"Paragon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... What's the matter, Sir? Bel. By Iupiter an Angell: or if not An earthly Paragon. Behold Diuinenesse No elder then a Boy. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... than by their knowledge, for they were all lamentably ignorant. Some among them were the children of parents who had been free before the war, and of these some few could read and one or two could write. One paragon, who could repeat the multiplication table, was immediately promoted to the position of ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... first year of army life, he became the paragon of every poor private and raw recruit struggling with the miseries of goose-step, with whom he came even into momentary contact. For sometimes through a word or act, sometimes through a flash of the eye, or a look about the mouth, ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... For his wife Anna, who was endowed with invaluable virtues, which made her a model among wives and a paragon among mothers, had not been equally endowed physically, for, in one word, she was hideous. Her hair, which was coarse though it was thin, was the color of the national half-and-half, but of thick half-and-half ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... two engagements, even for small parts, in a first-class London theatre could vanish. With your acquaintance in the profession you'd be able to trace her anywhere on earth. By the way, what did the paragon call herself?" ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... the paragon of all pot houses; snug little bar with red curtains; stout old benevolent female in spectacles; barmaid an houri; and for malt the most touching tap ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... marriage will either make or ruin. You know my characteristics; the slightest check upon my independence, and all's up with me. The woman I marry must be perfectly reasonable, perfectly good-tempered; she must have excellent education, and every delicacy of breeding. Where am I to find this paragon?' ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... us. Why, there is your uncle Dion, with eighty-seven winters on his head (may God rest him!) and not a soul to leave his large fortune to, but you, his only nephew! Bless my soul! what a nuisance is this boy! Instead of going to this paragon of an uncle, and trying to get into his good graces, as his next of blood and kin, he talks of becoming an apothecary, smearing plasters, mixing poisons, and setting sprained joints. Go to thy uncle, I say, like a dutiful nephew, and doctor ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... point Rhodes interrupted me with the remark: "So you think that he is a paragon. Well, I won't contradict you, and, besides, you know that I have always defended him; but still, with all his virtues, he has not yet found out what he ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... he's been given charge of the coroner's examination isn't a very hopeful sign. He's a sort of pedant, who has come to think that the mixture of medical learning and knowledge of police conventions which he possesses makes him a paragon ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... motor-tour on and about the Franco-German Frontier, ingeniously done into novel form and wholesomely seasoned with adventure and the arrangement of marriages shortly to take place. And I distinctly like his taciturn paragon of a chauffeur, Eugene—a nephew of Enery Straker the voluble, as I should judge from a certain family resemblance and, by the way, much too intelligent to murder his French phrases in the hopeless manner which the author, none too scrupulous in these little touches, suggests. But whether Mr. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... I have, so far as it is in my power, guarded the heart of this young girl from disaster, and placed it under the protecting eye of our noble princess, I venture to name my paragon. He is the young lieutenant-Baron von Trenck, the favorite of ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... in me quite a curiosity to meet this paragon of a brother," she remarked. "He must be ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... the show people. Never any trumpets, jewelry, petty squabbles, lime-lights, and silks; she never read criticisms, save those I sent her. Managers had to knock on her dressing-room door. Oh, I do not say that she is an absolute paragon, but I do say that she is a good woman, of high ideals, loyal, generous, frank, and honest. And I have often wondered why the devil I couldn't fall in love with her ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... athletic, and yet slim and graceful,—gifted with many accomplishments, with a heart full of noble qualities, and a brain inspired by genius,—a poet, or an author, or an artist, perhaps a lawyer merely, but of rare talents, at any rate a man of superior intellect,—in a word, a paragon, who, when he should appear upon the earth, incarnate, she expected would conceive a violent passion for her, in which case, she should take it into consideration whether to marry him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... colored print that he had ever seen. Had he brushed him in passing Johnny would have felt a thrill; had he spoken to him he knew he would have been speechless to reply. Judge then of his utter stupefaction when he saw Uncle Ben—actually Uncle Ben!—approach this paragon of perfection, albeit with some embarrassment, and after a word or two of unintelligible conversation walk away with him! Need it be wondered that Johnny, forgetful at once of his brother, the horses, and even the collation with its possible ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... have been expected of thee, my paragon of wisdom! Well, never mind. I'll tell her she was her aunt. That will do ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... the father without having seen the daughter. If the father consents, he informs her, and if she consents, the suitor sends his affianced presents of clothes and jewelry, which remain in her hands as a pledge of his fidelity. She is pictured to him as the paragon of beauty and excellence, but he is never allowed to see her, speak to her, or write to her, should she know how to write. His mother or aunt may see her or bring reports, but he does not see her until the wedding ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... that folds in the brows of Apollo were not half so rich to the sight, for in her hairs it seemed love had laid herself in ambush, to entrap the proudest eye that durst gaze upon their excellence: what should I need to decipher her particular beauties, when by the censure of all she was the paragon of all earthly perfection? This Rosalynde sat, I say, with Alinda as a beholder of these sports, and made the cavaliers crack their lances with more courage: many deeds of knighthood that day were performed, and many prizes were given ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... This paragon had been Resident in the Principality of Bakuta to the north of Bombay when Stella had first arrived. But he had been moved now to Chitipur in Rajputana. It was supposed that he was writing in his leisure moments a work which ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... favored, had thrown away the dearest possession of manhood,—liberty,—and this bauble was to be his lifelong reward! And yet not a bauble either, for a pleasing person and a gentle and sweet nature, which had once made her seem to him the very paragon of loveliness, were still hers. Alas! her simple words were true,—he had grown away from her. Her only fault was that she had not grown with him, and surely he could not reproach ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of Edward VI., Sir Henry Sidney had been nicknamed "the only odd man and paragon of the court." The same stanch virtues that made him "odd" in Edward's time rendered him a man apart at the fawning, flattering, self-seeking court of ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... is perverse," interrupted the duke. "She would raise a storm were the Dauphin a paragon of manliness. He is a poor, mean wretch, whom she may easily rule. His weakness will be her advantage. She is strong enough, God knows, and wilful enough to face down the devil himself. If there is a ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... was more than painful to hear him talk thus—to speak to me as if I was a paragon of virtue, and to apologise to me for the defects of his own son. It was more than I could endure; and when he started to go I asked if I might walk ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... she seemed to show something of the quiet poise of a nurse or a nun. She seemed to exemplify the thought that the ideal woman is both wood-nymph and madonna. By contrast to the Nietzschian intriguer I had left that morning at Briar Hills, she was a paragon of all virtues. Nietzsche! The philosopher of ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... laughing, "I have no doubt Captain Armitage is the paragon of a soldier, but he is unquestionably a most unpleasant and ungentlemanly person in his conduct to the young officers. Mr. Hall has told me the same thing. I declare, I don't see how they can speak to him at all, he has been so harsh ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... probably no stranger to the neighbourhood, having lived within thirteen miles of it when he dwelt at Horton. Ellwood could not welcome him on his arrival, being in prison on account of an affray at what should have been the paragon of decorous solemnities—a Quaker funeral. When released, about the end of August or the beginning of September, he waited upon Milton, who, "after some discourses, called for a manuscript of his; which he delivered to me, bidding ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... Paragon. Her nature was represented to us, when we engaged her, as being feebly expressed in her name. She had a written character, as large as a proclamation; and, according to this document, could do everything ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... was ready to throw up his hands in so far as Toby was concerned. He felt that he could never strike pay dirt in that quarter. There never was, and never would be again, quite such a paragon as Toby Farrell. It would be wasting time to try and bark up this tree. The scent had evidently led him ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... callow eagles at the first sunrise. Soon with an eagle nativeness their gaze Ripe from hue-golden swoons took all the blaze, And then, behold! large Neptune on his throne Of emerald deep: yet not exalt alone; At his right hand stood winged Love, and on 870 His left sat smiling Beauty's paragon. ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... holy, And if Napoleon be true in this, Then is he God's perfection of a man, And she earth's sole and sainted paragon! But wait—O wait and see ere you risk life ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... satisfied, Content with things that be; The paragon of paltriness Upraised for all to see; With loving pride he ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin
... Audrey had "led him on.") "When I was with her she seemed to be a little devil, encouraging everything that was bad in me. I don't know how she did it; but she did. And yet, Kathy, whatever they may say, I don't believe she's bad. I don't swear, of course, that she's a paragon ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... back, bringing Mary, Bateese Otter's widow. Mary, according to the standards of the settlement, was a paragon of virtue. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... nervousness returned a little; but she went through the dreaded introduction with great demureness and perfect propriety. And throughout the day Mr. Carleton had no reason to fear rebuke for the judgment which he had pronounced upon his little paragon. All the flattering attention which was shown her, and it was a good deal, could not draw Fleda a line beyond the dignified simplicity which seemed natural to her; any more than the witty attempts ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to be favored with the presence of this paragon of perfection, and embodiment of all wisdom, papa?" asked Miss Evelina Fairland, with what was intended for the utmost girlish sprightliness of manner; for, although it was only at breakfast, Miss Evelina never laid aside her manner of extreme youth, ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... sad-like and say, 'Yes, but you had ought to see old man Rhett's Polly, all the rest is imitations!' Seemed like they couldn't get her off their minds. So I just slung my kit to my back, shouldered my rifle, and hoofed it up-stream. I says, I'll see for myself where this here paragon lays it all over the rest of her sect, but sho—the closter I came to old man Rhett the mo' I ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... suggestion which Brandram answered by saying, "the door seems shut," he married Mrs. Clarke on April 23, 1840. She had 450 pounds a year and a home at Oulton. Fifteen or sixteen years later he spoke of his wife and daughter thus: "Of my wife I will merely say that she is a perfect paragon of wives—can make puddings and sweets and treacle posset, and is the best woman of business in Eastern Anglia—of my step daughter—for such she is, though I generally call her daughter, and with good reason, seeing that she has always shown ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... was engaged also, and certainly very much in love if she considered the young man a paragon. Cynthia compared them all with Cousin Chilian, and it ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Bill? Sneer and scoff and cavil as did their little rivals for a time, calumny was crushed and scoffers blighted that wonderful March morning when, before the whole assembled school, there suddenly appeared that paragon of plainsmen, that idol of all well-bred young Westerners, he whom only on flaring posters or in the glare of the footlights had they been permitted to see, and smiling, superbly handsome, king of scouts and Indian-fighters, Buffalo Bill ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... An insult is not a reason. Ann forbids her to be alone with me on any occasion. Says I am not a fit person for a young girl to be with. What do you think of your paragon now? ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... of draggled poultry home across the Rhine. She was the most marauding Army lately seen, also the most gasconading, and had the least capacity for fighting: three worse qualities no army could have. How she fought, we have seen sufficiently. Before taking leave of her forever, readers, as she is a paragon in her kind, would perhaps take a glance or two at her marauding qualities,—by a good opportunity that offers. Plotho at Regensburg, that a supreme Reichs Diet may know what a "deliverance of Saxony" ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... schoolmaster of iniquity for the sovereigns and politicians of the south have lived to witness the practice of the monarch who had most laid to heart the precepts of the "Prince," he would have felt that he had not written in vain, and that his great paragon of successful falsehood, Ferdinand of Arragon, had been surpassed by the great grandson. For the ideal perfection of perfidy, foreshadowed by the philosopher who died in the year of Philip's birth, was thoroughly embodied at last by this potentate. Certainly Nicholas ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... this cup to one made up of loveliness alone; A woman, of her gentle sex the seeming paragon, To whom the better elements and kindly stars have given A form so fair, that, like the air, 'tis less of ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... manners—he was still the favorite of teachers and pupils. As he grew older, he was taken much into society, and young as he was, inhaled, with the most intense delight, the incense of female adulation. The smiles and caresses bestowed upon the boy-paragon by beautiful and charming women, instead of fostering his affections, as they would have done, had they been lavished upon him for his virtues rather than his graces, gave precocious growth and vigor to his vanity, till, ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... horse is, after man, the paragon of animals. "In form and moving how express and admirable!" His frame is perfect mechanism, instinct with glowing life, and guarded by the great conservative and healing powers of nature from disease and death. His vitality ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell
... Mr. Blattergowl, minister of Trotcosey, the parish in which Monkbarns and Knockwinnock were both situated. The reverend gentleman was equipped in a buzz wig, upon the top of which was an equilateral cocked hat. This was the paragon of the three yet remaining wigs of the parish, which differed, as Monkbarns used to remark, like the three degrees of comparisonSir Arthur's ramilies being the positive, his own bob-wig the comparative, and the overwhelming grizzle of the worthy clergyman figuring as the superlative. ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... them; therefore easily overcome by the Romans, though at that time, for number, a far less considerable people. If your liberty be not a root that grows, it will be a branch that withers, which consideration brings me to the paragon, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... step between young people is impossible to avoid, since during courtship both wear masks, each trying to impress the other that he or she is a paragon of all virtues. The net result is, that the truth often becomes a horrible revelation immediately after the wedding ceremony. Unhappy and mismated marriages, without means of rectification, are the curse of civilization, the living, gnawing cancer ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and movement, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!—Shakespeare. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... during these years that he made the acquaintance and learned to love so deeply Matilda Hoffman, a beautiful young girl, daughter of one of his older friends. She was a most lovely person, in body and mind, and in his eyes the paragon of womanhood. He was young, romantic, full of sensibility, and his love for this beautiful girl filled his whole life. He was poor and could not marry, but he had many arguments with himself about the propriety of doing so even ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... without blushing, and will gaze at you with assurance. She will begin to blame your least actions because they are at variance with her ideas, or her secret intentions. She will take no care of what pertains to you, she will not even know whether you have all you need. You are no longer her paragon. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... who was wrapped up in her servants, began talking at houses where she called of her paragon among saises—the man who was never too busy to get up in the morning and pick flowers for the breakfast-table, and who blacked—actually BLACKED—the hoofs of his horse like a London coachman! The turnout of Miss Youghal's Arab was a wonder and a delight. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... sir, said he, an't please your honour, I never knew her peer, and all your honour's family are of the same mind. Do you hear now? said my master.—Well, said the ladies, we will make a visit to Mrs. Jervis by and by, and hope to see this paragon. ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... answer was a saucy laugh. Why, she said, her cousin was really only a big cadet in lieutenant's uniform. And she could not even love a cadet, to saying nothing of marrying one. Then she spoke of Innstetten, who suddenly became for her a paragon of ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... for his health, and for the event of the combat to her beloved brother. Ere yet the fight began, the old men gazed on their chief, now seen for the first time after several years, and sadly compared his altered features and wasted frame, with the paragon of strength and manly beauty which they once remembered. The young men gazed on his large form and powerful make, as upon some antediluvian giant who had survived the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... extremely mischievous, and rarely could be caught; but "browney" seemed a perfect paragon of gentleness and goodness—and I would seat myself on the steps, holding him for hours, and listening to the monotonous hum of the locusts, which always filled my heart with a sense of quiet happiness. Did you never sit watching the glorious sunbeams, as they fell on the soft, fresh grass, ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... had been Rushton, would you rather have become bankrupt than treat your 'hands' and your customers in the same way as your competitors treated theirs? It may be that, so placed, you—being the noble-minded paragon that you are—would have behaved unselfishly. But no one has any right to expect you to sacrifice yourself for the benefit of other people who would only call you a fool for your pains. It may be true that if any one of the hands—Owen, for instance—had been an ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... muddle a little with politics, but what's the difference? If your paragon is so squeamish you'd better keep him in the bush. I can't think of anything else I could do for him half so good. Those fellows are sharp, I'll admit, but they know ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... of Erasmus the original. Both Alice and I hoped that our son would incline to follow in the footsteps of the mighty genius whose name he bore. But from his very infancy he developed traits widely different from those of the stern philosopher whom we had set up before him as the paragon of human excellence. I have always suspected that little Erasmus inherited his frivolous disposition from his uncle (his mother's brother), Lemuel Fothergill, who at the early age of nineteen ran away from the farm in Maine to travel with a thrashing ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... self-revelation, which brings out the pathos of the writer's position, while at the same time showing quite clearly the defects that explained it. Mr. LUCAS, in short, does not commit the error of making his hero merely a mute, misunderstood paragon, whom anyone with common penetration must have recognised as such. On the contrary, we sympathise with him, especially in the big tragedy of his life, while quite admitting that to any casual acquaintance he ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... Adriel, the Muse's friend, himself a Muse," but by those who loved him less, "the modern Midas." Books without number were dedicated to him, and the writers addressed him as the "British Pollio, Atticus, the Maec[e]nas of England, protector of arts, paragon of poets, arbiter of taste, and sworn appraiser of Apollo and the Muses." The plot is very simple: Sir Thomas Lofty has written a play called Robinson Crusoe, and gets Richard Bever to stand godfather to it. The play is damned past ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... misgovernment that nations are roused to madness. It is not sufficient to look merely at the form of government. We must look also to the state of the public mind. The worst tyrant that ever had his neck wrung in modern Europe might have passed for a paragon of clemency in Persia or Morocco. Our Indian subjects submit patiently to a monopoly of salt. We tried a stamp duty, a duty so light as to be scarcely perceptible, on the fierce breed of the old Puritans; and we lost an empire. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... creatures!—Here we find thee, within an hour after thy departure from thy home, on an 'errand of mercy,' embraced in the soft arms of a pretty wanton, and revelling in the delights of voluptuousness. We might have portrayed thee as a paragon of virtue and chastity; we might have described thee as rejecting with holy horror the advances of that frail but exceedingly fair young lady—we might have made a saint of thee, Frank. But we prefer to depict human nature ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... out of the palisade which surrounded it, and walked down the cliff into Brighton quite disconsolate; he could not see how to get his way. He came into the Paragon Hotel and dressed for dinner as sulky as a naturally cheerful soul could be. He showed no readiness to talk, and his father presently condoled with him on his lowness of spirits. Tinker said briefly that he had ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... summing up of the judge. Having demonstrated that the engagements entered into by Cetywayo meant nothing, they will proceed to show that, even if they did, cold-blooded murder, when perpetrated by a black paragon like Cetywayo, does not amount to a great offence. In the mouths of these gentle apologists for slaughter, massacre masquerades under the name of "executions," and is excused on the plea of being, "after all," only the enforcement of "an old custom." Again, the employment of such phrases, in a ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... oldsters here will remember Colonel C. K. Sober, one of our former members who propagated what he later named the Sober's Paragon chestnut. It was a grafted tree and apparently it was grafted successfully on native stocks, and it grew until the blight ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... wanted, the very situation, the very distance, the very size. In agreeing with me, however, my companion could not help reminding me rather maliciously how very much, in our late worthy neighbours, the Norrises' time, I had been used to hate and shun this paragon of places; how frequently I had declared Hatherden too distant for a walk, and too near for a drive; how constantly I had complained of fatigue in mounting the hill, and of cold in crossing the common; and how, finally, my half yearly visits of civility had dwindled first into annual, then ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various
... said I—"for instance, I make the rule, and you the exception. I, a perfect paragon, am hated because I am one; you, a perfect paragon, are idolized in spite of it. But tell me what literary news is there. I am tired of the trouble of idleness, and in order to enjoy a little dignified leisure, intend to ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... whilst a couple of Jews from Galilee, in long dark robes and black caps covering their shaggy hair, turned critically round this paragon from Hispania, lifted his hands and gazed on each finger-tip as if trying to find traces on these of that ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... child, please don't think me a paragon," cried her hostess in horror. "I am a creature of vague enthusiasms and I have the sense to know it. Sometimes I fancy I am a woman of business, and then I take up half a dozen things till Jack has to interfere to prevent ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... all I have in the world to bring them together again," Kate said. "They'll come together fast enough if they like each other," said Mrs Greenow. "Alice is young still, and they tell me she's as good looking as ever. A girl with her money won't have far to seek for a husband, even if this paragon from Cambridgeshire should not ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... N. perfection; perfectness &c. adj.; indefectibility[obs3]; impeccancy[obs3], impeccability. pink, beau ideal, phenix, paragon; pink of perfection, acme of perfection; ne plus ultra[Lat]; summit &c. 210. cygne noir[Fr]; philosopher's stone; chrysolite, Koh-i-noor. model, standard, pattern, mirror, admirable Crichton; trump, very prince of. masterpiece, superexcellence &c. (goodness) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... his prejudice pushed aside. Therefore she was a sudden beautiful revelation to him, as vivid as unexpected. He did not believe any such being existed, and indeed there did not, if we consider into what he came to idealize Edith. But a better Edith really lived than the unnatural paragon that he pictured to himself, and the reality was capable of a vast improvement, though not in the direction that his morbid mind ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... and soul away with her. What chance had I? Here shone all the beauties that adorn the body, all the virtues and graces that embellish the soul; they were wedded to poetry and ravishing music, and gave and took enchantment. I saw my paragon glide away, like a goddess, past the scenery, and I did not see her meet her lover at the next step—a fellow with a wash-leather face, greasy locks in a sausage roll, and his hair shaved off his forehead—and snatch a pot of porter from his hands, and drain it to the ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... sexton had taken the landlady aside, and with an air of profound importance imparted to her my errand. Dame Honeyball was a likely, plump, bustling little woman, and no bad substitute for that paragon of hostesses, Dame Quickly. She seemed delighted with an opportunity to oblige, and, hurrying upstairs to the archives of her house, where the precious vessels of the parish club were deposited, she returned, smiling and courtesying, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... an aptitude for family pedigrees will now understand that Reginald, Master of Hoppet Hall, was first cousin to the father of the Foreign Office paragon, and that he is therefore the paragon's first cousin once removed. The relationship is not very distant, but the two men, one of whom was a dozen years older than the other, had not seen each other for ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... triumphant," Harry Annesley had said to his hostess as he left Mrs. Armitage's house in the Paragon, at Cheltenham. He was absolutely triumphant, throwing his hat up into the air in the abandonment of his joy. For he was not a man to have conceived so well of his own parts as to have flattered himself that the girl must ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... glad to see this paragon, and shake him by the hand. You may imagine what I feel to any one that is kind to my darling. An old gentleman? ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... gentleman now started forward, and, with a low bow, extended his hand to lead to the ballroom this rose-colored paragon and cynosure of all eyes. Evelyn smiled upon him, and gave him her scarf to hold, but would not be hurried; must first speak to her old friend Mr. Haward, and tell him that her father's foot could now bear the shoe, and that ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... rescuing maids, or he is a wandering god, and here is Arcadia, why should that make me grieve? It is true that he is handsome—and yet what of that?—most men are handsome in the eyes of maids. But he appears the paragon of men. Is he indeed not all a man should be? Where were the blemish, the exception; who shall challenge nature, saying, in his form, that here she has given too little, there too much?—Ah, me! I am not happy, yet ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... that it was impossible for them not to mix; and still she never forgot her duty for a moment, while for myself, I protest, I swear, that if sometimes drawn astray by my senses, still"—still he was a paragon of virtue, subject to rather new definition. We can appreciate the author of the New Heloisa; we can appreciate the author of Emilius; but this strained attempt to confound those two very different persons by combining tearful erotics with high ethics, is an exhibition of self-delusion ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me what ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... She knew it and kept repeating it over and over again to her own self. No one before or since had struck so responsive a chord from her heart strings. There had been no other ideal to which she had shaped the pictures of her mind. Stephen was her paragon of excellence and to him the faculties of her soul had turned of their own mood and temper unknown even to the workings of her intellectual consciousness, like the natural inclination of the heliotrope before the rays ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... to understand," went on his wife, "that you still object to my staying with the Garsingtons? I think it is a little hard if I do not make a fuss about your going to see your village paragon, that you should refuse to allow me to visit ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... a Paragon. He was only a little boy, but he was so good to his parents! Oh, you can't think how good he was! He was only six years old. He was a beautiful child, with a tender, fine skin and bright eyes. He lived with his parents in a little town among the rice-fields. The fields ...
— THE JAPANESE TWINS • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... this lass had a Sunday-school class, At twelve wrote a volume of verse, At fourteen was yearning for glory, and learning To be a professional nurse. To a glorious height the young paragon might Have climbed, if not nipped in the bud, But the following year struck her smiling career With a dull and a sickening thud! (I have shad a great tear at the thought of her pain, And must copy my manuscript ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... interesting. You can have had no sympathy with Brott—a hopeless plebeian, a very paragon ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... admirable honours of her mind, which were so many and matchless, that virtue seemed to have planted there the paradise of her perfection." Philippo was so prone to jealousy, that he suspected even this paragon, and worked himself into a belief in her infidelity by such euphuisms as these: "The greener the Alisander leaves be, the more bitter is the sap, and the salamander is the most warm when he lieth furthest from the fire," therefore ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... such a paragon of goodness generally,' said the colonel. 'Wasn't it you and some others who scared our dairymaid into fits one night last winter, by playing pranks, after dark, outside the ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... themselves.... If your friend Rameau were to apply himself to show his contempt for fortune, and women, and good cheer, and idleness, and to begin to Catonise, what would he be but a hypocrite? Rameau must be what he is—a lucky rascal among rascals swollen with riches, and not a mighty paragon of virtue, or even a virtuous man, eating his dry crust of bread, either alone, or by the side of a pack of beggars. And, to cut it short, I do not get on with your felicity, or with the happiness of a ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... "You paragon of beauty," said the wicked woman, "all has just happened as I expected," and then she went ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... held a seat in the House of Commons and that he voted with the ministry; and further, that his vote might, when required, be forthcoming, the frigate was never sea-going, except during the recess. It must be admitted that H.M. ship Paragon did occasionally get under weigh and remain cruising in sight of land for two or three days, until the steward reported that the milk provided for the captain's table was turning sour; upon which important information the ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... my inferiority in parts, nor desire from me that which I do not possess, inasmuch as he who is unique in all things can have peers in none. Therefore your lordship, the light of our century without paragon upon this world, is unable to be satisfied with the productions of other men, having no match or equal to yourself. And if, peradventure, something of mine, such as I hope and promise to perform, give pleasure to your mind, I shall esteem it more fortunate than excellent; and should I be ever sure ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... me to love God, I must needs ask others to worship him, at first with words of love, and when love failed I threatened, I raved; and the sin I fell into others will fall into, for it s natural to man to wish to make his brother like himself, thereby undoing the work of God. Myself am no paragon; I condemned the priests whilst setting myself up as a priest, and spoke of God and the will of God though in all truth I had very little more reason than they to speak of these things. God has not created us to know him, or only partially through our consciousness of good and evil. ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... introduced into Government departments, do have their points. One wonders how much the income-tax payer would be saved during the next decade or two had some really great knight of industry, content to do his own work and not covetous of that of other people (assuming such a combination of the paragon and the freak to exist), been placed in charge of the Ministry of Munitions as soon as Mr. Lloyd George had, with his defiance of Treasury convention, with his wealth of imagination, and with his irrepressible and buoyant courage, ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... glad and rejoicing countenance the paragon of virtue held forth her neck to the sword; and the bestial pagan, giving way to his natural violence, and heated perhaps beyond all thought of a suspicion with his wine, dealt it so fierce a blow, that the head leaped ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... succession of carefully selected governesses since, the lessons, the food, the dentist, the doctors, the clothes, the amusements,—all had been scrupulously, almost religiously, provided according to the best modern theories. Nothing had been left to chance. Marian should be a paragon, physically and morally. Yet, her mother had to confess, the child bored her,—was a wooden doll! In the scientifically sterilized atmosphere in which she had lived, no vicious germ had been allowed to fasten itself on the young ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... would have more intimately cherished, (he had been lately absorbed in the sublimity of the 'Prometheus Vinctus;') there was the great master and anatomizer of the human heart, who knew how to detail the springs of action common to all ages, the paragon of that deep learning which is not derived from books, but gleaned by his genius from all nature with a rare intuition, and with an incomprehensible power of research. In him what mines of instruction, what sources of undiscovered delight, what philosophy yet ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... treacherous device, But still success is sweet; stretch but a point, To-morrow we'll return to righteousness. For a small part of one brief day consent To play the knave, then to the end of life Be virtue's paragon and cynosure. ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... and who perhaps needed little bidding in this instance, "to write to Queen Caroline of England;" Letters one or several: thrice-dangerous Letters; setting forth (in substance), His deathless affection to that Beauty of the world, her Majesty's divine Daughter the Princess Amelia (a very paragon of young women, to judge by her picture and one's own imagination); and likewise the firm resolution he, Friedrich Crown-Prince, has formed, and the vow he hereby makes, Either to wed that celestial creature when permitted, or else ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... are all his beauties gone? * Hath change the power to blight his charms, that Beauty's paragon? Thou art not earth, O Sepulchre! nor art thou sky to me; * How comes it, then, in thee I see conjoint the branch ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the Bishop to appoint as his vicar-general a feeble old man of seventy, who preached with hesitation, and, it was whispered, believed the world was flat, and that people were only joking when they spoke of it as a globe; and pass over such a paragon of perfection, an epitome of all the talents, like myself. It took me many years to recover from that surprise; and, alas! a little trace of it lingers yet. Believe me, my dear young friend, a good many of us are as alien in spirit to the Imitation as Dr. ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... men," answered Sara impatiently. "And I really think I hate Lige Baxter. He has always been held up to me as such a paragon. I'm tired of hearing about all his perfections. I know them all off by heart. He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't steal, he doesn't tell fibs, he never loses his temper, he doesn't swear, and he goes to church regularly. Such a faultless creature as that ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and personages in the Old World. Beyond question, since Carlyle's death, and the publication of Froude's memoirs, not only the interest in his books, but every personal bit regarding the famous Scotchman—his dyspepsia, his buffetings, his parentage, his paragon of a wife, his career in Edinburgh, in the lonesome nest on Craigenputtock moor, and then so many years in London—is probably wider and livelier to-day in this country than in his own land. Whether I succeed or no, I, too, reaching across ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... bolt upright with a start. By some strange perversion of the fate that delights in torturing lovers, the features of the immodestly clothed amazon bore the most startling resemblance to that paragon of celestial ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... men in this country and in Europe; and I assert that, could there be a realization of all the aspirations, all the longings after the pure, the good and noble that fill the mind and pervade the heart of a cultivated and refined man who takes to this drug, he would be indeed the paragon of animals. And I go further and say that, given a man of cultivated mind, high moral sentiment, and a keen sense of intellectual enjoyment, blended with strong imaginative powers, and just in proportion as he is so endowed will the difficulty be greater in weaning himself from it. ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... will have me afraid to meet the Herr. After holding him up as such a paragon, is it any wonder I should feel as small and insignificant ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... Government provides for recognition and protection of all rights in and to the waters and shores of Lake Tahoe, including the rights of the general public and of the lovers of natural beauty everywhere, and it is believed that the charms, as well as the utilities, of this paragon of lakes can more safely be entrusted to a permanent government agency than ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... carrying the blood of "old" Lexington, Morella, and a streak of the super-enduring Morgan, could run, walk, and work my unregistered Outlaw into the ground; and that was the very precise reason why such a paragon of a saddle animal should ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... he was utterly unprepared for this complete ignoring of adornment now, albeit he was for the first time aware how her real prettiness made it unnecessary. She looked fully as charming in this grotesque head-covering as she had in that paragon of fashion, the new hat, which ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... we'll keep her," he said, as he handed her back to her mother's arms. "She's the paragon baby of the whole world, even if ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... some art or liberal science, he does not content himself with what is sufficient for him to become rich thereby, and one of the number of the craftsmen, but in order to be unique and distinguished he watches and works continuously, and keeps before his eyes the great hope of being a paragon of perfection (I speak where I know I am believed) and not a mere mediocrity in that art or science. This is because Italy does not esteem mediocrity, deeming it an exceedingly poor thing; and speaks only of ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... with her at the door. He was a man of high principle himself, and that scene in the smugglers' den, and his wife's preparation for transgression, were revelations for which nothing could have consoled him but a paragon umbrella for five dollars, and an excellent business suit of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... after hour, in the most piteous manner. Her distress was the town talk; nevertheless, the fleet arrived in the autumn, and brought the youthful Maria to the provinces. This young lady, if the faithful historiographer of the Farnese house is to be credited, was the paragon ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... portrait is not clear or vivid. He dilates on her mental, moral, spiritual and physical qualities, according to his mood, and the flattery to her was never too fulsome. Possibly she was not fully aware before that she was such a paragon of virtue, but believing in the superior insight of Petrarch she said, "It must be so." Thus is flattery always acceptable, nor can it be overdone unless it be laid on with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... Abercrombie: "I'll buy anything for sale at this booth that our young friend, the paragon ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... have been thy fortune, we will endeavour with our utmost skill to describe this paragon, though we are sensible that our highest abilities are very inadequate to ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Billy-boy; I think he knows how the flowers came into the garden. You shall have daddy's button-hole to take to him next. There, Mark, it is a pansy of most smiling countenance, such as should beam on you through your accounts. I declare, there's that paragon of a Mr. Jones helping Bessy to bring in dinner! Isn't it very kind to provide a man-servant ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... beautiful women in Europe; and where this is concerned, I must give the preference to the nobility of England." Among the examples held up for admiration by her were the Duchess of Sutherland—"the paragon and type of Britain's aristocracy"—and "the very voluptuous Lady Blessington." Approval for the Duchess of Wellington, however, was less pronounced, since, while admitting her physical charms, Lola declared her to be ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... abundant hair, exquisitely plaited, and feet no bigger than her little finger. As these are the four characteristics of female beauty dearest to a Chinaman's heart, it is no wonder that Mien-yaun thought her a paragon. The old woman, on the contrary, was hideously ugly. Her teeth were gone, and her eyes sought the comforting assistance of an ill-fitting pair of crystal spectacles. She had no hair, and her feet might have supported an elephant. As he rested his eyes wistfully upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... "sea-anchor" over the side to "hold her to it," whether or not a man was justified in abandoning his ship under certain given circumstances, these were debated pro and con. Always Pearson's "Uncle Jim" was held up as the final authority, the paragon of sea captains, by the visitor, and, while his host pretended to agree, with modest reservations, in this estimate of his relative, he was more and more certain that his hero was bound to become a youthful edition of Elisha Warren himself—and he thanked the fates ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... had a greenhorn to deal with, and treated Puff accordingly. If a 'perfect servant' is only to begot out of the establishments of the great, Mr. Bragg might be looked upon as a paragon of perfection, and now combined in his own person all the bad practices of all the places he had been in. Having 'accepted Mr. Puffington's situation,' as the elegant phraseology of servitude goes, he considered that Mr. Puffington had nothing more to do with the hounds, and that any interference ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... the paragon was so firm and unassailable that Grace was obliged to confess failure to her lover, after weeks and weeks of splendid argument. Her aunt forced an issue. The marriage of her niece was to be brilliant to ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... "there is an angel in the cave, or if not, an earthly paragon." So beautiful did Imogen look in ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... it will be, when it is perfected. At present, my paragon of sculptors, one element of loveliness has escaped ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... vigour and effect, that old Falieri's eyes began to sparkle, and his face grew redder and redder, whilst he puckered up his mouth and smacked his lips as if he were draining sundry glasses of fiery Syracuse. "But who is this paragon of loveliness of whom you are speaking?" said he at last with a smirk. "I mean nobody else but my dear niece—it's she I mean," replied Bodoeri. "What! your niece?" interrupted Falieri. "Why, she was married to Bertuccio ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... too," he used to say, "for when a woman has big feet she always keeps them tucked in below her gown. A woman with an eight-size glove and feet to correspond is usually a paragon of modesty, and strong on ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... opinion? Why, sir, we all know him; he is no stranger to this body. We have measured him; we know his height, his depth, his length, his breadth, his capacity, and all about him. Do you set him up as a paragon and declare here on the floor of this Senate that you are going to make us all bow down before him? Is that the idea? You [to Mr. Lane, of Kansas,] are going to be his apologist and defender in whatever he may propose to do! Is that the understanding ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... and certain harmless face washes are godsends to womankind, but they can't do everything! They have their limitations, just like any other good thing. You may have a perfect paragon of a kitchen lady, whose angel food is more heavenly than frapped snowflakes, but you can't really expect her to build you a four-story house with little dofunnies on the cupolas. Of course not. Angel cake is her ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... as the ministry was concerned. He would talk in this way when there were visitors in the house and when his son was in the room. He spoke so wisely and so well that his listening guests considered him a paragon of right-mindedness. He spoke, too, with such emphasis and his rosy gills and bald head looked so benevolent that it was difficult not to be carried away by his discourse. I believe two or three heads of families in the neighbourhood gave their sons absolute liberty of ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... be the fact as to the rank and proper calling of Bullhampton, there can be no doubt that Loring is a town. There is a market-place, and a High Street, and a Board of Health, and a Paragon Crescent, and a Town Hall, and two different parish churches, one called St. Peter Lowtown, and the other St. Botolph's Uphill, and there are Uphill Street, and Lowtown Street, and various other streets. I never heard of ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope |
