"Precision" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very admirable mental exercise. For my own part, I am inclined to doubt whether there is any method of self-discipline better calculated to clear up one's own ideas about a difficult subject, than that which arises out of the effort to put them forth, with fulness and precision, in language which all the world can understand. Sheridan is said to have replied to some one who remarked on the easy flow of his style, "Easy reading, sir, is—hard writing;" and any one who is above the level of a scientific charlatan will know that easy speaking ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... strain of staring all night at the cards. Beneath his eyes were puffy ridges. His cheekbones flamed with the whisky flush. He cashed in a double-handful of chips, stuffed the money he had won into his coat pocket, walked, with that stiff precision of gait by which a drunken man strives to hide his drunkenness, to the bar and had another drink. Frank was at his elbow. Frank was staggering, garrulous, laughing a great deal over very ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... cursing, and angrily bruising our limbs. To a few of us, they are ladders, by which we climb to God; hills, that lift us nearer heaven—that heaven, which, however certainly—with whatever mathematical precision—it has been demonstrated to us that it exists not here, nor there, nor yet anywhere, we still dimly, with yearning tears and high longings, grasp at. Barbara has always looked heavenward. In all her mirth, God has mixed. Now, therefore, in this grief that ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Attic elegance of a Plato. And in the second place, it contains almost a history in miniature of the highest speculations of philosophy, both in earlier and in later times, and points out, with a clearness and precision the more valuable because uninfluenced by recent controversies, the exact field on which the philosophies of the Conditioned and the Unconditioned come into collision, and the nature of the problem which they both approach from ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... hand. This accuracy may be obtained to 30 or 40 yards provided that the bullet is sufficiently large to enter the chamber, but a size too large for the muzzle. It will accordingly squeeze its way through without the slightest windage, and will shoot with great precision, with a charge of 4 1/2 drams of powder and a ball of pure soft lead. A No. 12 is exceedingly powerful, and if 7 lbs. in weight, it can be fired with one hand like a pistol. This is an immense advantage, as the shooter can hold tight by the howdah rail with his ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... nothing in common with the world's older arts, excepting those of the scribe and the scholar. The entire book-trade, now divided into so many branches, was in their hands—binder, engraver, printer and publisher, being generally the same person; and this, together with the laborious precision required in working the primitive press, made them throughout Christendom a sort of caste who acquired their trade by inheritance, and kept it as such. Two generations of their family had transmitted the types to Christopher and Hubert; but not to them alone. There had ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... of the ne'er-do-well. And with each inhabitant that comes and goes, some detail of evolution is achieved by the little hamlet through which they pass, until, in the course of long years, it, too, has fought its way upward to the mathematical precision and bold glory of a modern commercial city, or has joined in the downward march ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... feelings of others by her own. It was doubtless sufficient for his contemporary Readers, and for those of some succeeding Generations, that he slightly alluded to events and ceremonies, which were familiar to their recollection. In our day more precision is demanded, at least by those who have poetic taste without knowledge of the dead languages, or intimacy with the national and domestic customs of that Time, and of that People. Also, to strengthen this necessary interest in the mind of the Reader, it must be eligible ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... he could speed up a four-horse team on that short straight-away, his ability to postpone slowing them down for the turn, and yet to pull them in handily and in time, the deftness and precision of his short turns, the promptness with which he compelled them to gather speed after the turn, these were astonishing, enough; but far more astonishing were his grace of pose, his perfect form ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... inclusive and exclusive plurals, etc. It does not have a multiplicity of verb forms to denote mode and tense, but when necessary does denote them with elegance and precision, by auxiliary verbs and adverbs, very much as we do in English. The Dakota is not made up chiefly of very long words. On the other hand it uses a great many little particles and connectives to express fine shades of meaning, wonderfully reminding one of the Greek. It fully ...
— The Dakotan Languages, and Their Relations to Other Languages • Andrew Woods Williamson
... horse employed in his nurseries for over fifteen years. His name was Old Charley. I was so much interested in the account of his sagacity, that I went to see him. The good animal was used for ploughing between lines of trees from three feet and a half to four feet apart, and moved with such precision and care as to run the plough and cultivator as near as possible to the trees, without ever hitting or injuring one of them. His owner told me Old Charley would go straight between the lines, turning at the end without any motion or word ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... maybe he can round up a ridin' vee-hicle," Arline remarked dryly, placing the meat before Manley, the potatoes before Val, and the gravy exactly between the two, with mathematical precision. "I'm givin' that dance myself. You'll have to go—I'm givin' it in ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... apparently in this detached mood it is that he works. In art the motive power is heat always; some drive their engines by means of boiling emotion, others by the incandescence of intellectual passion. These go forward by intense concentration on the problem; those swing with breathless precision from feeling to feeling. Sophocles, Masaccio, and Bach are intellectuals in this sense, while Shakespeare, Correggio, and Mozart trust their sensibility almost as a bird trusts its instinct. It never entered the head of a swallow to criticize its own methods; ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... A sailor, raising a lamp, had a broad smile. Somebody laughed outright. Castro planted himself before Manuel, nodded menacingly, and stooped ready for a spring. I was too late in my grab at his collar, but Manuel's guardians, acting with precision, put out one arm each to meet his rush, and he came flying backwards upon me, as though he ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... especially in Latin, the best instrument for the most precise and most perfect expression of thought. The Latin prose of Tacitus and Cicero, the verse of Virgil and Horace, are like a Greek statue, or an Italian cameo—you have not only exquisite beauty, but also exquisite precision. You get the thought into your mind with the accuracy and precision of the words that express numbers in the multiplication table. Ten times one are ten—not ten and one one-millionth. Having got the idea into your mind with the precision, accuracy, and ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... propeller shaft by Pen & Co. in London, the sheet-iron plates for its hull by Laird's in Liverpool, its propeller by Scott's in Glasgow. Its tanks were manufactured by Cail & Co. in Paris, its engine by Krupp in Prussia, its spur by the Motala workshops in Sweden, its precision instruments by Hart Bros. in New York, etc.; and each of these suppliers received my specifications ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... regained a semblance of its old expression and her voice some of its precision. "Then you ought to be ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... and transports, three-deckers, frigates, great troopers, ocean steamers, full-rigged ships—an Armada such as the world had never seen before. A grand display of naval power, a magnificent expedition marshalled with perfect precision, moving by day in well-kept parallel lines; at night, motionless, and studding the sea with ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... possibly betray our position as Efaw Kotee had been betrayed, because the breeze continued from him to us, and also for the equally good reason that the bite of an axe in soggy palmetto does not sound with anything like the ring that is caused by hardwood. So our walls grew, being fitted with nice precision that gave them more than enough strength to sustain the filling of sand—which, in turn, was kept from sifting through the interstices by a double lining ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... Dowdeswell's side there are fewer observers. But there has been no observer on either side whose researches have been anything like so thorough, so extended, or so accurate as those of Mr. Dowdeswell. Indeed, no other account has been met with wherein the modern methods of precision have been applied to the question at all; the other testimony being all rather loose and indefinite, often at second or third hands, or from the narratives of more or less enthusiastic travelers. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... his widow; that was solemnly read in the fore-room one afternoon; then the inventory had to be taken. That on account of the amount of property was quite an undertaking; but it was carried out with the greatest formality and precision. ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... distinct ways. The Bhagavata Purana continues to be the chief chronicle of Krishna's acts but the last half of Book Ten and all of Book Eleven fall into neglect.[49] In their place, the story of Krishna's relations with the cowgirls is given new poignancy and precision. Radha is constantly mentioned and in all the incidents in the Purana involving cowgirls, it is she who is given pride of place. At the river Jumna, when Krishna removes the cowgirls' clothes, Radha begs him to restore them. At the ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... chapelry of Marychurch Abbey, crowns a green monticule in the centre of Deadham village, backed by a row of big elms.—A wide, low-roofed structure, patched throughout the course of centuries beyond all unity and precision of design; yet still showing traces of Norman work in the arch of the belfry and in the pillars supporting the rafters of the middle aisle. At the instance of a former vicar, the whole interior received ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... thither with a weary staff and a huge notebook, gripped the whole business in his strong hands, and so shook it into shape that we crossed the river in safety, comfort, and good order, with most remarkable mechanical precision, and without the loss of a single man or a ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... now before me, with a nicely graduated foot-rule in his delicate hand, measuring with grave precision the height to a hair of his copy of Robinson Crusoe (1719), for the purpose of ascertaining whether it was taller or shorter than one being vaunted for sale in a bookseller's catalogue just to hand. His face, one of much refinement, was a study, exhibiting alike a fixed determination to ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... an elaborate speech upon them.[59] It was not a very great or remarkable speech, but it was a good one, and not conceived in the fervid and florid style which defaced his youthful efforts; he spoke sensibly, clearly, and with precision of thought; he sought his strength in the facts, and went in straight pursuit of the truth; his best intellectual qualities were plainly visible. The resolutions were not acted upon, and doubtless their actual passage had never been expected; ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... eyes; nothing Spanish about him. He was progressing rapidly in the direction of obesity, which would be fatal to his pretensions. His nails were well kept, his beard trimmed, the smallest details of his dress attended to with English precision. Hence Amedee de Soulas was looked upon as the finest man in Besancon. A hairdresser who waited upon him at a fixed hour—another luxury, costing sixty francs a year—held him up as the sovereign authority in ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... eyes, like Love-in-a-mist when the morning sun shines on it, full of laughter and good humour. Her eyelids, her nose and chin, her full lips and the curves of her cheeks were modelled with the delicate precision of a violin, and when she moved it was with that wave-o'-the-sea motion which Florizel observed in Perdita's dancing. I put her black hair and complexion down to some Arabian ancestor, and her blue ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... Mitra from our library. My nephew and classmate Satya managed to screw up courage enough to volunteer to mention this to my father. He came to the conclusion that everyday Bengali would hardly do to approach him with. So he concocted and delivered himself of an archaic phrase with such meticulous precision that my father must have felt our study of the Bengali language had gone a bit too far and was in danger of over-reaching itself. So the next morning, when according to our wont our table had been placed in the south verandah, the blackboard hung up on a nail in the wall, and everything ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... to the force of circumstances created by the military power of their enemies with the same efficiency that they have undoubtedly shown in regard to plans long prepared, methodically worked out, and executed with the precision ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... answering the question with more precision than it had been asked—"The Lady Rowena went not to the Prince's feast, and, as the steward reported to us, she is now on her journey back to Rotherwood, with her guardian Cedric. And touching your ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... the state of her family, whether the boy who was training a peach-tree against the end of the house was her son, and many other matters not necessary to record with the same precision that I have enumerated ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... rapidity that I could not very well tell what he was about, though it was sufficiently apparent that he was acting entirely on the rotatory principle. I observed that he alighted, with singular accuracy, on the very spot where he had stood before, toeing the mark with beautiful precision. ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... said Mrs Partridge, wondering how she was to get home without a hat; but Partridge followed Chook into the kitchen, where a candle was burning. Chook held the candle in his hand to show the little dresser with the cups and saucers and plates arranged in mathematical precision. The pots and pans were already hung on hooks. They had all seen service, and in Chook's eyes seemed more at home than the brand-new things that hung in the shops. As Chook looked round with pride, he ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... Garden of Verses is the powerfully dramatic story called Heather Ale. In attempting to solve the secret of Stevenson's supremacy, Edmund Gosse calls attention to the "curiously candid and confidential attitude of mind" in these poems, to the "extraordinary clearness and precision with which the immature fancies of eager childhood" are reproduced, and particularly, to the fact that they give us "a transcript of that child-mind which we have all possessed and enjoyed, but of which no one, except Mr. Stevenson, seems ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... regularity and precision, that, for a moment or two, Dick believed them to be a troop of cavalry, but he learned better when they scattered with a shout and began to chase the buffaloes. Then he knew that they were a band of Sioux ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... its artillery upon me—for misery has a privilege, and everywhere is felt to be a holy thing—had combined to procure for me some attention and some indulgence hitherto. Answers had been given with precision, explanations made at length, and anxiety shown to satisfy my inquiries. But this could not last; the inexorable necessities of public business coming back in a torrent upon the official people after this momentary interruption, forbade them to indulge any ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... came the tailor, and Fink himself determined the cut of the new suit with a technical precision which impressed the tailor no less than it ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... powers of the mind, the senses and the spirit had no distinctly separated property; no division had yet torn them asunder, leading them to partition in a hostile attitude, and to mark off their limits with precision. Poetry had not as yet become the adversary of wit, nor had speculation abused itself by passing into quibbling. In cases of necessity both poetry and wit could exchange parts, because they both honored truth only in their ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Natalie spoke English with the precision of the adults from whom they had learned it. They had never heard the argot of American childhood, but from mammy and from the tongue of their adopted land they had acquired a soft slurring of speech which gave a certain quaintness to ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... were poured in with tremendous precision and effect, and the seventh tore away one of the main supports of the bridge, and down went the densely crowded column into the Rhine; at the same instant, the guns of our launches opened a destructive fire upon the banks, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... this is singularly and curiously exact. Either by his own experience or by tradition he is perfectly acquainted with the topography of his own locality and with the history of its present and former proprietors and occupants. With perfect precision he will point out a certain tract of country and tell how, in the old, old time, it was, "reigned over" by the O'Flahertys, and then was owned by the Blakes, who disposed of part of their country to the present possessors. He knows perfectly well how the great ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... was a commentary of about twelve hundred pages on the "Book of Sentences," in the Parma edition, which was received with great admiration for its logical precision, and its opposition to the rationalistic tendencies of the times. In it are discussed all the great theological questions treated by Saint Augustine,—God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, grace, predestination, faith, free-will, Providence, and the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... American names, there has come to us on a mission of peace an eminent and highly esteemed statesman, bringing us political ideas of a new mould and the frank diplomacy of modern democracies. In words of the highest significance, which are unsurpassed for precision and frankness, the far-seeing statesman has revealed to us the ideal of justice and peace to which humanity in the near future is to attain, because the rule of force "is losing ground," and "sentiment, feeling and affection are gathering more and more sway over the affairs of men." The words ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... of the generic or specific characteristics of tree, rock, or cloud was unsurpassed by the work of any landscape painter whose work I know, and everything he knew he rendered with a rapidity and precision which were simply inconceivable by one who had not seen him at work. I think that his vision and retention of even the most transitory facts of nature passing before him must have been at the maximum of which the human mind is capable, but he had no comprehension of the higher and broader qualities ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... on horseback could ascend them. By these you reach a landing, where stand as sentinels two colossal figures sculptured from great blocks of marble. The one horn in the forehead seems to Heeren to indicate the Unicorn; the mighty limbs, whose muscles are carved with the precision of the Grecian chisel, induced Sir Robert Porter to believe that they represented the sacred bulls of the Magian religion; while the solemn, half-human repose of the features suggests some symbolic and supernatural ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... hardly too much to say that those writers whose sense of style is most developed are most likely to state the issues with the baldest and most direct precision. ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... be called "fanatical," as well as "false"; for it is nowhere laid down in Scripture; and it not only changes the way of acceptance, but it takes away the rule and standard of righteousness, and substitutes a vague notion, called sincerity, in its place, which never was, nor can be, defined with precision-(Scott). ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... half-a-length—who in the hunting-field would ride the hottest, or the most phlegmatic made hunter, with equal skill, through all difficulties of ground, and over every species of fence, with admirable precision and equality of hand—or who on the exercise ground would place his broken charger on his haunches, and make him walk four miles an hour, canter six and a half, trot eight and a half, and gallop eleven, without being out in either pace a second of time, but who marred all by the besetting sin ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... works by steam. Your attention is speedily concentrated on a small brass box, not larger than an eight-day pendule, the works of which are impelled by steam. This is a self-acting weighing machine, which, with unerring precision, tells which sovereigns are of standard weight, and which are light, and of its own accord separates the one from the other. Imagine a long trough or spout—half a tube that has been split into two sections—of such a semi-circumference as holds sovereigns edgeways, and of sufficient ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... not mention from whom they came. Pursegur defended himself so well, that the King in his surprise mentioned this latter fact. At the name of Vendome, Pursegur lost all patience. He described, to the King all the faults, the impertinences; the obstinacy, the insolence of M. de Vendome, with a precision and clearness which made his listener very attentive and very fruitful in questions. Pursegur, seeing that he might go on, gave himself rein, unmasked M. de Vendome from top to toe, described his ordinary life at the army, the incapacity of his body, the ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... giving any satisfactory definition of poetry is almost equalled by the difficulty of defining with precision any one of its kinds; and the epigram in Greek, while it always remained conditioned by being in its essence and origin an inscriptional poem, took in the later periods so wide a range of subject and treatment that it can perhaps only be limited by certain ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... mastery of all that the ancients gained by infanticide, while yet enabling us to cherish that ideal of the sacredness of human life which we profess to honour so highly. The main difficulty is that it demands a degree of scientific precision which the ancients could not possess and might dispense with, so long as they were able to decide the eugenic claims of the infant by actual inspection. We have to be content to determine not what the infant is but when it be likely ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... a mile away from the ranch-house, Lem Keith was plowing. There was something about this pastoral labor which was peculiarly congenial to Lem; perhaps because he did it well. Not one of the ranch "hands" could guide the plow with such precision through the loose prairie soil. Certainly, very few of them would have taken the trouble to set up a stake at the end of the furrow with a flying bit of red flannel to steer by. Lem had the habit of plowing with his eyes fixed upon ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... interest and sentiment: (a) the dynasty (together with the Agrarians, of whom in a sense the dynasty is a part); (b) the businessmen, or commercial interest (including investors); and (c) the industrial workmen. Doubtless it would be easier to overstate than to indicate with any nice precision what has been the nature, and especially the degree, of this alienation of sentiment and divergence of conscious interest among these several elements. It is not that there has at any point been a perceptible faltering in respect of loyalty to the crown as such. But ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... had by nature a superior intellect, and, when she wished, could be agreeable and amiable. Her face was commanding, though somewhat spoiled at last by fat. She had much eloquence, speaking with an ease and precision that charmed and overpowered. What might she not have become, with the talents she possessed! But her pride, her violent temper, her irreligion, and her falsehood, spoiled all, and made her what we ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... as Hartley and all others who derive association from the connection and interdependence of the supposed matter, the movements of which constitute our thoughts, must have reduced all its forms to the one law of Time. But even the merit of announcing this law with philosophic precision cannot be fairly conceded to him. For the objects of any two ideas need not have co- existed in the same sensation in order to become mutually associable. The same result will follow when one only of the two ideas has been represented by the senses, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... centrum). Applied to thought, it is the act of bringing the mind to a single point. Each human being must practise concentration subjectively and objectively. In other words, each human being aims with more or less precision at concentration on a point within and a point without his own world. Concentration "without" is illustrated when you devote all your attention upon Nature, such as learning a trade, a profession, a science, an ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... his hat, and he led the way to Clementina's gondola at his garden gate, in greater haste than she. At the telegraph office he framed a dispatch which for expansive fullness and precision was apparently unexampled in the experience of the clerk who took it and spelt over its English with them. It asked an answer in the vice- consul's care, and, "I'll tell you what, Miss Claxon," he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... boulder concealed,—and yet, Casey was not satisfied with the discovery. Unconsciously he reached for his gun. This, he told himself, must be the secret habitation of the fiend who shot from rim-rocks with terrible precision at harmless ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... premisses, Viviette had intuitively decided with sad precision. There was, as a matter of fact, a great possibility of her not being able to communicate with him for several months, notwithstanding that he might ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... form a most interesting commentary on the varied life of the eighteenth century. He was a scholar, familiar with all the intellectual interests of his age, and his work has much of the precision and polish of the classical school; but he shares also the reawakened interest in nature, in common man, and in mediaeval culture, and his work is generally romantic both in style and in spirit. The same conflict between the classic and romantic schools, and the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... number of vessels, their names, their destination, the time of their arrival, of their departure, the number of troops they embark, or artillery; in fact, not a single movement can be known with too much precision. And I must request, that you will take the necessary measures to give M. de Vaudreuil regular information on all these points. It could be wished, that you would station regular expresses to facilitate the communication between ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... not numerous. Outlines of operations, presented in skeleton, as they usually may be, are in most instances surprisingly clear; and, these once grasped, the details fall into place with a readiness and a precision that convey an ever increasing intellectual enjoyment. The writer has more than once been witness of the pleasure thus occasioned to men wholly strangers to military matters; a pleasure partly of novelty, but which possesses the elements of endurance because ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... specialities were lower class private establishments and the cheaper sort of endowed schools. Indeed, so superior were Maskelyne, Smith, and Thrums that they enraged Lewisham by refusing at first to put him on their books. He was interviewed briefly by a young man dressed and speaking with offensive precision, whose eye adhered rigidly to the waterproof collar throughout ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... same, sir," said he, aiding me in my toilet, which he did with stiff military precision, "I don't think the Major is as incognighto" (the spelling is phonetic) "as he would like. Prettilove was shaving me this morning and told me the Major was here. As I considered it my duty, I told him he was a liar, and he was ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... winter into its sheltered valleys from the snow-covered mountains of Abruzzo. [4] There was more uncertainty to which of the parties the two other provinces were meant to be assigned. It is scarcely possible that language so loose, in a matter requiring mathematical precision, should have been unintentional. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... some great cloth. But the Texans were taking aim. There was no confusion among the hardy veterans of the plains. Lying against the face of the bluff they were sending in their bullets with deadly precision. Horse after horse in the charging host galloped away riderless over the prairie, and the front rank of ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... nose ye'll have, too," as he drove his left with deadly precision on Quinlan's olfactory organ, staggering that amazed youth, who, nothing daunted, ran into a series of jabs and swings that completely dazed him and forced him to clinch to save further damage. But the ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... is concerned for the immediate future of Europe should neglect the omen: half a million men, with leaders chosen rapidly by themselves, converging without disaster, with ample commissariat, with precision and rapidity upon one spot: a common action decided upon, and that action most calculated to defeat the enemy; decided upon by men of no exceptional power, mere mouthpieces of this vast concourse: similar and exactly parallel decisions over the whole ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... hands of my fellow-investigators, I felt about for this object and found that a book had been brought and thrown upon the table. A shower of others followed, till twenty-four were piled about the cone. They came whizzing with power, yet with such precision that no head was touched and the cone remained undisturbed. It was as if some roguish poltergeist had ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... accurate and important of the means at our command for fixing boundary lines upon the present map. By their aid the territorial possessions of a considerable number of tribes have been determined with desirable precision, and such areas definitely established have served as checks upon the boundaries of other tribes, concerning the location and extent of ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... at close quarters in an argument? I could not well understand the drift of it, not having been present at the beginning, but I soon saw that, keen as Weir was, and far surpassing Rogers in correctness of speech, and precision as well, the old sailor carried too heavy metal for the carpenter. It evidently annoyed Weir; but such was the good humour of Rogers, that he could not, for very shame, lose his temper, the old man's smile again and ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... mind has the principle of vitality. Living thoughts spring up like turf under his feet." Davy, on his part said of Coleridge, whose abilities he greatly admired: "With the most exalted genius, enlarged views, sensitive heart, and enlightened mind, he will be the victim of a want of order, precision, and regularity." ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... brought upon it, and the admiration of the chambermaid, as well as the salute of the sentinel, all which formed a combustible in my brain. I went off like a flash, and darted my fist (the weapon I had been most accustomed to wield) into the left eye of my adversary, with a force and precision which Crib would have applauded. Murphy staggered back with the blow, and for a moment I flattered myself he had ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... mind, should happily rescue that science from its present neglected state. But those hours of entry greatly interfere with the employments of such officers as are capable of registering those instruments with the precision and delicacy which alone can render meteorologic data useful, and their future utility is at present so uncertain, that it does not appear necessary that you should do more than record, twice a day, the height of the former, as well ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... strenuous movement of the pelvis and lower part of the body called ami. This consisted of rhythmic motions, sidewise, backward, forward, and in a circular or elliptical orbit, all of which was done with the precision worthy of an acrobat, an accomplishment attained only after long practice. It was a hula of classic celebrity, and was performed without the accompaniment ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... about the room, I saw on her book-shelves, arranged with order and precision, nine little butter plates in the form of pansies. I uttered an exclamation of delight, and she from her corner, with the artlessness of a child, said, "I put them there for you to see." Another time she sprang up with her quick, light step, and ran to the yard to fetch a flower for ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... shot the albatross. But the pewees came back at last, and one of them is now on his wonted perch, so near my window that I can hear the click of his bill as he snaps a fly on the wing with the unerring precision a stately Trasteverina shows in the capture of her smaller deer. The pewee is the first bird to pipe up in the morning; and during the early summer he preludes his matutinal ejaculation of pewee with a slender whistle, ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... the old school gentlemen of South Carolina. A man he was of the most punctilious precision in manners and customs, in courtesy, and cleanliness of dress and person; a man of brilliant talents, and, in every sense of the word, "a perfect gentleman!" Mr. Pinckney was one of the members of the first ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... the silvery Darwen, with the fair village of Walton-le-Dale immediately beyond it, the proud town of Preston further on, and the single-coned Nese Point rising majestically in the distance. The principal garden constituted a square, and was divided with mathematical precision, according to the formal taste of the time, into smaller squares, with a broad well-kept gravel walk at each angle. These plots were arranged in various figures and devices—such as the cinq-foil, the flower-de-luce, the trefoil, the lozenge, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... autonomous moulds of the grave. It implies the absence of all vitality—a state or condition of matter in which all vital functions have been suspended, have utterly ceased, if, indeed, they ever existed. It behooves the materialists to use language with more precision and accuracy than this. "Dead matter," whatever the phrase may imply, can bear nothing, produce nothing, quicken nothing. The pangs of death once past, the pangs of life cease. Nor is there any birth from unquickened matter. Animals bear young, ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... course you may keep the Napoleon book. It is intended for you. Your criticism of T. R.'s literary style is appreciated, and no doubt he lacks in precision of thought. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... treated first, and made his appearance in their village in great state, being accompanied by the band, the marines, and several boats' crews of jackies. He was hospitably received by the natives, who crowded about to listen to the band, and wonder at the military precision of the marines, whom they regarded as supernatural beings. Gattanewa, the chief, expressed his abounding love for the captain, and exchanged names with him, after the custom of the people; but ended by saying that the lawless Happahs were at war with the Taeehs, and the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... his widowed mother in a charming old house, surrounded by a walled garden, in Franklin Street. Like the house, he was always in perfect order; and everything about him, from his loosely fitting clothes and his immaculate linen to his inherited conceptions of life, was arranged with such exquisite precision that it was impossible to improve it in any way. He knew exactly what he thought, and he knew also his reason, which was usually a precedent in law or custom, for thinking as he did. His opinions, which were both active and abundant, were all perfectly legitimate ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... which had apparently served as a treasury, of a deposit of ivory figurines of the most exquisite workmanship. The height of the best preserved specimen is about 11-1/2 inches, and it is hard to say whether the boldness of the design or the precision with which the details of the tiny figure are wrought out is the more admirable. The attitude is that of a man flinging himself forth in the abandon of a violent leap, with legs and arms extended. His straining muscles are indicated with perfect faithfulness, and even ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... simple by way of evolution. Now, has it arisen so, as a matter of fact? Paleontology, in spite of the insufficiency of its evidence, invites us to believe it has; for, where it makes out the order of succession of species with any precision, this order is just what considerations drawn from embryogeny and comparative anatomy would lead any one to suppose, and each new paleontological discovery brings transformism a new confirmation. Thus, the proof drawn from ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... clean to the rear, and burst harmlessly. A few faces turned upward and a few eyes glanced backward, as if to see the invisible enemy. But there was no pause in the column; it flowed onward quietly, eagerly, and with business-like precision; it gave forth no sound but the trampling of feet and the muttering of the officers, "Steady, men! ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... strata of the globe, is, to natural history, of the greatest importance; and it is essential in the theory now proposed to be given of the mineral system. It would, therefore, require to be discussed with some degree of precision in examining the particulars; but of these, there is so great a field, and the subject is so complicated in its nature, that volumes might be written upon particular branches only, without exhausting what might be ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... measured every word ere it was spoken, every look ere it was shown, every movement ere he suffered his limbs to make it. The muscles of his face, were each put under curb and chain—the smiles of the lip and the glances of the eyes, were all subdued to precision, and permitted to go forth, only under special guard and restriction. In tone, look, and manner, he strove as nearly as he might to resemble the worthy but simple-minded man, who had so readily found a worthy adherent and ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... piece are finished with consummate poetical care and precision. Above Adam, laurel (a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband); the filbert for the two together; the fig, for fruitful household joy (under thy vine and fig-tree [Footnote: Compare Fors Clavigera, February, 1877.]—but vine properly the masculine ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... bring the date of their birth forward, but Knox with much care set his back. He justified himself in this because, when he was twenty, he was explaining the difference between truth and error with great precision, and to give the words weight he added ten years to his age, explaining to a finikin friend that at twenty he knew more than any man of thirty that could be produced. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... conjuring me," said Don Quixote, "and ask what thou wouldst know; I have already told thee I will answer with all possible precision." ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... a gasp, and she pressed one hand tight over her eyes. For with swift and terrible precision the accident had indeed come to pass. The car skidded, turned, hung for a sickening second on one wheel, struck the stone of the roadside fence with a horrible grinding jar and toppled heavily over against ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... performances at least—we mean the scenes in the circle. For ourself, we know that when the hoop, composed of jets of gas, is let down, the curtain drawn up for the convenience of the half-price on their ejectment from the ring, the orange-peel cleared away, and the sawdust shaken, with mathematical precision, into a complete circle, we feel as much enlivened as the youngest child present; and actually join in the laugh which follows the clown's shrill shout of 'Here we are!' just for old acquaintance' sake. Nor can we quite divest ourself of our old feeling of reverence for the riding-master, who ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... rigid precision of bearing which denotes military training: he was young and slight of build, with unruly dark hair fluttering round the temples from beneath his white sugar-loaf hat, and escaping the trammels of the neatly-tied black silk bow at the nape of ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... would not condescend To call a low, illiterate girl your friend: But in our troubles we are apt, you know, To lean on all who some compassion show; And she has flexile features, acting eyes, And seems with every look to sympathise; No mirror can a mortal's grief express With more precision, or can feel it less; That proud, mean spirit, she by fawning courts By vulgar flattery, and by vile reports; And by that proof she every instant gives To one so mean, that yet a meaner lives. "Come, I have drawn the curtain, and you see Your fellow-actors, all our company; ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... the undetermined damage to the stellar drive and the way the small planet's murky atmosphere defied precision scanners—the pilot made a reasonably good landing. Despite sour feelings for the space service of Haurtoz, steward Peter Kolin had to admit that casualties might have ...
— The Talkative Tree • Horace Brown Fyfe
... making an official confession of the truth in writing. Yes, Mlle. de Saint-Veran is alive. Yes, I love her. Yes, I have the mortification not to be loved by her. Yes, the results of the boy Beautrelet's inquiry are wonderful in their precision and accuracy. Yes, we agree on every point. There is no riddle left. There is no mystery. Well, ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... Hill by natural gravitation. The light was dusky yellow from the smelter smoke; and loafers round the transcontinental railroad station across the street chose the shady side of the building, where they sat swinging their legs from the platform and aiming tobacco juice with regularity and precision in the exact centre ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... stopping to inquire of a respectable-looking Strasburger for the Appeuweir road, up steps an individual with one eye and a cast off military cap three sizes too small. After querying, " Appenweir. Englander?" he wheels "about face" with military precision doubtless thus impelled by the magic influence of his headgear - and beckons me to follow. Not knowing what better course to pursue I obey, and after threading the mazes of a dozen streets, composed of buildings ranging in architecture from the much gabled and not unpicturesque structures ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... when she opened the door was probably the last great merchant in America to wear the chin beard. White as white frost, it was trimmed short with exquisite precision, while his upper lip and the lower expanses of his cheeks were clean and rosy from fresh shaving. With this trim white chin beard, the white waistcoat, the white tie, the suit of fine gray cloth, the broad and brilliantly polished black shoes, and ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... was capable of a speed of fifty miles an hour, and could be made to sink or rise with precision by flooding or emptying a reservoir. In a box, raised somewhat above the hull and fitted with glass ten inches thick, the steersman had his place, and a powerful electric reflector behind him illumined the sea for half a mile ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of an hour later when Jan saw Melisse, with Iowaka's red shawl over her head, walking slowly and with extreme precision of step back to ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... fine parts and scholarly attainments, earnestly bent upon doing his whole duty, vigorous, energetic and thorough in everything, Carter was just the man to conduct a school with mathematical precision, but at the same time, his natural irritability was such that the whirlwind was less fierce than his wrath, when the latter was aroused. About the time of his advent among the pupils at the Little York public school, gum-chewing had ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... one in the camp was awakened, and armed with rifles, with the exception of Benny and Anne, who were placed in a secure position. Mrs. Duncan and Jane could handle a rifle with as much precision as was necessary to protect themselves in an emergency. Mr. Duncan and Howe, disposed their little band so as to bring their arms to bear on three different points from which they were certain, in case of an attack, the ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... North, much liked both by the noble owner and his sporting friends; a steady, intelligent man with a real genius for the gentle craft. He could charm trout from water where, apparently, no trout existed; he could throw a fly with a skill and precision beautiful to behold, and he was well read in the literature of his pursuits. Much converse with gentlemen had softened the asperities of his Cotswold speech, he expressed himself well, wrote both a good hand and a good letter, ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... a slip. A crash echoed through the house. Following the startled, half-articulate cry of a sudden awakening, Mrs. Markham, still finding her way with marvelous precision in the darkness, passed through a set of portieres and crossed ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... curious drone of the strange car as it swooped down upon us, coming to a sudden halt a yard distant, with really beautiful precision. ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... Twelfth Infantry remained in its shelter within 350 yards of the stone fort until about 4 p.m. Then we have Chaffee's brigade on the north of the fort remaining stationary and by their own reports doing but little firing. The Seventeenth fired "for about fifty minutes" about noon, with remarkable precision, but "it seemingly had no effect upon reducing the Spanish fire delivered in our (their) front." The Seventh did not fire to any extent. The Twelfth Infantry lay in its refuge "free from the enemy's fire" and may have kept up ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... seems to me that Ruskin's rule may apply to other arts, but not to Cricket. For here is Richardson not only talking about fast bowling, but expressing himself with signal ease and precision. Listen to this, ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and Pickens continued to advance and fire, but the North Carolina militia broke at the third round.—Sumner with the new raised troops, then occupied their place, and behaved gallantly. Marion's marksmen firing with great precision, and galling the enemy greatly, had now advanced more than half a mile, when the British charged upon them with fixed bayonets, and Marion ordered a retreat. The Virginia and Maryland troops now advanced with trailed arms, and scarcely had Marion cleared the right of the ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... able to teach all, as he had taught young Hecker, how to think, discern, judge, penetrate, decide about them with matchless power; and he clothes his conclusions in language as adequate to express them as human language well can be. Clearness, precision, force, purity, vividness, loftiness are terms applicable to Dr. Brownson's literary style. It may be that the general reading public will not study his works merely for the sake of his literary merits; the pleasures of the imagination and of narrative are not to be found in Dr. Brownson. ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... that "the placing of a tuning-fork; against the body of a patient enables him to gauge the limits of the liver with almost hair-breadth precision." He believes that musical diagnosis will prove reliable in the case of broken bones, and asserts that already it has been proved that a fatty liver gives out tones distinct ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... and died in obscurity—William Congreve, celebrated for his comedies, which are not so famous for strength of character and power of humour, as for wit, elegance, and regularity—Vanburgh, who wrote with more nature and fire, though with less art and precision—Steele, who in his comedies successfully engrafted modern characters on the ancient drama—Farquhar, who drew his pictures from fancy rather than from nature, and whose chief merit consists in the agreeable pertness and vivacity of his dialogue—Addison, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... half ago, for which reason, as well as on account of the occasion for which they were penned (they were intended for an indulgent friend), there is some excuse for their crudeness of form. These ideas have, indeed, since then, received in me a better foundation and greater precision, and this may possibly bring ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... abstract, is not unfrequently found in Homer, though fearing to give offence to serious minds unacquainted with the original, I have not always given it that force in the translation. But here, the sentiment is such as fixes the sense intended by the author with a precision that leaves no option. It is observable too, that dynatai gar apanta—is an ascription of power such as the poet never makes to ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... Southern troops were making great preparations to meet them, but, like the others, he was feeling the strong hand on the reins. He did not notice here the doubt and uncertainty that had reigned at Washington before the advance on Bull Run; in Grant's army were order and precision, and with perfect confidence in his commander he rolled himself in his blankets that night ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... that neither of them understood a word of what the other was saying. So the near-argument became an animated discussion, the general meaning of which became clear: Brain surgeons should know more about the intricacies of electromechanics, and the designers of delicate, precision instrumentation should know more about the mass of human gray matter they were trying ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... was FitzGerald's Woodbridge lawyer, and no doubt he and other friends of FitzGerald thought that the affairs of the partnership of FitzGerald and Fletcher were not carried on with such precision as was desirable. Possibly they were right. But then, Posh couldn't be precise. I have failed to get any intelligible account out of Posh as to that rum-flip orgy. All he could do was to chuckle. The question of loyalty raised in the letter is a nice one. But Posh and his kind ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... tell just what it is she is trying to say. She was definite when she claimed both the language and the ideas of the book. That seemed to settle the matter. It seemed to distribute the percentages of credit with precision between the collaborators: ninety-two per cent. to Mrs. Eddy, who did all the work, and eight per cent. to the Deity, who furnished the inspiration not enough of it to damage the copyright in a country closed against Foreigners, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... half through, it was clear that we should not enjoy that evening the delight of perfect music added to the enchantment of so brilliant a scene. The execution of the overture was not exactly bad. But it lacked absolute precision, the complete subordination of all details to the whole. In rendering German music Italians often fail through want of discipline, or through imperfect sympathy with a style they will not take the pains to master. Nor, when the curtain lifted and the play ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... angles of the converging streets; but they were either blank, or filled by laughing listeners. The most innocent echo has an impish mockery in it when it follows a gravely persistent speaker, and this echo was not at all innocent; if it did not follow with the precision of a natural echo, it had a wicked choice of the words it overtook. By the time it said, "The Baltic, now," the laugh which had been running through the audience became a general shout, and but for the sobering effects of party and that great public cause which the entanglement ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... class, I wanted to succeed in taking Atlanta, and needed commanders who were purely and technically soldiers, men who would obey orders and execute them promptly and on time; for I knew that we would have to execute some most delicate manoeuvres, requiring the utmost skill, nicety, and precision. I believed that General Howard would do all these faithfully and well, and I think the result has justified my choice. I regarded both Generals Logan and Blair as "volunteers," that looked to personal fame and glory as auxiliary ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... actual mathematics of fifty years of clean living and thinking, missed the physiological fact that often men at fifty are stronger and tougher than men in the twenties. They never waste energy; their precision of movement and deliberation of thought conserve the residue ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... valley swung wide and flat, and the trail crossed it midway, far back from the water and not quite to the flanking sand hills. While a few dashed at the cattle, waving their blankets, the main body, with workman-like precision, strung out and swung wide, circling the train and riding in to ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... Stoddart had unbuckled his sword, evidently he had not lost the power of grappling with difficulties, of swiftly seeing the right thing to do, and of giving his orders with soldier-like precision. ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... control board, playing the buttons there with the precision of a musician creating some symphonic masterpiece. And the Queen was alive, now quivering through her stout plates, coming ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... made the proper bow with deadly precision, there was not a smile or a sound. That ceremony over, they charged down upon me in an avalanche of gaiety. They waved their lanterns, they called banzai, they laughed and sung some of the old time foolish songs we used to sing. They promptly put to rout all legends of their ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... game of billiards. The exact stage of the tide and volume of the current, the velocity and direction of the wind, the ice on the river, the approaching or anchored vessels, and all of them in their mutual relations, have to be calculated with mathematical precision, especially in entering the narrow slip: so that the directest way is often the longest way around. Is there not here an object-lesson for those who would live wisely in this narrow transit which we call life? ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... iron and steel, precision equipment (bearings, radio and telephone parts, armaments), wood pulp and paper products, processed foods, ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... a meaning which it did not have in any other passage. He grasped, and rendered in turn with perfect accuracy, shades of meaning and subtleties of language; and the fine expression of relations difficult to solve surprises and charms the reader by its precision. ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... not the work that many imagine it to be. It is not necessary that the egg be turned with absolute precision and regularity. An elaborate device for this work is useless. The trays will need frequently to be removed and turned around or shifted, and the eggs can be turned at this time by lifting out a few on one side of the tray and ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... student came over the platform where we stood, and saw that the mad-man had his heavy pistol aimed at us. He grasped a huge stick of wood, and, with a steadiness of nerve which I could not have commanded, he hurled it with such force and precision that he knocked the pistol from the maniac's hand. I saw the movement, and on the instant that the pistol fell, I sprang forward, and the German followed me. I grasped the man by the arm; but I should have been nothing in his mad power, had I been alone. He would have hurled ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... heavy, but carried no spear and wore no armor. It was carefully trained to the management of the horse and the bow, and was unequalled in the rapidity and dexterity of its movements. The archer delivered his arrows with as much precision and force in retreat as in advance, and was almost more feared when he retired than when he charged his foe. Besides his arrows, the light horseman seems to have carried a sword, and he no doubt wore also the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... artist's duty. "In every art," so Taine reminded us, "it is necessary to linger long over the true in order to attain the beautiful. The eye, fixing itself on an object, begins by noting details with an excess of precision and fulness; it is only later, when the inventory is complete, that the mind, master of its wealth, rises higher, in order to take or to neglect what ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... place, its quiet, its solemnity, the perspective of its aisles, and the conspicuous grace and precision of its traceries, combine to give you the sensation of having entered a true Gothic cloister. And if you walk round it hastily, and, glancing only at a fresco or two, and the confused tombs erected against them, return to the uncloistered sunlight of the piazza, you may quite easily carry away ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... important edifice—the temple of God—alone stones are cut, shaped, and fitted each to each with care and precision. A holy simplicity surrounds the art; yet are there not wanting carven crosses and other divine emblems sculptured out. Within, the heavenly mysteries of religion will be performed. Should you ask, "Why ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... operator, who had taken Mr. Clive's case in hand, now produced her shining knife, and executed the first cut with perfect neatness and precision. "We are come here, as I suppose you know, Mr. Newcome, upon family matters, and I frankly tell you that I think, for your own sake, you would be much better away. I wrote my daughter a great scolding when I heard that you were ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... takes only four. The rate of interest on loans is, in the long run, reduced by an amount that accurately corresponds with the appreciation of the monetary metal wherever the appreciation is steady. This law works with a precision that is unusual in the case of economic laws. Loan interest varies more or less from the marginal earnings of capital; but interest as paid in money accurately expresses interest as determined in kind by the play ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... dress in this Bleeding Nun, framing the ascetic olive face in thick bands of hair as black as the fiery eyes, and making the most of the rigid, slim figure. Lisbeth, like a Virgin by Cranach or Van Eyck, or a Byzantine Madonna stepped out of its frame, had all the stiffness, the precision of those mysterious figures, the more modern cousins of Isis and her sister goddesses sheathed in marble folds by Egyptian sculptors. It was granite, basalt, porphyry, ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... imagine how cumbrous and well-nigh hopeless a business it was in those days, not so long past, to pursue after wild life with a camera; but a thousand disheartening failures left him still grasping the inviolable shade, still confident that in photography, if it could only be given with rapidity and precision, lay the naturalist's hope. Blurred negatives were all the spoil, and, sorry enough, we bore back after long days of tossing and climbing among the Outer Islands; but we had the reward of living among the birds. They filled our thoughts, our lives for the time:—great ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... precision about the American soldier that stood San Francisco in good stead. The San Francisco water rat thug and "Barbary Coast" pirate might flout a policeman, but he discovered that he could not disobey a man who wears Uncle Sam's uniform ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... body. Under his clear, white skin the muscles tensed and flowed, as he crouched, and approached and retreated warily, looking for an opening. His movements were swift and graceful, carried out with a precision and certainty that not only claimed, ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... daring a deed as to get round behind him, so to speak, betwixt the shore and his fleet, despite the sands and shoals. But Nelson did with a portion of his fleet, and each war-ship took up position with all the precision of couples in a contra-dance. Oh, it was beautiful! but when the battle fairly began, and tongues of fire and clouds of rolling smoke leaped and curled from the great guns, lighting up the dusk and gloom of gathering night, while echoes reverberated from shore ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... his own people, cavalry of the Southern army. Recovering his presence of mind, he ran forward, shouting and waving his hands. The leader was the first to notice him and gave the order to halt. The whole command stopped with beautiful precision, the ranks remaining even. Then the leader, looking more than ever like a mediaeval knight, rode slowly forward on his great black horse to meet the youth who was running to ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... invade fields which a few years ago were impenetrable. The world's products are exchanged as never before, and with increasing transportation facilities come increasing knowledge and larger trade. Prices are fixed with mathematical precision by supply and demand. The world's selling prices are regulated by ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... message with kindling eyes. It was the old way of the Seventh, and they knew it well. The very horses seemed to feel the electric shock. Worn with hard marches, bronzed by long weeks of exposure on alkali plains, they advanced now with the precision of men on parade, under the observant eyes of the officers. Not a canteen tinkled, not a sabre rattled within its scabbard, as at a swift, noiseless walk those tried warriors of the Seventh pressed forward to strike once more their ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... deride and despise you invariably profess to see something extraordinarily good!" Varenika was saying in her clear voice, as she articulated each syllable with careful precision. ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy |
