"Masterfully" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was interrupted by the arrival of Charlie, who, thanks to his hypnotic influence over Machin, came masterfully straight upstairs, entered the bedroom without asking permission to do so, and, in perfect indifference to the alleged frailty of his father's health, ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... I had ever realised what he so truly felt for Hedwig until I sat at my table with his letter before me, overcome with the sense of my own weakness in not having effectually checked this mad passion at its rise; or, since it had grown so masterfully, of my wretched procrastination in not having taken my staff in my hand and gone out into the world to find the woman my boy loved and bring her to him. By this time, I thought, I should have found her. I could not bear to think of his being ill, suffering, heart-broken,—ruined, ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... while by voluptuous inhalations, and makes the eyes bright, and sets the heart tinkling to a new tune—or, rather, to an old tune; for you remember in your boyhood something akin to this spirit of adventure, this thirst for exploration, that now takes you masterfully by the hand, plunges you into many a deep grove, and drags you over many a stony crest. It is as if the whole wood were full of friendly voices calling you farther in, and you turn from one side to another, like Buridan's donkey, in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fine courage that was, his saying that he did not want her to decide in haste, but to take time to know what she was doing! What other man would not have stayed to urge her, to hurry her, to impose his will on hers, masterfully to use his personality to confuse her, to carry her off? For an instant, through all her wretched bewilderment, she thrilled to a high, impersonal appreciation of his saying: "If I had stayed with you, I should have tried ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... had to be a light in the windows of the Tavern office; he knew that he had to be in time. That was the finger of a Something behind the whole day's developments which was directing it all so masterfully. And because he was so certain of it all—because he was positive that he was the agent who had been selected to mete out justice at last—he found himself possessed of a greater courage than he had ever known ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... what it was in him that she loved: the actor masterfully playing upon her emotions and enthusiasm, or the man. Janina did not think of this. She loved him because she loved him and because he personified the theater and ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... are a humbug," the Professor said, opening masterfully the doors of the renowned Silenus. And when they had established themselves at a little table he developed further this gracious thought. "You are not even a doctor. But you are funny. Your notion of a humanity universally putting out the tongue and taking the pill from pole to pole at the bidding ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... of the later deeds of this slim figure who thus steps masterfully forward to the center of the most troubled stage in Europe. Days of conflict and turmoil were yet to follow for Napoleon, but never days of uncertainty. He had found himself. In six short years the brooding misanthrope, the gawky young ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... in the trees and the air had that limpid clearness which makes the first hole look about 100 yards long instead of 345, Ramsden Waters, alone as ever, stood on the first tee addressing his ball. For a space he waggled masterfully, then, drawing his club back with a crisp swish, brought it down. And, as he did so, a ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... Abby; go on in!" commanded Miss Daggett masterfully. "I guess when it comes to that, her gravel ain't any better ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... could have excited you so much," he went on masterfully, still hypnotizing her with his eyes, until even a duller woman would have grasped his meaning. But maybe he wanted to read out the news himself? Nurse ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... you would not do it," said Amaryllis. "You know you're not strong yet." She spoke as if she had been his mother or his nurse, somewhat masterfully and reproachfully. ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... five act piece for the last act but one. There is a charmingly instructive analogy between a garden and a drama. In each you have preparation, progress, climax, and close. And then, also, in each you must have your lesser climaxes leading masterfully up to the supreme one, and a final quiet one to let gratefully down ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... and left, till we came in sight of an inhabited house afar off. So we made towards it, and ceased not walking till we reached the door thereof when lo! a number of naked men issued from it and without saluting us or a word said, laid hold of us masterfully and carried us to their king, who signed us to sit. So we sat down and they set food before us such as we knew not[FN41] and whose like we had never seen in all our lives. My companions ate of it, for stress of hunger, but my stomach revolted from it and I would not eat; and my refraining ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... to stimulate, almost uncontrollably, the eloquent stirrings of the eminent man of letters then present. The impulse to speak masterfully was visible, before the recital was well over, in the moving lines about his mouth, by no means designed, as detractors were wont to say, simply to display the beauty of his teeth. One of the company, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... they had submitted to be so plundered, the Covenanting army came back and plundered them also. "Many of this company went and brack up the Bishop's yetts, set on good fires of his peats standing within the close: they masterfully broke up the haill doors and windows of this stately house; they brake down beds, boards, aumries, glassen windows, took out the iron stauncheons, brake in the locks, and such as they could carry had with them, and sold for little or nothing; but they got ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... was a figure of a man in more ways than his mere magnificent muscles. Besides, Romance had gilded him, this doughty, rough-hewn adventurer of the North, this man of many deeds and many millions, who had come down out of the Arctic to wrestle and fight so masterfully with the ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... of grays that took the road with the spirit of racers. The young woman sat erect and handled the reins masterfully, the while Muir leaned back and admired the steadiness of the slim, strong wrists, the businesslike directness with which she gave herself to her work, the glow of life whipped into her eyes and cheeks by ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... a leaf in the current. It took it up and shook it, and carried it masterfully away, like a Centaur carrying off a nymph. To keep some command on our direction required hard and diligent plying of the paddle. The river was in such a hurry for the sea! Every drop of water ran in a panic, like as many people in a frightened crowd. But what ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the middle of the night? Because I thought I would." He spoke masterfully. He didn't mean to ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... sigh and a curious look on her face that told of the disillusioning of sundry preconceived English ideas regarding the noble savages, turned to look at Jack, and her lips soon twitched with merriment as she listened to him masterfully arranging the ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... young lady, richly robed in trailing silk and velvet and fur; with a face fair as a star-flower, haughty as the face of any duchess; with amber eyes that gazed upon them contemptuously, masterfully, fearlessly; with wave upon wave of golden brown hair, clustering about the temples and snowy neck; and with scarlet lips half ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Chief uttered a sharp word, and the tribe fell silent. He rose, yet stiff from his wounds, and, towering masterfully over the council announced ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... as if pushed by some mighty force outside herself, leaned towards him, and he caught her in his arms. He tipped back her face and kissed her, and looked down at her masterfully. ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Leonardo says, "is the mistress of the higher intelligences"; and Goethe, in his most oracular utterances, recalls us to the same truth. What imagination does, and what the personal vision of the individual artist does, is to deal successfully and masterfully with this "given," this basic element. And this basic element, this permanent common ground, this universal human assumption, is just precisely what, in popular language, we call "Nature"; that substratum of objective reality in the appearances of things, which makes it possible for diversely constructed ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... account of their hypocritical poverty, obedience, and chastity, since indeed all these things are full of sham. In the greatest abundance of all things they boast of poverty. Although no class of men has greater license than the monks [who have masterfully decreed that they are exempt from obedience to bishops and princes], they boast of obedience. Of celibacy we do not like to speak, how pure this is in most of those who desire to be continent, Gerson indicates. And how many of them desire to ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... necessity. His feeling for nature, especially for her minutest and seemingly most insignificant phenomena, is closely akin to religion; there is an infinite charm in his description of the mysterious life of apparently lifeless objects; he renders all the sensuous impressions so masterfully that the reader often has the feeling of a physical experience; and it is but natural that up to his thirty-fifth year, before he discovered his literary talent, he had dreamed of being a landscape painter. Hebbel's epigram, "Know ye why ye are such past masters in painting beetles and buttercups? ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... corporations. It required ability and foresight to extend the right of "acquisitions" to the rights of corporate stocks and bonds. The leaders among the property owners possessed the necessary qualifications. They did their work masterfully, and to-day corporate property rights are more securely protected than were the rights of acquisitions ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... strode across the room, and, taking her two hands in his strong grasp, brought her forward, rather masterfully, to the window through ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... to witness that she would die a thousand deaths rather than betray her solemn trust. But even as she spoke the fictitious flame of courage withered away in her shrinking frame; and at the mere touch of her brother's finger and thumb upon her wrist, the mere sight of his face bending masterfully over her with white teeth just gleaming between his twisting smile and half-veiled eyes of insolent determination, she allowed him, unresisting, to take the bag from her side; protesting against the breach of faith only by her moans and the inept ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle |
