"Skillful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vague hope was in our minds when we started the Hull-House Cooperative Coal Association, which led a vigorous life for three years, and developed a large membership under the skillful advice of its one paid officer, an English workingman who had had experience in cooperative societies at "'ome." Some of the meetings of the association, in which people met to consider together ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... better the patient grew worse, and for days life was despaired of. The most skillful medical treatment, and the most careful nursing scarcely saved his life. And even after the imminent danger was over, it was weeks before he was able to be lifted from the bed ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... being dragged down the hill. As he looked below, he realized that his companion was right. The man was doomed unless they interfered. Already skillful archers were pausing to shoot and their arrows fell dangerously ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... the choicely prepared and preserved sheets of paper is handed over to the superintendent of the printing office. This office is among the inner buildings of the Bank of France, and is governed by very rigorous rules in all things. The operatives are all picked men, skillful, active, and silent. The sheets, the ink, and the matrixes of the plates are kept securely under lock and key until actually wanted. The printing is effected by steam-worked presses. The ink is blue, and its composition known only to a few ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... in proportion as the physician is more skillful, by so much he gives less medicine, and relies more on imagination, nature, and, above all, regimen and nursing. Here is a story in point. There was an old gentleman in Paris, who sold a famous eye-water, and made much gain thereby. ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... who was watching Jim was one of Bill Broome's trusted agents, and the most vicious, if not the most skillful that he made use of in his nefarious business. Jim might have recognized him, though he was much changed by a short, curly black beard that he had purposely allowed to grow and which did not make his personal appearance ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... employes withdraw from competition in order to raise wages, they starve to death. Capital and labor are the two things which least admit of monopoly. Employers can, however, if they have foresight of the movements of industry and commerce, and if they make skillful use of credit, win exceptional profits for a limited period. One great means of exceptional profit lies in the very fact that the employes have not exercised the same foresight, but have plodded along and waited for the slow and successive action of the industrial system through successive ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... though recognized as the leader of his party, he, as a habit, waived his control upon the floor of the House, and, reserving his interference for occasions when questions of constitutional interpretation arose, left the general direction of debate to William B. Giles of Virginia, a skillful tactician and a ready debater, keen, bold, and troubled by no scruples of modesty, respect, or reverence for friend or foe. Of equal vigor, but of more reserve, was John Nicholas of Virginia—a man of strong intellect, reliable temper, and with the dignity of the old school. ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... little sister is just exactly the stuff out of which they made martyrs in those unenlightened days when anybody thought there was enough truth in anything to take the trouble to suffer for it. She can be made by skillful handling into a very queen of martyrs, and if you fall in the ruins, it will be your ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... ingenious archangel with a theory. Then you enjoy the spectacle of that seraph about as busy over this notable world as a child with a mud pie. The winged one sets to work with a will. A little pinch of life; develops under his skillful manipulation; evolution takes its remorseless course through the wastes of Time until—behold! the apotheosis of the ape at last. Picture that well-meaning but muddle-headed archangel's dismay at such a conclusion! All ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... here in the cellar, stuck on a short piece of wire? To be sure, she was somewhat thoughtless—the way she left that dangerous loop caught back, so it would snap over and catch you behind the ears if you weren't careful. But you were always very skillful at avoiding that." ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... to acquire a great deal of information and to become skillful in many things and still be unloved by those with whom ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... longer than the men whom he had displaced. Moreover, France was in a difficult position. Her treasury was empty; her army in Italy was being edged into the narrow coast-line near Genoa; and her oriental forces were shut up in their new conquest. Were not the appeals to Austria and England merely a skillful device to gain time? Did his past power in Italy and Egypt warrant the belief that he would abandon the peninsula and the new colony? Could the man who had bartered away Venetia and seized Malta and Egypt be fitly looked upon as the sacred'r peacemaker? In ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... show them the way back to the house. When the surgeon came he examined the wound, and pronounced it to be slight enough in itself, but possibly dangerous when so near so sensitive an organ as the eye. He advised the major, if any symptoms of inflammation declared themselves, to go at once to a skillful oculist in London, and not to leave for the North ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... remorseless pursuers of the main chance. When they were cast down they climbed up straightway over the backs of lesser men. He thought of Robbin-Steele. A man like that would die with the harness of the money-game on his back, reaching for more. Gower was of the same type, skillful in all the tricks of the game, ruthless, greedy for power and schooled to grasp it in a bewildering variety ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Nauatl, or nahuatl, skillful, astute, smart; hence, superior; applied to language, clear, well-sounding, whence (perhaps) the ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton
... the houses, near the church, lived Dr. Kent, whose letter has already been referred to. He was a skillful physician, and a very worthy man, who would have been very glad to be benevolent if his limited practice had supplied him with the requisite means. But chance had directed him to a healthy and sparsely-settled neighborhood, where he was able only to earn a respectable livelihood, ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... the trees. He was a thin little man, an ex-military surgeon, who passed in the neighborhood for a very skillful practitioner. He limped, having been wounded while in the service, and had to use a stick to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... passing away. The prospector is no longer the raving, wandering ghoul of ten years ago, rushing in random lawlessness among the hills, hungry and footsore; but cool and skillful, well supplied with every necessary, and clad in his right mind. Capitalists, too, and the public in general, have become wiser, and do not take fire so readily from mining sparks; while at the same time a vast amount of real work is being done, and the ratio between growth and decay ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... of these girls, to take up their day's work under the mistress's eye. Some made garments for the ranch hands, those who were better work women attended to the making of clothing for the family, while the girls who were the most skillful with the needle fashioned delicate, fine lace work ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... of the workings of the tariff and its effect on home prices. He had it at his fingers' end. Under his skillful hands the dry subject became really interesting, embellished with a wealth of illustration and anecdote. He was still deep in his exposition, when, beyond Scranton, a hand was laid on his arm. A dapper, little, dark man, with twinkling, black eyes and pointed black ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... the Grand Duke to follow one particularly skillful brave whose name was Two Lance, who had a reputation for being able to drive an arrow clear through the body of a bull. The Indian proved equal to his fame. He hauled alongside of an animal, and, bending his powerful bow, let fly an arrow, which passed directly through the bulky carcass of a ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... the disease without considering the cause, and is therefore useless. The operation of extirpating the collapsed cartilage and vocal cord is believed to be the only relief, and, as this operation is critical and can be performed only by the skillful veterinarian, it will not ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... the public interests involved in the erection of the wings of the United States Capitol will be promoted by the exercise of a general supervision and control of the whole work by a skillful and competent officer of the Corps of Engineers or of the Topographical Corps, and as the officers of those corps are more immediately amenable to the Secretary of War, I hereby direct that the jurisdiction heretofore exercised over the said work by ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... so, grunting with approval or disapproval from time to time as the work pleased or displeased him. Under the now skillful hands of the Pony Rider Boys the camp rapidly assumed shape and form. All the tents were erected on this occasion in order that the guide might observe the whole process. The tents up, the boys settled them. There were plenty of trees about from which to get boughs for their beds, and ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... Skillful planting of trees, shrubs, and flowers make the setting 244 Robertson Ward, architect. Photo ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... 123. Savages are generally skillful hunters. They know how to track game, to prepare nets and pits, and to make destructive weapons. The African pygmies have poisoned arrows, with which they are able to kill the largest animals.[249] The people of British New Guinea organize ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... went to housekeeping in a little hut, where the one room was as clean and neat as could be, and not a bit like the dirty rooms of some of the natives. Tanana spent all her spare time weaving beautiful baskets, for her slim fingers were very skillful. Some of the baskets which she made out of the inner bark of the willow-tree were woven so closely that they would hold water, and Teddy never tired of watching her weave the gay colours in and out, nor of seeing the wonderful ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... to render you wise, I try to make you happy. It is an old saying: to wish to destroy the passions would be to undertake our annihilation. It is only necessary to regulate them. They are in our hands like the poison in a pharmacy; compounded by a skillful chemist ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... 'Origin of Species' does not purport to be philosophical. In this aspect it is very different from the cognate works of Mr. Spencer. Darwin does not speculate on the origin of the universe, on the nature of matter or of force. He is simply a naturalist, a careful and laborious observer, skillful in his descriptions, and singularly candid in dealing with the difficulties in the way of his peculiar doctrine. He set before himself a single problem—namely, How are the fauna and flora of our earth to be accounted for? . . . To account for the existence ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... is quite sure that deer can smell him and know when he is on the hunt. He becomes skillful in detecting and following their tracks, and knows just how to circle around their hiding-place and suddenly walk in upon them. My friend, referred to above, who is a great hunter, was once out with a Washoe. They had had three "bad" days, when suddenly they found a deer's ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... and principle of a work; the latter, to be able to perform it: as, for instance, in regard to a quagmire; for there are many who know what should be done with a quagmire and yet do it wrong, because they are not able to put their knowledge into practice. Many, on the other hand, are skillful in doing, but do not know what ought to be done; and thus they too may make bad work of it, for there are many kinds of quagmires. But we at the agricultural school learn both words. The superintendent is so skillful that he has no equal. At the last agricultural meeting for ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... Signal Officer, he went up against the Secretary of War and put him to the controversial sword. He convicted Sheridan of falsehood, Sherman of barbarism, Grant of inefficiency. He was aggressive, arrogant, tyrannical, honorable, truthful, courageous—skillful soldier, a faithful friend and one of the most exasperating of men Duty was his religion, and like the Moslem he proselyted with the sword. His missionary efforts were directed chiefly against the spiritual darkness of his superiors in rank, though he would turn aside from pursuit of his erring ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... anyone for the duck was wild? Of course as she had no saucepan or frying pan or any kitchen utensils whatever, she could not prepare any of the dishes that she had seen made before her dream eyes. But there, that was the best about eggs, they could be used without any very skillful preparation; a lighted match put to a little heap of dry wood and then she could cook them hard or soft, how she liked, in the hot ashes. And she would buy a saucepan or a pan as soon ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... teacher. Now, you are still doing nothing. This will not do. From this time on I wish you to think of becoming a merchant. In the morning you will go with me to the store and begin work. If you are attentive and skillful, when the time comes you can take up my business and carry it on. But if you remain careless and continue to idle about, no one will ever want you and you must starve because you will never be able to earn ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... the sweet womanly graciousness which was hers to summon at will, one of those passionate declarations of love which no beautiful young woman out of love with her husband may hope to escape; and not always when in. Alexina had grown skillful in eluding the reckless verbalisms of love, but when one is packed into a small motor car with a determined man, desperately in love, one might as well try to wave aside ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... surely come out this evening and hear the music and have a dance," were the parting salutations, as with skillful hands the young girl took up ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... A skillful taxidermist has preserved as much of Kizzie as possible for me, and he now adorns the parlor mantel, a weak, mute reminder ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... to make people realize a lack previously not felt; in other words to make people want something that they need. This may be done simply by exhibiting or describing the article or it may require long and skillful presentation of the matter. All this is still economic. But it requires only a step to carry us across the line. Next the enthusiastic advertiser strives to make someone want that which he does not need. As may be seen, the line here is difficult to ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... the army of India in his twenty-eighth year, and waited till he was sixty-two for the opportunity to show himself fitted to command and skillful to plan. During those four and thirty years of waiting, he was busy preparing himself for that march to Lucknow which was to make him ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... servitor, establishing importance for his chief, and never a newly made millionaire or modern demagog had such skillful advertisement. The Shereefian officers stood back at a respectful distance, ready to salute when the personage should deign ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... manservant. A devoted lad who went with me on all my journeys; a gallant Flemish boy whom I genuinely liked and who returned the compliment; a born stoic, punctilious on principle, habitually hardworking, rarely startled by life's surprises, very skillful with his hands, efficient in his every duty, and despite his having a name that means "counsel," never giving advice— ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... he. In such a case, it is immaterial in what way I kill him, whether I attack him from the front or the rear. From a moral point of view, the right of the stronger is no more convincing than the right of the more skillful; and it is skill which is employed if you murder a a man treacherously. Might and skill are in this case equally right; in a duel, for instance, both the one and the other come into play; for a feint is only another name for treachery. If I consider myself morally ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... is she? Why in the blue blazes doesn't she report in?" muttered the chief, worriment wrinkling his forehead. On the face of things, it seemed that, valuable as Miss Kennard had been as confidential secretary, she was still more valuable as a skillful operative—and Chief Mern was earnestly desirous of having her back on ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... It must Have been some image of thy phantasy. Such melancholy as thou feedest is Skillful in forming such in the vain air Out of the motes and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived with deliberate care a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents—he then combines such ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... exercised a wide vogue long after him. He "delivered men's minds," as he himself said—that is, he believed, or affected to believe, that the verities are in a latent state in all minds, and that it needed only patience, dexterity, and skillful investigation to bring them to light. Elsewhere, he interrogated in a captious fashion in order to set the interlocutor in contradiction to himself and to make him confess that he had said what he had not thought he had said, agreed to what he had not believed he had agreed to; and he triumphed ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... cotton mantle, yet a skillful hand may join it; Snapped may be the string where pearls are threaded, yet the thread all swiftly knotted; But a husband and his wife, once ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... looked at sideways, exhibited human profiles. This sort of amusement has exercised the skill of artists of all times, and engravings, and even paintings, of double aspect are very numerous. Chance has recently put into our hands a very curious work of this kind, which is due to a skillful artist named Gaillot. It is an album of quite ancient lithographs, which was published at Berlin by Senefelder. The author, under the title of "Arts and Trades," has drawn some very amusing faces that are formed through the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... intelligently the doctor's orders, also certain manual arts, your proficiency in which is unquestionably most necessary, but there is much more comprehended in the meaning of the term "a good nurse" than this. How often do we hear stories of nurses who were good—but—who were skillful—but— and after the but comes a long list of such faults as do not show so much in hospital life, where the routine and the many rules and the constant supervision make them less likely to become prominent. "She bangs the doors." "She ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... is very fond of dice-play although he doth not know how to play. That king if asked to play, is ill able to refuse. I am skillful at dice. There is none equal to me in this respect on earth, no, not even in the three worlds, O son of Kuru. Therefore, ask him to play at dice. Skilled at dice, I will win his kingdom, and that splendid prosperity of his for thee, O bull ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... has been actually made, that the skillful statesman, or philosophic observer, is able to foresee, and foretell, even such accidents. Dean Stanley quotes Mill as suggesting an ordinary sign of statesmanship in modern times: "To have made predictions often verified by the event, seldom or ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... feeling that you had known it all before, somewhere, somehow? Does not your mind leap ahead of the lesson, and see what is coming next, long before you have turned the pages? These inward evidences of the fact of pre-existence are so strong that they outweigh the most skillful appeal to ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... admiral for his skilful tactics. He says, [Historie of the World, p. 791.] "Certainly, he that will happily perform a fight at sea, must be skillful in making choice of vessels to fight in; he must believe that there is more belonging to a good man-of-war, upon the waters, than great daring; and must know that there is a great deal of difference between fighting loose or at large and grappling. The guns of a slow ship pierce ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... Saxon chiefs, who were called. kings, originally acquired power by the same natural causes which have gradually, and everywhere, raised a few men above their fellows. They were, doubtless, more experienced, more skillful, more brave, or more beautiful, than those who followed them. * * A king was powerful in war by the lustre of his arms, and the obvious necessity of obedience. His influence in peace fluctuated with his personal ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... direction. Until then, it had come from the front on the river side, battling with the enemy's line ensconced behind the walls. Now, with the swiftness of an atmospheric change, it was blustering from the depths of the park. A skillful manoeuver of the aggressors, the use of a distant road, a chance bend in the German line had enabled the French to collect their cannon in a new position, attacking the occupants of the castle with a ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... when they could see where they were; but the captain relying more upon Jan's opinion, and wishing to accomplish half a masterpiece, by going into Falmouth in the dark, and surprising the people there to whom the ship was consigned, and so to pass hereafter as a good and skillful captain, insisted upon sailing in, and so they went in, as has been mentioned. It is no part of the business of a good seaman to run into a place by night, or when it is dark, where he is not well acquainted; but in such case he should work off shore slowly, ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... judging from the manner in which it acted; for he sat with his hat cocked on one side, a pipe in his mouth, and the two reins in his hands, just as the skillful driver controls the mettlesome horses and keeps them well ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... employ someone (lit. to give business to some one) novis rebus studere, to be eager for a revolution (lit. to be eager for new things) rei militaris peritissimus, very skillful in the art of war se suaque omnia, themselves and ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... off. Why it was broken off, and why it was renewed after a lapse of years, is part of quite a long love-story, which I do not think myself qualified to rehearse, distrusting my fitness for a sustained or involved narration; though I am persuaded that a skillful romancer could turn the courtship of Basil. and Isabel March to excellent account. Fortunately for me, however, in attempting to tell the reader of the wedding-journey of a newly married couple, no longer very young, to be sure, but still fresh in the light ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... bayonet charge, drove Carier's French division back as it attempted to push forward beyond Castrillo. Thus the two armies faced each other on the Guarena, and Marmont had gained absolutely nothing by his false movement at Toro, and his long and skillful detour by Tordesillas. ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... our life was not intolerable; but disputes like this would render it extremely disagreeable. I was able to control my wife so long as we were abroad, but in this country my only power over her lies in skillful handling, and a display of authority. I shall tell everything to the king. I shall submit myself to his dictation, and Madame de Montsorel must be compelled to submit. I must however bide my time. The detective, whom I am to employ, if he is clever, will soon find out the cause ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... wife, exceeded all men in strength, and was very expert and famous in martial performances. He procured what tended to the pleasures of the body by that method; and first of all invented the art of making brass. Lamech was also the father of a daughter, whose name was Naamah. And because he was so skillful in matters of divine revelation, that he knew he was to be punished for Cain's murder of his brother, he made that known to his wives. Nay, even while Adam was alive, it came to pass that the posterity of Cain became exceeding wicked, every one successively ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... temperament rendered me very sensible to the attractions of voluptuousness: I was always cheerful and ever ready to pass from one enjoyment to another, and I was at the same time very skillful in inventing new pleasures. Thence, I suppose, my natural disposition to make fresh acquaintances, and to break with them so readily, although always for a good reason, and never through mere fickleness. The errors caused by temperament ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... uniform—red jackets, blue trousers, and little black caps—and with their flags flying, drums beating, and band playing, they march to the parade-ground, where they give a fine exhibition drill. After the parade they are trained in various difficult and skillful gymnastic exercises. ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... diligent playing, some lucky or skillful player would be in possession of all the beans in a mess, a squad, and sometimes a detachment, and have enough for a ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... of steel, welded together, the iron wearing away and leaving the sharp steel edge always prominent,) will work in a very hard clay without the aid of the pick. Three men,—the one in the ditch being a skillful workman, and the others helping him when not sighting the rods,—will grade about 100 rods per day, making the cost about 6 cents per rod. Until they acquire the skill to work thus rapidly, they should not be urged beyond what they ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... game, which the Cambridge ladies attended, was played on the Delta in May of that year with the Trimountain Club of Boston. Flagg was the finest catcher in New England at that time; and, although he was never chosen captain, he was the most skillful manager of the game. It was he who invented the double-play which can sometimes be accomplished by muffing a fly-catch between the bases. He caught without mask or gloves and was several times wounded ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... the Moors. First, he attacked the tents of that Moorish queen, the negress, who lay nearest to the city; and this onset was so sudden, that they killed full a hundred and fifty Moors before they had time to take arms or go to horse. But that Moorish negress was so skillful in drawing the Turkish bow, that it was held for a marvel; and it is said that they called her in Arabic Nugueymat Turya, which is to say, the Star of the Archers. And she was the first that got on horseback, and with some fifty that were ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... unfolded its coils and stretched its threatening head into the Dinwiddie woods, Lee had extended his right to confront it. The great opponents moved pari passu, each marching in face of each other. Like two trained and skillful swordsmen, they changed ground without moving their eyes from each others' faces—the lunge was met by the parry; and this seemed destined ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... contrast, is one of the two most effective devices at the disposal of any artist, whether he works with words or colors. Its skillful use often enables a newspaper writer to make a good item out of trifling material. The object of this week's work is to teach a little of the art of using antithesis ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... of the most eagerly sought game birds of the east. Their flight is very rapid and erratic, and accompanied by a peculiar whistling sound made by the rapid motion of the wings; it requires a skillful marksman to bring them down. They frequent boggy places especially "runs" lined with alders, where they bore in the soft ground for worms and grubs. Their eggs are laid upon the bare ground among the leaves and sticks; ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... land and among a people just passing through the earliest stages of settled and civilized life. In a way the inheritors of the agricultural and handicraft knowledge of the Romans, the monks became the most skillful artisans and farmers to be found, and from them these arts in time reached the developing peasantry around them. Their work and services have been well summed up by the same author just ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... ones seem passively irritable and decidedly averse to being bothered by the antics and mischievous activity of the youngsters. Taking possession of some particular branch, they warn away all would-be intruders with threatening grimaces and feints. The youthful members of the party are skillful of pranks and didoes, carried on to the great annoyance of their more aged and sedate relatives, who, in revenge, put in no small portion of their time punishing or pursuing them with angry cries for their deeds of wanton annoyance. One monkey, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... over the great party of which he was the founder. His temperament was what we call "artistic"; that is, he loved books and music and architecture, and the things which make for what we call culture. And yet, with all that, he soon grew wise and skillful in the world's affairs, possessing an industry and insight which assured his speedy success as a lawyer, despite an impediment of speech which prevented him from ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... well. He seemed to have no more anxious thoughts about anything. He did not need to have while Davie stayed at home; but even after Davie went away, and the management of the farm fell for the most part into the less skillful hands of the younger brothers, their grandfather "took things easy," the lads said, and rarely ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... fields of investigation to be found anywhere and one that promises big reward to the successful culturist. And the walnut grower need not wait long to find whether he has a prize or not, for just as soon as the little sprout comes from the ground and has hardened sufficient to handle, a skillful grafter can place it in a bearing tree and the second or third year know the result of his experiment by the production of fruit, and this not more than three or four years from ...
— Walnut Growing in Oregon • Various
... precision. He was careful that his ink and his pigments should be of the most brilliant color and the finest quality. He looked well to the care of his pen and inscribed each letter with the patient care of the most skillful engrosser of to-day. ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... will be in a position to bring forward anything. It seems to me that the current sets strongly against their continuance in office, and that, between the hearty Reformers on one side and the out-spoken Conservatives on the other, they must soon surrender their semblance of power. Still, they are skillful in playing off one extreme against another, and may thus endure or be endured a year longer; but the probability is against this. To my mind, it seems clear that their retirement is essential to the ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... roads by which they could travel comfortably from place to place, and no wheeled carriages. They lived in castles, very strongly built indeed, and very grand and picturesque sometimes in external appearance, but very illy furnished and comfortless within. The artisans were skillful in fabricating splendid caparisons for the horses, and costly suits of glittering armor for the men, and the architects could construct grand cathedrals, and ornament them with sculptures and columns which ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... tragic death; in fact to ring down the curtain upon the most horrible tragedy of the nineteenth century, laid bare in all of its most horrowing details. Like the well-laid plot in the tragedy which has its birth in the imagination of the skillful dramatist, this tragedy in real life, possessed the one element which never fails to fascinate the ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown
... moment of her revenge arrived, when she gave a supper, and invited to her board eighteen young and handsome Venetian nobles. Upon the preparation of this repast she bestowed all the resources of her skillful and exquisite knowledge; and the result was, the Venetians were so felicitously poisoned that they had just time to listen to a speech from the charming and ingenious lady of the house before expiring. In this address she reminded her guests of the occurrence in ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... a thorough examination. This he did, and reported that the girl's present condition was due largely to mismanagement of her case at the time she was injured. With care she would get better and stronger rapidly, but the hip joint was out of its socket and only a skillful operation would serve to permanently relieve ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... has been clearly expressed of late in the German press. It is based on the belief that the war was prepared by skillful British intrigues inspired by jealousy of Germany. German statesmen cannot conceive that nations should fight for any cause loftier than material "interests." Hence the constant mistakes of their diplomacy ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... 'Miles Gloriosus' and Terence's 'Eunuchus' that there is little that is really English about it; a much larger element of local realism of the traditional English sort, in a classical framework, was presented in the coarse but really skillful 'Gammer Gurton's Needle,' which was probably written at about the same time, apparently by the ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... dreamed how much that keen old fisherman already knew, from a skillful baiting of Martha, about the visit of the Elders that afternoon; while his knowledge of Dan's character from childhood, enabled the physician to guess more than a little of the thoughts that occupied the young man pacing ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... know from those in the secret, where Jane Johnson and her boys were taken after they left the wharf, or as to what disposition had been made of them, in any way; except to ask simply, "are they safe?" (and when told "yes," he smiled) consequently, he might have been examined for a week, by the most skillful lawyer, at the Philadelphia bar, but he could not have answered other than he did in making his return to the writ, before Judge Kane, namely: "That the persons named in the writ, nor either of them, are now nor was at the time of issuing of the writ, or the original writ, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... one moment riding the crest of the waves, the next wallowing in the trough of the sea, moved away bravely though every moment it seemed in imminent danger of capsizing. It took skillful handling by Captain Glenn — the only man not at the oars — to keep the craft right ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... of that letter," he went on, waving the piece of sterile platinum wire with which he had been transferring drops of liquid in his search for germs, "was a much more skillful bacteriologist than I thought, evidently. No, the trouble does not seem to be from germs breathed in, or from germs at all—it is from some kind of germ-free toxin that has been ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... inhabit the structure of this degree, and the number of human forms in excess of those shown in connection with the second degree indicates a correspondingly higher and more sacred character. When an Indian has passed this, initiation he becomes very skillful in his profession of a Mid[-e]/. The powers which he possessed in the second degree may become augmented. He is represented in No. 77 with arms extended, and with lines crossing his body and arms denoting darkness and obscurity, which signifies his ability to grasp ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... continues, "the Supreme Being is powerful or skillful, just so far as the telescope shows power, or the microscope shows skill, if his moral law is to be ascertained simply by the physical processes of the animal frame, or his will gathered from the immediate issues of human affairs, if his Essence is just as high and deep and broad as the universe ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... great rivalry existed between these two matrons which even extended to hats, feathers, gowns and all the furbelows so dear to the feminine heart. In fact, the far-famed houses of Montague and Capulet could not have maintained more skillful tactics; and all the while the Gothamites looked on and smiled. A few years later Eugene Shiff, who had spent the greater portion of his life in France, built a large house on Fifth Avenue which he surmounted with a mansard ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... punishment. They were profuse in expressions of loyally to church and state, in passages sometimes sounding ludicrously hollow, sometimes conveying the most biting mockery and satire, and again in words hardly to be distinguished from the heartfelt language of devotion. They became skillful at hinting, and masters of the art of innuendo. They attacked Christianity under the name of Mahometanism, and if they had occasion to blame French ministers of state, would seem to be satirizing the viziers of Turkey. Politics and theology are subjects of unceasing and vivid ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... the most skillful politicians, and generals of armies, dexterously made use of the prepossession of the people in favor of oracles, to persuade them what they had concerted was approved of by the gods, and announced by the oracle. These things and these oracles were often followed by ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... way back, I was questioned and cross-questioned till I felt like a witness under skillful examination in a court of law. Lucilla appeared to be satisfied, so far, with the results. "Ah!" she exclaimed, letting out the secret which her old nurse had confided to me. "You can use your eyes. ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... wholly lacking. The differences in question could not have been appreciated at that remote period, and interest the common observer but little even today. The history of most of the cultivated plants is very obscure, [66] and even the most skillful historians, by sifting the evidence afforded by the older writers, and that obtained by comparative linguistic investigations have been able to do little more than frame the most general outline of the cultural history of the most common and most ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... hard to hold," said Early. "That escape of his from Detroit was a daring and skillful thing. I could hardly believe it when we heard of it at the Ohio. You're ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... me say with all due honor to him, the careful and skillful engraver of these plates, who has been much more tormented ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... time when a premium was paid to the most skillful spinner. Your grandmother, Betty, was among those who spun on the Common. The women used to go out there with their wheels. And there were spinning schools. The better class had to pay, but a certain number ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... great solemn rays of sunlight coming in slanting glory through the windows—the huge height—the impression it gave of greatness, and of a religious devotion to which we shall never again attain; of pure, noble hearts, and patient, skillful hands, toiling, but in a spirit that made the toil a holy prayer—carrying out the builder's thought—great thought greatly executed—all was too much for me, the more so in that while I felt it all I could not analyze it. It was a dim, indefinite wonder. I tried stealthily ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... to be one of the most eventful of Elizabeth's school year. She did not plan to go home for Thanksgiving. The Saturday previous she received a box from her mother. It was filled with all the good things a mother's heart could devise and a cook's skillful hands make ready. Miss Wilson carried the news of the arrival of the box ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... in arms were assembling from different directions, and the Tories soon saw that unless they passed Colonel Moore they would be surrounded and captured. McDonald was an old and skillful officer, and he moved across the Cape Fear River to meet Colonel Caswell, who was coming up from New Bern with a command of eight hundred men which had ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... ship-mates frequently say that I am severe towards them when at sea, perhaps I am; but it grieves me when I see those noble men, so skillful in the management of our vessel, lavish their money when on shore in foolish pleasures. They have as great reason to be economical as I have myself, and I cannot resist from occasionally censuring them, and therefore I may not appear so kind to them as I am to you when at home, or while I am writing ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... who ever fooled the trusting hearts of needy men; unless He is the one being of all others who had the subtle and effective genius of making promises that fill the ear and are broken to the heart; unless He was the most skillful of all deceivers and rejoiced with malignant delight in deceiving the souls of men and thus proved Himself to be not the Son of God at all but the very son of falsehood, then seeing He is the reverse of all that, is in truth the very Son of God and truth itself, by His own unqualified ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... have occasioned one of the most amusing of literary mystifications. For a long time they were supposed to be real translations; and even to-day, despite the poet's own words, the "Sage of Tiflis" is considered by some a very great poet. A Tartar by birth, who had absorbed Persian culture, he was a skillful versifier, and could with facility translate simple songs from the Persian into the Tartar language. Bodenstedt put into Mirza-Schaffy's mouth the songs which were written during his intercourse with the Eastern ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... something for it. Perhaps the best possible prescription would be a long rest,—of a couple of centuries or so. How in God's name the American people ever became afflicted with the idea that he is a great man, is a riddle which might make Oedipus cudgel his wits in vain. He is not even a skillful pretender, shining like the moon, by borrowed light,—for he does not shine at all. His sentences are neither picturesque, dramatic nor wise. His so-called "sermons" are but fragmentary and usually ignorant allusions to things in general. He seldom or never encroaches ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... from Arthur, saying he was ready to resume their lessons at any time. Highly delighted with the plan Edith answered immediately that she would come on the morrow, which was Friday. Richard did not offer to go, owing in a great measure to the skillful management of Victor, who, though he did not suggest Mr. Floyd and the western wood lot, found some equally good excuse why his master's presence would, that day of all others, be necessary ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... saw the frigate leaving the roads, he could not refrain from rubbing his hands, saying to himself, "Faith it is not that I am vain and boastful, but I would only have given this mission in a hundred to the most skillful of men—to unravel the projects of the English envoy, to conquer the scruples of the duke, to aid him to revenge himself on a guilty wife, to tear him by force of eloquence from the overwhelming feelings this conjugal ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... so much, that he was seized with a pleurisy, which the genipi could not relieve, though said to be specific in that disorder; and, notwithstanding all the art of Grossi (who certainly was very skillful), and all the care of his good mistress and myself, he died the fifth day of his disorder, in the most cruel agonies. During his illness he had no exhortations but mine, bestowed with such transports of grief and zeal, that had he been in a state to understand them, they must have been some ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... admitted Philip. "Do you know," he added guilelessly, "this is a spot for singularly vivid dreams. Last night, for instance, exceedingly gentle and skillful hands slit my shirt sleeve with a pair of scissors and bathed my shoulder with something that stung abominably, and somehow I fancied I was laid up in a hospital and didn't have to fuss in the least, for my earthly affairs were in the hands of ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... pole, dropped it into the water and began to hustle for business. The babel of voices bidding for passengers was like the tumult of Niagara hack-drivers, but we were so fortunate as to be met by Dr. W. F. Faries and the Rev. W. O. Elterich of the Presbyterian Mission and under their skillful guidance, we were soon ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... is all that," Captain Forster said gently; "still he is a character, Miss Hannay, taking the term character to mean a person who differs widely from other people. I believe he is very skillful in his profession, but I take it he is a sort of Abernethy, and tells the most startling truths ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... the clever way in which the other had set those bones and put a splint on the leg, with such clumsy means for working at hand. He declared he meant to interest himself deeply in the case and see if such a skillful surgeon might not be restored to the world so much in need of his kind, with the terrible war raging on the other ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... that you are correct," the attorney said musingly; "and they may have been two distinct individuals, Carroll evidently being the guilty party; but even in that event, in my opinion, he was only carrying out with a skillful hand the plans already arranged by ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... skillful with the knife, he might have dissected out this better Jeb who insisted on going forward, and let the other crawl into a shell hole to hide for the rest of time; then both Jebs would have been supremely satisfied. ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... they tell us about Waterloo: How, "foremost fighting," fell the evening's dancers. I don't believe it: I regard it true That soldiers who are skillful in "the Lancers" Less often die of cannon than of cancers. Moreover, I am half-persuaded, too, That David when he danced before the Ark Had the reporter's ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... tuning a fiddle and base viol, preparatory to a dance by "all the characters."—Away the musicians glide into the harmonious measures of a gay quadrille—and to say the truth, the music is excellent, for Picayune and Joe are very skillful performers on their respective instruments; and are well qualified to play for a much more select and fashionable auditory. And now the voluptuous Kitty Cling-cling is led to the centre of the festive hall by a sable mariner, and begins to foot it merrily to the dulcet strains; while Bald-head ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... unsullied gown; in the days when the path is doubtful, and the wanderer knowing naught of life comes with bewildered soul to the many-branching roads—then I made myself your adopted child. You took at once into the bosom of another Socrates my tender years; your rule, applied with skillful disguise, straightens each perverse habit; nature is molded by reason, and struggles to be subdued, and assumes under your hands its plastic lineaments. Ay, well I mind how I would wear away long summer suns with you, and pluck with you the bloom of night's first hours. One work we had, ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... sinking ship, lashed his yard arms to those of the enemy and fought hand to hand, man to man, until the British colors struck, and then, under the very cliffs of Old England, were run up for the first time the Stars and Stripes—with a field of blue into which the skillful fingers of Betsy Ross, of Philadelphia, had woven inextinguishable stars; the red stripes typifying the glory, the valor, and the self-sacrifice of the men who died that liberty might live; and the white, emblematic of purity, fitly representing those principles ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... hoof got well, he was transferred from the hospital department to the quartermaster's, where he became a favorite. The quartermaster called my attention to the horse, and I had him appraised and took him for my own use. Under the skillful and attentive hands of my hostler he soon shook off his shaggy coat of ugly brown, and put on one of velvety black. After a few days of trial I discovered not only that he was an easy goer, but had the speed of the wind. When at his fastest pace he ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... Colonel Oudet's, who, as is well-known, is the head of the secret society, which existed in the French army, and to whose laws all members, or, if you choose, all fellow-conspirators, were compelled to submit. Oudet had recommended Kraus to the Prince of Ponte Corvo as a faithful and reliable man, a skillful negotiator, who was qualified to maintain and to promote the agreements and alliances between the French conspirators and the German patriots, and who could be employed without fear or reserve. Well, this Commissioner Kraus, as you probably know, had come to Ebersdorf to negotiate in behalf of ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... parson was skillful in adapting Scripture to special exigencies, and throughout the Revolution he astonished his hearers by the peculiar fitness of his texts to political uses. It is related of him that when his eldest daughter married ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner |
