"Workmanship" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... improvement upon the one which preceded it; perfection was his aim. To the end of his life he gave the finishing touch to each of his instruments, and would trust it to no one else. He permitted no irregularity in workmanship or sales, and was characterized ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... in a measure holding its ground, although greatly corrupted and far removed from the good manner of the ancients. To this can also bear witness many old palaces built in Florence after the ruin of Fiesole, in Tuscan workmanship, but with barbaric ordering in the proportions of those doors and windows of immense length, in the curves of the pointed quarter-segments, and in the turning of the arches, after the wont of the ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... again we have to insist, as under the head of sports and daydreams, that interests of a more objective kind are also gratified by a good work of fiction. A story that runs its logical course to a tragic end is interesting as a good piece of workmanship, and as an insight into the world. We cannot heartily identify ourselves with Hamlet or Othello, yet we should be sorry to have those figures erased from our memories; they mean something, they epitomize world-facts that compel ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... to be followed by equally fine editions of the romances which succeeded, and, as some think, eclipsed it in merit and popularity. We most cordially wish success to an undertaking which promises to substitute the finest workmanship of the Riverside Press for the bad type and dingy paper of the common editions, and hope that the publishers will see the propriety ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... organization because they feel that they have built it and that it is their own. A self-governing community therefore carries within itself the means of its own perpetuation in the enthusiasm and devotion of its population to an institution in which they feel a sense of workmanship and of ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... modern times as POMPEY'S PILLAR. It is formed of stone, and is in three parts. One stone forms the pedestal, another the shaft, and a third the capital. The beauty of this column, the perfection of its workmanship, which still continues in excellent preservation, and its antiquity, so great that all distinct record of its origin is lost, have combined to make it for many ages the wonder and admiration of mankind. Although no history of its origin has come down to us, a tradition has descended ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... conventionally treated in the practice of our art. These we choose, as the mason chooses the acanthus to adorn his capital, because they come naturally to the accustomed hand. The old stock incidents and accessories, tricks of workmanship and schemes of composition (all being admirably good, or they would long have been forgotten) haunt and tempt our fancy; offer us ready-made but not perfectly appropriate solutions for any problem that arises; and wean us from the study of nature and the uncompromising practice of art. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... letters which were certainly masterpieces of literary workmanship; and Clotilde replied, vying with him in genius in the expression of perfervid love on paper, for she had no other outlet. Lucien went to church at Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin every Sunday, giving himself out as a devout Catholic, and he poured forth monarchical and pious harangues which were a ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... shops. Thirty years ago he had first taken wages from the senior Lossing. He had watched a modest industry climb up to a great business, nor was he all at sea in his own estimate of his share in the firm's success. Lieders's workmanship had an honesty, an infinite patience of detail, a daring skill of design that came to be sought and commanded its own price. The Lossing "art furniture" did not slander the name. No sculptor ever wrought his soul into marble with a more unflinching conscience or a purer ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... was invariably a brilliant polished boss in the center, sometimes set with a jewel, and surrounding rays of crinkled form, which plunged into a kind of halo that encircled the entire work. The idea was commonplace, and it did not occur to me amidst my admiration of the extreme beauty of the workmanship that there was any cause for surprise in the finding of a sunburst ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... It was exactly and minutely the shape, the garb, and the face which the towns-people had so recently thronged to see and admire. Not a rich flower upon her head, not a single leaf, but had had its prototype in Drowne's wooden workmanship, although now their fragile grace had become flexible, and was shaken by every footstep that the wearer made. The broad gold chain upon the neck was identical with the one represented on the image, and glistened ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... furniture, that is, the parts of tables, chairs, etc., cut out and planed, which it is intended that the purchaser put together himself. These, as a rule, are made of good material befitting the hand workmanship which will be put upon them, and are offered at a considerable reduction from the price asked for ready-made furniture of the ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... late winter was listening for the word of spring, she came over to the little house for a twilight chat; and when she went away she left a small, white box on the table. Anne found it after she was gone and opened it wonderingly. In it was a tiny white dress of exquisite workmanship—delicate embroidery, wonderful tucking, sheer loveliness. Every stitch in it was handwork; and the little frills of lace at neck and sleeves were of real Valenciennes. Lying on it was a ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of unusual proportion, artistic workmanship, lyric inspiration; an absence of so much as a trace of morbid feeling, a felicitous and poetic choice of subjects and intuitive good taste raise the writer at once above the ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... double lavatory of solid sandstone, hewn and arranged for flowing water. It consists of two basins, one above the other, the latter one well recessed. The lower basin is structurally curved in front, and the whole piece is of good and artistic workmanship. ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... recognizable were the teeth, peculiar in workmanship, which one of the ablest dentists in Paris had himself adapted to the chasms, the cast of which, owing to peculiarities in the accident, he happened to have preserved. This cast precisely fitted the gold plate found in the mouth of the skull. The mark, also, above the ankle, in the bone, ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... other Indians were seen to approach from the valley above, where the party had encamped. These painted visitors likewise came forward with sundry nods and gesticulations of friendship, at the same time exhibiting several furred articles of curious workmanship, and a few precious stones, as samples of what they wished to barter. A short conference then ensued between them and the head chief, which terminated in a pressing invitation for the whites to accompany them to ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... and public employe; and much additional interest was attached to the paper because it was actually printed before their eyes at a press in the centre of the building, and because the press itself had borne off a gold medal for excellence of workmanship. {110} ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... glittered, he tied in a pair of emerald green satin curtains; various strange knives and things with prongs, with which on certain occasions the courtesan had conveyed food to her mouth—she used her fingers in private—with a jewel-encrusted nargileh of marvellous workmanship, he rolled up in a bright yellow and green ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... incidents develop their inherent strength and weakness, and if virtue wins in the end, it is quite in keeping with its carefully-planned antecedents. The N.Y. Sun says: "We commend it for its workmanship—for its smoothness, its sensible fancies, ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... with quantities of trifling ornaments has the look of a bazaar and displays neither good taste nor good sense. Artistic excellence aims to have all the furnishings of a high order of workmanship combined with simplicity, while good sense understands the folly of dusting a lot ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... lapis-lazuli, chalcedony, agate, to all the finer and more expensive gems which shone in Aaron's ephod. When one considers that an ear-ring or a brooch, half an inch long, of Florentine mosaic work, costs five or six dollars, and that here is a great church of the same material and workmanship as a breastpin, one may imagine it to have been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... that the child was alive, said she would be happy to come forward and repeat what she had said to my clerk. She seemed very interested in the affair, and is evidently a kindly good-hearted woman. I fancy the silver frame is of Italian workmanship, and will probably be recognized by your grandfather. At any rate, someone there is sure to know it. Now I think you are in a position to go down and see him, and if you wish I will write to him to-day. I shall not go into matters at all, and shall merely say that the son of his son, ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... dinner at Mrs. Fenton's, Philip Ashe and Maurice Wynne met on the steps of Mrs. Chauncy Wilson's. The house was on the proper side of the Avenue, with a regal front of marble and with balconies of wrought iron before the wide windows above, one of especially elaborate workmanship, having once adorned the front of the palace of the Tuileries. Pillars of verd antique stood on either side of the doorway, as if it were the ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... of the insulation is the same as in the case of the earlier cars, but the use of asbestos conduits is abandoned and iron pipe substituted. In every respect it is believed that the design and workmanship employed in mounting and wiring the motors and control equipments under these steel cars is unequaled elsewhere in similar work up ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... implements which were dug up, and by the absence of any trace of metal, and supposed that I had come upon the Stone Age. But since the sixth of this month there have appeared many nails, knives, lances, and battle-axes of copper of such elegant workmanship that they can have been made only by a civilised people. I cannot even admit that I have reached the Bronze Period, for the implements and weapons which I ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... low rents; that every abbey had a school for the instruction of its tenants, and that no human institution was so well calculated to promote the arts of painting, architecture, and sculpture, works in iron and bronze, and every other species of workmanship, as abbeys or monasteries, and their appendages. "Thus," he used to say, "though the country in view was originally a marsh, and has for more than a century wholly survived its commerce, it is the most populous ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... trading with their new visitants, and in six days, the Spaniards obtained ornaments of gold, and of curious workmanship, to the amount of fifteen thousand pesoes, an immense sum, in exchange for European toys of ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... and in walking up to the pedestal upon which the little figure was placed. Taking the latter in my hand, I found, as I had expected, that it was not attached to the pedestal, which was of totally different material, and much more elaborate workmanship. Turning the figure upside down, my eyes rested on these words, deeply cut into the little circular throne upon which the figure ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... difficult part of the superintendence which keeps Mr Gordon at his post in the shed, nearly from daylight till dark, for from eight to ten weeks. During the first day he has formed a sort of gauge of each man's temper and workmanship. For now, and henceforth, the natural bias of each shearer will appear. Some try to shear too fast, and in their haste shear badly. Some are rough and savage with the sheep, which do occasionally kick and become unquiet at critical times; and it must ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... second Sanitary Fair in Chicago, a few friends presented her with a beautiful silver cup, bearing a suitable inscription in Latin, and during the same fair, she received as a gift a Roman bell of green bronze, or verd antique, of rare workmanship, and value, as an object ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... young athlete holding a spear such as was used in the pentathlon (cf. page 168), exists in numerous copies. The Naples copy (Fig. 137), found in Pompeii in 1797, is the best preserved, being substantially antique throughout, but is of indifferent workmanship. The young man, of massive build, stands supporting his weight on the right leg; the left is bent backward from the knee, the foot touching the ground only in front. Thus the body is a good deal curved. ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... is Whitman who reveals not only the greatest imagination but also the more skilful workmanship. His lyric power at its best may be judged from the following stanza ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... Jarvis.' And she led the way through a low door into a long narrow room with a row of little square windows on each side all covered with little square white curtains. The walls and ceiling were planked and the workmanship of the whole rude and clumsy; but a gay carpet covered the floor, a chandelier adorned with lustres, hung from a hook in the ceiling, large gilded vases and a mirror in a tarnished gilt frame adorned a shelf over the hearth, mahogany chairs ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... alternately triangular and elliptical, the tympanums of which, both on the side of the Louvre, and towards the river, are charged with emblems of the Arts and Sciences. The other part is ornamented with coupled pilasters, charged with vermiculated rustics, and other embellishments of highly-finished workmanship. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... spite of orders, began to plunder the cigars, &c. The captain said privately to Robert, "I cannot restrain my men, and they will bring the plague into our ship, so I mean quietly in the night to sail away." Robert took two cutlasses and a dagger; they were of the coarsest workmanship, intended for use. At the end of one of the sheaths was a heavy bullet, so that it could be used as a sling. The day after, to their great relief, a heavy rain fell and cleansed the ship. Captain Davidson reported ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... descensus on my lips, and toiled up again, repeating sed revocare gradum. I wandered' in the autumnal woods that crown the "Indian Ridge," much wondering at that vast embankment, which we young philosophers believed with the vulgar to be of aboriginal workmanship, not less curious, perhaps, since we call it an escar, and refer it to alluvial agencies. The little Shawshine was our swimming-school, and the great Merrimack, the right arm of four toiling cities, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... their full and frank enjoyment by others. The intellectual power and the artistic skill which have been shown in the long series that has followed The Ordeal of Richard Feverel; the freshness and charm of the earlier, the strenuous workmanship and original handling of the later, novels of the author of Far from the Madding Crowd and of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, simply disable off-hand the judgment of the critic—and in fact annul his jurisdiction—if he fails to admire them; while in some cases ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... admire books for what they contain; others for their beautiful type, hand-made paper, artistic illustrations, ample margins, untrimmed edges, etc.; and there are others who attach more importance to the limited number of copies issued than to either the contents or workmanship. ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... poetic justice, then, that allotted to St. Vincent the arrangement of the responsible expedition which, in 1798, led to the celebrated Battle of the Nile; in its lustre and thorough workmanship the gem of all naval exploits. To him it fell to choose for its command his brilliant younger brother, and to winnow for him the flower of his fleet, to form what Nelson after the victory called "his band of brothers." ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... ribbons, bonnets, gauzes and gloves. "Let," said I to M. Eudel, "the Paris Duane be asked what that town alone exports in matters of this sort and it will be seen how important it is not to stop a trade all the more profitable to France, as the workmanship forms the greatest part of the price of the goods which make up this trade. What would happen if the importation of these goods were absolutely prohibited in Hamburg? The consignments would cease, and one of the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... single combat with the latter. Endued with terrible prowess, the Rakshasa, uttering a loud leonine roar, hurled in that encounter at Drona's son, having whirled it (previously), a terrible Asani of celestial workmanship, and equipped with eight bells.[203] Drona's son, however, jumping down from his car, having left his bow thereon, seized it and hurled it back at Ghatotkacha himself. Ghatotkacha, meanwhile, had ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... (p. 109) truly observes that this tomb 'is a most exquisite piece of workmanship. The tomb itself, raised some few feet from the ground, is entered by steps, and is enclosed in a beautiful cut marble screen, the sarcophagus being covered with a very artistic representation of leaves and flowers carved in marble. Mirza Jahangir ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... THEA and IRENE have had dedicated to them an exciting and amusing fritto misto of crooks, demi-mondaines, blackmailers, gamblers, roues, murderers, receivers and decent congenital idiots of all sorts. The characterisation is adroitly done and the workmanship avoids that slovenliness which makes nineteen out of twenty books of this kind a weariness of spirit to the perceptive. I wonder if Maisie with such a father and mother would have been such a darling. Perhaps Professor KARL PEARSON ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... which later on I am resolved to do everything in my power in order to gain a proper place for it. I have always entreated you not to abandon the work, and am delighted by the perfection of your poetic workmanship. Almost every day the Princess greets me with ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... of Britain possessed, again in common with those of Gaul, a singular aptitude to understand and learn quickly. A short time after the Roman Conquest it becomes hard to distinguish Celtic from Roman workmanship among the objects discovered in tombs. Caesar is astonished to see how his adversaries improve under his eyes. They were simple enough at first; now they understand and foresee, and baffle his military stratagems. To this intelligence and curiosity is due, with all its advantages ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... admirable citation. In speaking of the Egyptians, he says: "At their convivial banquets, among the wealthy classes, when they have finished supper, a man carries round in a coffin the image of a dead body carved in wood, made as life-like as possible in color and workmanship, and in size generally about one or two cubits in length; and showing this to each of the company, he says: 'Look upon this, then drink and enjoy yourself; for when dead you will be like this.' This is the practice they have at their drinking parties." ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... soon removed, and a casket of discoloured but still recognisable brass of elaborate and curious workmanship was disclosed. The lid was not secured in any way, otherwise than by the hinges; and so perfect had been the protection afforded by the wax-cloth wrapping that these worked without difficulty. The lid was quickly raised, and the casket—which ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... their said deceit and falsehood in praising of the said goods and stuff at 35s. 9d., which were worth at that time 20 marks and above, as in the said bill of complaint is alleged; for the great part of the said goods were garments of silk and other stuff, fresh and newly made, with much workmanship done upon them, to the great cost and charge of your said orator, without that that the said goods were at the time of the said appraisement of no more value than they were praised at. And without that that they were gone ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... astonishment looke vpon it. As also consider the hugenesse of the worke, the excessiue sumptuousnesse, the straunge inuention, the rare performance, and exquisite diligence of the woorkeman. With what art inuented? with what power, humaine force, and incredible meanes, enuying (if I may speake it) the workmanship of the heauens, such and so mightie weights should be transported and carryed into the skyes? with what Cranes, winding beames, Trocles, round pullies, Capres bearing out deuices, and Poliplasies, and drawing frames, and roped tryces, therein being vnskilfull, ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... wretched victim on his guard, and to save the helpless family, would see my good intentions frustrated by the decrepitude which chains me to the spot.—Why should I wish it were otherwise? What have my screech-owl voice, my hideous form, and my mis-shapen features, to do with the fairer workmanship of nature? Do not men receive even my benefits with shrinking horror and ill-suppressed disgust? And why should I interest myself in a race which accounts me a prodigy and an outcast, and which has treated me as such? No; by all the ingratitude which I have reaped—by all the wrongs which ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... as of mere animal terror, rang from the cabinet. Up went the axe again, and again the panels crashed and the frame bounded; four times the blow fell; but the wood was tough and the fittings were of excellent workmanship; and it was not until the fifth, that the lock burst in sunder and the wreck of the door fell inwards on ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... the monocular type, must be of good workmanship and well finished, rigid, firm, and free from vibration, not only when upright, but also when inclined to an angle or in the horizontal position. The various joints and movements must work smoothly and precisely, equally ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... descriptions of Good, Wise, Holy, Clever, Brave, Happy, Cruel, Licentious, Capricious, and Unfortunate; our Queen Elizabeth being placed as "clever," and Mary Stuart as "unfortunate." They are beautiful examples of design and workmanship, and are the work of the Florentine ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... reaches from the basement to the top of the arch. The tracery branches outwards from this on each side, and depends upon the arch for support; while the tracery in the Carlisle window is not so dependent. Neither in skilful workmanship nor in variety of ornament is the York window equal to that at Carlisle. With the exception of four quatrefoils (placed above each alternate mullion) it is composed of trefoils. Carlisle, on the contrary, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... rapacious hunger for beauty which has now for the first time become a serious problem in the healthy life of humanity, but he represents also that honourable instinct for finding beauty in common necessities of workmanship which gives it a stronger and more bony structure. The time has passed when William Morris was conceived to be irrelevant to be described as a designer of wall-papers. If Morris had been a hatter instead ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... all this grandeur was but more glaring infamy, and that, by planting his gold-enwoven flag beside my tarnished and tattered banner, he proclaimed not his superiority, but his debasement. Yet I envied him. His stud of beautiful horses, his arms of costly workmanship, the praise that attended him, the adoration, ready servitor, high place and high esteem,—I considered them as forcibly wrenched from me, and envied them all with novel ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... in dyeing the quills of the porcupine that she had captured on Grape Island; with these she worked a pair of beautiful mocassins and an arrow case for Hector, besides making a sheath for Louis's couteau-du-chasse, of which the young hunter was very proud, bestowing great praise on the workmanship. ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... of the antiquities of Rome pleased me so much as the ancient statues, of which there is still an incredible variety. The workmanship is often the most exquisite of anything in its kind. A man would wonder how it were possible for so much life to enter into marble, as may be discovered in some of the best of them; and even in the meanest, one has the satisfaction of seeing the faces, postures, airs, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... workmanship one may almost make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but not quite. The care which Dean Lovelace had bestowed upon the operation in regard to himself had been very great, and the cunning workmanship was to be seen in every plait and every stitch. But still there was something left of ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... he came down-stairs next morning—Sunday morning—in a dress that she had assured him was "only fit for one's bedroom,"—namely, a very gorgeous Oriental dressing-gown (Mabel's gift the preceding Christmas), with a fez on his head, and on his feet a pair of slippers of amazing workmanship and soundlessness, the joy of his feet, if not of his heart. Thus accoutred, he prowled about on the lower floor, looking after various things, and, going into the pantry for something, he chanced to look through the small window ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... Unsavoury in the enjoyment of itself. If you let slip time, like a neglected rose It withers on the stalk with languished head. Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, Where most may wonder at the workmanship. It is for homely features to keep home; They had their name thence: coarse complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply The sampler, and to tease the huswife's wool. What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that, Love-darting eyes, or tresses ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... Press, which were purchased by the Guild of Handicraft. Members of Mr. Morris's staff are also retained at the Essex House Press, and it is the hope of the Guild of Handicraft by this means to continue in some measure the tradition of good printing and fine workmanship which William Morris revived. ...
— Mr. Edward Arnold's New and Popular Books, December, 1901 • Edward Arnold
... the small basket which he had carved with such neat and cunning workmanship from the hard shell of a black walnut ... a trinket for a countryman's ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... gigs were built for the occasion, respectively by Mr. Trahey and Mr. Lachapelle, boat builders, who take the greatest interest in the regattas, and spare nothing to make them successful. These boats were both defeated in their maiden races, but the design and workmanship of the Zealous and Amateur, it is said, would reflect credit on ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... frightful satyr's head, to leap in: it seems made for the purpose. But the sculptor needed not to place the naiad quite so near—he must have been a very impudent man; it is impossible to look for a moment at such a piece of workmanship. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... where Nature design'd Seed in the Womb for a Male only, (as working up for the best, and aiming at the highest Perfection of its Workmanship) too much Cold and Moisture accidentally falling into the Work, before it is perfected in the Womb, at the same time there being too great a quantity of Seed and menstrous Blood, what was intended for Man in part degenerates, and renders ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... not got so far north as Nebraska, but had given up his quest and turned back somewhere in Kansas. But Charley Harling and I had a strong belief that he had been along this very river. A farmer in the county north of ours, when he was breaking sod, had turned up a metal stirrup of fine workmanship, and a sword with a Spanish inscription on the blade. He lent these relics to Mr. Harling, who brought them home with him. Charley and I scoured them, and they were on exhibition in the Harling office all summer. Father Kelly, the priest, had found ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... Fowler was never aware. To sell gowns and hats at treble their actual value, to cajole her customers into buying what they did not want and what did not suit them, to give inferior goods, inferior workmanship, inferior style wherever they would be accepted, and to get always the most money for the least possible expenditure of ability, industry, and honesty—these were the fundamental principles, Gabriella had already discovered, beneath Madame's flourishing, but shallow-rooted, prosperity. Brandywine ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... Sunflowers, and wore them in their bosoms, and carried them in their hands. The early Spanish invaders found in these temples numerous representations of the Sunflower wrought in pure virgin gold, the workmanship of which was so exquisite that it far out-valued the precious metal whereof they were made. Some country folk call it ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... sword-hilt, and spurs of the same. Captain Don Luis Enriquez bestrode a black Cuatreno horse, with a saddle embroidered with gold and silver edging, a tuft of black and gray feathers, long and very costly hose lined with Milan cloth, jacket of the same, an embroidered doublet, of the workmanship of the hose, black boots, with a chain for a shoulder-sash; a hatband set with rubies, and a plume of great value, consisting of many heron feathers; sword and dagger with gilded furnishings, and sword-belt and waistband embroidered ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... it. He moistened a sponge with water, passed it over the picture several times, washed off nearly all the accumulated and incrusted dust and dirt, hung it on the wall before him, wondering yet more at the remarkable workmanship. The whole face had gained new life, and the eyes gazed at him so that he shuddered; and, springing back, he exclaimed in a voice of surprise: "It looks with human eyes!" Then suddenly there occurred to him a story he ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... distant view of the city in the duel, and of a market-place in "The Quack Doctor," are delightful specimens of the artist's skill in depicting buildings and backgrounds. They are touched with a grace, truth, and dexterity of workmanship that leave nothing to desire. We have before mentioned the man with the mouth, which appears in this number emblematical of gout and indigestion, in which the artist has shown all the fancy of Callot. Little demons, with long saws for noses, are ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... extends to speech and even to thought. We owe to others veracity. Even when the motive is good, there can be no greater social disservice than to fail in truthfulness. Falsehood, either in the form of hypocrisy or equivocation, and even of unsound workmanship, is not only unjust to others; it is unjust to ourselves, and a wrong to the deeper self—the ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... his passage under the name of James Williams; but no clue has been obtained at present as to his antecedents. Upon his person was found a bundle of bank-notes, a sovereign, and some silver, and in a side-pocket was a miniature portrait of a young lady, of very beautiful workmanship, set in gold and studded with precious stones. The police are making searching inquiries, and as it is thought that this valuable portrait must have been stolen, it is believed that it will lead to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... marble and hews out the rough block; the sculptor finds its hidden soul. The artisan takes the canvas and the common sign appears; the artist makes it immortal. But God gives life to parents and teachers to fashion. Will hands clumsy and unskilled, miss the perfect beauty, or the touch of master workmanship bring forth a likeness ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... wanted, for he began at once: "I'm all the latest improvements—compensation balance and jewelled in four holes; perfect for time, beauty, and workmanship; sound, strong, and accurate; with keyless action, and large full-dial second hand; air-tight, damp- tight, and dust-tight; seven guineas net and five per cent, to teetotalers. There, what do ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... believed in them, and they had not believed in themselves, but they speedily learned self-respect and gained the respect of others. They did what was asked of them, earned most of their support, showed good workmanship and scholarship, were blameless in morals, caught the spirit of the place, and went out to carry light into the dark places. No holiday task was set them. There was a working day of twelve hours, between the class-room, the work-shop, the drill-ground ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... near the site of an older monastery. It was endowed with large expanse of lands, mostly mountain pastures, and the monks soon began building their church and refectory and cloister. The monastery was completed in 1201, when "the monks came to the new church, which had been erected of splendid workmanship." The architectural details of this church are peculiar and almost unique. Mr. S. W. Williams notices especially the large amount of interlacing work in the carving, which one sees in the old Celtic crosses, and which is ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... shot through with the sunset. Shelves bearing eighteenth-century books in seal brown tree calf—Addison, the "Spectator," Junius and Racine, Rochefoucauld and Pascal hung against it here and there. On every hand the eye rested upon some small masterpiece of art or workmanship. Now it was an antique portrait bust of the days of decadent Rome, black marble with a bronze tiara; now a framed page of a fourteenth-century version of "Li Quatres Filz d'Aymon," with an illuminated ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... a great deal of nice mechanical work required in St. Petersburg, for on the Nevsky Perspective, the principal street, there were a great many shops in which graduating and measuring instruments of very nice workmanship were for sale. Especially I noticed the excellence of the thermometers, and I naturally stopped to read them. Figures are a common language, but it was clear that I was in another planet; I could not read the thermometers! ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... Moore's "Esther Waters." Yet another is Thomas Mann's "Buddenbrooks." But it would be absurd to cite these works as evidences of a national quality, and doubly absurd to think of them as inspiring such books as "Jennie Gerhardt" and "The Titan," which excel them in everything save workmanship. The case of Mann reveals a tendency that is visible in nearly all of his contemporaries. Starting out as an agnostic realist not unlike the Arnold Bennett of "The Old Wives' Tale," he has gradually taken on a hesitating sort of romanticism, and ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... leaded panes, the massive fireplaces. Of these things she saw no examples; but on the large desk, littered with a profusion of books and pipes and papers, her glance was arrested by the sight of several candlesticks of various sizes and of beautiful workmanship. She was struck by this as by a psychological singularity, and counted the number—four on the table and three others on the mantel, seven in all, the number freighted with so many religious associations. She wondered whether there were some astronomical association also. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... minute magnificences; for, among so many, the eye slips from one to another with only a vague outward sense that here are whole shelves full of little miracles, both of nature's material and man's workmanship. Greater [larger] things can be reasonably well appreciated with a less scrupulous though broader attention; but in order to estimate the brilliancy of the diamond eyes of a little agate bust, for instance, you have to screw your mind down to them and nothing else. You must sharpen your faculties ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... George held up an arrow made of flint. The wooden portion of the arrow was really of good workmanship, and of ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... 38:4): Thereby insinuating that because it was done before he had his being, therefore he could not tell how it was done. Now, if a work so visible, as the creation is, is yet as to the manner of the workmanship thereof wholly unknown to them that commenced in their beings afterwards: How shall that which has, in all the circumstances of it, been more hidden and inward, be found out by them that have intelligence thereof by the ear, and but in part, and that in a ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... wreath of roses that had once emulated, or rather excelled, the lustrous purity of the hangings, but now were wan and withered. The centre of the inlaid and polished floor of the apartment was covered with a Tournay carpet of brilliant yet tasteful decoration. An old cabinet of fanciful workmanship, some chairs of ebony, and some girandoles of silver completed the furniture of the room, save that at its extreme end, exactly opposite to the door by which Venetia entered, covered with a curtain of green velvet, was what she concluded must be ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Halhed, could hardly have been led into the mistake, of supposing [Greek: pa Medika phuxa phullon] to mean "a leaf of a medicinal nature," we may, perhaps, from this circumstance not less than from the superior workmanship of the verses, attribute the whole of this ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... about her forehead. For all this, she was a picturesque little thing, even through whose childish timidity there was a certain self-sustained air which is apt to come upon children who are left much to themselves. She was holding under her arm a rag doll, apparently of her own workmanship, and nearly as large as herself,—a doll with a cylindrical head, and features roughly indicated with charcoal. A long shawl, evidently belonging to a grown person, dropped from her shoulders, and ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... as much interested as she, and both bent eagerly over the box as Margaret opened it. The case was of faded green morocco, lined with crimson satin. Within was an oval cup or bowl, of exquisite workmanship; it was what is called a loving-cup, and Margaret looked in vain for ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... throughout four feet and a half-the boats thus differing vastly in shape from those of any other inhabitants of the Southern Ocean with whom civilized nations are acquainted. We never did believe them the workmanship of the ignorant islanders who owned them; and some days after this period discovered, by questioning our captive, that they were in fact made by the natives of a group to the southwest of the country ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... prominently in the Tusayan oral history of the last three centuries. The pueblo was undoubtedly built by some of the ancient gentes of the Tusayan stock, as its plan, the character of the site chosen, and, where traceable, the quality of workmanship link it with the other villages of the ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... should be placed near the eye. Anybody can hang a picture, but the question should be, is there good painting enough in this picture to make it acceptable to the public, or to make it just to the artist to show it? And none but artists can quite judge of the workmanship which should entitle it ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... was a small gold cross, of peculiar workmanship, with a crystal in the middle, through which might be seen some mysterious object neither husband nor wife could make out, but which they agreed must be carefully preserved for the identification of their little waif. Mrs. Talbot also produced a strip of writing which she had found ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... principles of science and the principles that underlie modern material achievement. Her men of science had made her industries perhaps the most competent industries of the world, and the label "Made in Germany" was a guarantee of good workmanship and of sound material. She had access to all the markets of the world, and every other nation who traded in those markets feared Germany because of her effective and almost irresistible competition. She had a "place ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... gave into the hands of the wondering boy a miniature of herself, upon the back of which was written: "For my dear little son Edgar, from his mother," and a small bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon. She clasped the baby fingers of the girl about an enameled jewel-case, of artistic workmanship, but empty, for its contents had, alas, gone to pay for food. She then motioned that the little ones be raised up and allowed to kiss her, after which, a frail, white hand fluttered to the sunny head of each, as she murmured a few words of blessing, then ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... the Duke was entertained by the corporation of London in the Guildhall, and previously to the banquet he was presented with a sword of exquisite workmanship, which had been voted him by the common council. Four years and a half before, as will be remembered, the Duke was publicly attacked by this same common council, and he then says, "I act with a sword hanging over me." During the interval, the common council had learned to ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... whole republic, proclaimed that my work should be rewarded as its merits deserved. He then demanded, what length of time I should need to fabricate another such head ornament? I replied, that it was reward enough for me, that my curious workmanship had gained the approbation of the great men who composed the Council; for the rest, I bound myself to make another wig in two days, and also to manufacture wigs enough for the whole city in a month, provided I might count upon the assistance ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... no security is given to this Nation to make such money in any one point, the same may be found defective in either, as to baseness of metal, workmanship or weight, or to give gold and silver for the same, when the subject was, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... his power and skill, that stand like mile-stones, here and there, to show how far back man was great and glorious! Who can stand in those vast cathedrals of the old world, as the deep-toned organ reverberates from arch to arch, and not feel the grandeur of humanity? These are the workmanship of him, beneath whose stately dome the architect himself now bows in fear and doubt, knows not himself, and knows not God—a mere slave to symbols—and with holy water signs the Cross, whilst He who died thereon ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... in her apartments. The day on which the present chapter opens, invitations had been issued for a late supper in the queen-mother's apartments, as she intended that two beautiful diamond bracelets of exquisite workmanship should be put into a lottery. The medallions were antique cameos of the greatest value; the diamonds, in point of intrinsic value, did not represent a very considerable amount, but the originality and rarity of the workmanship were such, that every one at court not only wished to possess ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... book 'might have proved to be the most ambitious that Dickens ever planned.' It is non-Dickensian in the sense that its value depends entirely on a story. The workmanship is very fine. The book was purely and simply a detective story. 'Bleak House' was the nearest approach to its style, but the mystery there was easy to unravel. It was as though Dickens wished in 'Edwin Drood' to make one last 'splendid and staggering' appearance ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... untainted by flame and smoke. But if you have been even moderately articulate, the architect has been able to interpret your wishes and you have a house built as near as possible to your plans. You also have the satisfaction of knowing that, in the building, the workmanship has been honest and thorough, and that in materials used every advantage has been taken of ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... compartments, each stored with neatly wrapped and labeled packages of varying shapes and sizes. The writing upon the tags was almost illegible, but the first article which O'Reilly unwrapped proved to be a goblet of most beautiful workmanship. Time had long since blackened it to the appearance of pewter or some base metal, but he saw that it was of solid silver. Evidently he had uncovered a ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach |
