"Felicitous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the first time in her life, she sincerely rued the expression of dislike and contempt which had driven the orphan from her adopted home; and, unable to decide on the most plausible solution to be offered her brother, she paced restlessly to and fro. Engrossed by no particularly felicitous reflections, she failed to notice Mazeppa's quick tramp, and remained in ignorance of the doctor's return until he entered the room, and stood beside her. His manner was hurried, his thoughts evidently preoccupied, as ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... their way. Vaguely damped by his environment, which, with the sun's retreat, had lost its charm, he gave himself up to his own thoughts, and was soon busily engaged in thinking over all that had been said by his quondam acquaintance of the dinner-table, in inventing neatly turned phrases and felicitous replies. He walked without aim, in a leisurely way down quiet streets, quickly across big thoroughfares, and paid no attention to where he was going. The falling darkness made the quaint streets look strangely alike; ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... whose dreams are always troubled and disturbed. They wake fatigued and bruised, and they tell me that they would give a kingdom for one dreamless night. There is one friend who declares that she has never had a felicitous dream in her life. The grind and worry of the day invade the sweet domain of sleep and weary her with incessant, profitless effort. I feel very sorry for this friend, and perhaps it is hardly fair to insist upon the pleasure of dreaming in the presence of one whose dream-experience is so ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... robed in shining garments. His transfiguration is at an end. Every action, almost every moment of his retirement, accurately chronicled by those who shared his solitude, have been placed before our eyes, in the most felicitous manner, by able and brilliant writers. The Emperor, shorn of the philosophical robe in which he had been conventionally arrayed for three centuries, shivers now in the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to charm others. And it resulted from this specialty of structure that the greater reality of his earlier male historic figures, as compared with those of most of his rivals, is largely a matter of saner and more felicitous declamation—the play of his great and growing faculty of expression—since he had no more special knowledge of the types in hand than had his competitors. It is only when his unequalled receptive faculty has been acted upon by a peculiarly concentrated ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... English. My readers, however, will no doubt remember that this epigram was also translated into English by Pope. Though the modern poet's version is to be preferred, the older translation contains one of the most felicitous lines written ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... merely oral tradition, and few have exercised so wide and mighty an influence. The profound, many-sided and intimate knowledge of human nature which it evinces, its vast variety of incident, its wealth of tears and laughter, its copious and felicitous diction, inevitably apt for every occasion, and, notwithstanding the frequent harshness, and occasional obscurity of its at times tangled, at times laboured periods, its sustained energy and animation of style must ever ensure for this human comedy unchallenged ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and in many another passage that I might quote; but as a general thing I should characterise the more metaphysical of our author's short stories as graceful and felicitous conceits. They seem to me to be qualified in this manner by the very fact that they belong to the province of allegory. Hawthorne, in his metaphysical moods, is nothing if not allegorical, and allegory, to my sense, is quite ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... the combination rooms at college—much to the easement of his less epicurean brethren. I know nothing more of him.—Then Read, and Twopenny—Read, good-humoured and personable—Twopenny, good-humoured, but thin, and felicitous in jests upon his own figure. If T. was thin, Wharry was attenuated and fleeting. Many must remember him (for he was rather of later date) and his singular gait, which was performed by three steps and a jump regularly succeeding. The steps were little efforts, like that of a child ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Soma of Nature's offertory, of which the Priest could only compound, from simples a symbolical imitation. Then came the various Sun-Gods, Adityas or Solar Attributes, Surya the Heavenly, Savitri the Progenitor, Pashan the Nourisher, Bagha the Felicitous, and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... to the bay of which it bears some such resemblance as a Dutch canal bears to a river flowing through rich meadows, in the freedom and grace of nature. Nevertheless, there are times and seasons when the bay of New York offers a landscape worthy of any pencil. It was at one of these felicitous moments that the Dawn cast off from the wharf, and commenced her voyage to Bordeaux. There was barely air enough from the southward to enable us to handle the ship, and we profited by a morning ebb to drop down to the Narrows, in the midst of a fleet of some forty sail; most of the ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... a correspondent-besides the deep, quaint strain of the sentiment, and the curious introduction of some ludicrous touches amidst the serious and impressive, as was doubtless intended by the author-appears to us one of the most felicitous specimens of unique rhyming which has for some time met our eye. The resources of English rhythm for varieties of melody, measure, and sound, producing corresponding diversities of effect, having been thoroughly studied, much more perceived, by very few poets in the language. While the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... "Oh, very well!" I pleasantly announced, "I shall become a prominent citizen at once, if that's all that is necessary. I will join every one of the patriotic societies, and sit perpetually on platforms with a perspiring water-pitcher, and unveil things every week, with felicitous allusions to the glorious past of our grand old State; and have columns of applause in brackets on the front page of the Courier-Herald. I will even go into civic politics, if you insist upon it, and leave round-cornered cards at all the drugstores, ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... moral sentiment, like the friendship of Roland and Leoline, or only the flakes of falling light from the water-snakes—this joy, visiting him, now and again, after sickly dreams, in sleep or waking, as a relief not to be forgotten, [102] and with such a power of felicitous expression that the infection of it passes irresistibly to the reader—such is the predominant element in the matter of his poetry, as cadence is the predominant quality of its form. "We bless thee for our creation!" ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... which from continual intercourse and friendly relations with the said Filipinas Islands may—if the Christian faith is preserved and permanently maintained in the latter, and as deeply rooted and as pure and constant as at present—look, in the said matter of religion, for felicitous and great results. The same [may be said] for what concerns the service of your Majesty, and the profitable and advantageous increase of the royal estate, since even the profits which your Majesty at present enjoys and possesses in the said city and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... [Footnote: [This is a most graphic and accurate description of the present state of the ruin. Its being occupied by the sexton as a dwelling-place, and the whole scene of the old man's interview with De Valence, may be classed with our illustrious author's most felicitous imaginings.—Note by the Rev. Mr. Stewart of Douglas.]] The floor, composed of paving stones, laid together with some accuracy, and here and there inscribed with letters and hieroglyphics, as if they had once upon a time served to distinguish sepulchres, was indifferently ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... you gain the best view of this Hotel, in conjunction with the open space, or market place, and of the churches in the distance. About this spot, Mr. Lewis fixed himself, with his pencil and paper in hand, and produced a drawing from which I select the following felicitous portion. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... childhood or of childhood, he is singularly felicitous—fanciful, tender, and true to nature. This alone were sufficient to separate him from the crowd of common writers. For the rest of his works, if you will look at them kindly, and with a friendly scrutiny, you will find many a natural sentiment vividly reflected. But ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... in all this? Why have I recorded it? Because, reader, it was important enough to give me a cheerful evening, a night of pleasing dreams, and a morning of felicitous hopes. Shallow-brained cheerfulness, foolish dreams, unfounded hopes, you would say; and I will not venture to deny it: suspicions to that effect arose too frequently in my own mind. But our wishes are like tinder: ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... pastoral poetry; his love of the country is sincere; his perception of natural phenomena exquisite; his shepherds and shepherdesses real swains and lasses; he has happily varied the conventional form of the pastoral by a felicitous lyrical treatment. Paradoxical as it may appear, Drayton was partly enabled to approach Theocritus so nearly by knowing him so imperfectly. Had he been acquainted with him otherwise than through Virgil, ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... Independence Hall to the church, already crowded with an expectant audience, to whom they gave a full report of the morning's proceedings. The Hutchinsons of worldwide fame were present in their happiest vein, interspersing the speeches with appropriate songs and felicitous remarks. For five long hours on that hot midsummer day a crowded audience, many standing, listened with profound interest and reluctantly dispersed at last, all agreeing that it was one of the most impressive and enthusiastic ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... made by Rev. Doctors BELLOWS and BETHUNE, who, though pole-wide apart in the sphere of theology, spanning the distance between Arius and Calvin, find common grounds of sympathy in their love for, and appreciation of Art. Mr. DURAND, the President, in a very felicitous speech, narrated his experience as an artist and as one of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... find other instances, perhaps more felicitous than these; at present, all I can say is that he has failed to show that the use of the passive for the active participle was common with Shakspeare. As to other variations between the grammatical usage of Shakspeare's day and that of our own, I call assure ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various
... worshipers, who asked him which he considered his best comic opera; when, with a burst of joyous laughter, he named "Il Matrimonio Secreto," Cimarosa's enchanting chef-d'oeuvre, from which, doubtless, Rossini, after the fashion of great geniuses, had accepted more than one most felicitous suggestion, especially that of the admirable finale to the second act of the "Barbiere." It was during this visit of his to London, while Weber lay disappointed and dying in the dingy house in Great Portland Street, that this same Duchess of Canizzaro, better known ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... been cast, began to steal into his blood. Mirth ruled the East side, working in each soul according to his limitations. It was a wink, a smile, a drink, a passing gossoon, a sly girl, a light trick, among the unspoken things; or a biting epigram, the phrase felicitous, a story gilt with humor, a witticism swift and fatal as lightning; in addition varied activity, a dance informal, a ceremonious ball, a party, a wake, a political meeting, the visit of the district leader; ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... preserved upon the monuments of EDWARDIII. and the BLACK PRINCE, severally at Westminster and Canterbury. Ishall refer to these fine shields again, and to other admirable examples with them, hereafter (Chapter IX.). The conventionalism in all these examples, however felicitous the manner in which it is treated in them, is very decidedly exaggerated. These examples, and others such as these, are not the less valuable to us because their teaching includes an illustration of the excesses that ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... Then the felicitous valedictory word was said to the great actor and actress, and Mrs. Linton's carriage received Phyllis. Lord Earlscourt took a seat in Mr. ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... Quintuple Treaty of 1839 guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium. Shorn from their context as they were, these sentences are by no means illuminating, and it cannot be said that their citation in this form by Sir Edward Grey was a very felicitous one. During the paper polemics of the past months these detached words of Gladstone have been freely used by Germany's defenders and apologists to maintain that Great Britain of 1870 would not have deemed the events of 1914 a casus belli, and that its entrance ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... of good and kindness in thy daily life, for the result is a slight pleasurable sense that will seem to warm and delectate thee with felicitous self-laudings; and all that brings thy thoughts to thyself tends to invigorate that central principle by the growth of which thou art to give ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a fictitious character, and by no means a felicitous one; I am no admirer either of Werther or his author. But I should say that, if there was a Werther in Germany, he did not smoke. Werther, as you very justly observe, was ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... lend themselves to the building up of a virtuous character, they are the psychological bases of virtue, but they must not be confounded with virtue itself. Taken by themselves, they represent merely a felicitous mixture of the elements of which we are compounded, no more praiseworthy than their opposites are blameworthy. Sympathy and kindness must be governed and regulated by principle, if they are to be rated as moral qualities. Left uncultivated, they often produce positively immoral ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... whatever reason, its merits do not appear to have been recognized by the public. It is unequal, and it is too prolix: but when it is good, which is not seldom, it is very good, unforced, idiomatic, and felicitous. In one of its features, the habit of supplying connecting links to Horace's not unfrequently disconnected thoughts, perhaps I should have done wisely to follow it more than I have done: but the matter ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... she would leave her large fortune behind in the hands of her devil of a guardian. Now, with what knowledge you already have of my father's will, you can easily guess the rest. You are no stranger to me. I know your history, your family, your education, and, under the most felicitous circumstances, would be proud and happy to call you brother. Now, then, decide to try again. Clara shall not refuse you; she does not wish to do so; on the contrary, she loves you; but some of her oddness was in the ascendant to-night, and so it happened as it did. At any ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Julius Hammer into my confidence, and he thought that I had given expression to the overflowing emotion of two loving young hearts in a very felicitous and charming way. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... because it must, but without ignominy. How fine a touch it is that refuses to the outlaw's murderer the price set upon Grettir's head, because the getting of it was through a "nithings-deed," the murder of a dying man! William Morris was most felicitous in envoys and dedicating poems, and in the sonnet prefixed to this translation he was particularly happy. The first eight lines describe the hero of the saga—the last six lines the ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... hands of the restorers. It has been "done up" without mercy; its natural place would be at Rochelle the New. A sort of battlemented curtain, flanked with turrets, divides it from the street and contains a low door (a low door in a high wall is always felicitous), which admits you to an inner court, where you discover the face of the building. It has statues set into it and is raised upon a very low and very deep arcade. The principal function of the deferential old portress ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... a poem. The latter was prepared at very short notice, and had particular reference to the visit of the illustrious hero and philanthropist, Lafayette. It purported to be the vision of the Genius of Liberty. It was a felicitous effort of the poetic muse. The gradual but certain dissolution of ancient despotic systems was predicted, as by the spirit of inspiration; and the blessings and joys of well regulated freedom were described with a masterly pencil, as ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... publication, by the secret correspondence of the time. Thus writes the Adjutant-General: 'Some of our Philadelphia gentlemen, who came over on visits, upon the first cannon went off in a violent hurry. Your noisy Sons of Liberty are, I find, the quietest in the field.' Thus again Washington, with felicitous expression, points a paragraph ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... connected with real life, it is not easy to understand why the radiant youth, "the world's fresh ornament," "only herald to the gaudy spring," etc., should need such an amount of persuasion to marry. Seventeen sonnets of great poetical beauty and felicitous language are devoted to this object. It is an exquisite treat to read them as works of art, but taken literally they are unspeakably absurd. No sane man would draw out such lengths of linked sweetness for the ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... always said you wanted the girls to marry, Mother," urged Mr. Paget. Rebecca felt this a felicitous moment to ask if she and the boys could have the ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... Robinson Crusoe,' and shall continue to do so, we trust, while the world lasts, how few comparatively will bear to be told that there exist other fictitious narratives by the same writer,—four of them at least of no inferior interest, except what results from a less felicitous choice of situation! 'Roxana.' 'Singleton,' 'Moll Flanders,' 'Colonel Jack,' are all genuine offspring of the same father. They bear the veritable impress of De Foe. An unpractised midwife that would not swear ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... gladness in his aspect, a pleasing inquisitiveness concerning bird mystery, and a simple, candid style of self-revelation in his essays full of fascination, with touches now and again that remind one of the descriptive qualities of Francis A. Knight. The wood-joy that inspired the felicitous phrases and delightful reflections of John Burroughs in the Western Hemisphere finds its counterpart in these ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... Hollingsworth's feet, entirely contented and happy. What charm was there in his rude massiveness that so attracted and soothed this shadow-like girl? It appeared to me, who have always been curious in such matters, that Priscilla's vague and seemingly causeless flow of felicitous feeling was that with which love blesses inexperienced hearts, before they begin to suspect what is going on within them. It transports them to the seventh heaven; and if you ask what brought them thither, they neither can tell nor care to learn, but ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... domestics. But the women's nerves are on edge. A scullery maid dropped a decanter a little while since, and the crash drew bloodcurdling shrieks from the kitchen. Come, let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. The quotation is not a felicitous one. Indeed, it is distinctly ominous, but it seems ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... man had risen from his seat—the felicitous Mr. Truesdale. Glancing around at his fellow-members he then began to explain in the impressive but conversational tone of one whose counsels are in the habit of being listened to, that this was merely a little measure to remedy a flaw in the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... is the largest and most comprehensive geological work of this distinguished author. It exhibits the profound learning, the felicitous style, and the scientific perception, which characterize his former works, while it embraces the latest results of geological discovery. But the great charm of the book lies in those passages of glowing eloquence, in which, having spread out his facts, the author proceeds ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved by felicitous illustrations:—I am the individual destined to write that work—My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence—I show that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and the MAN—Snobs are to be studied like other objects ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... homecoming gift, the Mayor and Mayoress had no sooner returned and been welcomed with firing off cannon and pealing of bells than a day was fixed and a public meeting called for the presentation—a ceremony performed by the Vicar in brief but felicitous terms. The Doctor made a suitable speech of acknowledgment, and then, after waiting until the applause had subsided, ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... astonished at this long and felicitous compliment, for as a rule he did not find it easy to express himself coherently. He expected, too, that his beautiful partner would show ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... streets, its Alpine views, and its suburban resorts, makes a capital background, and gives the group free play to meet with all sorts of picturesque opportunities. The story is told without any straining after climaxes, but with many felicitous touches that enhance the effect of every picture and incident. In scene, characters, and plot, "At the Red Glove" offers a brilliant opportunity to the dramatist, and one is tempted to think that the story must have been originally conceived and planned ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... felicitous combination of the German, the Sclave, and the Semite, with grand features, brown hair floating in artistic fashion, and brown ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... that the man was largely responsible for the troubles that had fallen upon him, but this was no reason for refusing him pity, and Cyril had his strong points. He had staunchly declined to profit by a felicitous change of fortune out of consideration for the relatives who had once disowned and the woman who had deserted him. Jernyngham had been a careless fool, and Prescott suspected that he was not likely to alter much in this respect, but he did not expect others to pay for his recklessness ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... the President, Major Fitzgerald, formally opened proceedings; and, alluding in felicitous terms to the momentous occasion, announced, amid cheers, that there were no less than nineteen competitors for the badge, who, their names having been drawn from a hat, were to address the ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... career of the most majestic of the Greek poets was eminently felicitous. His birth was noble, his fortune affluent; his natural gifts were the rarest which nature bestows on man, genius and beauty. All the care which the age permitted was lavished on his education. For his feet even the ordinary obstacles ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... much mistaken in my estimate of M. Maurel's work, if it do not take rank now and hereafter among the most accurate, discriminating, and felicitous tributes which have emanated from any country in any language to the memory of the Duke ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various
... Wakefield—there appeared in Mr. Henry Sampson Woodfall's Public Advertiser, and other newspapers, a letter addressed "To the Printer," and signed "PAPYRIUS CURSOR." The name was a real Roman name; but in its burlesque applicability to the theme of the communication, it was as felicitous as Thackeray's "MANLIUS PENNIALINUS," or that "APOLLONIUS CURIUS" from whom Hood fabled to have borrowed the legend of "Lycus the Centaur." The writer of the letter lamented—as others have done before and since—the ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... Corria under a flag of truce, and pointed out that he served the President, not any crank who said he was President, but the honored individual in whom the people of Brazil placed their trust. Dom Corria replied in felicitous terms, and, as the newspapers say, the incident ended. The navy sulked for a while, because they held that Russo's treatment of the Andorinha was not cricket, or baseball, or whatsoever game appeals most to the Brazilian sportsman. It was not ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... shall owe something to you for this felicitous exposure of Gladstone's insane Bill. Alas! the miners and the brickies, the costermongers and the dust-cart drivers, have now the power. The middle class has been out-numbered, and if it were not that some labouring men and artisans have hard heads enough to comprehend the position we ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... given of Fairy dances the music is always spoken of as most entrancing, and Shakespeare in felicitous terms gives ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... upon with the frank yet critical delight of her nature. In the abstruse symbolic title, too,—implying, as Browning expected his readers to discover, "sound and sense" or "music and discoursing,"—her wit had divined a more felicitous application to ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... Tullio—e Catone—e Varrone—e Seneca—ebbero moglie," etc., etc. [Le Vite di Dante, etc., Firenze, 1677, pp. 22, 23]. It is odd that honest Lionardo's examples, with the exception of Seneca, and, for anything I know, of Aristotle, are not the most felicitous. Tully's Terentia, and Socrates' Xantippe, by no means contributed to their husbands' happiness, whatever they might do to their philosophy—Cato gave away his wife—of Varro's we know nothing—and of Seneca's, only that she was disposed to die with him, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... a nasty day that was— When every galoot in our crack Division who didn't lie flat was Dissuaded from further attack By the bullet's felicitous whack. ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... lodgings vastly; but more so as the master and mistress of the family are excessively clean and obliging; two things so material to my repose, that I absolutely could not dispense patiently with either.—This it was which made me felicitous about taking a house; I am now so happily situated, I wish not to have one in town whilst I remain a batchelor. Heaven knows how long that will be!—Your nonpareil has given me a dislike to all my ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... and pithy point of this passage stamps it as one of Bunyan's most felicitous descriptions. We who live in a later age may, indeed, suspect that he has somewhat antedated the death of Pagan, and the impotence of Pope; but his picture of their cave and its memorials, his delineation of the survivor of this fearful pair, rank among ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... first time he receives a wound. He was breveted captain for his gallantry at Cherubusco, and at the end of the war received the rank of full captain, and was ordered with his regiment to California. No appointment could have been more felicitous. In the guerilla mode of warfare demanded by the peculiar nature of the country and its inhabitants, his habits of quick decision, and the experience of a war with an enemy equally unscrupulous though less undisciplined, were absolutely invaluable. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... less superficial. The tragedies of life have to be told in stronger language, since they go deeper. Happiness is negative, pain positive. The comedies of Shakespeare, in which the note is usually buoyant and felicitous, do not stir us as ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... poem was followed by a narrative of travel in Italy, happily written, full of felicitous description, and touched by a humor which, in quality and manner, was new to English readers. Then came one of those indiscretions of the imagination which showed that the dignified and somewhat sober young poet, the "parson in a tye-wig," as he was called at a later day, was not lacking ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... rare and a very striking combination, and goes far to account for the transcendent success which Plunket attained at the Bar and in the House, and alike in the Irish and the English Parliament. Lord Brougham said of him that his eloquence was a continuous flow of "clear statement, close reasoning, felicitous illustration, all confined strictly to the subject in hand; every portion, without any exception, furthering the process of conviction;" and I do not know a more impressive passage of sombre passion than the peroration of his first speech against the Act of Union: "For my own part, I will resist ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... Mirdite revolt, Mr. Fisher's description is hardly what you would call felicitous. Mark Djoni and the other members of the Mirdite Government were compelled last July to seek refuge at Prizren in Yugoslavia, and since then they have conducted their affairs from that place. These circumstances, in Mr. Fisher's opinion, go to prove the existence of a Yugoslav plot whose ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... to the heart with the terrible cold, Both to get back were most truly-solicitous, Never before was the saying old, "As cold as charity," half so felicitous. ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks
... immediately took rank as one of the gems of art. The sweet naivete of budding childhood, the timid eyes and dimpled cheek, all refined and sublimated by the ideal graces added by the magic wand of genius, combined to make this earliest bust of our sculptor one of the most felicitous ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... most, perhaps, but still portentously noble and perfect. He does not interest us much; but we greatly admire the heroine, Martha Deane, whom he loves and marries. In the study of her character and that of her father, Mr. Taylor is perfectly at home, and extremely felicitous. There is no one else who treats Quaker life so well as the author of the beautiful story of "Friend Eli's Daughter"; and in the opposite characters of Doctor Deane and Martha we have the best portraiture of the contrasts which Quakerism produces in human nature. In the sweet and unselfish ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... expressed with felicitous charm—infallible. A judgment that has nothing to do with justice. The critic and the judge seems to think that in those distant lands all joy is a yell and a war dance, all pathos is a howl and a ghastly grin of filed teeth, ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... me a region of romance. Since the time when, as a child, my highest delight had been in the letters of a dear relative, describing to me his home and mode of life in the "Indian country," and still later, in his felicitous narration of a tour with General Cass, in 1820, to the sources of the Mississippi—nay, even earlier, in the days when I stood at my teacher's knee, and spelled out the long word Mich-i-li-mack-i-nac, that distant land, with its vast lakes, its boundless prairies, and its mighty forests, ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... nature did offend; but even they took care to couple with their "remarks" an apologetic laugh, which was intended to convey that the joke, though carried far, was just a joke. The wags—the species was not yet extinct—were especially felicitous. They treated the subject as a very original piece of humour indeed. Their treatment of it gained them an occasional cuff in the ear, and they had to be discriminative in their choice of victims. Everybody was not to be wished "returns of ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... of his own time—yes, and from the aristocracy, for he had been brought up in close contact with them and had been companion to a young nobleman who was deaf and dumb. "A clergyman, lad," he used to say to me, "should feel in himself a bit of every class;" and this theory had a felicitous agreement with his inclination and practice, which certainly answered in making him beloved by his parishioners. They grumbled at their obligations towards him; but what then? It was natural to grumble at any demand for payment, tithe included, but also natural for a rector to desire ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... as she got out of the village she entered a thicket and took from her basket one of the oldest field-gowns, which she had never put on even at the dairy—never since she had worked among the stubble at Marlott. She also, by a felicitous thought, took a handkerchief from her bundle and tied it round her face under her bonnet, covering her chin and half her cheeks and temples, as if she were suffering from toothache. Then with her little scissors, by the aid of a pocket looking-glass, she mercilessly nipped her eyebrows ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... felicitous marriages cannot last for ever, since if the love does not die the lovers do. And so it came to pass that Dona Sodina, having eaten excessively of pickled shrimps, which the abbess of a highly respected convent had assured her were of great ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... may be gained by noticing the pre-dominant tone of the two literatures. Whenever English poetry is really great, it approximates to the tragic and the stately; whereas the Italians are peculiarly felicitous in the smooth and pleasant style, which combines pathos with amusement, and which does not trespass beyond the region of beauty into the domain of sublimity or terror. Italian poetry is analogous to Italian painting and Italian music: it bathes the soul ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... Fate of Republics." Laura M. Johns gave a practical and pleasing talk on "Municipal Suffrage in Kansas;" and there was the usual array of talent. Miss Anthony presided, putting every speaker to the front and making a substantial background of her own felicitous little speeches, each containing ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... formidable, mighty and stern. To be admitted to his presence was at this moment the highest aim of my life. Running through my anxious mind were various phrases from the letter I had sent him. Some of these seemed to be highly felicitous. The epistle was bound to make an impression. "Provided he has read it," I thought, anxiously. "But why should he have bothered with it? He probably receives scores like it. No, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... for the song's own sake is manifest; and this is shown in the variety of his treatment, and the delicate sense of music which determined his choice of metre. His descriptive writing is full of picturesque expression. The fifth hymn, 'Ad Incensum Lucernae,' is glorious with passionate colour and felicitous cadence, be he describing with precious solicitude for Christian archaeology the different means of artistic lighting, flambeaux, candles, lamps, or dreaming with all the rapture of a southern dream of the balmy garden ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... have referred to the age of the Roman Catholic Church. Lord Macaulay, in accounting for her astonishing longevity as compared with other institutions, turns with felicitous insight to female influence as one of the principal causes. In her system, he says, she assigns to devout women spiritual functions, dignities, and even magistracies. In England, if a pious and devout woman enter the cells of a prison to pray with the most unhappy ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and he expected it of the stranger within his gates. The family altar probably never failed from the day he first entered with his newly married wife, into their pioneer home, amid the forests, till his death. He was solemn, earnest and felicitous in prayer. The atmosphere of his home was eminently that of a christian household. Two of his four sons became officers in their churches, and also both his sons-in-law. Four of his grandsons entered the Christian ministry, ...
— Log-book of Timothy Boardman • Samuel W Boardman
... that love him there, he is better prepared to successfully meet and overcome life's difficulties and to endure buffetings from the outside world. It seems eminently felicitous that heaven should be called home; for the name is associated with the sweetest, purest, holiest joys that are experienced in this life. It raises our hopes, and fills us with a glorious expectancy, when we think of that place of rest ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... commenced it yesterday, and concluded it to-day. It is a new style of novel, and, like all that is very clever, will lead to many copyists. The writer possesses a felicitous fluency of language, profound and just thoughts, and a knowledge of the world rarely acquired at his age, for I am told he is a very ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... to the gunwale of the gig, Paul replied in a felicitous manner as he accepted the trophy from her hands. The reception at Memphis was in accordance with the enthusiasm of the excursionists and Paul resumed the voyage Monday afternoon with the well wishes ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... was glorious and triumphant beyond example; and his death was most felicitous to himself, being without a Pang, without tasting a reverse, and when his sight and hearing were so nearly extinguished that any prolongation could but have ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... powers were of a high order: clear and distinct apprehension of his subject, and felicitous illustration, characterized him among all his companions. To an eager desire for wide acquaintance with truth in all its departments, and a memory strong and accurate in retaining what he found, there was added a remarkable candor ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... up closer together, voices were lowered, and the discussion became general, each one offering his or her advice. Nothing was said to shock the proprieties. The ladies, in particular, were most expert in felicitous turns of phrase, charming subtleties of speech for expressing the most ticklish things. A foreigner would have understood nothing, the language was so carefully veiled. But as the slight coating of modesty with which every woman of the world is enveloped is hardly more than ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... as a friend; and assure you he is a Prince who has talent, but who will be the slave of his passions (SE FERA DOMINER PAR SES PASSIONS,"—not a felicitous prophecy, Herr General); "and will like nobody but such as encourage him therein. For me, I think all Princes are cast in the same mould; there is only ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... like these into consideration, how very important is it for persons, before selecting partners for life, to deliberately weigh every element and circumstances of this nature, if they would insure a felicitous union, and not entail upon their posterity disease, misery and despair. Alas! in too many instances matrimony is made a matter of money, while all earthly joys are sacrificed upon the accursed altars of lust ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... most felicitous question. The lady described material, took her measurements out of her purse, and discussed ruffles and tucks and described location and size of windows, during which talk the young girl was able to throw off the spell that had held ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... the Tales—of the Council of Nice, in the fourth century, Mr. Smith indulges his usual felicitous vein of humour, in a burlesque which he puts into the mouth of a slave of the Bishop of Ethiopia,—"a little, corpulent, bald-headed, merry-eyed man of fifty, whose name was Mark; whose duty it was to take charge of the oil, trim the lamps, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... easy to draw upon this fragment for further examples of felicitous translation. It is scarcely necessary, however. What has been given is sufficient to show the rare skill of the translator. He is so fortunate as to possess in a high degree what Bayard Taylor calls ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... all, I beg to compliment him on the motto in his title-page; it is felicitous. A motto should contain, as in a nutshell, the contents, or the character, or the drift, or the animus of the writing to which it is prefixed. The words which he has taken from me are so apposite as to be almost prophetical. There ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... Not workmen; for behold the Carlylese and Smilesian dignity of labour! Not the masses; for the masses are supposed to be our rulers. What then can we call these people with whom we really cannot associate on equal terms? Why, call them THE GREAT UNWASHED. O felicitous phrase! O salve of the conscience! That is the unpardonable social sin. At the bottom of our social ladder is a dirty shirt; at the top is fixed not laurels, but a tub! The bathroom is the inmost, the strongest fortress of ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... least equally good case made out for the Birds. That brightly plumaged fantasy has an aerial wit and colour all its own. But there are certain works in which a man finds himself at an angle of vision where there is an especially felicitous union of the aesthetic and emotional elements which constitute the basic qualities of his uniqueness. We recognize these works as being welded into a strange unity, as having a homogeneous texture of ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... all sincerity that I could be worthy of such a felicitous compliment as that. But I am a woman, and so I am gratified for it just as it is, and ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... you should lose no time in hiring a boat and starting on your journey westwards. And when, by your eminent talents, you shall have soared high to a lofty position, and we meet again next winter, will not the occasion be extremely felicitous?" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... to his sister Margaret, written soon after his arrival, shows a delightful relation between them and warm affection on his part. It tells in a felicitous manner of the place, the people, and his experiences. He had been to a camp-meeting and was struck with the quaint, old-fashioned garb of the girls, seeming to make the ugly ones uglier and the pretty ones prettier. It was raining ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... lines to fall in love with the memory, to charm the darkness, and be another light to rule the day. London was yawning behind her giant hand. The moment was propitious, and any strain of beauty was sure of an audience. At this felicitous moment a pipe of splendour sounded. London ceased to yawn. A violinist was communicating the passions of his heart to those who would listen, and amid great interest he went from house to house a-singing.... Eric Mackay is one of those wise men who have no immature volumes to haunt them. ...
— The Song of the Flag - A National Ode • Eric Mackay
... occurred to me if Miss Mitty would consider me entitled to so felicitous a phrase, but smothering it the next minute as best I could, I followed Sally, not without trepidation, up the short flight of steps, and into the wide hall, where the air was heavy with the perfume of fading roses. Great silver bowls of them drooped now, with blighted heads, amid ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... The felicitous expression of some well-known truth or experience is always pleasing. In its happiest form such an expression is received as the final embodiment of its truth. It is henceforth taken up by the multitude and quoted as having the authority of a sacred text. Pope tells ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... contains the equivalent of some twenty thousand decasyllabic lines of poetry, that is to say more than there are in Milton's Paradise Lost, and that he has rendered faithfully the whole of this enormous mass in accordance with the intricate metrical scheme of the original, and in felicitous ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Massachusetts and slave-drivers from South Carolina entered the vast hall arm in arm. The great meeting rose to its feet, and walls and roof shook with applause. General John A. Dix of New York called the Convention to order, and, in an eloquent and felicitous speech, stated the objects of the assembly—to renew fraternal feeling between the sections, heal the wounds of war, obliterate bitter memories, and restore the Union of the fathers. Senator Doolittle of Wisconsin was chosen permanent president, and patriotic resolutions were adopted by ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... heartily welcome to it: 'Yet a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.' Laissez nous faire. Moreover, Dr. Grey, if you will courteously lend me your ears, I will favor you with a still more felicitous exposition of ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... for my fancies. The favoured individual whose daily walk might be between the yew-hedges on that elastic lawn; who should eat, drink, and sleep through the commonplace hours of this present time behind those mystical white shutters! But when the individual added to this felicitous dispensation of fortune the personal attributes of unparalleled beauty and pea-green satin; of having worn hoops, high heels, and powder; of countless lovers, and white brocade with pink rosebuds—well might ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Blackwood in Edinburgh. The name was easily had, and for a sign manual on the cover some one drew a grizzly bear, that formidable exemplar of Californian wildness. But the design did not quite satisfy, until Bret Harte, with a felicitous stroke, drew two parallel lines just before the feet of the halting brute. Now it was the grizzly of the wilderness drawing back before the railway of civilization, and the picture was complete ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... went, he escaped life's bitterest load (2) in escaping those years which bring a diminution of intellectual force to all—instead of which he was called upon to exhibit the full robustness of his soul and acquire glory in addition, (3) partly by the style of his defence—felicitous alike in its truthfulness, its freedom, and its rectitude (4)—and partly by the manner in which he bore the sentence of condemnation with infinite gentleness and manliness. Since no one within ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... illusions; he displays himself here in a new light, less brutal than of old, more delicate and analytical. With regard to Pierre et Jean, it would be difficult to find words wherewith to describe it and its relation to the best English fiction more just or more felicitous than those in which Mr. Henry James welcomed its first appearance:—"Pierre et Jean is, so far as my judgment goes, a faultless production.... It is the best of M. de Maupassant's novels, mainly because M. de Maupassant has never before been ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... a matter of common notoriety that large aggregates of men, not to speak of sporadic individuals, will on occasion shift their allegiance with the most felicitous effect and with no sensible loss of self-respect or of their good name. Such a shift is to be seen in multiple in the German nation within the past half-century, when, for instance, the Hanoverians, the Saxons, and even the Holsteiners ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... with that felicitous simplicity and eloquence of diction which characterize all Mr. Woodworth's efforts for the young."—N.Y. ...
— The Diving Bell - Or, Pearls to be Sought for • Francis C. Woodworth
... breeches, are drawn with a point at once so precise and vivacious, so full of keen fun and inimitably happy invention, that I have not found their equal in comic etching anywhere ... the picturesque details of the room are etched with the same felicitous intelligence; but the marvel of the work is in the expression of the strange little faces, and the energy of the comical wee limbs."[90] In The Witches' Frolic ["Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft"], we find ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... discernment on the part of the Mexicans to perceive that the meeting between Captain Forest and his family was not what might be termed particularly felicitous. Even Senora Fernandez was quick enough to perceive that things were going from bad to worse, and in an effort to smooth matters, she stepped forward and in her best English said: "Senor Capitan, why did you tell me not zat ze ladies were coming? ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... himself." During the later ages, therefore, all theological speculations, though not forbidden, have been so discouraged as to have fallen utterly into disuse. The Vril-ya unite in a conviction of a future state, more felicitous and more perfect than the present. If they have very vague notions of the doctrine of rewards and punishments, it is perhaps because they have no systems of rewards and punishments among themselves, for there are no crimes to punish, and their ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... hope, my lord, since I am to be that most fortunate man!' It was not the most felicitous moment, but Elmur was aware that in no other way could he assure Valerie's safety against ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... had the gift of coining extremely felicitous nicknames. I refrain from quoting those bestowed on two recent Viceroys, for they are mordant and uncomplimentary, though possibly not wholly undeserved. My father was at once christened "Old Splendid," an appellation less scarifying than some of those conferred on ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... there is in the power of a single felicitous word in poetry, toward making a perfect picture to the mind of the reader! It often invests an inanimate object with almost actual life, and makes the landscape a sentient thing. Here are a few lines that ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... for speed, and compliments were set aside by Garnache, who, at his best, was not felicitous with them. Valerie felt herself caught by the wrist, a trifle roughly she remembered afterwards, and hurried across the cobbles to the tethered horses, with which Rabecque was already busy. She saw Garnache raise his foot to the stirrup and hoist ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... title-page 'the Author of The Heroine.' It was noticed in the Quarterly for April 1818, the very same number which contained the sneering critique of Endymion. This poem is written in the heroic metre; and the extracts given do certainly comprise some telling and felicitous ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... prosody and diction, combined with just a touch of foreign feeling. The artful employment of imperfect rhymes in "Raymond and Ida" illustrates what I mean. Occasionally, too, Mr. Ghose produces exactly the right phrase by means of a felicitous simplicity. Notice the line which I have italicised in the ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps
... same interval belongs the arrival in London of Mr. Longfellow, who became his guest, and (for both of us I am privileged to add) our attached friend. Longfellow's name was not then the pleasant and familiar word it has since been in England; but he had already written several of his most felicitous pieces, and he possessed all the qualities of delightful companionship, the culture and the charm, which have no higher type or example than the accomplished and genial American. He reminded me, when lately again in ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... much of the romantic as to render the story not ill adapted for an epic poem. Lord Byron, indeed, has partially treated the subject; but by blending two incongruous stories, and leaving both of them imperfect, and by mixing up fact with fiction, has been less felicitous than usual; for, beautiful as many passages in his Island are, in a region where every tree, and flower, and fountain breathe poetry, yet as a whole the poem is feeble ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... gloomy feelings in Mr. Carleton's mind, mamma, by your felicitous suggestions. Mr. Carleton, did your ears receive a faint announcement of ham and eggs which went quite through and through mine ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... We find here and there pretty designs, short felicitous passages, smiling bits of nature; but obscurity, stiffness of expression, and the dragging in of Fancy by the hair continually mar the reading and take away all its charm. Even the pieces most highly lauded in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... gratified at her request. After all, Simeon was not an anchorite; he had his moods like other men, and there were times when a rough passion marked his dealings with his wife; perhaps he had not been very felicitous in his role of lover, but the remembrance that there was such a side to his nature gave a fillip to ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... his fear that Peter Siner would marry Cissie Dildine old Captain Renfrew was as felicitous as a lover newly reconciled to his mistress. He ambled between the manor and the livery- stable with an abiding sense of well-being. When he approached his home in the radiance of high noon and saw the roof of the old mansion lying a bluish gray in the shadows ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... thought occurs to me. My own history would really seem so tame contrasted with that of my ancestors, that it is simply wisdom to leave it unwritten until I am hanged. If some other biographies I have read had stopped with the ancestry until a like event occurred, it would have been a felicitous thing for the reading public. How does it ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... cruel, and cruel the stars of the sky' is a very felicitous rendering of 'Atque deos atque astra vocat crudelia mater,' and so is 'Thou to thine own wert beauty' for 'Tu decus omne tuis.' This passage, too, from the fourth book ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... it is plain that he could never have been a rhetorician. He has no power at all as a writer, if writing be considered an accomplishment which can be separated from earnest thinking. Words are, with him, the mere instruments for the expression of things; and he hits on felicitous words only under that impatient stress of thought which demands exact expression for definite ideas. All his words, simple as they are, are therefore fairly earned, and he gives to them a force and significance which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... mess we have made of them!" His tone was grim. "No, I can't say that we offer her any felicitous examples. But the fellow's plan is transparent enough. He is ambitious. He sees himself installed here, one of us. Mark my words, Grace, he may love the child, but his real actuating motive is that. He's a Radical, because since he can't climb up, he'll pull down. But once let him ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... stated, however, when taken into consideration, must increase their admiration of Binning, his copiousness, his variety, both in regard to matter and style, the beauty of his imagery, the grandeur of his conceptions, his felicitous application of the language of scripture, being all the more wonderful, when viewed in connexion with the unfavourable circumstances in which ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... seldom the case that the person accords with the high qualification of the mind. Mr —- was a singular and felicitous exception to this mortifying rule. His deportment was truly dignified, his frame well-knit and robust, and his features were almost classically regular. His complexion was florid, and the expression of his countenance serene, yet highly intelligent. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... eventually drawn into literature, and after a spell of magazine work established his reputation as a novelist in 1875 with "Roderick Hudson"; most of his life has been spent in Italy and England, and the writing of fiction has been varied with several volumes of felicitous criticism, chiefly on French life and literature; his novels are characterised by a charming style, by a delicate discriminating analysis of rather uneventful lives, and by an almost complete absence of strong dramatic situation; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of souls in Purgatory, is much better. His Purgatory has no punishments nor any griefs save the awaiting, the long and painful awaiting, of eternal happiness. There is a processional in which the fugue and melody alternate in the most felicitous manner. There are sighs and plaints, all haunting in their extreme expressiveness, a great variety beneath an appearance of monotony, and from time to time two wailing notes. These notes are always the same, as the chorus gives them as a plaint, and they are both affecting ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... Diderot had not the deep sincerity or realism of conviction of the one; nor had he the inimitable power of throwing himself into a fancy, that was possessed by the other. He was the least agile, the least felicitous, the least ready, of composers. His allegory of the avenue of thorns, the avenue of chestnut-trees, and the avenue of flowers, is an allegory, unskilful, obvious, poor, and not any more amusing than if it's matter had been set forth without any attempt at fanciful decoration. ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... nonsense and quaint conceits, such as appeal to childish imaginations. The merry rhymes and grotesque illustrations make each other doubly effective. No better book since "Mother Goose" than this for reading to children, who will cry, "Again, again," and will never tire of its felicitous jingles. It is dedicated to "My mother, ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... famous for the number and variety of his illustrations, chiefly drawn from natural and familiar objects. The volume before us strikes us as being remarkably felicitous."—Clerical Journal. ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... themselves if these calamitous prognostications have been verified by events? Have we peace, or war, with foreign nations? Certainly, we have peace with all the world! peace with all its benign, and felicitous, and beneficent influences! Are we respected, or despised abroad? Certainly the American name never was more honored throughout the four quarters of the globe than in this very moment. Do we hear of indignity ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... of unusual proportion, artistic workmanship, lyric inspiration; an absence of so much as a trace of morbid feeling, a felicitous and poetic choice of subjects and intuitive good taste raise the writer at once above the ranks ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... man said that he did. He thought "knocked" a felicitous word. Jasper Hinchey's public services had been heavy-fisted, relating chiefly to voting blocks of drunken Poles and Italians in warmly contested ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... which it is not undeserving in itself, full as it is of curious exhibitions of character and contrivance, but to which politically it cannot lay claim, amid the social phenomena, so far grander in scale and purpose and more felicitous in issue, of other western nations. It is remarkable for keeping up an antique phase, which, in spite of modern arrangements, it has not yet lost. It is a history of cities. In ancient history all that is most memorable and instructive gathers round cities; civilization and empire ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... assistance of foreign princes and states, than by invasion of any; till common policy advised it, for a safer way, to strike first abroad, than at home to expect the war, in all which she was ever felicitous and victorious. ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton |
