"Skillfully" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was suddenly dumped into a deep pool, where the course of the river was running smooth and placidly along almost at right angles with the rapids above. At this abrupt turn, evidences of former floods were plain. Immense rocks were cut and carved in spiral columns as skillfully as any sculptor could have chiseled them. Great flocks of wild black ducks peculiar to the Tagus, were continually rising at ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... the boat went on. But by and by it turned in its course and came beating back against the wind till opposite it was the city; then it tacked in to that same place near the bank, and there the boy was waving at them. Skillfully the dahabiyeh was brought about close to the high bank; and ropes thrown from bow and stern were quickly staked ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... excited with respect to Madame; for it is known that the greatest characters are those who flatter themselves the most in the comparisons they draw between themselves and others, between others and themselves. It may perhaps be asked what was Madame's motive for an attack so skillfully conceived and executed. Why was there such a display of forces, if it were not seriously her intention to dislodge the king from a heart that had never been occupied before, in which he seemed disposed to take refuge? Was there any necessity, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... skillfully balance himself upon the advancing or receding wave of white opinion concerning his race, is surest of such measure of prosperity as is permitted to men of dark skins. There are Negro teachers in ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... cared not how she wounded the feelings of others, if she thought by so doing it would further her own interest. She was determined to secure Sir Lexicon as a husband, and thus become Lady Chutny; and so skillfully did she angle, and played her cards with such great tact, that there was very little doubt of ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... guise of another. The reasons for such deceptions are various ones. Fashion dictated it. Cooks were not considered "clever" unless they could surprise guests with a commonplace food material so skillfully prepared that identification was difficult or impossible. Another reason was the absence of good refrigeration, making "masking" necessary. Also the ambition of hosts to serve a cheaper food for a more expensive one—veal ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... barely room for a road along the side of the mountain. Suddenly the march of the whole army was arrested by a fort, built upon an inaccessible rock, which rose pyramidally from the bed of the stream. Bristling cannon, skillfully arranged on well-constructed bastions, swept the pass, and rendered further advance apparently impossible. Rapidly the tidings of this unexpected obstruction spread from the van to the rear. Napoleon immediately hastened to the front ranks. Climbing the mountain opposite ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... literature depend largely on the manner in which the thought and emotion are expressed. In general the matter of discourse, which aims at the communication of ideas, is of more importance than the form. Words without thought, no matter how skillfully and musically they may be arranged, are nonsense. But in the lighter sorts of prose, which aim at entertainment, and in poetry, which is dependent on meter and harmony, form is of preeminent importance. The story of "Rip Van Winkle," for instance, owes its perennial charm to the inimitable ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... arm, new from the elbow. Charley knew an old man who used to whittle out all sorts of things with his jackknife, and who seemed as ready to give away as to sell his work. Charley had taken Biddy's doll to this man, who had willingly and quite skillfully mended it. He was on his way back to get it hid under Biddy's straw for a surprise for her, when he found Biddy struggling with Mrs. Brown. Charley's plan was perfect. The trouble was that he couldn't plan for Biddy too, and she had ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... free. There is no more melancholy slavery than the slavery of the passions. Ignorant self- indulgent people are led by their passions; they are rarely influenced by reason or by enlightened self-interest. Those who most skillfully and unscrupulously appeal to popular passions, when the people have power, have necessarily the ascendency in the community. The people, deceived, flattered, headstrong, follow them willingly. In times of war, and especially among a martial people, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... and who have tasted every disgrace, at times attain a perfection of hypocrisy calculated to deceive the most subtle penetration. Any one unacquainted with the antecedents of the landlady of the Poivriere would certainly have been impressed by her apparent candor, so skillfully did she affect a display of frankness, surprise, and fear. Her expression would have been simply perfect, had it not been for her eyes, her small gray eyes, as restless as those of a caged animal, and gleaming at ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... Nearly all birds build skillfully made nests with their bills and feet. Some make them out of straw, and the little birds usually line them with wool. The large birds of prey build theirs from small sticks and twigs. For the most part they hatch the eggs with the warmth of ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... these warriors could not be excelled. They took us to Fleurbaix, where their batteries were located on the outskirts of the town, in cellars in the back part of a building destroyed by German fire. There they had skillfully transformed the cellar into a gun pit, with a loophole four feet in diameter overlooking an orchard at the rear. Each time the gun spoke it would first be shoved into the hole and the brush and sandbags removed, and as quickly as the message ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... subjects were the same in all the countries. Love-the love of feudal chivalry—patriotism, and religion were the themes that employed the mediaeval lyrist in whatever country he sang. In all these lyrics much was made of form, the verse being always skillfully constructed, sometimes very complicated. The lyric poetry of Italy was more learned and more finished in style than that of ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... story in a Crockett novel, and has been ever since the days of 'The Stickit Minister.' Sandy is a typical new Scot, most modern and most masterful of all heroes in current fiction.... As winning a heroine as any one could desire is skillfully wrought into the warp and woof of Mr. Crockett's fabric of narrative. Popular favor is likely to score one ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... saw her father was watching her, and knew she must act skillfully to deceive him. Rallied and strengthened by the generous wine, her resolute will was soon on its throne again, and Mr. Ludolph with all his keen insight was no match for her. In a matter-of-fact tone ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... hast set spies on me. What! have they told thee I am a wanton? I do love this man As fits a virgin's heart. Heaven sent such thoughts To be our solace. But to act a toy For his loose hours, or worse, to find him one Procured for mine, grateful for opportunities Contrived with decency, spared skillfully From claims more urgent; not to dare to show Before the world my homage; when he's ill To be away, and only share his gay And lusty pillow; to be shut out from all That multitude of cares and charms that waits But on companionship; and then to feel These joys ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... asked the mother, calmly. 'You surely do not regret the act which removed our inexorable jailer, and opened to us such flowery avenues of pleasure? Ah, Josephine, the deed was admirably planned and skillfully ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... there will be lots of pickings in the rise and fall of the shares for the old joint account, which has been so profitable because you have so skillfully covered ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... Luck skillfully above the Belt, avoiding with practiced ease the few errant chunks of rock that hurtled up out of the swarms. He talked to Kane because he was starved for talk—certainly not because he was trying to play Sherlock. Pop had long ago realized that he was no mental giant. Besides, ...
— Turnover Point • Alfred Coppel
... their danger the men kept an alert watch. As they saw a seething streak described on the surface of the water, as an animal raged toward them, they would skillfully shift their positions. The animal would ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... the river, being thus enabled to rake vessels approaching from below before they came abreast. It comprised the fort proper and two water batteries, which together mounted forty-two guns. The sites of these fortifications had been skillfully chosen; but their armaments, though formidable and greatly superior to those of the fleet—regard being had to the commonly accepted maxim that a gun ashore is equivalent to four afloat—were not equal to the demands of the situation or to the importance of New Orleans. Out ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... respect for doctors—so much respect, in fact, that I keep diligently away from them. I know the preliminaries of their game and can take a dose of medicine myself as skillfully as they can administer it. Also, I know when I have a fever, and have a working knowledge of how my heart should beat and my other bodily functions be performed. I have frequently found that a ...
— The Fun of Getting Thin • Samuel G. Blythe
... sources, he held the practice in abhorrence, and the bibliographical results as fit only for the libraries of the illiterate rich. He admitted the possibility of doing such a thing well or ill; but at its best it was an ill thing skillfully done. ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... choir and instruments—just as Johnnie gave his command, and the ship of his dreams moved off across the roofs of the city, with no rolling from side to side. Skillfully she steered her own way among the chimneys till she was lifted above them, all the while tossing the blue air to either side of her prow exactly as if it were water, so that it rose up in cloud-topped waves, and curled, and broke along her rose-trimmed sides in crystal, from where it fell ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... integrity, to the government of this important district. The office of commandant is much coveted by the officers of the line who come to Angola, not so much for the salary as for the perquisites, which, when managed skillfully, in the course of a few years make one rich. An idea may be formed of the conduct of some of these officials from the following extract from the Boletin of Loanda of the 28th ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... was something wrong with the rider in khaki, and Eve became very anxious. Rapidly she thought of all Alan had gone through and wondered if it were telling on him. If so would he be able to ride his horse out, handle him skillfully over two rather treacherous hurdles, they were the easiest jumps in the course ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... woods and of half-stagnant rivers—the continuation of unusually sultry weather—overwork, and all the causes of acute dysentery, may produce that of a chronic nature; an acute dysentery—neglected, or badly, or even most skillfully treated—may degenerate into an incurable chronic affection. Half starve a cow, or over-feed her, milk her to exhaustion, or dry her milk too ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... scanty in length, and her orange-colored spencer, open in front, both well worn, and showing here and there a rent, but half conceal the graces of her form, and a pair of nimble feet, scorning the trammels of leather, pick their way skillfully along the stony path. That she does not contemn ornament, is shown by her one small golden ear-ring, long since divorced from its mate, and the devout faith which glows in her bosom is symbolized by the little silver image of our lady, slung from her neck by ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... ourselves intend our readers to feel it so, or we would not have spent so much time over it. But as regards that one adjective, Mr. Monckton is a better authority than we are. He had a document with him that, skillfully used, might make mischief for a time between these lovers. But he foresaw there could be no permanent result without the personal assistance of Mrs. Braham. That he could have commanded fourteen years ago, but now he felt how difficult it would be. He would have to threaten ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... there is a metallic chamber containing dynamite. Although no doubt the best engineer is the man who does good work with bad materials, yet I presume we should not recommend any member of our profession to select unsuitable materials with the object of showing how skillfully he can employ them. On the contrary, an engineer shows his ability by the choice of those materials which are the very best for his purpose, having regard, however, to the relative facilities of carriage, to the power of supply in sufficiently large quantities, to the ease with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... extension, to accomplish which the animal must be thrown. If successful in the reduction, then follows the application and adjustment of the apparatus of retention, which must be of the most perfect and efficient kind. Finally, this, however skillfully contrived and carefully adapted, will often fail to effect ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... a log in the woods, sitting side by side in the democracy of the out of doors. They talked about hunting and dogs. They took turns tossing biscuit to hungry old Prince, who sat at a distance like the gentleman he was, and who caught them skillfully, then lay down to eat them, his tail dragging gratefully across the ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... military efficiency was a potent weapon which, if skillfully handled, might well force the Army into important concessions leading to integration. Taking its cue from Davenport and Fowler, the committee would contend that, as the increasing complexity of war had created a demand for skilled manpower, the country could ill-afford ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... equilibrium which would prove the problem in one sense or another, and the war had no personal value for Adams except that it gave Hay his last great triumph. He had carried on his long contest with Cassini so skillfully that no one knew enough to understand the diplomatic perfection of his work, which contained no error; but such success is complete only when it is invisible, and his victory at last was victory of judgment, not of act. He could do nothing, and the whole country ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... the eighteenth, or rather near the break of dawn on the nineteenth, Captain Quinnox guided him from the dangerous streets of Edelweiss to the secret passage, and he was safe for the time being. The entrance to the passage was through a skillfully hidden opening in the wall that enclosed the park. A stone doorway, so cleverly constructed that it defied detection, led to a set of steps which, in turn, took one to a long narrow passage. This ended in a stairway fully a quarter ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... She parried skillfully all Lady Peters' questions; she professed entire ignorance of all that had happened. People appealed to her as Lord Arleigh's friend. They ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... Learning was conceded to be the rightful possession of the rich and powerful, and whether the kings or nobles of the court could read or not, most of the books were bought by them simply as art works. Many, of course, especially the most skillfully illuminated ones, were very beautiful and were well ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... the Aisles of the Rising and the Setting Sun. While in reality only connecting avenues, the wealth or careful detail lavished upon them makes of them charming interludes between the larger and more imposing courts, and yet so skillfully do they conform to the general plan that they blend one larger court with another, without expressing a distinct individuality of their own. They were planned by W. B. Faville of San Francisco. While identical in design upon three sides, their adaptation upon the fourth side to the courts ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... in his blanket skillfully. Bolles heard him say once or twice in a sort of judicial conversation with the blanket—"and all in the house—but we were not all in the house. Not all. Not a full house—" His tones drowsed comfortably into murmur, and then to quiet breathing. Bolles fed the fire, thatched the ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... out East dancing with delight. Tom goes in in a twinkling, and hits two heavy body blows, and gets away again before the slogger can catch his wind; which when he does he rushes with blind fury at Tom, and being skillfully parried and avoided, over-reaches himself and falls on his face, amid terrific cheers from ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... trying now to smooth over what 'Lina had told Alice of himself—trying to apologize for them both, and he did it so skillfully, that Alice felt an increased respect for the man whose real character she had so misunderstood. She, knew, however, that it could not be pleasant for him to speak of 'Lina, and so she led him ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... Mid[-e] familiarizes himself with the topography and characteristics of the country extending over a wide area, to ascertain the best feeding grounds of the various animals and their haunts at various seasons. He keeps himself informed by also skillfully conducting inquiries of returning hunters, and thus becomes possessed of a large amount of valuable information respecting the natural history of the surrounding country, by which means he can, with a tolerable amount of certainty, ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... seem as if the man was fond of money. But when the Major tried to draw Hucks into speaking of his past history and of Captain Wegg's singular life and death, the old fellow became reserved at once and evaded the inquiries most skillfully. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... close behind. The First Corps reached Authe and Chatillon-Sur-Bar, the Fifth Corps, Fosse and Nouart, and the Third Corps Halles, penetrating the enemy's line to a depth of twelve miles. Our large caliber guns had advanced and were skillfully brought into position to fire upon the important lines at Montmedy, Longuyon, and Conflans. Our Third Corps crossed the Meuse on the 5th and the other corps, in the full confidence that the day was theirs, eagerly cleared ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... admitted. "For the moment I did forget." He looked back at Trigger. "The First Lady gives," he told her, "and the First Lady takes away. She has given me wealth and much leisure. She takes from me now and then a memory. Very skillfully, since she was my pupil. But still the mind must be dim by a little ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... plan of attack very skillfully. Although never putting herself forward, but being to all appearance thoroughly immersed in the bliss of the honeymoon, in the quiet life of the country, in music, and in books, she little by little worked upon Glafira, until that ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... continually confused issues and blocked reforms in the narrower spheres. Masses of voters will support a candidate for governor or mayor simply because he is a Republican or Democrat, although the national party issues in no way enter into the campaign. Bosses skillfully play on this blind party allegiance, and many a scoundrel or incompetent has ridden into office under the party banner. The separation of local from national elections has proved itself a necessity; in the most advanced communities they are now ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... tearing his handkerchief, made lint of one piece, bandages of the other, took some water from a well dug in the middle of the enclosure, bathed the wound, and skillfully placed the wet rag on Harry ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... and he was sorry a moment afterward for what he had said. Andy Byers exchanged no more words with him, and skillfully combined a curt and crusty manner toward him with an aspect of contemplative dreariness. Occasionally, as they paused to rest, Byers ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... if he thought the matter had been arranged very skillfully; but Fred was yet at a loss to understand how anything could be gained ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... of her free time by her husband's side, amusing him as skillfully as a mother. What was she doing? Why, she was simply basting fresh cuffs into her afternoon gown. He was getting so popular that she had to be ready for callers every day. Would he like her to keep George Sewall for dinner, then they could play dominoes ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... the "parade" had reached the lot. Cages came creaking through the wide aperture at the end, and were wheeled skillfully into place by expert drivers. Gayly dressed horsemen trotted through. Every one was shouting ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... his staff don't live there. I figure that the guards, and the servants, and Miss Atheson will be the only ones in the house. The fire will bring all but Miss Atheson to the back. A rope ladder skillfully thrown will do the rest. Now you see why I can't mix the Padre up in that. We may be arrested, though I don't think we shall. The Minister doesn't want anything of that kind. This morning I'll flash the ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... double chin, but rather a chin and a half, and the rest of him followed this moderate example. His grey hair retired in a pronounced estuary over each temple, leaving a beautifully brushed peninsula between. He had no sense of humour, but hid this deformity skillfully. Hardly anybody knew that he was a poet, except presumably his dog. He often talked to his dog; he told it every speakable thought that he had. This was his only bad habit. Occasionally his dog was heard to reply in a small curious voice proceeding ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... used the public deposits for the purpose of extending its discounts. From a general view of the debits and credits, as presented, it appeared that the affairs of the Bank of the United States, considered as a moneyed institution, had been wisely and skillfully managed. The advantages derived by the government Mr. Gallatin stated to be, 1, safekeeping of the public moneys; 2, transmission of the public moneys; 3, collection of the revenue; 4, loans. The strongest objection ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... fact, an' I'll show yer how ter take his scalp," replied Frank McCarthy the train-master, and he skillfully cut off the scalp-lock and ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... conviction that the author of this little volume presents this important topic in a manner at once attractive and convincing. The teachings of nature, history, and the Word of God are freely drafted, and skillfully arranged to show what nature designed, what God has taught, and what woman has proved herself capable of being and doing in the world. The abuses to which the sex has been subject from the physically stronger "lords of creation," in heathen nations and ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... had seen recently more misery than even his toughened sensibilities could uncomplainingly endure. Some of the fund may have gone into the disburser's pocket. A much greater portion of it, I am prepared to affirm, was distributed in those intimate and effective forms of beneficence which, skillfully enough managed, almost lose the taint of charity. O'Farrell was tactful and he knew his people. Many cases over which organized philanthropy would have blundered sorely, were handled with a discretion little short of inspired. Much wretchedness was relieved; much suffering ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... great powers to sign with him a treaty of peace and amity. The political tact and sagacity of Lorenzo de' Medici enabled him to develop and substantiate the principle of balance then introduced into Italian politics; nor was there any apparent reason why the equilibrium so hardly won, so skillfully maintained, should not have subsisted but for Lodovico Sforza's invitation to the French in 1494. Up to that date the more recent wars of Italy had been principally caused by the encroachments of Venice and the nepotism of successive Popes. They raised no new enthusiasm ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... was covered with blood from a scalp wound, but he was equal to several ordinary men. Skillfully parrying the blows directed at his life, he had laid more than one burly ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... between Howe and the fleet at Elkton. This might, however, have brought disaster and he soon decided to retire. His movement was ably carried out. Both sides suffered in the woodland fighting but that night the British army encamped in Washington's position at Chadd's Ford, and Howe had fought skillfully and won an ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... the Dartaway, Dick managing the biplane as skillfully as if he was a seasoned aviator. Over the farms and barns and houses they sailed, creating much astonishment. The inhabitants came rushing forth, some with milk pails, and women with dish cloths and towels in their hands. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... and went trotting away up the river, and Blue quickened his stride a little and followed after. Billy Louise left the reins loose upon his neck. Blue could handle cattle alone quite as skillfully as with a rider, if ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... old stories of characters similar to Tom Thumb. A certain man was so thin that he could jump through the eye of a needle. Another crept nimbly to a spider's web which was hanging in the air, and danced skillfully upon it until a spider came, which spun a thread round his neck and throttled him. A third was able to pierce a sunmote with his head and pass his whole body through it. A fourth was in the habit of riding an ant, but the ant threw him off and trampled ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... 'em try." Meantime several male members of the congregation, who at one time or another had sat on the roof during the hottest of the dog-days to see that shingling operations were conscientiously and skillfully performed, were very pessimistic as to any ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the wheel, and again Ida took it in a firm grasp. But the change was not skillfully enough made, and the next moment the Streak cut diagonally across the road, right in front ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... etc.? Where in the second paragraph is found the words which are the source of "my design," mentioned in the third? How does the author pass from the fourth paragraph to the fifth? In the same way note the connections between the succeeding paragraphs. They are most skillfully dovetailed together. Now make a list of the phrases in the first fifteen pages which introduce paragraphs, telling from what in the preceding paragraph each new paragraph springs. Do you think that such a felicitous result just happened? or ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... material or spiritual, originated in obscure closets and caves, in the open fields, beneath the star-domed vault of night, and during all these ages have received chief furtherance from individual genius or application, the schools but recording the progress made, spreading abroad more or less skillfully, the sacred fire wrested from Heaven by intellectual Titans. Still the pedagogue may well be proud of his profession, for it is a privilege to think—or even think at—the thoughts of men of genius, to officiate as their messengers to mankind. Let these royal heralds ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... lamps suspended above the tables. Then he addressed the Wilbur twin, now skillfully prolonging the ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... and Payne and Higgins plunged to their task as soon as breakfast was over. A hard spit of land ran northwest, from the saw grass and they followed it till it ended abruptly at a narrow gully filled to the brim with liquid mud. Swiftly and skillfully they bridged the space with saplings and branches, a process which they were forced to repeat at intervals throughout the forenoon. Luncheon they ate seated on cypress roots in water up to their knees; and soon after Higgins put a bullet between the yellow eyes of a panther which glared at them ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... said the gate-keeper, seating himself by the fountain—which was not a fountain at all, but only an imitation very skillfully done in aquamarine—"you are to stay here a year. Then, when the spring comes you are to be changed into a primrose, if you will consent to it, and grow up out of the ground like other flowers. Hidden deep within the woods, you must wait patiently, through sunshine and rain, till some one ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a mysterious language with no apparent meaning, nor have I been able to find the key to it in any way. It is very skillfully made, for all the usual tests of cipher writing fail in this. The person who procured it did not get near enough till the latter part of the interview, so that he gained no explanation ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... stared across the room at the queer old man. The latter at first seemed to pay her no attention. But finally she saw that he was skillfully "taking stock" of her from behind the ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... repeatedly expressed it in various parts of his works. "Give me," said that great man, "the French infantry and the Mameluke horse, and I will conquer the world." It was his constant affirmation that cavalry, equally brave and skillfully led, should always, other things being equal, overthrow infantry; and that the contrary opinion which generally prevails, was owing to horse, considered as the sole strength of war during the feudal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... rehearsal of country dances, reels, and more serious music, was enjoyed not only by the family gathered to hear it, but the loud tones floated from the windows and into the school room of the Academy in the next street. As the strains of Hail Columbia poured into the school room, Master Cory skillfully met a moment of open rebellion with these words: "Boys, that organ is a remarkable instrument. You never heard the like of it before. I give you half an hour's intermission. Go into the street and listen to ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... said, no doubt, for the Harvard veteran's point of view. The proper kind of credit may be a better asset for eleven boys than any championship; and to fish a bit of water consistently and skillfully, with your best flies and in your best manner, is perhaps achievement enough. So says the Foe of Compromise, at least. But the Yale spirit will be prying into the basket in search of fish; it prefers concrete results. If all men are by nature either Platonists or Aristotelians, ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... men, while they smoked, got up a game of ecarte, which Monsieur Follenvie was invited to join, as they intended pumping him skillfully as to the means that could be employed for overcoming the officer's opposition to their departure. Unfortunately, he would absorb himself wholly in his cards, and neither listened to what they said nor gave any answer to their questions, but repeated incessantly, "Play, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... D. Sanborn, who is now just passing the threshold of the "three score and ten," and completing nearly a half century of various and valuable connection with his Alma Mater; of Oliver P. Hubbard, who is still patiently and skillfully unfolding the secrets of science in halls which have echoed his voice for more than forty years; of Samuel G. Brown, the music of whose chaste and charming lectures on Rhetoric still lingers in the ears of a long line of pupils; of Daniel J. Noyes, whose fidelity, courtesy, and kindness ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... to her. She knew how to make herself indispensable and always to show that indispensability so skillfully ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... is coming to be considered the prime criterion of effective school supervision,—not what skill the supervisor may show in testing results, or in keeping his pupils up to a given standard, or in choosing his teachers skillfully, but rather the success with which he is able to take the teaching material that is at his hand, and train it ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... car got in from Colfax and he had the party over there for cigars and more talk about himself, which was skillfully led by Ben. Then the president invited Ed to hitch his car on and come along with them for a little trip, and talk over mining and investments, and so on, and what the outlook was in the Southwest. So Ed went with 'em and continued ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... door now, she guiding him toward it as imperceptibly and skillfully as if she controlled ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... getting his line arranged to his satisfaction, he took firm hold of it a few feet above the squid; we all looked admiringly on. By a series of dexterous gyrations about his head he sent it flying a hundred feet out into the water—it was beautifully done. Skillfully he hauled it in, hand over hand. The squid followed, as bright and shining as when he had cast it out, but no fish. He made ready again, and with that nonchalant air of a man who feels perfectly sure that he can do just ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... splendidly got up, for example, many wagons were drawn along with stagings of ships and other constructions. Then there came the company of the Prophets in their order, and scenes from the New Testament, such as the Annunciation, the Three Magi riding great camels, and other strange beasts, very skillfully arranged, and also how Our Lady fled into Egypt— very conducive to devotion—and many other things which for shortness I must leave out. Last of all came a great dragon, which St. Margaret and her maidens ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer
... throws to this dog, or allows to be thrown to him, all the decrees demanded by the Girondists as a bone for him to gnaw on.—Sure of their strength the Girondists renew the attack, and the plan of their campaign seems to be skillfully prepared. They are quite willing to retain the King on his throne, but on the condition that he shall be a mere puppet; that he shall recall the patriot ministers, allow them to appoint the Dauphin's tutor, and that Lafayette ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... cause, which is a passion, an impetus or impulse, by which the soul is moved to show loyalty to an enemy? These impulses, as I said, are found also in the ungodly. If exercised for the good of the country, they become virtues; if for its injury, they become vices. This Aristotle sets forth very skillfully. ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... dark, fallen world and the undimmed luster of epic realms (p. 10). By using the ambiguous word parody, which in the eighteenth century could mean either ridicule or straight imitation,[23] Harte skillfully suggests the complex purpose of Pope's epic backdrop. The dunces, not Pope, ridicule the epic world by their words and deeds; but in turn, this world ridicules them simply by being "imitated" and incorporated in The Dunciad. And its incorporation is by no means equivalent to ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... cook would not believe in them, and he did not send them, till they were quite faint, the peppery and muddy draught which impudently affected to be coffee, the oily slices of fugacious potatoes slipping about in their shallow dish and skillfully evading pursuit, the pieces of beef that simulated steak, the hot, greasy biscuit, steaming evilly up into the face when opened, and then soddening ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Elamites, with Susa for their capital; to the north of these were the warlike Kassites. The Sumerians, who preceded the Semites in the occupancy of Babylonia, were of an unknown stock. They were the founders of Babylonian culture. Even by them the soil was skillfully cultivated with the help of dikes and canals. They were the inventors of the cuneiform writing. The cuneiform characters were originally pictures; but these were resolved into wedge-shaped characters of uniform appearance, the significance of which was determined ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... word is very skillfully chosen. It conveys, without the slightest disrespect, Esther's sense of the arbitrary character of ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... stitches were used in this form of work. Lace stitches, made with bodkins or "piercers," or darning needles of sufficient size to make perforations, were skillfully rimmed and joined together in patterns by finer stitches, and open borders, and hemstitching, and dainty inventions of all kinds, for the embellishment of the fabrics upon which ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... with her work. Marvelling at her determination, touched by this pathetic exhibition of maternal devotion, Virginia would sit silently for hours, her eyes filled with tears, watching the dear, tired fingers swiftly and skillfully ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... the baggage, and without these it was an exciting and delicate thing to land that fish. The game was, to prevent him dashing away down the rapids, or diving beneath the shelving rock above, the sharp edge of which would have severed the line like a knife. Skillfully and beautifully Smith played him for a quarter of an hour, until at last the fish turned his orange belly to the surface, and ceased to struggle. He ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... great art the little boat that had served them so well, sinking it in the heart of the densest growth and then drawing back the bushes and weeds so skillfully that the keenest Indian eye would not have noticed that anyone ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fugitives therefore resolved to give their enemies battle, before surrendering. Edward felt certain that one of the pursuers received a cut from his knife, but the extent of the injury was unknown to him. For a time the struggle was of a very serious character; by using his weapons skillfully, however, Edward managed to keep the hand-cuff off of himself, but was at this point separated from his two brothers. No further knowledge of them did he possess; nevertheless, he trusted that they succeeded in fighting their way through to freedom. How any were successful in making ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... manipulate events without an exaggerated respect for probability, molding them to his will, dressing and arranging them so as to attract, excite, or affect the reader. The scheme of his romance is no more than a series of ingenious combinations, skillfully leading to the issue. The incidents are planned and graduated up to the culminating point and effect of the conclusion, which is the crowning and fatal result, satisfying the curiosity aroused from the first, closing the interest, and ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... gay cavaliers at the court of Charles I. of England, was Sir John Suckling, a dashing, reckless, improvident fellow, who acted the gallant to the ladies, played skillfully at bowls and deeply at cards, was always ready at a frolic and merry-making, and died when scarcely more than thirty years of age; the author of three or four dramas of no more than ordinary merit, and of a few snatches of poetry, chiefly love-songs, betraying talent sufficient to have rendered ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... for a moment seem to deny, the paramount necessity of teaching the Negro to work, and to work steadily and skillfully; or seem to depreciate in the slightest degree the important part industrial schools must play in the accomplishment of these ends, but I do say, and insist upon it, that it is industrialism drunk with its vision of success, ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... himself, and through her more than one vote, which otherwise might have been lost, was cast in his favor. As she had worked for him, so she now worked for Ethelyn, approaching Richard very adroitly and managing so skillfully that when at last, on the occasion of her visit to his mother's, Aunt Barbara asked him, in her presence and Ethelyn's, if he had never thought it would be well both for himself and wife to live ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... behind her forever the free, happy days of colthood. At first Ranald was unwilling to trust her to any other hands than his own, but when he saw how skillfully and gently Yankee handled her, soothing her while he harnessed and hitched her up, he recognized that she was safer with Yankee than with himself, and allowed him to ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... and the character of those minds upon which he has to act; when he explores deliberately the nature of the field which he has to cultivate, and of the objects which he wishes to accomplish, and applies means judiciously and skillfully adapted to the object, he must necessarily take a strong interest in his work. But when, on the other hand, he goes to his employment only to perform a certain regular round of daily toil, undertaking nothing and anticipating nothing but this dull ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... more. It was difficult, to say the least, when going at such a frightful pace through the air. Andy divided his time watching first the near-by aeroplane, which Percy was so skillfully guiding toward the haven ahead; and then turning his attention ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... exists we know, but she failed to recognize the same genus in the quite harmless-looking gentleman, who, occasionally on the stage after a performance, or in her drawing-room, engaged her in conversation, when leading questions were skillfully disguised; and, then, much to her astonishment, afterward produced a picture of her in print with materials she was quite unconscious of having furnished. She failed, she admits now, to see the conventional "note-book," so symbolical of the calling at ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... grocer's lad that she "was a bit cracky;" but he let her sit on his cart for all that, and trundled her the length of two or three streets; and further revived her drooping spirits by a dab of hot brown bread, scooped skillfully out of the side of a loaf which, as he ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Sam, aiming a heavy blow at Fred's breast. But the latter skillfully raised his books, and Sam's knuckles were the ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... to put a boat in. But, oh, how those fellows worked! For a whole week they brought rocks—big rocks—logs, and mud. Some of those stones and logs were dragged and rolled a quarter of a mile. They built right skillfully, too; they ricked it and they anchored the cribs; they piled in the rocks ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... smoothly, soothingly, skillfully, confident of his power to manage "gels." Once in a while he saw her teeth gleam as though she smiled. As they came back to Millings in the afterglow of a brief Western twilight, she unfastened her veil and showed a ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... the front row of the gallery, and presently she leaned over to gaze down at the panorama below, the women in the boxes and stalls, whose bare shoulders and skillfully coiffured hair flashed with jewels. Suddenly her ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... time Tom had skillfully threaded his way with his companion across the street, and landed her in safety on the ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... sure, was a part of the skillfully executed plot, and he was convinced that the woman must have robbed him during the moment when he had bent forward and tried to extricate it for her; while she must have concealed the package somewhere in the coupe ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... which, as read in 1850, is curious: "I had looked," he says, "upon this visit as the farewell of the safely-landed voyager (landed, too, amid storm and tempest), to the wise and careful pilot who had steered him skillfully through rock and breaker, and now pushed off alone amid the darkness, to be seen no ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Jacques skillfully wheeled the machine and describing a great loop, doubled on his course. Meanwhile he rose to greater and greater heights. The earth was now many thousand feet below; even the clouds were beneath them in ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay
... easily won to the scheme of reconstructing their schools "on the manual labor system." In this they saw the redemption of the free Negroes of the North. These gentlemen were afraid that the colored people were not paying sufficient attention to the development of the power to use their hands skillfully.[1] One of the first acts of the convention was to inquire as to how fast colored men were becoming attached to mechanical pursuits,[2] and whether or not there was any prospect that a manual labor school for the instruction of the youth would shortly be established. The report of ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... kettle which hung over the fire. This usually contained a turkey or partridges shot by one of the men on the way. In addition, there were primitive spits on which were broiled huge pieces of meat, while in the hot ashes Mrs. Bradley skillfully baked small loaves of delicious corn bread. In a smaller kettle Agnes cooked the tea, of which the pioneers were very fond, and which was the only beverage the white people drank while on the journey. For while the Indians drank freely of the streams, the pioneers ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... Will skillfully laid the Gem alongside the dock and soon the little party of young people were trooping up to the store, which was near the ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... The two field guns, skillfully handled by black artillery-men, did good work, plowing huge furrows through the assailants and throwing them into confusion at every charge. Still the confederates, having finally organized into line ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... fundamental fault of the Hungarian electorate is that it has been shaped, and is deliberately maintained, in the interest of a race which comprises numerically but 45.4 per cent of the country's population.[697] So skillfully, indeed, have electoral qualifications and electoral proceedings been devised in the Magyar interest that the non-Magyar majority has but meager representation, and still less influence, at Budapest.[698] Even ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... Bonaparte skillfully took advantage of the disturbances, and the massacres consequent on them, to adopt towards the Senate the tone of an offended conqueror. He published a declaration that the Venetian Government was the most treacherous imaginable. The weakness and cruel hypocrisy of the Senate facilitated ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... stragglers and deserters that fell into our hands while we were pressing his rear from General Pope's flank. The number of these was quite large, and indicated that the enemy was considerably demoralized. Under such circumstances, an energetic and skillfully directed pursuit might not have made certain the enemy's destruction, but it would largely have aided in disintegrating his forces, and I never could quite understand why it was not ordered. The desultory affairs between rear ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Julia, "I am just taking lessons," so Mrs. Carrington sat down to the instrument, and as Julia saw how skillfully her white, jewelled fingers touched the keys, she resolved to spare no pains to become as fine a player as Mrs. Carrington, particularly as she saw that Dr. Lacey was very fond of music and kept calling for piece after piece till the ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... English steed prancing and snorting between the polished shafts of a tilbury as light as your own heart, and moving his glistening croup under the quadruple network of the reins and ribbons that you so skillfully manage with what grace and elegance the Champs Elysees can bear witness—you drive a good solid Norman horse with a ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... what honor is. For centuries honor was maintained and justice determined among men by a strong arm and a skillfully used weapon. It mattered not that often the guilty won and the dishonorable succeeded. Death was the arbiter, honor was appeased, and men were satisfied. But with the growth of civilization there slowly came to man the consciousness that honor can be maintained only by ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... fastened to a leg of the bed. At first, owing to the extraordinary posture of the body, it was feared that another tragedy had been enacted. The victim of an uncanny outrage was lying on his side, and his arms and legs were roughly but skillfully tied with a stout rope in such wise that he resembled a fowl trussed for the oven. After securing him in this fashion, his assailants had fastened the ends of the rope to the iron frame of the bed, and his only possible movement was an ignominious half roll, back and forth, in a ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... the chute, was a mother with her two-year-old child in the sling on back, where it rocked and swayed to and fro, happy the entire time. It was often necessary for the mother to adjust her baby in the sling whenever it was leaning uncomfortably too far to one side or the other, but she did it skillfully, always with a shrug of the shoulders, for both hands were full. The mother looked strong, was apparently accepting her lot as a matter of course and often, with a smile, turned her face to the child, who patted it and played with her ears and hair. ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King |
