"Skilful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bulk! The sigh was so profound, that it seemed to shatter even his bulk! I fancy I might rest my case here, and win my wager, eh? But I am too skilful a general to throw away my strength at the beginning of a battle. If I have not already beaten you from your last strong hold—from your last defence—I have a corps de reserve, which will at once ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... but one thing to render this instrument as powerful in my hands as it was capable of being. From my childhood, I was remarkably skilful at imitation. There were few voices whether of men or birds or beasts which I could not imitate with success. To add my ancient, to my newly acquired skill, to talk from a distance, and at the same time, in the accents of another, was the object of my endeavours, and this object, ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... praise. Cecilia's name does all our numbers grace, From every voice the tuneful accents fly, In soaring trebles now it rises high, And now it sinks, and dwells upon the base. Cecilia's name through all the notes we sing, The work of every skilful tongue, The sound of every trembling string, The sound and triumph of ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... the room was close and impure, as it was necessary to keep all windows and doors closed in the adjusting-room, for the least draught of air would vary the scales." Not a very congenial occupation for the independent nature of the young orator, but, although she disliked the work, she was very skilful at it, and soon became the fastest adjuster in the Mint. But she could not bear the confinement of the adjusting-room and changed to the coining-room, yet even that was impossible to a spirit which had seen a vision of creative work ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... was he who in 1803 (I believe) was the cause of the capture of a French squadron by Sir Alexander Cochrane. The English fell in with and cleared the French fleet, but Napier in a sloop outsailed the rest, and firing upon the stern of the French Admiral's flagship, so damaged her (contriving by skilful evolutions to avoid being hurt himself) that the rest of the ships were obliged to haul to, to save the Admiral's ship, which gave time to the British squadron to come up, when they took four out of the five sail. The Whigs all talk of this action as decisive ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... these, old legends true, Spring up where'er I turn my view— From Turret's glen and brawling wave, From Tosach's keep and fairy grave, From Ochtertyre's unfading bower, From Comyn's lone and moated tower, From where our chief with skilful eye Watched wonders in the midnight sky, From Tomachastel's haunted brow, From cell for Ronan's prayer and vow, From lordly Drummond's forest wall, From Lochlane's grim empannelled hall, From stately Turleum clothed in pine, And every height surrounding mine. 'Twere idle ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... be a common opinion that the evidential value of such psychic communications, even under the direction of a skilful scientist, cannot be very great. But there are ways of knowing. It is not at all difficult for the investigator to confine his work, not only to incidents unknown to the medium, but to scientific facts which the medium can not possibly comprehend. It is a matter of common knowledge that mediums ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... is also perfectly clear in the case of two men working together. To illustrate: if you and your workman have become so skilful that you and he together are making two pairs of, shoes in a day, while your competitor and his workman are making only one pair, it is clear that after selling your two pairs of shoes you can pay your workman much higher wages than ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... monarch find his kingdom seriously menaced than, despite his advanced age, he immediately took the field in person. Giving the command of a flying column of 6000 men to Adarman, a skilful general, he marched himself against the Romans, who under Marcian had defeated a Persian force, and were besieging Nisibis, forced them to raise the siege, and, pressing forward as they retired, compelled ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... fight nor fly, When 'dames' accuse 'tis bootless to deny; Her's be the harvest of the martial field, I can't attack, where Beauty forms the shield. But when a pert Physician loudly cries, Who hunts for scandal, and who lives by lies, A walking register of daily news, Train'd to invent, and skilful to abuse— For arts like these at bounteous tables fed, When S——condemns a book he never read. Declaring with a coxcomb's native air, The 'moral's' shocking, though the 'rhymes' are fair. Ah! must he rise unpunish'd from the feast, Nor lash'd by vengeance into truth at least? Such ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... proportion of her work in the analysis of motives is confined to woman, she has done nothing more skilful or memorable than the "unravelling" of Bulstrode's mental processes by which he "explained the gratification of his desires into satisfactory agreement with his beliefs." If there were no Dorothea in "Middlemarch" the character of Bulstrode would give that novel a place by itself ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... skilful seamanship on both sides, Captain Martin, finding that he could not succeed, ranged up to windward of the enemy within pistol shot, both ships being on the larboard tack, two or three ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... black print, and covered with calf-skin, from the shelf, he proceeded without let or stint to perform domestic worship. I should have told ye that he bolted and locked the door, shut up all inlet to the house, threw salt into the fire, and proceeded in every way like a man skilful in guarding against the plots of fairies and fiends. His wife looked on all this with wonder; but she saw something in her husband's looks that hindered her from intruding either question or advice, and ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... common slave girl, and then one by the daughter of a Brahman. This gave great offence to the sacred order, but the ungovernable fury of the Raja’s temper hushed all complaints. As a means of disturbing him, however, the skilful in astrology (Jyotish) published a prophecy, foretelling that the Raja would not long survive his beauteous favourite of the sacred order, who would soon be seized with a disease. As the latter circumstance happened, ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... was promptly secured. Charlemont had a very clever physician of the old school. He combined as was requisite in the forest region of our country, the distinct offices of the surgeon and mediciner. He was tolerably skilful in both departments. He found his patient in a condition of considerable peril. She had broken a blood-vessel; and the nicest care and closest attendance were necessary to her preservation. It will not need that we should go through the long and ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... themselves for a Reward: Both are pleased, the one whilst he receives the Recompence of Merit, the other whilst he shews he knows now to discern it; but above all, that Man is happy in this Art, who, like a skilful Painter, retains the Features and Complection, but still softens the Picture ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... ten, half an orphan, a count of the empire— Magnus Adolphus of Arnstein, that great Bavarian earldom. Him had his widowed mother, the noble Countess of Arnstein, Placed with Delancey betimes, as one in knightly requirements Skilful and all-accomplished, that he the 'youthful idea'[14] 50 Might 'teach how to shoot' (with a pistol, videlicet),—horses To mount and to manage with boldness, hounds to follow in hunting The fox, the tusky boar, the stag with ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... little domain took shape under his skilful hand and ingenious brain. He made most of the tapestries in the house with his own fingers, working with his friend Mr. Gabriel Pippet the artist. He carved much of the panelling—he was extraordinarily clever with his hands. He painted many of the pictures which hang on the walls, he catalogued ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... as much of it as she could bring herself to tell him, had to be repeated. He was not in truth much surprised at Mr. Slope's effrontery, but he was obliged to act as though he had been to save his daughter's feelings. He was, however, anything but skilful in his deceit, and ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... reached the point which is high-fantastical, and can mount no farther—and he came to a palace allotted to him by the Government, and every distinction which it was in their power to bestow, and demeaned himself en bon prince, adorning with skilful eloquent touches of description the glorious scene beneath his windows, the pageants at which he was an honoured spectator. Nothing could be more unlike the young, shy, proud, yet genial-hearted rustic, holding firmly by that magic wand of poetry ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... art, finding her well read and conversant with every topic, especially with art, which was his hobby. He seemed sorry when at last he had no longer an excuse to stay. All that time he had watched her, quietly noting and admiring the calm, skilful way she ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... curvature of the sheet. In that direction, the distance to the shore, or to the termination of the lake, on the course the two were now steering, was not quite a mile, and, their progress being always swift, it was fast lessening under the skilful, but easy sweeps of the paddles. When about half way across, a slight noise drew the eyes of the men towards the nearest land, and they saw that the buck was just emerging from the lake and wading towards the beach. In a minute, the noble animal shook the water from his flanks, gazed up ward at ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... most favourably; and thought it proper, now that the ball was in motion, to allow it to roll alone for a short time,—in other words, to leave the house under some pretext, abandoning the young folk to themselves. After her return she intended to sound Okoya again, though in a more skilful manner. So she replaced the bowl in its niche and went toward the ladder. Before ascending it she ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... were dropping to pieces, and of which I have often been reminded since by the faded tatters of old banners that I have seen hanging up in cathedrals. Afterwards, Estella and I played at cards, as of yore,—only we were skilful now, and played French games,—and so the evening wore away, and I ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... lottery was advertised in 1567 as being a very rich lottery general, without any blanks, containing a number of good prizes of ready-money, plate and divers sorts of merchandise, the same having been valued by expert and skilful men. The lottery was, as we should say at the present day, "under the immediate patronage" of the queen herself, and the proceeds, after deducting expenses, were to be devoted to the repair of harbours and other public works conducive to strengthening ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... not a man to talk with this degree of intimacy out of pure charity or vanity. But the great specialist said nothing very definite after all: he let fall, casually, the fact that good men for office work—men of experience who were skilful and tactful—were rare. He had just lost a ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... or their usual missile, can be thrown by a skilful hand, so as to rise upon the air, and thus to deviate from the usual path of projectiles, its crooked course being, nevertheless, equally ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... and Ormus, he seemed to be of good experience in matters abroad, who related vnto me such conference as he had with a Baniane at Ormus, being one of the Indians inhabiting the countrey of Cambaia. [Sidenote: Indians skilful in Astronomy.] This Baniane being a Gentile had skill in Astronomie, as many of that nation haue, who by his books written in his owne tongue and Characters, could tell the time of Eclipses both of Sunne and Moone, with the Change and Full, and by iudgement in Astrologie gaue answere to any question ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... concerned, a sort of Horn (hence its name), with a cup mouthpiece, and finger holes for the intermediate notes of the scale. Hawkins gives pictures of a treble, a tenor, and a bass cornet, copied from Mersennus, who remarks that the sounds of the cornet are vehement, but that those who are skilful, such as Quiclet, the royal cornetist (i.e., of France, 1648) are able so to soften and modulate them, that nothing can be ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... judge me cruelly. I am undoubtedly a very reprehensible character, Miss Penrhyn, but I don't think that I am worse than most men." He recognized at once that it would be folly to tell the usual lie: she would simply laugh in his face. He must accept the situation, plead guilty and make a skilful defense. Later, when he had established himself in her confidence, he ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... help of your police, Highness," answered the Egyptian, in the same passionless accents. "They are skilful and brave, but they have not the Greater Knowledge. I could turn the wisest of them into a fool, and frighten the bravest out of his senses in a few minutes. Use them yourself, Highness, should it become necessary. They would be ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... kind old Nance's cottage that the little girl came back to consciousness. Bob's grandmother was clever and skilful, and, though sadly alarmed at first, soon saw that the two boys' very natural terror was greater than need be. The child was in a sort of stupor from cold and fright and pain too, for her ankle had swelled badly by this ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... is it not adverse to the interests of our souls? What then? Believer, adversary though it be, you may make it your friend. A skilful seaman, when once fairly out to sea, can make a wind from the west carry him westward! he can make the wind that blows right in his face bear him onward to the very point from which it blows. When he arrives at home, he is able to say the wind from the west impelled me westward, ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... full current of London traffic, and his proud chestnut was snuffing the hat of an omnibus conductor. Careful driving was needed, and Phoebe was praised for never even looking frightened, then again for her organ of locality and the skilful pilotage with which she unerringly and unhesitatingly found the way through the Whittingtonian labyrinths; and as the disgusted tiger pealed at the knocker of Turnagain Corner, she was told she would be a useful guide in the South African bush. 'At home,' was the welcome reply, and ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proved to be the beginning of a six month's illness, forced him to leave home for the water-cure at Malvern. He returned in October and remained ill and depressed, in spite of the hopeful opinion of one of the most cheery and skilful physicians of the day. Thus he wrote to Sir J.D. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... had made great progress in Greece in the course of the last generation; and in this, as in all else, the Greeks remained the sole teachers of Europe for ages after. But against such a malady as this, the most skilful physicians could do nothing, and those who attempted to exercise their skill caught the plague themselves, and for the most part perished. Still less, as we may well suppose, was the benefit derived from amulets, incantations, ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... found itself represented by a party, over twenty in number, the most compact in the House of Assembly, and with la nation Canadienne solidly behind them. In La Fontaine, Viger, Morin and others, it had leaders both skilful and fully trusted. Yet the party of the British supremacy quoted Durham and others in favour of a plan for the absorption of French Canada in the British element; and the same party could recount, with telling effect, the past misdeeds, or at least the old suspicions, connected with the names of ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... I don't intend to do anything of the sort," replied Louis, with considerable energy in his tones. "I don't believe in killing for the sake of killing, or for the fun of it. My admiration of the skilful performance we have just witnessed will not allow me to kill the actors ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... in his room, to demonstrate his humility, his father having been a fisherman; but as soon as he was made pope, he pulled it down again, shrewdly saying, "I have caught the fish." Miss Hannah More remarks that few ladies attend to music after marriage, however skilful they may have been before it. Indeed nothing is more common than to hear a lady acknowledge it. "Mrs. Racket will you do us the favour," &c. says a dapper young gentleman offering his hand to lead a lady to the piano. "Do excuse me, sir, I beg of you," she replies, "I have not touched an instrument ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... I was sent on in an ambulance train to the hospital at Springfontein, where all the nurses and medical staff are foreigners, all of them trained and skilful. Even the nurses had a soldierly air about them. Here everything was as clean as human industry could make it, and the hospital was worked like a piece of military mechanism. I only had a day or two here, and then I was sent by train in an ambulance carriage to the capital of the Orange Free ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... successive renderings, the answer is plain: he was not sufficiently acquainted with Hebrew and Greek to translate from them. Wiclif's translation was eagerly sought, and was multiplied by the hands of skilful scribes. Its popularity was very great, as is attested by the fact that when, in the House of Lords, in the year 1390, a bill was offered to suppress it, the measure signally failed. The first copy of Wiclif's Bible was not printed until the ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... taken seriously ill and was confined to his bed for several days by what he calls the bilious cholic, during which time "Mr. Patten, the surgeon, was to me, not only a skilful physician, but an affectionate nurse." He recovered very slowly, and the want of fresh food told against him when it came to the question of gathering strength. The only fresh meat on board was a dog belonging to Mr. Forster, which was duly sacrificed and ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... year came a plague, and death walked the cities, and many poor peasants fled to the hills to escape it. These the Hermit and his penitent faithfully tended, and so skilful were the Wild Woman's ministrations that the report of them reached the town across the valley, and a deputation of burgesses came with rich offerings, and besought her to descend and comfort their sick. The Hermit, seeing ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... to the tantalus on his sideboard and poured himself out a brandy and soda, and drank to Teresa's memory, and then to the portrait of his wife, who had been so wonderfully skilful in decorating the front of the house with Dukes, Duchesses, and celebrities, but it needed Teresa's ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... the department are police officers, but they are something more. They are living directories of London and its suburbs from Colney Heath, Herts, to Todworth Heath, Surrey, from Lark Hall, Essex, to Staines Moor, Middlesex; they are skilful engineers; they have a keen eye for the defects and qualities of a horse; they can drive a horse or a motor car, they know the conditions of traffic in Piccadilly Circus or in the deserted roads ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... Sometimes, unfortunately, Mr. Lobo has a few clothes of his own, and then, as I have hinted, the Dhobie may exchange them by mistake, for he is uneducated and has much to remember; but, if you occasionally suffer in this way, you gain in another, for Mr. Lobo's family are skilful with the needle, and I have sent a torn garment to the washing ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... born with the enterprise; so the men from the Low Countries were advised to become naturalised to make them more likely to stay, and to bring other workers over, Walloons, malcontents, religious fugitives, or whatever, so long as the hands were skilful. Down in Kent, they say those cottages were built for weavers,—those lovable nests of big timbers, curved gables and small leaded panes which we are so keen to restore and live in ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... insignificance! Coningsby entertained a great aversion for Mr. Melton, but felt his spirit unequal to the social contest. The genius of the untutored, inexperienced youth quailed before that of the long-practised, skilful man of the world. What was the magic of this man? What was the secret of this ease, that nothing could disturb, and yet was not deficient in deference and good taste? And then his dress, it seemed fashioned by some unearthly artist; yet it was impossible to detect ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... direction. She gave me ample instruction on what it was necessary I should know, on what it would be proper to say; and how I should conduct myself. She spoke much and earnestly on the care of my health, conjured me to consult skilful physicians, and be attentive and exact in following their prescriptions whatever they might happen to be. I believe her concern was sincere, for she loved me, and gave proofs of her affection less equivocal than the prodigality of her favors; for judging by my mode of ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... time there was daily to be seen upon the green in front of head-quarters a company of men, ward-masters, nurses, and cooks, performing the most surprising evolutions, playing alternately the parts of patients and nurses, studying by experiment, under the eye and direction of skilful surgeons, the most comfortable method of conveying the helpless. In this way the stretcher corps acquired an amount of skill and tenderness which was brought into good use when the long roll on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... the district only a few months, Anstice was already known to his professional brothers as a daring and skilful surgeon; and one man—the one who now called upon his services—was in the habit of wondering openly why so brilliant a man was content to bury himself in the country instead of seeking fame and fortune in some one of the ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... boy never grows weary, and he only leaves off regretfully because its season comes to an end. If he has nothing else to do he will be happy spinning his top, on and off, from morning until nightfall, and naturally grows skilful in the art, although, if he has no companion, it does not admit of much variety. His chief exploit is to scoop up the top while it is still spinning, on to the palm or back of his hand, or on to his arm. But there ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... things appointed, but in so plain, I say, and distinct manner that each one present may understand what they sing, every word having but one note, though the whole Harmony consist of many parts, and those very cunningly set by the skilful in that science. ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... on Sunday, September 10, about eight in the morning. I was with her at the time of her delivery, and with very little intermission until the moment of her death. Every skilful effort that medical knowledge of the highest class could make was exerted to save her. It is not possible to describe the unremitting and devoted attentions of her husband. Nor is it easy to give you an adequate idea of the affectionate zeal of many of her friends, who were ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Durend again allowed his stroke to drop back into its former steady swing, and doggedly, with sternly-set face, plugged away as before, refusing to look again at the crew drawing inexorably up behind. Twice the boats overlapped, but both times Dale managed, by skilful steering, to avoid a bump. The third time no trick of steering could avoid the issue, and the nose of the Johnson boat grated triumphantly along the ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... approaching hoofs. Polykarp had ridden by on his father's fine horse, had greeted her as he passed, and had dropped a rose on the roadway. Half an hour later the old black slave came to Sirona, who was throwing the shuttle through the warp with a skilful hand. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... master when he crossed bayonets with Frank. The latter had made himself expert by long training under skilful French instructors, and, besides, was the most finished boxer in the regiment. At thrust and parry, feint and riposte, advance and retreat, he ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... to books and writings. Thus are commentators made. They learn in suffering what they observe in the margin. Malone may have been driven to his pursuits, but he took to them kindly, and became a vigorous and skilful book-buyer, operating in the market both on his own behalf and on that of his Irish friends ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... all mention of Dermot's embarrassments, Honor speedily found herself pouring out the whole of her troubles into her father's ears. She was no dissembler, never having been accustomed to concealment, and possessing naturally a very open character; so, with a few skilful questions, the Major easily drew from her the ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Mr. Allen in favor of family pride and against "those people," as he had termed persons of doubtful color. I had instinctively defended myself against the suggestion that I might possibly be one of them. If this skilful lawyer had intended, as possibly he did, to disarm me wholly at the outset, so that I could make no attack upon the position which he intended to assume, he could not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... Quebec the Jesuits, and later the seminary, maintained even elementary schools. If we must believe the Abbe de Latour and other writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the children of the early colonists, skilful in manual labour, showed, nevertheless, great indolence of mind. "In general," writes Latour, "Canadian children have intelligence, memory and facility, and they make rapid progress, but the fickleness of their character, a dominant taste for liberty, and their hereditary and natural inclination ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... some beings of the human species, in whom may be discovered an extraordinary sagacity, which, to the uninformed, appears miraculous. The most skilful practitioners in medicine, are, no doubt, men endowed with very acute feelings, similar to that of the physiognomists, by the assistance of which they judge with great facility of diseases, and very promptly draw ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... curing diseases was of course in operation. Perhaps the most unique of these was the plan apparently adopted by the "celebrated skilful woman at Shepreth." Who the skilful woman of Shepreth was I am unable to say, but we may perhaps infer the nature of her fame and skill from the fact on record that a man, who was said to be one of her descendants, did in 1774, when called in to see a butcher who had run a meat hook into ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... had known from my first remembrance. It was the man who was said by his son to have gone up the river, and, as I supposed, had returned home. It was the usual custom of this man, not to go with his flat boats, but being ladened and committed to skilful pilots, he took passage upon a steamboat and waited their arrival at the place of destination. He seemed very much disconcerted in my presence, but I said nothing to strengthen his suspicions that I knew him. He cast several glances at me, at every convenient ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... had been uncompromisingly partisan, Blount had failed to recognize in the railroad official a skilful pleader for the special interests—the interests of the few against those of the many. Hence he was preparing to go to the new field with a rather strong prepossession in favor of the defendant corporation. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... between King and Parliament was based on a fundamental similarity of interests; the harmony in detail was worked out, not by the forcible exertion of Henry's will, but by his careful and skilful manipulation of both Houses. No one was ever a greater adept in the management of the House of Commons, which is easy (p. 263) to humour but hard to drive. Parliaments are jealous bodies, but they are generally pleased with attentions; and Henry VIII. was very assiduous in the attentions he paid ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... been pleasant, and my readers may wonder that, with such skilful workmen about her, she had not yet replaced the shoe carried off by Curdie. As the king, however, had more than one ground of objection to her stone shoes, he no doubt took advantage of the discovery of her toes, and threatened to expose her deformity if she had another made. I ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... a skilful physician has a patient, of whatever sex or age, whom he compels against his will to do something for his good which is contrary to the written rules; what is this compulsion to be called? Would you ever dream of calling it a violation of the art, or a breach of the laws ...
— Statesman • Plato
... treatment of his instrument that Berlioz seems most closely akin to the newest musicians. For he was the first to permit the orchestra to dictate music to him. There had, no doubt, existed skilful and sensitive orchestrators before him, men who were deeply aware of the nature of their tools, men who, like Mozart, could scarcely repress their tears at the sound of a favorite instrument, and wrote marvelously for flutes and horns and oboes and all ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... are idle thoughts. Truth soars invincible, unchangeable, high above all the ablest calculations and the most skilful combinations. Jacques, you must tell the truth, the whole truth, without subterfuge ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... Bilton, and Mr. Dunnill. Mrs. Grove was Emmeline's elder sister, a merry, talkative, kindly woman. Aware of the circumstances, she at once made friends with Miss Derrick, and greatly pleased that young lady by a skilful blending of "superior" talk with easy homeliness. Mr. Bilton, a stockbroker's clerk, represented the better kind of City young man—athletic, yet intelligent, spirited without vulgarity a breezy, good-humoured, ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... be a frequent coming and going of things and people; but from the time the child begins to recognize objects and individuals it should be taken for little spells into other rooms and different surroundings. In the homely, convenient, servantless abode over which the able-bodied, capable, skilful, civilized women of the ordinary sort will preside in the future, the child will naturally follow its mother's morning activities from room to room. Its mother will talk to it, chance visitors will sign to it. There should ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... irresistible force, and the battle-rock of destruction, the own, dear, foster-brother of Cuchulain.[6] [W.3005.] [1]And fitting it was for him to go thither,[1] for well-matched and alike was their manner of fight and of combat. Under the same instructresses had they done skilful deeds of valour and arms, when learning the art with Scathach ('the Modest') and with Uathach ('the Dreadful') and with Aife ('the Handsome'). [2]Yet was it the felling of an oak with one's fists, and the stretching of the hand into a serpent's nest, and a spring into ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... Having found the means of gratifying her passion, she became the mother of a monster, half-man and half-bull, called the Minotaur. Minos was desirous of hiding this monster from the observation of mankind, and for this purpose applied to Daedalus, an Athenian, the most skilful artist of his time, who is said to have invented the axe, the wedge, and the plummet, and to have found out the use of glue. He first contrived masts and sails for ships, and carved statues so admirably, that they not only looked as if they were alive, but had actually ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment and such fancy, as made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful; a place to be visited by travellers and copied by designers.' On this estate, with its lakes and cascades, its urns and poetical inscriptions, its hanging woods, and 'wild shaggy precipice,' Shenstone appears to have spent all his fortune. He led the life ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... down from the tree, and Three Eyes climbed up. But Three Eyes was not more skilful; with all her efforts she could not draw the branches, nor the fruit, near enough to pluck even a leaf, for they sprang back as she put ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... Grangousier having heard this discourse, was ravished with admiration, considering the high reach and marvellous understanding of his son Gargantua, and said to his governesses, Philip, king of Macedon, knew the great wit of his son Alexander by his skilful managing of a horse; for his horse Bucephalus was so fierce and unruly that none durst adventure to ride him, after that he had given to his riders such devilish falls, breaking the neck of this man, the other man's leg, braining one, and putting another out of ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Montagu bore a very different character from his puissant brother. Though so skilful a captain that he had never been known to lose a battle, his fame as a warrior was, strange to say, below that of the great earl, whose prodigious strength had accomplished those personal feats that dazzled the populace, and revived the legendary renown ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... very valuable pictures, but they were so discoloured by time that, if not restored before long by some skilful hand, they seemed likely to disappear altogether. The only new thing in the drawing-room was the piano, bought three years ago, soon after the second marriage ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... which these young men had protested. It is probable, therefore, that they were persuaded by gentle arguments to this act of submission. They were not in revolt against their faith or the church, but only eager for greater liberty of thought and judgment. Kindly persuasion and skilful argument would have great effect, and the sense of isolation and loss incurred by sentence of excommunication was such as to cause acute suffering to the devout. There is no doubt that Wolsey won over ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his Bounty she is accommodated with enough to dress her for other Lovers. This is the most ordinary Method of bringing Beauty and Poverty into the Possession of the Town: But the particular Cases of kind Keepers, skilful Pimps, and all others who drive a separate Trade, and are not in the general Society or Commerce of Sin, will require distinct Consideration. At the same time that we are thus severe on the Abandoned, we are apt to represent the Case of others with that Mitigation ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Bloody,' we are astonished when we read the authentic descriptions, still extant, of her personal appearance. She was a little, slim, delicate, sickly woman, with hair already turning grey. She played on the lute, and had even given instruction in music; she had a skilful hand; on personal acquaintance she made the impression of goodness and mildness. But yet there was something in her eyes that could even rouse fear; her voice, which could be heard at a great distance, ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... He was an Episcopalian, and one of the indignant protesters against the alteration of the liturgy at King's Chapel. Though a warm Tory and Loyalist, he was never molested by the American government. He was one of Boston's most skilful and popular physicians for many years. While other city doctors got but a shilling and sixpence for their regular fee, he charged and received the exorbitant sum of half a dollar a visit; and for "bringing little master to town," in ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... general introduction of mercenaries, and the native populations still fought their own battles. The policy of exciting revolts among the subject citizens was completely successful, and by 1360 almost the whole of Romagna had submitted to the papal legate. His triumph was crowned in this year, when, by skilful use of quarrels among the Visconti princes, he succeeded ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... he said, presently, "thou mayst survive to-morrow's calamity; if so, being as thou art skilful with the pen, write of me in thy day of leisure two things; first, I dared not break with Duke Notaras while Mahommed was striving for my gates—he could and would have seized my throne—the Church, the Brotherhoods, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... go was Uncle Guy too old? Did Mr. Thrush want to go? Was he disappointed at father's not being able to take him? Was it all a holiday for father? Would mummy have liked to go? No lies had been told to Robin, but some of the information he had sought had been withheld. Dion had made skilful use of Mr. Thrush when matters had become difficult, when Robin had nearly driven him into a corner. The ex-chemist, though seldom seen, loomed large in Robin's world, on account of his impressive coloring and ancient respectabilities. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... in the United States made skilful use of Canadian touchiness on such matters, and not all such expressions as that quoted above were ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... no more of it, witting that the gentleman had got into a mess and was not like to get out of it, she said pleasantly to him:—"Sir, this horse of yours trots too hard; I pray you be pleased to set me down." The gentleman, being perchance more quick of apprehension than he was skilful in narration, missed not the meaning of her sally, and took it in all good and gay humour. So, leaving unfinished the tale which he had begun, and so mishandled, he addressed himself ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the lodges of the unfortunate Nez Perces, and assailed them with shouts and yellings. The Nez Perces numbered only twenty men, and but nine were armed with fusees. They showed themselves, however, as brave and skilful in war as they had been mild and long-suffering in peace. Their first care was to dig holes inside of their lodges; thus ensconced they fought desperately, laying several of the enemy dead upon the ground; while they, though Some ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... made of a child brought up to London, 'son of one Mr. Wotton, formerly amanuensis to Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winton, who both read and perfectly understood Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic and Syriac, and most of the modern languages, disputed in divinity, law and all the sciences, was skilful in history, both ecclesiastical and profane; in a word, so universally and solidly learned at eleven years of age that he was looked on as a miracle. Dr. Lloyd, one of the most deep-learned divines of this nation ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... may be satisfied with anybody's eye; the cool assumption that because the unfortunate fifer occasionally shuts both eyes he ought in strict justice to lose both eyes, and should be duly grateful to the merciful khan for permitting him to keep one of them,—are all the fine and skilful touches of a bright wit and a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... projecting from the pinion, as if designed by nature to operate as a guard against its enemies. Our associates rendered us every friendly attention, and evinced great anxiety to contribute to our sport; and proved themselves skilful and expert marksmen. The country abounded with a multiplicity of trees and plants, which would no doubt have amply rewarded the researches of the botanist, and scientific investigator. The fatigue I had undergone, and ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... close, and the enemy, who had after all hardened their hearts, pushed the attack with extraordinary daring and vigour. Some of the trenches on Waggon Hill were actually taken three times by the assailants. But every time General Hamilton—the skilful Hamilton as he has been called—flung them out again by counterattacks. At one place, indeed, they succeeded in holding on all day, nor was it until the dusk of the evening, when the rain and thunderstorm which we saw hanging over Colenso broke on Ladysmith, ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... leads me to the Russians. Why, then, provoke a quarrel with a brave people—and destroy the idol of glory on which they are wont to gaze with rapture? Never does man appear so mean as in weakness, when every one can measure his strength with him fearlessly: besides, you need a skilful leech, and nowhere will you find a better than at my house. To-morrow we shall be at home; have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... plantations of this kind, proceeds from this neglect; though (sheep excepted) there is no employment whatsoever incident to the farmer, which requires less expence to gratifie their expectations: One diligent and skilful man, will govern five hundred acres: But if through any accident a beast shall break into his master's field; or the wicked hunter make a cap for his dogs and horses, what a clamour is there made for the disturbance of a years crop ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... I was conducted by the Master of Ceremonies to the west, and thus addressed: "It has become necessary to form a school of Architecture for the instruction of the brethren employed in the temple, as none but skilful Architects can bring the same to perfection. In order to prevent some brethren from receiving the honors and rewards due only to brethren of talents, we have deemed it expedient to prove and test all those who present themselves as candidates for this degree. We, therefore, require you to make the ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... to the welfare of the Church; it is only in periods of sharp, skilful hostility that the Church becomes pure. In the Middle Ages, when it ran riot with power, there were plenty of churchmen as corrupt as our dying man. His love for a Greek manuscript is as sensual as his love for his mistress; and having lived a life of physical delight, it is natural ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... persons as a class, he was not reluctant to be openly appreciated. "As for the facts," he continued, "they were easily secured. I had occasion to write another article on the Indian question, taking an exactly opposite view, and I found that many of the facts, in the hands of a skilful artist, could be used in both articles. I have often found that plan beneficial. It economizes labor, gives exercise to all the intellectual faculties, and, where one can secure orders for a brace of documents to contradict each other, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... sister who many years before in the bloom of girlhood had passed away from his side. A physician was immediately called and after an examination Rose's lungs were pronounced diseased, though not as yet beyond cure. She was of course taken from school; and with the utmost care, and skilful ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... elsewhere, honor does not redound to the workmen who have gotten the material together, but to the architect, wise and skilful [skillful sic], who conceives and carries out the plan for the entire edifice, and, with the stones others have brought, constructs a ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... Philip and his wife. Velasquez stands on the left of the picture, behind the Infanta, painting, with his canvas turned back toward us as we look into the room. The black figure of an attendant has passed out of the apartment and is going up a stair against a clear white wall. The skilful way in which you are led into the picture is astonishing, and the whole thing is quite by itself as a piece of painting. There is no attempt at anything subtile or even delicate in the treatment, speaking from the point of view of a result ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... all the Ketzels, and much patient and skilful labour on the part of the motherly Lena, a great day at length arrived for Irma. It was the day on which she discarded the head shawl with the rest of the quaint Galician attire, and appeared dressed as a Canadian girl, discovering ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... at eighty-six his hand had none of the wavering of age; and it was with no little satisfaction that, grasping an imaginary pistol, he showed me how steady an aim he could still take, and told of how famous a shot he used to be. "But my sister was more skilful than I," he added. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... Christ miraculously widens or contracts the gates, milk pails, sieves, or boxes, not properly made by Joseph, 4 he not being skilful at his carpenter's trade. 5 The King of Jerusalem gives Joseph an order for a throne. 6 Joseph works on it for two years in the king's palace, and makes it two spans too short. The king being angry with him, 10 Jesus comforts him, 13 commands ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... With skilful hand and wary eye The harbor-bar was crossed; A plaything of the restless wave, The boat ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... life was devoted to farming, but upon reaching the proper age he learned the trade of augermaking, which at that time was one of the leading industries of this county, and at which he soon became an expert workman, as well as a skilful worker in iron and steel. The editor of this book has heard him remark that when he could find no one else capable of making odd pieces of ironwork for the machinery in his mills he would take the hammer and make them himself, and has also ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... John I., the most skilful prince of that age in the mathematics, was he who attempted the discovery of those seas, and undertook to double the Cape of Good Hope, upon the account of traffic, which he desired to establish betwixt the crown of Portugal and the emperor of Ethiopia, commonly called Prester John. This ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... princess arrive amongst us so young with so much instruction, or with such capacity to profit by instruction. Her skilful father, who thoroughly knew our Court, had painted it to her, and had made her acquainted with the only manner of making herself happy there. From the first moment of her arrival she had acted upon his ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and even the young gentlemen, declared with becoming discretion that they would not confide the reins to less skilful hands, because the road was rough and hilly, and moreover bad from rain. Notwithstanding all this, however, Jacobi intrigued so that, contrary to the established arrangement, he mounted the coach-box of the young ladies, and Henrik that of his mother. But the Candidate had not much pleasure ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... give way to a wicked sarcastic method, which, perhaps, he had inherited from his grandfather, and with which, when a quiet, skilful young person chooses to employ it, he can make a whole family uncomfortable. He took up Ward's pompous remarks and made jokes of them, so that that young divine chafed and almost choked over his great meals. He made Madam Esmond angry, and ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... receive any aid beyond the occasional assistance of a passenger, materials suitable to his purpose, and tools, were supplied to him, in the use of which he proved to be skilful. He constructed the door and window of his cot, he adjusted a rude bedstead, and a few shelves, and appeared to become somewhat soothed in his temper as ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... onset, had become general. From noon till evening the battle raged, with a carnage rarely recorded in history. Don John's own ship lay yard-arm and yard-arm with the Turkish Admiral, and exposed to the fire of seven large vessels besides. It was a day when personal, audacity, not skilful tactics, was demanded, and the imperial bastard showed the metal he was made of. The Turkish Admiral's ship was destroyed, his head exposed from Don John's deck upon a pike, and the trophy became the signal for a general panic and a complete victory. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... desperately desirous of killing the other,—with no one to keep them apart, but a score of spectators to encourage them in their intent of reciprocal destruction,—were not likely to be long in coming to the end of the affair. It was not a question of swords, where skilful fencing may protract a combat to an indefinite period of time; nor of pistols, where unskilful shooting may equally retard the result. The combatants knew that, on closing within arms' length, one or other must receive a wound that might in ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... was not only one of the most popular officers in the regiment, but also one of the best and bravest. All his life he had been devoted to field sports, and his fame as a plucky big-game hunter and skilful shot was well known in many a Central Indian village and Cashmere valley. Educated at the Canadian Military College, he was a master of his profession, while the long months spent in Indian jungles had turned him into a handy man indeed. Wonderful and varied were ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... absent for several years, during which time other violinists had been heard, John S. Dwight wrote of his performance thus: "We are wearied and confused by any music, however strongly tinged with any national or individual spirit, however expressive in detail, skilful in execution, and original or bold, or intense in feeling, if it does not at the same time impress us by its unity as a whole, by its development from first to last of one or more pregnant themes. As compositions, therefore, ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... dwellings, and it was not until 1836 that Sir George Gervis, Bart., of Hinton Admiral, Christchurch, commenced to build on an extensive scale on the eastern side of the stream, and so laid the foundations of the present town. Sir George employed skilful engineers and eminent architects to plan and lay out his estate, so that from the beginning great care was taken in the formation and the selection of sites for the houses and other buildings, with the result that Bournemouth is known far and wide as the most charming, artistic, and picturesque ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... steering-platform at once. King Rupert, having handed his Queen (who still carried her baby) into her seat, took his place, and pulled a lever. The aero went forward, and seemed to fall head foremost off the fort. It was but a dip, however, such as a skilful diver takes from a height into shallow water, for the plane made an upward curve, and in a few seconds was skimming upwards towards the Flagstaff. Despite the wind, it arrived there in an incredibly short time. Immediately after his flight another ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... opportunities to advance themselves to points marked only by their personal limitations; where they could maintain their self-respect and with his help increase it, in that they could hope to become the most skilful operatives in their particular specialties, and to earn higher wages than any employer could afford to pay under other conditions. With every machine, human or mechanical, running each day at its maximum degree of productivity, Gorham knew that the corporation could well afford ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... Strong is the contrast here, where they are placed side by side with all that Europe holds of elegant, and well-dressed Frenchwomen, whether of the "world" or the "half-world," are invariably marvels of fitness and freshness, the simplest materials being converted by their skilful touch into toilettes, so artfully adapted to the wearer's figure and complexion, as to raise such "creations" to the level of ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... Terence, Great Master! who, with wond'rous Art, Explor'd the deepest Secrets of the Heart; That best Old Judge of Manners and of Men, First grac'd this Tale with his immortal Pen. Moliere, the Classick of the Gallick Stage, First dar'd to modernize the Sacred Page; Skilful, the one thing wanting to supply, Humour, that Soul of Comic Poesy. The Roman Fools were drawn so high ... the Pit Might take 'em now for Modern Men of Wit. But Moliere painted with a bolder Hand, And mark'd his Oafs with the Fool's-Cap and Band: To ev'ry Vice he ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... not very skilful yet, and as he scrubbed the water ran down over the stock of the brush, over his hand and down his uplifted arm, wetting the turned-up sleeves of his shirt. When he had scrubbed it sufficiently he rinsed it off as well as he could ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... thumb and little finger, if he would stand steady while he took off the three middle fingers. "Very well, sir, if you please, but be sharp," was his reply.—I held his arm, and Mr. Clare, who was a skilful surgeon, in a very few minutes took out the three middle fingers nearly up to the wrist, and having bound up the wound and pressed the thumb and little finger nearly together, he desired the man to ride slowly home, and told him that he would see him again on his ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... man is faring In the hospital tent: and, combining, comparing, Constructing, within moves the brain of one man, Moving all. He is bending his brow o'er some plan For the hospital service, wise, skilful, humane. The officer standing behind him is fain To refer to the angel solicitous cares Of the Sisters of Charity: one he declares To be known through the camp as a seraph of grace; He has seen, all have seen ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... famously carved set of chessmen. The bishops wore their mitres, the knights pranced on spirited steeds, the castles rested on the backs of elephants,—even the pawns mimicked the private soldiers of an army. The skilful carver had given to each piece, and each pawn, too, a certain individuality. That night there had been a close contest. Two well-matched players had guided the game, and it had ended with leaving a deep irritation on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... Arnold's Treason. The South Prostrate. Colonial Victory of King's Mountain. General Greene to the South. His History. His Plan. Morgan Beats Carleton at Cowpens. Cornwallis Sweeps Northward. Greene's Skilful Retreat. Battle of Guilford Court-House. Cornwallis to Virginia. The Carolinas and Georgia Recovered. Washington to Yorktown. French ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... of dirty or hard work, whether in doors or out, is performed by the blacks, who here, in fact, replace the lower classes. Many, however, learn trades, and frequently are to be compared to the most skilful Europeans. I have seen blacks in the most elegant workshops, making wearing apparel, shoes, tapestry, gold or silver articles, and met many a nattily dressed negro maiden working at the finest ladies' dresses, or the most delicate embroidery. I often thought I must be dreaming ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... career, Mr. Webb was the prevailing Fabian. Now his is a mind legal as well as creative, and at times his legal side quite overcomes his constructive element; he is extraordinarily fertile in expedients and skilful in adaptation, and with a real horror of open destruction. This statement by no means exhausts him, but it does to a large extent convey the qualities that were uppermost in the earlier years, at any rate, of his influence. His insistence upon continuity ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... what animal you are talking of," said Von Koren; "most likely one of the insectivora. Well, he got hold of the bird because it was incautious; he broke the nest of eggs because the bird was not skilful, had made the nest badly and did not know how to conceal it. The frog probably had some defect in its colouring or he would not have seen it, and so on. Your little beast only destroys the weak, the unskilful, the careless—in fact, those who have defects which nature does not think fit to ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Government was challenged, and, on the motion of Lord Roden, a vote of censure was carried in the House of Lords. When the matter came before the Commons, Lord John delivered a speech so adroit and so skilful that friends and foes alike were satisfied, and even pronounced Radicals forgot ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... fact. John immediately follows this statement of the betrayal with another, peculiar to himself. Its shows his close observation at the time, and the permanence of his impression. What he noticed would furnish a grand subject for the most skilful artist, beneath whose picture might be written, "The disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom He spake." As John gazed upon them, raising themselves on their divans, looking first one way, then another, from one familiar face to another, exchanging glances of inquiry and doubt, ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... adversary, unhinges and half paralyzes the whole nervous system. But as fighting Tom gradually recovered to the consciousness of his own strength, and the recollection that it had been only foiled by the skilful trick of a wrestler, and not the hand-to-hand might of a pugilist, the panic vanished, and Tom Bowles was himself again. "Oh, that's your sort, is it? We don't fight with our heels hereabouts, like Cornishers and donkeys: we fight with our fists, youngster; and since ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... managed the Mission flocks and herds at San Luis Rey for twenty years; few were as skilful as he; he himself owned nearly as many sheep as the Senora Moreno; but this Juan did not know. Neither did he realize that Alessandro, as Chief Pablo's son, had a position of his own not without dignity ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... borne this out, so engrossed was I in their playing. At last, in the excitement of one side being about to make a score, I seized my opportunity and set about untying the knot which held the keys. I was not skilful, and moreover excited and hasty and so got caught. The owner of the sari and of the keys took the fold off her shoulder with a smile, and laid the keys on her lap as she ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... fellow, with a gravity equal to that of the sham showman, explained to his audience that he was composing an operetta, of which he would give them a few passages. He was a skilful pianist. He explained, as his fingers ran up and down the keys, that the scene was in Ratcliffe Highway. A tavern: a hornpipe. Jack ashore. Unseemly squabbles: here there were harsh discords and shrill screams. Drunkenness: the music getting very helpless. Then the ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... taken a first in the first part of the Moral Science Tripos, and she was working hard now for part two. Clementina was to go back to Newnham with her next September. She aspired to history. Miriam's bent was musical. She and Phoebe and Daphne and Clementina were under the care of skilful Mademoiselle Lafarge, most tactful of Protestant French-women, Protestant and yet not too Protestant, one of those rare French Protestants in whom a touch of ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... had a magnificent appreciation for a well executed enormity. In his story 'Markheim' he gives a skilful picture of a really deft assassination; and in the 'Suicide Club' he has created what I would class as a master criminal. The Russian writers have a power in this mood that is truly wonderful. Dostoyeffsky in his 'Crime and Punishment' has conceived a most tremendous homicide—one which would ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... they can be removed entire, and viewed on both sides, illustrate points in the mechanism of the creatures to which they belonged that cannot be so clearly traced in the same remains when locked up in stone. There is a vast deal of skilful carpentry exhibited—if carpentry I may term it—in the coverings of these ancient ichthyolites. In the commoner fish of our existing seas the scales are so thin and flexible,—mere films of horn,—that there is no particularly nice fitting ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... help of a ready pen and of the pencil of a skilful illustrator, has given us in this handsome volume a number of attractive pictures of distant places.... It is good to read and pleasant ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... would never have intentionally sacrificed his interests to his vengeance. But thinking that he could henceforth, without compromising his own fortune, secretly damage that of Paul Visire, he devoted himself to the skilful and careful preparation of difficulties and perils for the Head of the Government. Though far from equalling his rival in talent, knowledge, and authority, he greatly surpassed him in his skill as a lobbyist. The most acute parliamentarians attributed the recent misfortunes ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... about the various parts, which he examined with trembling fingers. It seemed almost too good to be true that he was actually going to be taken up in a Government war plane, and by so skilful an aviator as ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... "Memoires," conversation with Sieyes on his entry into the Directory. "Here we are," says Sieyes to him, "members of a government which, as we cannot conceal from ourselves, is threatened with a coming fall. But when the ice melts skilful pilots can escape in the breaking up. A falling government does not always imperil those at ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... inquiry into the condition of the clothing trade, and some examination of the fact, might disclose to you that the poor sewing-woman is poor because she sews poorly, and that there is always a scarcity of skilful and intelligent sewing-women, ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... directed her education. Resident in a city which arrogates to itself, not without justice, the title of the German Athens, his pupil availed herself of all those advantages which were offered to her by the instruction of the most skilful professors. Few persons were more accomplished than Henrietta Temple even at an early age; but her rare accomplishments were not her most remarkable characteristics. Nature, which had accorded to her that extraordinary beauty we have attempted to describe, had endowed her with ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... Hawkins succeeded in obtaining the object he had in view was the conception of no ordinary man. We talk and write of his wonderful accomplishments on sea and land, as a skilful, brave sailor, but he was more than that. He was, in many respects, a genius, and his courage and resolution were ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... dexterous management of the lasso, or riata, by the rural Mexican is such as fills the beholder with admiration and surprise that so skilful a combination of hemp and horseflesh, managed by a man's hand, could exist. Behold the vaquero, with his riata whirling aloft as at full gallop he pursues a fleeing bull! Closing upon it a few yards away the lasso swings its unerring coils ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... faults are in his first productions, when he was less skilful, or, at least, less dexterous in the use of words; and though they had been more frequent, they could only have lessened the grace, not the strength of his composition. He is one of the writers that improved our taste, and advanced our language, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... Washington and his moral authority, and for the command which France and Spain obtained of the seas; on the petty quarrelsomeness with which the rights of the Colonists were urged, and the meanly skilful agitation which forced on the final rupture; on the lack of sustained patriotic effort during the war; on the base cruelty and dishonesty with which the loyal minority were persecuted and the private rights ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... necessary to its embellishment. It would be ridiculous for a painter of domestic scenes, of portraits, landscapes, animals, or of still life, to say that he despised those qualities which have made the subordinate schools so famous. The art of colouring, and the skilful management of light and shadow, are essential requisites in his confined labours. If we descend still lower, what is the painter of fruit and flowers without the utmost art in colouring, and what the painters ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... sort of steer to operate on, and it is much more difficult to throw down such an animal than a wild, active, fast-galloping one; for this reason, that on getting the rope over his horns you must roll him over, or rather flop him over, on to his back by a sudden and skilful action of your horse on the rope. If properly thrown, or flopped hard enough, the steer will lie dazed or stunned for about half a minute. During that short period, and only during that short period, you must slip off your horse, run up to the steer and quickly tie his front and ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... tribes of Indians known as the "Five Nations," with which the story is interspersed, shows that the author gave no small amount of study to the work in question, and nowhere else is it shown more plainly than by the skilful manner in which he has interwoven with his plot the "blood" law, which demands a life for a life, whether it be that of the murderer ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... skilful touch, and, I fear, Harry was becoming a bit of a cheat. For, though tidings of her son's own safety would undoubtedly be the best news Mrs Forsyth could receive, the fact that he was domiciled with her crazy brother would as certainly ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... to conduct the two white men to the wooded lake region, northwest towards the land of the Assiniboines, where Indian families took refuge on islands from those tigers of the plains—the Sioux—who were invincible on horseback but less skilful in canoes. The rivers were beginning to freeze. Boats were abandoned; but there was no snow for snow-shoe travelling, and the explorers were unable to transport the goods brought for trade. Bidding the Crees go to their families and bring back slaves ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... ornithological gallery of the British Museum is suspended the portrait of an extinct lawyer, Sir John Doddridge, the first of the name who procured any distinction to his old Devonian family. Persons skilful in physiognomy have detected a resemblance betwixt King James's solicitor-general and his only famous namesake. But although it is difficult to identify the sphery figure of the judge with the slim consumptive preacher, and still more difficult to light up with pensive ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various |
