introduction of his clause. Mr. Woodall's speech was a masterpiece of earnest but temperate reasoning. He was fortunate enough to present an old and well-worn subject in new lights. He said that Mr. Gladstone had affirmed the principle of the measure to be to give every householder a vote, and it would now be his endeavor to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Italy and Sicily; in 1831 visited the United States under a commission to study the penitentiary system; returning published a book on the subject which was crowned by the French Academy; from private notes taken in America then wrote his masterpiece, "Democracy in America," which secured his election to the Academy in 1841; spent some years in public life and then retired in order to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... after his arrival here. He introduced himself as the author of "Don Giovanni," and Garcia, clipping the old man in his arm, danced around the room like a child in glee, singing "Fin ch'han dal vino" the while. After that the inclusion of Mozart's masterpiece in Garcia's repertory was a matter of course, with only this embarrassment that there was no singer in the company capable of singing the music of Don Ottavio. This was overcome by Da Ponte going to his pupils ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Academy Exhibition of Oil Paintings. The Municipality of Barcelona purchased this chef d'oeuvre for the City Hall. Other famous productions of his are "The Battle of Lepanto," "The Death of Cleopatra," and "The Blood Compact" (q.v). This last masterpiece was acquired by the Municipality of Manila for the City Hall, but was removed when the Tagalog Rebellion broke out, for reasons which will be understood after reading Chapter xxii. This artist, the son of poor parents, was a second mate on board a sailing ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... the beverage—the masterpiece—of every meal, even if it be nothing but boiled rice. Every artisan and laborer, going to work, carries with him his rice-box of lacquered wood, a kettle, a tea-caddy, a tea-pot, a cup, and his chop-sticks. Milk and sugar are generally eschewed. ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... turning of nations to God must therefore take place. It will be during the time when God deals with this earth in mighty judgments, when the earth and the heavens are shaken, when Antichrist, Satan's masterpiece, is on the earth and produces the Great Tribulation. It will be one of the startling events of the end of the age, after the Church has been removed from the earth. During these years of trouble, judgment, and great tribulation, ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... as nearly as circumstances permitted, the plan of Solomon's Temple, and the arrangement corresponds exactly.[90] The beauty of the lower church is much obscured by the dark stained glass in the windows, and it is matter for regret that this masterpiece of design and wonderful variety of effect[91] are ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... out of the filmy and amethyst haze that closed each forest vista, came a milk-white horse, stepping high over the fallen leaves. The rider, not tall, black-bearded, with a pale, handsome face, sat like a study for some great sculptor's equestrian masterpiece. In a land where all rode well, his was superb horsemanship. The cape of his grey coat was lined with scarlet, his soft wide hat had a black plume; he wore long boots and white gauntlets. The three beneath the beech saluted. He spoke in a pensive and musical voice. "A prisoner, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... darkness, a peculiar odour, and the sound of rapid breathing. Sophy groped with her hand along the wall, found the switch, and the room and its contents were instantly revealed. A richly-carved bedstead, a masterpiece of Burmese work, stood in the middle of the floor; at either side were small tables, one heaped with an untidy pile of books and magazines; on the other were bottles, glasses and little boxes. In turning the switch Sophy ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... a fellow artist's work into the autumn salon. He succeeded, and the picture was hung. But the painter, going to see his masterpiece with Whistler on varnishing day, uttered an exclamation ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... the service of Elizabeth as are recorded in the Faerie Queene, the first three books of that great poem were finished." Spenser had spent the first three years of his residence at Kilcolman at work on this masterpiece, which had been begun in England, under the encouragement of Sidney, probably before 1580. The knightly Sidney died heroically at the battle of Zutphen, in 1586, and Spenser voiced the lament of all England in the beautiful ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... voice without metallic ring is like teeth without enamel; they may be sound and healthy, but they are not brilliant.... In speech there are several colours—a bright, ringing quality; one soft and veiled. The bright, strident hues of purple and gold in a picture may produce a masterpiece of gorgeous colouring; so, in a different manner, may the harmonious juxtaposition of greys, lilacs and browns on a canvas by Veronese, Rubens, ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... busy with his masterpiece "The Dream Journey," his cushion seat placed in the south verandah, a low desk before him. Cousin Gunendra would come and sit there for a time every morning. His immense capacity for enjoyment, like the breezes of spring, helped ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... a chaos of pictures, suggested by the scenery of Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald, half animated by vague personifications and sensational narrative. Like Harold, and Scott's Marmion, it just misses being a great poem. The Coliseum is its masterpiece of description, the appeal, "Astarte, my beloved, speak to me," its nearest approach to pathos. The lonely death of the hero makes an effective close to the moral tumult of the preceding scenes. But the reflections, often striking, are ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... will consent to be blind-folded for a part of the journey—a necessary precaution which I am sure you will appreciate,' he remarked a moment or so later,—'I will show you the priceless masterpiece in its hiding-place. Then you will understand. Also I should like the world to know how Germany reveres and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... Mark you: It is not to be expected that you should see eye to eye with the Inca. That would be presumption. It is for you to accept without question or demur the assurance of your Inca that the brooch is a masterpiece. ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... Disraely do? Why, they was all frightened of him. He was a masterpiece, I tell you. What was that there heppigram as he made?—'Inebriated with the hexuberance of his own verbosity.' There's langwidge for you! And he kep' it up, too, he did. He was the brightest diadem in England's crown, he was. But this Gladstone!—wot's he? Show me any trade as he's benefited! ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... to summit with a dense cloud of words, out of which his voice is heard asking us to believe him on the other side. Yet of all men professional students of the Bible should be freest from such a fault, seeing what a magnificent masterpiece it is of terse and vigorous simplicity. Mr. Brown and his "advanced" friends would do well to ponder that quaint and pregnant aphorism of old Bishop Andrewes—"Waste words addle questions." When I first read it I was thrown into convulsions ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... The reputed masterpiece of Moliere shows us Alceste and Celimene in the end still at odds. But light-heartedness and sincerity are not to common sense incompatible, and thus we are rightly led up to the impasse by paths of laughter. ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... the doorway like an old masterpiece, the sunlight bronzing her heavy brown curls, the olive-tinted skin of her bare arms and legs flushing with health, and her cheap calico gown held tightly about her, showing the contour of her full and shapely figure, the girl appeared to Jose like a vision from the realm of enchantment. And ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... himself that he will be able to construct by pure reasoning the history of nature and that of the human race. A geometrician, who no longer saw in the world anything but theorems and demonstrations, asked, after the representation of a dramatic masterpiece, "And what does that prove?" A physiologist absorbed in the study of sensible phenomena says: "Where is that soul they talk of? I have never seen it." These are phenomena of the same order. This infirmity of the mind, which ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... the blow's a bit too sudden to think very clear. I've a great respect for you, Miss Maggie. You're a shapely body, and you're a masterpiece at selling in the shop, but when it comes to marrying, I'm bound to tell you that I'm ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse
... Beleaguered City, a little book which, in its curious way, is a masterpiece, Mrs. Oliphant shows us the dead of a provincial town suddenly waxing indignant over the conduct and the morals of those inhabiting the town which they had founded. They rise up in rebellion, invest the houses, the streets, the market-places and, by the pressure ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... not sorry to escape with his dignity and so cheap a masterpiece. Kloot was left, with swinging legs, dominating the situation. In idle curiosity and with the simplicity of perfectly bad manners, he took up the poet's papers and letters and perused them. As there were scraps of verse amid the mass, Pinchas let ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... said Arvasita. "Leola's great night at the church fair and bazar, El Paso, in Shakespeare's acknowledged masterpiece. Leola's repetwar likewise includes 'Catherine the Queen before her Judges,' 'Quality of Mercy is not Strained,' 'Death of Little Nell,' 'Death of Paul Dombey,' 'Death of the Old Year,' 'Burial of Sir John Moore,' and other standard ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... responded the robber, taking the proffered glass. "I came without knocking for admittance. But I performed a masterpiece to-day; the Herr Count will find it out soon enough! I do not drink to your welfare Herr Count, for my good wishes don't go ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... Apollo, the god of the sun, Selene, the goddess of the moon, and Aurora, the goddess of the dawn. When Aurora appears her sister, Selene (the moon), fades and night rolls back like a curtain. Now let us look at this masterpiece by Guido Reni carefully that we may know how wonderful is the coming ...
— The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant |
