"To perfection" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... never betrayed into criticism of men from the point of view of immutable first principles. Perhaps this was what the elder Mirabeau meant when he wrote to Vauvenargues, who was his cousin: 'You have the English genius to perfection,' and what Vauvenargues meant when he wrote of himself to Mirabeau: 'Nobody in the world has a mind less French than I.'[29] These international comparisons are among the least fruitful of literary amusements, even when they happen not to be extremely misleading; ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... Princetown, was instrumental in drying it and spreading it on the asphalt lawn-tennis courts of the prison warders' cricket ground, where this preliminary process was carried out. Michael also kept records and accounts and indeed organized the whole depot to perfection. ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... Billie. He did not blame them. It was a delightful name and suited her to perfection. He practised it a few times. "Billie ... Billie ... Billie...." It certainly ran pleasantly off the tongue. "Billie Bennett." Very musical. "Billie Marlowe." Still better. "We noticed among those present the charming ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... maintain the part of workman to perfection, even if questioned at length, but Dale was under the necessity of answering only in monosyllables, as his knowledge of the language was at present not very great. With Max at his elbow, however, this was not a serious drawback, and neither anticipated ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... man of his disposition; he soon found what he wanted, sat a long time at table to refresh himself after the fatigue, of love, and went to bed completely satisfied that he had performed his part to perfection. ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... Messala, who began to appear at the bar when Cicero was already possest of the empire of eloquence, acquired little dignity in their life-time, and left but a small degree of glory for the remembrance of posterity? True it is that arts brought to perfection would deserve very ill of human affairs if afterward they could not at least be kept to the ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... but of simplicity. We acknowledge all who love such knowledge as our brethren in CHRIST, with whom we hope to rejoice eternally in the heavenly school. For our best knowledge here is but in part, but when we shall attain to perfection, then we shall see what GOD is, and what He can ...
— Jacob Behmen - an appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... I had a sensation of cold blue steel from her eyes!—And yet I really liked and like and shall like her. She is very kind I believe—and it was my mistake—and I correct my impressions of her more and more to perfection, as you tell me who know more of ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... have played the sister for some weeks to perfection. You must have become accustomed to hearing yourself called 'Miss Starland;' it certainly has a familiar ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... and laborious in composition, and spends much time in rewriting and polishing. The garden song in "Maud" was rewritten fifty times, and almost as great labor has been given to other famous bits of writing. He was seventeen years in writing "In Memoriam," and he brought it almost to perfection of finish; but he has spent laborious years upon poems which are comparative failures. After the inspiration has waned, or if the inspiration is wanting in the first place, the pains taken in revision go for little in the making ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... marriage, will rejoice in the clearer, purer ray which dawns upon her now. The most natural and deep part of the book, though not her main object, is what relates to the struggle between the claims of art and life, as to whether it be better for the world and one's self to develop to perfection a talent which Heaven seemed to have assigned as a special gift and vocation, or sacrifice it whenever the character seems to require this for its general development. The character of Consuelo is, throughout ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... beautiful the summer-time, has its purpose in the world of speech, it gives one bookman whom I know the keenest pleasure to ask his fair companion whether she has read Mark Rutherford. He is proudly conscious at the time that he is a witness to perfection in a gay world which is content with excitement, and he would be more than human if he had not in him a touch of the literary Pharisee. She has not read Mark Rutherford, and he does not advise her to seek it at the circulating library, because it will ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... extending them even to inorganic or mineral things. The fundamental principle of alchemy was the natural process of development of metalline bodies. "When common people," says Al-Khazini, writing in the twelfth century, "hear from natural philosophers that gold is a body which has attained to perfection of maturity, to the goal of completeness, they firmly believe that it is something which has gradually come to that perfection by passing through the forms of all other metallic bodies, so that its gold nature was originally lead, afterward it became tin, then brass, then silver, and finally ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... Williams thought silently for a few moments, then tried to regain his cheerfulness by changing the subject to something that might interest his son; so he said, "Well, wife, I suppose that turkey Deacon Phillips gave us will be done to perfection by dinner time; I am beginning to feel hungry already, just from thinking of it and it is two hours ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter
... is the matter?" demanded Betty, emptying her history notebooks out of the easy-chair and tucking Roberta in with a green and yellow afghan, which completed the variegated color scheme to perfection. ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... blue eyes a straight nose, a small mouth, and a dimpled chin, and you have the portrait of a cherub. At twelve years of age this young marvel danced enchantingly, rode like a riding-master, and fenced to perfection. No one could have helped being won by his smile and the truly royal manner in which he saluted the crowd in passing when he was in good humor. For this reason, the voice of the people, which is never mistaken, had christened him Prince Charming, and ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... him an implacable enemy. She so far encouraged him as to make him believe that the barrier between them was the most fragile and easily broken affair, and that at any moment it would be shattered by his great love. Relying on this hope, he came and went at her bidding, filling to perfection the duties ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... when an art of music suddenly blossoms out, complete and satisfactory according to the principles recognized by the musicians of the time. In the natural course of things such an art, having once found its heart, ought to go on to perfection; but this has not generally been the case. After a period of vigorous growth and the production of master works suitable to the time, a decline has ensued, and at length musical productivity has entirely ceased. Occasionally a cessation in art progress ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its root, leaves, and capsule without admiration. Can that Being, thought I, who planted, watered, and brought to perfection, in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of so small importance, look with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of creatures formed after his own image? I started up, and, disregarding both danger and fatigue, travelled forward, assured that relief ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... entitled Men and Women. In "fundamental brain power," insight, beauty, and mastery of style, these poems show Browning at the highest level of his poetic achievement. It is in these remarkable poems that he brought to perfection a poetic form which he practically invented, the dramatic monologue, a form in which there is but one speaker but which is essentially dramatic in effect. The dramatic quality arises partly from the implied presence of listeners whose expressions of assent or dissent ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... amber does not; this is the only criterion by which they ascertain the true from the false amber. They also compose artificial stones with equal sagacity; the topaz, the emerald, and the ruby they imitate to perfection. The wool with which they make shawls almost equal in appearance to those of Kashmere, is procured from the sheep of the province of Tedla, and is finer than the Spanish Merino. They might manufacture shawls of goats' hair, equal ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... "If I am to speak of the results of my studies, what, I pray, can I find in the sky, even remotely alluding to it? The learned confess that several not despicable branches of philosophy have been newly extricated or amended or brought to perfection by me: but here my constellations were, not Mercury from the East in the angle of the seventh, and in quadratures with Mars, but Copernicus, but Tycho Brahe, without whose books of observations everything now set by me in the clearest light ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... as for his Contemporaries, they were far inferiour to him, nor did I ever see any of their Works. Those who are now alive, are, either such as are still advancing forwards, or else such as have left off, without attaining to perfection; if there are any other, I ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... said, "we are in a fix. So far your plan has worked to perfection. Paris has plenty of false information, and your real copies have all reached me safely. But if you leave, how is this to be carried on? I do not know whom I mistrust, but if the day's work of ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in Martinique, and I went to the Bermudas in an English steamer, where I was to take another for my destination; but I liked the islands so well that I remained there all the winter. My principal amusement was boating; and I learned the whole art to perfection. I used to go through the openings in the reefs, and sail out of sight of land. I had a boat like ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... now riches flowed in to Agrippa by his enjoyment of so large a dominion; nor did he abuse the money he had on small matters, but he began to encompass Jerusalem with such a wall, which, had it been brought to perfection, had made it impracticable for the Romans to take it by siege; but his death, which happened at Cesarea, before he had raised the walls to their due height, prevented him. He had then reigned three years, as he had governed his tetrarchies three other years. He left behind him three daughters, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... can get good red or white currants should try making the jelly without boiling. I got the recipe from a friend many years ago, and can recommend it as a way in which the fresh flavour of the fruit is preserved to perfection. Wring the currants in usual way, and to each pint of juice allow 14 ozs. loaf sugar, which must be pure cane. I believe crystalised will do, but I have never tried it. Granulated or beet sugar will not do. Put juice and sugar in a strong basin ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... provinces and dependencies, and the cap the like!" "By Allah, O my sons, discover to me their secret virtues." So they said, "O uncle, they are extraordinary; for our father wrought an hundred and thirty and five years at their contrivance, till he brought them to perfection and ingrafted them with secret attributes which might serve him extraordinary services and engraved them after the likeness of the revolving sphere, and by their aid he dissolved all spells; and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... madam, I cannot tell; for I sat with my back to the stage all the time, admiring a much better actress than any there—a lady who played the fine woman to perfection; though, by the laugh of the horrid creatures round me, I suppose it was comedy. Yet, on second thoughts, it might be some hero in a tragedy, dying so comically as to set the whole house in an uproar.—Colonel, I presume you have ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... reached you, in its double case: wood within, and tin without (quite unordered and unnecessary), which must make you think you receive a present of Sardines. You lose, you see, the Benefit of my exalted Taste in respect of Framing, which I had settled to perfection. Pray get a small Frame, concaving inwardly (Ogee pattern, I believe), which leads the Eyes into the Picture: whereas a Frame convexing outwardly leads the Eye away from the Picture; a very good thing in many cases, but not needed in this. I dare say the Picture (faded as it is) will look poor ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... of three months they left the island, taking Tupia, a native, with them. Among other accomplishments this Tupia roasted dogs to perfection, and Cook declares that dogs' flesh is "next only to ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... We finally decided that under the cover of darkness and in the confusion and many movements then on foot, we could possibly march straight up the river right between the villages, and those on one side would mistake us for others on the opposite bank. Our plan worked to perfection and we got through safely with only one shot being fired by some suspicious enemy sentry, but which did us no harm, and we continued silently on ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... be neat and systematic, but not too neat, lest she destroy the comfort she endeavors to create. She must be distinctly amiable, while firm. She should have no "career," or desire for a career, if she would fill to perfection the home sphere. She must be affectionate, sympathetic and patient, and fully appreciative of the worth ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... Resurrection? It is this work of purification, that the soul may be fitted for the vision of GOD in heaven. And this is what S. Paul is speaking of in the text. The work begun in life, under the conditions of earth's life, shall not stop at death, but, under new conditions, shall be carried on to perfection until the day of ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... offer so many inducements to encourage landscape gardening, it is the branch of art that, of all the other ornamental arts, is perhaps the least known in this country. It is true, time had not yet brought the labours of the projector to perfection, in this instance; but enough had been done to afford very extensive, varied, and pleasing walks. The grounds were broken, and John Effingham had turned the irregularities to good account, by planting and leading paths among them, to the great amusement of the lookers-on, however, who, like true ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... Marguerite amused herself likewise, in this solitude, in composing verses, and there are specimens still remaining of her poetry. These compositions she often set to music, and sang them herself, accompanying her voice with the lute, on which she played to perfection. Great part of her time was spent in the perusal of the Bible and books of piety, together with the works of the best authors she could procure. Brantome assures us that Marguerite spoke the Latin tongue with purity and elegance; and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... life, but working under the same law by which, in the words of the ancient collect, "things which are cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and all things are returning to perfection through Him from whom they ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... most fitting moment. As Providence had blessed her with only one child, a daughter was surely the most fitting companion for a widowed mother. The house Mrs. Meadowsweet lived in fitted her requirements to perfection. In short, she was fat and comfortable, both in mind and body; she never fretted, she never worried; she was not rasping and disagreeable; she was not fault-finding. If her nature lacked depth, it certainly did ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... not going into any details as to what I did and said to induce Pullanius and his associates to execute the desired contract. I acted the part of Salinator to perfection and my ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... corrupted by Sophists, or that private teachers of the art corrupt them in any degree worth speaking of? Are not the public who say these things the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after ...
— The Republic • Plato
... untruthfulness; and I hereby cart away, as so much rubbish, the impertinences, with which the pamphlet of Accusation swarms. I shall not think it necessary here to examine, whether I am "worked into a pitch of confusion," or have "carried self-deception to perfection," or am "anxious to show my credulity," or am "in a morbid state of mind," or "hunger for nonsense as my food," or "indulge in subtle paradoxes" and "rhetorical exaggerations," or have "eccentricities" or teach in a style "utterly beyond" my accuser's "comprehension," ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... been said, it is clear Cyrus was convinced that no one has a right to rule who is not superior to his subjects, and he held that by imposing such exercises as these on those about him, he would lead them to self-control and bring to perfection the art and discipline of war. [38] Accordingly he would put himself at the head of the hunting-parties and take them out himself unless he was bound to stay at home, and, if he was, he would hunt in his parks among the wild creatures he had reared. He would never touch the evening meal ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... had suited George to perfection, he being desirous of getting rid of the Honorable Freddie at the earliest opportunity, he had not been inquisitive, and they had parted on the outskirts of ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... and balustrade, defined with glowing fruit. It was looped in festoons and hung in tassels of red and white and gold: the arms of Wuertemberg even were traced in yellow corn, while above it all rose a graceful column, a mosaic from base to summit of every fruit that autumn can bring to perfection. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... pointed out that the Pickwick Papers could not have been produced in any but a Christian country. "Satire you may get to perfection in pagan countries. But only in those countries where the morality of Christ has penetrated deeply do you get the spirit that loves ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... middle-aged heavy gentleman, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, Prussian Commandant of Stettin. Not over rich (would not even be rich if he came to be reigning Duke, as he will do); attentive at his post in those parts, ever since the Siege-of-Stralsund time; has done his orders, fortified Stettin to perfection; solid, heavy taciturn man:—of whom there is nothing notable but this only, That last year his Wife brought him a little Daughter, Catharine the name of her. His Wife is a foolish restless dame, highborn ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... forgot. The heroine is a distinguished actress, you know, and Kentucky could play that sort of part to perfection. But I don't think a lady would like to cut up, much, in ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... learn to use thy brain or die. Now, there be many perils in this land o' the woods—so many that all its people must learn to think or perish by them. A pretty bit o' wisdom it is, sor. It keeps the great van moving—ever moving, in the long way to perfection. Now, among animals, a growing brain works the legs of its owner, sending them far on diverse errands until they are strong. Mind thee, boy, perfection o' brain and body is the aim o' Nature. The cat's paw an' the serpent's coil are but the penalties o' weakness an' ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... overheard stories told by the servant girls in apparent good faith, and that whitish, almost luminous thing in front of him, stirring restlessly with a faint hissing sound, looked and acted the part of a ghost to perfection. But the idea was rejected before it had taken clear shape and without any reasoning, instinctively, automatically. His father always became scornful at the mere mention of ghosts, ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... Eloquence may be "logic on fire" as Dr. Lyman Beecher defined it. Oratory may be, as Emerson said, "the noblest expression of purely personal energy." But it is so far personal, so allied to grace of gesture, to charm of manner, to melody of voice, to perfection of speech, to a commanding presence, that it carries to the future but a fraction of its power. The cold type and the insentiate page constitute at best only the record ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... give me a dance?" said Marechal. "I don't dance to perfection, never having practised much, ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... resurrection man,” who, though incapable of understanding the beauties of a beautiful work, can take a very great interest in poring over the various stages through which that work has passed on its way to perfection. These poets, however, are apt to forget that, after a poem or line has once passed into print, its final suppression is impossible. And perhaps there are other reasons why, in this matter, an editor should be ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... imagine, when told that it constitutes their principal food. The leaves boiled make an excellent vegetable for the table; and, when eaten by goats, their milk is much increased. The wood is a good fuel, and yields a large quantity of potash. If planted in a dry soil, it takes two years to come to perfection, requiring, during that time, one weeding only. It bears drought well, and never shrivels up, like other plants, when deprived of rain. When planted in low alluvial soils, and either well supplied with rain or annually flooded, twelve, or even ten months, are sufficient to bring it to maturity. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... of thought or the ideas. In the "Republic," where the proper education of the philosopher is in question, it is proposed that he shall study arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and dialectic. Thus in each case mathematics is the first advance in knowledge, and dialectic the nearest to perfection. Most of Plato's examples are drawn from mathematics. This science replaces the variety and vagueness of the forms of experience with clear, unitary, definite, and eternal natures, such as the number and the geometrical figure. Thus certain individual ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... he had the audacity to wish to touch your majesty's sacred person—he, a good-for-nothing boy, a mere shoemaker's apprentice, perhaps! And even if he could make shoes to perfection they would be no use without the ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... own heavy yellowish straw, and substituted the soft and pliant article indicated. It fitted him to perfection, ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... inch-and-a-quarter bit; and the last long drill had a seven-eighths bit, which would just cut a one-inch hole. They were the best that money could buy and a famous tool-sharpener in Miami had tempered their edges to perfection. Denver picked up his starter, all the officials left the platform, and Owen raised ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... immensely thick, shaggy eyebrows, black as jet, crinkly, bushy hair of the same hue, and long beard, that grew far up on his cheeks, he was a very formidable, fierce-looking fellow; and when he spoke, his loud, deep voice made everything ring again. He affected great dignity, and filled his role to perfection. ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... master whose work is exalted in his {101} own opinion, and he is on the road to perfection in art whose work falls ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... not endowed with experience in a thousand confused phases of life. The hands of a true genius, who has passed through life earnestly devoted to a single art, however, are on the whole like these of the gypsies. Such, for example, are the hands of Fanny Janauschek, the lines of which agree to perfection with the laws of chiromancy. The art reminds one of Cervantes's ape, who told the past and present, but not the future. And here "tell me what thou hast been, and I will tell what thou wilt be" gives a ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... Even to Ashby he would have yielded, for prejudices die out quickly in a Castle of Spain. And so, as we have seen, the good Russell interrupted the happy lovers in a paternal way, and did the "heavy father" to perfection—with outstretched hands, moistened eyes, and "Bless ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... nearly to perfection as it could be brought, and Tom, after finding out that his craft would answer equally well as a dirigible balloon or an aeroplane, let it sail along as ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... of old people are not anecdotic; they are rather hearers than talkers, listening to the young with an amused and critical attention. To have this sort of intercourse to perfection, I think we must go to old ladies. Women are better hearers than men, to begin with; they learn, I fear in anguish, to bear with the tedious and infantile vanity of the other sex; and we will take more from a woman ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... slender hand the ball at the end of the carved arm of the chair in which she was sitting, looking absently at the rings which adorned her fingers. She possessed to perfection the art of being serious, and the air with which she now spoke was admirably calculated to imply a deep interest in the subject under discussion. "I do not understand," she observed, thoughtfully, "why a man and woman need quarrel because they happen to be married ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... selected with an eye to safety, which it serves to perfection. A marauding party pursued from the lower settlements of the Colorado, by turning up the valley of the San Saba, and then taking across the intermediate plain, would be sure to throw the pursuers off their tracks, since on the table-land ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... of which in the Government would enable us finally, as near as it is possible for humanity, to perfect our form of government. Probably we can never have a perfect form of government, but the nearer we approximate to the divine the nearer will we attain to perfection; and the divine government recognizes neither caste, class, sex, nor nationality. The nearer we approach to that divine ideal the nearer we will come to realizing our hopes of finally securing at least the most perfect form of human ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... probably, trying his hand again, and inviting us to him by making his Constitution such as may give his disciples in England some plausible pretext for going into the house that he has opened. We have discovered, it seems, that all which the boasted wisdom of our ancestors has labored to bring to perfection for six or seven centuries is nearly, or altogether, matched in six or seven days, at the leisure hours and sober ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... magnifying these their miniatures millions of millions of times, so, by immensely magnifying the age, the power, the wisdom, the holiness of an angel, we could form some dim conception of God. Not that we would not have still to ask, "Who can by searching find out God? who can find out the Almighty to perfection?"—not that when we had exclaimed, in the sublime words of Job, "Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth on nothing. He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds. He ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... attention of thoughtful minds, and gives to it an air of mystery that cannot be explained to those outside the Fiddle world. Few objects possess so charming a display of curved lines as the members of the Violin family. Here we have Hogarth's famous line of beauty worked to perfection in the upper bouts,[1] in the lower bouts, in the outer line of the scroll, in the sound-hole. Everywhere the perfection of the graceful curve is to be seen. It has been asserted by Hogarth's enemies ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... their gardens; for they say the whole scheme of the town was designed at first by Utopus, but he left all that belonged to the ornament and improvement of it to be added by those that should come after him, that being too much for one man to bring to perfection. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... to perfection, say they should always be boiled in their jackets; as peeling them for boiling is only offering a premium for water to run through the potato, and rendering it sad and unpalatable; they should be well washed, and put ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... Guy as she had thought the previous night, though undoubtedly there was a strong resemblance. On a closer inspection she did not think him handsome, but the keen alertness of him attracted her. He looked as if physical endurance were a quality he had brought very near to perfection. He had the stamp of the gladiator upon him. ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... he saw a face at the window: one of those vile mugs which are found to perfection amongst the canaille of the French nation—bloated, blear-eyed, grizzly, and wild-beast like. The ugly thing, on being confronted, passed slowly out of the sun, and Dodd thought no more ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... be an old bear," coaxed Betty, and Betty knew how to coax to perfection. "Mollie has some perfectly wonderful news to tell us and all our girls and boys are going to be there to hear it. You wouldn't want me to be terribly disappointed—now you know you wouldn't," and she ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... finest soil, in the best climate, and blessed with all that sun and air and rain can do for it, is not in so sure a way of its growth to perfection, as every man may be, whose spirit aspires after all that which God is ready and infinitely desirous to give him. For the sun meets not the springing bud that stretches towards him with half that certainty, as God, the source of all good, communicates ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... of the stars are the observed residues of their apparent movements outstanding and unaccounted for by strict calculation of the effects of precession, nutation, and aberration. The nearest approach which human theories can make to perfection is to diminish this residue, this caput mortuum of observation, as it may be considered, as much as practicable, and, if possible, to reduce it to nothing, either by showing that something has been neglected ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... forerunners: even as the Christian is bound to seek union with Christ in the same spirit or way in which Jesus had achieved union with his Father—that is, by laying down life to take it again, in meekness and lowliness of heart. Docility is the sovran help to perfection for Duerer and Reynolds, and more or less explicitly for all other great artists who have ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... slymie pease, consists merely of the young flower-buds, not yet open. The seed vessels of the tea tree are three-capsular, each capsule containing one nut or seed; and though often two or one of these only come to perfection, yet the vestiges of the rest may easily be discerned. It grows naturally in a dry gravelly soil on the sides of hills, without any cultivation, in several places of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... footing on the London boards, one cannot but be astonished at the rise of this lady at one leap from the threshold to the top of her profession. It is worthy of observation that the real children of nature generally burst at once upon the view in excellence approaching to perfection; while the mere artists of the stage lag behind, labouring for years, before they attain the summit of their ambition; when their consummate art and their skill in concealing that art (ars celare artem) if they have it, entitles them at last to the highest praise. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... for a time, and in a time of trial fall away; [8:14] and that which fell among thorns signifies those who hear, and going away are choked by cares and riches and the pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. [8:15]But that on the good ground signifies those who, with a noble and good heart, hearing the word retain it, ...
— The New Testament • Various
... both in construction and performance had characterised the post-war years, though as design advances and comes nearer to perfection, it is obvious that records must get fewer and farther between. The record aeroplane as regards size at the time of its construction was the Tarrant triplane, which made its first—and last—flight on May 28th, 1919. The total loaded weight was 30 tons, and the machine was fitted ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... young, she was a wonderfully well-preserved woman, and her arms and neck were white, gleaming and beautifully shaped. From the top of her head to the sole of her rather large but well-shod foot, she was dressed to perfection, and waved a languid fan as she welcomed Paul, who was presented to her by the host. "I am glad to see you, Mr. Beecot," she said in her deep voice; "we had rather an unhappy interview when last we met. How ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... Others conveyed it in smaller quantities to those whose fruits were already formed: some carried still less to those whose fruits were swelling, and others carried only so much as was just requisite to water those which had their fruits come to perfection, and only wanted to be ripened. They far exceeded in size the ordinary fruits of our gardens. Lastly, those channels that watered the trees whose fruit was ripe had no more moisture than just what would preserve ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... to perfection, Perrine filled a bowl and placed it at her mother's bedside, also two glasses, two plates and two forks. Sitting down on the floor, with her legs tucked under her and her skirts spread out, she said, like a ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... none should doubt, and all be firmly attached to the law. But the Buddha laid stress on the final perseverance of the saints, saying that even the least among the disciples who had entered the first path only, still had his heart fixed on the way to perfection, and constantly strove after the three higher paths. "No doubt," he said, "can be found in the mind of a true disciple." After another pause he said: "Behold now, brethren, this is my exhortation to you. Decay is inherent ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... the most unconcerned manner possible Philip walked straight up to the cottage door and knocked. The boy was playing his part to perfection, all of them saw, and Jim in particular seemed ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... child in years—scarcely sixteen summers had developed their power in her slight but beautiful form, and yet it was rounded so nearly to perfection, so slightly and gracefully full, as to captivate the most fastidious eye. Like every child of these Turkish harems, she was beautiful, with feature of faultless regularity, and eyes that were almost ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... have but selected some particular plants, each according to his fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If some things are too luxuriant it is owing to the richness of the soil; and if others are not arrived to perfection or maturity, it is only because they are overrun and oppressed by those of a ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... with thy jesting, good sir; thou art a traveller from afar, and lookest the part to perfection. I am at mine ease at home going to pay a call to a pretty neighbour. Let us be jogging; 'tis a long walk to Newnham, and the ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... which I have briefly given the outline, was the principal event of Alfred de Musset's life, the one which marked and colored it most deeply, which brought his genius to perfection by a cruel and fiery torture, and left a lasting imprint upon his writings. Although he never produced anything finer than certain passages of "Rolla," which was published in 1833, yet previous to that—or more accurately to 1835, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... calculation, or rather this estimation, could by no means be anything but approximate. But a learned man, a philosopher, is nothing if not a philosopher, when he keeps his ideas calm and collected; and certainly the Professor possessed this quality to perfection. ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... the pleasure in life, sir,' promptly replied Andy, as he imitated the bow of the worthy habitan to perfection. 'I'm always ready for any fun-goin'. Ask the old gentleman when and where it's to be,' he continued, jogging ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... men, are left neglected and undeveloped, the laws of Nature will assert themselves in this as in other matters, and the faculty of design itself will gradually fade from the race of man. Sirs, shall we approach nearer to perfection by casting away so large a part of that intelligence which ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... Chummie managed the thing to perfection. My sister Casey wrote me one of the best testimonials I have ever had, and by Christmas I was safely installed for a week. Chummie's uncle treated me with the utmost consideration, and it is to him that I owe many of the thrilling details that I am now able ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... continually the golden opportunity he had let slip, and weary his very soul. She was the sort of soft, pretty woman who could nag a man to the verge of distraction. She knew that inestimable art to perfection. She felt, as she lay on the sofa and toyed with the ribbons of her pretty and expensive teagown, that she had her weapons ready to hand. Then, with an irritated flash, she thought of the child. ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... the process of writing and bringing it to perfection, the human intellect worked on the same lines among the Turanians of Chaldaea as it did everywhere else. The point of departure and the early stages have been the same for all peoples, although some have stopped half-way and others when three-fourths of the journey were ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... that, letting go the other end of the rope, it had taken a half hitch, and thus jammed upon the cross-pole. However the operation was brought about, he was exceeding well hung, and the drop represented to perfection. As Pigtop had prophesied, the post-chaise in the shrubbery was turned into a hearse, in order to convey his body to the inn for ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... is it? So he keeps it up in memory of the past. It's a pity there's no one for him to fascinate here though. I kept staring at his exquisite collars. They're like marble, and his chin's shaved simply to perfection. Come, Arkady Nikolaitch, isn't ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... well, but we could not bring our part to perfection. For there were but eleven in our ship who were in the conspiracy, nor could we get any more that we could trust. So that when Wilmot began his work, and secured the ship, and gave the signal to us, we all took a boat and went off to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... without some reference to Mr. George Ker, now abroad. From 1880 to 1883 he was Scotland's best centre forward, and the originator of what is now known in football parlance as the "cannon shot" at goal. Many players have since tried it, and made fairly good attempts, but Ker alone could do it to perfection. In this International he gave the Englishmen a taste of his ability in this line. He passed Mr. Greenwood, the English extreme back, and when fairly in front watched how the goalkeeper (Mr. Swepstone) would take in the situation. Ker spun the ball hard from ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... being lagged, for a rogue and a conjuror, by a flying jump after his palace. Now, mark the folly of man. Most of the people I am going to mention subscribed, generally, to the supreme excellence of Milton; but each wished for a little change to be made— which, and which only was wanted to perfection. Dr. Johnson, though he pretended to be satisfied with the 'Paradise Lost,' even in what he regarded as the undress of blank verse, still secretly wished it in rhyme. That's No. 1. Addison, though quite content with it in English, still ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... exertion, talent with goodness; where genius is found unmarred by extravagance, self-reliance unalloyed by self-complacency. It is a character which is, I believe, rarely found except where there has been toil to undergo and adversity to struggle against: it will only grow to perfection in a poor soil and in the shade; if the soil be too indigent, the shade too dank and thick, of course it dies where it sprung. But I trust this will not be the case with Miss Kavanagh. I trust she will struggle ere long ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... hate yourself. There are hundreds of honest Christian men and women in this house at this moment to whom God has not done as, in His free grace, He has done to you. For He has not only begun a good work in you, but He has begun that special and peculiar work which, when it goes on to perfection, makes a great and an eminent saint of God. To know your own heart as you evidently know it, and to hate it as you say you hate it, and to hunger after a clean heart as, with every breath, you hunger,—all that, if you would only believe it, sets you, or will yet set you, high up among the people ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... this magnet," continued Node, "working to perfection. Well, I took four men with me, and we went around the Point to where a fortune teller told 'Had' there was money buried. We worked along the hill up to where the fortune teller had said the money was. The magnet swung right, then ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... looking for it here—over there in the front parlour. The position of husband of a weak-minded woman with a large fortune would suit him to perfection!" ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... and partner in the enterprise, and who would naturally possess a stronger influence with the rest, than he could himself obtain. It was a long time before he succeeded in doing this; but when he did, it was to perfection. An island about fifty miles from Cacouna, called Moose Island, was then, and still is, occupied by a settlement of Ojibways. A Jesuit mission, established on the Canadian bank of the river, had been devoted ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... could be more beautiful than Hetty's; and now, while she walks with her pigeon-like stateliness along the room and looks down on her shoulders bordered by the old black lace, the dark fringe shows to perfection on her pink cheek. They are but dim ill-defined pictures that her narrow bit of an imagination can make of the future; but of every picture she is the central figure in fine clothes; Captain Donnithorne is very close to her, putting his arm round her, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... counterattack. It at first met with great success. As Sir Ian Hamilton wrote in his dispatch to London: "Had it not been for those inventions of the devil—machine guns and barbed wire—which suit the Turkish character and tactics to perfection, we should not have stopped short of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... have worshipped her. I knew the viands, the vegetables, and the wines would all be good of their kind, for in these we seldom failed; nor did I distrust the cookery, the English-descended families of the Middle States, of my class, understanding that to perfection; but I feared we should fail in those little incidents of style and arrangement, and in the order of the service, that denote a well-regulated table. This is just what Grace had seen to; and I found that a great revolution had been quietly effected in this ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... gradually brought to perfection the tools and weapons which were at first so clumsy. The growth of industry led to the birth of commerce, or, to speak more accurately, to that of barter. From the time of the earliest migrations intercourse was begun, or rather was carried on, between ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... darkness. Another lamp, fixed against a plate of burnished brass, cast a reflection that was almost brilliant upon the glory of this chamber—a high, central cabinet of the same dark, carved framework, with a back of those wonderful mirror plates so recently brought to perfection by another stabilimento of which the good Girolamo was almost jealous, although against this luminous background the exquisite fabrications of the house of Magagnati reflected their wonderful shapes and ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Craig. The very important Army Bill Act was greatly due to his diplomatic handling of the French Canadians, who found him so congenial that they stood by him to the end. His native tongue was French. He understood French ways and manners to perfection; and he consequently had far more than the usual sympathy with a people whose nature and circumstances made them particularly sensitive to real or fancied slights. All this is more to his credit than his enemies were willing to admit, either then ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... off to perfection, I think. And yet, my liking for some people is real, too. I would do much for those I like—if it cost not too many pains, and required no sacrifice of pleasure. For you, indeed, I would do a great deal, upon ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the House and what with the Office, he could not get down to Richmond before Saturday; but that on Saturday he would come. Then he signed himself "yours affectionately, Fawn." Lizzie did her crowing very prettily. The outward show of it was there to perfection,—so that the Fawn girls really believed that their brother had written an affectionate lover's letter. Inwardly, Lizzie swore to herself, as she read the cold words with indignation, that the man should ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... though the Deity is not omnipotent yet, He is on His way to become so. He means well, and if we give Him time, He will make a real success of His creation. Human beings, too, commonly make a very poor thing of their lives here. But continue their training after they are dead and they will all come to perfection. We have been living on this secularised idealism for a hundred and fifty years. It has driven out the true idealism, of which it is a caricature, and has made the deeper and higher kind of religious faith abnormally difficult. Even the hope of immortality ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... checks and balances of the British Constitution as though change were the only evil that threatened mankind. For Burke, change itself was but an incident in the triumph of continuity and conservation. For Godwin the whole life of mankind is a race through innovation to perfection, and his main concern is to exhort the athlete to fling aside the garments of prejudice, tradition, and constraint, until one asks at the end how much of flesh and blood has been torn away with the garments. If one ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... of Kamtschatska are equal, if not superior, to many in European Russia, in respect of natural advantages, though certainly far less indebted to the hand of man. He tells us, however, that in the interior, several species of corn are brought to perfection and many kinds of vegetables are cultivated. In his opinion the climate is not so bad as it has generally been represented, and he is convinced that the indolence of the inhabitants, and the incapacity occasioned by the immoderate use of spirits, are far more in fault as to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... necessity of sacrificing some degree of precision, in order to procure a weapon fulfilling other indispensable requisites for the soldier's use. In the English and our own service, the Enfield and Springfield rifled muskets have been fixed upon as presenting the nearest attainable approach to perfection in all the desirable elements of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... old-fashioned nankeen. It was apparently one of the days when the state of his health was at the worst. He leaned on Mrs. Lecount's arm, and was protected from the sun by a light umbrella which she held over him. The housekeeper—dressed to perfection, as usual, in a quiet, lavender-colored summer gown, a black mantilla, an unassuming straw bonnet, and a crisp blue veil—escorted her invalid master with the tenderest attention; sometimes directing his notice respectfully ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... other teachers by their positiveness. Others say, "Thou shalt not;" Jesus Christ says, "Thou shalt." They forbid and prohibit; He commands. They prescribe abstinence from evil; He, a constant approach to perfection. Buddhism is, in our time, often referred to as occupying a higher plane than Christianity; but its precepts are all negative, its virtues are negative, and its disciple is deemed most nearly perfect, when in body, mind, and soul he has made himself utterly quiescent ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... off'ring to Heaven In this flower, of all flowers the completest Through the long, quiet night, With the pale stars in sight,— Through the sun-lighted day Of the balm-breathing May, I have toiled on, in silence, to bring To perfection this beautiful flower, The pride of the blossoming bower— The queenliest blossom ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... with his new costume, as well as with the new employment. He acquitted himself to perfection, for he had never any difficulty in imitating what he saw another do. After tea we had some music. As I was standing by the piano, at which one of the ladies was seated, Lieutenant Vancleve said to me, ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... reality in design; some finality, moreover, in the works, which are executed thoughtfully and with diligence, although with too little mastery of handling; with more grace in manner and more loveliness in colouring, so that little is wanting for the reduction of everything to perfection and for the exact imitation of the truth of nature. Wherefore, with the study and the diligence of the great Filippo Brunelleschi, architecture first recovered the measures and proportions of the ancients, both in the round columns and in the square pilasters, and ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... who lived about B.C. 190, was the inventor of parchment; but it was known much earlier, as may be seen by several references to it in the Bible (Isaiah, viii. i; Jeremiah, xxxvi. 2; Ezekiel, xi. 9). It is, however, very probable that it may have been brought to perfection at Pergamus, as it was one of the principal articles of commerce of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... no victim—the only offerings being fruits and honey, and undressed wool—were still there. The statue was gone. Some said it had been destroyed by the fall of the cliff; some were not sure that it had ever been there at all. And meanwhile Praxiteles had already brought to perfection (Paus. 1, 2, sec. 4) the ideal of Demeter, mother-like, as Here—whom we still call Juno now— but softer-featured, and her ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... "Life is exalted to perfection as it ends," the poet went on. "'It is beautiful to reach the end of one's days,' said the lover. 'It is in this way that ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... Utilitarian State securely founded upon the Table of the Springs of Action. We, however, who live after Darwin, have learnt the hard lesson that we must not expect knowledge, however full, to lead us to perfection. The modern student of physiology believes that if his work is successful, men may have better health than they would have if they were more ignorant, but he does not dream of producing a perfectly healthy nation; and he is always prepared ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... aware of the experiments of his colleague in science. For several years, each pursued his researches individually until chance made them acquainted, when they entered into co-partnership, and conjointly brought the art almost to perfection. ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... they went into the other room, accompanied by Miss Carry, who had suffered herself, to be introduced to Major Stuart with a certain proud sedateness. And now the major played the part of the accepted lover's friend to perfection. He sat next Miss White herself; and no matter what the talk was about, he managed to bring it round to something that redounded to Macleod's advantage. Macleod could do this, and Macleod could do that; it was all Macleod, and Macleod, ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... and villages, and in small cove's where its roots are washed by the sea. In such circumstances, a tree, from being kept clear about the roots, from being shaded, and from occasional stimuli, advances rapidly to perfection; but in an extended plantation, a regular and not inexpensive system of culture must ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... Kitty at last reached it, Fanny was making pasties; and when Fanny chose she could make a pasty to perfection. She made them one each now with their initials on them, made of curly bits of pastry, and promised to have them baked and ready by the time Miss Pooley was gone. Emily was in a good temper too. The prospect of being free from the children all ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... means," said Charlotte. "Emily, you be quiet. It means that his income is twenty pence a year, and he spends two thousand pounds; that he is always dressed to perfection, that he is ready to make love to anybody at two minutes' notice—that is, if her fortune is worth it; that he is never at home in an evening, nor out of bed before noon; that he spends four hours a day ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... the only distinguished person residing on this Bar. There is a man camping here who was one of Colonel Fremont's guides during his travels through California. He is fifty years of age perhaps, and speaks several languages to perfection. As he has been a wanderer for many years, and for a long time was the principal chief of the Crow Indians, his adventures are extremely interesting. He chills the blood of the green young miners, who, unacquainted ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... are often separated by seas; or continents, who are ignorant of the whereabouts of the one who is to complete their thought, each write a part of a sentence which, as it stands, conveys no meaning whatever. On piecing the fragments together, we perceive that they fit to perfection and acquire an intelligible and obviously premeditated sense. We here find once more the same faculty that permits the medium to detect, among thousands of others, a definite force which was wandering in space. It is true that, in these ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... people at the hotel. Ob, I do wish mother would let me go there with him some evening! He is there nearly every night, and it's as good as a play to hear him take off the affected, snobbish ones. He has caught the English drawl and the 'yeh know' of some young fellows to perfection." ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... telegraphs. But even this obstacle was overcome by the inventive genius of the French. By means of pigeon letter-carriers and air-balloons, they were always able to maintain a partial though one-sided and imperfect communication with the provinces, and the aerostatic art was developed and brought to perfection on this occasion in a manner which had never before been ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... the ideal is to be the actual: there is to be no "shooting at the moon, because by that means you reach higher than by aiming at a tree" (a very doubtful statement even in mechanics); what God wants us to be that we must be; and if He says, "Be ye perfect," then let us go on to perfection and reach it. The Christian is called upon by his Master to live out and actualise God's ideal thought concerning him. Upon the map of his life is already marked out the road by which he is to reach the heavenly city; ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris
... man!" said Mrs Perkins, who was married out of a drapery establishment and has the drapery style of talking to perfection. "If my ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... was a parsley leaf; hence he is spoken of in the neighbourhood of Blackburn to this day as "Parsley Peel." The process of calico printing by what is called the mule machine—that is, by means of a wooden cylinder in relief, with an engraved copper cylinder—was afterwards brought to perfection by one of his sons, the head of the firm of Messrs. Peel and Co., of Church. Stimulated by his success, Robert Peel shortly gave up farming, and removing to Brookside, a village about two miles from Blackburn, he devoted ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... and the man put spurs to his horse and dashed across the intervening fields. The boy followed close behind, sitting his horse to perfection. Just before they reached Belvoir they came to a high hedge. Lord Fairfax put his horse at it and went flying over. A second later George had followed him. There was no feat of horsemanship to ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... noblemen and gentlemen keeping house in London, was not invariably fortunate in the selection of his servants. The division of labour, that admirable system by which such great results are attained, had been brought to perfection in his as in many other establishments. A man who cleaned knives, it appeared, could not possibly do anything else, and for several days the domestic arrangements below-stairs had been disturbed by a knotty question as to whose business it was to answer ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... send her to his side, but the position was unnatural and could not be maintained. Even now Lewis was in her thoughts. Fragments of his odd romantic speech clove to her memory. His figure—for he showed to perfection in his own surroundings—was so comely and gallant, so bright with the glamour of adventurous youth, that for a moment this prosaic young woman was a convert to the coloured side of life and had forgotten her ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... entire through the liver, and going straight to the heart; another from the yelk, ending in the vena portae; for it appears that the chick, in the first instance, is entirely formed and nourished by the white; but by the yelk after it has come to perfection and is excluded from the shell; for this part may still be found in the abdomen of the chick many days after its exclusion, and is a substitute for ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... modernizing his tendencies, he had painted living men, but in a way that showed the influence of classic memories. Intelligent, enthusiastic, a worker that clung to his changing dreams, in love with his art, which he knew to perfection, he had acquired, by reason of the delicacy of his mind, remarkable executive ability and great versatility, due in some degree to his hesitations and his experiments in all styles of his art. Perhaps, too, the sudden admiration of the world for his works, elegant, correct, ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... was erected. The pole and cross-bar and the swivel and the target and the bag of flour were all complete. She got up on a carpenter's bench and touched the target with her hand; it went round with beautiful ease; the swivel had been oiled to perfection. She almost wished to take old Plomacy at his word, to get on a side-saddle and have a tilt at it herself. What must a young man be, thought she, who could prefer maundering among laurel trees with a wishy-washy school-girl to such fun ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... unlocks the delicate instrument of the nervous system, and not necessarily a Bluebeard's chamber of guilt; but where the latter is also the case to some extent the remark by no means loses in significance, and if any man had the torturing instinct to perfection, Caffyn might be said to be that individual. There was nothing he would enjoy more than practising upon a human piano and putting it hopelessly out of tune; but pleasant as this was, he felt he might have to exercise some self-denial here, at all events for the present, lest his instrument ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... able to germinate in one existence, and, by successive returns to earth, realises the aims and ends of that Justice which governs the Universe, the designs of that Love which makes for progress and leads to perfection. ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... the region of genuine French wit, no longer that of the boor, or of the student, or of the burgess, but of the court and good society. Good society, in poesy, was born with Marot, with Francis I., and his sister Marguerite, with the Renaissance: much will still have to be done to bring it to perfection, but it exists and will never cease again. . . . Marot, a poet of wits rather than of genius or of great talent, but full of grace and breeding, who has no passion, but is not devoid of sensibility, has a way of his own of telling and saying things; he has a turn ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... in their salutations; they have time enough to bow and take their hats off,—which, of course, no businessman can afford to do. Their beavers are smoothly brushed, and their boots well polished; all their appointments are tidy; they look the respectable walking gentleman to perfection. They are prone to habits,—they frequent reading-rooms,—insurance-offices,—they walk the same streets at the same hours,—so that one becomes familiar with their faces and persons, as a part of ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... I began to be afraid she would burst out crying. Grosse managed her to perfection. The tact of this rough, ugly, eccentric old man was the most perfect tact I have ever ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... the whole line of the French and Sardinian posts, and, after a long and sanguinary battle, were defeated. This decisive repulse of the Russian army in the field, left the allies more at liberty to prosecute to perfection the works necessary to secure a successful assault. Before that event occurred the British experienced many serious losses; a surprising number of regimental officers fell in conflict or died. The disgraceful state ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Mar, some ready-made affection joins us on the instant. It is not race. Look at us. One is Norse, one Celtic, and another Saxon. It is not community of tongue. We have it not among ourselves; and we have it almost to perfection, with English, or Irish, or American. It is no tie of faith, for we detest each other's errors. And yet somewhere, deep down in the heart of each one of us, something yearns for the old land, and the ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... capable of communion with him by virtue of the possession of Reason. As Cicero says, a few lines farther on in the work I am quoting, "virtus eadem in homine ac deo est, neque ullo alio ingenio praeterea." And since every creature seeks to maintain and augment its own being, to bring it to perfection, to express it fully, by an innate law of its nature, Man being endowed with Reason above all other creatures, strives, or should strive, to bring himself to a perfect expression, by identifying himself with the divine principle which he shares with God. As Dr. ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... achievements in Gaul and Britain, his marvellous exploits in Italy, Spain, Macedonia, Greece, and Africa in the Civil War, and the character of his legislation, are here told and set forth in a manner that comes very near to perfection. There is a vividness in the narrative, and a bringing-out of individual portraits, that make the work read like a history of contemporary events. Nor does the author's just admiration of Caesar's extraordinary intellect and wonderful deeds cause him to be unjust to the eminent men on the other side, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... from the lungs. Just so the lyrists of fields and woods pipe their roundels and chansons through the chink in their throats, save that in the bird's case the mouth and tongue are anterior to the whistling aperture. I know a young man who has trained himself so as to be able to mimic to perfection the complex songs of the western meadowlark and the cardinal grosbeak. ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser |
