"Feat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the neighbourhood crawled to the centre of the curve, and there finished a pair of shoes; when, having completed his task, he returned in safety to the Caernarvon side! I need not say that we schoolboys appreciated his feat of foolhardiness far ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... Of his feat Byron was always proud. See the "Lines Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos" ("by the by, from Abydos to Sestos would have been more correct"), and 'Don Juan', Canto ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... frantic mule was performing the almost impossible feat of running away on a treadmill. At the same time, to Billy Brackett's dismay and to the astonishment of his audience, the several pictures of the panorama were flitting by in a bewildering stream of color, the effect of which ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... went under the vault which leads from the Carrousel to the garden, dashed the artillerymen on one side, and seizing one of the guns, unlimbered it, and carried it in their arms to the Salle des Gardes, on the top of the grand staircase. The crowd, emboldened by this feat of strength and audacity, poured into the apartment and spread like a torrent throughout the staircase and corridors of the Chateau. All the doors were burst in, or fell beneath the shoulders and axes ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... confined to ingratiating himself with her ladyship. He contrived adroitly to damage the steering-gear by grazing a wall as he turned the Aigle into the hotel courtyard, and by this feat disposed of the chauffeur's evening, which was spent in hard work at the garage. Such dinner as Jack got, he ate there, in the shape of a furtive sandwich or two, otherwise we should not have been able to leave in the morning at the early ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... been observed by the enemy aircraft and strafed like ——; but fortunately it was very dull at the time, the clouds precluding observation. The weather was in our favour. The whole Battalion got safely away without a single casualty! An astonishing feat. Major Brighten has reason to feel very pleased with himself. We marched along the road for a distance of about four miles, and then halted and concentrated; then we marched on together and at 10 a.m. reached the transport camp where I first appeared last Tuesday evening. Here the Battalion ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... renowned Captain Dalgetty, when an abundance of it happened to be placed before him, he displayed the most indefensible ignorance as to all knowledge of the period when he ought to stop, considering it his bounden duty on all occasions to clear off whatever was set before him—a feat which he always accomplished with the ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... would have been nothing had not Nickem secured the old woman who had sold the herrings,—and also the chemist, from whom the strychnine had been purchased as much as three years previously. This latter feat was Nickem's great triumph, the feeling of the glory of which induced him to throw up his employment in Mr. Masters' office, and thus brought him and his family to absolute ruin within a few months in spite of the ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... the boys wanted to see him perform a feat like that, and Will quickly scampered into the water. Now, the wallow was very shallow all the way across, and Will was soon on the opposite side. The smaller boys, not knowing the depth of the water, supposed that it was deep and that Will had actually done some marvelous thing. ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... but too true. Willie had indeed intervened and averted a tragedy, but the feat had demanded ruthless measures, and he had trudged home from the Coffins with the bone of contention ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... conclusion under the brunt of the children's assault was a remarkable feat. As I dribbled the stuff over the sorry devilgrass they kicked the pump—and my shins—mimicking my actions, tripping me as they skipped under my legs, getting wet with the Metamorphizer—I hoped with mutually deleterious effect—and ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... threw him backward on to the floor of the carriage. As he fell the man drew out his revolver, but Vincent grasped his arm and with a sharp twist wrenched the revolver from his grasp, and leaping up, threw it out of the open window. The ruffian rose to his feat, for a moment half dazed by the violence with which he had fallen, and poured out a string of imprecations upon Vincent. The latter stood calmly awaiting a fresh attack. For a moment the ruffian hesitated, and then, goaded to fury by the taunting laughter of the lookers-on, was about to spring ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... rides. He would sometimes go quietly through the queerest, gayest, most extraordinary town in Europe, and let it alone, provided it did not meddle with him by its beggars, beauties, innkeepers, police, coachmen, mongrels, bad smells, and such like obstructions. This feat of questionable utility he began performing now. Sitting on the three-inch ash rail that had been peeled and polished like glass by the rubbings of all the small-clothes in the parish, he forgot the time, the place, forgot that it was August—in short, everything of the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... should be settled by ordeal. Each of the disputants chose a man, and both the men appeared in a chapel, where they extended their arms in the form of a cross. Numerous spectators were present to witness the trial, and betted on the feat. The bishop's representative dropped his arms first, and thereby ruined ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... into Worlds," has a sagacious essay upon this subject. She calls the essay "Our Incestuous Marriage," and argues accurately that, once the adventurous descends to the habitual, it takes on an offensive and degrading character. The intimate approach, to give genuine joy, must be a concession, a feat of persuasion, a victory; once it loses that character it loses everything. Such a destructive conversion is effected by the average monogamous marriage. It breaks down all mystery and reserve, ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... at the word and started to go right in. We found the culverts along the railroad cut away and the bridges down, and that galloping ponies over the roadbed of a railroad is a difficult feat at the best, even when the road ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... then coaxed and worked back a short distance, when, with the 'leverage' thus gained, the feat was completed, and the steam man stood with his face turned, ready to speed backward the moment that the word might ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... rain-storm—it was the month of July, 326 B.C.—Alexander succeeded in crossing some miles higher up into the Karri plain under the low hills of Gujrat. Here, somewhere near the line now occupied by the upper Jhelam Canal, the Greek soldiers gave the first example of a feat often repeated since, the rout of a large and unwieldy Indian army by a small, but mobile and well-led, European force. Having defeated Poros, Alexander crossed the Chenab (Akesines), stormed Sangala, a fort of the ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... they were herding cattle, with a view to dining off them; but the elder boy had a small axe, such as is commonly carried by the Gonds, and, manfully standing his ground, split the wolf's skull with a blow—a feat of ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... a new feat. One of the kayakers placed himself in his little craft directly across the course; another stationed himself at a distance, and then, pushing his kayak forward at his utmost speed, drove it directly over the other! The high sloping bow rose above the middle of the stationary kayak on which it impinged, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... must remove her hand from the steering wheel, where it was very fully occupied. She did start to put this impulse into effect, but an unusually violent deflection caused her to reconsider that intention. She determined to use the foot brake, a feat which was accomplished, under normal conditions, by pressing one foot firmly against a contraption somewhere beneath the steering post. She shot a quick glance downward, and to her alarm discovered not one, but three contraptions, all apparently designed to ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... of the tree, and at length managed to slip the noose fairly about the neck of the nearest bird, when he gave it a jerk and brought it down fluttering. Passing from one side of the tree to the other, he repeated this, and soon had four of the fat, young birds in his possession—a feat which interested John in more ways than one, for, as has been indicated, he was very fond of ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... errant knights who might there enter for strange adventures, and, as chance directed, encounter others as bewildered as themselves. Our chivalric Sandricourt found nine young seigneurs of the court of Charles the Eighth of France, who answered all his wishes. To sanction this glorious feat it was necessary to obtain leave from the king, and a herald of the Duke of Orleans to distribute the cartel or challenge all over France, announcing that from such a day ten young lords would stand ready to combat, in those different places, in the neighbourhood of Sandricourt's chateau. The ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... company in some astonishment, the perfect oval of her cheeks was broken by the play of dimples as she smiled a general welcome on the men before her. But her attention was particularly arrested by Schmidt, who, after his first greeting in words, was now bowing stiffly from the hips, a feat of some difficulty by reason of his girth. Cicily watched the formal performance with mingled emotions of amusement and alarm. When, at last, it was successfully accomplished, however, and the pudgy figure straightened, she recognized the ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... the nation is coming round to them;—and in this or that borough the same conviction has been made to grow. To catch the Protestant,—that is the peculiarly Protestant,—vote and the Roman Catholic vote at the same instant is a feat difficult of accomplishment; but it has been attempted before, and was attempted now by Mr Melmotte and his friends. It was perhaps thought by his friends that the Protestants would not notice the L100 given for the altar to St Fabricius; ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... striking eight as Winifred entered the drawing-room. "It is quite a feat to be on time in this city of long ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... near, we who were on the north side of the river saw our skirmishers, of the "Light division", drive back the skirmish line of the enemy. It was a gallant feat, and finely executed. Our hearts leaped for joy as we watched our brave fellows, their line as perfect as though on drill, advance, firing rapidly, and pressing the enemy at "double-quick." They made no halt until they had crossed the whole breadth of the plain and reached ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... a tribal kind, lacking the individuality of amorous pride. It would approach the latter if a chief won another chiefs daughter in the face of rivalry and felt elated at this feat. Such cases doubtless ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... strayed into Mexico and South America, and only two or three belong to Europe, where many of ours are tenderly cultivated in gardens, as they should be here, had not Nature been so lavish. To name all these species, or the asters, the sparrows, and the warblers at sight is a feat probably no one living can perform; nevertheless, certain of the commoner goldenrods have well-defined peculiarities that a little field practice soon ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... forty miles in two hours. This was putting the Appalachians entirely in the shade, and the story called forth incredulous remarks. Investigation proved, however, that the Appalachian was not outdone, for the hero of the canard accomplished his feat only by taking a Champlain steamer at Burlington, Vt., and walking deck the entire distance ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... overheard the remark. "You just watch this child." Climbing to the top of the hill she beat a path down the slope, and then sat calmly down with her feet stretched out before her and slid down as swiftly as if the hill had been covered with ice. She had no sooner accomplished the feat than all the Winnebagos were at the top of the hill, eager to try it. They came down all in a row, each with her hand on the shoulder of the girl ahead of her, so that it looked like a real toboggan. Then Mrs. Evans tried it, pulling ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... Egyptian conceived and executed it. The new Pharaoh ordered a memorial of some important personage or event. In the first place, a mighty stone was dislodged from its connections, and lifted, unbroken, from the quarry. This was a feat from which our modern stone-workers shrink dismayed. The Egyptians appear to have handled these huge monoliths as our artisans handle hearthstones and doorsteps, for the land actually bristled with such giant columns. They ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to the extent of the camp compared with the priest's duties; Chapter XX. to the grave difficulty of the three priestly families consuming the offerings of some millions of people; which surely to a bishop of the Church of England should not be an unparalleled feat. Such chapters enable us to appreciate the mental caliber of our critic, and excuse us from argument with a man incapable of interpreting popular phrases. He would prove the associated press dispatches all a myth, because it is impossible for the House of ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... learned Beatrice this morning and the whole of it, in an hour, which I tell you because I consider it a feat. I am delighted at the thoughts of acting it; it will be the second part which I shall have acted with real pleasure; Portia is the other, but Beatrice is not nearly so nice. I am to act it next Thursday, when pray think ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... business &c 625; agency &c (power at work) 170. deed, act, overt act, stitch, touch, gest transaction^, job, doings, dealings, proceeding, measure, step, maneuver, bout, passage, move, stroke, blow; coup, coup de main, coup d'etat [Fr.]; tour de force &c (display) 882; feat, exploit; achievement &c (completion) 729; handiwork, workmanship; manufacture; stroke of policy &c (plan) 626. actor &c (doer) 690. V. do, perform, execute; achieve &c (complete) 729; transact, enact; commit, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the Invincibles are bearing a great part in this glorious feat of arms! But the Yankee general, Sheridan, is not like the other Yankee generals who operated in the valley earlier in the war. ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... went up at once to the old woman and made her peace with her. Meanwhile, the young man recovered from his drunkenness and missed the damsel, but congratulated himself on having enjoyed his desire. Presently Miryam the old Koranist came in to him and saluted him, saying, "What thinkest thou of my feat?" Quoth he, "Excellently well conceived and contrived of thee was that same." Then quoth she, "Come, let us mend what we have marred and restore this girl to her husband, for we have been the cause of their ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... succeeded in producing very small but comparatively soft diamonds, by heating lampblack under great pressure, in company with one or two other ingredients. The process was a costly one, and beyond being a great scientific feat, the discovery led to ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... a further welcome from the inhabitants of Cadiz, who considered that in some way or other his feat reflected a great ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... over those five miles of desolation, with no guide but the wind, or an occasional flash of lightning, Lee, unaccompanied by a single orderly, made his way to Scott's headquarters. This perilous adventure was characterised by the Commander-in-Chief as "the greatest feat of physical and moral courage performed by any individual ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... inadvertently hit his coffee-pot against an obstacle, the quick ear of the Indian would be sure to detect it, and yet he was surprised at his own coolness and mastery of himself; and he accomplished the feat, returning with the black old ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... nightfall by dangerous pickpockets and assassins. There had been a great victory won at Rocroy by the Due d'Enghien, who routed the Spanish and sent two hundred and sixty standards to the church of Notre Dame; but this glorious feat of arms brought neither food nor clothing to the poor, and the fierce internal strife, known as La Fronde, broke out. The very name was undignified, being derived from a kind of sling used by the urchins of the Paris streets. It was a mere ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... tete-a-tete was long, but it was a lively period while it lasted. He drank like a fish or an Englishman; shouted, beat the table, roared out songs, quarrelled, made it up again, and at last tried to throw the dinner-plates through the window, a feat of which he was at that time quite incapable. For a party of fugitives, condemned to the most rigorous discretion, there was never seen so noisy a carnival; and through it all the Colonel continued to sleep like a child. Seeing the Major so well advanced, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thought nothing of his achievement, I considered it to be the most extraordinary feat of horsemanship that I had ever heard of, combined with wonderful determination. In the darkness of night, without a moon, to hunt single-handed, and to kill, a full-grown bear with a revolver, was in my experience an unprecedented triumph ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... energy of new life it appears no such impracticable feat to climb into the sky. But they have already received a woful lesson, which may finally go far towards reducing them to the level of the departed race, when they acknowledge the necessity of keeping the beaten track of earth. They now set forth on a ramble through the city, in the hope ...
— The New Adam and Eve (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... narrate, were British. Commander R. E. Peary, of the United States Navy, came prominently before the world as an Arctic navigator in the last decade of the nineteenth century. In 1892 he crossed northern Greenland in the extreme latitude of 81 deg. 37', a feat of the highest order. ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... innocence to yawn between virtue and frailty, is leapt by that Pegasus, Passion, at a bound—but he blinds his rider in the feat. ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... The lasses feat, an cleanly neat, [trim] Mair braw than when they're fine; [more handsome] Their faces blythe fu' sweetly kythe [show] Hearts leal, an' warm, an' kin': [loyal, kind] The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs [love-knots] Weel knotted ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... understand the magnitude of the task which Sir George had set for me when he bade me marry his daughter and kill the Rutlands. I might perform the last-named feat, but dragon fighting would be mere child's play compared with the first, while the girl's heart was filled with the ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendships seemed to be founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me such a surprising feat, that I think some of your correspondents may be interested in it; and also may be ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various
... Holland. The Estates adjourned for a recess on April 21, 1654. On the following day he presented the treaty to the States-General, and such was his persuasive skill that he accomplished the unprecedented feat of getting this dilatory body to accept the conditions of peace almost without discussion. On April 23 the treaty ratified and signed was sent back to London. Only one article aroused opposition (Art. 32), the ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... the absolute truth—even for twenty-four hours? It is—at least Bob Bennett, hero or "Nothing But the Truth", accomplished the feat. The bet he made with his business partners, and the trouble he got into is the subject of William Collier's tremendous comedy hit. "Nothing But the Truth" can be whole-heartedly recommended as one of the most sprightly, ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Melodramatic Farce in Four Acts • Paul Dickey
... now the autumn flood had washed the handrail away, leaving the bare plank only, which, lying a few inches above the speeding current, formed a giddy pathway for even steady heads; and Tess had noticed from the window of the house in the day-time young men walking across upon it as a feat in balancing. Her husband had possibly observed the same performance; anyhow, he now mounted the plank, and, sliding one ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... Murphy was constrained to mentally label him "some man," and he regretted his deprecatory words of a few minutes before. Plainly, there was no "show-off stuff" in Trevison. His feat of riding down the wall of the cut had not been performed to impress anyone; the look of reckless abandon in the otherwise serene eyes that held Murphy's steadily, convinced the engineer that the man had merely ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... distance, at which range nearly every shot must be fatal. In Africa, according to all accounts, elephants are fired at thirty, forty, and even at sixty yards. It is no wonder, therefore, that African sportsmen take the shoulder shot, as the hitting of the brain would be a most difficult feat at such a distance, seeing that the even and dusky color of an elephant's head offers no peculiar mark for a ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... made his body vigorous and his muscles hard and strong. Slowly he drew himself up out of the clinging ooze which closed behind him with a sickening, sucking sound. Once clear of the mud, it was an easy feat to go up the rope hand over hand and soon he was standing beside Charley at the foot of the tree where they were speedily joined by the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... this varieth Hector Boetius in his chronicle of Scotland, writing of these dooings in Britaine: for he affirmeth, that the counterfeit moonke, which poisoned Aurelius Ambrosius, was suborned and sent to woorke that feat by Occa, and not by his brother Pascentius: and further, that about the selfesame time of Aurelius his death, his brother Vter Pendragon lay in Wales, not as yet fullie recouered of a sore sicknesse, wherewith of late he had beene much vexed. Yet the lords of Britaine after the buriall of Aurelius ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed
... chuckled, "it was something of a feat to take a religious cock-pit and turn it into an Old Men's Mutual Improvement Society. Since the Wesleyans ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... funniest things I know; Nothing they do but eat and grow. They're frolicsome, and it is said They eat tin cans and are not dead. I'm not astonished at that feat, For all things else ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... suddenly flitted away, and left him alone upon the beach. He glanced across the meadows at the green turrets glistening in the mellow moonlight, and then at the flickering flames around the castle walls, and he resolved that on the morrow he would at all hazards perform the perilous feat. ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... carry their design into execution, whenever a favourable opportunity occurred. This was not long in presenting itself. They came one day to the establishment, and told the people that the "man of medicine" had come for the purpose of performing some extraordinary feat that would astonish them all. The silly creatures believed the story, and went to the borders of the lake, where they observed the sorcerer showing off a variety of antics very much to their amusement. The conspirators, seeing this part of the stratagem succeed, rushed into the house, ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... organization was never better exemplified than next day, when preparations for the ball set for the night, began. At the outset it was perfectly apparent that she was not bent on breaking records—which feat, as a matter of fact, would merely have been overshadowing her best previous demonstrations of supremacy in things of this sort. There was to be no splurge. With a high European nobleman to introduce, she had no intention of having the protagonist in the evening's function ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... the human hog (Pignoramus intolerabilis) with an audible memory. The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... was well to the fore wherever hard work had to be done during that desperate venture; and it was he who performed the wonderful feat of getting the Nile steamers hauled through the Second Cataract by fifteen hundred British soldiers, who hove them up against that awful stream of death while the blue-jackets looked after the tackle. Beresford's Naval Brigade used to tramp fifteen ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... our comrade's. figure outlined against the sky as he slid, over the top, and then heard the dull thump as he sprang to the ground on the other side. "Number two," was whispered by our leader, and he performed the feat as successfully as his predecessor. "Number, three," and he followed noiselessly and quickly. Thus it went on, until, just as we heard number fifteen drop, we also heard a Rebel voice say in ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... (1849) the Herald distanced its competitors and accomplished a feat that was the talk of the town for a long time afterwards, by reporting in full the trial of Professor Webster for the murder of Dr. Parkman. Extras giving longhand reports of this extraordinary case were issued hourly during the day, and the morning edition contained ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... were cited to appear at Court to narrate their adventures. His Majesty received them with marked deference. Elcano was rewarded with a life pension of 500 ducats (worth at that date about L112 10s.), and as a lasting remembrance of his unprecedented feat, his royal master knighted him and conceded to him the right of using on his escutcheon a globe bearing the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... his whole course and character that he should carry Bebelle off in state, or receive any compliments or congratulations on that feat, he devoted the next day to getting his two portmanteaus out of the house by artfulness and stealth, and to comporting himself in every particular as if he were going to run away,—except, indeed, that he paid his few debts in the town, and prepared a letter ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... centurions but one. That one was Chaerea. Chaerea would not suffer himself to be taken by them, but seizing his sword he fought his way through the midst of them, slaying some and driving others before him, and thus made his escape from the camp. This feat gained ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... were inactive in the rain. The Chief, having assured himself that the British aimed to obtain command of the river, determined upon the retreat which ranks as one of the greatest military achievements in history. On the night of the 29th, under cover of a heavy fog, the feat of embarking nine thousand men, with all the ammunition and field-pieces of the army, and ferrying them across the East River with muffled oars, was accomplished within earshot of the enemy. Washington rode ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... feat somewhat awkwardly, drooping down upon the further bank with a ponderous thud. He was a large, heavily built man— altogether unlike one possessing the activity necessary ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... her secret smart And read her sorrow in her count'nance sad; Their frowning foreheads with rough horns yelad, And rustic horror all aside do lay, And gently grinning shew a semblance glad To comfort her, and feat ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... getting inside the brain of that boy, seeing things as he saw them, writing as he would have written, and acting as he would have acted; and presenting to the world true, faithful, and living effigies of that boy. The feat has been accomplished; there is no character in fiction more fully, more faithfully, presented than the character of Huckleberry Finn. . . . It may be objected that the characters are extravagant. Not so. They are all exactly and literally true; they are quite possible in a country so remote ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... sensitive withers the girl gave a quick spring, landing lightly as thistledown astride the colt's back, holding the halter strap in her firm, brown fingers. Her costume was admirably adapted to this equestrian if somewhat unusual feat for a young lady. It consisted of a dark blue divided riding skirt of heavy cloth, and a midshipman's jumper, open at the throat, a black regulation neckerchief knotted sailor-fashion on her well-rounded chest. Anything affording freer ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... old-fashioned "no popery" fight, carried on with abounding fire and vigour, will find plenty of matter in the files of the Globe of the fifties. His success in the election of 1857, so far as Upper Canada was concerned, and especially his accomplishment of the rare feat of carrying a Toronto seat for the Reform party, was largely due to an agitation that aroused all the forces and many of the prejudices of Protestantism. Yet Brown kept and won many warm friends among Roman Catholics, both in Upper and in Lower Canada. His manliness attracted them. ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... beg of you!" cried Henri, seeing that, instead of running past the grand-stand, Zibeline apparently intended to attempt this dangerous feat. ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... done, and desired the brave men who had performed this gallant action to be sent him, that he might do them honour and reward them as they deserved; and he bestowed large presents upon Pacheco in particular. Some affirm that the performance of this gallant feat by so small a number of our men against such great odds, raised fear and jealousy of the Portuguese in the mind of the zamorin, and made him anxious to get them away from his country; for which cause he gave his consent to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... so often look For nothing on my learned book, As that I cannot work the feat? I warrant I'll the miller cheat, And make Jug thine, in spite of him. Will ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... and since that time has been a great traveler in the wilds of the Mississippi Valley and the Rocky Mountains as an amateur hunter. He is a fair-haired, delicate-looking man, but a veteran in experience, and has performed the feat of crossing the Rocky Mountains in midwinter on snowshoes. He spent the winter of 1886-87 in Middle Park, Colorado, for the purpose of making some natural history collections for me, and succeeded in killing three grizzlies, two mountain lions, and a large number of elk, deer, sheep, wolves, beavers, ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... untied the rope, and stepped into the canoe. It was a simple matter to paddle across the lake to the spot where the small stream joined it; but it was a more difficult feat to carry the canoe even a short distance on dry land. Frieda Hammer was a strong girl, but had it not been for the thought of the price she could get for it, and the distress its loss would bring to the Scouts, she would have cast aside her heavy ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... was building up the scheme of them in silence. Odd little objects, fetiches which represented people to him, stood arranged on his writing table, and were never to be touched. He gazed at them until, as if by some feat of black magic, he turned them into living persons, typical and ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... Euri, the Kharrin,* and the Muzri, who inhabited the territory between the basins of the two great rivers;** once, indeed, he even crossed the Euphrates and ventured within the country of Khanigalbat, a feat which his ancestors had never ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... saw what they in the distance could not see, that the evacuation was a practical impossibility. The most distant garrison held by Egyptians was at Senaar, and if Gordon could have got to that place, a feat which it is more than doubtful if even he could have performed, it is perfectly certain that with the wretched troops he would have had to command he could not have safely escorted the host of the Egyptian employes ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... cut or spiked. The last users of the punt had also taken peculiar care to fasten it up. It was anchored by a grapnel, and by an iron pin on a chain, the pin eighteen inches long and driven hard into the bank. In a desperate hurry I hauled up the grapnel, did a regular Sandow feat in pulling up the iron peg, seized a punt pole apparently weighted with lead, but made out of an ash sapling, and started the punt. It would not move. I found there was another mooring, so picking my way among the scythes, spikes, rakes, &c., I hauled ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... probably been similar in all times. We shall not weary the reader by describing minutely all that went on. There was racing, of course, and jumping both with and without a run, as well as over a willow-wand held high. There was also throwing the heavy stone, but the method pursued in this feat was not in accordance with modern practice, inasmuch as the competitor turned his back to the direction in which the stone was to be thrown, heeled instead of toed the line, seized the stone with both hands and hurled it backwards ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... shook the building. Never had such a feat been seen in the arena before, and men and women alike standing up waved their hands with frantic enthusiasm. Beric had not escaped altogether unhurt, for as the lion struck out at him it had torn away a piece of flesh from his side, and the blood was streaming down over his white ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... old days it was considered a feat of gormandizing to go through one of Coppa's dinners and eat everything set before you for one dollar. Notwithstanding the delicious dishes he prepared and the wonderful recipes, the quantity served was so great that one would have to be possessed of enormous capacity, indeed, to ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... the evening, he boasted himself to her not a little of the self-control he had shown in hiding his passion so long, a feat the merit of which perhaps she did not ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... colt just let loose. He faced Hill with a smile, and then, taking his long, overhand swing, he delivered the jump ball. Hill made no move. The umpire called strike. The crowd roared. Ken duplicated the feat. Then Hill missed the third strike. Gallagher walked up doggedly, and Ken smiled at him, too. Then using three wicked, darting drops, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... outstretched on the stones three hundred feet below. For some minutes he was horror-struck beyond expression, and made wild attempts to descend the cliff and reach him. But he soon gave up the attempt in despair. There was a tradition in the school that the feat had once been accomplished by an adventurous and active boy, but Wright at any rate found it hopeless for himself. The only other way to reach the glen was by a circuitous route which led to the entrance of the ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... This feat is a very amusing one, and is performed as follows: Two persons kneel on the ground, facing each other. Each holds in his left hand a candle in a candlestick, at the same time grasping his right foot in his right hand. This position ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... there is not a sign in the book to show that he knew what he was doing; apparently he was quite unconscious that he was writing two novels at once. Such an oversight is not peculiar to men of genius, I dare say; the least of us is capable of the feat, many of us are seen to practise it. But two such novels as these, two such immemorial epics, caught up together and written out in a couple of thousand pages, inadvertently mixed and entangled, and all with an air of composure never ruffled ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... gone, and yet will not depart!— Is with me still, yet I from him exiled! 35 For still there lives within my secret heart The magic image of the magic Child, Which there he made up-grow by his strong art, As in that crystal[458:1] orb—wise Merlin's feat,— The wondrous 'World of Glass,' wherein inisled 40 All long'd-for things their beings did repeat;— And there he left it, like a Sylph beguiled, To live and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... quiver. The volcano, which on the moon drove projectiles to the distance of thirty-nine miles, need only possess the same explosive power as would have been sufficient to drive the missiles six or seven miles on the earth. A modern cannon properly elevated would easily achieve this feat. ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... The fray came quickly enough after we reached the Black Forest, and the fight was sufficiently warm to suit even enthusiastic Max. He and I were wounded; one of our men-at-arms was killed, and Franz's life was saved only by an heroic feat of arms on Max's part. The robbers were driven off; we spent a fortnight in a near-by monastery, that our wounds might heal, and ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... on far less, as thou well knowest, in the way of accommodating a young gentleman anxious to essay a feat of arms. Thou hast said the word, and we fight—but let me ask to what particular achievement of mine thou hast attached so ugly an epithet. I would fain know to what I am indebted for your ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... convinced him a strong upward current existed to-day, as on the day when they had made their short flight over the void. The bird soared and circled and finally shot away to northward, without a wing-flap, almost in the manner of a vulture. Stern knew an eagle could not imitate the feat without some aid in the way ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... This feat was not so secretlie wrought, but that it was knowne streightwaies in France. [Sidenote: The earle of saint Paule assaulteth the castell of Guisnes.] Wherefore the French kings councell sent the earle of saint ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed
... conviction of how real progress was,—how tremendous, and limitless, apparently, the power which God had put into man. Not that this, in itself, was greater than that which had preceded it, but it was the climax of all. The mechanical feat awoke more enthusiasm than even the scientific achievement which was its living soul,—not because it was more wonderful, but because it dispelled our last doubt. We all began to form a more definite idea of something great to come, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... drawn entirely out of the water and covered as much as possible with leaves and undergrowth; for it was a loss that under any circumstances they could not sustain. The feat of marking the place so that they could readily return to it from any direction was more difficult; but Howard finally hit upon quite an ingenious scheme. They waited until the sun had approached near enough to the horizon that they could tell precisely the ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... pertinaciously got up in exactly the same cut and fashion, and the colour always either fawn or marone. For the last thirty years, the venerable chapeau was uniformly of the same cock. The principal feat, however, in which this fervent votary of Plutus appeared before the public, was his nearly fatal affair with Mary Benson, otherwise Mrs. Maria Theresa Phepoe. In April 1795, this ill-fated-woman projected a rather bungling scheme, in order ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... accurate sketch of it, indicating clearly what seemed to us its weakest points. This done, we made a very careful examination on all sides of the face of the rock upon which we stood, finally coming to the conclusion that, though a difficult feat, it was possible to raise a few 18-pounders ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... bishops, court marshals, generals, monks, nuns, society ladies, workmen, sailors, dustmen, and street-girls levelling the ground with hoes and spades. Finally the King himself made up his mind to join in the work. That was the greatest feat of equalisation which mankind have carried out; the hills were made low, and the valleys filled. At last the great theatre of liberty was ready. At the altar of the Fatherland a fire of perfumed wood was kindled, and Talleyrand, Bishop of ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... beside me, easy and indolent in the saddle. His long figure looked so loose and inert that the swift, light spring he made to the ground seemed an impossible feat. He had seen an antelope where I ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... melody, and played it in tune. This done, he whistled a quick tune, and played a slow second to it in perfect harmony; this done, he whistled the second part and played the quick treble—a very simple feat, but still ingenious for a boy, ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... undisturbed by his cousin's unreasonableness, sat himself down to eat the last meal he was ever to eat under that roof,—a feat which his cousin's appetite had rendered ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the cataract, turning now and then to look at me. Presently they came to a steep, ice-burnished acclivity, which they ascended by a succession of quick, short, stiff-legged leaps, reaching the top without a struggle. This was the most startling feat of mountaineering I had ever witnessed, and, considering only the mechanics of the thing, my astonishment could hardly have been greater had they displayed wings and taken to flight. "Surefooted" mules on such ground would have fallen and rolled like loosened boulders. ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... this monstrous request, "I do not think it would be expedient," was highly commendable as a feat of Ministerial restraint. But the gloom that has settled on him is only too solidly grounded. These afflicted Members are out to raise a sentimental public opinion in support of their silly demand. Then, of course, the Government ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... attracted both by curiosity and by the hope of yet winning the favour of the magnanimous mussungus (whites). After manoeuvring for about half an hour, we gave a platoon fire with ball-cartridge at a fixed target; and then one of our sharpshooters smashed ten eggs thrown up in rapid succession—a feat which won enthusiastic applause from the el-moran. Even the ringleaders of yesterday's opponents, when this first part of the play was over, declared that it would be madness to fight with such antagonists; they saw clearly that we could have blown them all into the air ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... fell flat. The peasants had applauded the whole graveyard scene wildly. But at the end of all they got up and crowded to the doors, as if to hurry away: this in spite of Enrico's final feat: he fell backwards, smack down three steps of the throne platform, on to the stage. But planks and braced muscle will bounce, and Signer Amleto bounced quite ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... them. In the bush it was the same thing. At seven, Tom knew more woodcraft than I ever dreamed existed. At six, Mary went over the Sliding Rock without a quiver, and I have seen strong men balk at that feat. And when Frank had just turned six he could bring up shillings from the bottom in ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... creeks and gullies with practically no warning. What a halo of tragedy lies over the dreaded Manacles! and what wonderful escapes some fortunate vessels have had. The author once saw a schooner of five hundred tons thread the narrow channels of the needle-pointed rocks in safety, but the feat was regarded by his companion, an old sailor of Falmouth, as little short of a miracle. As a matter of fact captains who get their ships among the Manacles are so anxious to keep the news from reaching the owners that they hang a sail over ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath
... well as national ties rendered my return to England a measure not only of expediency but necessity. The imperial Catherine granted me my dismissal in the most flattering terms, and added the high distinction of the Order founded in honour of the memorable feat by which she had saved her royal consort and the Russian army to the Order of St. Andrew, which I ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
