"Superlative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... coaxing, and take on unheard-of shapes. The highest building, the largest steamer, the fastest train, the book reaching the widest circulation have, in America, a clear title to respect. When the just functions of things are as yet not discriminated, the superlative in any direction seems naturally admirable. Again, many possessions, if they do not make a man better, are at least expected to make his children happier; and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions. An experimental ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... called a bed, but which is nothing more nor less than a beggarman's shakedown, where the smell, the heat, the filth, and above all, the vermin, are intolerable to the very farthest stretch of the superlative degree. As soon as their eyes begin to close here, they are roused by the bell-man, and summoned at the hour of twelve—first washing themselves as aforesaid, in the lake, and then adjourning to the prison which I am about to describe. There is not on earth, with the exception ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... ears are educated to music by his rhythm. Coleridge and Goethe are the only critics who have expressed our convictions with any adequate fidelity: but there is in all cultivated minds a silent appreciation of his superlative power and beauty, which, like Christianity, qualifies ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... said. "I appreciate your spirit and, permit me to say, also your attempt to make me treat this terrible affair in a spirit of sport. But old Margaret is the superlative of stubbornness. We cannot expect to go to her to obtain information. I have lived in the house with her for more than six years. Can I say whether she is a saint or a crafty villainess? No. I know no more ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... that of the sultan, remained an unusual time in office, by an accusation enforced by a thousand purses of gold, he was enabled to produce a bowstring for his benefactor; and the sultan's "firmaun" appointed him to the vacant pachalik. His qualifications for office were all superlative: he was very short, very corpulent, very illiterate, very ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... his course, and confirm his confidence in fate. Eight years and three months nominally in the service, out of which in reality he had been absent four years and ten months either on furlough or without one, and already a general! Neither blind luck, nor the revolutionary epoch, nor the superlative ability of the man, but a compound of all these, had brought this marvel to pass. It did not intoxicate, but still further sobered, the beneficiary. This effect was partly due to an experience which demonstrated that strong as ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... to say, I regard your claim to the possession of good taste as completely established.... 'Ware the horse, there! Look out! look out!" His eyes had followed the tall figure of the Mother-Superior, moving with the superlative grace and ease that comes of perfect physical proportion, carrying the black nun's robes, wearing the flowing veil of the nun with the dignity of an ideal queen. And the next instant, his charger, held with some others by a mounted orderly ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... contrary, I think it has assisted it. Every neighbourhood loves to have a mystery of its own, and we, you must confess, have got a superlative one. The man has been found scrupulously honest, regular, and exact in his dealings; and were we to lose him now, and get a mere common-place person to succeed him, half the housewives of Walworth would perish of inanition. And now," said Sainsbury, rising, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... that her husband had deceived her, but as she could not at that moment get anything out of him, she forebore questioning him, and spoke of some pickled cucumbers which Akoulina Pamphilovna knew how to prepare in a superlative manner. All night long Vassilissa Igorofna lay awake trying to think what her husband could have in his head that she was ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... This superlative organization produced upon Pa the effect of a state affair; it was something beyond him, above him; it interested him especially from the recruiting point of view; and what stimulated him above all was the troupes of trick cyclists. He had seen plenty of them in America, but then, wholly ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... years; and, before the middle of the century, the records tell us that the main body of the church was entirely completed. The right tower was uncompleted at this time, but was finished by Cardinal Philastre in 1430, up to which time intermittent labour had evolved a superlative combination of constructive and decorative excellencies. The extreme lightness of the west front is brought more and more to impress itself upon one by reason of the consistent disposition of the excellency and ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... common adjective, of the superlative degree; compared regularly, pure, purer, purest. 1. An adjective is a word added to a noun or pronoun, and generally expresses quality. 2. A common adjective is any ordinary epithet, or adjective denoting quality ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... times in the old country, 'FOR THE REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES;' and so yesterday we had a monster meeting on Bakery-hill, and I was the delegate of upwards of one thousand foreigners, or 'aliens,' according to the superlative wisdom of your ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... "Fritz" last year when they spoke of the enemy. Now it is Hun or, as I have heard, "Yahun," being a superlative of Yahoo. In the Napoleonic wars we called the Frenchmen too many names for any one of them to endure; but this is the age ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... lord," he says, "mayhap your lordship has seen it." "My taste is driving, my lord, mayhap your lordship has seen me handle the ribbons." "My horses are all bloods, mayhap your lordship has noticed my team." "I pride myself on my seat in the saddle, mayhap your lordship has seen me ride." "If I am superlative in anything, 'its in my wines." "So please your ladyship, 'tis dress I most excel in ... 'tis walking I pride myself in." No matter what is mentioned, 'tis the one thing he did or had better than ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... him. Instead of walking about with his fellow-creatures in broad daylight and enjoying himself, he gets down to the bottom of the well of his thoughts, for the sake of now and then having a glimpse of a star. Everything must be in the superlative for him; everything must be pure and noble and celestial; his heart must be always heaving and throbbing, even when he is standing before a puppet-show. He never laughs or cries, but can only smile and weep; and there is mighty little difference between his weeping and his smiling. When anything, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... and any sense, but the eyes and ears and sense of the dear one to whom they are sent, is very sweet;—but for the girl who has made a shirt for the man that she loves, there has come a moment in the last stitch of it, sweeter than any that stars, haycocks, poetry, or superlative epithets have produced. Nora Rowley had never as yet been thus useful on behalf of Hugh Stanbury. Had she done so, she might perhaps have been happier even than she was during this journey;—but, without the shirt, it was one of the happiest moments of her life. There was nothing ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... before you can know what it's like. It's really the art of imposing one's will upon someone else's, of making that other person see things as you want them to see them—not as they really are. It's the power of deception carried to a superlative degree. And when that power is exhausted, the ticket may be said to have expired—and the prisoner returns to the dungeon. Sometimes he takes the other person with him. Sometimes he ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... His was a love such as rarely falls to the lot of woman. And his devotion to his girl and boy twins was something quite beyond words. These things were the mainspring of his life, and drove him to such superlative degrees of self-sacrifice that could surely only have been endured by a man of ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... climb the splendid mountain road that leads to the Schlucht, and nowhere else. From a giddy terrace cut in the sides of the shelving forest ridge we now get a prospect of the little lakes of Longuemer and Retournemer, twin gems of superlative loveliness in the wildest environment. Deep down they lie, the two silvery sheets of water with their verdant holms, making a little world of peace and beauty, a toy dropped amid Titanic awfulness ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... experiment, which absorbed our whole harvest of good little fruit, filled every room in the house with unutterable messes, produced much fermentation of temper as well as wine, and ended in a liquid product of such superlative nastiness, that to drink it defied our utmost efforts of obedience and my mother's own resolute courage; so it was with acclamations of execration made libations of—to the infernal gods, I should think—and no future vintage was ever tried, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... about these wonderful Roses of Sharon and this Song of Songs. Lies, all lies, every word of it! Yet, in spite of himself, from time to time, he liked to reread it. He fancied this was because of the sardonic pleasure its superlative phrases gave him, but the truth was it held him. He despised sentiment, tenderness, and, by the strangeness of the human mind, he went, by way of paradox, to the tenderest, most sublime spot in a book supreme in ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... proudly bidden defiance to the storms and blasts of half a thousand winters, and there still stand the gnarled old trees which have gently swayed to and fro while many a baron has ruled the Hall, and whose leaves after growing in superlative beauty, seeming to partake in the grandeur and pride of the "King of the Peak," have drooped and fallen, after having made, with their rich autumnal tints, a succession of beautiful living pictures which have delighted the lords and ladies of Haddon ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... benefited by such a period of close contact with people who ought by experience and knowledge to know better than he. The only thing that is probable is a falling-off, not an advance. I think it highly doubtful whether a ploughman from Ayrshire, however superlative his genius, would now be received at all in "the best houses" and by the first men and women in Edinburgh; and if not in Edinburgh, surely nowhere else would such a reception as that given to Burns await the untutored poet. The world has seldom another chance permitted to it, and in this ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... it; he improved upon, and enlarged, it and made it a thing of magnitude; he and others of his quality discarded petty larceny and ascended into a sphere of superlative grand larceny. They knew with a cynical perception that society, with all its pompous pretensions to morality, had evolved a rule which worked with almost mathematical certainty. This rule was the paradoxical, but nevertheless ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... sapid and extremely oily as the superlative ao implies. There are no finer, fatter cheeses in the world than those made of rich sheep milk in the mountains of Portugal ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... contrast very much; the more, as the soldier is his own chattel withal, and of superlative inches: Friedrich Wilhelm flames up into wrath; sends off swift messengers to bring these Judges, one and all instantly into his presence. The Judges are still in their dressing-gowns, shaving, breakfasting; they ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... philosophers say, is a misfortune, but not to be deceived is a superlative misfortune. If it is human to err, why should a man be called unhappy because he errs, since he was so born and made, and it is the fate of all? Do we pity a man because he cannot fly or does not walk on four legs? We might as well call ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... heard this she said, "Verily Al-Kuthayyir[FN193] was conspicuous for sweet speech and chaste, and he was superlative in his praise of Azzah when he sang" (and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Hence no one of the private citizens saved anything worth mentioning. In addition to other drains they surrendered servants for the fleet, buying them if they had none, and the senators repaired the roads at their individual expense. Only those who wielded arms enjoyed superlative wealth. They, to be sure, were not satisfied with their pay, though it was in full, nor with their outside perquisites, though of vast extent, nor with the very large prizes bestowed for the murders, nor with the acquisition of lands, which was made ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... never felt deeply in my life if that poem did not make me, both lately, and when I read it in MS. No alderman ever longed after a haunch of buck venison more than I for a spiritual taste of that "White Doe" you promise. I am sure it is superlative, or will be when dressed, i. e., printed. All things read raw to me in MS.; to compare magna parvis, I cannot endure my own writings in that state. The only one which I think would not very much win upon me in print is "Peter Bell;" but I am not certain. You ask me about ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... of altruism are visible in Greece. There are few Germanophiles. "Do not fear for us," said M. Kalogeropoulos, to the French. "Greece will not ally herself to a corpse"—meaning Germany. In fact, there is among the Greeks only Graecophilism. If superlative and clamorous love of country is a virtue—they have it. For Greece, when you are down, you are down. As for fallen Germany, so for Russia in her humiliation Greece has no extra thought or care. Not a humanitarian and philanthropic nation! One wonders how a Greek mind would interpret the ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... anything, and he hides his genuine nature behind a cloud of slang. He belittles everything he touches, he is afraid to utter a word from his inner heart, and his talk becomes a mere dropping shower of verbal counters which ring hollow. The superlative degree is abhorrent to him unless he can misuse it for comic purposes; and, like the ridiculous dummy lord in "Nicholas Nickleby," he is quite capable of calling Shakespeare a "very clayver man." I have heard of ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... or rather there is no such thing as pleasure for him. Instead of walking about with his fellow creatures in broad daylight and enjoying himself, he gets down to the bottom of the well of his fancies, in the hope of now and then catching a glimpse of a star. Everything must be in the superlative for him: everything must be pure, and majestic, and etherial, and celestial: his heart must be always throbbing and heaving, even when he is standing before a puppet show. He never laughs or cries, but can only smile and weep; ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... your face is a card among the flowers readin', 'to a fellow artist, from Sarah Bernhardt.' And—whilst we are, so to speak, on the subjeck—you can put in likewise what Eleanora Duse said o' me. You know who she is, I suppose, the very most superlative genius o' the stage, suh. Yes, suh, the very most. An' she says o' me when she went back to Italy, how I was the best ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... temperate climes claim for the apple and the onion superlative qualities. In the papaw the excellences of both are blended and combined. The onion may induce to slumber, but the sleep it produces is it not a trifle too balmy? The moral life and high standard of statesmanship of an American Senator ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... measure of the Indian mind, his friendship and confidence must not suffer eclipse. It is a superlative task, for the inner Indian shrine is crossed by only a favoured few. The Indian is averse to being photographed, for he feels that every picture made of himself by so much shortens his life. He looks at his portrait, ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... my maisteris dere, Gowere and Chaucere, that on the steppis satt Of rethorike quhill thai were lyvand here, Superlative as poetis laureate, In moralitee and eloquence ornate, I recommend my buk in lynis sevin, And eke thair soulis ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... than his calf's foot jelly liquefied and prepared by gas heat, except perhaps his meat biscuits of preserved Texas beef and Southdown mutton. A bottle of Chateau Yquem and another of Clos de Vougeot, both of superlative excellence in quality and flavor, crowned the repast. Their vicinity to the Moon and their incessant glancing at her surface did not prevent the travellers from touching each other's glasses merrily and often. Ardan took occasion ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... blundered, and broke down; amid this hubbub of unfamiliar intervals I should not myself have recognised the slip, but the audience were quick to catch it, and to jeer. To crown all, the Makin company began a dance of truly superlative merit. I know not what it was about, I was too much absorbed to ask. In one act a part of the chorus, squealing in some strange falsetto, produced very much the effect of our orchestra; in another, the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... independent of genial society; and though in about a month she had made the acquaintance of most of the families round, and was on quite free and easy terms with all the Misses Sykes, and all the Misses Pearson, and the two superlative Misses Wynne of Walden Hall, yet, it appeared, she found none amongst them very genial: she fraternized with none of them, to use her own words. If she had had the bliss to be really Shirley Keeldar, Esq., lord of the manor of Briarfield, there was not a single fair one in this and the two ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... please, I'll thank you to say no more like that about my master," she said with dignity. "He's neither shiftless, nor good-for- nothin'. His character is unbleachable! He's an artist an' a scholar an' a gentleman, an' a very superlative man. It's because he knows so much that—that he jest hain't got room for common things like ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... and derivative pronouns are unsusceptible of number or gender, in which they resemble the English; yet when it is necessary to distinguish the sexes, alca is used for the masculine, and domo for the feminine. The comparative is formed by prefixing jod or doi to the positive, and the superlative by cad or mu. Thus from chu limpid, are formed doichu more limpid, and muliu most limpid. There are no diminutives or augmentatives, which are supplied by means of the adjectives picki little, and buta great. Diminutives are also formed by changing a harsh sound ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... Serenus in the purest antiquity, yet being added in the transcendent degree to the word Emperour, the highest denomination that a Prince is capable of, it becomes of the same value. So that to interpret Illustrissimus unto diminution is to find a positive in a superlative, and in the most orient light to seek for darkness. And I would, seeing the near Boyars and Counsellors of his Tzarskoy Majesty are pleased to mention the Title given to his Tzarskoy Majesty by his Cesarian Majesty, gladly be satisfied by them, whether ever any Cesarian Majesty writ formerly ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... your master I shall be happy to see him." In a few moments I was honoured with the company of mine host of the Mitre, who, to do him justice, was a more humorous fellow than I had anticipated. Not quite so ceremonious as he of the Christopher at Eton, or the superlative of a Bond-street restaurateur; but with an unembarrassed roughness, yet respectful demeanour, that partook more of the sturdy English farmer, or an old weather-beaten sportsman, than the picture I had figured to myself of the polished landlord of the principal ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... ordinary type. To a curious and superlative degree he could appreciate a defeat as well as a triumph. His adventures had been a part of a life in which he had not always expected to win, and in to-night's game he admitted that he had been hopelessly and ridiculously beaten. Tragedy, to him, was a first cousin of comedy; ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... that is topical or historical, or documentary or actual. It is also necessarily an effect of fine shades, delicate values, vanishing distinctions, of evasiveness, inconsequence, suggestion. It is also absolute, unrelated—it is positive or negative or superlative—it is never comparative. Well, the Anglo-Saxon public is totally insensible to such things. They can no more feel them, than a blind worm can feel ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... hundred acres, and is as beautiful as an English park can be, and this is praise superlative. Flocks of sheep wander over the soft, green turf, and beneath the spreading trees are sleek cows which seem used to visitors, and with big, open eyes ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... mode of serving the remains of roasted game, but when a superlative salmi is desired, the birds must be scarcely more than half roasted for it. In either case, carve them very neatly, and strip every particle of skin and fat from the legs, wings and breasts; bruise the bodies well, and put them with the skin and other trimmings into a very clean stewpan. ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... sense as separating her from all who might, through the working of natural affection, act as her helpers in time of need, but made it possible for the slavery of the wife to the husband to take on more cruel forms. Although, it must be said, even capture gave a few women of superlative charm a chance to take precedence of common wives gained in ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... speaking of his success, he became a subscriber to the Wiener Theaterzeitung, and had it sent to Warsaw. The criticism is somewhat long, but as this first step into the great world of art was an event of superlative importance to Chopin, and is one of more than ordinary interest to us, I do not hesitate to transcribe it in full so far as it relates to our artist. Well, what we read in the Wiener Theaterzeitung of August 20, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... people, most of whom he seemed to know. He, on his part, told her many things about Versailles which she did not know, and she soon saw that he was a man of varied tastes and wide information. She wondered why he wore such a big turquoise ring and why he had such a wonderful waistcoat, such a superlative tie, such an amazing shirt and such a frightfully expensive pin. But it was not the first time in her life that she had met an otherwise intelligent man who made the mistake of over-dressing, and her first prejudice against him began to disappear. She even admitted to herself that he had ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... with the man who orders and pays for his labor, with a public which frequently follows only certain morbid impressions, with connoisseurs who make him restless, with auctioneers who receive every new work with praise and estimates of value such as would fitly honor the most superlative production. ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... years' term of governorship, the absurdity of which is superlative. It is so entirely contrary to the system of management in private affairs that it is difficult to imagine the cause that could have given rise to such a regulation. In matters great or small, the capability of the manager is the ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Tennyson's 'Idyls,' with profound recognition of the finely elaborated execution, and also of the inward perfection of vacancy—and, to say truth, with considerable impatience at being treated so very like infants though the lollipops were so superlative. We gladly changed for one Emerson's 'English Traits;' and read that with increasing and ever increasing satisfaction every evening; blessing heaven that there were still books for ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... trash, a country which had produced a Charles Fox, who took at the passing of the Separation Act so opposite a view of human nature. Doubtless, the habitants are precisely, even at this day, as Sir James represented them to be. But it was superlative impudence in a man of plebeian extraction to say that he could not associate with members of Parliament, who followed the occupation of shopkeeping for a living. It surely was enough for Buonaparte to have stigmatized England as a nation of shopkeepers. Sir James might have left it alone, ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... constitution, a subject to which she had given the name "Snarleychology."[2] Her knowledge of the old man's ways was of longer date than mine, and she understood him infinitely better than I. "Suppose, now," I said "that Snarley had been able to express himself after the manner of superlative people like you and me, what would have come of it?" "Art," said Mrs. Abel, "and most probably poetry. He's just a mass of intuitions!" "What a pity they are inarticulate!" I answered, repeating the appropriate commonplace. "But they are not inarticulate," ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... The superlative value of these varied traditions is apparent. They were the links which bound later generations to their prehistoric past. Incidentally, in the characteristic language of Semitic tradition, they preserved the memory of many important events in their early tribal history. They are also the illuminating ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... Pilgrim has lost his Note-book, and has been persuaded to offer a reward which shall maintain the happy finder thereof in an asylum for life. Benson—superlative Benson—has turned his shoulders upon Raynham. None know whither he has departed. It is believed that the sole surviving member of the sect of the Shaddock-Dogmatists is under a total ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hand, a superlative clearness is not necessarily admirable. To see truly, according to the fine saying of Renan, is to see dimly. If art is expression, mere clarity is nothing. The extreme clarity of an artist may be due not to his marvellous power of illuminating the abysses of his soul, ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... same people who draw terrible pictures of the power of the Roman Catholic Church already existing in Ireland at the present moment. They do not explain how both of these propositions can be true—how, if Ireland is already "priest-ridden"—a superlative phrase—without Home Rule, there is any room for an increase of that evil under Home Rule. They never seem to contemplate the possibility that the proper and natural corrective to the power of the priest, if it be excessive, is the creation of a ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... this was put in hand, and, after twelve months' hard work, was safely delivered to his Majesty, who declared it to be a "rich and rare jewel, and that there was no defect in the skill, care, and cost used in it, but a superlative diligence ...
— Little Gidding and its inmates in the Time of King Charles I. - with an account of the Harmonies • J. E. Acland
... she wore boldly; her beauty, quite striking at night; her figure of "the goddess sailing on clouds," rendered still more striking a dignity, which no one possessed more than she did, and which she pushed, when it was necessary, to a most superlative haughtiness. ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... the consolation of secretly disagreeing with her. I am still of the opinion that their admirable system of government, social and political, and their encouragement and provision for universal culture of so high an order, had more to do with the formation of superlative character than the elimination of ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... scruple, and, indeed, with great satisfaction." "Why, sir," said Johnson, "that is not so extraordinary: the King of Siam sent ambassadors to Louis the Fourteenth: but Louis the Fourteenth sent none to the King of Siam." This topic also enjoys another distinction. It is one of many proofs of the superlative excellence of Johnson's talk that it cannot be imitated. Hundreds of clever men have made the attempt, but, with the exception of a single sentence, not one of these manufactured utterances could impose for an ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... to land him. When considerately asked by my client whether he had any choice in the matter, he replied, somewhat facetiously, that he could not think of making a suggestion to one who had shown such superlative skill ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... thou darling of my soul! stop not till I rise superior to all superlative, till I mount triumphantly the pinnacle of glory, or at least open the way for one of my own family and name ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... soars, and our journals serve—but ideal and even ordinary romantic literature, does not, I think, substantially advance. Behold the prolific brood of the contemporary novel, magazine-tale, theatre-play, &c. The same endless thread of tangled and superlative love-story, inherited, apparently from the Amadises and Palmerins of the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries over there in Europe. The costumes and associations brought down to date, the seasoning hotter and more varied, the dragons and ogres left out—but ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... player. The embodiment was as natural as a sunbeam. Shakespeare has left no doubt about his meaning in Perdita. The speeches of all around her continually depict her fresh and piquant loveliness, her innate superiority, her superlative charm; while her behaviour and language as constantly show forth her nobility of soul. One of the subtlest side lights thrown upon the character is in the description of the manner in which Perdita heard the story of her mother's death—when "attentiveness wounded" her "till, from one sign of ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... corsets or soap. They were that kind; and they had a great many teeth, especially the daughters, who all three looked exactly thirty, no more and no less, and were apparently pleasantly conscious of superlative virtue. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... looked away. A wave of superlative bitterness shook him, but he was too just to curse life, or anyone but himself. He did not even curse the worthless woman who had struck the curb from his inherited weakness and made him a slave instead of a rigid and insolent master. She had been no worse, hardly more captivating, ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... Spanish countries the mental activity of the people is principally manifested in an exuberant imagination which finds expression in superlative and poetical language. If there were any corresponding creative genius and executive ability in material affairs such a fertile and well-watered land as Puerto Rico would be the home of one of the richest communities on the globe. By her situation ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... disputing. Lloyd George is the consummate politician, limited by the meanness of his art. Clemenceau is the personification of nationality, limited by the narrowness of his view. Mr. Wilson alone had his hour of superlative greatness when the whole earth listened to him and followed him; an hour which ended with him only dimly aware of his vision and furiously ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... himself that one of Henry's impulsive, buoyant letters would furnish the only efficacious antidote to Mirabelle. And he needed an antidote, and a powerful one, for during the past two weeks Mirabelle had been surpassing herself. That is, if one can surpass a superlative. ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... aright. She cast a swift look at Bridgie's face to assure herself that she was not the victim of a practical joke. She pressed her lips together to repress an exclamation of dismay. She had expected to behold a vision of loveliness—the superlative in the scale in which the two elder sisters made positive and comparative, but what she saw was an elf-like figure sitting huddled in the depths of an arm-chair, with tiny hands clasped together, and large dilapidated boots occupying the place of honour ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... superlative degree that general tendency of Provencal exteriors to be without definite or logical proportions. A large, square tower, heavier than that of Grasse, served as a lookout, a tall, thin little turret served as a belfry. ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... city talk from the lips of the two ladies had the merit of being perfect of its kind—softly insinuating and sweetly censorious, superlative in eulogy and infallible in opinion. The good visitors most conscientiously discharged what they deemed a great moral and social duty by enlightening the Lady de Tilly on all the recent lapses and secrets of the capital. They slid over slippery topics like skaters on thin ice, filling their listener ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... was to form his ideas of the turn and manner of his genius from this piece, would undoubtedly suppose that he abounded in filthy images, and excelled in describing the lower scenes of life." Let all such blockheads suppose what they choose. Pope—says Roscoe—"was well aware as any one of the superlative beauties and merits of Spenser, whose works he assiduously studied, both in his early and riper years; but it was not his intention in these few lines to give a serious imitation of him. All that he attempted was to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... His love.—There is no love like His—so pure and constant and satisfying. What the sun is to a star-light, and the ocean to a pool left by the retiring tide, such is the love of Jesus compared with all other love. To have it is superlative blessedness; to miss it is ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... in the grand hall and was heavily laden with products of the State of New York. Owing to the approaching close of the Exposition, the agricultural and horticultural exhibits were heavily drawn upon. Great heaps of New York's superlative fruit and prize vegetables were used in decorating the table. Messrs. Bayno & Pindat served a tempting menu, features of which were those dishes always associated with Thanksgiving Day—roast turkey and pumpkin pie. A spirit of hearty good fellowship pervaded the entire occasion, and each one vied ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domenichino and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterwards went to the beautiful cemetery of Bologna, beyond the walls, and found, besides the superb burial-ground, an original of a Custode, who reminded me of the grave-digger in Hamlet. He has a collection of capuchins' skulls, labelled on the forehead, and taking down ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... that you have entirely lost your enemy. If you do, by all means come, pay us a visit, and see what we are doing in England. I have done an etching of Turner's 'Calais Pier,' 30 inches square, which is by many degrees the finest thing (if I may be permitted so superlative an expression) I have done or ever shall do. I mean to publish it about the close of the year. I have built a press for printing it, and am having paper made expressly, and real sepia (which is magnificent—both in color and price) got from the Adriatic for the ink! so that great ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... had so long been assistant, and was so near discovering herself to May Hettly, by betraying her acquaintance with the celebrated receipt for Dunlop cheese, that she compared herself to Bedreddin Hassan, whom the vizier, his father-in-law, discovered by his superlative skill in composing cream-tarts with pepper in them. But when the novelty of such avocations ceased to amuse her, she showed to her sister but too plainly, that the gaudy colouring with which she veiled her unhappiness afforded as little ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... surpassingly great though it is, is not the measure of the greatness of the leader of the Exodus. It is not in the deliverance from Egypt, it is in the constructive statesmanship that laid the foundations of the Hebrew commonwealth that the superlative grandeur of that leadership looms up. As we cannot imagine the Exodus without the great leader, neither can we account for the Hebrew polity without the great statesman. Not merely intellectually great, but morally great—a statesman aglow with the unselfish ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... few comedies on their stage; no farces. Cats care little for fun. In the circus, superlative ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... just returned from a lecturing tour in the United States, and were much amused with her experiences. Having taken prolonged trips over the whole country, from Maine to Texas, for many successive years, Miss Anthony and I could easily add the superlative to all ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... had passed, to become very sick of Harwich and myself; for of all dull holes in this kingdom of England, does not this one claim the superlative degree? Tuesday, the 4th, still found me on the same spot, gazing on the two lighthouses; and, to enhance my gaiety, R—— and P—— went to Ipswich to see a schooner yacht, being built for an old friend of R—— and at that moment on the stocks. They returned laden with turnips, carrots, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... the more inclination and respect. The ancient sentence said, Let us be silent, for so are the gods. Silence is a solvent that destroys personality, and gives us leave to be great and universal. Every man's progress is through a succession of teachers, each of whom seems at the time to have a superlative influence, but it at last gives place to a new. Frankly let him accept it all. Jesus says, Leave father, mother, house and lands, and follow me. Who leaves all, receives more. This is as true intellectually as morally. Each new mind we approach seems to require an abdication ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... people do all the sights they see under the lead of a paid exhibitor, who goes through his lesson like a sleepy old professor. I missed seeing the slab with the inscription miserrimus. There may be other stones bearing this sad superlative, but there is a story connected with this one, which sounds as if ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... its inexhaustible fruitfulness.[642] The Supreme Good is GOD himself, and he is designated "the good" because this term seems most fittingly to express his essential character and essence.[643] It is towards this superlative perfection that the reason lifts itself; it is towards this infinite beauty the heart aspires. "Marvellous Beauty!" exclaims Plato; "eternal, uncreated, imperishable beauty, free from increase and diminution... beauty which ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... Soudan is that of misery; nor is there a single feature of attraction to recompense a European for the drawbacks of pestilential climate and brutal associations. To a stranger it appears a superlative folly that the Egyptian Government should have retained a possession, the occupation of which is wholly unprofitable; the receipts being far below the expenditure, "malgre" the increased taxation. At so great a distance ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... worthy of note, because they show how strong an influence in the formation of words during the transition period is exerted by the forms most frequently heard—here the imperative. The child used first of all the imperative; last the subjunctive. The superlative and comparative were not used by this child until ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... and dribbles away, or is otherwise irrevocably lost in the ticklish business of securing what you can. I know not with what fine and costly material the heidelburgh Tun was coated within, but in superlative richness that coating could not possibly have compared with the silken pearl-colored membrane, like the line of a fine pelisse, forming the inner surface of the Sperm Whale's case. It will have been seen that ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... social system of the city. But I would not have it so. I would call it a part of the social system, just as much a part of the social system, and just as expressive of the national character, as the fine schools, the fine hospitals, the superlative business organizations, or Mr. George M. Cohan's Theater. A civilization is indivisibly responsible for itself. It may not, on the Day of Judgment, or any other day, lessen its collective responsibility by baptizing certain portions of its organism as extraneous "blots" ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... all these foregoing respects, Cookery has something more to recommend it, which gives it precedence before everything else in education; and though this is saying a great deal, I shall endeavour to demonstrate that it is perfectly true. I have already shown that Cookery is of superlative benefit, both in ensuring health and in acting as a preventive against habits of intemperance. But it is as a medium for training that Cookery is at its very best; for it is in reality an art; indeed, it is a master art. At the same ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... or slightest charm couldst imitate— Could thy blest strain in kindred colours trace The faintest wonder of her form and face— Poets would study the immortal line, And REYNOLDS own HIS art subdued by thine; That art, which well might added lustre give To Nature's best and Heaven's superlative: On GRANBY'S cheek might bid new glories rise, Or point a purer beam from DEVON'S eyes! Hard is the task to shape that beauty's praise, Whose judgment scorns the homage flattery pays! But praising Amoret we cannot err, No tongue o'ervalues Heaven, or flatters her! Yet she, by Fate's perverseness—she ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... "sincere and rational meaning" which pervades his compositions renders such an epithet improper. "His ear for rhythm," he continues, "though less true than in his prose, is seldom wholly at fault, and whether in prose or verse, he had the superlative merit that he could never write nonsense." Bunyan's earliest prison work, entitled "Profitable Meditations," was in verse, and neither this nor his later metrical ventures before his release—his "Four Last Things," his "Ebal and Gerizim," and his "Prison ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... the tone of ecstasy broke suddenly on the air upon this new entrance, shattering what little composure Nehemiah had been able to muster; a wide-mouthed exaggeration of welcome in superlative phrases and ready chorus. Swiftly turning, he saw nothing for a moment, for he looked at the height which a man's head might reach, and the new-comer measured hardly two feet in stature, waddled with a very uncertain ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... rival's legs,—from Mr. Brooke's failure to elicit a companion's ideas, or from Celia's criticism of a middle-aged scholar's personal appearance. I am not sure that the greatest man of his age, if ever that solitary superlative existed, could escape these unfavorable reflections of himself in various small mirrors; and even Milton, looking for his portrait in a spoon, must submit to have the facial angle of a bumpkin. Moreover, if Mr. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... found that we were always thus met. The highest officer present—General, Colonel, or Commandant—was at every place at our disposition to explain things—and to explain them with that clarity of which the French alone have the secret and of which a superlative example exists in the official report of the earlier phases of the war, offered to the Anglo-Saxon public through Reuter. Automobiles and chauffeurs abounded for our small party of four. Never once at any moment of the day, whether driving furiously ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... essentially than is often realized to the success of a play, she became well known for her capital personations of old women and dowagers. Wife of the actor Norris, she had been one of the earliest members of Davenant's company, and her son, known as Jubilee Dicky from his superlative performance in Farquhar's The Constant Couple (1699), was a leading comedian in the reigns of Anne and the first George. Amongst Mrs. Norris' many roles such parts as Lady Dupe, the old lady in Dryden's Sir Martin Mar-All (1667), Goody ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... replaced by a salesgirl of such superlative dress and manner that her long jet earrings were like exclamations at the audacity of her personality. An habitual counter line-up of Broadway mental brevities in the form of young men with bamboo sticks and eyes with perpetual ogles in them, would while away the syncopated hours ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... I see," exclaimed Dick; "here's a bonnet, frightful—that's positive; another more frightful—that's comparative; and this with the superlative yellow tuft, I should call the most frightful of all. ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... in her bedroom, and the very finest bouquet of spring flowers on her table. Maggie would enjoy all that, she was so found of pretty things! And there was poor aunt Tulliver, that no one made any account of, she was to be surprised with the present of a cap of superlative quality, and to have her health drunk in a gratifying manner, for which Lucy was going to lay a plot with her father this evening. Clearly, she had not time to indulge in long reveries about her own happy love-affairs. With this thought ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... but picturesque figure; and for the lady whose light hand had wrought such havoc upon him to be seen dancing with him was sufficiently startling to elicit the universal remark—evidently considered superlative—that it was "just like Cora Madison!" Cora usually perceived, with an admirably clear head, all that went on about her; and she was conscious of increasing the sensation, when after a few turns round the room, she allowed her partner to conduct her to a secluding ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... too, men eminent for intellectual power, to whom the presence of a commanding spirit would in all other cases be a signal rather for rivalry than reverential acknowledgment.' 'I knew Maurice well,' says Mr. Gladstone in one of his notes of reminiscence, 'had heard superlative accounts of him from Cambridge, and really strove hard to make them all realities to myself. One Sunday morning we walked to Marsh Baldon to hear Mr. Porter, the incumbent, a calvinist independent of the clique, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... have travelled the world over—I mean the inhabited parts—and in its broad extent there is not a people without worship of some kind. Wherefore my assertion, that beyond the arts, above the sciences, above commerce, above any or all other human concernments, religion is the superlative interest. It alone is divine. The study of it is worship. Knowledge of it is knowledge of God. Can as much be said ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... two forms for this inflection: the comparative, expressing a greater degree of quality; and the superlative, expressing the ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... that comes with many years, tell you that if ever we are to free ourselves from the yoke of the oppressor, and to restore Peru to its ancient position of power and glory, we must be helped and guided in that great, that almost impossible task, by one who unites within himself superlative wisdom and superlative courage; and the crowning proof, to my mind, that heaven has now at last fulfilled its glorious promise is to be found in the fact that it has ordained our new Inca to be born an Englishman, ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... the acting of this part, Betterton benefited by Shakespeare's coaching: "Sir William Davenant (having seen Mr. Taylor, of the Black Fryars Company, act it; who being instructed by the author, Mr. Shakespear) taught Mr. Betterton in every particle of it, gained him esteem and reputation superlative to all other plays" (1789, p. 29). But cf. the Rise and Progress of the English Theatre, appended to Colley Cibber's Apology, ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... going on the Blackfeet were advancing up the narrow pathway with superlative though needless caution, and no small amount of timidity. Each man took advantage of every scrap of cover he could find on the way up, but as the owner of the hut had taken care to remove all cover that was removable, they did not find much, and if the defenders had been there, that little ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne |
