"Superlative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tired of all these fussy appreciations. But what one seems to miss nowadays is the presence of a writer of superlative lucidity and humanity, for whose books one waits with avidity, and orders them beforehand, as soon as they are announced. For one thing, most people seem to me to write too much. The moment a real success is scored, ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... any individual in the great Piccadilly crowd had met Douglas and Mary on the boat, he or she would have looked at them with interest, but there would have been no cheering and throwing of roses. What the crowd does is to raise an emotion to a superlative degree. In a full hall you will laugh at a joke that would not bring a smile to your face in a room. You become absorbed in your crowd, and you are fully open to your crowd's suggestion. I generally laugh at Charlie Chaplin, ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... these creatures as the Lord that He is, [271] for in that transit His mercy shines forth more; and thus said David (Psalm, XLVII, 21) Domini, Domini, exitus mortis; [272] whence that reduplication which the Hebrew grammar calls ohatsere, [273] signifies the superlative in name and action. The same is the declaration of divine wisdom (Proverbs, XX): In viis justitiae ambulo, in medio semitarum judicii, ut ditem diligentes me. [274] The Father celestial summons them for the relief of their burdens, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... of those superlative sunsets that burn themselves into the consciousness with a joy akin to pain, and of which only a few are allotted to each human life. I stood watching the sinking sun throw a crimson net over the snow mountains as the shadow of night crept slowly up the hillside. The sky took on an ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... by gazelles who were marvellously adroit. They waited, carved and even divined the wishes of Blondine, Bonne-Biche and Beau-Minon. The dinner was exquisite—the chicken was splendid, the game and fish most delicate, the pastry and bonbons superlative. Blondine was hungry so she ate of ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... considerable bulk. Where a very great deal of power is needed for the making of an article or material of comparatively small weight and bulk proportioned to its value—such for instance as calcium carbide or aluminium—the immediate vicinity of the source of natural power will offer superlative inducements. But an immense number of things lie between the domains of these two classes, and for the economical manufacture of these it is imperative that both cheap power and low wharfage rates ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... presenting a remarkable contrast to most of our rich men's attempts at the same. The dinner, cooked by a cordon bleu of the cuisine [A]—whose resources in the way of "hot plates" and other accessories for furnishing a superlative dinner are unrivaled—is often served on glittering plate, or china almost equally valuable, by men six feet high, of splendid figure, and dressed with the most scrupulous neatness and cleanliness. Gloves are never worn by servants in first-rate English houses, but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... the religious education of German youth ever since. Though preceded by other catechisms from the pen of this and that colleague or disciple, it speedily displaced them all, not simply because of its authorship, but because of its superlative merit, and has alone maintained itself in general use. The versatility of the Reformer in adapting himself with such success to the needs of the young and immature is no less than extraordinary. Such a little book as this it is that reveals most clearly ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... as the pattern of success in comparison with which poor Lorraine and I are nowhere. I don't say they do it with malice prepense, or that they plot against us to our ruin; the thing operates rather as an extraordinary effect of their mere successful blatancy. They're blatant, truly, in the superlative degree, and I call them successfully so for just this reason, that poor Mother is to all appearance perfectly unaware of it. Maria is the one member of all her circle that has got her really, not only just ostensibly, into training; and it's a part of the general irony of fate ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... arise? Surely that place admits of no disguise, Eternal Sight must know thee there, And being known, thou soon must disappear. But since the fatal Truth we know, Without the matter whence or manner how: Thou high superlative of Sin, Tell us thy nature, where thou didst begin? The first degree of thy increase, Debauch'd the Regions of eternal Peace, And fill'd the breasts of loyal Angels there With the first Treason ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... removed to Sadler's Wells!! The pyrotechnics of the former have gone on a visit to the hydraulics of the latter, the red fire of Astley's has come in contact with the real water of the Wells, yet, marvel superlative! the unnatural meeting has been successful—there has not been a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... two sons"—so begins the best and most famous story in the world's literature. Use of the absolute superlative is always dangerous, but none will gainsay that statement, I am sure. This story, which follows that familiar tale afar off, indeed, begins in the same way. And the parallelism between the two is exact ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... course, the main object, and there was much excitement when they at last drew up at the great iron gate. Miss Morley bought tickets for the party, and they were assigned a guide, a smiling Italian of superlative politeness, bearing a badge with the number 24 ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Compromise. If you have the drink you'll have the drunkenness. If you have the cause you will have the effect. If you have the positive you will have the superlative: Positive drink, comparative drinking, superlative drunkenness. You may try high-tax and low-tax but all the time you will have sin-tax and more sin ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... has received, whether it has escaped frost and other injuries; and some varieties are much more prolific than others. Some apples are "shy bearers," and for this reason soon are lost to propagation unless they have some superlative merit; Yellow Bellflower is an example of a shy, or at least an irregular, bearer. The great commercial varieties are of course good bearers, as Baldwin, Ben Davis, Stayman, York Imperial, Oldenburg, Rome, McIntosh, ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... wryte in prayse of a gentlewoman, I would neither praise her christal eye, nor her cherrie lippe, etc. For these things are trita et obvia. But I would either find some supernaturall cause whereby my penne might walke in the superlative degree, or els I would undertake to answer for any imperfection that shee hath, and thereupon rayse ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... had made the most of the little hair that remained to him. He wore a neat pair of trousers, a soft shade of some dark color, a silk waistcoat of superlative elegance and the very newest cut, a shirt with open-work, its linen hand-woven by a Friesland woman, and a blue-and-white cravat. His watch chain, like the head of his cane, came from Messrs. Florent and Chanor; and the ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... aspect of the Soudan is that of misery; nor is there a single feature of attraction to recompense a European for the drawbacks of pestilential climate and brutal associations. To a stranger it appears a superlative folly that the Egyptian Government should have retained a possession, the occupation of which is wholly unprofitable; the receipts being far below the expenditure, "malgre" the increased taxation. At so great a distance from the seacoast and hemmed in by immense deserts, there ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... Fett in my ear, "and the books say that the feudal system is dead in England! Why, here's the very flower of it! Damme, though, the old gentleman is splendid; superlative, sir; it's ten to one against Coriolanus, and no takers. Between ourselves, Coriolanus was a pretty fellow, but talked too much. Phocion, sir? Did I hear ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... Christian to the left, the event of a sequent encounter did not occur to him. And now Christian, acting on the dim glimpse he had had, just as Sweyn turned upon him, of something that moved against the sky along the ridge behind the homestead, was staking his only hope on a chance, and his own superlative speed. If what he saw was really White Fell, he guessed she was bending her steps towards the open wastes; and there was just a possibility that, by a straight dash, and a desperate perilous leap over a sheer bluff, he might yet meet her or head ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... were on a more modest scale than those of Loringwood. They lacked the grandeur suggested by the century-old cedars she had observed along the Loring drive. The Terrace was much more modern and, possibly, so much more comfortable. It had in a superlative degree the delightful atmosphere of home, and although the stranger had been within its gates so short a time, she was conscious of the wonder if in all her varied experience she had ever been in ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... Lopez. (Takes his hand) In friendship lies the joy superlative, And nearest Heaven. We touch God's hand whene'er We clasp a friend's. ... But now we ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... joyous epopee of Orlando and his companions. The principal characters are Orlando, Charlemagne, Renaud, Agramant, Ferragus, Angelica, Bradamante, Marphisa. The tone is extremely varied and the author is in turns joyous, satirical, pathetic, melancholy, and even tragical. Ariosto is the superlative poet of fantastic imagination combined with a foundation of good sense, reason, and benevolence. Goethe has said of him very aptly: "From a cloud of gold wisdom sometimes thunders sublime sentences, ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... yet more heavily befooled and bled, caught and bound these men in fellowship. They had both met with some queer ones in their travels, and they compared notes: but they always came back to this superlative old fraud. After long wise and disconnected talk about the set of the wind, or the rates of pay on various lines, or stowage, or freights, or rigs, or currents, or the characters of various skippers and mates, or the liveliness or sulkiness or homeliness or fickleness ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in this world; real mothers are rare. Can we lift the mammalia up into the high estate of motherhood? I believe so. Can we grow superlative children, as we grow superlative fruits and animals? Oh, a thousand times, yes. I beg for your support of this new idea. Let the spirit of inspiration enter into your reflections concerning it. Let that concentration of purpose which you have learned in your clubs and ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... had inherited, in a superlative degree, the shrewd common-sense of Piero, and his mother's passionate love of Florence, with all her enthusiasm for what was pure, cultured, philanthropic, and religious. Niccolo Macchiavelli, somewhat unwillingly, admitted that—"Lorenzo has all the high-mindedness and liberality which ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... his dragoman began, "is either superlative, comparative, positive, or negative. And superlative morality is found, of course, only in the newspapers. It is the special prerogative of leader-writers. Its note, remote and unchallengeable, was well struck by almost every organ at the commencement of the Great ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... Cazotte "Story of Bhazad (!) the Impatient." The name is Persian, Bih (well, good) Zad (born). In the adj. bih we recognize a positive lost in English and German which retain the comparative (bih-tar better) and superlative (bih-tarinbest). ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... close measure of the Indian mind, his friendship and confidence must not suffer eclipse. It is a superlative task, for the inner Indian shrine is crossed by only a favoured few. The Indian is averse to being photographed, for he feels that every picture made of himself by so much shortens his life. He looks at his portrait, then feels of his person; he realizes that he has not lost a hand or a ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... unusual time in office, by an accusation enforced by a thousand purses of gold, he was enabled to produce a bowstring for his benefactor; and the sultan's "firmaun" appointed him to the vacant pachalik. His qualifications for office were all superlative: he was very short, very corpulent, very illiterate, very irascible, and ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... good flowers. It is fine for exhibition at flower shows, and is useful as a cut flower. For all of these reasons the Aster would be a standard flower. Their great popularity is based, however, on two qualifications not mentioned above, and both of which they possess in a superlative degree. These qualities are great beauty of flower and a wonderful diversity and ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various
... primly walking, the superlative of the miserable, past the facade of the hotel, when someone sprang out of a cab and spoke to her. And it was Mr. ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... whenever they considered the point. But a better knowledge of Chris Blauchard had served in some measure to explain the wonder. Of all women, she was the least likely to do the thing predicted by experience. She had tremendous force of character for one scarce twenty years of age; indeed, she lived a superlative life, and the man, woman, child, or dog that came within radius of her existence presently formed a definite part of it, and was loved or detested according to circumstances. Neutrality she could not understand. If her interests were wide, her prejudices were strong. A certain ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... present renovation that those who were for ever belauding her pictures, and her saints, and her architecture, as we praise things dead, they are the most angered by her appearance on this modern field all armed, just as she was, with works and art and songs, sometimes superlative, often vulgar. Note you, she is still careless of art or songs, as she has always been. She lays her foundations in something other, which something other our moderns hate. Yet out of that something other came the art and song of the Middle Ages. And what art or songs have you? She is Europe ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... ourselves for others' faults, is superlative folly. The mental arrow shot from another's ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... learned on the football field. This spirit of desire and combat may be seen further in all parts of this great subject. It has developed into a cult of sportsmanship; so universally accepted among men as of superlative merit as to quite blind them to ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... him. He is guarded with crowds, and shackled with formalities. The half hat, the whole hat, the half smile, the whole smile, the nod, the embrace, the positive parting with a little bow, the comparative at the middle of the room, the superlative at the door; and if the person be Pan huper sebastos, there's a Huper superlative ceremony then of conducting him to the bottom of the stairs, or to the very gate: as if there were such rules set to these Leviathans as are to the sea, "Hitherto shalt thou go, and ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... God dealing in slaves; giving them to his own favourite child [Abraham], a man of superlative worth, and as a reward for his eminent goodness."—Rev. ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... filled me with admiration and I declared that the lecture ranked with the best ever heard in London with Coleridge's on Shakespeare and Carlyle's on Heroes. To my astonishment Oscar would not admit the superlative quality of Whistler's talk; he thought the message paradoxical and the ridicule of the professors too bitter. "Whistler's like a wasp," he cried, "and carries about with him a poisoned sting." Oscar's kindly sweet nature revolted against the ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... evening had settled once more upon the place. The peace of it all was superlative. It was peace to which Effie was something more than averse. She dreaded it. For all her two years of life in the meagre home her husband had provided her with, it required all her courage and fortitude to endure it. The hills ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... dairy, in which she had so long been assistant, and was so near discovering herself to May Hettly, by betraying her acquaintance with the celebrated receipt for Dunlop cheese, that she compared herself to Bedreddin Hassan, whom the vizier, his father-in-law, discovered by his superlative skill in composing cream-tarts with pepper in them. But when the novelty of such avocations ceased to amuse her, she showed to her sister but too plainly, that the gaudy colouring with which she veiled her unhappiness afforded as little real comfort, as the gay uniform of the soldier when it is ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... in New York, that Tammany was a blot on the social system of the city. But I would not have it so. I would call it a part of the social system, just as much a part of the social system, and just as expressive of the national character, as the fine schools, the fine hospitals, the superlative business organizations, or Mr. George M. Cohan's Theater. A civilization is indivisibly responsible for itself. It may not, on the Day of Judgment, or any other day, lessen its collective responsibility ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... heirs at last. You have but to take the faith, the love, the obedience, the communion of the highest moments of the Christian life on earth, and free them from all their limitations, subtract from them all their imperfections, multiply them to their superlative possibility, and endow them with a continual power of growth, and stretch them out to absolute eternity, and you get heaven. The earnest is of a piece with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... Mr. Cooke, and myself as to the best place to land him. When considerately asked by my client whether he had any choice in the matter, he replied, somewhat facetiously, that he could not think of making a suggestion to one who had shown such superlative ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... with this sublime comparison, Methinks we may proceed upon our narrative, And, as my friend Scott says, "I sound my warison;"[752] Scott, the superlative of my comparative— Scott, who can paint your Christian knight or Saracen, Serf—Lord—Man, with such skill as none would share it, if There had not been one Shakespeare and Voltaire, Of one or both of whom he seems ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... if they give themselves much to do. Nor would I quarrel with a man for his irreligion, any more than I would for his want of a musical ear, I would regret that he was shut out from what, to me and to others, were such superlative sources of enjoyment. It is in this point of a view, and for this reason, that I will deeply imbue the mind of every child of mine with religion. If my son should happen to be a man of feeling, sentiment, and taste, I shall thus add largely to his enjoyments. Let me flatter ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... about. He may never have crossed the Pyrenees. He has no dream of the glories of Dresden, or Florence, or the Louvre. It is even possible that he has not seen the matchless collection he is boasting of. He crowns it with a sweeping superlative simply because it is Spanish. But the statement ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... would be a success. So did you. Anything you might attempt would be successful. You'd have made a successful lawyer, or cook, or actress, or hydraulic engineer, because you couldn't do a thing badly. It isn't in you. You're a superlative sort of person. But that's no reason for being any of those things. If you won't admit a debt to humanity, surely you'll acknowledge you've an ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... cannot return, I mean such as princes and kings, whom fortune has placed in such a station that they can give away much, and can only receive very little and quite inadequate returns for what they give. I have spoken of kings and princes, who alone can cause works to be accomplished, and whose superlative power depends upon the obedience and services of inferiors; but some there are, free from all earthly lusts, who are scarcely affected by any human objects of desire, upon whom fortune herself could bestow nothing. I must be worsted in a ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... Jan's price. But it happened there were none. And the result was that Jan had to be put through his paces five separate times for the benefit of five separate prospective purchasers, not one of whom was really capable of appreciating his superlative quality, before the five hundred dollars demanded did eventually find its way into Jean's pouch and he was called upon to part with his leader. He intended to give Snip the leadership of his team now, because Snip was a curiously ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... simpers forth, in softest accents of Cockaigne, the superlative claim of choral shows ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... after him, Nicholas crept down the steps and looked into a small boarded cellar. There, amidst clothes-baskets and clothes, stripped up to his shirt-sleeves, but wearing still an old patched pair of pantaloons of superlative make, a once brilliant waistcoat, and moustache and whiskers as of yore, but lacking their lustrous dye—there, endeavouring to mollify the wrath of a buxom female—not the lawful Madame Mantalini, but the proprietress of the concern—and grinding meanwhile as ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... little frivolous tune Which he felt to be pulsing with ecstasy, For he thought that success always followed desire, Such a very superlative fool was he. ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... three months nominally in the service, out of which in reality he had been absent four years and ten months either on furlough or without one, and already a general! Neither blind luck, nor the revolutionary epoch, nor the superlative ability of the man, but a compound of all these, had brought this marvel to pass. It did not intoxicate, but still further sobered, the beneficiary. This effect was partly due to an experience which demonstrated that strong as are the chains of habit, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... her the least interesting are the ones which most certainly reveal the fulness of poetry from which she draws. She probably hardly thought at all, so natural was it, to say that three pinks "smell like more of them in a blue vase," but the expression fills the air with so strong a scent that no superlative could increase it. ...
— Poems By a Little Girl • Hilda Conkling
... should cause you any inconvenience, I gave over my own pleasure: permit me, however, to finish my game." A slave followed with a terebinth table and crystal dice, and I noted one piece of luxury that was superlative; for instead of black and white pieces, he used gold and silver coins. He kept up a continual flow of various coarse expressions. We were still dallying with the relishes when a tray was brought in, on which was a basket containing a wooden hen with her wings rounded and spread out ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... to Socrates the superlative degree of wisdom, gave to Sophocles the positive, and ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thoroughly to my own satisfaction two considerable illnesses, had a birthday, and visited Honolulu, where politics are (if possible) a shade more exasperating than they are with us. I am told that it was just when I was on the point of leaving that I received your superlative epistle about the cricket eleven. In that case it is impossible I should have answered it, which is inconsistent with my own recollection of the fact. What I remember is, that I sat down under your immediate inspiration and wrote an answer in every way worthy. If I didn't, as it seems proved ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... intense pursuit of a girl who was able to twist him around her little finger and make him follow her about as if he were a green and callow youth. Palgrave, the lady-killer; Palgrave, the egoist; Palgrave, the superlative person, who, with nonchalant impertinence, had picked and ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... gravely asserts that he has often experienced, that if diamonds be wetted with May-dew, they will grow to a great size in a course of years. This probably is an improvement upon the Arabian philosophy or the production of pearls by the oysters catching that superlative seminal influence. The following singular article of intelligence respecting India, may be copied as a specimen of the work: "In that countree growen many strong vynes: and the women drynken wyn, and men not: ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... The cursed fellow! Cursed be every one of them—the father and the girl, Rosek and all the other sharks! He went out on to the landing. The house was quite still below. Rosek had gone—good riddance! He called, "Gyp!" No answer. He went into her room. Its superlative daintiness struck his fancy. A scent of cyclamen! He looked out into the garden. There was the baby at the end, and that fat woman. No Gyp! Never in when she was wanted. Wagge! He shivered; and, going back into his bedroom, took a brandy-bottle from a locked cupboard and drank some. It steadied ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... sluggishly beneath its marble platform; and from there the grounds are spread before the visitor in a perfect panorama. The paved avenues, all leading to the magnificent pile, miles of marble acqueducts filled with ornamental fish, playing fountains—all breathe the superlative of art, every fluttering leaf whispers ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... not know, I repeat, how this scene would have ended, when there crossed the threshold a parsonage who came to take a part in the development of the drama. There entered, I say, a woman of twenty to twenty-two years of age, diminutive in body, superlative in audacity and grace. Neat and clean hose and shoes, short, black flounced petticoat, a linked girdle, head-dress or mantilla of fringed taffeta caught together at the nape of her neck, and a corner of it ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... storm were an hallucination; something not objective; something real, but within the soul of him who looked upon it. It claimed sudden kinship with those blackest days when nevertheless the sun, the mere external unimportant sun, shines with superlative brilliancy. Emotions of a power to shake the foundations of life seemed vaguely to stir in answer to these their hollow symbols. For after all, we were contented at heart and tranquil in mind, and this was but the outer gorgeous show of an intense emotional ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... up the work of the navy throughout the war one month after the armistice had been signed, Secretary Daniels paid the highest tribute to the widely recognized efficiency of Vice-Admiral Sims; he had also superlative praise for Rear-Admiral Rodman, who commanded our battleships attached to the Grand Fleet; for Vice-Admiral Wilson, commanding our forces in French waters; for Rear-Admiral Niblack, our Mediterranean commander, Rear-Admiral Dunn in the ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... 'cruelest man,' but 'most cruel man.' The superlative is often thus used to denote simply a high ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... lovely when they are meek. This is not to say that they will be worthily loved or loyally: there are two sides to a bargain. Yet this one thing more: they are neither meek nor lovely unless they love. And since Molly Lovel, on my showing, was both in a superlative degree, it follows that she must have loved much. She was ill repaid while she lived; let now that measure be meted her which was accorded another Molly whose ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... friends, that the pathway which opened so brightly, which seemed to lead to heights of superlative glory, should have ended beside the grave of hope. Oh, was it not hard to believe that "whatever is is right?" To kneel submissively in this valley of humiliation, and lift our streaming eyes to the heavens, that seemed of brass, to the Father ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... unjustifiable name Unona odoratissima, which incorrectly enough has passed into many writings, originated with Blanco,[2] who in his description of the powerful fragrance of the flowers, which in a closed sleeping room produces headache, was induced to use the superlative "odoratissima." Baillon[3] designated as Canangium the section of the genus Uvaria, from which he would not separate ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... I ought not." Mohammed disdained all metaphysical speculations respecting the nature of the Deity, or of the origin and existence of sin, topics which had hitherto exercised the ingenuity of the East. He cast aside the doctrine of the superlative value of chastity, asserting that marriage is the natural state of man. To asceticism he opposed polygamy, permitting the practice of it in this life and promising the most voluptuous means for its enjoyment in Paradise hereafter, especially ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... angry with Tanno than I had ever been in our lives. I comprehended why he, with all his superlative equipment of tact and intuition, had blundered; he could not but assume that circumstances were as they should have been rather than as they were; yet the blunder was, in a sense, unforgivable, and had created a social situation than which nothing ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Character" are in every home where good- humoured raillery is prized and appreciated, it is scarcely necessary to speak. Who does not remember the splendid languid swells, the bright-eyed rosy girls ("with no nonsense about them!") in pork pie hats and crinolines, the superlative "Jeames's," the hairy "Mossoos," the music-grinding Italian desperadoes whom their kind creator hated so? And then the intrepidity of "Mr. Briggs," the Roman rule of "Paterfamilias," the vagaries of the "Rising Generation!" There are things in this gallery over which the severest ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat, puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to be loved, love measure. You must have genius or a prodigious usefulness if you will ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... seventy years of age. He was a rough diamond, kindly in his judgments unless his feeling of justice was injured; then he was implacable. Many sayings of his were current, among them a dry answer to a senator from Texas who, having dwelt in high- flown discourse on the superlative characteristics of the State he represented, wound up all by saying, "All that Texas needs to make it a paradise is water and good society,'' to which Wade instantly replied, "That 's all they need in hell.'' The nimbleness and shrewdness of some public men he failed to appreciate. On his ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... wonder at even good people finding little stimulus, or much that cheers, in the thought of passing thither. But if we do not know anything more—and we know very little more—let us be sure of this, that when God begins to compare His adjectives He does not stop till He gets to the superlative degree and that good begets better, and the better of earth ensures the best of Heaven. And so out of our poor little experience here, we may gather grounds of confidence that will carry our thoughts peacefully even into the great darkness, and may say, 'What Thou ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... herself with visiting the dairy ... and was so near discovering herself to Mary Hetly by betraying her aquaintance with the celebrated receipt for Dunlop cheese, that she compared herself to Bedredeen Hassan, whom the vizier his father in-law discovered by his superlative skill in composing ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... and the poor, worn-out horses were so stiff that they could barely travel any longer. The village, however, was only a few miles off, so that they were not more than an hour in reaching a miserable hovel, at the door of which was a man in the superlative degree of astonishment. He, at least, had never heard of Louvois and Louvois's orders, so that, for the promise of a gold-piece, he was easily induced to receive the desponding party. But his only bed was of straw, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... to these two superlative antiquities, two modern buildings in Brussels, though for widely different reasons, can hardly be passed over under plea of lack of space. Crowning the highest point of the city, and towering itself towards heaven in a stupendous pile of masonry, is the enormous new Palais de Justice, ...
— Beautiful Europe - Belgium • Joseph E. Morris
... as a Power is necessary against the Turks. But in Germany, what need of Austria being so superlative? Why should not, say, Three Electors united be able to oppose her?... Monsieur, I find it is your notion in England, as well as theirs in France, to bring other Sovereigns under your tutorage, and lead them about. Understand that I will not be ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... nothing occurred; so, we turned round to an unshorn, sallow-looking cobbler, who was standing next us with his hands under the bib of his apron, and put the usual question of 'What's the matter?' The cobbler eyed us from head to foot, with superlative ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... The superlative value of these varied traditions is apparent. They were the links which bound later generations to their prehistoric past. Incidentally, in the characteristic language of Semitic tradition, they preserved the memory of many ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... her satins were embroidered with the symbols of nobility and matrimonial felicity; the gold fingernail guards, the jade and flowering pearls, her earrings and tasseled tobacco pouch and ivory fan, were all in the most superlative manner. ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... miracles; by the eloquence, and wisdom, of speech and persuasion; and by the sword. For martyrdoms, I reckon them amongst miracles; because they seem to exceed the strength of human nature: and I may do the like, of superlative and admirable holiness of life. Surely there is no better way, to stop the rising of new sects and schisms, than to reform abuses; to compound the smaller differences; to proceed mildly, and not with ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... had suspected that it was Jewdwine's coldness that preserved his incorruptibility; but he had so sincere a desire for purity in their relations, that he had submitted without resentment to the freezing process that ensured it. He had in reserve his expectation of the day when, by some superlative achievement, he would take that soul, hitherto invincible, by storm. But now, in his inmost heart he owned that ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... astronomer, an animated teetotum lost in the sky. I saw no reason to hope that I should not go on thus forever, revolving around the sun until my bones, whitening among the stars, might be revealed to the superlative powers of some future telescope, and become a subject of absorbing interest, the topic of many a learned paper for the astronomers of a future age. Afterward I was comforted by the reflection that in airless space, although I might die and my body become desiccated, yet there could be ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... the solemn Parade to sit among the condemned waiting for that superlative Gorge known as the ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... poured out his soul in words he had left unspoken to her. He was back again before the fire, telling her all that he did not tell her then. One gorgeous image after another swarmed to his brain. He was like a poet gone mad. He crowded sentence upon sentence, superlative upon superlative, until he found himself upon his feet, his cheeks hot, and his breath coming short. Then he caught sight of the crimson stain upon the wall and felt himself a murderer. He staggered back and threw himself full-length upon the couch, panting like one ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... the subject of the comparison should be excluded from the class with which it is compared; after a superlative, the subject of the comparison should be included within ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... Dominican transcriber of the record in 1906 has added a very illuminating note, revealing the immutability of the system and showing that the rulers possessed in a superlative degree the Bourbonesque trait of learning nothing and forgetting nothing: "Even when I was a missionary to the heathens from 1882 to 1892, I had occasion to observe the said policy, to inform the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... good horses, cruel riders, knowing men, dupes, jockeys, gamblers, and a large assemblage of mixed company. But this is a gayer scene than most others; and every epithet, appropriate to a course, diminutive or otherwise, must be in the superlative degree when applied to Ascot. This is the general, and often the only impression that most men carry away ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... armies, with King Messiah at the head; yet this new Teacher spoke of it as having so small a beginning as to be comparable to a mustard seed. To make the illustration more effective He specified that the seed spoken of was "the least of all seeds." This superlative expression was made in a relative sense; for there were and are smaller seeds than the mustard, even among garden plants, among which rue and poppy have been named; but each of these plants is very small in maturity, while the well-cultivated mustard plant is one of the greatest among common ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... interesting is the story, to the cheerful character, and those not to be chilled by apparitions. At all events they get to Ombo[u]bori? The third Kikugoro[u], the first to take the part of O'Iwa, was a superlative actor, skilled in capturing the people. In the third scene, the dark room at Hebiyama, the ghost comes forth from the Bon lantern. Every day the kozo[u] (man or boy as apprentice) of the utility shop in Asakusa Umacho[u] slowly took down ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... only two objects are compared, the comparative and not the superlative degree should be used; thus, "Mary is the older of the two"; "John is the stronger of the two"; "Brown is the richer of the two, and the richest man in the city"; "Which is the more desirable, health or wealth?" ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... It must be a superlative moment in life when one stands on a structure as majestic as this which was at first a mere thought in the brain, which was afterward a plan on the paper, and which has been transported hither, from quarry and mine, from wood-yard and workshop, on ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... own vintage that I offer you; racy, fragrant of the soil, from a cask these hundred years sunk, so that it carries a smack, too, of the submerging brine. You know the old recipe for Wine of Cos, that full-bodied, seignorial, superlative, translunary wine. ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the strength of her fine pyromaniac rage For a season or two she appeared on the stage; Her dancing was crude and her voice was a blank, But she carried it off by superlative swank, And married a swarthy and elderly milli- Onaire who was killed in an earthquake in Chile. A militant during the Suffrage campaign, In the War she adopted the cause of Sinn Fein, And, according to credible witness, was seen In the thick of the fighting at Easter, '16. Escaping arrest by a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... famous men of his day. His art and his methods are purely Spanish. I have already referred to the phenomenal success of Perez Galdos's Electra within the last few months. It must, however, be ascribed chiefly to the moment of its presentation rather than to any superlative merit in the drama. It is well written, which is what may be said of almost all Spanish plays, for the language is in itself so dignified and so beautiful that, if it be only pure and not disfigured by foreign slang, it is always sonorous and charming. ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... energises spontaneously with unceasing and joyful activity in that bright and pure morning of intellectual curiosity, which neither the dull tumultuous needs of life nor the mists of spiritual misgiving have yet come up to make dim. Of this temperament was Turgot in a superlative degree, and its fire never abated in him from college days, down to the last hours while he lay ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... he may even corroborate his proof by pointing to my occasional acts of thoughtless disregard for another's opinion; yet all this array does not overwhelm me, for I know [Italics mine] that I am not intolerant." This superlative confidence in his own goodness makes me think of the congressman of whom it was said, "He is the most distinguished man in Washington. I know he is, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... superlative effect upon the family. Hawthorne's manner in the midst of the richest scene in history. A host of friends happen to congregate, at Carnival time. Miss Maria Mitchell, Miss Harriet Hosmer, and Miss Elizabeth Hoar described. Una's illness ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... way, he may have a strong conviction that he stands high in the scale of morally deserving persons, and yet be unable to define his position more nearly. Commonly, the conviction seems to be only definable as an assurance of a superlative of which the positive and comparative are suppressed. At most, his idea of his moral altitude resolves itself into the proposition, "I am a good deal better than Mr. A. or Mr. B." Now, it is plain that in these intuitive judgments on his own excellence, the man is making an assertion ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... restlessness of elemental forces; the amount of probability of their having been so produced being, however, according to the formula already set forth in its proper place, as one to infinity multiplied more or less frequently by itself. But what adequate superlative shall we invent to express the credulity, the credulosity run mad, of those who, in a matter of scientific belief, deliberately accept such odds. Observe how at once extravagantly gratuitous and painfully elaborate such credulosity is; how easily, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... verb the principal parts of which are: fero, ferre, tuli, latus. The last form is found in a number of English words; as, dilate, elate, legislate, relate, superlative, translate. The meaning of the root in these words, as in the ten given above, is bear, ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... Superb belega. Superficial suprajxa. Superficies suprajxo. Superfluity superfluo. Superfluous superflua. Superhuman superhoma. Superintend observi, zorgi pri. Superior supera. Superior, a superulo. Superiority supereco. Superlative (gram.) superlativo. Supernatural supernatura. Supernumerary ekstrulo. Superscription surskribo. Supersede anstatauxi. Superstition supersticxo. Superstitious supersticxa. Supervise observi. Supper noktomangxo. Supplant anstatauxi, uzurpi. Supple fleksebla. Supplement ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... achievement of the long-desired ocean penny postage, at present an inter-colonial rate of the British Empire, but some day to be an international rate. The motto is a trifle bombastic and suggests the Teutonic superlative; "So bigger as never vas," and the "Xmas 1898" reads like the advertisement of a department store: "Gents pants for Xmas gifts." But we must admit that the stamp is a pretty conceit, in spite of these defects ...
— What Philately Teaches • John N. Luff
... was urbane but, observing him closely, Mrs. Toomey noted that his eyes suddenly presented the curious illusion of two slate-gray pools covered with skim ice. It was not an encouraging sign and her heart sank in spite of the superlative suavity of the tone ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... will be one of great honor. The special honor, therefore, of the church is that of being the glorious bride or associate of the Lord Jesus, the King of glory. His recognition of her station as his own wife pictures the superlative degree of her honor and glory. Jesus said: "Father, I will ... that they be with me ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... have their warehouses; and in the third, they usually live with their families. Those three different regions, sorry am I to say it, are all very dirty; indeed they may be said to be the positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of uncleanness. There are no glazed sashes in the windows, so that when it rains, and the shutters are closed, you are involved in utter darkness. The furniture is miserably scanty—some old fashioned, high backed, hardwood chairs, with a profusion of tarnished gilding; ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... married Felons on the left," and so on till every sort and condition and geographical situation had been thus distinguished. But the toasts proper aroused displays of the most affectionate loving-kindness. Each reference to a Felon was greeted with warm cheers, and each reference touched the superlative of laudation. Every stroke of humour was noisily approved, and every exhibition of tender feeling effusively endorsed. And all the estates of the realm, and all the institutions of the realm and of the town, and all the services of war and peace, and all the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... old purpose, as in olden times in the old country, 'FOR THE REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES;' and so yesterday we had a monster meeting on Bakery-hill, and I was the delegate of upwards of one thousand foreigners, or 'aliens,' according to the superlative wisdom of your ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... time. At the banquet I heard their chief orator make a most graceful and easy and beautiful and delicious speech—I never heard one that enchanted me more—although I did not understand a word of it, since it was in Hungarian. But the art of it! —it was superlative. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... reigns over the intelligible world, in that it gives birth to it by virtue of its inexhaustible fruitfulness.[642] The Supreme Good is GOD himself, and he is designated "the good" because this term seems most fittingly to express his essential character and essence.[643] It is towards this superlative perfection that the reason lifts itself; it is towards this infinite beauty the heart aspires. "Marvellous Beauty!" exclaims Plato; "eternal, uncreated, imperishable beauty, free from increase and diminution... beauty which has nothing sensible, nothing corporeal, as ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... impnis of my maisteris dere, Gowere and Chaucere, that on the steppis satt Of rethorike quhill thai were lyvand here, Superlative as poetis laureate, In moralitee and eloquence ornate, I recommend my buk in lynis sevin, And eke thair soulis un-to ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... later we found that we were always thus met. The highest officer present—General, Colonel, or Commandant—was at every place at our disposition to explain things—and to explain them with that clarity of which the French alone have the secret and of which a superlative example exists in the official report of the earlier phases of the war, offered to the Anglo-Saxon public through Reuter. Automobiles and chauffeurs abounded for our small party of four. Never once at any moment of the day, whether driving furiously along somewhat ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... And I'm bound to say, I regard your claim to the possession of good taste as completely established.... 'Ware the horse, there! Look out! look out!" His eyes had followed the tall figure of the Mother-Superior, moving with the superlative grace and ease that comes of perfect physical proportion, carrying the black nun's robes, wearing the flowing veil of the nun with the dignity of an ideal queen. And the next instant, his charger, held with some others by a mounted orderly before the gates, and rendered nervous by the pressure of ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... disposed to do justice to the beauty of the river, from the happy frame of body and mind we were in, owing to the excellent dinner we had just partaken of at that place, consisting of roast beef, roast turkey, apple tart, cranberry preserve, and a most superlative Charlotte Russe—pretty good fare for an hotel in a mountain pass! No wine or stimulants of any kind were allowed, or what the consequence might have been on papa's restless state of mind it would be difficult to say; as it was, I counted that he rose from his seat to look at the view from the other ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... compliments Charinus on beating him at his own game of repartee (743). When Weise (Die Komodien des Plautus, p. 181) describes Ps. IV. 7 as "eine der ausgezeichnetsten Scenen, die es irgend giebt," his superlative finds a better justification ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... surprise, seemed to be struck dumb. Anders and Butterface stood still,—speechless. As for the Eskimos, they turned with one hideous yell, and fled from the spot like maniacs—excepting Chingatok, who, although startled, stood his ground in an attitude expressive of superlative surprise. ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... be his own creation. The fellow was too familiar, thought Oliver, with increasing irritation. He darkened, grew glum and silent; and when, after dinner, Martigues approached him with a luckless tribute to Madame Shaw's superlative loveliness, he answered curtly, and turned on his heel. Myra witnessed the brief discourtesy, and later very gently taxed him with it. What had the unfortunate artist done? He faced her like a sulky boy and would ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... in the greatest and gayest matters of Princes and Popes by the idle inuention of Monasticall men then raigning al in their superlative. So did every scholer & secular clerke or versifier, when he wrote any short poeme or matter of good lesson put it in ryme, whereby it came to passe that all your old Proverbes and common sayinges, which ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... river that he passed the outermost cattle-stations, which had sprung rapidly into existence since his last visit to the neighbourhood. The Narran was then followed up until the Balonne was reached. This river, in his superlative style, Mitchell pronounced to be the finest in Australia, with the exception of the Murray. He then struck and followed the Culgoa upwards until it divided into two branches; he skirted the main one, which retained the name of the Balonne. On the ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... an inconsistency with a faithful testimony against the declared enemies of the church's head and king, they affect to express a superlative loyalty unto the prelatic possessors of power, not much differing from the forms imposed upon, and observed by the Erastian church. The Presbytery acknowledge it duty to pray for all men, in the various ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... Yerkes of Chicago offered an unlimited sum for the provision of the University of that city with a "superlative" telescope. And it happened, fortunately, that a pair of glass discs, nearly 42 inches in diameter, and of perfect quality, were ready at hand. They had been cast by Mantois for the University of Southern California, when the erection of a great observatory on Wilson's Peak was under consideration. ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... With the superlative gesture of an Arab the man showed the smooth road passing by the encampment, moving his arms slowly from east to west to indicate ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... is to exact. It surely should be translated, "And he, whom the God so leads to [Greek: ate], fares a very short time without it." The best translation of [Greek: ate] is, perhaps, infatuation. Moreover, how is the above translation reconciled with the very superlative [Greek: oligoston]? ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various
... was put in hand, and, after twelve months' hard work, was safely delivered to his Majesty, who declared it to be a "rich and rare jewel, and that there was no defect in the skill, care, and cost used in it, but a superlative ...
— Little Gidding and its inmates in the Time of King Charles I. - with an account of the Harmonies • J. E. Acland
... perfectly hidden beneath leaves. We should have been able to delight in the landscape but for the good corporal, who was afraid to allow us even a little enjoyment of life. Later the artillery came up with a tremendous din and showed us the use of these superlative precautions. ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... come, pay us a visit, and see what we are doing in England. I have done an etching of Turner's 'Calais Pier,' 30 inches square, which is by many degrees the finest thing (if I may be permitted so superlative an expression) I have done or ever shall do. I mean to publish it about the close of the year. I have built a press for printing it, and am having paper made expressly, and real sepia (which is magnificent—both ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... lately consulted by a lady of quality, of most distinguished merit, what was the best History of England for her son to read. My friend recommended Hume's. But, upon recollecting that its usher was a superlative panegyrick on one, who endeavoured to sap the credit of our holy religion, he revoked his recommendation. I am really sorry for this ostentatious alliance; because I admire The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and value the greatest part of An Inquiry into the Nature ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... and Crawford unquestionably were. To tell the truth, Home's whole career, with its scintillating, melodramatic, and uniformly successful phases is altogether inexplicable unless it be assumed that he possessed the hypnotist's qualities in a superlative degree. ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... lovely remains, we, with our own eyes, saw deposited in the Saint-Meran and de Villefort vault at Pere Lachaise, one bitter cold autumn evening, and there listened most patiently and piously to a whole breviary of mournful speeches, declarative of the said Valentine's most superlative excellence?" ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... bring out to clearer demonstration the superlative glory of Christ than a thoughtful consideration of the story of the forerunner. They were born at the same time; were surrounded from their birth by similar circumstances; drank in from their earliest days the same patriotic aspirations, ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... or adin (a verb meaning to be above) for the comparative, and apuedi for the diminutive. Ubura, from the verb uburau to be before in time, and adiki, from adikin to be after in time, are also used for the same purpose. The superlative has to be expressed by a circumlocution; as tumaqua aditu ipirrun turreha, what is great beyond all else; bokkia uessa dauria, thou art better than I, where the last word is a compound of dai uwuria of, from, than. The comparative degree ...
— The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations • Daniel G. Brinton
... successful, but there is a revulsion in men's minds about him, which cannot fail to produce a silent, but in the end a sensible effect upon his fortunes. It is remarkable that Lord Derby, who is a very shrewd and sagacious old man, never would hear of his grandson's superlative merits, and always in the midst of his triumphs questioned his ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... beforehand; men came and went, and competed or refrained, as they pleased, though, of course, there were a few well-known greyhound-like men and athletes who competed more or less in all games of the various districts around, and whose superlative powers prevented other ambitious men from becoming too numerous. These were, we may say, the "professionals" ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... selected in the same way and to the same type as the previous year. It is better to make selections from such a block than to take the most superior plants from all of the blocks, or from one which produced but one or but a few superlative ones, the rest ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... superlative is deeply seated in the American mind. It is based on no very careful survey of the existing world. It is a conclusion to which it is easy to jump. I remember one week, traveling through the Mississippi Valley, stopping every ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... had finished the reading, the chorister arose with superlative dignity, and gave the key. Unfortunately, the choir dropped a tone or two too low, and the first verse was sung at that disadvantage. Discovering the blunder, the key was again given, but the singers were now getting nervous, ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... future. He seemed to me—I say it deliberately and with forethought—to possess the unparalleled power not merely of disentangling in retrospect, but of unravelling in prospect, and I have known him to relate coming events with unimaginable minuteness of precision. He was nothing if not superlative: his diatribes, now culminating in a very extravaganza of hyperbole—now sailing with loose wing through the downy, witched, Dutch cloud-heaps of some quaintest tramontane Nephelococcugia of thought—now laying down law of the Medes for the actual world of to-day—had ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... Inter-Allied Council which sat on shipping problems, now Secretary of State in President Wilson's Cabinet, was approached as a suffragist, known to have access to the President. Mr. Colby had just returned from abroad when I saw him. He is a cultivated gentleman, but he knows how to have superlative enthusiasm. ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... The definite article the is frequently applied to adverbs in the comparative or superlative degree; as, "The more I examine it, the better I like it," "I like this ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... well, and even those who had dubbed her "The Beautiful Yankee" added another superlative adjective. A spot of bright red burned in either cheek and she held her head very high. "How haughty she is!" Prescott heard some one say. Her height, her figure, her look lent ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... summer of this year Mackenzie was doing his utmost to add to the prevalent feeling of discontent against the Government. A superlative bitterness had possessed him ever since the elections, and the fate of his petition had inflamed his resentment almost to madness. He felt that he had been cheated out of his seat, and that nothing was to be hoped for on behalf of either himself ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... It was her conviction. Besides, I had the consolation of secretly disagreeing with her. I am still of the opinion that their admirable system of government, social and political, and their encouragement and provision for universal culture of so high an order, had more to do with the formation of superlative character than the elimination ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... generally admired, being didactic in style, bare, and obscure. Among his best known publications are his volume "Nature," and his lectures, "The Mind and Manners of the Nineteenth Century," "The Superlative in Manners and Literature," "English Character and Manners," and "The Conduct of Life." In 1850 appeared "Representative Men," embracing sketches of Plato, Swedenborg, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... directly after supper bolted to his room and began to scrub for the superlative toilette, after collecting a pair of kid gloves from Butcher Stevens and a purple tie from Dennis de Brian de Boru, Snorky Green was finally convinced that matters had reached ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... age when the fire of desire may have become somewhat dull, whilst, again, his harem, from the presence of numerous adult daughters, would be increased to an extent that might have overtaxed his once more active powers. Given some such rather exceptional situation, where a happy opportunity in superlative mother love wrestled with a for once satiated paternal appetite in desire, we may here discern a possible key of the sociological problem which occupies us, and which consisted in a conjunction within one group of ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... His was a love such as rarely falls to the lot of woman. And his devotion to his girl and boy twins was something quite beyond words. These things were the mainspring of his life, and drove him to such superlative degrees of self-sacrifice that could surely only have been endured by a man of ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... limp, anaemic look about it. And when the wearer has lain upon the veldt at full length for long hours together in rain and sun and dust-storm his kit assumes an inexpressible dowdiness, and preserves only its one superlative merit of so far resembling mother earth that even the keen eyes behind the Mauser barrels fail to spot Mr. Atkins as he lies prone ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... untruthfulness is transfigured as caution and cleverness; her vanity becomes neatness; idleness is excused on the ground that she has to attend to more important duties; and the boy regards his interest in the girl as exclusively friendly in character, and as justified by her superlative excellences. Sometimes, in children no less than in adults, a sexual inclination masquerades as an educational interest. Thus, under the influence of sexual attraction, a girl becomes intimate with a boy endowed with various bad qualities and impulses, and endeavours ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... but little time to Club meetings and there was nothing done beyond the making of some plans for the summer and the taking of a few long walks. The Ethels and Dorothy and Della were doing their best to make a superlative record, also. With Helen and Margaret life went more easily, for graduation days were yet two ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... consideration of its claims to preeminence among recognized forms of verse will soon convince any intelligent reader of its superlative worth and beauty. ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... as He requires, And as His Holy Spirit them inspires. For conscience is an inward thing, and none Can govern that aright but God alone. Nor can a well-informed conscience lower Her sails to any temporary power, Or bow to men's decrees; for that would be Treason in a superlative degree; For God alone can laws to conscience give, And that's a badge of His prerogative. This is the controversy of this day Between the holy God and sinful clay. God hath throughout the earth proclaim'd that He Will over conscience hold the sovereignty, That He the kingdom to Himself will take, ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... infinite variety of this book, this fundamental is most strictly adhered to; there is not a wicked action in any part of it, but is first and last rendered unhappy and unfortunate; there is not a superlative villain brought upon the stage, but either he is brought to an unhappy end, or brought to be a penitent; there is not an ill thing mentioned but it is condemned, even in the relation, nor a virtuous, just thing but it carries ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... ground, these evidently being, from the magnificence of their feather robes and the splendour of their barbaric ornaments, chiefs, to the number of about sixty, in the middle of whom sat an Indian who, by the superlative richness of his garb, the two white men at once decided must be the paramount chief, or king. The third side of this small open space was occupied by a front row of fantastically garbed men who eventually ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... account, and Latter Lammas will consequently signify the day of doom, which in effect, as to all payments of money, or worldly transactions in money, is never. Latter here is used for last, or the comparative for the superlative, just as it is in a like case in our version of the book of Job, "I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth," meaning of course the last day, or the end of the world. That the last day, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... years' term of governorship, the absurdity of which is superlative. It is so entirely contrary to the system of management in private affairs that it is difficult to imagine the cause that could have given rise to such a regulation. In matters great or small, the capability of the manager is the first consideration; ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... a "discovery" of some sort is inevitable. Let us preliminarize a thought or two, if thereby we can hang some shadowy veil of excuse over a too naked mystery. First and foremost, truth is strange, stranger, et-cetera; and this et-cetera, pregnant as one of Lyttleton's, intends to add the superlative strangest, to the comparative stranger of that seldom-quoted sentiment. To every one of us, in the course of our lives, something quite as extraordinary has befallen more than once. What shall we say of omens, warnings, forebodings? What of the most curious runs of luck; the most whimsical ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... supernatural beings, whilst Ovid is surpassed in the number and ingenuity of their metamorphoses. Their nerves are highly strung, they are emotional to the hysteric degree, and they do everything in the superlative fashion. They love at first sight, and one glimpse of a face is enough to set them in flames; they cease to sleep or to eat until they are admitted to the adored presence, they weep till they faint, they rend their garments, pluck their beards, buffet their faces, and after paroxysms ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... before the absorbers could react. To that end they had arranged their circuits to hurl seven hundred sixty-five thousand kilofranks—the entire power of their massed accumulators and their highest possible cosmic intake—in one tiny bar of superlative density, less than one meter in diameter! Everything ready, Brandon shot in prodigious switches that launched that bolt—a bolt so vehement, so inconceivably intense, that it seemed fairly to blast the very ether out of existence as it tore its way ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... on board, and the smoke tranquilly mounting up into the sea-air from the cook's funnel as if it were a chimney in a city; and every thing looking so cool, and calm, and of-course, in the midst of what to me, at least, seemed a superlative marvel. ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... as well as by Eastern politicians. Yuan Shih-kai, still pretending to stand aside, had kept his attention concentrated on this very essential matter; for, as we have repeatedly pointed out, he never failed to understand the superlative value of foreign support in all his enterprises,—that support being given an exaggerated value by the public thanks to China's reliance on foreign money. Accordingly, as if still unconvinced, he now very naively ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... his ship, but with a crew of two men, neither of whom could even steer, nor were they accustomed to go aloft; while he had fifteen prisoners below, who would naturally lose no opportunity of retaking the ship. His greatest difficulties were only now beginning. What consciousness of his superlative seaman-like qualities, what perfect and just self-reliance he must have possessed, to have undertaken the task of navigating a ship completely across the Atlantic with such means at his disposal! Considerate and generous, as well as ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston |
