"Past master" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... frequently dropping into Foster's study for half-an-hour or so, he realised how many qualities Foster had. Foster was strong-willed, obstinate almost, quite regardless of tradition, in his own way slightly a rebel, and a past master in the art of deceiving masters. There are two ways of making a master look a fool: one is by introducing processions and coloured mice; the other by bowing before him, making him think you are hard-working and industrious, and all the while laughing at him behind his back. ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... me better," said Dick eagerly, for he regretted the blow almost, but not quite, as much as the wachtmeister, and he was a past master at wrestling. "Whenever you like, Herr Brandt; shall we try ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... more than he owned by my arguments about Memmert; but at that time (as I hinted) he was biased by a radical prejudice. The channel theory had become a sort of religion with him, promising double salvation—not only avoidance of the Dollmanns, but success in the quest by methods in which he was past master. To have to desert it and resort to spying on naval defences was an idea he dreaded and distrusted. It was not the morality of the course that bothered him. He was far too clear-headed to blink at the essential fact that at heart we were ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... burned her heart that morning, himself past master in the art of sorrow. That she had come down from the heights to the common level would be her grief forever; thus to console her ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... and fort gunnery were carefully distinguished according to the new military rule: in fact, it was all rigidly correct and perfect to the most approved and newest methods of that date; and Friedrich Wilhelm who, if he knew little else, was a past master of the martial art, was delighted at the display. But his face changed when he rode up to the coach to greet his cousin, and became ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... there prejudiced against Metternich as a past master in the arts of double-dealing: he went away convinced that he meant well for the allies. "What will become of us," asked the Czar, "if Napoleon accepts your mediation?" To which the statesman replied: "If he refuses it, the truce will be at an end, and you will find us in the ranks of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... He assailed with not one blow, nor two, nor a dozen. He was a gyroscope of blows, a whirlwind of destruction. Rivera was nowhere. He was overwhelmed, buried beneath avalanches of punches delivered from every angle and position by a past master in the art. He was overborne, swept back against the ropes, separated by the referee, and swept back ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... and prolific fancy, and a turn for the odd and fantastic, while she is Past Master in the use of negro dialect and the production of tales of plantation life and manners. All these stories are spirited, well marked by local color, and written with skill and ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... Ahmad al- Lakit son of Zaynab's sister." Then said Ali to the prisoner, "Why didst thou thus, O Lakit?" and he replied, "My grandmother, Dalilah the Wily, bade me do it; only because Zurayk the fishmonger fore-gathered with the old woman and said, 'Mercury Ali of Cairo is a sharper and a past master in knavery, and he will certainly slay the Jew and bring hither the dress.' So she sent for me and said to me, 'O Ahmad, dost thou know Ali of Cairo?' Answered I, 'Indeed I do and 'twas I directed him to Ahmad al-Danaf's lodging when he first came to Baghdad.' Quoth ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... indeed, than Luther there have been. Some of these have also made attempts to introduce needed reforms in the corrupt Roman Church. Rome met their learned and labored arguments with the consummate skill of a past master in sophistry. Those learned efforts came to naught. Rome will never be reformed by human learning and scholarship. Scholars are rarely men of action. It is because Professor Luther taught and acted that Rome hates him. He would have ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... thus exchanging social amenities, a past master in such commerce joined them in the person of Claude ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... intentions. The mischief with them is their lack of inventiveness. Most of my readers will agree that there is no easier game of solitaire than to suppose yourself suddenly endowed with a million of money, and to invent modes of dispensing it for the good of your kind. As a past master of that game I offer the above suggestion gratis to those poor brothers of mine who have more money than they know how ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "I won't stay you. Mr. Johnson has given me good reports of you, and as for Roger, he is never tired of singing your praises. According to him, you are a past master in exercises of arms, and I confess I had hopes you would give up your scheme and return to your friends and take the position you were clearly bred for: then Roger and you might have been companions still. But 'twas not ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... of his out-of-door performances; and while she made light of his occasional blunders, she would quietly hint to him that he in turn ought to exercise a generous judgment when those people at the Lodge ventured to enter a province in which he was a past master. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... the Semitic race is merely to say that they are dark-skinned and black-haired. The Arab, whether a merchant dwelling in a city along the coast, or a Bedouin wandering with flocks and herds, is a product of the desert and of the teachings of Islam. His black eyes twinkle with shrewdness and he is a past master of craftiness. As a trader he is unsurpassed, and Arab traders control the interior commerce of western Asia and northern Africa just as the Chinese control the trade of ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson |
