"Consummate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... represented as a German from the west bank of the Rhine fleeing from the turmoil caused by the French Revolution. The political element is not a mere background, but is woven into the plot with consummate skill, being used, at one point, for example, in the characterization of Dorothea, who before the time of her appearance in the poem has been deprived of her first betrothed by the guillotine; and, at another, in furnishing a telling contrast between the revolutionary uproar in ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... I had to deal with a bold adventuress, with a consummate actress, who, finding herself in a dangerous situation, had adopted this daring line of defence, and now by her personal charm sought to ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... not afford to pay the fee required by law. And why should they marry? There is no virtue among them. No," he said, "they had almost gotten down to the condition of the Australian savages, who, if not prevented by the police, would consummate their animal-like nuptials in ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... life on it—another victim! Poor child! She had better be dead than in the power of that atrocious villain and consummate hypocrite!" said Old Hurricane, passing on to the examination of his favorite horses, one of which, the swiftest in the stud, he found galled on the shoulders. Whereupon he flew into a towering passion, abusing his unfortunate groom by every opprobrious epithet blind fury could suggest, ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... march of two hundred and twenty miles over rough mountainous roads lay between the Federals and the Ohio River. To the credit of General G. W. Morgan be it said, he conducted the retreat with consummate skill. It was expected that a Confederate force in Eastern Kentucky under General Humphrey Marshall would try to cut the Federals off; but Marshall never appeared, and it was left to the brigade ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... onslaught upon me on Sabbath evening, a week ago, acted no less like a pack of fools than a pack of devils; and this can be shown almost in a single word, by stating that the whole story of my intention of being married on the evening in question, or that I went to Fulton intending to consummate an affair of the kind at any period of my recent visit there, is a fabrication from the beginning to the end. The wretch who 'fixed up' just such a story as he thought would inflame the rabble to take my life, will yet, I trust, meet with deserved scorn and ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... loyalty of his special powers. Nevertheless, there are times when the presiding intelligence descends into expression by a law and necessity of its own, as clouds descend into rain; and perhaps it is only then that consummate work is done. He who by his particular powers and gifts serves as a conduit for this flowing significance may indeed toil as no drudge ever did or can, yet with such geniality and success, that he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... happiness of the community to which he belongs, so the welfare of individual nations can only be secured by the general welfare of the world. Of these Pitt was one. But he rose high above the rest in the consummate knowledge and the practical force which he brought to the realization of his aims. His strength lay in finance; and he came forward at a time when the growth of English wealth made a knowledge of finance essential to a great Minister. The ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... a home with the prince of Mutsu, a nobleman of the Fujiwara clan. Here he spent his days in military exercises and the chase, and by the time he was twenty-one had gained a reputation as a soldier of great valor and consummate skill, and as a warrior in whom the true spirit of chivalry seemed inborn. A youth of such honor, virtue, courage, and martial fire Japan ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... them at six paces' distance: he fires at hazard, without disquieting himself as to the choice of his victim; and the soldier, who was bold enough to undertake this double murder, has not force nor courage to consummate it. He flies, carrying in his hand a useless whip, with a heavy mantle on his shoulders, in spite of the detonation of two pistols at his ears, and the rapid steps of an angry master in pursuit, which ought to have set him upon some better ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and Boswell, like a consummate general who leaves nothing to chance, went himself to fetch Johnson to the dinner. The great man had forgotten the engagement, and was "buffeting his books" in a dirty shirt and amidst clouds of dust. When ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... appear, for the pleasure of seeming to agree with it in a kind of way and partly to have the satisfaction of distinguishing and of showing it to be a mistake. Then, he could not quote Goethe without apologising for the warmth of that consummate artist's expressions and explaining some of them away. Again, he was pitiful or disdainful, or both, of Scott's estimate; and he did not care to discuss the sentiment which made that great and good man think Cain and the Giaour fit stuff for family reading on a Sunday after prayers, though ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... because she had had a wart on her left which had been removed—and successfully. Goethe probably wrote this without a chuckle; he believed what a good many people who have never read Wilhelm Meister believe still, namely, that it was a work full of pathos, of fine and tender feeling; yet a less consummate humorist must have felt that there was scarcely a paragraph in it from first to last the chief merit of which did ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... keenest enjoyment over the novelty of the situation. The Wiggses ate as he had never seen people eat before. "For speed and durability they break the record," was his mental comment. He sat by and, with consummate tact, made them forget everything but the good ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan
... his heart. Very early, those a mother's care had endeavoured to instil into him had been eradicated; and step by step—slow at first, perhaps—he had advanced from bad to worse, till he became the consummate villain he now was. But I am forestalling the account ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... and, on a general summons of his name, he at length rose. The world is too familiar with the name of this celebrated man to permit more than a sketch of his style. It has been said that he had no style. But this could be said only by those who regard consummate ability as an accident. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... fires of transporting expectation, the steady gaze of blue-eyed northerners firm and rapt and steadfast; the power of huge, colossal frames of muscle, the sinuous activity of spare and slender forms all attired in that consummate garb of blue and white, their caps of metal reflecting ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... touch on their own special interests, and that other, the unscrupulous but active professional politician, having been dishonored at home, still astute and determined, seeks new fields for booty, obtain positions of trust and then consummate peculation and outrage under the forms of law. But the necessity for the honest administration of the law eventually asserts itself for ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... was the great event of his life; and it would have been, if Sir William Keith had been an honest man instead of a rogue. For an American youth, eighteen years of age, to represent the governor of Pennsylvania in the city of London, to consummate a business enterprise of the greatest importance to a thriving American town, was an unusual occurrence. Any youth of considerable ability and ambition must have realized the value and dignity of the enterprise; but to such a youth as Benjamin was,—talented, ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... of Ja'afar's marriage; and, having ended the ceremony, they distributed meat and drink to the poor in honour of the wedding, and Abd al-Malik bin Marwan said to Ja'afar, "Deign, O my lord, come hither with me and become my guest, and I will set apart for thee a place wherein thou canst consummate thy marriage." But the other replied, "Nay, I may not do so; I am sent on public affairs by the Commander of the Faithful and I purpose setting off with my bride and marching without further delay." The Grandees of Syria spent that night until morning without any being able ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... the beauty of the verses." There is not a greater difference between an early and a late picture of Raphael; and what is interesting and curious to remark, is the circumstance, that poet and painter (in their gradual advance towards consummate excellence in their respective arts) seemed to have passed through the same stages of development. In the earlier work all is studied, elaborated, carefully and scientifically composed; worked ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... withering glance. "It does not begin to be as hard as your shameful conduct merits. To think of losing a fortune like that for the sake of sentimental folly! I didn't think you were such a consummate fool." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... without his knowledge or solicitation, soon had an opportunity of exhibiting those admirable qualities as a field-officer for which he has since become so justly distinguished. His coolness in the unfortunate affair at Vienna, and his consummate military skill in the management of his command at Bull Run, were universally commended. At the close of that eventful conflict he marched his regiment back to Centerville in the same good order in ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... shallows in his character, assuming the masculine or feminine role. The Latin recognises this by instinct. Just as his nouns are always either masculine or feminine, so are his ideas. And his women, who have never heard of "bachelor girls" or "palship," have achieved with consummate skill all and more than the Imogenes have ever imagined. Any one who has ever enjoyed the friendship of such women will recall that subtle aroma of sex which informs the whole affair. The coarse-grained ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... most of the women of the different sections of the country busied themselves from a period beginning probably about 1710 and extending to 1840, and it is safe to say, notwithstanding the apparent simplicity of life between those dates, that at no period in the history of woman was as much time and consummate skill bestowed upon wearing apparel. Many a young girl of the day embroidered her own wedding dress, and during the months or years of its preparation suffered and enjoyed the same ambition which goes on in the present, to the acquirement of some wonder of French ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... lacs, were afterwards confiscated by the present King, on the ground of unpaid balances. He took into keeping Dulwee, the younger of the two sisters; but she was afterwards seduced away from him by one of his creatures, a consummate knave, Wasee Allee, whose wife she now is. Dhunneea, the eldest sister, is still residing at Lucknow. Roshun-od Dowlah's first wife took off with her more than three lacs of rupees in our Government securities, and his son, the Commander-in-Chief, took off ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... like Niemann as Siegmund, Hill as Alberich, and Schlosser as Mime, showed already in fact what heroic deeds in the art of representation were presented. The fetters of the maidenly bride were indeed broken that she might live. "We have overcome the first. We must yet consummate a true hero-deed in a short time," Wagner said, when at the first close of the Cycle silent emotion had given place to a perfect storm of enthusiasm, but, he exultantly added: "If we shall carry it out as I now clearly see that it will be done, we may well say that we have ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... is 62 years old, of medium height, and with sandy hair and whiskers. An active, iron man, with a clear sharp eye. A man of consummate shrewdness—of great executive ability. He was born in the State of Vermont, and so by the way was Heber C. Kimball, who will wear the Mormon Belt when Brigham ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... placed as the earliest poet of Greece, where he first introduced astronomy, divinity, music and poetry; all which he had learned in Egypt. He introduced also the rites of Bacchus, which from him were called Orphica. He was a person of most consummate knowledge, and the wisest, as well as the most ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... pitfalls: it may expose one to the charge of egotism, of insincerity, or of false modesty; and it may draw the attention of the audience away from the matter in hand. To use this method successfully one should possess consummate tact and ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... regard me as a consummate simpleton, or yourself a Goliath. This bottle is mine, and mine only. It is a great fortune for one, but of less value than a toadstool for two. I am willing to divide fairly. This secret would be of no service to a coward. ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... wills to do or say Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best: All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded; wisdom in discourse with her Loses discountenanced, and like folly shows; Authority and reason on her wait, As one intended first, not after made Occasionally; and to consummate all, Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat Build in her, loveliest, and create an awe About her, as ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... a boy—a street boy—a city Arab. To a Londoner any description of this boy would be superfluous, but it may be well to state, for the benefit of the world at large, that the class to which he belonged embodies within its pale the quintessence of rollicking mischief, and the sublimate of consummate insolence. ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... voyage—he vanished thus overboard to my infinite consternation. Dominic and I had been talking business together aft, and Cesar had sneaked up behind us to listen, for, amongst his other perfections, he was a consummate eavesdropper and spy. At the sound of the heavy plop alongside horror held me rooted to the spot; but Dominic stepped quietly to the rail and leaned over, waiting for his nephew's miserable head to bob up ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... must be concealed under the veil of devotion. The streets, formerly so full of life and animation, are now deserted; games of all kinds, even the most innocent, are sternly prohibited; singing is a punishable offence; and the consummate profligacy of attempting to dance would certainly find no mercy. On Sundays, no cooking is permitted, nor must even a fire be kindled: nothing, in short, must be done; the whole day is devoted to prayer, with how much real piety may ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... lustily on all the abuses within reach of his newspaper, and which inspired the 'father of the English Novel' with the admitted motive,—"I declare, that to recommend Goodness and Innocence hath been my sincere Endeavour in this History"—if not with the consummate art of ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... who had established themselves in poor Nutter's domicile did not appear at all disconcerted by the priest's summons. His knock at the hall-door was attended to with the most consummate assurance by M. M.'s maid, just as if the premises had belonged to her ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... work, wrought by the chisel of some primitive artist, imparted to his figure an air of barbaric majesty, a savage grandeur more appropriate, perhaps, to the character of this monster-slaying hero than would have been the work of a sculptor consummate in ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... had anyone told me that I was sheltering beneath my roof-tree such a consummate actress, I should have been the most surprised woman in Montcliff. Upon my word I never ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Nereus, the personification of the calm and pleasant aspect of the mighty deep. Nioerd's wife, Skadi, is the Northern huntress; she therefore resembles Diana. Like her, she bears a quiver full of arrows, and a bow which she handles with consummate skill. Her short gown permits the utmost freedom of motion, also, and she, too, is generally ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... of the "Roman de la Rose," also in our great national collection (Harl. 4425). This justly famous MS. is a real masterpiece in every department, whether we consider the expression in its miniatures or the consummate technical skill displayed in the drawing and colour of the borders. These secondary embellishments consist of fruit, flowers, birds, beetles, and butterflies. But, of course, the great interest of this book lies in its miniatures, ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... would do much as Guy himself had done when he discovered Montague Nevitt's theft of the six thousand. He would follow the villain till he ran him to earth, and would tax him at last to his face with the open proofs of his consummate treachery. What's bred in the bone will out in the blood. The Kelmscott strain worked alike its own way ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... brilliant period of the Edinburgh Review; it was planned and conducted with consummate talent by a small society of men of the most liberal principles. Their powerful articles gave a severe and lasting blow to the oppressive and illiberal spirit which had hitherto prevailed. I became acquainted with some of these illustrious men, and with many of their immediate successors. I then ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... dismay were so real that they startled me; yet, knowing what a consummate actor he was, I restrained both my fear and my sympathy, and waited for him to enlighten me further. He sat with his head bowed, and his hands hanging down, in an attitude of profound despondency, so different from his usual jaunty air, that ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... at the consummate address with which he contrived to deceive those who were likely to see through his designs. This hypocrisy, which some, perhaps, may call profound policy, was indispensable to the accomplishment of his projects; and sometimes, as if ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... not why I am writing all this. The evening passed off without anything particular taking place. Mr. Cumberland's manner towards me was regulated by the most consummate tact and cunning, allowing the deep interest he pretends to feel in me to appear in every look and action, yet never going far enough to afford me an excuse for repulsing him. This morning, however, I have had an interview with Mr. Vernor, in which I stated my repugnance to the marriage ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... The consummate genius of this brief campaign could not be disputed; and the modest language of the young general's despatches to the Directory, lent additional grace to his fame. At this time the name of Buonaparte was spotless: and the eyes of all Europe were ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... thou and I have proven many a time That all our hope betrays us and deceives, To that consummate good which never grieves Uplift thy heart, towards a happier clime. This life is like a field of flowering thyme, Amidst the herbs and grass the serpent lives; If aught unto the sight brief pleasure gives, 'T is but to snare the soul with treacherous lime. So, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... even know the difference between a Philistine and his opposite. We must not be surprised, therefore, if we find him, for the most part, solemnly protesting that he is no Philistine. Owing to this lack of self-knowledge, he is convinced that his "culture" is the consummate manifestation of real German culture; and, since he everywhere meets with scholars of his own type, since all public institutions, whether schools, universities, or academies, are so organised as to be in complete harmony with his ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... sides, that, wherever our armies have had occupancy, there slavery has been practically abolished. The fact was recognized by President Lincoln in his last appeal to the loyal Slave States to consummate emancipation. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... hunting experiences. The result was that Colonel Howell at once related what had taken place that afternoon, to all of which Mr. Zept gave earnest attention. Colonel Howell concluded by telling how he was to see the fathers of the boys that evening in an effort to consummate his deal. ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... Mean while that consummate master in every species of hypocrisy, indulged her in this notion, by the air of dissatisfaction with which he left the house. It was not that she meant by her presence to obviate any impropriety: early and long acquainted with the character of Cecilia, she well knew, that during her life ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... youth he had always entertained a deep sense of religion, a consummate love of virtue, an ardent thirst after knowledge, and an earnest desire to promote the welfare and happiness of all mankind. By these qualities, accompanied with great sweetness of manners, he acquired the love and ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ourselves that he could behave himself like a gentleman. That pride—a species of vanity, of course—would, I felt sure, make him keep his word to us and especially to Miss Raven. But he was only one amongst a crowd. For anything I knew, his French friend might be as consummate a villain as ever walked, and the Chinese in the galley cut-throats of the best quality. And there, behind a mere partition, was a helpless girl—and I was unarmed. It was a highly serious and unpleasant situation, at the best of it, and the only thing I could do was ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... ever wake to the true character of these four-legged impostors and realize that instead of being disinterested and sincere, most family pets are consummate hypocrites. Innocent? Pshaw! Their pretty, coaxing ways and pretences of affection are unadulterated guile; their ostentatious devotion, simply a clever manœuvre to excite interest and obtain unmerited praise. It is useless, however, ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... lilies because they are pure, and calls teapots 'consummate' because—well, I don't exactly know why—he couldn't have put his one idea ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... catamaran once more took rank as a fast-sailing and weatherly craft, and soon worked out to the spot where the Minerva rode at anchor. Dick, of course, by this time knew the curious craft well, and handled her with such consummate judgment that when at length he luffed her into the wind's eye and ordered her sails to be lowered, she just handsomely slid up alongside the barque and came to a standstill ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Jorge; "but of the diocese of hell! Well, we're off. I'll send a runner down the trail when I reach the Tigui river; and if you will have a letter in Simiti informing me of the status of things political, he can bring it up. Conque, adios, my consummate villain." ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... would wish to establish a sort of general confidence with any chance reader of these lines who, like myself, finds no need for exaggeration in the chronicling of observations, being well aware that Nature with the ease of consummate art outwits the wisest and laughs at the blotches of the boldest impressionist, it seems but common politeness to explain that though the Island may be romantic, the art of romancing is alien from its shores, albeit (as some ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... takes place beside John Lewis and the pre-Raphaelites; but he has, throughout his career, displayed no definiteness in choice of subject. He must be named among the painters who have studied with industry, and have made themselves great by doing so; but having obtained a consummate method of execution, he has thrown it away on subjects either altogether uninteresting, or above his powers, or unfit for pictorial representation. "The Cherry Woman," exhibited in 1850, may be named as an example ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... result of that day was due not merely to the gallantry of General Scott upon the field. It must in part be ascribed to the patient, anxious, and indefatigable drudgery, the consummate skill as a tactician, with which he labored night and day, at the camp near Buffalo, to prepare his brigade for the career on which it was about to enter. After a brief interval he again led that brigade to the glorious victory of Bridgewater. He bears now upon his body ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... him to his own Government. The terms of annexation which were offered by the United States having been accepted by Texas, the public faith of both parties is solemnly pledged to the compact of their union. Nothing remains to consummate the event but the passage of an act by Congress to admit the State of Texas into the Union upon an equal footing with the original States. Strong reasons exist why this should be done at an early period ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk
... of their nests (which are built upon the ground) with shells, bones, pieces of broken glass and earthenware, or any objects of a bright and conspicuous character which they may happen to find. The most consummate artists in this respect are, however, the bower-birds; for the species of this family construct elaborate play-houses in the form of arched tunnels, built of twigs upon the ground. Through and around ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... this Most consummate of all hypocrites After instructing your chosen official advocate to stand forward with such a defence such an exposition of your motives to dare utter the word hypocrisy and complain of those who charged you ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... this atrocity having been appeased by the princess, who possessed the most consummate skill in the art of persuasion, there was offered on the tower a burnt sacrifice to the infernal deities, the main ingredients of which were mummies, rhinoceros' horns, oil of the most venomous serpents, various aromatic woods, and one hundred ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... (without appeal to revelation), that when we take a view of the universe, in its parts, general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces; the structure of our earth itself, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... encroachments upon liberty, in the reigns of the first James and the first Charles, by turning the general attention of learned men to government, are said to have produced the greatest number of consummate statesmen, which has ever been seen in any age, or nation. The Brooke's, Hamden's, Falkland's, Vane's, Milton's, Nedham's, Harrington's, Neville's, Sydney's, Locke's, are all said to have owed their eminence in political ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... well we made our remarks in some creatures, that might be continually in our power, to observe in them the course of nature, every day and hour. Sir John Heydon, the Lieutenant of his Majesties Ordnance (that generous and knowing gentleman and consummate souldier, both in theory and practice) was the first that instructed me how to do this, by means of a furnace, so made as to imitate the warmth of a sitting hen. In which you may lay several eggs to hatch and by breaking them at several ages, you may distinctly observe every ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various
... always something extremely ridiculous, or some ludicrous failing, that is turned into contempt and held up to risibility. It is quite amazing to what an extent the genius of the improvvisatores go at times; they display consummate art and knowledge of human nature, quick repartie, subtle arguments, absurd conjunctions, startling metaphors, and are never at a loss to meet the assertions of their adversary on the other side; for it is always in the form of law-pleadings, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... be no doubt upon that point, unless the natives were consummate hypocrites, for they welcomed Van der Kemp and his party with effusive voice, look and gesture, and immediately spread before them part of a splendid supper which had just been prepared; for they had chanced to arrive on a ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... taste; but, as we have not, in the course of our conversation, ever happened to meet with any such person, we have not chosen to introduce any such here. To say the truth, I a little question whether mere man ever arrived at this consummate degree of excellence, as well as whether there hath ever existed a monster bad enough ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... between himself and Jane Snowdon. He reddened—stood mute. For a few seconds his mind was in the most painful whirl and conflict; a hundred impressions, arguments, apprehensions, crowded upon him, each with its puncturing torment. And Clara stood there waiting for his reply, in the attitude of consummate grace. ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... to the German throne seemed the exact counterpart of the youthful Roman monarch—down to the cruel stage of his career; THAT was left to anticipation. The parallels and resemblances between the two were arranged with consummate skill, and whenever there was a passage which seemed to present an exact chronicle of some well-known saying or doing of the modern ruler there would follow an asterisk with a reference to a passage in Tacitus or Suetonius or Dion Cassius or other ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... ambition had never entered the world of his imagination, the coming into existence of the first book is quite an inexplicable event. In my own case I cannot trace it back to any mental or psychological cause which one could point out and hold to. The greatest of my gifts being a consummate capacity for doing nothing, I cannot even point to boredom as a rational stimulus for taking up a pen. The pen, at any rate, was there, and there is nothing wonderful in that. Everybody keeps a ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... now, girlie, you've talked plain here; came pretty near callin' me names, in fact. I can stand it, and I guess I deserve some of 'em. I am something of a rascal, and a consummate liar, I admit; but when you talk about a lot of scandal up your sleeve, more 'n bank notes can pay by blackmail, and your chance of fixin' Phil Baronet's character, Lettie, you just can't do it. You are too mad to be anything ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... penalty of 100l. on the third of July. In this year Bonaparte gained the most signal victories over Wurmser and other Austrian, Piedmontese, and Italian Commanders, and at the battles of Lodi, Castiglione, Rivoli, &c. established his character as a brave and consummate general. Spain had already, towards the end of 1795, concluded not merely a peace with France, but also entered with her into a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, which was this year followed up by her declaring ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... the Great have saved it had he been par impossible Louis XIV's successor? We can hardly doubt that he would have adjourned, if not have averted, the great catastrophe of 1789. But it is one of the inseparable accidents of such a despotism as France had fallen under, that nothing but consummate genius can save it from ruin; and the accession of genius to the throne in such circumstances is ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... cheeks, her eyes dilating, her hair loosening. Men full fledged though we considered ourselves now in our senior year, we felt like boys before her. Every man in the room seemed proud of her slightest mark of attention. Tall dandies with ineffable composure and a consummate air of worldly knowledge; tranquil, dreamy-eyed literary men; solid citizens with stiff white side-whiskers and red faces,—all were in her train. Harry withdrew from her at last, becoming, as I was, quite oppressed with a sense of his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... To consummate corruption, Florine added a lively wit, which intercourse with artists had developed and practice sharpened day by day. Wit is thought to be a quality rare in comedians. It is so natural to suppose that persons who spend their lives in showing things on the outside have nothing within. But ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... very good Characters; but what I admire the most in them, is the consummate Patience in keeping Company, and bearing for a whole Week together, with two such insupportable, out of the way Rascals, as you have represented Alciphron and Lysicles to be. I believe with you, that among the Vain and Voluptuous, ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... acknowledge the consummate sense of opportunity displayed by the Editor of the Times, in his cunning production of a part ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... literary entertainments. After all these pleasant happenings, Miss Anthony felt new courage and hope to enter upon the Twenty-second National Suffrage Convention, February 18, at Lincoln Music Hall. This was to be an important meeting, as it was to consummate the union of the National and American organizations, and she was anxious for a large attendance. "Do come," she wrote to the most influential friends, "if you stay away forever afterwards. This will be the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... him, no longer laughing at his jokes, and now and then throwing out a fling at "some people" and a hint about "quality binding." This both nettled and perplexed the honest butcher; and his wife and daughters, with the consummate policy of the shrewder sex, taking advantage of the circumstance, at length prevailed upon him to give up his afternoon's pipe and tankard at Wagstaff's, to sit after dinner by himself and take his pint of port—a ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... Novikoff the image of Lida, as he had once known and loved her; of Lida, the proud, high-spirited girl, lustrous-eyed, and crowned with serene, consummate beauty as with a radiant aureole. He shut his eyes, and put faith in ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... the grass. In a moment the carriage had swung round and the horses were going at a gallop down the hill again. The driver stood up. He had a rein in either hand and he hauled the horses round each successive corner with consummate skill. All the while he used language which would have huddled Cousin Peligros shrieking in the ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... common human reason confirms this reasoning. There is no one, not even the most consummate villain, provided only that he is otherwise accustomed to the use of reason, who, when we set before him examples of tionesty of purposea of steadfastness in following good maxims, of sympathy and general ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... survey of the more sublime parts of the human frame; when we behold man's internal make and structure; his mental faculties; his social propensions, and those active powers which set all in motion—the passions,—what an illustrious display of consummate wisdom is presented to our admiring view! What brighter mark—what stronger evidence need we of a God? The scanty limits of a few minutes, to which I am confined, would not permit me, were I equal ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... meddle with it now, unless you want to create new difficulties for yourself. But you must promise me to sustain me in any action that I may take. I shall go to see Monsieur Mouche the very first thing to-morrow morning; and if he turns out to be what I think he is—that is to say, a consummate rascal—I shall very soon find means of making him harmless, even if the devil himself should take sides with him. For everything depends on him. As it is too late this evening to take Mademoiselle Jeanne back to her boarding-school, my wife will keep the young lady here to-night. This ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... by 199 to 158, the division not taking place until six o'clock in the morning. The consequences, as the country instantly made manifest, were 'awful' enough to secure the reversal of the decision. It seems, so far as I can make out, to have been the first debate that one of the most consummate debaters that ever lived had the fortune ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... during the remainder of their lives. "I ought not," said the admiral, writing to his wife—"I ought not to call what has happened to the VANGUARD by the cold name of accident: I believe firmly it was the Almighty's goodness, to check my consummate vanity. I hope it has made me a better officer, as I feel confident it has made me a better man. Figure to yourself, on Sunday evening at sunset, a vain man walking in his cabin, with a squadron ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... and, effecting a junction with their allies the Arcadians, Argives, and Eleians, at once attacked (15) Sicyon and Pellene, and, marching on Epidaurus, laid waste the whole territory of that people. Returning from that exploit with a consummate disdain for all their opponents, when they found themselves near the city of Corinth they advanced at the double against the gate facing towards Phlius; intending if they found it open to rush in. However, a body of light troops sallied out of the ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... and his ambition, all conspired to destine him for high statesmanship. If anything was lacking in his qualifications, he had the pluck and good sense to work hard and persistently until the deficiency was made up. Something remained lacking, and not all his consummate mastery of arts could conceal that conspicuous ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... difference, that for the first, every day is a fighting day, that her warfare is almost always without glory, and most praiseworthy achievements pass not only without reward, but frequently without thanks: for the most consummate cook is, alas! seldom noticed by the master, or heard of by the guests; who, while they are eagerly devouring his turtle, and drinking his wine, care very little who dressed the one, or sent ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... whereupon Scipio also set sail with speed and by a sudden sally repulsed Hannibal when the latter was close to the city. Next he captured the acropolis and, after entrusting the entire city to the care of the military tribunes, sailed back again. He was unable, however, to consummate his voyage to Libya. The Carthaginians so dreaded his advance that they despatched money to Philip to induce him to make a campaign against Italy, and sent grain and soldiers to Hannibal and to Mago ships and money that he might prevent Scipio from crossing. The Romans, led by certain portents ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... copious extracts from the Brahmanic law, because this code is so ancient and authentic, and contains the bright consummate flower of the system, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... He was a consummate advocate, as well as a profound and accurate lawyer. He had extraordinary powers for a speech impromptu, and needed as little time for preparation for an address to a jury, or an argument to the Court, as any one I have ever ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... excuses for Miss Dundas's sudden headache and fatigue gallantly, as she had accepted her position through the day: she showed nothing, expressed nothing, bin: bore herself with consummate ease and self-possession. She won Edgar's admiration for her tact and discretion, for the beautiful results of good-breeding. He congratulated himself on having such a friend as Adelaide Birkett. She would be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... robe clung about her perfect body; her breast was warm against the white stone; the mazes of her woven hair shone with unguent. The gazer lost himself in memories of epic and idyll, warming through worship to desire. Then his look strayed to the next engraving; a peasant girl, consummate in grace and strength, supreme in chaste pride, cheek and neck soft-glowing from the sunny field, eyes revealing the heart at one with nature. Others there were, women of many worlds, only less beautiful; but by these three the young man was held bound. He could not satisfy himself with looking ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... pottered and groped through the dark; but it remained for Kipling's century to roll in the sun, to formulate, in other words, the reign of law. And of the artists in Kipling's century, he of them all has driven the greater measure of law in the more consummate speech: ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... experimented industry, internected with perdiligent sedulity and sedulous perdiligence, continually adjuvates you to perficiate all things in so expeditious a manner that there is no necessity of exciting in you a cupidity to consummate them. Therefore I can only suggest to you still to operate as you are ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... masterpiece he had saved from oblivion amid ruins, or from the common fate of destruction in a lime-kiln. Well for him had he been content to pass his latter years with the cold creations of the sculptor; but he turned his eyes upon consummate beauty in flesh and blood, and this, the last of his purchases, proved ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... who comes up to his foes with holy assurance will fight with consummate skill. He will be quite "collected." All his powers will wait upon one another, and they will move together as one. He is as self-possessed upon the battlefield as upon parade, as undisturbed before Goliath as before a flock of sheep! And therefore do I say that, fighting ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... syl.), and consummate hypocrite of most unblushing effrontery.—Wycherly, The Plain ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... youth, he earned the respect of the tough and frequently lawless men with whom he came in contact. Integrity, bravery, loyalty to friends, marvelous quickness in making right decisions, in crisis of danger, consummate knowledge of woodcraft, a leadership as skilful as it was daring; all these were distinguishing traits in the composition of Carson and were the foundations of the broader fame which he acquired as the friend and invaluable ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... within dangerous possibility of becoming a tidal wave of destruction and death. There is no finer chapter in Canadian history than the one in which a mere handful of officers and men of the Mounted Police, with endless patience, unflinching courage and consummate skill in open diplomacy, kept the peace in an area larger than several European kingdoms, and within whose precincts thousands of warlike and well-armed Indians composed the reckless, restless and roving population. ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... instance, the children of Mr. Throgmorton, of Warbois, for bewitching whom, Mother Samuels, her husband, and daughter, suffered in 1593. No veteran professors "in the art of ingeniously tormenting" could have administered the question with more consummate skill than these little incarnate fiends, till the poor old woman was actually induced, from their confident asseverations and plausible counterfeiting, to believe at last that she had been a witch all her life without knowing it. She made a confession, following the story ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... strong resistance made at Coamo, a town on the main military road between Juana Diaz and the Spanish mountain stronghold at Aibonito. General Wilson effected the capture of this place with the most consummate skill. His plan was simple enough. It was nothing more nor less than an ordinary flank movement, such as Grant and Sherman used so successfully during ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... girls found a topic of conversation in the election, in which Eliza was much interested, and they chatted together for an hour or so before Louise made any move to consummate ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... privileges must have originated in the worst of intentions; and when afterwards they advanced a step in more humane manners, the ceremonial was preserved from avaricious motives. Others have compelled their subjects to pass the first night at the top of a tree, and there to consummate their marriage; to pass the bridal hours in a river; or to be bound naked to a cart, and to trace some furrows as they were dragged; or to leap with their feet tied over the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... debate was the following; which is given to the public, not as being more worthy of its attention than others, (some of which were of consummate ability,) but as entering more into the detail ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Mr. Losely's jovial monologue. But when Jasper had bowed himself out, Mrs. Haughton, courtesying, and ringing the bell for the footman to open the street-door, the man of the world (and, as a man of the world, Colonel Morley was consummate) again raised those small slow eyes,—this time towards ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the Cardinal was permitted to go into retirement in the north; less than a twelve-month later he was arrested on a charge of high treason. Through the irony of fate, the warrant was served by a former lover of Anne Boleyn's, whom Wolsey, it is said, had separated from her in order that she might consummate her unhappy marriage with royalty. On the way to London Wolsey fell mortally ill, and turned aside at Leicester to die in the abbey ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... filius," even so can no one but Moliere be preferred or likened to Moliere.) Without actually touching like Arnolphe on the hidden springs of tragedy, the jealous husband in Jonson's play is only kept from trenching on the higher and forbidden grounds of passion by the potent will and the consummate self-command of the great master who called him up in perfect likeness to the life. Another or a deeper tone, another or a stronger touch, in the last two admirable scenes with his cashier and his wife, when his hot smouldering suspicion at length catches fire and breaks out in agony of anger, ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Federation. The first man that he called to the standard of the new order to become his Colonial Minister, or more technically, Minister of the Interior, was Smuts, who had left his law office in Johannesburg to fight the English in 1900 and who displayed the same consummate strategy in the field that he has since shown in Cabinet meeting and Legislative forum. With peace he returned to law but not for long. Now began his political career—he has held public office continuously ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... himself upon knowing and being known to every body, that is, any body, in London; he had an inexhaustible fund of town and court anecdote. What an auxiliary for Lady Angelica! But though their combined operations were carried on with consummate skill, and though the league offensive was strictly kept with every demonstration of mutual amity that could excite jealousy or express contempt for rival powers; yet the ultimate purpose was not gained—Caroline was not mortified, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... atom of self-consciousness; she cannot premeditate; she loves because she must, rather than because she will, because it is the condition of her life. Some of the naive remarks she has to utter, might in clumsy lips seem coarse. Miss Anderson delivered them with consummate grace and innocence, but her fine smile, her bright sparkling eye, proved sufficiently, that the innocence was not stupidity. The first long speech at the conclusion of which she kneels to Pygmalion was ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... him, often against their better judgment, by his eloquence and verve; would send them into fits of hearty laughter by his sallies; his store of droll anecdotes, his jollity and gaiety; and would display his consummate gifts as a dramatic raconteur. Later in life, after he had raised the enmity of a large section of the writing world, and knew that there were many watching eagerly to immortalise in print—with gay malice and wit on the surface, and bitter spite and hatred below—the heedless and possibly ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... not now think of Handel in connection with the opera. To the modern mind he is so linked to the oratorio, of which he was the father and the consummate master, that his operas are curiosities but little known except to musical antiquaries. Yet some of the airs from the Handel operas are still cherished by singers as among the most beautiful songs known ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... which suggest a lithe and sinewy figure; the French instinct seeks in the expression signs of quick emotion, not to say passion; the French eye knows but one standard of taste in dress; that alone is natural to French feeling which is the product of self-control and consummate art. In all these respects the Austrian archduchess was woefully deficient. She was pious, and, as her letters declare, had spent much of the previous winter in praying that Providence would choose another ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... how we have passed the night? Who is it that cheers, consoles, encourages, and supports us? Who associates himself with our sufferings, and winces under our pain, and as suddenly rallies as we grow better, and joins in our little sickbed drolleries? Who does all these?—a consummate actor, who takes from thirty to forty daily "benefits," and whose performances are paid at a ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... Montreal, and greatly enjoyed a drive through Mount Royal Park and to Sault au Recollet. That week he appeared in "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Cricket on the Hearth." Speaking of Boucicault, who dramatised Rip, he said to the editor of this volume: "Yes, he is a consummate retoucher of other men's work. His experience on the stage tells him just what points to expand and emphasise with most effect. No author seated at his desk all his life, without theatrical training, could ever ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... Besides, a large number of the critics—the "log-rollers" especially—are mad against her for her success, and the public know it. Clearness of thought, brilliancy of style, beauty of diction—all these are hers, united to consummate ease of expression and artistic skill. The potent, resistless, unpurchasable quality of Genius. She wrote what she had to say with a gracious charm, freedom, and innate consciousness of strength. She won fame without the aid of money, and was crowned so brightly and visibly ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... I know should possess it. I shall be glad some day to redeem it, for it has come out of my soul. What a record it is of these happy, hopeful days! The divine dream shining in Endymion's face, his body entranced in sleep, his soul bathed in light, every curve flowing in consummate beauty—in some way it is my life. But, for Endymion, I must look upon a small bit of gold. [Her husband would not let her ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... Hardie, smiled satirically, and after a pause answered with consummate coolness: "I believe thus much, that she loves her uncle, and that ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... mind or healthful daring. Some will ever remember and regret the man or woman who carries true feeling into the affairs of life, important or minute: gentle courtesies, heart-warm words, delicate regards,—as surely part of consummate charity as the drop is a portion of the deep whose fountains it helps to fill. Precious, too, is self-denial, not austerely invoked from conscience by the voice of duty, but welling from the heart as a natural ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... this gave evidence of the patience of consummate ambition. He inspired Vergniaud, Petion, Guadet, Gensonne, as well as all the leading men of his party, with similar patience. He remained with them in the twilight close to power, but not included in the projected ministry, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... white rose. About her throat was clasped a double row of pearls—her father's gift to her for the great occasion. And, in her arms,—last, daring touch of her Countess-mother, who, in the matter of dress, was a consummate artist,—Nathalie carried a great cluster of vivid crimson camellias, that gave a perfect finish to a costume now relieved from any suspicion of monotony, or too conventional simplicity. The red of the waxen camellia, vividly transparent ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... year 1826 were felt by us,' says Mrs. Edgeworth in her memoir, 'and Maria, who since her father's death had given up rent-receiving, now resumed it; undertook the management of her brother Lovell's affairs, which she conducted with consummate skill and perseverance, and weathered the storm that swamped so many in this financial crisis.' We also hear of an opportune windfall in the shape of some valuable diamonds, which an old lady, a distant relation, ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... consummate actor, ready and unscrupulous in imposing on others, but I see no reason to distrust the genuineness of this particular outburst, seeing that it is not the only instance of his referring to the guidance of his star, ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... a populace so fierce and licentious as ours. They contend, that no adequate provocation has been given for so spreading a discontent; our affairs having been conducted throughout with remarkable temper and consummate wisdom. The wicked industry of some libellers, joined to the intrigues of a few disappointed politicians, have, in their opinion, been able to produce this unnatural ferment in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... as to how far a grave injustice has been done him almost universally in criticising him for what he does not pretend to be. Did Plautus himself suffer from any illusion that his plays were constructed with cogent and consummate technique? Did he for a single instant imagine himself the inspired reformer of public morality? Did he believe that his style was elegant and polished? Indeed, he must have effected an appreciable refinement of the vernacular of his age to produce his lively verse, but without losing ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke |
