"Oeuvre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The hors d'oeuvre came on a circular three-tiered stand; red strips of herrings and silver anchovies, salads where green peas and bits of carrot lurked under golden layers of sauce, sliced tomatoes, potato salad green-specked with parsley, hard-boiled eggs barely ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... in a paragraph on what the author conceives to be the follies of the historical method. The use of the slight vernacular poem to parody the Bentleyan kind of classical scholarship was to be tried by Addison himself in Spectator 470 (August 29, 1712) and had a French counterpart in the Chef d'oeuvre d'un inconnu, 1714. A later example was executed by Defoe's son-in-law Henry Baker in No. XIX of his Universal Spectator, February 15, 1729.[5] And that year too provided the large-scale demonstration of the Dunciad Variorum. The ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... It is not in the Greek; it is one of those beautiful liberties which Mr. Pope has taken with his original. But silence that speaks can be found in France as well as in England. Voltaire, in his chef-d'oeuvre, his Oedipus, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... constant fresh arrivals and rooms to be got ready; for when the host and hostess were at home they kept the house full, and the day concluded with a large dinner-party, at which seldom less than sixteen sat down to discuss the inspirations of Monsieur Horsd'oeuvre and the priceless wines of Sir Guy. No wonder the servants looked tired and overworked, though I fancy the luxury and good living downstairs was quite equal to that which elicited encomiums from bon-vivants ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... probable that, had not circumstances thrown Mary Snow in his way, he would not have gone out of his way to seek a subject for his experiment. Mary Snow was the daughter of an engraver,—not of an artist who receives four or five thousand pounds for engraving the chef-d'oeuvre of a modern painter,—but of a man who executed flourishes on ornamental cards for tradespeople, and assisted in the illustration of circus playbills. With this man Graham had become acquainted through certain transactions of his with the press, and had found him ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... of the greatest novels ever written, is the sequel to Alexander Dumas' world-renowned chef-d'oeuvre, "The Count of Monte-Cristo," taking up the fascinating narrative where the latter ends and continuing it with marvellous power and absorbing interest. Every word tells, and the number of unusually stirring incidents is legion, while the plot is phenomenal ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... letters!—I was quite sincere, you know, when I wrote you them!—They must be very artless! Yours, that I have burned, were too clever. I remember that one day you wrote me from Holland: 'I pass my life among chefs-d'oeuvre, but my mind is far away from them. I have Rembrandt and Ruysdael; but the smallest millet seed would be more to my liking: millet is fair!' Well, that was very pretty, but much too refined. True love has no wit.—All this is to convey to you that literature will not lose much by ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... kind of fashionable Parisian conversation, which is, says our author, "a prodigious labor of improvising," a "chef-d'oeuvre," a "strange and singular thing, in which monotony is unknown," seems to be, if correctly reported, a "strange and singular thing" indeed; but somewhat monotonous at least to an English reader, and "prodigious" only, if we may take leave to say ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the organs of sexual generation, in contradistinction to that by lateral buds, in vegetables, and in some animals, as the polypus, the taenia, and the volvox, seems the chef d'oeuvre, the master-piece of nature; as appears from many flying insects, as in moths and butterflies, who seem to undergo a general change of their forms solely for the purpose of sexual reproduction, and in all other animals this organ is not complete till ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... forget that which it expresses, and put in its place, without chancing anything of its outside, the savage instincts of the tiger, the judgment of the eyesight would remain absolutely the same, and the tiger would be for it the chef-d'oeuvre ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... thrown open, disclosing a table covered with rosetrees in full bloom five feet in height and a concealed orchestra began to play. There were twenty-four seats and a footman for each two chairs, besides two butlers, who directed the service. The dinner consisted of hors-d'oeuvre and grapefruit, turtle soup, fish of all sorts, elaborate entrees, roasts, breasts of plover served separately with salad, and a riot of ices and ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... bunches of grapes, vases of fruit and at length to more "Ideal heads." The climax was reached with a life-sized Head, crowned with honeysuckles and entitled "Flora." He was three weeks upon it. It was an achievement, a veritable chef-d'oeuvre. Vandover gave it to his father upon Christmas morning, having signed his name to it with a great ornamental flourish. The Old Gentleman was astounded, the housekeeper was called in and exclaimed over it, raising her hands to Heaven. Vandover's father gave him a five-dollar gold-piece, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... construction de batimens marchands. La gratification de vingt francs par tonneau, accordee aux particuliers qui feroient passer en France des batimens construits en Canada, ne suffroit pas aujourd'huy pour les engager a cet egard dans des entreprises d'un certaine consideration; la main d'oeuvre est hors de prix, et les entrepreneurs seraient forces de faire venir de France les voiles, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... only une blague qu'on nous fait?" Then we stood and screamed at Monet, that most exquisite painter of blonde light. We stood before the "Turkeys," and seriously we wondered if "it was serious work,"—that chef d'oeuvre! the high grass that the turkeys are gobbling is flooded with sunlight so swift and intense that for a moment the illusion is complete. "Just look at the house! why, the turkeys couldn't walk in at the door. The perspective is all wrong." Then followed other remarks of an educational ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... n'est pas forte; j'ai contracte une toux opiniatre, il y a plus de deux ans, qui ne me quitte point. Cependant j'espere mettre la main a l'oeuvre bientot. Je ne peux dire, mademoiselle, combien votre affection—car vous les aimez, votre livre et votre lettre en temoignent assez—pour mes compatriotes et mon pays me touche; et je suis fiere de pouvoir le dire que les heroines de nos grandes epopees sont dignes de tout ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... form they are unique. The aim of the Eskimo story-teller is to pass the time during the long hours of darkness; if he can send his hearers to sleep, he achieves a triumph. Not infrequently a story-teller will introduce his chef-d'oeuvre with the proud declaration that "no one has ever heard this story to the end." The telling of the story thus becomes a kind of contest between his power of sustained invention and detailed embroidery on the one hand and his hearers' power of ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown
... to inquire if the agreement which M. Wilkie had just signed would be binding. The lawyer whom he consulted replied that, at all events, a reasonable compensation would most probably be granted by the courts, in case of any difficulty; and he suggested a little plan which was a chef d'oeuvre in its way, at the same time advising his client to strike the iron while ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... This chef-d'oeuvre, which dates from about 1807, represents one of the most celebrated characters who ever sat upon the bench of the Court of Session. Famous in his day for "law, paunch, whist, claret, and worth," the exploits of Charles Hay, "The Mighty," ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... brillamment. Le drame, l'epopee savante, l'elegie attestent aujourd'hui encore la puissance et la souplesse de ce magnifique genie; seul entre les disciples de Sarasvati [the goddess of eloquence], il a eu le bonheur de produire un chef-d'oeuvre vraiment classique, ou l'Inde s'admire et ou l'humanite se reconnait. Les applaudissements qui saluerent la naissance de Cakuntala a Ujjayini ont apres de longs siecles eclate d'un bout du monde a l'autre, quand William Jones l'eut revelee a l'Occident. Kalidasa a marque sa place dans cette ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... Coan Venus was the chef-d'oeuvre of Apelles, a native of the island of Cos, in the Archipelago, who flourished in the time of Alexander the Great. If it was the original painting which was now restored, it must have ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... profusion of valuable china and gold plate. On the central table, reserved for the princes, princesses, and members of the corps diplomatique, glittered an epergne of inestimable price, brought from London, and around this chef-d'oeuvre of chased gold reflected under the light of the lusters a thousand pieces of most beautiful service ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... Certainly people did not live so long, if existence is measured by the amount of business done; but they lived better. The mind was enriched with the noble sentiments born of the contemplation of chefs-d'oeuvre. They built a church in two centuries, a painter painted but few pictures in the course of his life, a poet only composed one great work; but these were so many masterpieces for ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... new. It pleased Jeanne better than if it had been furnished expressly for her. All the rich antiques disdained by fashionable ladies, the marvelous pieces of carved ebony, the glass lusters, the gothic clocks; chefs-d'oeuvre of carving and enamel, the screens with embroidered Chinese figures, and the immense vases, threw Jeanne into indescribable raptures. Here on a chimney-piece two gilded tritons were bearing branches of coral, upon which were hung jeweled ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... is before us, and not a copy of a lost original, and Mr. Berenson's enthusiastic praise ought to be lavished on the actual picture as it must have appeared in all its freshness and purity. "Je n'hesiterais pas," he declares,[103] "a le proclamer le plus important des portraits du maitre, un chef-d'oeuvre ne le cedant a aucun portrait ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... has long been coming seems now to have come. The home reader will no longer put up with the careless caricatures of classical chefs d'oeuvre which satisfied his old-fashioned predecessor. Our youngers, in most points our seniors, now expect the translation not only to interpret the sense of the original but also, when the text lends itself to such treatment, to render it verbatim et ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... wouldn't it be jolly To be a nice hors d'oeuvre And just bring joy to people Whom fondest ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... in each hand. "This ring given me yesterday by the Duke of Palma, and by him received from the Salvatori, is an imitation of Benvenuto Cellini's great work. The real ring of the Monte-Leoni, the chef-d'oeuvre, an heir-loom of the family, has just been brought us by an old servant of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... have the decorative art at his fingers' ends as a natural gift. Such work as "King Luckieboy's Party" was a revelation in the way of toy books, while the "Baby's Opera" and "Baby's Bouquet" are petits chefs d'oeuvre, of which the sagacious collector will do well to secure copies, not for his nursery, but his library. Nor can his "Mrs. Mundi at Home" be neglected by the curious in quaint and graceful invention. {14} ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... mind. In medicine, it represents the full flower of the Renaissance. As a book it is a sumptuous tome a worthy setting of his jewel—paper, type and illustration to match, as you may see for yourselves in this folio—the chef d'oeuvre of any medical library. ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... plenitude of life? In Goethe, for instance, an overflow of vitality was creative, in Flaubert—hate: Flaubert, a new edition of Pascal, but as an artist with this instinctive belief at heart: "Flaubert est toujours haissable, l'homme n'est rien, l'oeuvre est tout".{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} He tortured himself when he wrote, just as Pascal tortured himself when he thought—the feelings of both were inclined to be "non-egoistic." {HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} "Disinterestedness"—principle ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... of the Forsytes observe certain traditions. There are, for instance, no hors d'oeuvre. The reason for this is unknown. Theory among the younger members traces it to the disgraceful price of oysters; it is more probably due to a desire to come to the point, to a good practical sense deciding at once that hors d'oeuvre are but poor things. The Jameses alone, unable to withstand ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... whom have left some trace of their sojourn in France; but of an obscure yet very complete genius, Pierre Nepveu, known as Pierre Trinqueau, who is designated in the papers which preserve in some degree the history of the origin of the edifice, as the maistre de l'oeuvre de maconnerie. Behind this modest title, apparently, we must recognise one of the most original talents of the French Renaissance; and it is a proof of the vigour of the artistic life of that period ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... adaptation (A.D. 1704), in no wise represent the eastern original. The best and latest, the Rev. Mr. Foster's, which is diffuse and verbose, and Mr. G. Moir Bussey's, which is a re- correction, abound in gallicisms of style and idiom; and one and all degrade a chef d'oeuvre of the highest anthropological and ethnographical interest and importance to a mere fairy book, a nice ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... returns to the charge; he calls to his assistance the Eminent Academy; "Pronounce, O my Judges, a decree worthy of your eminence, which will give all Europe to know that Le Cid is not the chef-d'oeuvre of the greatest man in France, but the least judicious performance of M. Corneille himself. You are bound to do it, both for your own private renown; and for that of our people in general, who are concerned in this matter; inasmuch as foreigners who may see this precious masterpiece—they ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... (except in the Bapoo-period), knowing that they are not only raw but also alive. In the Filberts it was but a slight step forward to pop into one's mouth a wriggling limpataa (a kind of marine lizard), whose antics after he is swallowed are both pleasant and novel. The hors d'oeuvre course of a Filbert Island banquet is one roar of laughter caused by the interior tickling of the agile food. This of course promotes good feeling and leads ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... gift of a single copy indicating that you are among the choicest of the chosen. Copies have now fallen extremely rare (and are not in request at all, with my readers or me); but there was one Copy which, or the Mis-title of which, as OEUVRE DE "POESHIE" DU ROI MON MAITRE, became miraculously famous in a year or two;—and is still memorable to us all! On Voltaire's arrival, we shall hear more of these things. Enough to say at present that the OEUVRES ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... fautes qui ont ete relevees par les voyageurs venus apres lui. Bartels (Briefe ueber Kalabrien und Sicilien, 2te Auflage, 3 Bd., 8vo., Goetting. 1791-92) est meme persuade que le voyage au sommet de l'Etna, chef-d'oeuvre de narration, n'est qu'un roman, et cet avis est partage ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... l'original Espagnol. Mais M. Le Sage l'a traitee avec de grands changements, c'est sa maniere d'embellir extremement tout ce qu'il emprunte des Espagnols. C'est ainsi qu'il en a use envers Gil Blas, dont il a fait un chef-d'oeuvre inimitable."—(Pages 336-339, edition de 1757, dans les Passetemps Politiques, Historiques, et ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... Lisa! Have you gone? Great Julius Caesar! Who's the Chap so bold and pinchey Thus to swipe the great da Vinci, Taking France's first Chef d'oeuvre Squarely from old Mr. Louvre, Easy as some pocket-picker Would remove our handkerchicker As we ride in careless folly ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... every page of that miraculous Journal, which will remain, doubtless, the truest, deepest, most poignant piece of human history that they have ever written, they are sick men, seeing life through the medium of diseased nerves. Notre oeuvre entier, writes Edmond de Goncourt, repose sur la maladie nerveuse; les peintures de la maladie, nous les avons tirees de nous-memes, et, a force de nous dissequer, nous sommes arrives a une sensitivite supra-aigue que blessaient les infiniment petits de la vie. This ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... she was hooted in the streets; and her father called together four doctors, learned in the law, to decide whether she was not possessed by demons, to think of educating women,—pour s'assurer qu'instruire des femmes n'etait pas un oeuvre du demon. ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... fake about all this war business is the peace. I tell you, not till the hors d'oeuvre has been restored to its proper abundance and variety will I ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... closest and most fraternal intimacy with a man so spotted and in many ways so infamous as Aretino. Without precisely calling Titian to account in set terms, his biographers Crowe and Cavalcaselle, and above all M. Georges Lafenestre in La Vie et L'Oeuvre du Titien, have relentlessly raked up Aretino's past before he came together with the Cadorine, and as pitilessly laid bare that organised system of professional sycophancy, adulation, scurrilous ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... de Saint-Pierre, and it is in his writings that we first find the theory widened in its compass to embrace progress towards social perfection. [Footnote: For his life and works the best book is J. Drouet's monograph, L'Abbe de Saint-Pierre: l'homme et l'oeuvre (1912), but on some points Goumy's older study (1859) is still worth consulting. I have used the edition of his works in 12 volumes published during his lifetime at ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... Chamber of Horrors, and the laughter and exclamations of disgust indulged in by visitors recalled the history of Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe and the treatment accorded it by Parisians (an incident utilised by Zola in L'Oeuvre). But nowadays, in company with the Neo-Impressionists, the Lampost Impressionists, Cubists, and Futurists, Munch might seem tame, conventional; nevertheless he was years ahead of the new crowd in painting big blocks of colour, juxtaposed, not as the early Impressionists juxtaposed their ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... snow. Her mouth was rosy and even delicate; and, indeed, had not her ankles, feet, and wool, manifested the unfortunate types of her kindred, COOMBA, the daughter of Mongo-Yungee, might have passed for a chef d'oeuvre ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... does not call for the filets of anchovies prepared for hors d'oeuvre, but the less expensive and larger whole anchovies in salt to be had in bulk or cans at large dealers. Wash them thoroughly in plenty of water. Remove head, tail, backbone and skin and ...
— The Italian Cook Book - The Art of Eating Well • Maria Gentile
... is very strong, and, as I am told, the chef d'oeuvre of Vauban; but placed with so little judgement, that the military call it la belle inutile [the useless beauty]. It is now uninhabited, and wears an appearance of desolation—the commandant and all the officers ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... are treasures we can look on without envy. This little Museum—as, indeed, the Treasury may be called—exposed at the Paris Exhibition of 1867 one of its richest objects, the reliquary of St. Bernard and St. Malachi, a chef-d'oeuvre of the twelfth century; but as some of the jewels were stolen upon that occasion, nothing this year, very naturally, found its way from Troyes Cathedral to ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... many hours, the Lord Advocate ordered his horses to be unsaddled,—paper, pen, and ink were brought—he began to dictate the appeal case—and continued at his task till four o'clock the next morning. By next day's post, the solicitor sent the case to London, a chef-d'oeuvre of its kind; and in which, my informant assured me, it was not necessary on revisal to correct five words. I am not, therefore, conscious of having overstepped accuracy in describing the manner in which Scottish lawyers of the old time occasionally united ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... are generally not so startling to the eye as the modern ones, the dukes and counts who possess them, and who like to see their galleries look new and fine (and are persuaded also that a celebrated chef-d'oeuvre ought always to catch the eye at a quarter of a mile off), believe the professors who tell them their sober pictures are quite faded, and good for nothing, and should all be brought bright again; and, accordingly, ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... est une machine de guerre anti-chretienne plutot qu'une conquete serieuse sur les secrets et les mysteres de la nature... C'est un dogme que l'homme a ete forme et faconne des mains de Dieu. Donc il est faux, heretique, contraire a la dignite du Createur et offensant pour son chef-d'oeuvre, de dire que l'homme constitue la septieme espece des singes... Heresie encore de dire que le genre humain n'est pas sorti d'un seul couple, et qu'on y peut compter jusqu'a douze ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... gorgeous book in praise of the late Russian Emperor Paul I. (which some have called the chef-d'oeuvre of Bensley's press[A]) to do with Mr. Southey's fine Poem of Madoc?—in which, if there are "veins of lead," there are not a few "of silver and gold." Of the extraordinary talents of Mr. Southey, the indefatigable student in ancient lore, and especially in all that regards Spanish Literature and ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... amongst the crowd of vehicles, I returned home in that of the ——- Minister, with him and his attaches; after which, they and C—-n returned to dine with the new archbishop in his palace. A dish of sweetmeats was sent me from his table, which are so pretty, (probably the chef-d'oeuvre of the nuns,) that I send them to you, to preserve as a memorial of the consecration of the first ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... am a painter!" cried Michael Angelo the first time he beheld a chef d'oeuvre...Though insignificant and poor, your friend cannot leave off repeating those words of the great man ever since Paganini's last performance. Rene, what a man, what a violin, what an artist! Heavens! what sufferings, what misery, what ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... Gautier, who visited the place more than two hundred years after, owns frankly that he is "excessively embarrassed in giving his opinion" of it. "So many people," he says, "serious and well-conditioned, who, I prefer to think, have never seen it, have spoken of it as a chef d'oeuvre, and a supreme effort of the human spirit, so that I should have the air, poor devil of a facilletoniste errant, of wishing to play the original and taking pleasure in my contrary-mindedness; but still in my soul and conscience I cannot help finding the Escorial the most tiresome and ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... the absence of women, our care in washing ourselves, — excited their admiration far more than any grand or complicated object, such as our ship. Bougainville has well remarked concerning these people, that they treat the "chefs d'oeuvre de l'industrie humaine, comme ils traitent les loix de ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... novels. Every week he docilely submitted his work to the great Flaubert, the childhood friend of his mother and his uncle Alfred Le Poittevin. The master had consented to assist the young man, to reveal to him the secrets that make chefs-d'oeuvre immortal. It was he who compelled him to make copious research and to use direct observation and who inculcated in him a horror of vulgarity ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Florida that produced the chef d'oeuvre in him. It was Maine that taught him the force of the southern aspect. Romancer among the realistic facts of nature, he might be called, for he did not merely copy nature. He did invest things with ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... necessity. The greater correctness of this piece may be owing to the lapse of nine months (an unusual term of repose for the muse of Moliere) betwixt the appearance of "L'Amour Medecin" and that of the "Misanthrope." Yet this chef-d'oeuvre was at first coldly received by the Parisian audience, and to render it more attractive, Moliere was compelled to attach to its representation the lively farce of "Le Medecin malgre lui." In a short time the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... In reality, Ruysbroek gets all his philosophy from Eckhart, and his manner of expounding it shows no abnormal acuteness. But Maeterlinck's essay in Le Tresor des Humbles contains some good things—e.g. "Les verites mystiques ne peuvent ni vieillir ni mourir.... Une oeuvre ne vieillit qu'en proportion de ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... in L'OEuvre et la Vie, speaking with the authority of a practical architect, says: "Michelangelo was not, properly speaking, an architect. He made architecture, which is quite a different thing; and most often it was the architecture of a painter and sculptor, which points to ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... lime-juice, pipes, tobacco, and tumblers; when the two officers with Von Vottenberg who had just come in from visiting Mr. Heywood, sat down to indulge their social humors. Whilst the latter, according to custom, mixed the punch, which when made was pronounced to be his chef d'oeuvre, Elmsley amused himself with cutting up the tobacco, and filling the pipes. The ensign, taking advantage of their occupation, indulged himself in a reverie that lasted until the beverage had ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... author being 'Horae B. V. Mariae and usum Romanum,' whilst it is stated to be bound by 'Chamholfen Duru,' whoever he may be. Equally intelligent is another item from the same source, 'Newcastle (Marguis de Methode, etc.), oeuvre auquel on apprende,' etc. Perhaps it was the cheapness—sixpence each—which prevented two items from ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... had spent about five million francs (in modern values), and by 1339 had finished the choir and chapels, the huge pillars beneath the central tower, and part of the transept. Of the first real "Maitre d'oeuvre," as so often happens in the tale of the Cathedrals, nothing is known. But the monks carved the clear keen features of his face upon the funeral stone, 7-1/2 feet high and 4 feet broad, that is in the Chapelle St. Cecile, and beside it is a detailed ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... l'exposition de ces merveilles; ils s'extasient sur la sagesse qui se montre dans l'ordre d'un phenomene et on decouvre que ce phenomene est tout different de ce qu'ils ont suppose; alors c'est ce nouvel ordre qui leur parait un chef d'oeuvre de sagesse.