"To perfection" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are governed should be brought to perfection by government, this government will be so much the better in the degree the things governed are brought to perfection. Now it is a greater perfection for a thing to be good in itself and also the cause of goodness in others, than only to be good in itself. Therefore ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... sent from here reached Rosecrans. For the first time the troops have been forwarded with such rapidity. The War Department has brought almost to perfection the system of transportation of large bodies. The head-quarters, who combine, decide and direct the movements, the distribution, and the scattering of troops all over the country could have therefore ordered the troops to Rosecrans, and the War Department would have rapidly forwarded ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... sharp, and extirpate the undeveloped canker, the rank weed from your soul," cried the high-priest. "You are young, too young; not like the tender fruit-tree that lets itself be trained aright, and brought to perfection, but like the green fruit on the ground, which will turn to poison for the children who pick it up—yea even though it fall from a sacred tree. Gagabu and I received you among us, against the opinion of the majority ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... did not know that Lucien had repented so many times during the last eighteen months, that penitence, however impassioned, had come to be a kind of drama with him, played to perfection, played so far in all good faith, but none the less a drama. To the cure succeeded the doctor. He saw that the patient was passing through a nervous crisis, and the danger was beginning to subside. The doctor-nephew spoke as comfortably as the cure-uncle, and at length ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... German military authorities began to consider airships as an arm of the Service in the closing years of the nineteenth century, and devoted both time and considerable sums of money in the attempt to bring them to perfection. Their appearance in the British Army was delayed for many years on account of the expense that would be incurred in carrying out experiments. In 1902, Colonel Templer, at that time head of the Balloon Section, obtained the ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... may be a disadvantage; as it may not leave you time to study the other requisites of tragedy so much as is necessary. Your writings deserve to last for ages; but to make any work last, it must be finished in all parts to perfection. You have the first requisite to that perfection, for you can sacrifice charming lines, when they do not tend to improve the whole. I admire this resignation so much, that I wish to turn it to your advantage. Strike out your sketches as suddenly as you please, but retouch and retouch them, that the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... charity, and possibly in anxiety, on his own. In fact, there was thrown around her whole air, such a touch of exquisite and shrinking delicacy, so blended with feeling benevolence, and even tender interest, that it was no wonder that a man, handsome to perfection, young, intelligent, and rich, mistook ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... went down. Mabel was in the morning room, seated at the centre table where the flowers had been and where now was her embroidery basket. She was embroidering, an art which, in common with all the domestic arts, she performed to perfection. "Bagshaw's late?" ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... the wheat, and told him, because he had been a great traveller, he thought he could easily impose upon their credulity by fine stories; and all he urged could not convince them that wheat would make bread. His own and Shungie's crops in time came to perfection, and were reaped and threshed; and though the natives were much astonished to find that the grain was produced at the top, and not at the bottom of the stem, yet they could not be persuaded that bread could be made ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... billiard-room, the smaller drawing-room, where card-tables were set out, and the large drawing-room, given up to conversation and presently to the acting of a proverb by several of the younger people and Mademoiselle Moineau, who played the part of a great-grandmother to perfection. ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... this he engaged with Mr. Manby, a bookseller on Ludgate Hill, to furnish him with some Lives for the Biographia Britannica, which Manby was then publishing. He showed me some of the lives in embryo; but I do not recollect that any of them came to perfection. To raise a present subsistence he set about writing his odes; and, having a general invitation to my house, he frequently passed whole days there, which he employed in writing them, and as frequently ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... hair was smooth and shining and full of lights and set off her fresh complexion to perfection. This was not at all brown, but her eyes were. Great, big ones these, with a star in each of them for laughter. Her nose turned up ever so slightly, and she had a little way of tilting her dainty chin, as if ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... be imperfect, there is more reason than this why it should be counted to a man for righteousness. It is the one spiritual act which brings the man into contact with the original creative power, able to help him in every endeavour after righteousness, and ensure his progress to perfection. The man who exercises it may therefore also well be called a righteous man, however far from complete in righteousness. We may call a woman beautiful who is not perfect in beauty; in the Bible men are constantly recognized as righteous men who are far from ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... customs of Africa, that is so peculiarly favorable to our improvement? What hinders our improving here, where schools and colleges abound, where the gospel is preached at every corner, and where all the arts and sciences are verging fast to perfection? Nothing, nothing but prejudice. It requires no large expenditures, no hazardous enterprises, to raise the people of color in the United States to as highly improved a state, as any class of the community. All that is necessary is, that those who profess to be anxious for it, should lay aside ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... a great deal of uncertainty. I suppose the entire alphabet at one dose had been too much for her! But I tried her again in the afternoon—going over the letters carefully, and set up the card once more, to "jog her memory." And the next morning she knew it nearly to perfection, and was able to follow with her raps such words as—h, o, l, z, (holz wood), for I took care to separate the letters, fearing she would otherwise get confused. Whenever she seemed in doubt over some letter I had recourse to her alphabet card, and ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... referring me to places and documents and alleged occurrences in which, as a matter of fact, I dont believe. I dont believe in anything but my own will and my own pride and honor. Your fishes and your catechisms and all the rest of it make a charming poem which you call your faith. It fits you to perfection; but it doesnt fit me. I happen, like Napoleon, to prefer Mohammedanism. [Mrs George, associating Mohammedanism with polygamy, looks at him with quick suspicion]. I believe the whole British Empire will adopt a reformed Mohammedanism ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... a very brilliant and promising piece of work, but which I have been unable to produce for lack of a heroine. There isn't an actress on my list that can take the part and do it justice. Now, Miss Jane, I believe that with some training you could take it to perfection. My wife and I would like to take you to New York, paying all your expenses, of course, and put you into training at once. It would take a year's hard work to get you fitted for the part. Then next fall we could bring out the play and I think I ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... the dead,—uplifting the human understanding, buried in a false sense of being. Jesus rendered null and void whatever is unlike God; but he could not have done this if error and sin existed in the Mind of God. What God knows, He also predestinates; and it must be fulfilled. Jesus proved to perfection, so far as this could be done in that age, what Christian Science is to-day proving in a small degree,—the falsity of the evidence of the material senses that sin, sickness, and death are sensible claims, and that God substantiates their evidence by knowing their claim. He established the only ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... in the Sheep, and the like; not from the Action of the Shepherd folding them. So of Reapers, we conceive 'em filling the following Year with Plenty; We have, while we see 'em, the Thought of Fulness, and the time when every thing is brought to Perfection; and these, and the like Thoughts, rather raise the Delight of seeing those particular Labours, than the Actions themselves. For we see, that if we behold Sheep, or the like, in a City, tho' Countrymen are ordering them, we have no such Delight; because there ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... said Flora, turning to Margaret. "Have you converted her? Well done! Then, Ethel, we will get some pretty batiste, and you and Mary shall make some of those nice sun-bonnets, which you really do to perfection." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... and common sense it can be broken of it. In any case, the advantages are so great and predominant that I had determined to have experienced men to the greatest extent possible. It was my plan to devote the entire winter to working at our outfit, and to get it as near to perfection as possible. Another thing to which we should have to give some time was the killing of a sufficient number of seals to provide fresh meat both for ourselves and our dogs for the whole time. Scurvy, the worst enemy of Polar expeditions, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... compound. Before he had succeeded, their resources failed. But he had made such progress in demonstrating the practicability of his process, that his brother-in-law, William De Forrest, a noted woollen manufacturer, took hold of the project in earnest, and aided him to bring it to perfection. Once more, however, he was imprisoned for debt. This event conquered his scruples against availing himself of the benefit of the bankrupt act, which finally delivered him from the danger of arrest. We should add, however, that, as soon as he began ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... face serene that, beaming brightly, Disarmed the hot sun's glances bold. A foot that kissed the ground so lightly, He frowned in wrath and deemed her cold, But loved her still though he was old. A form where every maiden grace Bloomed to perfection's richest flower,— The statued pose of conscious power, Like lithe-limbed Dian's ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... went into the other room, accompanied by Miss Carry, who had suffered herself, to be introduced to Major Stuart with a certain proud sedateness. And now the major played the part of the accepted lover's friend to perfection. He sat next Miss White herself; and no matter what the talk was about, he managed to bring it round to something that redounded to Macleod's advantage. Macleod could do this, and Macleod could do that; it was all Macleod, ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... The evening of the day these distinguished guests arrived Mrs. Goldsborough gave a dinner in their honor, which Mr. Gouverneur and I attended. The entertainment was served in the style then prevalent among old Maryland families in that vicinity, the pieces de resistance being chicken, fried to perfection, at one end of the table together with an old ham on the opposite end. To these were added "side trimmings," enough to almost bury the table under their weight. President Grant was then filling his first term as Chief Executive of the nation and, although Mr. Gouverneur had known him in Mexico, ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... philosophical auricula falling into a train of theoretical meditation on its original and natural nutriment, till it should work itself up into a profound abomination of bullock's blood, sugar-baker's scum, and other unnatural ingredients of that rich composition of soil which had brought it to perfection[2.1], and insist on being planted in common earth, it would have all the advantage of natural theory on its side that the most strenuous advocate of the vegetable system could desire; but it would soon discover the practical error of its retrograde experiment by its lamentable inferiority ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... surely conjecture their history for himself. . . . He may be pretty certain that they have gone the way of the world . . . abierunt ad plures . . . for this life or for the next. They have done—very much what he or I might have done in their place—nothing. Nature brings very few of her children to perfection, in these days or any other. . . . And for Grace, which does bring its children to perfection, the quantity and quality of the perfection must depend on the quantity and quality of the grace, and that again, to an awful extent—The Giver only knows to how ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... fading according to her moods. She wore the usual every-day attire of the women of the region,—mistresses as well as "hired girls,"—a dark-print gown, but, like Ophelia's rue, "it was worn with a difference," fitting her lithe, graceful figure to perfection, and set off by a dainty band of white and knot of ribbon at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... rule as applied to the business of a nation. It means, doesn't it, Get something for nothing, or as near nothing as you can. Well, then, if you can get it for absolutely nothing, you are carrying out the maxim to perfection. For example, if a manufacturer could hypnotize his workmen so as to get them to work for him for no wages at all, he would be realizing the full meaning of ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... in the embers, while he related, by the pale light of his small charcoal fire, which but dimly showed the extent even of his small room, frightful stories of ghosts, suicides, drownings, and fearful murders, with which he delighted to terrify me; and, dear reader, he succeeded to perfection, for all the time I sat listening to them I was cold, and trembled like a leaf in the ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... This continues until the log is reduced to about a seven inch core, which is useless for the purpose. The veneer as it comes rolling off the log presents all the diversity of colors and the beautiful grain and rich marking that have perhaps for centuries been growing to perfection in the silent depths of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... as they sometimes played at Paris. There was given then a little comedy which Mme. le Chanceliere had got M. Dancourt to write expressly for that fete. All the actors were from the company of the comedians of the king. They played to perfection, and received much praise. . . . At the end of the comedy, Mme. la Duchesse de Bourgogne was conducted into another hall, where a superb collation had been prepared in an ingenious manner. At one end of the hall, in a half-circle, were five booths, in which were merchants, ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... one and the same time; or since that is impossible, that his thoughts shall succeed each other as quickly as the vibrations of a cord. In this way an author lays the foundation of his stile empese, which is then carried to perfection by the use of high-flown, pompous expressions to communicate the simplest things, and other artifices of the ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... been exercised. Many volatile writers might have reached even to deep thinking, had they bestowed a day of meditation before a day of composition, and thus engendered their thoughts. Many productions of genius have originally been enveloped in feebleness and obscurity, which have only been brought to perfection by repeated acts of the mind. There is a maxim of Confucius, which in the translation seems quaint, but which is pregnant ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... governors; those of their governors from their laws or orders; and those of their laws or orders from their legislators. Whatever was in the womb imperfect, as to her proper work, comes very rarely or never at all to perfection afterward; and the formation of a citizen in the womb of the ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... caustic repartee, Farrar bracing up to his old standard, and the demand for seats in the vicinity rose to an animated competition. Mr. Charles Wrexell Allen's chair was finally awarded to a nephew of Judge Short, who could turn a story to perfection. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to a good system of culture we add some such mechanical contrivance as that under notice whereby the bunches enjoy an average warmth some 10 higher than they otherwise would do, we not only insure the grapes coming to perfection in favored districts, but outdoor culture might probably be practiced in higher ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... you with candles and food; and by and by the good ox and the fatted calf, the turkey, the goose, and the chicken, give your frugal board an air of gourmandism; whilst in this climate all the English garden vegetables and common fruits require only a little care to bring them to perfection. Indian corn and buckwheat make excellent cakes and hominy; and you take your own wheat to be ground at the nearest mill, where the miller requires no money, but only grist. In like manner, the boards ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... leaf will burn freely, and leave a white, firm ash, the product will no doubt prove a rival of the leaf grown in Luzon. From the composition of the soil, it is hardly probable that Havana tobacco can be grown to perfection; it may, however, resemble in some measure the Cuban leaf. The climate has much to do with the flavor of tobacco; more than with the size of the plants or the color of the leaf. Cuba in this respect has ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... acted your stony part to perfection. As you could neither follow her, nor make inquiries of the Smyrnaean, it only remains for you to describe her as best you can, on the chance ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... neglected no particular of equipment or organization, elaborating every detail of training and discipline, and providing, by the most diligent foresight and minute instruction, that each officer concerned should know exactly what was expected of him. In short, it was to perfection of quality, and not to an unwieldy bulk of superfluous quantity, that Exmouth confided his fortunes in ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... former lists of our irregular and redundant verbs are, in many respects, defective and erroneous; nor is it claimed for those which are here presented, that they are absolutely perfect. I trust, however, they are much nearer to perfection, than are any earlier ones. Among the many individuals who have published schemes of these verbs, none have been more respected and followed than Lowth, Murray, and Crombie; yet are these authors' lists severally faulty in respect ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... try once more, this time with a victim paralysed not by me, an unskilled operator, but by an adept whose ability ranks so high that it is beyond discussion. Chance favours me to perfection: yesterday, in a warm sheltered corner, at the foot of a sandy bank, I discovered three cells of the Languedocian Sphex, each with its Ephippiger and the recently laid egg. This is the game I want, a corpulent prey, of a size ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... begun a noble rivalry with the monks of Egypt, having determined either to equal or even to surpass them in your training towards virtue; for there are monasteries already among you, and the monastic life is practised. This purpose of yours one may justly praise; and if you pray, God will bring it to perfection. But since you have also asked me about the conversation of the holy Antony, wishing to learn how he began his training, and who he was before it, and what sort of an end he made to his life, and whether what is said of him is true, in ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... without, blue sheep's wool within, and in this portable house he passed his nights afield. Not always by choice, as witness his chapter entitled 'A Camp in the Dark.' There are two or three pages in that chapter which come pretty near to perfection,—if there be such a thing as perfection in literature. I don't know who could wish for anything better than the paragraphs in which Stevenson describes falling asleep in the tempest, and awaking next morning to see the 'world ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... be a part of their productions whatever they were, the forms of printed letters should be beautiful, and that their arrangement on the page should be reasonable and a help to the shapeliness of the letters themselves. The Middle Ages brought caligraphy to perfection, and it was natural therefore that the forms of printed letters should follow more or less closely those of the written character, and they followed them very closely. The first books were printed in black letter, i. e., the letter which was a Gothic development ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... considered as mere accidents than the several members of a fine statue or a noble poem. The critics in all these are not content with seeing anything to be great without knowing why and how it came to be so. By examining carefully the several gradations which conduce to bring every model to perfection, we learn truly to know that science in which the model is formed: as histories of this kind, therefore, may properly be called models of human life, so, by observing minutely the several incidents which tend to the catastrophe or completion of the whole, and the ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... rice, tobacco, cotton, and india-rubber. All European vegetables can be grown to perfection, especially cabbages, lettuces, beetroot, turnips, carrots, and onions. There were in 1897 over eighty market gardens in the neighbourhood of Buluwayo, and for the half-year ending September 1897, the value of ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... lovely," said Miss Cram. "I think hers is really the prettiest costume in the room; all that soft brown and yellow is really charming, and suits her to perfection." ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... they have time enough to bow and take their hats off,—which, of course, no businessman can afford to do. Their beavers are smoothly brushed, and their boots well polished; all their appointments are tidy; they look the respectable walking gentleman to perfection. They are prone to habits,—they frequent reading-rooms,—insurance-offices,—they walk the same streets at the same hours,—so that one becomes familiar with their faces and persons, as a part ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... "fitted." As her husband had to die, he passed away from this life at the most fitting moment. As Providence had blessed her with only one child, a daughter was surely the most fitting companion for a widowed mother. The house Mrs. Meadowsweet lived in fitted her requirements to perfection. In short, she was fat and comfortable, both in mind and body; she never fretted, she never worried; she was not rasping and disagreeable; she was not fault-finding. If her nature lacked depth, it certainly did not lack affection, ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... down; but perhaps he could have persuaded Master Benoit to wait. Robert's presence would have been a security for him, for the young man could not fail to insure the prosperity of a workshop; besides science and skill, he had the power of invention and bringing to perfection. His father had discovered among his drawings a new plan for a staircase, which had occupied his thoughts for a long time; and he even suspected him of having engaged himself to the Versailles contractor for the very ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... any who should prosecute the same designs hereafter; to whom it might be serviceable to have so much of their work done to their hands; which they might advance and perfect by their own repeated experiences. As there is no work of this kind brought to perfection at once I intended especially to observe what inhabitants I should meet with, and to try to win them over to somewhat of traffic and useful intercourse, as there might be commodities among any of them that might be fit for trade or manufacture, or any found in which they ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... expense about a horse for this, trying first an iron one, then a copper rope, and then hemp, I found that a rounded inch bar of red iron-wood straight across and about two inches above the bulkhead of the well, answered to perfection. {197} ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... genius labouring to give birth to perfection, one should consult the later editions of Victor Hugo's works and note the countless emendations he made after their first publication—here a more fitting word substituted, there a line recast, elsewhere an entire verse added, ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... no chance of a fair trial, and he therefore escaped on the way home, when, on his failing to arrive, he was solemnly cursed, and condemned to death. He took refuge in Sparta, where, fine gentleman as he was, he followed the rough, hardy Spartan manners to perfection, appeared to relish the black broth, and spoke the Doric Greek of Laconia, as it was said, more perfectly than the Spartans themselves. Unlike Aristides, and like the worse sort of exiles, he tried to get his revenge by persuading the allies of Athens in Asia Minor to revolt; and when ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lesson to teach, and it taught it. It reasserted the dignity of the human form. It re-stated the truth of the soul which informs the body, and the body which expresses it. Men saw in its creations their own qualities carried to perfection, and were content to know that such perfection was possible, and to renounce the hope of attaining it. In this experience the first stage was progress; the second was stagnation. Progress began again, when men looked on these images of themselves and said: "we are not inferior ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... was, I had both. I've described you the charms and grace of each, and when I add that both were elegant housekeepers, ye'll admit that my dilemma was greater than ever. They both handled the broom to perfection; they could knock a chap clane across the cabin and out of the window before ye could know what was coming. Me mither used to say it was the housekeeping qualities that should decide, and she told me to call upon 'em sometime when they was n't expecting me, and obsarve the manner in which they ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... the Whampoo garders and found that they were perfectly beautiful, made by Mr. Whampoo, a rich Chinaman. There wuz fifty acres under most perfect cultivation. Here the Chinese fad of dwarfing and training trees wuz carried to perfection; there wuz trees trained into all sorts of shapes. One wuz a covered carriage about three feet high, with a horse, all tree, but natural as life; and then there wuz pagodas and men and wimmen and animals and birds all growin' and havin' to be trimmed by the patient Chinese gardener. The tree they ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... the long drive, across the park, under the old elms, and alighted at the mansion before the dinner bell rang, much to his relief; for his host had more than one daughter, and Phillip liked to arrange his toilet to perfection before he joined their society. His twenty-five-guinea dressing-case, elaborately fitted up—too completely indeed, for he had no use for the razor—soon enabled him to trim and prepare for the dining-room. His five-guinea coat, elegant studs, spotless ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... ready before seven when his sister came to his door, dressed in her pretty blue travelling gown, hatted, veiled, gloved to perfection; but there was a bloom on cheek and mouth which mocked at the wearied eyes—a lassitude in every step as she slowly ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... opportune moment. In the horde of hirelings about a great man there is always one whose ear is open to temptation, and the baron's household was no exception to this rule. Coquenil (known now as Jacques and looking the stable man to perfection) found a dignified flunky in black side whiskers and white-silk stockings who was not above accepting some hundred-franc notes in return for sure information as to the master's absences from home and for necessary assistance in the way of ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... our return to camp. Perched on the fishermen's seatless chair and stool, and on boxes, we drank our tea and began our preparations for departure, bestowing a reward on the men, who had acted their parts as impromptu hosts to perfection. It was late; but our men burst into song, when their oars dipped in the waves, as spontaneously as the nightingales which people these shores in springtime,—inspired probably by the full moon, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... up to Princetown, was instrumental in drying it and spreading it on the asphalt lawn-tennis courts of the prison warders' cricket ground, where this preliminary process was carried out. Michael also kept records and accounts and indeed organized the whole depot to perfection. ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... enforced by his own example; against claim to perfection, also enforced by his own example; against Antinomian licence as unworthy of "citizens of heaven", exhortation to steadfastness ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... played Othello's part to perfection. After much persuasion he was induced to give, in a modest, but graphic way, a complete account of his trip to New York, with which the reader is already familiar. Before he had concluded, Sarah Burns's appreciation was at the highest pitch. And when, after a little, he took up his hat ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... crabbed and slovenly; the other was plump, young, oily-mannered and dressed in the most gorgeous livery costume of the period. The last days of genuine dandyism were then rapidly approaching all over the civilized world; and Monsieur Justin was, in his own way, dressed to perfection, as a living illustration of the ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... in the willing subject, by a kind of proportion or order to the thing willed. Wherefore those things that are naturally proportionate to a certain end, are said to desire that end naturally. Yet to have an end thus is to have it imperfectly. Now every imperfect thing tends to perfection. And therefore both the natural and the voluntary appetite tend to have the end in reality; and this is to have it perfectly. This is the second relation of the will ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... do wish mother would let me go there with him some evening! He is there nearly every night, and it's as good as a play to hear him take off the affected, snobbish ones. He has caught the English drawl and the 'yeh know' of some young fellows to perfection." ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... George Ker, now abroad. From 1880 to 1883 he was Scotland's best centre forward, and the originator of what is now known in football parlance as the "cannon shot" at goal. Many players have since tried it, and made fairly good attempts, but Ker alone could do it to perfection. In this International he gave the Englishmen a taste of his ability in this line. He passed Mr. Greenwood, the English extreme back, and when fairly in front watched how the goalkeeper (Mr. Swepstone) would take in the situation. Ker spun the ball hard from his toe ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... tripping cadences of the tune and the humour of the words, which demanded to be rather said than sung, were rendered to perfection. It was impossible not to like her ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... epoch when literature was popular; or at least more nearly so than at any subsequent period. It saw the rise and fall of dramatic art: in other respects it merely introduced the forms which were carried to perfection in the Ciceronian and Augustan ages. The language did not greatly improve in smoothness, or adaptation to express finished thought. The ancients, indeed, saw a difference between Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, but it may be questioned whether ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... of his estate, is more happy in his labors than one who tills his own land for a mere subsistence. This is one of the signal testimonies which all human employments give to the high demands of our nature. To gather wealth never gives such satisfaction as to bring the humblest piece of machinery to perfection: at least, when wealth is sought for display and ostentation, or mere luxury, and ease, and pleasure; and not for ends of philanthropy, the relief of kindred, or the payment of just debts, or as a means to attain some other great and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... of annihilating suffering and when he hesitates no more about the way that leads to the annihilation of suffering: then is he called a holy disciple, one who is in the stream that floweth onwards to perfection, one who is delivered from evil, who is guaranteed, who is devoted to ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... towards the remote heavens. I bent my head, and entered by the open door. Near the threshold Nilushka was lying on a narrow chest against the wall. The folds of a dark-red pillow of fustian under the head set off to perfection the pale blue tint of his round, innocent face under its corona of golden curls; and though the eyes were closed, and the lips pressed tightly together, he still seemed to be smiling in his old quiet, but joyous, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... to perfection, Perrine filled a bowl and placed it at her mother's bedside, also two glasses, two plates and two forks. Sitting down on the floor, with her legs tucked under her and her skirts spread out, she said, like a little girl who is playing with ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... of the degradation of love by habit, and Alexandre Dumas expresses the whole question to perfection in one crystal sentence: 'In marriage when love exists habit kills it; when love does not exist habit calls it into being.' This is profoundly true, and for every passion habit has killed it must certainly have created ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... for church and the green silk for going out to very fine places, to tea-drinkings and the like, and how she must always be sure to wear the cream undersleeves with the Irish point lace with her silk gown as they set it off to perfection. She recalled, too, how little experience Marcia had had in the ways of the world, and all the while the girl was being dressed in the dainty bridal garments she gave her careful instructions in the ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... the elaboration of his own system, in a liberal and critical study of that which he desired to supersede, his genius might have accomplished a work for the Church which is still halting badly on its way to perfection. One feels something like anger in contemplating such hot-headed zeal standing continually in its own light, and frustrating with perverse ingenuity the very end which it was most desirous to realize. For no one can deny that from his first conversion to his unhappy ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... an excellent vegetable for the table; and, when eaten by goats, their milk is much increased. The wood is a good fuel, and yields a large quantity of potash. If planted in a dry soil, it takes two years to come to perfection, requiring, during that time, one weeding only. It bears drought well, and never shrivels up, like other plants, when deprived of rain. When planted in low alluvial soils, and either well supplied ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Athenian literature. The democracy demanded a literature of a popular kind, the vivacity of the people a literature that made a lively impression; and both these conditions were fulfilled by the drama. But though brought to perfection among the Athenians, tragedy and comedy, in their rude and early origin, were Dorian inventions. Both arose out of the worship of Dionysus. There was at first but little distinction between these two species of the drama, except ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... each other with looks resentful of the intrusion, and desirous to put an end to it. The honourable Master Kerneguy either possessed that happy indifference of temper which does not deign to notice such circumstances, or he was able to assume the appearance of it to perfection, as he sat sipping sack, and cracking walnuts, without testifying the least sense that an addition had been made to the party. Wildrake, who liked the liquor and the company, showed no unwillingness to repay his landlord, by being at the expense ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... the certain sciences. Henceforward, we trust it will form a part of the public education, and not be subject tot he barbarous modes pursued by illogical though earnest and zealous disciples; and that the great and glorious Constitution that has done so much to bring it to perfection, will, in its turn, be sustained and matured by the exercise of what is really in itself so ancient ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... Angels, yet accepted so, As that more willingly thou couldst not seem At Heav'ns high feasts to have fed: yet what compare? To whom the winged Hierarch repli'd. O Adam, one Almightie is, from whom All things proceed, and up to him return, 470 If not deprav'd from good, created all Such to perfection, one first matter all, Indu'd with various forms, various degrees Of substance, and in things that live, of life; But more refin'd, more spiritous, and pure, As neerer to him plac't or neerer tending Each in thir several active Sphears assignd, Till ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... as something harsh, unworthy, and mechanical, how they oppose the attainment of their own wishes, since abstract contemplation, and the construction and invention of experiments, rest upon the same principles, and are brought to perfection ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... Dom Anthony fulfilled to perfection the ideal laid down for a guest-master in the Custumal. He showed, indeed, the "cheerful hospitality to guests" by which "the good name of the monastery was enhanced, friendships multiplied, enmities lessened, God honoured, and charity increased." He recognised perfectly well the confused terror ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... but be astonished at the rise of this lady at one leap from the threshold to the top of her profession. It is worthy of observation that the real children of nature generally burst at once upon the view in excellence approaching to perfection; while the mere artists of the stage lag behind, labouring for years, before they attain the summit of their ambition; when their consummate art and their skill in concealing that art (ars celare artem) if they have it, entitles them at last to the highest praise. Mrs. Bellamy was one ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... many cases these organs, instead of being favorable, are injurious or cumbersome until fully developed. Take the wing of a bird, for example. In its rudimental state, it is useful neither for swimming, walking, nor flying. Now, as Darwin says it took millions of years to bring the eye to perfection, how long did it take to render a rudimental wing useful? It is no sufficient answer to say that these rudimental organs might have been suited to the condition in which the animal existed, during the formative process. This is perfectly arbitrary. It has no basis of fact. ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... jovial kings. So you can laugh as loudly at those muckworms of philosophy who go about saying, "Our fathers were better," as at the good, philanthropical old bunglers who pretend that mankind is on the right road to perfection. These are old blind bats, who observe neither the plumage of oysters nor the shells of birds, which change no more than our ways. Hip, hip, huzzah! then, make merry while you're young. Keep your throats wet and your eyes dry, since a ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... fine arts. In this domestic persecution, the son contracted those morose and saturnine habits which in after-life marked the character of the ungenial MENGS. ALONSO CANO, a celebrated Spanish painter, would have carried his art to perfection, had not the unceasing persecution of the Inquisitors entirely deprived him of that tranquillity so necessary to the very existence of art. OVID, in exile on the barren shores of Tomos, deserted by his genius, in ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... The Bishop of Carlisle has been with me two days at Strawberry, where we saw the eclipse(572) to perfection: -not that there was much sight in it. The air was very chill at the time, and the light singular; but there was not a blackbird that left off singing for it. In the evening the Duke of Devonshire came with the Straffords from t'other end of Twickenham, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... that profound inward rest, which was already called Nirvana. He was twenty-nine years old. Although disapproving of the Brahmanic austerities as an end, he practised them during six years, in order to subdue the senses. He then became satisfied that the path to perfection did not lie that way. He therefore resumed his former diet and a more comfortable mode of life, and so lost many disciples who had been attracted by his amazing austerity. Alone in his hermitage, he came at last to that solid conviction, that KNOWLEDGE never ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... one from the albumen passing entire through the liver, and going straight to the heart; another from the yelk, ending in the vena portae; for it appears that the chick, in the first instance, is entirely formed and nourished by the white; but by the yelk after it has come to perfection and is excluded from the shell; for this part may still be found in the abdomen of the chick many days after its exclusion, and is a substitute for the milk to ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... date of 1620, as that when the family of Van den Gheyns were bringing the art of bell founding to perfection in Louvain, and notes that the tower and bells of each fortified town were half civic property. Thus the curfew, the carolus, and the St. Mary bells in Antwerp ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... checks and balances of the British Constitution as though change were the only evil that threatened mankind. For Burke, change itself was but an incident in the triumph of continuity and conservation. For Godwin the whole life of mankind is a race through innovation to perfection, and his main concern is to exhort the athlete to fling aside the garments of prejudice, tradition, and constraint, until one asks at the end how much of flesh and blood has been torn away with the garments. If one were ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... Conduit, but removed in or about 1549 to Aldersgate Street; he had several shops in various parts of the town, where his literary wares might be disposed of, and he is remarkable in being the first English printer who used Saxon characters, whilst he brought those of the Greek and Italic to perfection. It is not possible to give in this place even a brief summary of Day's career, and it must suffice us to mention that Archbishop Parker was among his patrons, and that the more important books which appeared ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... was harmonious and picturesque, and suited Patty's fair beauty to perfection. Her bare arms and throat were soft and rounded as a baby's, and her lovely face had a pink glow of happiness, while her eyes were like two ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... hundred in number; the boarders were about a score. Madame must have possessed high administrative powers: she ruled all these, together with four teachers, eight masters, six servants, and three children, managing at the same time to perfection the pupil's parents and friends; and that without apparent effort, without bustle, fatigue, fever, or any symptom of undue excitement; occupied she always was—busy, rarely. It is true that madame had her own system for managing and regulating this mass of machinery; and a very ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... probe further, as the brougham stopped at her door. He handed her out with the deference so often met with in big men, remarking width an old-fashioned air that suited him to perfection: ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... eaten a thing I cared about, nor drank a drop I wanted, nor used a bad word I was fond of, since I married, without being nagged at about it. She loved me for my vices, and yet she hasn't let me keep a single one—not even the smallest—not even cigarettes. Nag! Good God! She's nagged me to perfection ever since the day of our wedding when she made me sign the pledge before ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... carriage. The place had been kept aired, but the shutters were shut, and they opened them themselves. He looked round upon the familiar objects—some complete and matured, the main of them seedlings, grafts, and scions of beauty, waiting for a mind to grow to perfection in. ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... objects of thought or the ideas. In the "Republic," where the proper education of the philosopher is in question, it is proposed that he shall study arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and dialectic. Thus in each case mathematics is the first advance in knowledge, and dialectic the nearest to perfection. Most of Plato's examples are drawn from mathematics. This science replaces the variety and vagueness of the forms of experience with clear, unitary, definite, and eternal natures, such as the number and the geometrical ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... watch carefully over the sure preservation and increase of what has been reduced and pacified at so great expense. I charge you that you strive for this end, considering the condition in which you find affairs and the great importance and advisability of bringing them to perfection and placing foundations so firm and secure that not only will there be naught to fear from the many enemies surrounding that part explored, but that it shall ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... John's spirit, and seen his imperfections smoothed away, and his character so polished that it became the brightest reflector of the image of Jesus Christ. Yet from the first there were budding virtues in him which Mary Magdalene's supposed gardener brought to perfection. ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... while a group gathered round Kitty Fisher, to discuss the coming German and pick up a few hints touching the promised new figures. Wych Hazel had just passed, escorted on either hand: her dark-blue robe and white laces setting her off to perfection. For a minute eyes ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... finger-tips. It was almost mechanical labour, and for that Flossie had more than a taste, she had a positive genius. It was mechanical labour idealized and reduced to a fine art, an art in which the personality of the artist counted. The work displayed to perfection the prettiness of Flossie's hands, from the rapid play of her fingers in sifting, and their little fluttering, hovering movements in arranging, to the exquisitely soft touches of the palms when she gathered all her sheaves of notes into one sheaf, shaking, caressing, coaxing the ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... of these, his titled and wedded captors; and perhaps the most resistless of all of them. Neither of them believed very much in their attachment, but both of them wore the masquerade dress to perfection. He had fallen in love with her as much as he ever fell in love, which was just sufficient to amuse him, and never enough to disturb him. He let himself be fascinated, not exerting himself either to resist or advance the affair till he was, perhaps, a little more entangled with her than ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Frederick one of his evening suits, which fitted him to perfection, and within less than half an hour the company was sitting in a box at Webster and Forster's. The enormous hall, in which smoking and drinking were allowed, was full. Willy estimated that there were about four or five thousand people present. A number ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... upon the princess. The youngest ordained that she should be the most beautiful person in the world; the next, that she should have the temper of an angel; the third, that she should do everything with wonderful grace; the fourth, that she should dance to perfection; the fifth, that she should sing like a nightingale; and the sixth, that she should play every kind of music ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... art of giving far better than we do. I expect Claude will net quite twenty-five shillings this afternoon; he'll have the field to himself, and he'll be able to do the pale, fragile, not-long-for-this-world business to perfection after his raspberry trifle experience. Yes, he'll be quite two pounds ahead ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki |
