"Surpassing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... told me of two facts within his own knowledge, illustrative of these sort of charges. This same Court favourite, in the reign of Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, in 1835, received charge of sixteen bullocks, of surpassing beauty, which had been presented to the King, and he was allowed to draw, from the Treasury, a rupee a- day, for the food ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... saddle, the plain leathern bridle neither too short nor too long in the light strong hand, that just moved perceptibly with the horse's step. He was a man evidently of good height, but not over tall, of surpassing beauty of form, young in figure, but past middle age if one judged by his hard features and already furrowed brow; his deep grey eyes looked steadily ahead from beneath black eyebrows which contrasted oddly with hair that was already iron-grey. There was something ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... popular, yet close and spirited version of the Iliad," had he not, after this single anonymous publication, abandoned his half-formed project. As one of his friends wrote with great truth, "Lockhart was guilty of injustice to his own surpassing powers. With all his passion for letters, with all the ambition for literary fame which burnt in his youthful mind, there was still his shyness, fastidiousness, reserve. No doubt he might have taken a higher place as a poet ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... to receive cheerfully and to repay cheerfully, setting before themselves the high aim of not merely equalling but surpassing those to whom they are obliged, and this both in act and in feeling. It is necessary to point out that the first point which we have to learn is what we owe for a kindness received. One says he owes the money which he got, another a consulship, another a province. These, however, ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... notably the vertical presser foot held down by a spring; and Singer was the first to adopt the treadle, leaving both hands of the operator free to manage the work. His machine was good, but, rather than its surpassing merits, it was his wonderful business ability that made the name of Singer a ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... always reckoned as an average, 3,600 lbs. of dry sugar to the acre as the return this cane will give, on anything like good land, in the Straits, according to the present imperfect mode of expressing and manufacture; but, considering the surpassing richness of land in the West India Islands, Demerara, and Mauritius, I should not be in any way surprised to find that it would there give even three ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... silent stupidity which so doth pierce us when accidents surpassing our strength overwhelm us," and on the way in which "the soul, bursting afterwards forth into tears and complaints ... seemeth to clear and dilate itself"; going on to tell how the German Lord Raisciac looked on his dead son "till the vehemency of his sad sorrow, having suppressed ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... visible at the very outset is one of the miracles of literary art. Simplicity, swiftness, precision, all the qualities which were conspicuously absent, we will not say wanting, in the Portraits,—these are the characteristics, and that in a surpassing degree, of the Causeries. The whole arrangement, too, is different. There is no preluding, there are no intricate harmonies: the key-note is struck in the opening chord, and the theme is kept conspicuously in view throughout all the modulations. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... found means to live yourselves with pomp and luxury, far exceeding that of the great Emperor Charles and much surpassing the magnificence of your Highnesses' brothers, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... crests, and swords, its sumptuously—decorated altar, glittering with costly vessels, its pulpit hung with crimson damask interwoven with gold, the magnificent and varied dresses of the assemblage—all these constituted a picture of surpassing splendour. ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of Saint-Malo, in Brittany, dwelt two knights whose valour and prowess brought much fame to the community. Their houses were close to one another, and one of them was married to a lady of surpassing loveliness, while the other was a bachelor. By insensible degrees the bachelor knight came to love his neighbour's wife, and so handsome and gallant was he that in time she returned his passion. He made every possible excuse for seeking her society, and on one pretext or another was constantly ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... fact, will prove to them that this great feature of his policy was a matter of more than policy. They will remember it as adding a peculiar lustre to the renovation of their national existence; as no small part of the glory, surpassing that of former wars, which has become the common heritage of North and South. For perhaps not many conquerors, and certainly few successful statesmen, have escaped the tendency of power to harden or at least to narrow their human sympathies; but in this man a natural wealth of tender compassion became ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... them stretched a clear green space of turf. Behind loomed the vast bulk of Nissr, scarred, battle-worn, but powerful. Away in the distance, the glinting golden walls shimmered across the plain; and over all the Arabian sun glowed down as if a-wonder at this scene surpassing strange. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... afterwards found means to resist the same alliance, joined with England, yet was she then obliged to make such violent efforts as quite exhausted her; and it was the utmost necessity which pushed her to find resources far surpassing her own expectations. Charles was sensible, that, so long as the war continued abroad, he should never enjoy ease at home, from the impatience and importunity of his subjects; yet could he not resolve to impose a peace by openly joining himself with either party. Terms advantageous ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... strange sinuous movements, which one who loved her would compare to those of a swan, and one who loved her not to those of the ophidian who tempted our common mother. Her talk was affluent, magisterial, de haut en bas, some would say euphuistic, but surpassing the talk of women in breadth and audacity. Her face kindled and reddened and dilated in every feature as she spoke, and, as I once saw her in a fine storm of indignation at the supposed ill-treatment of a relative, showed itself capable of something ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... must be cited William of Auvergne, Vincent of Beauvais, Albertus Magnus; but the sovereign name of this period of the history of philosophy is St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote several small works but, surpassing them all, the Summa (encyclopaedia) which bears his name. In general philosophy St. Thomas Aquinas is an Aristotelian, bending but not distorting the ideas of Aristotle to Christian conceptions. Like Aristotle, he demonstrated God by the existence of motion ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... vast fabrics appeared, where before there was nothing but one eternal forest, or a howling wilderness; and although it does come over one, when looking at the splendid moles, and firm—built bastions, and stupendous churches of the New World—the latter surpassing, or at the lest equalling in magnificence and grandeur those of Old Spain herself—that they are all cemented by the blood and sweat of millions of gentle Indians, of whose harmless existence in many quarters, they remain the only monuments, still it is a melancholy reflection ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... chorus reeds and by doubling the wind pressures and increasing the loading and thickness of tongues, has produced results of surpassing magnificence. From the Willis Cor Anglais he has developed his Double English Horn, from the Willis Oboe his Oboe Horn, and from the Willis Orchestral Oboe the thin-toned stops of that class now being introduced by Austin, Skinner ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... watched Dale ride away on a quest perilous to him, and which meant almost life or death for her, it was surpassing strange that she could think of nothing except the thrilling, tumultuous moment when she had put her arms ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... Stephens found a most interesting field of ruins, rivaling Uxmal in extent, if not surpassing it. One group of buildings, arranged much like the House of Nuns, has some interesting features about it. The highest terrace in this case is nearly square, and the building on its summit is nearly the same shape. We have here two rows of double rooms, separated by a ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... population of Ohio, which hardly more than a generation before was "fresh, untouched, unbounded, magnificent wilderness," [Footnote: Webster, Writings (National ed.), V., 252.] was now nearly a million, surpassing the combined ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... fever of fancy than an accurate chromoscope. I can only point to the fact that the revelation of the intense beauty of the sea has in recent years fallen rather to the naturalist than the poet, the accurate and scientific prose of the former surpassing the idealization ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... Concerning his action Was keen, but exceedingly brief. The wrathful condition Of every physician In town was surpassing belief! Professional nurses were plunged in despair, And chemists shook passionate fists in the air: They called at his dwelling, With violence swelling, His greeting repelling with ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... famed for his judgment and wisdom.... For nearly forty years he was the patron and protector of the nobles and distinguished of the Dekhan. He lived in the highest respect and esteem, with a magnificence and grandeur surpassing all his contemporary nobility. The sovereigns of Beejanuggur and every country observing a respect to his great abilities, frequently honoured him with letters and valuable presents. His household servants ... amounted to 250. He had sixty of the largest elephants ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... doubtless have been said of Douglass; but it was not necessary to hear him talk, to discover his unusual ability and surpassing intelligence. There was in his very presence something that instantly indicated these. An eminent divine said some years ago that Douglass's escape from slavery was a very fortunate thing for the South, as in any uprising of slaves he must have proved a very ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... but one also full of unspeakable horror for those aboard the brig who stood gazing in speechless fascination at it; for it was evident that it was not only falling through the air at a speed far surpassing that of a cannon shot, but was also coming straight for the brig. A deep humming sound that, as it seemed, in the space of a single moment increased to an almost deafening scream, marked the speed of its flight through the air; and as Leslie grasped ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... gold broke and mingled and glanced and gleamed on the molten sea, until we had before our eyes that very "sea of glass mingled with fire" which John saw in Apocalyptic vision. Oh, surely, God has flashed these beauties on the earth and sky and sea to keep us in mind of the surpassing glories of ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... you no foolish lies, as vulgar men do. Why should you and I, with our experience, ape romance and dissemble passion? I do not believe Miss Blanche Amory to be peerless among the beautiful, nor the greatest poetess, nor the most surpassing musician, any more than I believe you to be the tallest woman in the whole world—like the giantess whose picture we saw as we rode through the fair yesterday. But if I don't set you up as a heroine, neither do ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... laughing face. An urchin of surpassing impishness, one who has come too late to hear our password, taunts us ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... sandy desert. Her inquiring mind was never weary of exploring the deep mysteries of science or poring over the pages of ancient lore. Music, painting and poetry seemed to form the etherial essence of her mind. She played with exquisite skill and taste, and sang with surpassing sweetness and melody. ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... sensation has been caused among the clerks in the New York post-office by the entrance of seven young women into the money-order department as clerks during the last month. The girls obtained their positions by surpassing their male competitors at the civil-service examination, and will receive the same pay ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... deficient; so that he does not envy one who surpasses him in such matters, unless he surpass him by little, for then it seems to him that this is not beyond him, and so he makes an effort; wherefore, if his effort fails through the other's reputation surpassing his, he grieves. Hence it is that those who love to be honored are more envious; and in like manner the faint-hearted are envious, because all things are great to them, and whatever good may befall another, they reckon ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... they were quite driven out of their country by these animals, being no longer able to stand against their vast multitudes." The seacoast on the Atlantic side abounds in fish, says Strabo. "The congers are quite monstrous, far surpassing in size those of Our Sea. Shoals of rich fat tunny fish are driven hither from the seacoast beyond. They feed on the fruit of stunted oak, which grows at the bottom of the sea and produces very large acorns. So great is the quantity of fruit, that at the season when they are ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... might easily have been crushed by the strong arm of the Iroquois.—A feeling of deep concern directly overspreads his features, as he thinks of their advancing power, and of the prospect of their surpassing even the glory of his own ancestry.—A still deeper shade steals over him as he thinks of the waning fortunes of his people.— Presently his countenance is lighted up;—his feelings are all aglow,—a bright thought, has entered his mind.—He conceives the idea of the ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... exceptional for labor disturbances. The number of employes involved reached nearly 750,000, surpassing even the mark set in 1886. However, in contradistinction to 1886, the movement was defensive. It also resulted in greater failure. The strike of the coal miners and the Pullman strike were the most important ones. The United Mine Workers began their strike in Ohio on April 21. The membership ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... now engaged in a race of construction, and the next naval war will see forces in action far surpassing even the armadas that met at Tsu-shima. And maritime war, hitherto confined to the surface of the sea, will have strange auxiliaries in the submarine stealing beneath it, and the airship and aeroplane scouting in the upper air. But still, whatever new appliances, ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... was quite treat enough to lie on the soft turf, with the thick shade above, and to allow the hours to pass away as they led on evening. But he had been at the trouble to retain a band of musicians for our sakes. Such a set they were!—surpassing, in discordant prowess, the worst street musicians among our beggar melodists. It is quite surprising that invention has so long slumbered with these native artistes. With Musard concerts and Wilhelm music-meetings ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... rapidly disappears in a war of long continuance. Experience in the field is a lesson far superior to any gained in mock warfare, and the taking part in a few battles will teach the art of warfare to an extent surpassing that of years of marching and counter-marching ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... strange. The trees, surpassing in size the largest English oaks, are of a species we have never seen before. The graceful shrubs, the bright-coloured flowers, ay, the very grass itself, are of species unknown in Europe; while flaming lories and brilliant parroquets fly whistling, not unmusically, ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... no doubt, at the time; but it was the nucleus around which was built a surpassing fame. The hills along the Stanislaus have turned out some wonderful nuggets in their time, but no other of such size ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... helped twice. The man who did not eat twice of terrapin would be held in small repute, as the Londoner is held who at a city banquet does not partake of both thick and thin turtle. I must, however, confess that the terrapin for me had no surpassing charms. ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... of our city are bold, because they, if not ourselves, know of this decay. They, if not ourselves, know the weakness of that political system to which we have, in carelessness equaling that of the California miners of old—a carelessness based upon a madness of money equal to or surpassing that of the gold stampedes—delegated our sacred personal rights to live freely, to own property, and to protect each for himself ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... way these discoveries were rich enough—from one tomb alone they took over a hundred and thirty ounces of gold—to say nothing of their surpassing archaeological interest. Still they were not what they sought: all that gathered wealth of Monomotapa which the fleeing Portuguese had brought with them and buried ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... paint a scarce commodity, and the houses, consequently, all wear a dingy, decayed look. Though situated on a magnificent bay, a little below the confluence of three noble rivers, which drain a country of surpassing richness, and though the centre of the finest rice-growing district in the world, the town is dead. Every thing about it wears an air of dilapidation. The few white men you meet in its streets, or see lounging ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... the object of all teachers, leaders, legislators, spiritual pastors, and masters. He who writes tales such as this, probably also has, very humbly, some such object distantly before him. A picture of surpassing godlike nobleness,—a picture of a King Arthur among men, may perhaps do much. But such pictures cannot do all. When such a picture is painted, as intending to show what a man should be, it is true. If painted to show what men are, it is false. The true picture of life as it is, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... unexperienced am I in this mode of life, that were I to be possessed of a plantation, and my slaves treated as in general they are here, never could I rest in peace; my sleep would be perpetually disturbed by a retrospect of the frauds committed in Africa, in order to entrap them; frauds surpassing in enormity everything which a common mind can possibly conceive. I should be thinking of the barbarous treatment they meet with on ship-board; of their anguish, of the despair necessarily inspired by their situation, when torn from their friends and relations; when delivered into the ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... against slavery in our republic was inaugurated in 1830, another Spartan band of women stood ready for the battle, and the storm of that fierce conflict, surpassing in courage, moral heroism, and conscientious devotion to great principles, all that woman in any age had done or dared. With reverent lips we mention the names of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Lydia Maria Child, Maria Weston Chapman, Mary S. Parker, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... appeared wheat-sheaves, mushrooms, stags' horns, cabbage-leaves, and a variety of other forms, glowing under water with brilliant tints, of every shade betwixt green, purple, brown, and white; equalling in beauty and surpassing in grandeur the most favourite flower-bed of the curious florist. These appearances were, in fact, different sorts of coral, and fungus, growing, as it were, out of the solid rock, and each had its own peculiar form and shade ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... he, "was a princess of incomparable beauty and surpassing gentleness. Her spirit was humble; and as the heavenly streams of wisdom and virtue seek lowly places, her nature shone every day with a purer lustre. She loved tenderly a gazelle which she had reared, and ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... arrows, the promenade of joyous young creatures in light speech and laughter, the graceful movement in common toward a common object, was a show worth looking at. Here Gwendolen seemed a Calypso among her nymphs. It was in her attitudes and movements that every one was obliged to admit her surpassing charm. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... surpassing glory crown'd, Look'st from thy sole dominion like the God Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminish'd heads; to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, O Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... daughters of the House of Brunswick. There the Ambassadors of great Kings and Commonwealths gazed with admiration on a spectacle which no other country in the world could present. There Siddons, in the prime of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a scene surpassing all the imitations of the stage. There the historian of the Roman empire thought of the days when Cicero pleaded the cause of Sicily against Verres, and when, before a senate which still retained some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "were to report to General Lee when I thought fit. Well, the time has come; Harry, you go first, and, at a suitable moment, George will follow. We have news of surpassing importance. We took a number of prisoners in that battle and we were also lucky enough to rescue several of our men who had been held as captives. We've learned from them that General Meade, after making up his ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... contrast; we are proud that we are, in some one or more points, superior to others who come immediately under our observation. Now, we have so little to do with any who are not Christians, that the contrast is in this case wanting; we have none over whom to be proud; none whom we can glory in surpassing; and, therefore, a consideration of our Christian advantages, in the absence of that one element which might feed pride, is likely with us to work in a better manner, and to lead rather to thankfulness ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... distracted the infancy, were oppressed by the greatness and authority, of the church. Instead of emulating or surpassing the wealth, learning, and numbers of the Catholics, their obscure remnant was driven from the capitals of the East and West, and confined to the villages and mountains along the borders of the Euphrates. Some vestige ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... among the most stately in Christendom, 150 chartered towns, 6,300 villages, with their watch-towers and steeples, besides numerous other more insignificant hamlets; the whole guarded by a belt of sixty fortresses of surpassing strength. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... carried off again. He sends about for help to Phoenicia and elsewhere; but when, after a smart action by land against the town, a squadron does appear off the port, he is for a time quite uncertain whether it is friend or foe. Fortunately Cleobuline, Queen of Corinth, a young widow of surpassing beauty and the noblest sentiments, who has sworn never to marry again, has conceived a Platonic-romantic admiration for him, and has sent her fleet to his aid. She deserves, of course, and still more of course has, a Histoire de Cleobuline. Also ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... have soared into unapproachable heights of surpassing literary erudition, by informing his awe-struck hearers that the latter poem was written by Doctor Watts! The fact is, any attempt to give the novelist's characters a learning which the novelist does not possess ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... MIRROR.—This journal is edited with surpassing ability; and its continued and advancing popularity is creditable to the taste of the community in which it is published. Spirited, independent, and liberal, it not merely, as its name indicates, reflects the light of the age, but shines with a lustre ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... English requirements, rendering the importation of commodities produced by slave labour unnecessary. George Thompson, Esq., who had been returned for the Tower Hamlets, one of the largest and most influential constituencies in the kingdom, a man of surpassing eloquence, took a very active part in this movement. A correct insight as to its object and spirit may be imparted to the reader by a resolution passed at a great meeting of the inhabitants of the Tower Hamlets on the 26th of October:—"After an eloquent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... well and feared him for his liegeman's life. Siegfried was sore ashamed; wrathful he waxed and with surpassing strength he set himself against her and tried it again with Lady Brunhild in fearful wise. It thought the king full long, before he conquered her. She pressed his hands, till from her strength the blood gushed forth from out the nails: this irked the hero. Therefore he brought the highborn ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... Andanicum of the Latin, is an expression on which no light has been thrown since Ramusio's time. The latter often asked the Persian merchants who visited Venice, and they all agreed in stating that it was a sort of steel of such surpassing value and excellence, that in the days of yore a man who possessed a mirror, or sword, of Andanic regarded it as he would some precious jewel. This seems to me excellent evidence, and to give the true clue to the meaning of Ondanique. I have retained the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... full moon shining down upon the wide sweep of the valley toward the west. Stung to madness by her words, he stopped and turned upon her, but his answer died on his lips, for he looked into a face of such surpassing beauty that he seemed never to have seen it truly before. The gathered crimson hood invested it with something of the sorcery that Leigh had felt, that any man must have felt. The divinity that had hitherto hedged about the bishop's daughter vanished for the first time ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... like the beam of something more lovely than light; the glow, as it were, of a spirit conscious of its power, and which had graced itself with all its enchantments to conquer some stubborn heart. Even the Earl of Murray was struck with the unwonted splendour of her that was ever deemed so surpassing fair; and John Knox said, with a sigh, "THE MAKER had indeed taken gracious pains with the goodly ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... selection from the most important documents of this period. It is strange that our learned Societies, so appreciative of every distant and trivial chronicle of the Middle Ages, should ignore the records of a time of such surpassing interest, and one in which England played so great a part. No just conception can be formed of the difference between English statesmanship and that of the Continental Courts in integrity, truthfulness, and public spirit, until the mass of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... but the more probable opinion is that Papirius Carbo was alone answerable for the crime. Carbo had been Scipio's most bitter enemy and had endeavoured to inflame the people against him as their enemy.] But this may be said with truth that of the many days of surpassing fame and happiness which Publius Scipio saw in his lifetime, the most glorious was the day before his death when on the adjournment of the Senate he was escorted home by the Conscript Fathers, the Roman people, the men of Latium and the allies, ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... unselfishness! She had been thus all her life, but really, on this Italian tour, she was surpassing herself. So Lucy felt, or strove to feel. And yet—there was a rebellious spirit in her which wondered whether the acceptance might not have been less delicate and more beautiful. At all events, she entered her own room without any ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... with only ten or twenty reports that fell into the "Unknown" category. Since such critical methods of evaluation had been used, these few reports proved beyond a doubt that the UFO's were intelligently controlled by persons with brains equal to or far surpassing ours. ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... toward thy mother for the education she has bestowed upon thee, and the care with which she watched over thy infancy. Remain always virtuous; virtue is a treasure of happiness, the straight path, and a glory surpassing all the goods of the earth. Be ever prudent and discreet in thy words, modest and amiable in thy actions, and never cease to render thanks to God. Love and obey thy husband as thou hast always loved and obeyed thy parents; fly all evil, be steadfast in self-government, and resigned to all the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... result was that they found themselves at the top of a little ridge and at the edge of the denser growth, so that, as they paused, they could look down into another part where the trees gave place to low bushes and glorious ferns, the whole being a glade of surpassing loveliness, such a spot as might very well be chosen by a party of simple savages for ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... the channels which lead the explorers of this scene of nature's enchantment from the lower to the upper lake, the surpassing beauty of the "Eagle's nest" burst on their view; and as they hovered under its stupendous crags, clustering with all variety of verdure, the bugle and the cannon awoke the almost endless reverberation of sound which is engendered here. Passing onward, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... holidays at Christmas had been a desolation to Gabrielle, her parting from Arthur next Easter was clouded by a sense of more positive want. It was the season of lovers, days of bright sunshine, evenings of a surpassing tenderness. She went to the station with him in the pony-cart alone. She sat like a statue in the trap while the train puffed its way slowly up the gradient and its noise died away in a rhythmical rumble. When she awoke ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... important respect different from that of the preceding parable, and the point of distinction is, that there a man stumbled upon a treasure when he was in search of meaner things, while here the merchant finds in kind the very object which he sought, but finds it in measure far surpassing all his expectation ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... and features, taken as a whole, Burke had a countenance of surpassing beauty. Note the full sensuous lips, the clear, steady, lustrous, beaming eye, the splendid head! There is nothing small, selfish, mean or trifling about the man—he is open, frank, sympathetic, gentle, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... books for boys and girls deal with life aboard submarine torpedo boats, and with the adventures of the young crew, and possess, in addition to the author's surpassing knack of storytelling, a great educational value for ...
— Adventures in Toyland - What the Marionette Told Molly • Edith King Hall
... Jesus reposed after his melancholy death, but the erection of his cross on every hillside, by every sea shore, in vale and glen, in city and in solitude. It was a noble design, one full of grandeur and glory, as far surpassing the crusade of Peter the Hermit as the noonday sun surpasses the dim star of evening. Its purpose was to obliterate the awful record of human sin, flash the rays of a divine illumination across a world of darkness, and send the electric thrill of a holy life throughout ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... to wonder how it was possible to cultivate a sense of happiness in people; that was the darkest problem of all. Children had the secret of it; they could amuse themselves under the most unpropitious circumstances, and invent games of most surpassing interest out of the most grotesque materials. Then came the age when the sexual relations brought in a fierce and intenser joy; but the romance of courtship and the early days of marriage once over, it seemed that most people settled down on very dull lines, and made such comfort ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in quest of subscribers until he had secured three hundred. In his journal under date of December 10, he says: "My success in Edinburgh borders on the miraculous. My book is to be published in numbers containing four [in another place he says five] birds in each, the size of life, in a style surpassing anything now existing, at two guineas a number. The engravings are truly beautiful; some of them have been coloured, ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... scheming and with as evil a reputation as himself, for chief ally, the Due determined to find another mistress who should finally oust Madame de Mailly from Louis' favour; and her he found in a woman, devoted to himself and his interests, and of such surpassing loveliness that, when the King first saw her at Petit Bourg, he exclaimed, "Heavens! ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... Nature here assumed aspects of beauty so surpassing, man, as if to lend her the emphasis of contrast, appeared in the sorriest shape. I name him here, that I may vindicate his claim to remembrance, even when he is a blot upon the beauty around him. I will not forget him, even though I can think ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... long life he appeared to me the embodiment of wisdom, integrity and courage. And so he was—a man of tremendous force of character, yet of surpassing sweetness of disposition; singularly disdainful of office, and indeed of preferment of every sort; a profuse maker and a prodigal spender of money; who, his needs and recognition assured, cared nothing at all for what he regarded as the costly glories of the little great men ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... lawn: "Please don't wander away again before luncheon," she said; "Gerald, I suppose you are starved, but you've only an hour to wait—Oh, Phil! what wonderful trout! Children, kindly arise and admire the surpassing skill of your frivolous uncle!" And, as the children and dogs came crowding around the opened fish-basket she said to her brother in a low, contented voice: "Gerald has quite made it up with Austin, dear; I think we have to thank ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... were blinded by the glamour of love, he saw the sweetest vision of loveliness he had known. Such a surpassing miracle of soft, dainty curves, such surplusage of beauty in bare throat, speaking eye, sweet mouth, and dimpled cheeks! But Bucky was a lover, and perhaps no fair judge, for in that touch of vagueness, of fairy-land, lent by the moonlight, he found the world almost too beautiful to believe. Did ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... fussy and ready to imagine things!" grumbled Mitty, who meanwhile had collected and pocketed the cards with surpassing dexterity. "I don't forget the time when the curate had a smart lady in his lodgings, and you nearly went out of your mind: rampaging up and down the village, and telling everyone that the bishop must be informed; and ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... the people, had a daughter of surpassing beauty whom he intended to bestow in marriage upon Lucius Icilius,[12] a person of similar rank in society. For this maiden Claudius conceived a passion, and not otherwise able to attain his ends he arranged with certain men to declare her a slave: he was to be the arbiter. ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... settle the dispute with Acutilius. This latter Peducaeus also suggested my mentioning to you, for I think it is full time that you settled that affair. My good offices are at your service and always have been so. Here at Rome I have conducted the case of Gaius Macer with a popular approval surpassing belief and unparalleled. Though I had been inclined to take a lenient view of his case, yet I gained much more substantial advantage from the popular approval on his condemnation than I should have ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... account of his voyage, pronounces the Marquesans as by far the most splendid islanders in the South Seas. Stewart, the chaplain of the U.S. ship Vincennes, in his 'Scenes in the South Seas', expresses, in more than one place, his amazement at the surpassing loveliness of the women; and says that many of the Nukuheva damsels reminded him forcibly of the most celebrated beauties in his own land. Fanning, a Yankee mariner of some reputation, likewise records his lively impressions of the physical appearance of these people; and Commodore David ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... the court gilded everything, and covered all things with glitter. High and low, the descendants of great families, and the needy from the pavements of the city, great artists, and vile scrapings of talent, thronged to the palace to sate their dazzled eyes with a splendor almost surpassing human estimate, and to approach the giver of every favor, wealth, and property,—whose single glance might abase, it is true, but might also ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of the deeds done during those months, of the varying fortunes of the combatants, of the warfare waged by land and sea and in the air, would needs have a task far, far beyond him, seeing that every day has been so full of incidents of surpassing importance to the world that a mere summary of them would be an undertaking. Yet to realize the situation, as it was at the moment when Henri and his two friends clambered from the truck in which they had escaped from the heart of Germany, and dropped to the ground in the heart of Louvain; to ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... side with his doctrine that there is no failure, no wretchedness of corruption that does not conceal within it a germ of goodness, is his sense of the evil of sin, of the infinite earnestness of man's moral warfare, and of the surpassing magnitude of the issues at stake for each individual soul. So powerful is his interest in man as a moral agent, that he sees nought else in the world of any deep concern. "My stress lay," he said in his preface to Sordello ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... for diviner regions,— The spirit would reach its goal; Though, this world hath surpassing beauty, ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... woman's gentle nature. Bred up among the rough and savage crowds which thronged her father's lawless halls, and meeting with no responsive or kindred spirit among those fierce barbarians (many of whom, however, touched by her surpassing charms, though insensible to her virtues and mental endowments, had vainly sought her hand in marriage), this young creature had spent the greater part of her life in the solitude of her own apartments, or in contemplating ...
— The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman • Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray
... this outburst with some surprise and not a little resentment. "Well, Jane, you're quite surpassing yourself to-night. What do you mean ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... The feeling of adverbial force in 'gleaming' arises from the subordinate participial form joined with a verb, 'stood,' that seems capable of predicating by itself. 'Passing strange' is elliptical: 'passing (surpassing) what is strange.'"—Bain. ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... now journeying forward, continually descending, along the wilderness of Destruction, through innumerable torments, eternal and not to be described—from cell to cell, from cellar to cellar, and the last always surpassing the others in horror and ghastliness; at last we arrived at a vast porch, more cheerless than any thing we had seen before. It was a very spacious porch, and the pathway through it, which was frightfully steep, led to a kind of dusky ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... Conde. Thus the Cardinal rewarded me for what I did with incredible application and, I must say, uncommon sincerity for the Queen's service during the Court's absence. I do not mention the dangers I was in twice or thrice a day, surpassing even those of soldiers in battles. For imagine, I beseech you, what pain and anguish I must have been in at hearing myself called a Mazarinist, and at having to bear all the odium annexed to that hateful appellation in a city where he made it his business to destroy ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... are divided into three classes: it was proposed to fix the contribution for each; but one of the assembly, who was included in the lowest class, declared that his patriotism would not brook any limit, and he immediately subscribed a sum far surpassing the proposed standard: the others followed his example more or less closely. Advantage was taken of their first emotions. Every thing was at hand that was requisite to bind them irrevocably while they were yet together, excited by one ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... sides, one for the rich and one for the poor, and she was glad, with an honest, simple gladness, that she had been permitted to taste the best last. She retained her simple, genuine manner; but her soul had had its first taste of power, and found it surpassing sweet. Beauty and riches had proved themselves valuable in her eyes, and there were times when she looked back upon the old life with a shudder. In the intoxication, of that first summer of her new life, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... will wonders never cease?— Hair upon dogs and feathers upon geese! The boys in mischief and the pigs in mire! The drinking water wet! the coal on fire! In meadows, rivulets surpassing fair, Forever running, yet forever there! A tail appended to the gray baboon! A person coming out of a saloon! Last, and of all most marvelous to see, A female Yahoo flinging filth at me! If 'twould but stick I'd bear upon my coat May Little's ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... of a family called Hyde, which resided from a remote period at Norbury, in Cheshire. He was originally intended for the church, but eventually became a lawyer, applying himself to the study of his profession with a diligence far surpassing that of the associates with whom he lived. In 1635, he attracted the notice of Archbishop Laud, which may be regarded as the most fortunate circumstance of his life, as it led to his introduction to Charles I. In consequence of the ability ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... to the aid of mankind in their struggle for existence, enabling them to create easily and in abundance those things of which they had previously been able to produce only a bare sufficiency. A wonderful power—equalling and surpassing the marvels that were imagined by the writers of fairy tales and Eastern stories—a power so vast—so marvellous, that it is difficult to find words to convey anything like an adequate conception ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... that, in all the world, as I know, there is nothing so to be cherished with a man's last breath as a maid. I have loved a maid and speak with authority. But there is also a love of ships, though, being inland-born, you may not know it. 'Tis a surpassing faith and affection, inspired neither by beauty nor virtue, but wilful and mysterious, like the love of a maid. 'Tis much the same, I'm thinking: forgiving to the uttermost, prejudiced beyond the perception of any fault, savagely ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... public institutions and in Catholic churches and charities, but it is mainly in the prospect from the site of the Old Government House, and from the Citadel, that its surpassing beauty lies. The exquisite expanse of country, rich in field and forest, mountain-height and water, which lies stretched out before the view, with miles of Canadian villages, glancing in long white streaks, like veins ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... vessels and others, with meates and sawces couered. Within the drinkyng cup they had infused a precious Wine, so as mee thought that the Gods of the Elysian fieldes, had transformed their power into the sweetnes of the lyquor: surpassing ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... of wondrous colours flitting through the more open glades, strange vegetable forms, beautifully graceful bamboos, clustering in the moister parts, where some stream ran unseen amidst the dense undergrowth, while at last they reached a river of such surpassing beauty, with its overhanging ferns, in the deep ravine in which it ran, that both the strangers paused to admire, while the Malays looked on with ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... and clearness of the sky under which the island seemed to bask, struck me as surpassing anything I had seen- -not even at Cadiz, or the Piraeus, had I seen sands so yellow, or water so magnificently blue. The houses of the people along the shore were but poor tenements, with humble courtyards and gardens; but every fig-tree was gilded and bright, as if it were in an Hesperian orchard; ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... TEMPLES. The surpassing glory of the New Empire was its great temples. Some of them were among the most stupendous creations of structural art. To temples rather than palaces were the resources and energies of the kings devoted, and successive monarchs found no more splendid outlet for their piety and ambition than ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... Herr Gottfried's greatest friend and was notable for three things, his enormous size, his surpassing skill on the violoncello and his devoted attachment to the veriest shrew of a little sharp-boned wife that ever crossed from Germany into England. For all these things Peter loved him, but Herr Lutz was never very ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... we have just mentioned as surpassing the rest, has been careful in his Oration for Ctesiphon, (which is the best he ever composed) to set out very cooly and modestly: when he proceeds to argue the point of law, he grows more poignant and pressing; and as he advances in his defence, he takes still greater liberties; till, at last, having ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... is, that we have not yet come to the full development of Christian democracy. The taint of old aristocracies is yet pervading all parts of our society. We have not yet realized fully the true dignity of labor, and the surpassing dignity of domestic labor. And I must say that the valuable and courageous women who have agitated the doctrines of Woman's Rights among us have not in all things seen their way ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... The pride of surpassing my seniors, and the hope of exposing their ignorance, stimulated me to inquiry, and roused me to application. The books which I had reported lost to my father, were handed out from the bottom of my chest, and read with avidity: many others I borrowed from ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... that in our family had borne transplanting to the West. Sunday was almost the pleasantest day in the week to me—not elbowing school-less Saturday from its throne; not of course even comparing with the bliss of Friday just after school, but easily surpassing the procession of four dull, dreaded, droning ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... discharging wire. The phenomena varied with the size of the vessel (1477.), the degree of rarefaction, and the discharge of electricity from the machine. When the latter was in successive sparks, they were most beautiful, the effect of a spark from a small machine being equal to, and often surpassing, that produced by the constant discharge of a ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... as we fix our weaker eyes upon the glory which they saw so near. Although the men who have there ascended are a supreme company, we may yet presume to follow; for let it never be said that the gods have reserved for surpassing genius the consolation of which lesser men have so much deeper need. But he who would reach a serener air must press forward strenuously; for as a mountain may have one bare and northern slope, and another sunlit and clothed with verdure, and yet there ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... Hippolochus the Thessalian, 'she left Acro-Corinthus washed by the green sea,'[141] and deserted all her other lovers, that great army, and went off to Thessaly and lived faithful to Hippolochus. But the women there, envious and jealous of her for her surpassing beauty, dragged her into the temple of Aphrodite, and there stoned her to death, for which reason probably it is called to this day the temple of Aphrodite the Murderess.[142] We have also heard of servant girls who have refused the embraces of their masters, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... and gigantic wildernesses which seems to elevate the soul, and to give to it, as well as to the body, an increase of strength and energy. There reign, in countless multitudes, the wild horse and the bison; the wolf, the bear, and the snake; and, above all, the trapper, surpassing the very beasts of the desert in wildness—not the old trapper described by Cooper, who never saw a trapper in his life, but the real trapper, whose adventures and mode of existence would furnish the richest materials ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... amazingly complicated and startling evolutions were exhibited; and also his two daughters, who figured largely in these evolutions, and whose wonderful performances to us, who had not seen Miss Taglioni or Miss Elssler, were something quite bewildering, in fact, surpassing the natural possibilities of human beings. Their extraordinary powers were, however, accounted for by the following explanation, which was accepted in the school as entirely satisfactory. A certain little bone in the ankles of each ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the King of Heaven! regal in architecture, and adorned with beauty surpassing in magnificence earthly royalty, in which the lowliest may enter on an equality with the prince; his untutored mind, his uncultivated senses may listen to music of the highest order. The pealing tones of the organ resound ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... problem of their future was being worked out almost within sight of my door. Here the men of the Polished Stone Age and the men of gasoline engines and electrical telephones met and mingled in a daily adjustment which offered material of surpassing value to the novelist who could use it. Humor and pathos, tragic bitterness and religious exaltation were all within ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... word "excellent" is primarily a mere synonym with "surpassing," and when applied to persons, has the general meaning given by Johnson—"the state of abounding in any good quality." But when applied to things it has always reference to the power by which they are produced. We talk of excellent music or poetry, because it is difficult ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... schooners and sloops, ranged below each other in order of size, and showing a forest of masts, occupied the wharfs. These and a thousand other objects, seen as they were under a brilliant sun, presented a picture of surpassing splendour; but the curse and blight ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... than the entertainments of the theatre were the various games, especially the chariot races, of the circus. But surpassing in their terrible fascination all other public amusements were the animal-baitings and the gladiatorial ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... must hold that the angels had faith before they were confirmed, and man, before he sinned. Nevertheless we must observe that in the object of faith, there is something formal, as it were, namely the First Truth surpassing all the natural knowledge of a creature, and something material, namely, the thing to which we assent while adhering to the First Truth. With regard to the former, before obtaining the happiness to come, faith is common to all who have knowledge of God, by ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... was shocked at what he characterized as official apathy. It became a point on which he expressed himself with surpassing candor. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... warmest feelings of admiration, both for its actual beauty and its unrivalled associations. From an elevation of several hundred feet, you look down upon a narrow fertile valley, through which the Thames winds with surpassing loveliness. Who does not recollect the charming lines with which Denham describes the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various |
