"Oeuvre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... naturalists. Maupertuis, for example, wrote "Ce qui nous reste a examiner, c'est comment d'un seul individu, il a pu naitre tant d'especes si differentes." And again "La Nature contient le fonds de toutes ces varietes: mais le hasard ou l'art les mettent en oeuvre. C'est ainsi que ceux dont l'industrie s'applique a satisfaire le gout des curieux, sont, pour ainsi dire, creatures d'especes nouvelles." ("Venus Physique, contenant deux Dissertations, l'une sur ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... effroyable fatalite pese sui l'oeuvre de l'artiste. Cela ressemble a une malediction amere, lancee sur le sort de l'humanite.' There is, indeed, some fatality about that copy of Durer's 'Knight, Death, and the Devil,' which seems really ill-omened, for this is the second time it has fallen. Thank you, sir. The frame only is injured, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... fondamentales; a moins de supposer, ce qui serait certainement contradictoire a l'ensemble des lois de notre nature, que les immenses efforts de tant de grands hommes, secondes par la perseverante sollicitude des nations civilisees, dans la fondation seculaire de ce chef-d'oeuvre politique de la sagesse humaine, doivent etre enfin irrevocablement perdus pour l'elite de l'humanite sauf les resultats, capitaux mais provisoires, qui s'y rapportaient immediatement. Cette explication generale, deja evidemment motivee par la ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... then, in addition to the enigma of the play is a second, not so easily explained, enigma: the enigma of the censor, and of why he "moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform." The play, I must confess, does not seem to me, as it seems to certain French critics, "une piece qui tient du chef-d'oeuvre ... la tragedie des maitres antiques et de Shakespeare." To me it is rather an insubstantial kind of ingenuity, ingenuity turning in a circle. As a tragic episode, the dramatisation of a striking incident, it has force and simplicity, the admirable quality ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... consideration the vast amount of historical information enshrined in its pages, the archaeological value which it must always possess for the student, and the dramatic interest of its stories, the translator has thought that an English edition of Balzac's chef-d'oeuvre would be acceptable to many. It has, of course, been impossible to reproduce in all its vigour and freshness the language of the original. Many of the quips and cranks and puns have been lost in the process of Anglicising. These unavoidable blemishes apart, the writer ventures to hope that ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... considerable quantity of molten lead. The experiment, however, of entering into a hot oven, together with a quantity of meat, sufficient, when cooked, to regale those of his friends who were specially invited to witness his performance, was the chef-d'oeuvre of the day. Having ordered three fagots of wood, which is the quantity generally used by bakers, to be thrown into the oven, and they being set on fire, twelve more fagots of the same size were subsequently added to them, which being all consumed by three o'clock, M. Chabert entered ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... not circumstances thrown Mary Snow in his way, he would not have gone out of his way to seek a subject for his experiment. Mary Snow was the daughter of an engraver,—not of an artist who receives four or five thousand pounds for engraving the chef-d'oeuvre of a modern painter,—but of a man who executed flourishes on ornamental cards for tradespeople, and assisted in the illustration of circus playbills. With this man Graham had become acquainted through certain ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Gamier, in L'OEuvre et la Vie, speaking with the authority of a practical architect, says: "Michelangelo was not, properly speaking, an architect. He made architecture, which is quite a different thing; and most often it was the architecture of a painter ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... of the saints, but these are treasures we can look on without envy. This little Museum—as, indeed, the Treasury may be called—exposed at the Paris Exhibition of 1867 one of its richest objects, the reliquary of St. Bernard and St. Malachi, a chef-d'oeuvre of the twelfth century; but as some of the jewels were stolen upon that occasion, nothing this year, very naturally, found its way from Troyes ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the parts in the "Mariage de Figaro" among the actors of the Theatre Francais. Beaumarchais had made them enter into the spirit of his characters, and they determined to enjoy at least one performance of this so-called chef d'oeuvre. The first gentlemen of the chamber agreed that M. de la Ferte should lend the theatre of the Hotel des Menus Plaisirs, at Paris, which was used for rehearsals of the opera; tickets were distributed to a ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... Saint-Simon le prophte, Riche d'abord, puis endett, Qui des fondements jusqu'au fate Refaisait la socit. Plein de son oeuvre commence, Vieux, pour elle il tendait la main, Sr qu'il embrassait la pense Qui ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... and most important, the 'Etudes de moeurs' (Studies of Manners), second the 'Etudes philosophiques' (Philosophic Studies), and finally the 'Etudes analytiques' (Analytic Studies). These divisions, as M. Barriere points out in his 'L'Oeuvre de H. de Balzac' (The Work of Balzac), were intended to bear to one another the relations that moral science, psychology, and metaphysics do to one another with regard to the life of man, whether as an individual or as a member of society. No single division was left complete at the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... himself to the figure; and he seems to have the decorative art at his fingers' ends as a natural gift. Such work as "King Luckieboy's Party" was a revelation in the way of toy books, while the "Baby's Opera" and "Baby's Bouquet" are petits chefs d'oeuvre, of which the sagacious collector will do well to secure copies, not for his nursery, but his library. Nor can his "Mrs. Mundi at Home" be neglected by the curious in quaint and graceful invention. {14} Another book—the "Under the Window" of Miss Kate Greenaway—comes ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... La Grande Breteche—the story of a lover who, rather than betray his mistress, allows himself to suffer, without a word, the fate of a nun who has broken her vows—as Balzac has done it. La Recherche de l'Absolu is one, and Le Chef-d'oeuvre Inconnu is another, of the greatest known masterpieces in the world of their kind. La Fille aux Yeux d'Or and Une Passion dans le Desert have not the least need of their "indexable" qualities to validate them. In the most opposite styles Jesus Christ en Flandre and La Messe ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... earned, and how much the stone-cutters: they do not know the destination and the place of anything. The economists cannot deny that they have before them the fragments, scattered pell-mell, of a chef-d'oeuvre, disjecti membra poetae; but it has been impossible for them as yet to recover the general design, and, whenever they have attempted any comparisons, they have met only with incoherence. Driven to despair at last by their fruitless combinations, they have erected as a dogma the architectural ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... finally exclaimed, "you can rest now! This may be my chef- d'oeuvre, after all, Amarilly. Won't you be proud to be well hung in the Academy and have a group constantly before your picture. Why, what's the matter, child," springing to her side, "tears? I forgot it was ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... miles from Florence, are several uncatalogued monuments and a fine example of a tile pavement, which I identified as Delia Robbia work. I then visited Poggibonsi and Volterra and Siena, and satisfied myself that the beautiful coronation of the Virgin at the Osservanza outside Siena is a chef-d'oeuvre of Andrea Delia Robbia. From Asciano I visited Monte San Savino, Lucignano and Foiano and took photographs of some fine, unrecognized works of Andrea Delia Robbia. Another starting point was Montepulciano for a long drive to Radicofani, a weird Etruscan site, whose churches contained ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... The hors d'oeuvre came on a circular three-tiered stand; red strips of herrings and silver anchovies, salads where green peas and bits of carrot lurked under golden layers of sauce, sliced tomatoes, potato salad green-specked ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... each hand. "This ring given me yesterday by the Duke of Palma, and by him received from the Salvatori, is an imitation of Benvenuto Cellini's great work. The real ring of the Monte-Leoni, the chef-d'oeuvre, an heir-loom of the family, has just been brought us by an old servant ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... n'ai pas le courage de m'engager dans ce labyrinte de ridicules et de frivolites. Ce que j'en dirai seulement en general, c'est qu'autant les femmes du temps passe, etaient decentes et chastes, et se faisaient gloire d'etre graves et modestes, autant celles de notre siecle mettent tout en oeuvre pour paraitre cyniques et voluptueuses. Nous ne sommes plus au temps ou les plus grandes dames se faisaient honneur de porter la cordeliere.[C] Leurs habillemens etaient aussi larges et fermes, que celui des femmes ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the scheme of the series of poems to which he gave the title of La Legende des Siecles is thus described in the preface to the first scenes: 'Exprimer l'humanite dans une espece d'oeuvre cyclique; la peindre successivement et simultanement sous tous ses aspects, histoire, fable, philosophie, religion, science, lesquels se resument en un seul et immense mouvement d'ascension vers la lumiere; faire apparaitre, dans une sorte de miroir sombre et clair—que ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... covered with rosetrees in full bloom five feet in height and a concealed orchestra began to play. There were twenty-four seats and a footman for each two chairs, besides two butlers, who directed the service. The dinner consisted of hors-d'oeuvre and grapefruit, turtle soup, fish of all sorts, elaborate entrees, roasts, breasts of plover served separately with salad, and a riot of ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... his friend the Abbe de Saint-Pierre, and it is in his writings that we first find the theory widened in its compass to embrace progress towards social perfection. [Footnote: For his life and works the best book is J. Drouet's monograph, L'Abbe de Saint-Pierre: l'homme et l'oeuvre (1912), but on some points Goumy's older study (1859) is still worth consulting. I have used the edition of his works in 12 volumes published during his lifetime at ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... victims of his bad jokes. The measuring-board against which he took the stature of his tall grenadiers is there, and one room is devoted to those masterpieces which he used to paint in the agonies of gout. His chef d'oeuvre contains a figure with two left feet, and there seemed no reason why it might not. have had three. In another room is a small statue of Carlyle, who did so much to rehabilitate the house which the daughter of it, Wilhelmina, did ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and longitude, by chronometer and lunar distances, 100 deg. 49' 43". The elevation above the sea is about two thousand seven hundred feet. The hunters came in with a fat cow; and, as we had labored hard, we enjoyed well a supper of roasted ribs and boudins, the chef d'oeuvre of a prairie cook. Mosquitoes thronged about us this evening; but, by ten o'clock, when the thermometer had fallen to 47 deg., ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... best; and, as the old pictures are generally not so startling to the eye as the modern ones, the dukes and counts who possess them, and who like to see their galleries look new and fine (and are persuaded also that a celebrated chef-d'oeuvre ought always to catch the eye at a quarter of a mile off), believe the professors who tell them their sober pictures are quite faded, and good for nothing, and should all be brought bright again; and, ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... qui constitue proprement un classique, c'est l'equilibre en lui de toutes les facultes qui concourent a la perfection de l'oeuvre d'art.—Brunetiere, ibid. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... of volumes which embraced the richest harvest of the human mind. In medicine, it represents the full flower of the Renaissance. As a book it is a sumptuous tome a worthy setting of his jewel—paper, type and illustration to match, as you may see for yourselves in this folio—the chef d'oeuvre ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... bequeathed to the good Lord James of Douglas, the task of carrying his heart to the Holy Land, to fulfil in a certain degree his own desire to perform a crusade. Upon Douglas's death, fighting against the Moors in Spain, a sort of military hors d'oeuvre to which he could have pleaded no regular call of duty, his followers brought back the Bruce's heart, and deposited it in the Abbey church of Melrose, the ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... But the chef-d'oeuvre was from Jean's ingenious hand. It was the bow-backed skeleton behind the door, which had been cleverly arranged as and was called "Madame la Concierge." The skeleton had been arrayed in a short conventional ballet skirt and scanty ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... composition is one of the "chefs d'oeuvre" of many experiments I have made, for the purpose of enabling the good housewives of Great Britain to prepare their own sauces: it is equally agreeable with fish, game, poultry, or ragouts, &c., and as a fair lady ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... inspiration in the art that enters into the production of a French dinner, in the perfect balance of every item from hors d'oeuvre to caf noir, in the ways with seasoning that work miracles with left-overs and preserve the daily routine of three meals a day from the deadly monotony of the American rgime, in the garnishings that glorify the most insignificant ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore
... Vulgar minds cannot know it. Hence it has ever been the favorite with the intellectual class, while Gil Blas has more generally won the applause of men of the world. An amusing anecdote of the almost universal admiration for the chef d 'oeuvre of Le Sage may be found in Butler's Reminiscences. That bigotted, yet extraordinary man, Alva, predicted, with prophetic precision, the effects which the satire on Chivalry would produce in Spain. See Broad Stone of Honour, or Rules for ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... sur, il joignoit une probite exacte, un coeur droit, un caractere aimable et des moeurs douces. Il etoit naturellement honnete, et il s'etoit encore poli dans le commerce des grands. Parmi ses differentes Poesies Latines, on distingue le Poeme des Jardins. C'est son chef d'oeuvre; il est digne du siecle d'Auguste, dit l'Abbe Des Fontaines, pour l'elegance et la purete du langage, pour l'esprit et les graces qui y regnent." Among the letters of Rabutin de Bussy, are many most interesting ones from ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... This chef-d'oeuvre, which dates from about 1807, represents one of the most celebrated characters who ever sat upon the bench of the Court of Session. Famous in his day for "law, paunch, whist, claret, and worth," the exploits of Charles Hay, "The Mighty," as he was called, ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... come to see me about paintings. You are an amateur. It is an immense delight for me to receive amateurs. I am going to show you the chef-d'oeuvre of Monrealese; yes, Excellence, his chef-d'oeuvre! An Adoration of Shepherds! It is the pearl of the whole ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... marks of that stage of authorship, the attempt to imitate himself in those points in which he was once strong. When "glad no more, He wears a face of joy, because He has been glad of yore." Or it is an "oeuvre de lassitude," a continuation, with the inevitable defect of continuations, that of preserving the forms and wanting the soul of the original, like the second parts of Faust, of Don Quixote, and ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... lui etait pas moins familier. Le sejour a Munich lui inspira aussi le gout des arts envisages a un point de vue qui n'est pas tout a fait le notre. Dans un petit volume, oeuvre de jeunesse, "Graphidae," il traduisit sous une forme poetique l'impression que lui avaient laissee les oeuvres des premiers maitres italiens. On y retrouve, avec la mesure qui etait un des caracteres de cet esprit bien pondere, la trace des theories qui prevalaient ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... beginning to end. I am myself in the habit of considering this rather an important part of a tomb, and I was especially interested in it here, because Selvatico only echoes the praise of thousands. It is unanimously declared the chef d'oeuvre of Renaissance sepulchral work, and pronounced by ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... M. Emile Michel, Member of the Institute of France—that mine of learning about Rembrandt in which all modern writers on the master delve. Astonishment would be his companion while reading its packed pages, also while turning the leaves of L'Oeuvre de Rembrandt, decrit et commente, par M. Charles Blanc, de l'Academie Francaise. This sumptuous folio he picked up second hand and conveyed home in a cab, because it was too heavy to carry. Now he is fairly ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes
... ihnen neue originale Kenntniss beiwohnte, geschweige denn auf die weiter abgeleiteten Bearbeitungen zu gruenden haben, sondern aus den Relationen der Augenzeugen und der aechten und unmittelbarsten Urkunden aufbauen werden.—RANKE, Reformation, Preface, 1838. Ce qu'on a trouve et mis en oeuvre est considerable en soi: c'est peu de chose au prix de ce qui reste a trouver et a mettre en oeuvre.—AULARD, ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... vanished with the pie. A minute later the landlady's son entered with the soup; and cod's head, roast beef, game and ice pudding followed in due succession. It all came from some misunderstanding about time. But we did them justice, in spite of the curious hors d'oeuvre with which we had started; and a pleasanter dinner or a more enjoyable evening I have ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... it is questionable whether men have really bettered God's CHEF D'OEUVRE in the berry line. They have enlarged it and made it more plentiful and more certain in its harvest. But sweeter, more fragrant, more poignant in its flavour? No. The wild berry still stands first in its ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... Missal is catalogued as an 'extremely rare old printing and engraved work,' its author being 'Horae B. V. Mariae and usum Romanum,' whilst it is stated to be bound by 'Chamholfen Duru,' whoever he may be. Equally intelligent is another item from the same source, 'Newcastle (Marguis de Methode, etc.), oeuvre auquel on apprende,' etc. Perhaps it was the cheapness—sixpence each—which prevented two items from having ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... blague qu'on nous fait?" Then we stood and screamed at Monet, that most exquisite painter of blonde light. We stood before the "Turkeys," and seriously we wondered if "it was serious work,"—that chef d'oeuvre! the high grass that the turkeys are gobbling is flooded with sunlight so swift and intense that for a moment the illusion is complete. "Just look at the house! why, the turkeys couldn't walk in at the door. The perspective is all wrong." Then followed ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... Zola's L'Oeuvre to learn about one of the characters, who perforce sat for his portrait in that clever novel (a direct imitation of Goncourt's Manette Salomon). Paul Cezanne bitterly resented the liberty taken by his old school friend Zola. They both hailed from ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... for the presentation of the testimonial of Toulouse to Jasmin. It consisted of a branch of laurel in gold. The artist who fashioned it was charged to put his best work into the golden laurel, so that it might be a chef d'oeuvre worthy of the city which conferred it, and of being treasured in the museum of their adopted poet. The work was indeed admirably executed. The stem was rough, as in nature, though the leaves were beautifully polished. It had a ribbon delicately ornamented, ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... that produced the chef d'oeuvre in him. It was Maine that taught him the force of the southern aspect. Romancer among the realistic facts of nature, he might be called, for he did not merely copy nature. He did invest things with their own suggestive reality, and he surmounted his earlier gifts for ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... we had to content ourselves with revising the menu for the meal which was to celebrate the two-hundred-mile depot. But now it was all pretty well mapped out, having been matured in its finer details for several days on the march. Hors d'oeuvre, soup, meat, pudding, sweets and wine were all designed, and estimates were out. Would we pick up the depot soon enough to ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... time which has long been coming seems now to have come. The home reader will no longer put up with the careless caricatures of classical chefs d'oeuvre which satisfied his old-fashioned predecessor. Our youngers, in most points our seniors, now expect the translation not only to interpret the sense of the original but also, when the text lends itself to such treatment, to render it verbatim et literatim, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... tobacco without using it much himself. In his "Illusions Perdues" Carlos Herrera, who was Vautrin, says to Lucien, whom he meets on the point of suicide: "Dieu nous a donne le tabac pour endormir nos passions et nos douleurs." M.A. Le Breton, however, in his book on Balzac—"L'Homme et L'OEuvre"—says: "Il ne se soutient qu'a force de cafe," though he would sit working at his ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... abgeleiteten Bearbeitungen zu grunden haben, sondern aus den Relationen der Augenzeugen and der achten and unmittelbarsten Urkunden aufbauen werden.—RANKE, Reformation, Preface, 1838, Ce qu'on a trouve et mis an oeuvre est considerable en soi: c'est peu de chose au prix de ce qui reste a trouver et a mettre en oeuvre.—AULARD, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... its humiliations. But, if Andre-Louis would hope to dine, he must begin by eating his pride as an hors d'oeuvre. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... dares to protest; thereupon Scuderi returns to the charge; he calls to his assistance the Eminent Academy; "Pronounce, O my Judges, a decree worthy of your eminence, which will give all Europe to know that Le Cid is not the chef-d'oeuvre of the greatest man in France, but the least judicious performance of M. Corneille himself. You are bound to do it, both for your own private renown; and for that of our people in general, who are concerned in this matter; inasmuch ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... for so many hours, the Lord Advocate ordered his horses to be unsaddled,—paper, pen, and ink were brought—he began to dictate the appeal case—and continued at his task till four o'clock the next morning. By next day's post, the solicitor sent the case to London, a chef-d'oeuvre of its kind; and in which, my informant assured me, it was not necessary on revisal to correct five words. I am not, therefore, conscious of having overstepped accuracy in describing the manner in which Scottish lawyers of ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... nombre de calculateurs; et il me vint bientot a la pensee d'appliquer a la connection de ces Tables la division du travail, dont les Arts de Commerce tirent un parti si avantageux pour reunir a la pernection de main-d'oeuvre l'economie de la depense et du temps. The circumstance which gave rise to this singular application of the principle of the division on labour is so interesting, that no apology is necessary for introducing it from a small pamphlet printed at Paris a few ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... open windows, taking a zakuska in the Russian fashion in lieu of hors d'oeuvre, and nibbling at smoked fish, caviar and other pickled mysteries. The Count's ability to drink three or four glasses of liquor with this prefatory repast astonished Alban not a little—which the young Russian observed ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... Thibet," etc. In reality, Ruysbroek gets all his philosophy from Eckhart, and his manner of expounding it shows no abnormal acuteness. But Maeterlinck's essay in Le Tresor des Humbles contains some good things—e.g. "Les verites mystiques ne peuvent ni vieillir ni mourir.... Une oeuvre ne vieillit qu'en proportion de ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... needed in the government of Charles X. to get the Chefs-d'Oeuvre of Rossini represented at the Opera. A little school of petty and backward ideas rushed, under pretext of patriotism, but really from jealousy, systematically to drive from the stage everything not French. For this coterie Rossini and Meyerbeer were suspects, intruders, ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... translation of the Comedie Humaine. The two volumes that at present lie before us contain Cesar Birotteau, that terrible tragedy of finance, and L'lllustre Gaudissart, the apotheosis of the commercial traveller, the Duchesse de Langeais, most marvellous of modern love stories, Le Chef d'OEuvre Inconnu, from which Mr. Henry James took his Madonna of the Future, and that extraordinary romance Une Passion dans le Desert. The choice of stories is quite excellent, but the translations are very unequal, and some of them are positively bad. L'lllustre Gaudissart, for instance, is full of ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... at its beginnings in a romance which is a chef d'oeuvre. A part of the nobility yielded, fell into the hands of the financiers, the money lenders, the managers of agricultural enterprises, sold their lands, and took refuge in the great civil, administrative and military posts. The remainder resisted as well as they could. There was ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... one thousand and thirty paintings, which are considered to be the chefs d'oeuvre of the great ancient masters, and is a treasury of human art and genius, unknown to the most renowned of former ages, and far surpassing every other institution of the same nature, in ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... his monks assisted the masons, he had spent about five million francs (in modern values), and by 1339 had finished the choir and chapels, the huge pillars beneath the central tower, and part of the transept. Of the first real "Maitre d'oeuvre," as so often happens in the tale of the Cathedrals, nothing is known. But the monks carved the clear keen features of his face upon the funeral stone, 7-1/2 feet high and 4 feet broad, that is in the Chapelle St. Cecile, and beside it is a detailed drawing of ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... the scene changes, and this instability is exhibited by the most essential parts no less than by the accessory parts. One would say that nature feels her way, and only reaches the goal after many times missing the path' (on dirait que la nature tatonne et ne conduit son oeuvre a bon fin, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... frivolous. The aspirant in certain cases had to pass a technical examination, as, for instance, the barber in forging and polishing lancets; the wool-weaver in making and adjusting the different parts of his loom; and during the period of executing the chef-d'oeuvre, which often extended over several months, the aspirant was deprived of all communication with his fellows. He had to work at the office of the association, which was called the bureau, under the eyes of the jurors or syndics, who, often after an angry debate, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... am I to do with Mrs Pearson?" I said. "There's some chef-d'oeuvre of hers waiting for me by this time. She always treats me particularly ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... Man from Mexico, and that had given him an understanding of what a term of imprisonment on Blackwell's Island meant. Billy, during these lean days, must be supporting life on bread, bean soup, and water. Psmith, toying with the hors d'oeuvre, was somewhat saddened by ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... best and latest, the Rev. Mr. Foster's, which is diffuse and verbose, and Mr. G. Moir Bussey's, which is a re- correction, abound in gallicisms of style and idiom; and one and all degrade a chef d'oeuvre of the highest anthropological and ethnographical interest and importance to a mere fairy book, a nice ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... archebiosis[obs3]; biogenesis, abiogenesis[obs3], digenesis[obs3], dysmerogenesis[obs3], eumerogenesis[obs3], heterogenesis[obs3], oogenesis, merogenesis[obs3], metogenesis[obs3], monogenesis[obs3], parthenogenesis, homogenesis[obs3], xenogenesis1[obs3]; authorship, publication; works, opus, oeuvre. biogeny[obs3], dissogeny[obs3], xenogeny[obs3]; tocogony[obs3], vacuolization. edifice, building, structure, fabric, erection, pile, tower, flower, fruit. V. produce, perform, operate, do, make, gar, form, construct, fabricate, frame, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... gouvernement modere, il faut combiner les puissances, les regler, les temperer, les faire agir, donner pour ainsi dire un lest a l'une pour la mettre en etat de resister a une autre, c'est un chef-d'oeuvre de legislation que le hasard fait rarement, et que rarement on laisse faire a la prudence. Un gouvernement despotique au contraire saute pour ainsi dire aux yeux; il est uniforme partout: comme il ne faut que des passions pour l'etablir tout le monde est bon ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... all, as we may see on every page of that miraculous Journal, which will remain, doubtless, the truest, deepest, most poignant piece of human history that they have ever written, they are sick men, seeing life through the medium of diseased nerves. Notre oeuvre entier, writes Edmond de Goncourt, repose sur la maladie nerveuse; les peintures de la maladie, nous les avons tirees de nous-memes, et, a force de nous dissequer, nous sommes arrives a une sensitivite supra-aigue que blessaient les infiniment petits de la vie. This unhealthy ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... has Mr. Pybus's gorgeous book in praise of the late Russian Emperor Paul I. (which some have called the chef-d'oeuvre of Bensley's press[A]) to do with Mr. Southey's fine Poem of Madoc?—in which, if there are "veins of lead," there are not a few "of silver and gold." Of the extraordinary talents of Mr. Southey, the indefatigable ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... mischievous role imaginable," said Herode warmly, "and she plays it to perfection—it is her chef d'oeuvre. She is always applauded to the ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... form they are unique. The aim of the Eskimo story-teller is to pass the time during the long hours of darkness; if he can send his hearers to sleep, he achieves a triumph. Not infrequently a story-teller will introduce his chef-d'oeuvre with the proud declaration that "no one has ever heard this story to the end." The telling of the story thus becomes a kind of contest between his power of sustained invention and detailed embroidery on the one ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown
... "I had never gone farther than Versailles. This journey was at first as delightful as a glimpse into fairy-land. Our carriage was one of those costly whims which some millionaires indulge in. It consisted of a central saloon—a perfect chef-d'oeuvre of taste and luxury—with two compartments at either end, furnished with comfortable sleeping accommodation. And all this, the count seemed never weary of repeating, was mine—mine alone. Leaning back on the velvet cushions, I gazed at the changing landscape, ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... showing the slight value he placed on distinctions of this kind. A reply that must have gratified him very much was that received from the King of France. In his letter to him, Beethoven refers to the Mass as "L'oeuvre le plus accompli." Louis XVIII, not only forwarded his acceptance (and the fifty ducats), but had also a gold medal struck off, containing his portrait on one side, and on the other, the following inscription: "Donne par ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... Cabet et son oeuvre, appel a tous les socialistes (Paris, 1900); J. Prudhommeaux, Icaria and its Founder, Etienne ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... have left some trace of their sojourn in France; but of an obscure yet very complete genius, Pierre Nepveu, known as Pierre Trinqueau, who is designated in the papers which preserve in some degree the history of the origin of the edifice, as the maistre de l'oeuvre de maconnerie. Behind this modest title, apparently, we must recognize one of the most original talents of the French Renaissance; and it is a proof of the vigor of the artistic life of that period that, brilliant pro- ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... is there no difference between the chef-d'oeuvre of the great Stickleback, and the town of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... name. Its tower merits principally the attention of the traveller; it was commenced in 1490 and finished in 1501. The screen of Saint-Laurent was considered a chef-d'oeuvre of architecture. ...
— Rouen, It's History and Monuments - A Guide to Strangers • Theodore Licquet
... On the ragged trunk of an enormous pine hung a few tufts of gray hair caught from a passing grizzly, but in strange juxtaposition at its foot lay an empty bottle of incomparable bitters,—the chef-d'oeuvre of a hygienic civilization, and blazoned with the arms of an all-healing republic. The head of a rattlesnake peered from a case that had contained tobacco, which was still brightly placarded with ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... A young man from a remote province came to Paris with a play, which he considered as a masterpiece. M. L'Etoile was more than just in his merciless criticism. He showed the youthful bard a thousand glaring defects in his chef-d'oeuvre. The humbled country author burnt his tragedy, returned home, took to his chamber, and died of vexation and grief. Of all unfortunate men, one of the unhappiest is a middling author endowed with too lively a sensibility ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... objects of art, for in several ages the utensils, those especially which were used in the liberal arts, were veritable jewels, either from their elegance of form, or from the richness of their material, or the grace of their details. We find chefs-d'oeuvre, for instance on a geographical map, on the handle of a chisel, on the barrel of a musket. Our ancestors were not possessed with the same passion for speed and cheapness that possesses us. Industry lost, perhaps, but the arts ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... exiled Polish nobleman. His own portrait is understood to be drawn in one of the characters of the Tale, and indeed the whole work has a substantial foundation in fact. In Germany it has passed through several editions, and is there regarded as the chef-d'oeuvre of the author. As a revelation of an entire new phase of human society, it will strongly remind the reader of Miss Bremer's tales. In originality and brilliancy of imagination, it is not inferior those;—its aim is far higher. The elegance of Mrs. ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... d'oeuvre wins a smile from the genial son of Missouri. As the last drops trickle down his throat, Jaggers enters. He has had external cocktails. He is flushed, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... importantes pour le commun des hommes? Peut-il considerer les liens du sang, les affections, les puerils menagements de la societe? Et dans la situation ou il se trouve, que d'actions separees de l'ensemble et qu'on blame, quoiqu'elles doivent contribuer au grand oeuvre que tout le monde n'apercoit pas? ... Malheureux que vous etes! vous retiendrez vos eloges parce que vous craindrez que le mouvement de cette grande machine ne fasse sur vous l'effet de Gulliver, qui, lorsqu'il deplacait sa jambe, ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... colour and brilliance of her splendid dark eyes, the finest feature of her face, are of course quite lost. The bust of M. Rocca[C] was standing in the Baron de Stael's dressing-room: I was more struck with it than any thing I saw, not only as a chef-d'oeuvre, but from the perfect and regular beauty of the head, and the charm of the expression. It was just such a mouth as we might suppose to have uttered his well-known reply—"Je l'aimerai tellement qu'elle finira ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... Chefs-d'oeuvre de lord Byron. (Le Plerinage, etc., Lara, la Fiance, etc., Parisina, Mazeppa, le Sige, etc., le Prisonnier, etc.) La traduction franoise en regard par M. le comte d'Hautefeuille; prcds d'un essai ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... is a chef-d'oeuvre of creation. There nature rules in undisturbed dominion, and regulates at will its most secret springs. He was a man of high feeling and good taste, and was so sensibly affected by the turn I had given to my defence, that he ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... fifty hard expressions, marching in the diplomatic audience as at the head of his troops, and commanding foreign Ambassadors as his French soldiers. I have heard that the report of Count Markof to his Court, describing this new and rare show, is a chef-d'oeuvre of wit, equally amusing and instructive. He is said to have requested of his Cabinet new and particular orders how to act—whether as the representative of an independent Sovereign, or, as most of the other ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... an interruption. I wanted to get some amusement out of the interval, and proposed an ablution, which made Annette laugh and which Veronique pronounced to be absolutely necessary. I found it a delicious hors d'oeuvre to the banquet I had enjoyed. The two sisters rendered each other various services, standing in the most lascivious postures, and I found my situation as looker-on an ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... le vrai, et, d'apres ce principe, l'art s'est cree des regles absolus, que vous chercheriez en vain dans la nature seule. Si la nature seule pouvait le satisfaire, vous n'auriez qu'a mouler un beau modele de la tete aux pieds, pour faire un chef d'oeuvre. Ou, si vous executiez cette idee, vous ne produiriez qu'un grotesque. Le talent consiste a completer la nature, a recueillir ca et la ses indications merveilleuses, mais partielles, a les resumer dans un ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... dei danari is a phrase continually recurring in Guicciardini. Speaking of the jewels lent to Charles by the royal families of Savoy and Montferrat at Turin, de Comines exclaims: 'Et pouvez voir quel commencement de guerre c'estoit, si Dieu n'eut guide l'oeuvre.' ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... resignation. When the house is burning, one jumps out of window. But your cleverness has been so much pure loss, for your amiable confederates are waiting in the street to thrust you back into the midst of the flames again. It is in vain that you have written the following letter, a chef-d'oeuvre in its ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... exercised decisive influence in far-away lands. And so there was a continual struggle, in which the Congregation did all it could to favour the missionaries of Italy and her allies. It had always been jealous of its French rival, "L'Oeuvre de la Propagation de la Foi," installed at Lyons, which is as wealthy in money as itself, and richer in men of energy and courage. However, not content with levelling tribute on this French association, the Propaganda thwarted it, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... managers, gratuitously, a large open space in the Rue Jean-Goujon. The new bazaar was here inaugurated on the 3d of May, and the receipts exceeded forty-five thousand francs. On the day after the catastrophe, some charitable person donated, anonymously, to the OEuvre de la Charite the sum of nine hundred and thirty-seven thousand francs, representing the amount of the sales of the preceding year, that the poor, also, might not suffer by this catastrophe. A subscription opened by the Figaro for the same charitable purpose, and for those who had distinguished ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton |
