"First-rate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are, are nevertheless momentous and critical, determining us, as they do, to higher or lower destinies. The exercise of voluntary attention in the schoolroom must therefore be counted one of the most important points of training that take place there; and the first-rate teacher, by the keenness of the remoter interests which he is able to awaken, will provide abundant opportunities for its occurrence. I hope that you appreciate this now ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... had children she would have made an excellent mother; as it was she made excellent cakes—also a form of activity to be commended. She was a Dettingen before her marriage, and the Dettingens are one of the oldest Prussian families, and have produced more first-rate soldiers and statesmen and a larger number of mothers of great men than any other family in that part. The Penheims and Dettingens had intermarried continually, and it was to his mother's Dettingen blood that the ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... tennis, but Robert Fenley was so much away from home that she seldom got a game, while Hilton professed to be too tired for strenuous exercise after long days in the City. She could ride and drive, though forbidden to follow any of the local packs of fox-hounds, and it has been seen that she was a first-rate swimmer. Brodie, too, had taught her to drive a motor car, and she could discourse learnedly on ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... with the sparkling glass, followed each other in rapid succession. During which, our elegant London visitor favoured the company with the following effusion, sung in a style equal to (though unaccompanied with the affected airs and self-importance of) a first-rate professor:— ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... called "the Law of the Summation of Stimuli"). The truth of what I say is confirmed by the frequent fact that the work of art which gives us this full and vivid pleasure (actually refreshing! for here, at last, is refreshment!) is either fragmentary or by no means first-rate. We have remained arid, hard, incapable of absorbing, while whole Joachim quartets flowed and rippled all round, but never into, us; and then, some other time, our soul seems to have drunk up (every fibre blissfully steeping) a few bars ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... consonant values of the nought and nine digits in perpendicular columns, as under nought (0) are placed s, z, and c^soft; under nine are placed b and p; under six are placed sh, j, ch, and g^soft, &c. Only those who possess first-rate natural memories can learn the equivalents of the sounded consonants in figures from this table. But when learned in this way, the pupil requires much practice in translating words into figures and figures into words. Even this exceptional ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... as well, as a professional in a first-rate play, by a great European dramatist ... giving Kansas the distinction of being the first to produce Iistral ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... and exquisite beauty the Jonquil has long been considered one of the most valuable of the Narciss family for cultivation in pots, and it is also a first-rate border and woodland flower. When forced, the treatment should agree as nearly as possible with that prescribed for the Narcissus. Four or five bulbs may be planted ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... yellow fangs in a shrewd smile, explained craftily that he "had seen some of their pants." The backsides of them—he had observed—were thinner than paper from constant sitting down in offices, yet otherwise they looked first-rate and would last for years. It was all appearance. "It was," he said, "bloomin' easy to be a gentleman when you had a clean job for life." They disputed endlessly, obstinate and childish; they repeated in shouts ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... sincere believer in the Law of Buddha and wished to build a new vihara for the monks, first convoked a great assembly. After giving the monks a meal of rice, and presenting his offerings (on the occasion), he selected a pair of first-rate oxen, the horns of which were grandly decorated with gold, silver, and the precious substances. A golden plough had been provided, and the king himself turned up a furrow on the four sides of the ground within which the building ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... large river or lake of sea-water, chiefly formed by the tide, and nearly enclosed by land. Beyond this was a fine bay and road for ships, filled with vessels of every size, from the small sloop or cutter to the first-rate man-of-war. On the right hand of the haven rose a hill of peculiarly beautiful form and considerable height. Its verdure was very rich, and many hundred sheep graced upon its sides and summit. From the opposite shore of the same water a large sloping extent of bank was diversified with fields, ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... five minutes Tom and Peter, to their surprise and delight, were clattering along through the streets of Lisbon upon two first-rate horses in company with the two Hussars, while, twenty lengths ahead, trotted General Craufurd with two officers who had been down to Lisbon upon duty similar to his own. Once outside the town, the general put his horse into a gallop, and his followers ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... country you, in your situation, ought to be thoroughly acquainted with. It is a very perilous one. Its prosperity, its integrity, nay its existence as a first-rate power, hangs by a thread, and that thread but little better and stronger than a cotton one. Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat. I look in vain for that constitutional vigour, and intellectual power, which once ruled the destinies ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... his first voyage in a square-rigged vessel. He was born in Hingham, and of course was called "Bucketmaker." The other watch was composed of about the same number. A tall, fine-looking Frenchman, with coal-black whiskers and curly hair, a first-rate seaman, and named John, (one name is enough for a sailor,) was the head man of the watch. Then came two Americans (one of whom had been a dissipated young man of property and family, and was reduced to duck trowsers and monthly wages,) a German, an English ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... truth, the "Campaign" is not a great poem, nor, properly speaking, if we except the Angel, a poem at all. It is simply a Gazette done into tolerable rhyme; and its chief inspiration comes from its zealous party-feeling. Marlborough, though a first-rate marshal, was not a great man, not by any means so great as Wellington, far less as Napoleon; and how can a heroic poem be written without a hero? Yet the poem fell in with the humour of the times, and was cried up as though it had ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... H.M.S.; battleship, battle wagon, dreadnought, line of battle ship, ship of the line; aircraft carrier, carrier. flattop[coll.]; helicopter carrier; missile platform, missile boat; ironclad, turret ship, ram, monitor, floating battery; first-rate, frigate, sloop of war, corvette, gunboat, bomb vessel; flagship, guard ship, cruiser; armored cruiser, protected cruiser; privateer. [supporting ships] tender; store ship, troop ship; transport, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... raged at him, and you could see dozens of them stretch their fists above the sea of torch-lighted faces and shake them at him; and it was all a wild picture, and stirring to look at; and the priest was a first-rate part of it, too, for he stood there in the strong glare and looked down on those angry people in the blandest and most indifferent way, so that while you wanted to burn him at the stake, you still admired the aggravating coolness of him. And his winding-up was the coolest ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... take me for a week the same way?" asked Jonathan, eagerly. "I'd like to stay a week first-rate ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and his emblems of an elephant and a rose, are wrought in every piece of sculptured work throughout the building, seems so to fill this house of prayer that there is no room left for God. Yet the Cathedral of Rimini remains a monument of first-rate importance for all students who seek to penetrate the revived Paganism of the fifteenth century. It serves also to bring a far more interesting Italian of that period than the tyrant of Rimini himself, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... you would like to pay interest? But you see I have a pledge here, a very fine thing.... First-rate people, the English." ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... must be gone through to be appreciated. They come and work very well for the first week. They slash down acre after acre, and stick to it almost day and night. In consequence the farmer puts on every man who applies for work, everything goes on first-rate, and there is a prospect of getting the crop in speedily. At the end of the week the mowers draw their money, quite a lump for them, and away they go to the ale-house. Saturday night sees them as drunk as men can be. They lie about the fields ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... discoveries have been commented on and illustrated by Prof. Maspero in his great history. But the discoveries that have been made since this publication have been very important,—those at Abusir, indeed, of first-rate importance, though not so momentous as those of the tombs of the Ist and IId Dynasties at Abydos, already described. At Abu Roash and at Giza, at the northern end of the Memphite necropolis, several expeditions ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... was that of a Clerkship of Session, one of an honourable, well-paid, and by no means laborious group of offices which seems to have been accepted as a comely and comfortable set of shelves for advocates of ability, position, and influence, who, for this reason or that, were not making absolutely first-rate mark at the Bar. The post to which Scott was appointed was in the possession of a certain Mr. Hope, and as no retiring pension was attached to these places, it was customary to hold them on the rather ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... determined by law the outlay for the public sacrifices, though we do not know what were his particular directions. We are told that he reckoned a sheep and a medimnus (of wheat or barley?) as equivalent, either of them, to a drachma, and that he also prescribed the prices to be paid for first-rate oxen intended for solemn occasions. But it astonishes us to see the large recompense which he awarded out of the public treasury to a victor at the Olympic or Isthmian games: to the former, five hundred drachmas, equal to one year's income of the highest ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... disadvantage in rising to address the House after having listened for upwards of five hours to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. But the question is one, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, of first-rate importance; and as I happen from a variety of circumstances to have paid some attention to it, and to have formed some strong opinions in regard to it, I am unwilling even that the Bill should be brought in, or that this opportunity should pass, without ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... about "Swing" and incendiarism, and asked his advice about feeding pigs in so thoroughly secular and judicious a manner, with so much polished glibness of tongue, that the miller thought, here was the very thing he wanted for Tom. He had no doubt this first-rate man was acquainted with every branch of information, and knew exactly what Tom must learn in order to become a match for the lawyers, which poor Mr. Tulliver himself did not know, and so was necessarily ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... Glorious! By Jove, first-rate!" shouted Bob, in an ecstasy of delight. "There's a distillery there, you know, and a fishing-village at the foot—at least, there used to be six years ago, when I was living with the exciseman. There ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... you're comin' on first-rate. I was a leetle opposed to th' Old Man sendin' you East to study, for fear it would knock out your natural instincts. But when you picked up that man as soon as you did," and he waved his hand toward the distant specks, "when you did that, I know you've not been ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... wait for a second invitation. She took up the plainest of the guns, but it was a first-rate Manton ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... his mind to the business immediately in hand, and to extricate Wotan from his dilemma, he has nothing to say except that the giants are evidently altogether in the right. The castle has been duly built: he has tried every stone of it, and found the work first-rate: there is nothing to be done but pay the price agreed upon by handing over Freia to the giants. The gods are furious; and Wotan passionately declares that he only consented to the bargain on Loki's promise to find a way for him out of it. But Loki says no: ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... smiled upon "boots," and in the course of time he became proprietor of a first-rate hotel. In the interval the Rev. Mr. — had risen from a humble curate to the grade of a dean. Having occasion to visit the town of —, he put up at the house of the ex-boots. The two men saw and recognized each other, and the affair of the early train reverted to the mind ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... besides gold have been found. There is iron in many places, copper in others. Coal has been proved to exist, of good if not first-rate quality, on the edge of the Zambesi Valley south of the Victoria Falls, and further east, to the north of Gwelo, and if the gold-reefs turn out well it will certainly be worked. Indeed, railways have now (1899) been decided on to connect Bulawayo and Gwelo with these coal basins. It may be added ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... absence of the colouring which is caused in natural objects by light and heat, and in mental pictures by the fire of imaginative passion. The result is a product which is to Fielding or Scott what a portrait by a first-rate photographer is to one by Vandyke or Reynolds, though, perhaps, the peculiar qualifications which go to make a De Foe are almost as rare as those which form the ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Business isn't very refining, you know, and it was the only education I got after I was sixteen. I'm sorry I called that book rubbish, for I'm sure it's not. I've met Mr. Lushington in England several times; he's very clever, and he's got a first-rate position. But you see I didn't like your refusing the book, after I'd taken so much trouble to get it for you. Perhaps if I hadn't thrown it overboard you'd take it, now ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... may be rated in quality as first, or second, or third. If it rates first, it may be called a first-rate article. The word is properly used as an adjective, but should not be employed as an adverb, as in the sentence, ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... didn't try to stop him ... a man was still free to quit a job on Mars if he wanted to, even a job with Jupiter Equilateral. But it was an open secret that the big mining outfit had not liked Roger Hunter's way of resigning, taking half a dozen of their first-rate mining engineers with him. There had been veiled threats, rumors of attempts to close the markets to Roger Hunter's ore, in open violation of ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... how he used to drink Affenthaler and Merkgraefler, years before at Frankfort; these were first-rate, at one florin a bottle, or wholesale, the old man explains; by the 100 liters, only 14 ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... shouted. "You surely look ill, professor! I'd like to have your picture now! Ha, ha, ha! It would make a first-rate picture for a ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... result—for our carelessness might have cost us very dearly—I was about to turn away when I saw that Maignan had mounted and was preparing to follow. I stayed accordingly to see the end, and from my elevated position enjoyed a first-rate view of the race which ensued. Both were heavy weights, and at first Maignan gained no ground. But when a couple of hundred yards had been covered Fresnoy had the ill-luck to blunder into some heavy ground, and this enabling his pursuer, who had time to avoid it, to get within ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... please, sir," said Jack, "we captured that ship with the cutter the night after we went away—I'm not a first-rate navigator, and I was blown to the Zaffarine Islands, where I remained two months for want of hands: as soon as I procured them I made sail again—I have lost three men by sharks, and I have two wounded in to-day's ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... centurion also with centurion. There were among the veterans two first centurions in either army, the Roman by no means possessing bodily strength, but a brave man, and experienced in the service; the Latin powerful in bodily strength, and a first-rate warrior; they were very well known to each other, because they had always held equal rank. The Roman, somewhat diffident of his strength, had at Rome obtained permission from the consuls, to select any one whom ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... scientific articles of faith, and therefore very different from ecclesiastical articles of faith or religious dogmas, which are either pure fictions (resting on no empirical evidence), or simply irrational (contradicting the law of causality). As instances of rational hypotheses of first-rate importance may be mentioned our belief in the oneness of matter (the building up of the elements from primary atoms), our belief in equivocal generation, our belief in the essential unity of all natural phenomena, as maintained by monism (on which compare my General Morphology, ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... existence. Davson (we told him that the "Sydney" must be kept for Sundays) was a perfect fund of amusement in his zealous practice. He knew as much about the matter as a cow might, and was rather less active. But if perseverance could have made a cricketer, he would have turned out a first-rate one. Not content with two or three hours of it every fine evening, when we all sallied down to the marsh, followed by every idler in Glyndewi, he used to disappear occasionally in the mornings, and for some days ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... boys helped. Sam Fish got so he could shingle as well as Mick, and keep the nails in his mouth. I pounded my thumb the first day I tried, and the biggest blood-blister I ever saw grew; so I had to give up hammering. Sam says if he can't be a Congressman, he means to be a first-rate shingler, and get the job of shingling all the spires in the country. I sha'n't be that, anyway. If I can't get on better with my arithmetic, and get to be an Admiral, I shall keep a stable, and ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... home very often, however, so that I never really lost sight of him; and when my husband bought this piece of land and we were married, it happened, also, that Andrew bought property, and wished to be settled. He had lost his parents, and was quite by himself, and a first-rate workman. He wanted the little house with the neat, pretty garden down there half-way to the church; but was not able to purchase it, because the owner wished for full payment at once, and Andrew could only pay in instalments, as he earned ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... of Trees, No. 2.; II. Study of Trees, No. 5. Old Pollard Oak; III. Study of Trees, Peasants collecting Leaves; IV. Old Church Porch, Morlaas, Monogram of the Eleventh Century. MR. LYTE, who is a first-rate chemist, has shown himself by these specimens to be also a first-rate practical photographer. From him, therefore, the art may look for much ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... blind confidence from the thought that so much could not have been in vain. Crossing the now fast-frozen Saskatchewan, we ascended the southern bank and entered upon a rich country watered with many streams and wooded with park-like clumps of aspen and pine. My two retainers were first-rate fellows. One spoke English very fairly: he was a brother of the bright-eyed little beauty at Fort Pitt. The other, Paul Foyale, was a thick, stout-set man, a good voyageur, and excellent-in camp. Both were noted travellers, and both had suffered severely in the epidemic of the small-pox. ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... Cincinnati boy, and a first-rate fellow, too, who came out with judge Turner, was my comrade. We staid at the Lake four days —I had plenty of fun, for John constantly reminded me of Sam Bowen when we were on our campaign in Missouri. But first and foremost, for Annie's, Mollies, and Pamela's comfort, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Paris, we may judge; for his after-life left scanty room for book-work, and of the vast quantity of information which his strong memory ever placed at his disposal, the far greater proportion must have been accumulated now. He made himself a first-rate mathematician; he devoured history—his chosen authors being Plutarch and Tacitus; the former the most simple painter that antiquity has left us of heroic characters—the latter the profoundest master of political wisdom. The poems of Ossian ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... Martin and Polly Horton; but they not being every man's girls, as Bob Lovelace tells us, and our adventurer, perhaps, not having money, address, or patience, to come to the ultimatum with those first-rate ladies of pleasure, he very sagely concludes, that one woman is as good as another, especially as the same Bob Lovelace, so experienced in the ways of women, informs him, that that prime gift differs only in its external ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... an ugly one. I'm just beginning the investigation. But I assure you it's a first-rate scandal already. Must you go? Well, see you at ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... said he to me, "that these nails are first-rate fish-hooks; but, one thing I do know, and that is, with proper bait they will act as well as the best. But this biscuit is no good at all. Let me but just get hold of one fish, and I shall know fast enough how to use it to catch ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... Then we have lunch. In the afternoon, if he is well enough, we drive; if not he sleeps, and I get a walk. Later on an old Indian friend of his will sometimes drop in; if not he likes to be read to until dinner. After dinner we play chess—he is a first-rate player. At ten I help him to bed; from eleven to twelve I smoke and study Socialism and all the rest of it that Lynwood is at ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... at the Mission, all things have gone well The brother who, throughout my absence, acted As overseer, assures me that the crops Never were better. I have lost one negro, A first-rate hand, but obstinate and sullen. He ran away some time last spring, and hid In the river timber. There my Indian converts Found him, and treed and shot him. For the rest, The heathens round about begin ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... recent writers have carried it much further, notably W.T. Preyer (The Mind of the Child, 1881), whose psychological studies stamp him as one of the chief pioneers in new methods of investigation. Other authorities of first-rate importance (their chief works only being given here) are J. Sully (Studies of Childhood, 1896), Earl Barnes (Studies in Education, 1896, 1902), J.M. Baldwin (Mental Development in the Child and the Race, 1895), Sigismund (Kind und Welt, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... "First-rate," I said, when I had finished. "Not a weak line in it. Not a single weak line. And there's nothing to prevent its being taken even in this d——d England, I think. The title's the worst part. You'll have to ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... Whether his trade be pleading at the bar or surgery or plastering or plumbing, it develops a critical sense in him for that sort of occupation. He understands the difference between second-rate and first-rate work in his whole branch of industry; he gets to know a good job in his own line as soon as he sees it; and getting to know this in his own line, he gets a faint sense of what good work may mean anyhow, that may, if circumstances favor, spread into his judgments elsewhere. ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... out fishing this morning, Harold?" Mr. Welch said. "I hope you will bring back a good supply, for the larder is low. I was looking at you yesterday, and I see that you are becoming a first-rate hand at ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... I had no idea that he was so good. He says he does not intend to play for the racket, but if he did he would have a first-rate chance. I was in the last ties last year and I ought to have a good chance this, but either I am altogether out of practice or he is wonderfully good. I was asking him, and he said in his lazy way that they had got ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... good aunt to have, too. She's living down at Winchester now, close to the cathedral, one of the most respectable ladies there. Chaperones girls at the country ball, if you please. No river for Liz, thank you! You remind me of Liz a little: she was a first-rate business woman—saved money from the beginning—never let herself look too like what she was—never lost her head or threw away a chance. When she saw I'd grown up good-looking she said to me across the bar "What are you doing there, you little fool? wearing out your health and your ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... to give a good dinner, and do not know in what manner to set about it, you will do wisely to order it from Birch, Kuehn, or any other first-rate restaurateur. By these means you ensure the best cookery and ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... in our room—a valuable old painting of the Mater Dolorosa. I always fancied there was a look of my mother, particularly about the eyes, in the countenance. I should like to have it copied by some first-rate artist to hang up in ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... reputation is so difficult to establish as that of first-rate poetic excellence. During the last fifty years, many meritorious competitors for bardic renown have successively aspired to public favour, and have each in their turns exhibited their fancy-woven bouquets, as containing a more beautiful assemblage of "flowers of all hue," ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... side with their comrades of the British army in repelling the invasion of our friends' territory and the attack made upon Belgium. We shall find our army there reinforced by native Indian soldiers—high-souled men of first-rate training and representing an ancient civilization; and we feel certain that if they are called upon they will give the best possible account of themselves side by side with our British troops ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... of the battalion drill, and one or two men know their gun drill very fairly. This is so far satisfactory, and I think, if the whole country was not corrupt, they might go on well and quickly, but really it is most irritating to see the jealousies of the mandarins of one another. The people are first-rate, hard-working, and fairly honest; but it seems as soon as they rise in office they become corrupt. There is lots of vitality in the country, and there are some good men; but these are kept down by the leaden apathy of their ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... think I did, and I wish we were there now! Here's the College, and there's our house in the street on the other side of the common. The church is first-rate, it's really like it—and there's the Roman Catholic Chapel and the ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... will be first-rate," said Marcus, with delight. "I should like dog's-heads for the pattern; won't you ...
— Hatty and Marcus - or, First Steps in the Better Path • Aunt Friendly
... was appointed, at Hunky Ben's suggestion, to consider the whole matter, and take what steps seemed advisable. Hunky was an adroit and modest man—he could not have been a first-rate scout otherwise! He managed not only to become convener of the committee, but succeeded in getting men chiefly of his own opinion placed on it. At supper that night in Charlie's cottage, while enjoying May's cookery and presence, and waited on by ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... four hundred and fifty miles from Independence. Our route at first was rough, and through a timbered country, which appeared to be fertile. After striking the prairie, we found a first-rate road, and the only difficulty we have had, has been in crossing the creeks. In that, however, there ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... any lady Whose conduct is shady Or smacking of doubtful propriety; When Virtue would quash her I take and whitewash her And launch her in first-rate society. I recommend acres Of clumsy dressmakers - Their fit and their finishing touches; A sum in addition They pay for permission To say that they make for ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... "First-rate, mother," he replied; though he was not exactly pleased to find that she regarded the trip to Rock Island in the light of ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... sold his property for 25,000 dollars to Brigham Young, and gone to England to make converts. How impressive he may be as an expounder of the Mormon gospel, I don't know. His beefsteaks and chicken-pies, however, were first-rate. James and I talk about Maine, and cordially agree that so far as pine boards and horse-mackerel are concerned, it is equalled by few and excelled by none. There is no place like home, as Clara, the Maid of Milan, very justly observes; and while J. Townsend ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... Clarke mentions that it is used with the fulmar to make a kind of broth, which constitutes the first and principal meal of the inhabitants. It is curious to know that what is eaten at a duchess's table in Piccadilly as a first-rate luxury, is used by the poor people of Scotland twice or thrice a day. It is an expensive dish; but knowledge of this fact ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... awfully jolly of you to be the first," whispered Dick; "and how nice you look, Nan! You always do, you know, but to-day you are first-rate. Is this a new gown?" casting an approving look over Nan's costume, which was certainly very ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... Astronomical Society has just finished constructing a new radio telescope. It's a first-rate instrument from which we expect great things. Your father and I were in at its birth, so to speak. We consulted on the initial designs during a meeting of the ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... proved to be a first-rate type of an Americanized Irishman. His wife was a Scotch woman. They had a family of five or six children, two of them grown-up daughters,—modest, comely young women as you would find anywhere. The elder of the two had spent a winter ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... all right here," said Mr. Barnes, his voice becoming more and more dismal. "But a mile farther on, and we come to a small wood—the road dips down there suddenly, it is a first-rate place ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... the island's population emigrated, mostly to Canada and the US. Limited home rule from Denmark was granted in 1874 and complete independence attained in 1944. Literacy, longevity, income, and social cohesion are first-rate by world standards. ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... occasion a country gentleman, knowing Joseph Green's reputation as a poet, procured an introduction to him, and solicited a "first-rate epitaph" for a favorite servant who had lately died. Green asked what were the man's chief qualities, and was told that "Cole excelled in all things, but was particularly good at raking hay, which he could do faster than anybody, the ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... made it excused himself by saying that he was never intended for a mechanic. But that was a poor excuse for being without a gimlet. Every man or boy has some mechanical ability, and exercising that ability, with first-rate tools, will generally make him a good workman. Now as to what odd jobs a farmer will find to do. He steps out into the garden, and finds a post of his grape-arbor rotted off, and the whole trellis out of shape. It should ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... six years old. I see a good many little girls write letters to YOUNG PEOPLE. I like the paper first-rate, and so does brother Will. He is a big boy thirteen years old, and can skate. We are having a very warm winter here in Missouri, and ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... player; and though Gawtrey always swore solemnly that he played with the most scrupulous honour (an asseveration which Morton, at least, implicitly believed), and no proof to the contrary was ever detected, yet a first-rate card-player is always a suspicious character, unless the losing parties know exactly who he is. The market fell off, and Gawtrey at length thought it ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... course," said Mr. Browne, who seemed pleased by her admission. To do him justice, he would not undermine a classmate, although he had other rules of conduct which might eventually require a little straightening out. "Worthy's a first-rate fellow, a little quick-tempered, perhaps, and inclined to go his own way. He's got a good mind, and he's taken to using it lately. He has come pretty near ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... first-rate galloper, small-hoofed, five feet high; tail three feet and a half long; cheek pieces of the bit of twenty-three carat gold; ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... odd months, had gone since Sophy went away. I was still the King of the Cheap Jacks, and at a greater height of popularity than ever. I had had a first-rate autumn of it, and on the twenty-third of December, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, I found myself at Uxbridge, Middlesex, clean sold out. So I jogged up to London with the old horse, light and easy, to have ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... rather nice. It's our latest thing, and we find it takes with customers first-rate. Look here!" he said, taking down one of the jars, and pointing to the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... by the just interference of the United States. A kingdom without a king, Spain had hawked her crown round Europe. For a throne, as for humbler posts, it is easy enough to find second-rate men who have no special groove, nor any capacity to delve one, but the first-rate men are, one discovers, nearly always occupied elsewhere. They are never waiting for ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... the misfortune of humanity that its history is chiefly written by third-rate men. The first-rate man seldom has any impulse to record and philosophise; his impulse is to act; life, to him, is an adventure, not a syllogism or an autopsy. Thus the writing of history is left to college professors, moralists, theorists, dunder-heads. Few historians, great or ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... was a first-rate one maybe she got her pay; but what did she want with a watch? That's just the way with all women. They'll give ten times the value for some little gewgaw to wear about 'em. I was engaged to a fine-looking girl in North Carolina, ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... they'd like 'em first-rate," she said, speaking low so as not to wake the baby. "Mamie, Ellen, Jamie, Fred, George—say ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... physician of Mantua, wrote a treatise on Biblical rhetoric (1480). Again, the only important writer of dramas in Hebrew was, as we shall see, an Italian Jew, who copied Italian models. Though, therefore, the Hebrew poetry of Italy scarcely reaches the front rank, it is historically of first-rate importance. It represents the only effects of the Renaissance on Jewish literature. In other countries, the condition of the Jews was such that they were shut off from external influences. Their literature suffered as their lives did from imprisonment within the Ghettos, which were erected ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... that boy first-rate, and I guess he likes me, though I didn't know where Nantucket ought to go. He wants me to teach him to ride when he's on his pins again, and Miss Celia says I may. She knows how to make folks feel good, don't she?" and ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... remember no good one. They seem always looking up to, not down from, mountains. Wordsworth has given us, for example, no description of the view from Skiddaw; and there does not exist, in any Scottish poetical author, a first-rate picture of the view either from Ben Lomond, Schehallion, Ben Cruachan, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... attention to these matters. I like a good man, no matter what church he belongs to. For instance, the Presbyterian minister at 'Gib.' was a first-rate man; and so is that chaplain at Pentonville, the Rev. Mr. Sherman. But I am of the barber's opinion ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... he that has much, acts more strongly; and he of the saints that has most, acteth best of all: but yet none of these three can act so as they should and would, and, consequently, so depart from iniquity as is their duty. Witness those four that I mentioned but now, for they are among the first-rate of saints, yet you see what they did, and hear ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... for six weeks, and during these six weeks Winn discovered that he was quite a new kind of person; for one thing he developed into a first-rate nurse, and he could be just like a mother, and say the silliest, gentlest things. No one was there to see or hear him, and the boy was so ill that he wouldn't be likely to remember afterwards. He did remember, however, ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... sell. You'll do to help develop the scheme. You'll make a first-rate tool, but you aren't the workman to manage the tool. I will go as far as to say, however, that without you and Mr. Pedagog, or your equivalents in the animal kingdom, the idea isn't worth ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... knowledge of men and things! what a faultless accent! what indescribable grace of manner! what a generous and yet ladylike humor! what a merry, musical laugh! what quickness of apprehension! what acuteness of perception! what— words fail. Imagine every thing that is delightful in a first-rate conversationalist, and every thing that is fascinating in a lady, and even then you will fail to have a correct idea of Miss O'Halloran. To have such an idea it would be ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... ruinous in their principles, have been variously modified by the human mind, of which it is the essence, to labour incessantly on unknown objects; it always, commences by attaching to these, a very first-rate importance, which it afterwards never dares coolly ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... Churchill says it is, she deserves and can afford it. As a nation she has prospered and grown great, not by a policy of war and conquest, but by hard work, thrift, self-denial, fidelity to international engagements, well-planned instruction, and first-rate organization. Why should she not, if she thinks it advisable and is willing to spend the money on it, supply herself with an arm of defence in proportion to her size, her prosperity, and her desert? It may be that, as Mr. Norman Angell holds, the entire policy ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... brought in the right sentiment, that there is no place like home, in first-rate style. You see, you need not ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... dining-room has some fine family portraits on its walls. The first you will notice is that of William II., on horseback, leading an attack; the artist (Keirzer) has produced a first-rate work of both man and horse. Underneath this picture stands the favourite horse of William II., one which carried him through numerous engagements, and earned from his Royal master a gratitude and affection that caused him to wish for his preservation in a position ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... good linguist, a highly skilled musician, and withal a most magnetic personality — joined with her husband in his hearty friendship for the newly discovered poet. She was the daughter of the Marquis de la Figaniere, Portuguese minister to this country. In their home were entertained all the first-rate artistic people who came to Philadelphia, such as Salvini, Charlotte Cushman, Bayard Taylor, and others. It was a home in which music and literature were highly honored, and here Lanier met some of the most interesting people then living in Philadelphia, such as John Foster Kirk, editor ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... owe, is Creditor."—Marsh's Book-Keeping, p. 23. "Declaring the curricle was his, and he should have who he chose in it."—Anna Ross, p. 147. "The fact is, Burke is the only one of all the host of brilliant contemporaries who we can rank as a first-rate orator."—The Knickerbocker, May, 1833. "Thus you see, how naturally the Fribbles and the Daffodils have produced the Messalina's of our time:"—Brown's Estimate, ii, 53. "They would find in the Roman list both the Scipio's."—Ib., ii, 76. "He found his wife's clothes on ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... "belongs to a good family, he has a first-rate education, is a fine penman, and a good bookkeeper, but this dreadful drink has thrown him out of some of the best situations in the town where we ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... the fellow replied, out of breath, but still cheerful. "First-rate view of the country up here. I fancy I see a doe and a fawn off on the prairie; wouldn't you like a ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... of discovery was of much more value than Nuno thought. He saw in it a first-rate slave hunting-ground, but it became the starting-point for trade and intercourse with the Negro States of the Senegal and the Gambia, to the south and east. It was here, in the bay of Arguin, where the ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... frown; little mouth hard set; and breathing so that you could hear him six forms off. True, the new Head had been goaded by other outrages, the authors of which had not omitted to remove their names; but the want of humor, the amazing want of humor! As if it had not been a sign of first-rate stuff in Tod! And to this day Felix remembered with delight the little bubbling hiss that he himself had started, squelched at once, but rippling out again along the rows like tiny scattered lines ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... he recommended to the soldiery—that is, to the prtorian cohorts. The soldiery had no particular objection to the old general, if he and they could agree upon terms; his age being doubtless appreciated as a first-rate recommendation, in a case where it insured a speedy renewal of ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... almost formed on purpose to be good sport, and make a jolly good dish, a pleasant addition to the ceaseless round of mutton and beef to which the dead level of civilisation reduces us. Coursing is capital, the harriers first-rate. Now every man who walks about the fields is more or less at heart a sportsman, and the farmer having got the right of the gun he is not unlikely to become to some extent a game preserver. When ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... He's a regular first-rate fellow! He can do anything;' my hero-worship and my pride in my chief all coming into play. Besides, if I was not clever and book-learned myself, it was something to belong to some ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... went at once to the points that were sure to affect the decision. Early in his experience as a lawyer he had to be content with fees that seem absurdly small; once, he rode from Springfield to Bloomington to argue a case, and got but five dollars for his services. But he was a first-rate man of business, and soon had a good income from ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... the nation from trade and industry. It would hold out a dangerous lure to decoy the unwary to their ruin, by making them part with the earnings of their labor for a prospect of imaginary wealth. The great principle of the project was an evil of first-rate magnitude; it was to raise artificially the value of the stock by exciting and keeping up a general infatuation, and by promising dividends out of funds which could never be adequate ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... is, first-rate. Have you seen it? "Our Camp in Tirah." Natives cooking in the foreground, fellows standing about smoking, and a whole pile of tinned stores dumped down in one corner, exactly as they would be, don't you know! Oh, I think the Committee made a very good choice ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Saxon, commencing another cigar. "I look to the matter of employment, and have nothing to do with the character of my clients, beyond ascertaining their means of liquidating my account. The committee required the assistance of a first-rate engineer, and I flatter myself they could hardly have made a more unexceptionable selection. But what's the use of looking sulky about it? You can't help yourself; and, after all, what's the amount of your loss? A parcel ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... to the memory of Lord George, and his book affords material for an impartial judgment. At that period the noble lord was a distinguished patron of the turf: all England knew him as a sporting gentleman, a first-rate judge of horses, and an extensive winner on the course. In allusion to his habits in these respects, it became a popular sneer that the Conservatives required "a stable mind," after the versatile performances of Sir Robert Peel, and they had at last found such in Lord George. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... palpable design upon us.... Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.' Or as Ruskin has put the thing with respect to painting, 'Entirely first-rate work is so quiet and natural that there can be ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... in her evolutions and discipline, perhaps from the old English word for a fine boy. Crack is generally used for first-rate or excellent. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... do first-rate. I shouldn't want one any better, really. I know"—here he gave a very approving glance about the room. "Now come, do! It ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... youngster," the mate said; "I reckon you are about as spry for a green hand as any I have come across; I had my eye on you, and you'll do. You go on like that, and you will make a first-rate hand afore long." ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... although nay proper employment had been to be surgeon or doctor to the ship, yet often, upon a pinch, I was forced to work like a common mariner. But I could not see how this could be done in their country, where the smallest wherry was equal to a first-rate man-of-war among us, and such a boat as I could manage would never live ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... respects it is not. It cannot be more than one; it cannot be limited either in space or time; it cannot be other than at least as self-consistent as its manifestations in nature are invariable. Now, from the latter deduction there arises a point of first-rate importance in the present connexion. For if the so-called First Cause be intelligent, and therefore all secondary causes but the expression of a supreme Will, in as far as such a Will is self-consistent, the operation of ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... ask to what end magnificent establishments are maintained by states and sovereigns, furnished with masterpieces of art, and placed under the direction of men of first-rate talent and high-minded enthusiasm, sought out for those qualities among the foremost in the ranks of science, if we demand QUI BONO? for what good a Bradley has toiled, or a Maskelyne or a Piazzi has worn out his venerable age in watching, the answer is—not to settle mere speculative points ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... second. And I have despatched a note to the colonel, advising him to attend to your side. I accepted the Barone's proposition solely that I might get here first and convince you that an apology will save you a heap of discomfort. The Barone is a first-rate shot, and doubtless he will only wing you. But that will mean scandal and several weeks in the hospital, to say nothing of a devil of a row with the civil authorities. In the army the Italian still fights his duello, but these affairs never get into ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... be thought to express the true aspirations of rising priests in the Church of England. A lawyer does not sin in seeking to be a judge, or in compassing his wishes by all honest means. A young diplomat entertains a fair ambition when he looks forward to be the lord of a first-rate embassy; and a poor novelist, when he attempts to rival Dickens or rise above Fitzjeames, commits no fault, though he may be foolish. Sydney Smith truly said that in these recreant days we cannot expect to find the majesty of St. Paul beneath the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... table use and general cultivation, North and South, East and West, I would recommend the Charles Downing, Monarch of the West, Seth Boyden, Kentucky Seedling, Duchess, and Golden Defiance. These varieties are all first-rate in quality, and they have shown a wonderful adaptation to varied soils and climates. They have been before the public a number of years, and have persistently proved their excellence. Therefore, they are worthy of a place in every garden. With these valuable ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... down again, Theydon," said Forbes, rising. "We'll have coffee brought to my den. What is your favorite liqueur— or shall we tell Tomlinson to send along that decanter of port? It's a first-rate wine. Another glass won't hurt you, ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... instrument torture another. Neither Cremonese Violins nor old instruments in general require to be heavily strung: the mellowness of the wood and their delicate construction require the stringing to be such as will assist in bringing out that richness of tone which belongs to first-rate instruments. If the bridge and sound-board be heavily weighted with thick strings, vibration will surely be checked. In the case of modern instruments, heavy in wood, and needing constant use to wear down their freshness, strings of a larger size may be used with advantage, and particularly ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... not attain (nor was such her intention) the deep philosophy and exquisite melody of the great Spanish poet, she has produced a first-rate specimen of the romance drama, rococo perhaps, and with quaint ornaments, but none the less full of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... which the first pages of Casuals of the Sea give a pleasant description. Then he went to a well-known grammar school at Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk—what we would call over here a high school. He was a quiet, sturdy boy, and a first-rate cricketer. ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... said in a letter to Lord Haddington dated the 22nd of May, 1843, "that all our old vessels of war, save the class of eighty-gun ships and a few first-rate and large frigates, are almost worthless; whilst our steam department is deficient in most of the properties which constitute effective vessels. No blockades worthy of the name can now be maintained by fleets of sailing ships; nor can accompanying steamships be kept for months and ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane |
