"Feat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... satisfied with this punishment. The unhappy plebe certainly did present a most laughable yet woeful appearance. It seemed impossible to keep this position, without occasional steadying by the hands, but it had to be done. If the reader does not consider it a hard feat to kneel thus, with one's head immersed in the water, the reader can easily satisfy ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... if I had such a chance as that!" answered Sam, trying to balance his bat on his chin and getting a smart rap across the nose as he failed to perform the feat. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... waiting with impatience the arrival of Patty, when his servant enters with a letter, which he says has been just delivered by a servant, who galloped up to the door on a horse—an extraordinary clever hack, we should say; for, to perform this feat, he must have broken through a porter's lodge, galloped over a smooth pavement, and under a roof so low, that Lord Burghersh can only traverse it with his hat off. We should like to see a horse-race in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... out at each other's heads, and their blows were delivered with great force. Frequently one of the combatants was knocked down with a single blow; and one gigantic fellow hit his adversary so severely that he drove the skin entirely off his forehead. This feat was hailed with ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... over for the day. Kept the ship lively combing my roan's mane; thought he would jump into the engine-room. By the way, yesterday, when waiting for his hay coming down the line, his impatience caused him to jump half over the breast-bar, bursting one head rope; an extraordinary feat in view of the narrowness and lowness of his stall. He hung in a nasty position for a minute, and then we got him to struggle back. Another horse died in the night, and ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... shock, and the cavalry drew back. A second time they charged, and were supported by some infantry detachments, which had now come up. It ended in a hand-to-hand fight; and eventually the enemy gave way. On the field lay dead some Sicyonians, and of the Pellenians many a good man. In record of the feat the Phliasians began to raise a trophy, as well they might; and loud and clear the paean rang. As to the Theban and Euphron, they and all their men stood by and stared at the proceedings, like men who had raced to see a sight. After all was over the one party ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... extraordinary power of abstracting your mind," Bernard said to her, observing it. "Studying philosophy at the Baden Kursaal strikes me as a real intellectual feat." ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... tomb of a Tazewell, who died in 1706, on which is engraved the coat of arms of the family,—a lion rampant, bearing a helmet with a vizor closed on his back; an escutcheon, which is evidently of Norman origin, and won by some daring feat of arms, and which could only have been held by one of the conquering race. A wing of the present manor-house of Lymington, built by James Tazewell, the father of William, who died in 1683, ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... purpose of piling up as much money as possible, and then, by death, leaving it to others to spend. That can hardly be considered our reasonable service. Life is not so low-pitched as that. The best work of man does not admit of being put into an equation with cash. The greatest feat, to my mind, an Englishman ever performed was the writing of Paradise Lost. How much did John Milton get in money for his incomparable epic during his lifetime? Five Pounds: and if he had got five million pounds, the recompense would have been absolutely inadequate. ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... him!' quoth false Sextus, 'Will not the villain drown? But for this stay, ere close of day, We should have sacked the town!' 'Heaven help him!' quoth Lars Porsena 'And bring him safe to shore; For such a gallant feat of arms Was never ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... see poor little Pepper now, as he stood without flinching, waiting for me to perform my great feat. I raised the crossbow amid the breathless silence of the crowded audience—consisting of seven boys and three girls, exclusive of Kitty Collins, who insisted on paying her way in with a clothespin. I raised the crossbow, I repeat. Twang! went the whipcord; but, alas! instead of hitting ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... influence of tradition and habit would not let me alone. I cared nothing for the Jervaises' opinion, but I resented the unfairness of it and had all the innocent man's longing to prove his innocence—a feat that was now become for ever impossible. By accepting Banks's invitation, I had confirmed the worst suspicions the Jervaises could possibly ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... the obelisk as the Egyptian conceived and executed it. The new Pharaoh ordered a memorial of some important personage or event. In the first place, a mighty stone was dislodged from its connections, and lifted, unbroken, from the quarry. This was a feat from which our modern stone-workers shrink dismayed. The Egyptians appear to have handled these huge monoliths as our artisans handle hearthstones and doorsteps, for the land actually bristled with such giant columns. They were shaped and finished as nicely as if they were ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... not record any performance so remarkable as his feat in the Colts' match, but his record for the year was eighty-seven wickets with an average of 9.31; and it is worthy of notice that Yorkshire made overtures to him, as he was qualified by birth to play for ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... The continual traffic had gradually worn a shallow gulley half filled with earth and gravel into the face of the mountain which checked the momentum of the goods in their downward passage, but afforded no foothold for a pedestrian. No one had ever been known to descend a slide. That feat was evidently reserved for the Pirate band. They approached the edge of the slide hand in hand, hesitated—and ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte
... feat of marksmanship had either lad brought him down, when so many and varying objects intervened, and neither of the youths made the attempt. When the terrified fugitive vanished, he was without a wound or scratch to tell of the danger from which he ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... said Sallust. The slave, whose duty it was to carve, and who valued himself on his science, had just performed that office on the kid to the sound of music, his knife keeping time, beginning with a low tenor and accomplishing the arduous feat ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... 1881, having accomplished this astonishing feat, threw away their arms and ignominiously fled—and Congress followed in the rear, indefinitely postponing action on an unwelcome claim, that always would ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... seven years; he had burst (says the chronicler) through the Irish camp with a chosen band of Berserkers, slain O'Brodar in his tent, brought off his war-horn as a trophy, and cut his way back to the Danish army,—a feat in which the two Siwards were grievously wounded; and had in all things shown himself a daring and crafty captain, as careless of his own life as ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... off his cloak and laid his sword aside. He placed the axes in a row and took the bow and made three attempts to bend it, but did not succeed. He would have accomplished the feat if he had made one more effort, but Odysseus made a sign to him to desist, so he set the bow against the wall and went ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... willing enough to go together to do this difficult thing. But had they not lifted together at the stump and failed to do the thing which he had done single-handed? That thought stuck in his memory and would not out. And suppose he, Bull, were to accomplish this great feat and return to the shack? Would not Bill Campbell feel doubly repaid for the living he had furnished for his nephew? More than once the grim old man had cursed the luck that saddled him with a stupid ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... strike of eleven thousand insufferable London taxi-drivers drove everybody into the splendid busses; and in another month immense excitement because the strike of all the insufferable London bus-drivers drove everybody into the splendid taxis. M. Pegond accomplished the astounding feat of flying upside down at Juvisy without being killed and then came and flew upside down without being killed at Brooklands. One man flew over the Simplon Pass and another over the Alps. Colonel Cody flew to his death in one waterplane, and Mr. Hawker made a superb failure to fly around Great ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... cried, "you know many another feat of gods and heroes, such as poets love to celebrate. Sing the suitors some one of these, and let them drink their wine in silence, but cease this sad tale, for it breaks my sorrowful heart, and reminds me of my lost husband whom I mourn ever without ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... thing is right, it is not well Idly to wrangle, but to act with speed. Only, dear friends, in this mine enterprise, Let me have silence from your lips, I pray; For should my mother know of it, sharp pain Will follow yet my bold adventurous feat. ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... plain language, I resolved to bully Charlie off his hobby. He had thrown his mother at my head (figuratively speaking, of course) until, if she had been present in propria persona, I should have been tempted to try Hiawatha's remarkable feat with his grandmother, and throw her up against the moon. But as I could not revenge myself upon her personally, I began to lay deep and subtle plans for inducing Charlie to leave ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... crisis, is in a great measure performed unconsciously as to its mental means. The man is so totus in illo, that there is no bit of the mind left to watch and record the acts of the rest; therefore men, when they have done some signal feat of presence of mind, if asked how they did it, generally don't very well know—they just did it; it was, in fact, done and then thought of, not thought of and then done, in which case it would likely never have been done. Not ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... that the waters covered her from stem to stern; and that then she rose again, and skimmed into the whirlpool a mile below. When there she rode with comparative ease upon the waters, and took the sharp turn round into the river below without a struggle. The feat was done, and the Maid was rescued from the sheriff. It is said that she was sold below at the mouth of the river, and carried from thence over Lake Ontario, and down the ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... storms and tumults which this representation must have excited among the assembled crowd; however, the bold and well-concerted efforts of the poet were crowned with success: his piece gained the prize. He was proud of this feat of theatrical heroism, and often alludes with a feeling of satisfaction to the Herculean valour with which he first combated the mighty monster. No one of his plays, perhaps, is more historical and political; and its rhetorical power in exciting ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... "why such a waste of energy and magnanimity about a trifle? If you were upon your trial for life or death, Mr. Forester, you could not look more resolutely guarded—more as if you had 'worked up each corporal agent' to the terrible feat!" ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... suppose, be always considered Thackeray's masterpiece—though everybody loves, beyond all his other portraits, the exquisite one of Colonel Newcome—but it seems to me that "Esmond" is a more extraordinary literary feat than any other of his works—except, indeed, "Lyndon of Barry Lyndon," which is even a more remarkable production of the ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... though contained in the same vessel, remain apart. Here, however, for the first time, they mix and incorporate, and yet each retains its whole nature and full effect. I need hardly remind the reader that the feat has been repeated, and even with more completeness, in the wonderful, "Tam o' Shanter." I read on. "The Cotter's Saturday Night" filled my whole soul—my heart throbbed and my eyes moistened; and never before did I feel half so proud of my country, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... studiously ignored. The subject being thus chastely shrouded in mystery, they were thrown back on guesswork and speculation—with the quaintest results. The fancies woven by quite big girls, for instance, round the physical feat of bringing a child into the world, would have supplied material for a volume of fairytales. On many a summer evening at this time, in a nook of the garden, heads of all shades might have been seen pressed as close together as a cluster of settled bees; and like the humming of bees, ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... months out of Heligoland, penned together in this ramshackle stinkpot, or isolated here in this God-forgotten hole, seeing nothing of life, hearing nothing of the world but what little the radio tells us—sick of the very sight of one another's faces! And now, when we have accomplished a glorious feat and have every right to look for prompt recall and the rewards of heroes, orders come to remain indefinitely and operate against the North Atlantic fleet of the contemptible Yankee navy! The life of a dog! And that noble commander of mine pretends to welcome it, talks of one's duty to the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... Man finds no feat too hard or high; Heaven is not safe from man's desire. Our rash designs move Jove to ire, He dares not ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... with absolutely nothing to do. I exercised by chinning myself on the bars and playing gymnastics. I wanted to run but there was not enough room. The physical thrill I got out of being able to chin myself with one hand wore off after a half hundred pull-ups because it was no great feat for a Mekstrom. I did push-ups and bridges and other stunts until I was ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... pretty sure to accomplish. In twenty days he obtained one hundred and fifty four-horse wagons, and two hundred and fifty-nine pack-horses. He did not accomplish this feat however, until he had exhausted all the money which Braddock had furnished him, had spent over a thousand dollars of his own money, and had given bonds for the safe return of horses and wagons, whose money value was estimated at ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... proceeded on our way. I rejected the offer of a seat inside the carriage with scorn, and Nurse and I clambered back to our perch. No easy matter for either of us, by the way!—Nurse Bundle being so much too large, and I so much too small, to compass the feat ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... feat is certainly surprising just as it stands; but it is not surprising enough for Cooper. Cooper adds a touch. He has made Pathfinder do this miracle with another man's rifle; and not only that, but Pathfinder did not have even the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... demoralized men, safely intrenched within the house, might be possible, provided artillery was not resorted to. Even with my small force I might hold them back for an hour, but to attempt such a feat against the veterans of Chambers, was simply a sentence to death. These men, fresh, undefeated, eager for battle, would turn and crush us as though we were some stinging insect. Thirty men pitted against a division! Good God! if he could send these—why ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... two—and they tell their friends, or the public at large in print, all about America and its people. It is not given to every one to be able, in the course of a few weeks or a month or two, to see below the surface indications down to the root-traits of a people—a feat which becomes of necessity the more difficult when those root-traits are one's own root-traits and the fundamental traits of one's own people at home, while on the surface are all manner of queer, confusing dazzlements of local peculiarities which ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... Combermere, as commander-in-chief, proceeded to reduce the virgin fortress, not by the slow process of siege, but by a well-organised assault. Having cut off the water supply, and mined the mud walls, he poured in a storming party and overpowered the garrison. The feat was probably not so great, from a military point of view, as many that have left no record, but its effect on the superstitious native mind was prodigious, especially as it nearly coincided with the victorious issue of the Burmese war. Nevertheless, Amherst was ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... beautifully polished tan boots, and with a wand-like whip or stick of elephant hide. They swarmed the decks and overwhelmed the escaping refugee with good wishes. He had cheated their common enemy. By merely keeping alive he had achieved a glorious victory. In their eyes he had performed a feat of endurance like swimming the English Channel. They crowded to congratulate him as people at the pit-mouth congratulate the entombed miner, who, after many days of breathing noisome gases, drinks the pure air. Even the ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... him with a mighty brain in a powerful body; he had a physique equal to the performance of what suggestion soever his splendid intellectuals made. To him the incredible feat of walking seventy miles within the compass of a day was mere child's play; then, when the printer became clamorous, he would immure himself in his wonderful den and reel off copy until that printer cried ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... whizzed uncomfortably near my head as I went up, and I saw several persons get the full benefit of a shot on their backs and breasts. The young country lads and lasses amused themselves by running at full spend down the steep side of a hill. This was, however, a feat attended with some risk; for I saw one luckless girl describe an arc of a circle, of which her feet was the centre and her body the radius. All was noise and nonsense. They ran to and fro under the long, hoary bough of the venerable oaks ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... for the boy, but another got to him ahead of her. A young mountaineer picked up the colored boy and tossed him out through a window. It was not so roughly done that the Overlanders could make a protest, and the young fellow who had performed the feat turned from the window laughing over the neat way he ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... is now completed, and is one of the most important features of the Park. It is worthy to rank as a feat of engineering skill with, any of the great works of modern times. The Commissioners decided to put its powers to the test yesterday afternoon, but owing to the unpropitious weather of the forenoon the trial was postponed. Nevertheless, Commissioners Stranahan, Fiske, ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... be otherwise," finished Rob. "Well, Diogenes and I left here with a boat load of supplies in the way of provender and things for the boys. I had to tie Diogenes in the boat, of course, so he would not try some aquatic feat. He objected and yelled like a fiend all the way. I was glad there was no one at the hotel to come out and arrest me for cruelty to children. Of course before we landed, his cries were heard by his brothers and they were all at the water's edge. They ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... "no popery" fight, carried on with abounding fire and vigour, will find plenty of matter in the files of the Globe of the fifties. His success in the election of 1857, so far as Upper Canada was concerned, and especially his accomplishment of the rare feat of carrying a Toronto seat for the Reform party, was largely due to an agitation that aroused all the forces and many of the prejudices of Protestantism. Yet Brown kept and won many warm friends among Roman Catholics, both in Upper and in Lower Canada. His ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... things he was merely an awkward, overgrown midshipman. But then, let us remember that a locomotive engine, though excellent at running, would be a poor hand at flying. That is not its vocation. The engine will draw fifteen heavy carriages fifty miles in an hour; and that remains as a noble feat, even though it be ascertained that the engine could not jump over a brook which would be cleared easily by the veriest screw. We ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... feat somewhat awkwardly, drooping down upon the further bank with a ponderous thud. He was a large, heavily built man— altogether unlike one possessing the activity ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... Mackenzie, confined to bed), as he was generally allowed to possess the best voice and most impressive manner. It was melancholy in the extreme, but, as Good said, it might have been worse, for we might have had 'to bury ourselves'. I pointed out that this would have been a difficult feat, but ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... kismet, they finally venture, and both come through without noteworthy misadventure. The khan's wild hilarity and ribaldish jeers at the expense of his two subordinates, as he stands on the solid foundation of a feat happily already accomplished and surveys their trepidation, and hears their prayers as they are pulled like human dinghies through the water, is in such ludicrous contrast to his own prayerful utterances under the same ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... the late war, and before and since that time has been a great traveler in the wilds of the Mississippi Valley and the Rocky Mountains as an amateur hunter. He is a fair-haired, delicate-looking man, but a veteran in experience, and has performed the feat of crossing the Rocky Mountains in midwinter on snowshoes. He spent the winter of 1886-87 in Middle Park, Colorado, for the purpose of making some natural history collections for me, and succeeded in killing three grizzlies, two mountain lions, and a large number of elk, deer, sheep, wolves, beavers, ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... the strongest of the forces that drive him on. But there are two others to be noticed. One is the pleasure in an action very difficult and perilous and, therefore, intensely exciting. This action sets all his powers on the strain. He feels the delight of one who executes successfully a feat thoroughly congenial to his special aptitude, and only just within his compass; and, as he is fearless by nature, the fact that a single slip will cost him his life only increases his pleasure. His exhilaration breaks out in the ghastly words with which he greets the sunrise ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... Jesus, I succeeded in climbing it, cautiously grasping roots, and resting by bushes, till I safely reached the top. There, to avoid a village, I had to keep crawling slowly along the brush near the sea, on the top of that great ledge of rock—a feat I could never have accomplished even in daylight without the excitement; but I felt that I was supported and guided in all that life-or-death journey by my dear Lord Jesus. I had to leave the shore, and follow up the bank of a very deep ravine to a place shallow enough for one to ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... yet christened. Signorina, let Italy rise first; the great inventor of the dish winked and nodded temperately. 'Let her rise. A battle or a treaty will do. I have two or three original conceptions, compositions, that only wait for some brilliant feat of arms, or a diplomatic triumph, and I send ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... clerkly oppression only to oppress and tyrannise over others in new and distant homes. Hardly had a century and a half elapsed before the sturdy colonists, who did not claim freedom but determined to keep it, formally revolted and fought their way to absolute independence—not, by the by, a feat whereof to be overproud when a whole country rose unanimously against a handful of troops. The movement, however, reacted powerfully upon the politics of Europe, which stood agape for change, and undoubtedly precipitated the great French Revolution. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... there was never anything left in the Wharton bank-account, for Bob moved his wife to a more pretentious apartment on Riverside Drive and managed to increase their expenses so as to balance his earnings very nicely. It was quite a feat to adjust a fixed outlay to a varying income so that nothing whatever should remain, and he considered it a strong proof of his capacities ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... slightest glimmer, nevertheless, from the few sounds she made he knew she had turned over and gone down head first, and he was not beyond visioning with inner sight the graceful way in which she had done it—an anything but graceful feat as the average ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... of a tribal kind, lacking the individuality of amorous pride. It would approach the latter if a chief won another chiefs daughter in the face of rivalry and felt elated at this feat. Such cases ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... his clothes, such as they were, were 320 pertinaciously got up in exactly the same cut and fashion, and the colour always either fawn or marone. For the last thirty years, the venerable chapeau was uniformly of the same cock. The principal feat, however, in which this fervent votary of Plutus appeared before the public, was his nearly fatal affair with Mary Benson, otherwise Mrs. Maria Theresa Phepoe. In April 1795, this ill-fated-woman projected a rather ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... of ordinary language by the use of signs, impressed the writer while dictating to two amanuenses at the same moment, to the one by signs and the other by words, on different subjects, a practice which would have enabled Caesar to surpass his celebrated feat. It would also be easy to talk to a deaf and blind man at once, the latter being addressed by the voice ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... smaller one as a wheelbarrow, the small boy's arms supporting the machine, and his legs furnishing the handles. Of kindred nature is a sort of double pick-a-back, or pyramid, in which three ragged urchins are enjoying themselves hugely in the attempt to carry out so remarkable a feat. In the line of gymnastics, also, is the really admirable painting exhibited at the New Gallery in 1890, which portrays three delicious youngsters turning somersaults over a rail, while a little girl at each end looks on admiringly. The original of the little chap hanging head downward may ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... been speaking the braves and their prisoners line up for departure. Meantime, from the woods in background other Indians have joined the group. Those who have captured Boone describe the feat in dumbshow. The newly arrived Indians bear food, a blanket or so, ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... after an unusually long and trying day, which had begun at 2 a.m., when, using a precious instalment of east wind, we had started on a complete passage of the sands from the Elbe to the Jade. It was a barely possible feat for a boat of our low speed to perform in only two tides; and though we just succeeded, it was only by dint of tireless vigilance and severe ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... of America a couple of times, a feat paled by those he accomplished in the Olympian Games. He is the greatest football player that ever lived, and one of the greatest Major League baseball players, drawing a large salary from one of the clubs, and ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... of such a feat. She at once became the focus of all eyes. It had not occurred to the High School that there was a real possibility of their winning the match. They had expected to make a gallant fight and be defeated, retiring with ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... of Marston told me some time agone," said Richard, rather hesitatingly, "that he had the Gospel according to John the Apostle, copied out by a feat [clever] scribe from ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... made an attempt at levity, "you are indeed an unsparing monitor; but suppose I should offer in reply, that a spirit of enterprize was upon me on the occasion to which you allude, and that, fired by a desire to astonish you all with a bold feat, I had resolved to do what no other had done before me, yet without apprehending the serious consequences which ensued—or even assuming the danger to ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... perfume and glittering particles, the latter looking very pretty on black floating hair. Etiquette demanded that only one egg should be thrown by the same hand at a time, but quick turns of supple wrists followed each other very rapidly. To really accomplish a feat the egg must crash on the back of the head, and each occupied in attack ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... little pure air which the yurt afforded made the boyish feat of standing upon one's head a very desirable accomplishment; and as the pungent smoke filled my eyes to the exclusion of everything else except tears, I suggested to Dodd that he reverse the respective positions of his head and feet, and try ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... and fruitless vigil of the night had taught him one thing at least. Rome was not built in a day. He would not attempt the feat a second time, though neither would he rest till he had gained ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... victuals and provisions for their voyage to Jamaica." At the end of August not more than ten vessels of the original thirty-six had made their way back to the English colony. Morgan, with very inadequate means, accomplished a feat which had been the dream of Drake and other English sailors for a century or more, and which Admiral Vernon in 1741 with a much greater armament feared even to attempt. For display of remarkable leadership and reckless bravery the expedition against Panama has never been surpassed. Its brilliance ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... the General answered. "Duchess, if ever I have to write my memoirs, and particularly my reminiscences of this war, I fancy you would find the name of your friend appear there pretty frequently. There wasn't a more brilliant feat of arms in the whole campaign than his flanking movement at Mukden. I met most of the Japanese leaders, and I have always said that I consider him the ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the 'mast-head.' Go to the mast-head indeed! with a freshening wind, under whose influence the ship was beginning to heel over, and an increasing sea that made her jump about like an acrobat. I had not got my sea legs, and this feat seemed an utter impossibility to me. I looked with horror up aloft; then came over me the remembrance of Marryat's story of the lad who refused to go to the mast-head, and who was hoisted up by the signal halyards. While thinking ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... go out and witness the feat of devotion which we have quoted elsewhere.[23] They then see the Paradise and the lovely Ivorine, with whose beauty Bauduin is struck dumb. The lady had never smiled before; now she declares that he for whom she had long waited was ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... This feat was performed again, and as final security the boatswain formed a bight, which he thrust down and passed over the fan whose edge was almost level ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... proposition than the wildest mustang that ever romped the desert. Not only was he unusually vigorous; he was robust and heavy, yet exceedingly active. I had seen him roll over in the dust three times each way, and do it easily—a feat Emett declared he had never seen performed by ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... it—cats which do not thrive well in this cold land, and which do not smell any too sweet and clean. The pyramid of fine-looking picture-elephants is an ugly live elephant or two standing on a beer-keg or two, which is a wonderful feat for elephants, of course, but not an entertaining one to human sight-seers; and as a final swindle, the cannon act is a man on a spring disguised as a wooden cannon, who is thus hoisted a few feet into the air, where he catches hold of his swinging bar and completes the usual act of an ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... and powerful; but had the room been filled with men as strong and powerful as he, and had they every one hurled themselves upon Satan Laczi, he would have had no difficulty in defending himself. He had performed such a feat more than once. This evening, however, he made no move to defend himself, but looked calmly at his assailant, and said: "The Herr Count can see that I have no weapons; and yet, there are enough ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... force reached Dongola. It is not easy to alter the plan of any campaign, nor to adapt a heavy moving machine to the work suitable for a light one. To feed 10,000 British soldiers on the middle Nile was alone a feat of organisation such as no other country could have attempted, but the effort was exhausting, and left no reserve energy to despatch that quick-moving battalion which could have reached Gordon's steamers early in December, and would have reinforced the Khartoum garrison, just ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... crying, Persis was smiling, too. His heart fluttered, and performed some extraordinary gymnastic feat, when she held ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... form a swarming register of schemes and bargains through which he passes like a hero of the circus, riding half a dozen piebald coursers at once. We confess that in this matter we have been able to keep no sort of account; the wonder is that Balzac should have accomplished the feat himself. After the first year or two of his career, we never see him working upon a single tale; his productions dovetail and overlap, and dance attendance upon each other in the most bewildering fashion. As ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... to explain his state of mind, a feat which he has never been able to accomplish.] Mrs. Phillimore, you see it's this way. Whenever you're lucky, you're too lucky. Now, Mrs. Karslake is a nipper and no mistake, but as I told you, the very same evenin' and house ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... the fire!" This should have been my chosen motto from the beginning. The performance of the maddening feat indicated in the proverb has been the principal business of my life. I am always finding myself in the frying-pan, and always flopping out into the fire. My father's interference saved me from the dreadful old creature into whose net I had stumbled ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... performed this gallant action to be sent him, that he might do them honour and reward them as they deserved; and he bestowed large presents upon Pacheco in particular. Some affirm that the performance of this gallant feat by so small a number of our men against such great odds, raised fear and jealousy of the Portuguese in the mind of the zamorin, and made him anxious to get them away from his country; for which cause he gave his consent to the treachery which was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... common people bought and sold, but of the galleries of Versailles. Except for its theology, the age of Louis XIV always remained the great age to Voltaire, the age of pomp and literary glory, and it was too difficult a feat to cling on one side to the Grand Monarch, and to stretch out a hand on the other to the Social Contract. It was too difficult for the man who had been embraced by Ninon de l'Enclos, who was the correspondent ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth. The capitalist who, alone or in conjunction with his fellows, performs some great industrial feat by which he wins money is a welldoer, not a wrongdoer, provided only he works in proper and legitimate lines. We wish to favor such a man when he does well. We wish to supervise and control his actions only to prevent him from doing ill. Publicity can do no harm to the honest corporation; ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... therefore, that giving a ball is not that matter-of-course affair you imagined; and that for Mrs. Guy Flouncey to give a ball and succeed, completely, triumphantly to succeed, was a feat worthy of that fine social general. Yet she did it. The means, like everything that is great, were simple. She induced her noble friend to ask her guests. Her noble friend canvassed for her as if it were a county election of the good old days, when the ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... be so, sir, that you are the man Must stead us all, and me amongst the rest; And if you break the ice, and do this feat, Achieve the elder, set the younger free For our access, whose hap shall be to have her Will not so ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... lofty saloon. A man in evening dress whose eye said, "Now mind, no insulting gratuities!" rushed past the table and in one deft amazing gesture swept off the whole of its contents and was gone with them. It was an astounding feat, and when Priam recovered from his amazement he fell into another amazement on discovering that by some magic means the man in evening dress had insinuated a gold-charactered menu into his hands. This menu was exceedingly long—it comprised everything except gratuities—and, evidently ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... unclean dough, he is like a creature falling to pieces; yet he can show you pretty specimens of handwriting, and, if you will steady him by giving him a drink of ale, he will write your name on the edge of a newspaper in copper-plate characters or perform some analogous feat. All the degraded like to show off the remains of their accomplishments, and you may hear some odious being warbling. "Ah, che la morte!" with quite the air of a leading tenor. In the dreadful purlieus lurk the poor submissive ne'er-do-well, the clerk who has been imprisoned for embezzlement, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... to McComas at the horse-show had not been noticeably prompt or adroit, but he cast about manfully for words and presently was able to voice his appreciation of Althea's feat (as it was regarded) and to congratulate her upon it. Johnny McComas was not at all displeased. Albert had not been light-handed and graceful, but he developed (under this sudden stress) a sturdy, downright mode of speech which showed sincerity ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... certain firm in Philadelphia made a special deposit of eighteen thousand dollars in gold in the Trust Company, and some expert thieves by means of a forged check obtained possession of the money. The manner of accomplishing the feat was peculiar and was most adroitly carried out. The thief drove so sharp a bargain for funds current in New Orleans that the cashier's mind was diverted from the genuineness of the check to the percentage of exchange to be realized by the operation. Many propositions were made ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... or felt warranted in revealing, for stoutly he declared his and their innocence of having burglariously entered any premises, let alone the lieutenant's. "Sure they'd bite their own noses off fur him," said Mike, which impossible feat attested the full measure of halfbreed devotion. Mistress McGann decided to make further investigation before saying anything to anybody; but, before the dawn of another day, matters took such shape that fear of sorrowful consequences, involving even Michael, set a ban on her impulse to speak. ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... following next. He could now better judge of the depth; and Fleetwood, having rolled away all the loose stones, he fell without injury. The Greek came next, and was caught in the arms of his companions; and Pietro, in like manner, dropped down, the rest saving him as he fell. This feat accomplished, they all breathed more freely; and crouching down on the ground to avoid being seen, they listened attentively to ascertain if any one was moving, before they again put themselves in motion. Not a sound ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... errant knights who might there enter for strange adventures, and, as chance directed, encounter others as bewildered as themselves. Our chivalric Sandricourt found nine young seigneurs of the court of Charles the Eighth of France, who answered all his wishes. To sanction this glorious feat it was necessary to obtain leave from the king, and a herald of the Duke of Orleans to distribute the cartel or challenge all over France, announcing that from such a day ten young lords would stand ready to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... hours when it would have been possible for her to have stolen the paper. Then he himself proposes, in jest, that she should guess the contents of a document, which he feels certain has been read by himself alone, and has merely been mislaid in a carefully locked bureau. This extraordinary feat she accomplishes in a seeming trance. Add to all this, that the woman is his beloved mistress, whom he ardently wishes to trust, and that often before she had told him she was gifted with occult powers. Is it matter of surprise that he implicitly believed Wilhelmine had ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... bore cheerfully the most excruciating torture in having it straightened by a series of painful experiments, and in no long time he recovered his activity. In the army he showed his strength of will by rigid abstinence from drinking and gambling, no easy feat in those days; and he learned by his father's example to control all extravagance and to live contentedly on a small allowance. His earliest enthusiasm among books was for Plutarch's Lives, the favourite reading of so many great commanders. He had many outdoor tastes: riding, fishing, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... Mills' bombs into the tank, and on the bombs exploding they came under heavy machine-gun fire, but returned in safety. No further sniping came from this tank. By their gallant work we were saved many casualties, and this daring feat cheered and encouraged the men in ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward
... late in the sheep camp that evening. Old Hicks was in a terrible rage and no one dared protest at the delay, for fear he would get no supper at all. The boys were still discussing Stacy Brown's feat, and every time the subject was referred to all during the evening, it was sure to elicit a roar ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... of vaunting himself upon the success of his scheme of deliverance. He tackled the thing from all angles. He played it up as the greatest achievement that ever had been worked in behalf of a convict. Mr. Wagg, serving as board of appraisal of his own feat, kept boosting the value. It was evident that he was suspecting that Vaniman, out and free, was in the mood that is characteristic of the common run of humanity: urgent desire is reckless about price; possession proceeds to ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... in I could not tell, it was certainly a great feat of gymnastics. My reindeer had started with the rest and was ahead of them all, but soon the ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... them—which is nine hundred and ninety per cent. of literary reviews.) But to write about books in a way which amuses you, or interests you, and makes you want immediately to read the book in question—that is a more difficult feat. And sometimes what the writer about books says about books is more entertaining than the books themselves. But then that is because of those little gleams of the personal which are always so ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... happy man. He had accomplished a big feat, and little dreamed of the terrible discovery he was destined to ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... from a port on the Red Sea, with orders to sail southwards, keeping the coast of Africa on their right, and see if they could not return to Egypt by way of the Mediterranean. The enterprise succeeded. The ships, under the skilful guidance of the Phoenicians, anticipated the feat of Vasco di Gama—rounded the Cape of Storms, and returned by way of the Atlantic, the Straits of Gibraltar, and the Mediterranean to the land from which they had set out. But they did not reach Egypt till the third year. The success obtained was thus ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... should like to quote here another feat of arms related by Robert of Clari, one of those feats that serve to explain how the Crusaders obtained mastery - the mastery of perfect fearlessness - over the Greeks. Robert of Clari, then, relates how ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin
... kangaroo until it is wearied out is the one which beyond all others excites the admiration of the natives; this calls out every qualification prized by savages: skill in tracking, endurance of hunger and thirst, unwearied bodily exertion, and lasting perseverance. To perform this feat a native starts upon the tracks of a kangaroo, which he follows until he sights it, when it flies timidly before him; again he pursues the track, and again the animal bounds from him; and this is repeated until nightfall, when the native lights his fire and sleeps upon the track; ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... Some of them are very strong in the arms, an Indian of Skidegate beating me at "tug of war." Many are expert swimmers, sometimes diving from their canoes into the rough sea, and bringing out wounded seal which have sunk to the bottom. One of my men performed such a feat, springing from the top of a great rock, where the ocean was breaking. They are intelligent and quick to ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... up with a mist of perplexity in his deep eyes. He realized vaguely that Ham had accomplished a feat somehow savoring of business acumen, which was a matter he could not hope to comprehend. Yet some comment seemed expected of him, so out of a slack interest he inquired, "Were they good lambs, Ham? ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... Elsewhere civilized man has been even more destructive than his very destructive uncivilized brothers of the magnificent mammalian life of the wilderness; for ages he has been rooting out the higher forms of beast life in Europe, Asia, and North Africa; and in our own day he has repeated the feat, on a very large scale, in the rest of Africa and in North America. But in South America, although he is in places responsible for the wanton slaughter of the most interesting and the largest, or the most beautiful, birds, his advent has meant a positive enrichment of the wild mammalian fauna. ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... head on, and if he does not solve it absolutely, he at least makes an extraordinarily close approach to a solution. In "The Financier" a certain incredulity still hangs about Cowperwood; in "The Titan" he suddenly comes unquestionably real. If you want to get the true measure of this feat, put it beside the failure of Frank Norris with Curtis ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... Fenians had made in that neighbourhood. About a month before—on the night of November 28th—they had contrived to get into the shop of Mr. Richardson, gunmaker, Patrick-street, and abstract from the premises no fewer than 120 revolvers and eight Snider rifles, accomplishing the feat so skilfully, that no trace either of the weapons or the depredators had since been discovered. This was what might be called a smart stroke of work, but it shrunk into insignificance compared with the audacious act of plundering one of ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... grunt of the human hog (Pignoramus intolerabilis) with an audible memory. The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit without ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... she had hoped to see her dreams realized. Burle had only just left Saint-Cyr when he distinguished himself at the battle of Solferino, where he had captured a whole battery of the enemy's artillery with merely a handful of men. For this feat he had won the cross; the papers had recorded his heroism, and he had become known as one of the bravest soldiers in the army. But gradually the hero had grown stout, embedded in flesh, timorous, lazy and satisfied. In 1870, still a captain, he had been made a ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... as evidence of the hard work which was done under Dr. Smith's system, a feat of memory performed by two brothers among the senior boys, Thomas and Alfred Cammack, which the present writer well remembers, as he was present as a small boy when it occurred. "Repetition," of one kind or another, was required of all boys; but these two repeated to ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... very much inclined to throw up the sponge and vanish from the Maxfield horizon, and might have attempted the feat had not a letter which arrived on the following day suggested another way out of his difficulties. It came from America, addressed to the ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... Quiberon, we were compelled, on the following day, to arise before seven o'clock, a feat which required some courage. While we were still stiff from fatigue and shivering with sleep, we got into a boat along with a white horse, two drummers, the same one-eyed gendarme and the same soldier who, this time, however, did not lecture anybody. ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... to have enabled the Dutch to rally had they been disposed to do so. But it was too late; and they had enough of fighting. However, he held his post until many had made good their retreat, and then, plunging into the sea, swam off to the boats and effected his escape. A braver feat of arms was ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... not confined to ingratiating himself with her ladyship. He contrived adroitly to damage the steering-gear by grazing a wall as he turned the Aigle into the hotel courtyard, and by this feat disposed of the chauffeur's evening, which was spent in hard work at the garage. Such dinner as Jack got, he ate there, in the shape of a furtive sandwich or two, otherwise we should not have been able to leave in the morning ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Then, again, as to walking, the people ask you seriously when you inquire your way on foot, whether you are aware that the destination you want to arrive at is three miles off! As for a pedestrian excursion round the largest island—a circuit of thirteen miles—when we talked of performing that feat in the hearing of a respectable inhabitant, he laughed at the idea as incredulously as if we had proposed a swimming match to the Cornish coast. When people will not give themselves the first great chance of breathing healthily and freely as ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... had rolled by since Adele had eased Jonah of sixty pounds, and the Antoinette ring we had given her to commemorate the feat was now for the first time in danger of suffering an eclipse. In a word, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... fought his way through the triple line of a West African surf ought to be able to swim twenty or thirty fathoms in this sea!" The idea seemed to come to me as an inspiration; and, undeterred by the thought that the individual who should essay the feat of swimming from the one ship to the other would be seriously hampered by being compelled to drag a lengthening trail of light rope behind him, I turned to the ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... thing of which he was proudest was his ability to buck a man off his back. In this feat he barred none, no matter how heavy. He would get on his hands and knees, place a surcingle around his body under his arms for his rider to hold on by, and then ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... poets, as though there were not even a dialectical shadow of difference distinguishing thine and their languages. A dim time, an eclipsing of light and warmth fell upon the island, and to read thee was a feat of strange scholarship, a study of the more learned. But happier years shall succeed. As Antaeus the giant acquired life and strength by dropping back upon the bosom of his mother earth—she, the universal parent, was, you know, in a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... fire, and swiftly thrust his wand into the flames. Many were the unsuccessful attempts; but, at length, one by one, they all succeeded in burning the downy balls from the ends of their wands. As each accomplished this feat it became his next duty to restore the ball of down. The mechanism of this trick has been described (paragraph 120), but the dancer feigned to produce the wonderful result by merely waving his wand up and down as he continued to run around the fire. When he succeeded he held his wand up ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... days after the defeat of Burnside's army at Fredericksburg the South was thrilled by the feat of General McGruder in Galveston harbor. The daring Confederate Commander had seized two little steamers and fitted them up as gun boats by piling cotton on their sides for bulwarks. With these two rafts of cotton cooeperating ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon |
