"Masterly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fine artistic instinct." The way in which all the leading persons in the book stand out in clear relief and indelibly print themselves on the mind is evidence of the value of this method. And what masterly irony in the contrast between "Evie" for instance as Jeffries sees her and "Evie" as she is seen by her ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... however, so little comparative projection is given,—nay, the masterly group of Agamemnon, Nestor, and Ulysses, and, still more in advance, that of Achilles, Ajax, and Thersites, so manifestly occupying the fore-ground, that the subservience and vassalage of strength and animal courage to intellect and policy ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... grew, and gathered until a policeman in red fez and khaki knickerbockers came and started trouble. He had a three-cornered fight on his hands, and no sympathy from any one, within two minutes. Then the man with the stomach and swagger—he whom Fred called Haroun-al-Raschid—took a hand in masterly style. He seized the police-man from behind, flung him out of the crowd, and nobody was troubled ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... patriotic munificence of one Scottish gentleman, Mr. A. Henry Rhind of Sibster. The same fact is attested also by the highly valuable character of the systematic works on Scottish Archaeology which have been published of late years by some of our colleagues, such as the masterly Pre-historic Annals of Scotland, by Professor Daniel Wilson; the admirable volume on Scotland in the Middle Ages, by Professor Cosmo Innes; and the delightful Domestic Annals of Scotland, by Mr. Robert Chambers. The ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... spectrum of the sun has been obtained in this way, it is found to be furrowed by innumerable dark lines. Four of them were first seen by Dr. Wollaston, but they were afterwards multiplied and measured by Fraunhofer with such masterly skill, that they are now universally known as Fraunhofer's lines. To give an explanation of these lines was, as I have said, a problem which long challenged the attention of philosophers, and to Professor Kirchhoff belongs the honour of ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... manhood in the Northwest, and bred on Webster's doctrine,—"the Union is paramount",—accepted for the second time the Republican nomination and platform, he summed up the issues of the war, as he had done before, in Webster's words. Lincoln, who had grown as masterly in his choice of words as he had become profound in his vision of issues, used in 1864 not the more familiar and rhetorical phrases of the reply to Hayne, but the briefer, more incisive form, "Liberty and Union", ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... search of smuggled goods. Now if there is anything that Englishmen prize, it is the liberty secured by Magna Charta. Every man's house is his castle. Writs of Assistance violated the fundamental principle of English liberty. Our great lawyer, Mr. James Otis, has immortalized his name by his masterly oration in opposition to the measure. The writs have not prevented smuggling; on the contrary, it is regarded as almost a virtue and a duty to circumvent a government which enacts unrighteous laws. ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... great stand-by; and the other day she told Miss A.—as you call the senior clerk—she ought to be ashamed of herself, bringing in a copy of the Vie Parisienne. The way she settled Mrs. Gordon's affairs—you remember, No. 3875 you catalogued the case—was masterly; and Mrs. G. has insisted on paying 5 per cent. commission on the recovered property. And it was Beryl who found out that leakage in the 'Variegated Tea Rooms' statement of accounts. I hadn't spotted it. No. I think we needn't be anxious about ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... masterly success. No one reading the anonymous novel Hogan, M.P., would have been likely to set it down from internal evidence as a woman's book: it is one of the stoutest and most vigorous pieces of fiction which have appeared for years. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... Mail-Coach all a-blaze, A masterly hand on the rein, In those rollicking, railway-less days, Which never shall greet us again. That tootling tin-horn one can hear; The old buffers, with breeches and fobs, One can picture; they doubtless were dear To the bosom of brave ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 13, 1892 • Various
... preceding night, that a general engagement would certainly take place on the 15th. How imperfectly they were acquainted with the state of things, I could perceive from many of their expressions. In their opinion the armies of the allies were already as good as annihilated. By the emperor's masterly manoeuvres, the Russians and Swedes—the latter, by the bye, had not yet come up—were according to them completely cut off from the Austrians. A courier de l'empereur was honest enough to tell me plumply that they had done nothing all day but look at one another, ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... he displayed all those great natural powers which, rightly trained and guided, might have made him not less great in council than in war. With masterly precision he enlarged on the growing ambition of Athens, on the disposition in her favour evinced by all the Ionian confederates. "Hitherto," he said truly, "Sparta has uniformly held rank as the first state of Greece; the leadership of the Greeks belongs to us by birth and renown. But see ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... first he would unseat the end of the plank, but it was too far below him and then again he would be exposed to their volleys of stones, and if he was hurt he might not get back on his craft. Tod, who had resigned command in favor of his henchman after Archie's masterly defence in the last fight, stood behind him. Thermopylae was a narrow place, and so was the famous Bridge of Horatius. He and his faithful Tod would now make the fight of their lives. Both of these close shaves for immortality were closed books to Tod, but Archie knew every line of their ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... followed the fall of Warsaw was sympathetically represented as a masterly operation, and the failure of the Germans to envelop and isolate the Russian armies as proof of the breakdown of their strategy. But all retreats in the war, with the exception of the Turks' before Allenby, were similarly described in the appropriate quarters. It was ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... the crown and parliament of Great Britain previous to the Declaration of Independence. It was not an abstraction. It had a practical value to every man in the colonies, and it was the prominent feature of the masterly exposition made by the Massachusetts House of Representatives, to which I have already referred. And we can better estimate the political education which the times furnished, when we consider that the revolutionary war was made logical and necessary ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... gamut of human feeling. From the comic rascality of Leporello to the unearthly terrors of the closing scene is a vast step, but Mozart is equally at home in both. His incomparable art of characterisation is here displayed in even more consummate perfection than in the earlier work. The masterly way in which he differentiates the natures of his three soprani—Anna, a type of noble purity; Elvira, a loving and long-suffering woman, alternating between jealous indignation and voluptuous tenderness; and Zerlina, a model of rustic coquetry—may especially be remarked, but all the characters ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... masterly retreat of eleven hundred miles, burdened with his women and children, the old men and the wounded, surrendered at last, as he told me in Washington, because he could "bear no longer the sufferings ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... made it worse! If she had sung a solo it would have been less humiliating," replied Mrs. Kirby, with a masterly change of front. "I was indignant! Christian, with her charming voice, only playing accompaniments and singing in the glees, and that unendurable Mangan girl posing as the Prima Donna, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... disentangling. The conversation between Valere and Ascanio in man's clothes, the mutual begging pardon of Albert and Polydore, the natural astonishment of Lucile, accused in the presence of her father, and the stratagem of Eraste to get the truth from his servants, are all described in a masterly manner, whilst the tiff between Eraste and Lucile, which gives the title to the piece, as well as their reconciliation, are considered among the best scenes of ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... Ratisbon could have been her teacher? To whom did she owe this masterly training? As if by a miracle, he knew not whether from looking or listening, he found a combination of notes which he had long been seeking for the motet on which he was working. When he had registered it, and she sang a few passages from it, what an exquisite delight ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cry of the miserable and the despised, and in a masterly arraignment of commercialism, protests against social conditions, against the grinding of the faces of the poor and weak, and the self-pollution of the rich and strong, in their mad lust for place and power. It is to be doubted strongly if the average bourgeois, smug and fat ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... thought that at least he knew nothing about the Navy. But he does; knows more than Admiral FIELD, or Admiral MAYNE, or even Colonel GOURLEY. Presently rose and delivered slashing speech, laying low the Reverberating COLOMB as if he had been set up in the Place Vendome; reviewing the British Fleet in masterly style; nimbly running up the mainmast and sighting Jerusalem and Madagascar, to the absolute confounding of the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... few hasty remarks without expressing a wish that one of your correspondents in particular would take up this subject, to handle which in a masterly manner, his position is a guaranty of his ability. I refer to the gentleman holding the office of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... of Suetonius, equally with the masterly pencil of Tacitus, may convince us of the cruel depravity of Nero or Tiberius: But what a difference of sentiment! While the former coldly relates the facts; and the latter sets before our eyes the venerable figures of a Soranus and a Thrasea, intrepid in their fate, and only moved ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... being spies, and put under arrest. Morgan risks his life to save them. The final escape, the thrilling encounter with a squad of red coats, when they are exposed equally to the bullets of friends and foes, told in a masterly fashion, makes of this volume one of the most entertaining ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... beribboned bosoms of his illustrious compatriots heaved with emotion; their faces—or such parts of their faces as were visible above the whiskerline—flushed with enthusiasm, and most vociferously they applauded his masterly phrasing and his tracing-out of the evolution of the tango, all the way from its Genesis, as it were, to its Revelation. I judge the revelation particularly appealed to them—that part of it ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... could Merriwell's team score against the Farnham Hall lads. It was mainly Sparkfair's wonderful pitching that kept Frank and his friends from circling the bases. Dale had splendid speed, dazzling shoots, and masterly control. In the fifth the Merries tried the bunting game and filled the bases, with only one out. Badger then came up and smashed out a fine two-bagger, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... and it was for review purposes only. Ubaldino, in his second narrative, which he says was inspired by Drake,[3] relates that when Drake put out of Plymouth to receive Howard 'he sallied from port to meet him with his thirty ships in equal ranks, three ships deep, making honourable display of his masterly and diligent handling, with the pinnaces and small craft thrown forward as though to reconnoitre the ships that were approaching, which is their office.' Nothing, however, is more certain in the unhappily vague accounts of the 1588 campaign than that no such battle order as this was ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... and then to my relief the horse bolted. Swaying like a ship in a gale, the whole outfit lurched out of sight round the corner of hill where lay my cache. If Amos could stop the beast and deliver the goods there, he had put up a masterly bit of buffoonery. ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... so honorably perpetuated by his elaborate and masterly discussion of great principles in the Senate, he did not connect himself with a single historic measure. While Mr. Clay's speeches remain unread, his memory is lastingly identified with issues that are still vital and powerful. He advanced the doctrine of protection to the stately ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... of the victory strikes one. Its keystone was De Salaberry's masterly use of illusion. Of it was the choice of a thick wood to conceal his small force, their entrenchment behind the abatis and in bush positions, the unexpected fire from the left bank upon Purdy, the Indians in the woods, and, more than ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... to be found in Chesterton's masterly study of Charles Dickens it lies in the fact that in parts of the book the meaning is not always clear, or, rather, it is not always so at a first reading. Whether this may be justly termed a fault depends largely upon what the reader of a ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... passage through their States. This was not at all to Charles's liking. Indeed, unless he bestirred himself, it might prove to be checkmate from an altogether unexpected quarter, rendering vain all the masterly play with which he had ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... the whole company; being esteemed by them as next of kin to a natural, though of a peculiar kind—a talking natural. This fancy of theirs was stoutly resisted by the love-sick swain, but the regimental logic prevailed; for, whatever they could do, with masterly dexterity, he could not do at all, ergo, must he not be a natural? There was no man in the regiment who met with so many falls from his horse, as Silas Tomken Cumberbatch! He often calculated with so little precision his due equilibrium, that, in mounting on one side, (perhaps the wrong stirrup) ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... Guizot classed with "the men who have best known the vital principles and fundamental conditions of a government worthy of its name and mission." Hamilton's speech On the Expediency of Adopting the Federal Constitution, delivered in the Convention of New York, June 24, 1788, was a masterly statement of the necessity and advantages of the Union. But the most complete exposition of the constitutional philosophy of the Federal party was the series of eighty-five papers entitled the Federalist, printed during the years 1787-88, and mostly ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... mark that Cicero, when Quaestor of Sicily, discovered the tomb of Archimedes grown over with weeds. This theorem was, however, only one of a large number of a like kind, which he treated of in his two books on the sphere and cylinder in an equally masterly manner, and with equal success. His position as a geometer is perhaps better understood from the assertion made respecting him by a modern mathematician, that he came as near to the discovery of the Differential Calculus as can be done ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Cadbury, when it was read through. "If ink was a shilling a drop, you couldn't have been more chary of it. There's not an 'a', 'an', or 'the' throughout, nor a comma, nor an adjective, and the contractions are masterly. We're all born commercial clerks, ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... of tales uncompleted; we have less than the half of it; but he wrote enough to show to the best his manifold qualities. There appear in perfect light his masterly gifts of observation, of comprehension, and of sympathy; we well see with what art he can make his characters stand forth, and how skilfully they are chosen to represent all contemporaneous England. The poet shows himself ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... dissimulation, and not only observant of, but deducing sage consequences from, those human inconsistencies and frailties by which it was his aim to profit, he cloaked his deeper vices with a masterly hypocrisy; and for those too dear to forego and too difficult to conceal he obtained pardon by the intercession of virtues it cost him nothing to assume. Regular in his attendance at worship; professing rigidness of faith beyond the tenets of the orthodox church; ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... character of Cali, in Irene, is a masterly sketch of the old and practised dissembler of ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... one of the most remarkable works of this sculptor, whom we are to find so richly represented at the Bargello. Before leaving this room, look for 100^3, an unknown terra-cotta of the Birth of Eve, which is both masterly and amusing, and 110^4, a very lovely intaglio in wood. I might add that among the few paintings, all very early, is a S. Sebastian in whose sacred body I counted no fewer than thirty arrows; which within my knowledge ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... Pasta's acting in the opera was a grand performance; and I have myself seldom witnessed a more masterly effect produced by any actor in the world than I did a fortnight ago, at the Opera at Darmstadt, by Wild ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... to the former point, Spinoza's masterly examination of the Passions in the third part of the Ethics should have been known to Hume.[20] But, if he had been acquainted with that wonderful piece of psychological anatomy, he would have learned that the emotions and passions are all complex states, arising from the close association ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... man cudgelled his brain for an excuse to kidnap his neighbor, so as to share my commerce. As the village was too small to supply the entire gang of fifty, I had recourse to the neighboring settlements, where my "barkers," or agents, did their work in a masterly manner. Traps were adroitly baited with goods to lead the unwary into temptation, when the unconscious pilferer was caught by his ambushed foe, and an hour served to hurry him to the beach as a slave for ever. In fact, five days ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... and the remaining two apparently quite unconscious of its ever having existed.—Mrs. Lesbia Faircloth, at the Inn, the Vicar's wife left out of the count.—If Sir Charles Verity and Damaris had hurried away, gossip would have run after them with liveliest yelpings. But this practise of masterly inactivity routed criticism. How far was it studied, cynical on the part of the father, or innocent upon that of the daughter, she could not tell one bit; but that practically it carried success along with it, she saw to be ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... larger service may be rendered to human progress. "An education," says President Hill, "that fails in producing lofty character, sustained and nourished by a pure faith, may, indeed, fill the world with capable and masterly men in their vocation; but, unless it can soften the heart of success and open the palm of power, it only strengthens the grasp of greed, and misses the making of ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... This masterly exposition is after all only the philosophical development of what every Catholic child learns from one of the first questions of the little Catechism: "Why did God make you? God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this life, ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... satisfaction that a visit from their brother's friend would confer both upon Lady Fitz-pompey and himself, he requested permission for his nephew to renew the visit in which he had been 'so happy!' The Duke seconded the Earl's diplomatic scrawl in the most graceful round-text. The masterly intrigues of Lord Fitz-pompey, assisted by Mrs. Dacre's illness, which daily increased, and which rendered perfect quiet indispensable, were successful, and the young Duke arrived at his twelfth year without revisiting Dacre. Every year, however, when Mr. Dacre made a short visit to London, his ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... side, the fleet ran up to the sea batteries, and both attacks went on together—of course dividing the attention of the enemy, thus having a double chance of success, and employing both arms of the service in full energy. This masterly combination the Duke of Wellington, the highest military authority in Europe, pronounced to be a new principle in war; and even this is, perhaps, only the beginning of a system of combination which will lead to new victories, if war should ever ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... masterly," he remarked with a broad smile. "I should think that it would have utterly defeated any pursuer; and the only pity is that it was probably wasted on the desert air. Your pursuer had by that time become a fugitive. ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... that juxtaposes colors to give the right resultant tone at a distance; in regard to the general tendency to subordinate subject interest to the expression of fleeting aspects; and in regard to the masterly handling of light. No other group will be referred to so often in connection with the American galleries. On wall B is a typically joyous canvas by Gaston La Touche, who carries Impressionism into figure work. On walls C and D are other examples of the Impressionist ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... the two crimes which I have already recorded, still, the nature of the case and the exalted station of his client gave it a character of its own. Indeed, apart from the nature of the investigation which my friend had on hand, there was something in his masterly grasp of a situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning, which made it a pleasure to me to study his system of work, and to follow the quick, subtle methods by which he disentangled the most inextricable mysteries. So accustomed was I to his ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Joe Hawkridge demanded to know the gossip of the Revenge. The storm had sobered Blackbeard, it seemed, and he had displayed the skill of a masterly seaman in bringing them safely through. In toiling for their own lives, the men had forgotten their brawls and plots and guzzling. And the great wind had blown the ship clear of Spanish fever. There were no new cases and the invalids ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... meantime, I have seen the original draft. Several very violent Dutch pamphlets have been published within a few days, not only against the Duke, but even against the Stadtholder and against the Stadtholdership in general, and the whole Orange dynasty, the last of which is a masterly performance, but too large for me to translate. There is more moderation in the considerations herewith enclosed; and therefore I have consented without difficulty to get them printed, at the request of some very good people, as your Excellency ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... troubled, for many lords and princes were asking for her hand in marriage. More urgent than all the others was the invincible hero, Count Telramund, her former guardian, who since the death of her father had ruled over the land with masterly hand. Now the duke, her father, on his death-bed had promised Telramund that he might have Elsa for wife, should she be willing; and Telramund was continually reminding her of this. But Elsa blushed with shame at the mere thought of such a union, for Telramund was a ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... dressed—hat with curling feathers, elbow sleeves, long gloves—standing in an erect and completely unaffected attitude,—that is the subject. The execution is simply superb. Every line is strong and effective: the modelling, the poise of the figure and the breadth of the shadows in dry point, are masterly. The Salon articles, five in number, are from the pen of M. Ph. Burty, the most radical, incisive and original writer on the staff—champion of the Impressionists, bitter enemy of the Academics and warm admirer ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... If there be one name which has been doomed to run the gauntlet, and against which every pert and insolent political declaimer has had his fling, it is that of this unfortunate writer; yet in his short but masterly and unanswerable "Advertisement to the Jurymen of England, touching Witches, together with a difference between an English and Hebrew Witch," first published in 1653, 4to., he has addressed himself so cogently and decisively to the main fallacy of the arguments in favour of witchcraft which rested ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... with great success in all countries. They possess that lasting interest which attends all work based on keen observation and masterly analysis of the secret ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... his window day after day he has only one thought and one wish,—to ruin Isaac D. Worthington. And he will do it if he can. Those who know—and among them is Mr. Balch himself—say that Jethro has never conducted a more masterly campaign than this, and that all the others have been mere childish trials of strength compared to it. So he sits there through those twelve weeks while the session slips by, while his opponents grumble, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... it!" At that moment, as if wading through a pond of molasses, I could hardly move, but the next I felt suddenly released and both sides scampered off simultaneously. Even the country fellows do creditable work when it comes to retreating, more masterly than General Kuropatkin, ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... these—and Wagner's are the longest and weightiest in existence—and dive now here, now there, to follow the author without danger of mistaking him. The most important passage in Walther's song begins at bar 13 (counting from the beginning of the nine-eight measure); and it is developed in as masterly a fashion as any of the earlier subjects, only now the style is symphonic, in the Viennese way, as the others were contrapuntal. The whole thing is full of the yearning spirit of spring; and, not at all strangely, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... the Birmingham Oratory, has now furnished in a small volume a masterly reply to this assailant from without. The lighter charms of a brilliant and graceful style are added to the solid merits of this handbook of contemporary ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... the case in college baseball. Tom at third and Dick at first had starred in their positions, while Bert in the pitcher's box with his masterly "fadeaway" had cinched the pennant, after a heartbreaking struggle with the "Greys" and "Maroons," their leading rivals. The story of how he had plucked victory from defeat in that memorable fight was already a classic and had made his ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... be no doubt that Tom was a poet, or he could never have treated the hackneyed subjects of Riches and Poverty in a manner so original and at the same time so masterly as he has done in the interlude above analyzed: I cannot, however, help thinking that he was greater as a man than a poet, and that his fame depends more on the cleverness, courage and energy, which it is evident by his biography that he possessed, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... called it, Attique, about forty miles northeast. At these two points they assembled their forces, received ammunition and supplies from the French, and organized their expeditions. As Kittanning was the nearer, Armstrong in a masterly maneuver took three hundred men through the mountains without being discovered and, by falling upon the village early in the morning, he effected a complete surprise. The town was set on fire, the Indians were put to flight, and large quantities of their ammunition were destroyed. But Armstrong ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... was one of his most intimate friends and companions. He considered Raeburn's broad and masterly style of portrait painting as an era in Scottish art. Raeburn, with innate tact, discerned the character of his sitters, and he imparted so much of their individuality into his portraits as to make them admirable likenesses ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... faultless outline, of a character unconsciously, unaffectedly proclaiming its superior gravity among human masses, he was a planet destined to have many satellites and be satellite to none; an ego of genuine lordliness; a presence at once masterly ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... masterly discussion of this subject, its evils and remedies, I must refer to the report on the St. Louis Public Schools for the year 1871-2, by Wm. T. Harris, Superintendent, ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... more clearly show the power and perfectness of his enchantments than the masterly way in which he turned back the moral force of the whole English nation, which had risen at first in its strength against him. The ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Omdurman owed much to the masterly serving of the artillery. Even in Macdonald's severely contested action, the three batteries of Maxim-Nordenfeldt 12 1/2-pounders did much to save the situation. These were Peake's, Lawrie's, and de Rougemont's, with, in ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... of the practical; its distinctively religious appeals are varied by sound political and economical arguments; and the enumeration and exposure of the various artifices by which most orators are accustomed to delude their hearers is as masterly as only Coleridge could have made it. Who but he, for instance, could have thrown a piece of subtle observation into a form in which reason and fancy unite so happily to impress it on the mind as in the following passage: "The mere appeal to the auditors, whether ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... in which the singer imitated women's voices to perfection, were really most graceful and sad, and quite interesting were the musical recitatives with violin accompaniments which the Beluch render in quite a masterly way. ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... wise—"from submission to arbitrary laws," as the anarchists say, and thereby fancy themselves "free," even free-spirited. The singular fact remains, however, that everything of the nature of freedom, elegance, boldness, dance, and masterly certainty, which exists or has existed, whether it be in thought itself, or in administration, or in speaking and persuading, in art just as in conduct, has only developed by means of the tyranny ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... applaud. He read Pater and Swinburne and Meredith, Bernard Shaw and Galsworthy and Joseph Conrad, and had quite definite ideas about all of them. He admired Rickett's stage effects, and thought Sholto Douglas's portraits awfully clever, and, of course, Max's Caricatures were masterly. I'm not saying that he did not really admire these things—in many things his appreciation was genuine enough—but if it should happen that he cared for "The Christian" or "God's Good Man," he speedily smothered his admiration and ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... must always be regarded as an important element in estimating the degree of civilization of a nation, and its position in the social scale. Mr. Macaulay, in his masterly picture of the state of England at the period of the accession of James II., has not failed to notice this subject as illustrative of the condition of the working classes of that day. He tells us that meat, viewed relatively with wages, was "so dear that hundreds of thousands ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 4, Saturday, November 24, 1849 • Various
... Nations afforded a prolific source for sight-seeing, and furthermore, was a sore trial to our organs of hearing. Musical and unmusical instruments of every description were in operation—from the Javanese salendon and pelog to the tuneful instruments, masterly handled by the ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... argumentation. They show the acuteness of their understanding in a thousand ways; in poetry, in romantic tales, in narrative compositions, in legal acumen and extempore arguments, in the study of medicine, chiefly in that masterly eloquence by which so many of them are distinguished. Who shall say that they might not also have reached a high degree of eminence in philosophical discussions and ontological theories? They have always abstained ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... art—which Signora Angela had indeed brought to a high pitch of perfection—but in her angelic beauty as well. He sought her acquaintance; and in spite of all his rugged manners he succeeded in winning her heart, principally through his bold and yet at the same time masterly violin-playing. Close intimacy led in a few weeks to marriage, which, however, was kept a secret, because Angela was unwilling to sever her connection with the theatre, neither did she wish to part with her professional name, that by which she was celebrated, nor ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... thinking, than the picture of Standish and Alden in the opening scene, tinged as it is with a delicate humor, which the contrast between the thoughts and characters of the two heightens almost to pathos. The pictures of Priscilla spinning, and the bridal procession, are also masterly. We feel charmed to see such exquisite imaginations conjured out of the little old familiar anecdote of John Alden's vicarious wooing. We are astonished, like the fisherman in the Arabian tale, that so much genius could be contained in so small and leaden ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... that he would never be in friendship with the Romans, nor desist from opposing their power, until he or they should be no more. 21. On his first appearance in the field, he united in his own person the most masterly method of commanding, with the most perfect obedience to his superiors. Thus he was equally beloved by his generals, and the troops he was appointed to lead. 22. He was possessed of the greatest courage in opposing danger, and the greatest presence of mind in retiring ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... and Virtue the door with scant politeness in this terrible book. The material had been in his possession for some time, and in part it had been used before in earlier work. It was now utilised with a masterly hand, and the result goes some way, perhaps, to justify the well-meant but erratic comparisons that have been made between Gissing and such writers as Zola, Maupassant and the projector of the Comedie Humaine. The savage luck which dogs Kirkwood and Jane, and the worse than ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... turning of water into wine, by the miracle of the loaves and fishes, calming the storm, if facts, are facts unparalleled in any other biography, but seem possible, however unintelligible, when considered as emanating from such a masterly and commanding ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... this very remarkable and imperishable book. The long Letters to (afterwards) Sir CHARLES W. PASLEY and another—never before printed—which follow the 'Convention of Cintra' itself, are of special interest. The Appendix of Notes, 'a portion of the work which WORDSWORTH regarded as executed in a masterly manner, was drawn up by De Quincey, who revised the proofs of the whole' ('Memoirs,' i. 384). Of the 'Convention of Cintra' the (now) Bishop of Lincoln (WORDSWORTH) writes eloquently as follows: 'Much of WORDSWORTH'S life was spent in comparative retirement, and a great part of his ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... proposed to attack a town, (inhabited by Roman catholics) called Garcigliana. The assault was given with great spirit, but a reinforcement of horse and foot having lately entered the town, which the protestants knew nothing of, they were repulsed; yet made a masterly retreat, and only lost ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... design and detail, but the mode in which the octagonal lantern of openwork bisects the faces of the solid square portion with its alternate angles, thus breaking the outline without any harsh or disagreeable transition, is very masterly, while the bold pinnacles, with their flying buttresses, which group around it, produce a most pleasing variety, the whole serving to indicate the appearance the steeple of Malines would have presented had it been completed according to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... and obscurity, made such a striking contrast that the whole situation appealed enormously to the imagination of the people. Then, too, the problem was one of unusual interest, and it, as well as Philip's masterly treatment of it, was published ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... Blind Musician" that Korolenko attains perfection. This masterly psychological study does not present a very complicated plot. From the very start the reader is captivated by a powerful poetic quality, free from all artifice, fresh, spontaneous, and breathing forth such moral purity, such tender pity, that ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... the mountains by a southern route, and to give himself as much of a pleasure trip as he ever took, Mr. Brock changed all his plans at the last moment—a move at which he was masterly—and wired Bucks to meet him at Bear Dance for the return trip. Doctor Lanning, moreover, had advised that Marie spend some further time in the mountains, where her gain in health had ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... with poetical translations, by Mr. Atkinson, has appeared, under the auspices of the Oriental Fund. But to translate a poet a man must be a poet. The best account of the poem is in an article by Von Hammer in the Vienna Jahrbucher, 1820: or perhaps in a masterly article in Cochrane's Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 1, 1835. A splendid and critical edition of the whole work has been published by a very learned English Orientalist, Captain Macan, at the expense of the king of Oude. As to the number of 60,000 couplets, Captain Macan (Preface, p. 39) states ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... the Revolutionary war broke out the Creeks were under a chieftain whose consummate craft and utterly selfish but cool and masterly diplomacy enabled them for a generation to hold their own better than any other native race against the restless Americans. This was the half-breed Alexander McGillivray, perhaps the most gifted man who was ever born ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... to appreciate his merit. He was too natural for an artificial age. Among the pictures exhibited here is one from his famous series of the Harlot's Progress. It is too well known by the engravings to need description; but when the eight masterly pictures which compose this series were sold at auction during Hogarth's life, they brought the sum of fourteen guineas each! The March of the Guards to Finchley, so admirable in composition, so full of incident and character, so rich in humor, could not be sold by the artist, and he disposed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... for Cowley (who had his merit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. Mr. Mason, indeed, of late days, has touched the true chords, and with a masterly hand, in some of his choruses; above all in the last ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... into the parlor, Victor sought Richard's presence, and by a few masterly strokes of policy and well-worded arguments, obtained his consent for Arthur to see Edith just a ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... masterly one, eloquent and dramatic, and it thrilled the young soul of Lincoln. Full of the subject, the young debater sought Mr. Breckinridge after the court adjourned, and extended his long arm and ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... very often find, that Persons the most accomplished in Ridicule are those who are very shrewd at hitting a Blot, without exerting any thing masterly in themselves. As there are many eminent Criticks who never writ a good Line, there are many admirable Buffoons that animadvert upon every single Defect in another, without ever discovering the least Beauty of their own. By this Means, these unlucky little Wits often gain Reputation in the Esteem ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... America, fortunately espied the youngest son of the enraged and disappointed vendor of volumes actually flying a kite formed of a portion of the first volume. "Heavy," retorted Silk, "nonsense, sir. Look there! so volatile and exciting is that masterly production, that it has even made that youthful scion of an obdurate line, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... The third and most masterly stroke of this great lawgiver, by which he struck a yet more effectual blow against luxury and the desire of riches, was the ordinance he made, that they should all eat in common, of the same bread and same meat, and of kinds that were specified, and should not spend their ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Madonna pictures are large compositions, crowded with figures of extravagant attitudes and expression. The fame of these more pretentious works rests not so much upon their inner significance as upon their splendid technique. They are unsurpassed for masterly handling of color, and for ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... Some one asked Washington what he would do were Philadelphia to be taken. He answered, 'We will retreat beyond the Susquehanna River, and thence, if necessary, to the Alleghany Mountains.' Doubtless he was even then planning the masterly movements of his forces that presently drove the enemy ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... according to his or her individual nature —Judy, with a sense of Romance called deathless; Tim, with a taste for Poetic Drama, a dash of the supernatural in it; and Maria, with a magnificent inactivity that ruled the world by waiting for things to happen, then claiming them as her own. Her masterly instinct for repose ran no risk of failure from misdirected energy. And to all three secrecy, of course, was essential: "Don't never tell the others, ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... serious head, pursed up her rosy mouth, folded her hands resignedly, and sighed deeply. Clearly this was a tale more than twice told, for the voice and manner of Sadie were as the voice and manner of Mrs. Lazarus Gonorowsky, and the recital was plagiarism—masterly ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... first Line where Garrulus is placed betwixt Anser and Anas, makes the Verse very sonorous; but the mixt Alliteration in the last Line where the Vowel i is repeated eight times in seven Words, is a very masterly Stroke; ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... training for the student to abstract the whole of Green's work and compare his abridgment of each chapter with that of Mr. Tait. After considerable practice in this way in making Abstracts and comparing his work with that of such Masterly Abstractors as Dr. Killick and Mr. Tait, the student who needs this training is prepared to make abstracts of ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... would extricate the best cause from that ruin which seems to await it for the want of it. We have as good a cause as ever was fought for: we have great resources; the people are well tempered; one active, masterly capacity would bring order out of this confusion, and ...
— Revolutionary Heroes, And Other Historical Papers • James Parton
... of idling through this ancient quarter of New Orleans with the South's finest literary genius, the author of 'the Grandissimes.' In him the South has found a masterly delineator of its interior life and its history. In truth, I find by experience, that the untrained eye and vacant mind can inspect it, and learn of it, and judge of it, more clearly and profitably in his books than by ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... near one of the tall windows, with a music-rack beside it, and the young lady went over and opened it, and ran her fingers with a masterly ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... ashore with masterly skill where a strip of sod angled down to the edge of the water, marking, Dalgard decided, what had once been a garden. The buildings on this side of the river were not set so closely together. Each, standing some two or three stories high, ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... to the one term during which he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, I can recall only one thing, to which he often and laughingly alluded. Motley, as the Chairman of the Committee on Education, made, as he thought, a most masterly report. It was very elaborate, and, as he supposed, unanswerable; but Boutwell, then a young man from some country town [Groton, Mass.], rose, and as Motley always said, demolished the report, so that he was unable to defend it against the attack. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... far the most stirring and dramatic of all the author's Italian stories.... The plot is a masterly one, bringing at almost every page a fresh surprise, keeping the reader in suspense to the very ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... overwhelming. The administration supporters were exuberant in their enthusiastic applause and in their vociferous demands for a vote. The opposition were paralysed by the desertion of one whom they had regarded and trusted as a leader against the radical element and were left without answer to the masterly array of facts and ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... date and place of composition has been treated by Cornill, "Einleitung in das Alte Testament," 235 fol., by Prof. Duhm, "The Book of Job" (cf. "The New World," June, 1894), and others. But the most lucid, masterly, and dispassionate discussion of the subject is to be found in Prof. Cheyne's "Job and Solomon," ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... masterly epistle to the Romans, in the first chapter of which he so distinctly portrays man's tendency to change "the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man," and worship and serve the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever, they were careful to ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... always excepted—has a scene in it of richer and more original humor than brightens the narrative which relates the woes of the husband who invites his friends to dinner and finds everything under lock and key. Hardly in any of Dekker's plays is the comic dialogue so masterly as here—so vivid and so vigorous in its life-like ease and spontaneity. But there is not one of the fifteen chapters, devoted each to the description of some fresh "humor," which would not deserve, did space and time allow of it, a separate note of commentary. The book is simply one of ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... that delightful old Mark Tapley of kings, Rene of Anjou, whose character has been hit off with such masterly fidelity by Sir Walter Scott in "Anne of Geierstein." Rene was born at Angers in 1409, and was the second son of Duke Louis II., of the junior house of Anjou, and of Iolanthe, daughter of king John of Aragon. He bore the title of Duke of Guise till his father's death. Louis II. ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... next metope (11) is a fine specimen of sculpture. Here an Athenian has seized a Centaur by the jaw, from behind. The drapery that falls from the fine form of the Greek is exquisitely folded, and the figure itself is finished with masterly skill. A victorious Centaur holding forth a mantle of lion's skin, is the central figure of the next metope (12). Below lies the dead body of an Athenian: all the muscles marked and rigid. It is supposed that the following ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold |