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... la conscience a l'aise en m'assurant que le droit etait le meme pour tous, et que les auteurs americains ne pouvaient conceder de privilege a qui que ce fut. Forte de cette assurance, je me mis a l'oeuvre, mais j'avoue que j'eus besoin d'encouragements reiteres pour mener mon travail a bonne fin. Encore un mot d'explication, si vous le permittez, Madame. Je ne suis pas mere, mais je suis tante; j'ai vu naitre mes neveux et nieces, je les ai berces dans mes bras, j'ai ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... larmes se cachent comme une faiblesse, communique a l'oeuvre un pathetique si poignant que le mystere de la ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... have done La Grande Breteche—the story of a lover who, rather than betray his mistress, allows himself to suffer, without a word, the fate of a nun who has broken her vows—as Balzac has done it. La Recherche de l'Absolu is one, and Le Chef-d'oeuvre Inconnu is another, of the greatest known masterpieces in the world of their kind. La Fille aux Yeux d'Or and Une Passion dans le Desert have not the least need of their "indexable" qualities to validate them. In the most ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... building; the profiles project little, and, in spite of their extreme finesse, produce much effect; the buttresses are skilfully planted and profiled. The staircase, which, on the east side, deranges the arrangement of the bays, is a chef-d'oeuvre of architecture." This long panegyric, by Viollet-le-Duc, on French taste at the expense of Norman temper, ought to be read, book in hand, before the Cathedral of Rouen, with photographs of Bayeux to compare. ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... at length arrived for the presentation of the testimonial of Toulouse to Jasmin. It consisted of a branch of laurel in gold. The artist who fashioned it was charged to put his best work into the golden laurel, so that it might be a chef d'oeuvre worthy of the city which conferred it, and of being treasured in the museum of their adopted poet. The work was indeed admirably executed. The stem was rough, as in nature, though the leaves were beautifully polished. ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... Beckford continues, "but the master of the house was allowed to enter this sanctuary. Here our artist remained six weeks in grinding his colours, composing an admirable varnish, and preparing his canvass, for a performance he intended as his chef d'oeuvre. A fortnight more passed before he decided upon a subject. At last he determined to commemorate the opulence of Monsieur Baise-la-Main, by a perspective of his counting-house. He chose an interesting moment, when heaps of gold lay ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... Vulgar minds cannot know it. Hence it has ever been the favorite with the intellectual class, while Gil Blas has more generally won the applause of men of the world. An amusing anecdote of the almost universal admiration for the chef d 'oeuvre of Le Sage may be found in Butler's Reminiscences. That bigotted, yet extraordinary man, Alva, predicted, with prophetic precision, the effects which the satire on Chivalry would produce in Spain. See Broad Stone of Honour, or ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... farther than Versailles. This journey was at first as delightful as a glimpse into fairy-land. Our carriage was one of those costly whims which some millionaires indulge in. It consisted of a central saloon—a perfect chef-d'oeuvre of taste and luxury—with two compartments at either end, furnished with comfortable sleeping accommodation. And all this, the count seemed never weary of repeating, was mine—mine alone. Leaning back on the velvet cushions, I gazed at the changing landscape, as the train ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... dans ton oeuvre celeste, Tant d'elements si peu d'accord? A quoi bon le crime et la peste, O Dieu juste! pourquoi la mort? ALFRED DE ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... Captain Cook's account of the employments of the women and men here, agree with Father Cantova's, of the Caroline Islanders?—"La principale occupation des hommes, est de construire des barques, de pecher, et de cultiver la terre. L'affaire des femmes est de faire la cuisine, et de mettre en oeuvre un espece de plante sauvage, et un arbre,—pour en faire de la toile."—Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... the sympathetic gift of her nation, shared the excitement of her mistress in this fete. The curtains in the pink bedroom were drawn, and on the bed, in all its splendour of lace and roses, was spread out the dinner-gown-a chef-d'oeuvre of Madame Barriere's as yet unworn. And no vulgar, worldly triumph was it ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and Debussy's Iberia as the acme of descriptive power and of orchestral color. His Mother Goose Suite (originally a set of four-hand pieces but since orchestrated with incomparable finesse) illustrates his humor and play of fancy. It has become a truly popular concert number. Ravel's chef d'oeuvre the "choreographic symphony" Daphnis et Chloe displays an extraordinary synthetic grasp, for all the factors—plot, action, the musical fabric, a large orchestra and a chorus of mixed voices behind the scenes—are ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... eumerogenesis[obs3], heterogenesis[obs3], oogenesis, merogenesis[obs3], metogenesis[obs3], monogenesis[obs3], parthenogenesis, homogenesis[obs3], xenogenesis1[obs3]; authorship, publication; works, opus, oeuvre. biogeny[obs3], dissogeny[obs3], xenogeny[obs3]; tocogony[obs3], vacuolization. edifice, building, structure, fabric, erection, pile, tower, flower, fruit. V. produce, perform, operate, do, make, gar, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... voici est une traduction faite sur la cinquieme edition publiee en Angleterre. Je crois avoir rendu compte, quelques annees. Depuis lors, l'auteur a ameliore, agrandi, complete son oeuvre, et le volume superbe qu'il nous offre aujourd'hui parait devoir etre un ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... abregeant des historiens latins que nous possedons; mais ca et la il ajoute soit des contes populaires, par exemple sur Richard 1'er, sur Robert 1'er, soit des particularites qu'il savait par tradition (sur ce meme Robert le magnifique, sur l'expedition de Guillaume, &c.) et qui donnent a son oeuvre un reel interet historique. Sa langue est excellente; son style clair, serre, simple, d'ordinaire assez monotone, vous plait par sa saveur archaique et quelquefois par une certaine grace et une ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... conception of the scheme of the series of poems to which he gave the title of La Legende des Siecles is thus described in the preface to the first scenes: 'Exprimer l'humanite dans une espece d'oeuvre cyclique; la peindre successivement et simultanement sous tous ses aspects, histoire, fable, philosophie, religion, science, lesquels se resument en un seul et immense mouvement d'ascension vers la lumiere; faire apparaitre, dans une sorte ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... qui constitue proprement un classique, c'est l'equilibre en lui de toutes les facultes qui concourent a la perfection de l'oeuvre ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... undergo in the progress of time, we are all of us agents, rather than contrivers. 'L'homme avance dans l'execution d'un plan qu'il n'a point concu, qu'il ne connoit meme pas; il est l'ouvrier intelligent et libre d'une oeuvre qui n'est pas la sienne; il ne la reconnoit, ne la comprend que plus tard, lorsqu'elle se manifeste au dehors et dans les realites, et meme alors il ne la comprend que tres incompletement."—(GUIZOT.) Still we may observe, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... Moslem Gnostics, held such affection, pure as ardent, to be the beau ideal which united in man's soul the creature with the Creator. Professing to regard youths as the most cleanly and beautiful objects in this phenomenal world, they declared that by loving and extolling the chef-d'oeuvre, corporeal and intellectual, of the Demiurgus, disinterestedly and without any admixture of carnal sensuality, they are paying the most fervent adoration to the Causa causans. They add that such affection, passing as it does the love of women, is far less selfish ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... far-away lands. And so there was a continual struggle, in which the Congregation did all it could to favour the missionaries of Italy and her allies. It had always been jealous of its French rival, "L'Oeuvre de la Propagation de la Foi," installed at Lyons, which is as wealthy in money as itself, and richer in men of energy and courage. However, not content with levelling tribute on this French association, the Propaganda ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... his convives with a rod of iron, and made them the victims of his bad jokes. The measuring-board against which he took the stature of his tall grenadiers is there, and one room is devoted to those masterpieces which he used to paint in the agonies of gout. His chef d'oeuvre contains a figure with two left feet, and there seemed no reason why it might not. have had three. In another room is a small statue of Carlyle, who did so much to rehabilitate the house which the daughter of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Morsigny, after a year of nursing, when what little flesh they had left could stand no more, founded an oeuvre of their own, and Sibyl Bascom and Aileen Cheever did fairly well with a branch in San Francisco, Alexina's relatives quite wonderfully in New York and Boston; although they were already ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... that at present lie before us contain Cesar Birotteau, that terrible tragedy of finance, and L'lllustre Gaudissart, the apotheosis of the commercial traveller, the Duchesse de Langeais, most marvellous of modern love stories, Le Chef d'OEuvre Inconnu, from which Mr. Henry James took his Madonna of the Future, and that extraordinary romance Une Passion dans le Desert. The choice of stories is quite excellent, but the translations are very unequal, and some of them are positively bad. L'lllustre Gaudissart, for instance, is full ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... de Vivre," and instead of inheriting the egotism of her parents, develops a passionate love and devotion for others. In a like way Claude Lantier, Florent's artist friend and son of Gervaise of the "Assommoir," figures more particularly in "L'Oeuvre," which tells how his painful struggle for fame resulted in madness and suicide. With reference to the beautiful Norman and the other fishwives and gossips scattered through the present volume, and those genuine types of Parisian gaminerie, Muche, Marjolin, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... the lady's husband; on the other wall was a French print of a gentleman and lady, riding and kissing each other at full gallop; all round the chaste bedroom were more French prints, either portraits of gauzy nymphs of the Opera, or lovely illustrations of the novels; or mayhap, an English chef-d'oeuvre or two, in which Miss Calverley of T. R. E. O. would be represented in tight pantaloons in her favourite page part; or Miss Rougemont as Venus; their value enhanced by the signatures of these ladies, Maria Calverley, or Frederica ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Roslyn Chapel and admired the unequaled beauty of its architecture, and gazed at the wondrous chef d'oeuvre—the "apprentice's pillar"—and heard the story how a poor but gifted boy, hoping to please, had designed and executed the work during the absence of his master, who, on returning and seeing the beautiful pillar, fell into a frenzy of envious ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... contradictoire a l'ensemble des lois de notre nature, que les immenses efforts de tant de grands hommes, secondes par la perseverante sollicitude des nations civilisees, dans la fondation seculaire de ce chef-d'oeuvre politique de la sagesse humaine, doivent etre enfin irrevocablement perdus pour l'elite de l'humanite sauf les resultats, capitaux mais provisoires, qui s'y rapportaient immediatement. Cette explication generale, deja evidemment motivee par la suite des ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Kenntniss beiwohnte, geschweige denn auf die weiter abgeleiteten Bearbeitungen zu gruenden haben, sondern aus den Relationen der Augenzeugen und der aechten und unmittelbarsten Urkunden aufbauen werden.—RANKE, Reformation, Preface, 1838. Ce qu'on a trouve et mis en oeuvre est considerable en soi: c'est peu de chose au prix de ce qui reste a trouver et a mettre en oeuvre.—AULARD, Etudes ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... Ben Jonson's New Inn, it betrays the feebleness of senility, and has one of the most certain marks of that stage of authorship, the attempt to imitate himself in those points in which he was once strong. When "glad no more, He wears a face of joy, because He has been glad of yore." Or it is an "oeuvre de lassitude," a continuation, with the inevitable defect of continuations, that of preserving the forms and wanting the soul of the original, like the second parts of Faust, of Don Quixote, and ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... a benefactor of the race," said I. He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some little use," he remarked. "'L'homme c'est rien—l'oeuvre c'est tout,' as Gustave ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Institute of France—that mine of learning about Rembrandt in which all modern writers on the master delve. Astonishment would be his companion while reading its packed pages, also while turning the leaves of L'Oeuvre de Rembrandt, decrit et commente, par M. Charles Blanc, de l'Academie Francaise. This sumptuous folio he picked up second hand and conveyed home in a cab, because it was too heavy to carry. Now he is fairly started on his journey through the Rembrandt country, and as he ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes
... different occasion by Renault, and other coincidences arising from the subject. I need hardly remind the gentlest reader, that such coincidences must be accidental, from the very facility of their detection by reference to so popular a play on the stage and in the closet as Otway's chef-d'oeuvre. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... art that enters into the production of a French dinner, in the perfect balance of every item from hors d'oeuvre to caf noir, in the ways with seasoning that work miracles with left-overs and preserve the daily routine of three meals a day from the deadly monotony of the American rgime, in the garnishings that glorify the most insignificant ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore
... exist in separate plants, as in the classes monoecia and dioecia, or both of them in the same plant also, as in the class polygamia; but the larger and more perfect animals are now propagated by sexual reproduction only, which seems to have been the chef-d'oeuvre, or capital work of nature; as appears by the wonderful transformations of leaf-eating caterpillars into honey-eating moths and butterflies, apparently for the sole purpose of the formation of sexual organs, as in the silk-worm, which takes no food after its transformation, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... aussi oeuvre de bon citoyen. Car le jour sous lequel il presente mes compatriotes illettres ne peut manquer de valoir a ceux-ci—et partant a tout le reste de la nationalite—un accroissement desirable dans l'estime de nos compatriotes de langue anglaise, qui n'ont pas ete a meme de ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... 1 OEuvre, ma foi, ou n'est facile atteindre: Pourtant qu'il faut parfaitement sage etre, Pour le vrai fol bien naivement feindre. ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... scherzando was taken to represent the usual Andante, the Tempo di Menuetto, the familiar "Scherzo" and, as the two movements thus interpreted seemed rather paltry, and none of the usual effects could be got with them, our musicians came to regard the entire symphony as a sort of accidental hors d'oeuvre of Beethoven's muse—who, after the exertions with the A major symphony had chosen "to take things rather easily." Accordingly after the Allegretto Scherzando, the time of which is invariably "dragged" ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... l'emploi d'un grand nombre de calculateurs; et il me vint bientot a la pensee d'appliquer a la connection de ces Tables la division du travail, dont les Arts de Commerce tirent un parti si avantageux pour reunir a la pernection de main-d'oeuvre l'economie de la depense et du temps. The circumstance which gave rise to this singular application of the principle of the division on labour is so interesting, that no apology is necessary for introducing it from a small pamphlet printed at Paris a few years ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage |
