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noun
Quality  n.  (pl. qualities)  
1.
The condition of being of such and such a sort as distinguished from others; nature or character relatively considered, as of goods; character; sort; rank. "We lived most joyful, obtaining acquaintance with many of the city not of the meanest quality."
2.
Special or temporary character; profession; occupation; assumed or asserted rank, part, or position. "I made that inquiry in quality of an antiquary."
3.
That which makes, or helps to make, anything such as it is; anything belonging to a subject, or predicable of it; distinguishing property, characteristic, or attribute; peculiar power, capacity, or virtue; distinctive trait; as, the tones of a flute differ from those of a violin in quality; the great quality of a statesman. Note: Qualities, in metaphysics, are primary or secondary. Primary are those essential to the existence, and even the conception, of the thing, as of matter or spirit Secondary are those not essential to such a conception.
4.
An acquired trait; accomplishment; acquisition. "He had those qualities of horsemanship, dancing, and fencing which accompany a good breeding."
5.
Superior birth or station; high rank; elevated character. "Persons of quality."
Quality binding, a kind of worsted tape used in Scotland for binding carpets, and the like.
The quality, those of high rank or station, as distinguished from the masses, or common people; the nobility; the gentry. "I shall appear at the masquerade dressed up in my feathers, that the quality may see how pretty they will look in their traveling habits."
Synonyms: Property; attribute; nature; peculiarity; character; sort; rank; disposition; temper.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Quality" Quotes from Famous Books



... interesting it is to the returned visitor to London to go quickly to the National Gallery and see how we compare with them. Florence is naturally far richer than we, but although only now and then have we the advantage, we can valuably supplement in a great many cases. And the National Gallery keeps up its quality throughout—it does not suddenly fall to pieces as the Uffizi does. Thus, I doubt if Florence with all her Andreas has so exquisite a thing from his hand as our portrait of a "Young Sculptor," so long called ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... replied Lezhnyov, 'but as for character ... That's just his misfortune, that there's no character in him... But that's not the point. I want to speak of what is good, of what is rare in him. He has enthusiasm; and believe me, who am a phlegmatic person enough, that is the most precious quality in our times. We have all become insufferably reasonable, indifferent, and slothful; we are asleep and cold, and thanks to any one who will wake us up and warm us! It is high time! Do you remember, Sasha, once when I was talking to you about him, I blamed him for coldness? ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev

... his shoulders. "She is brave," he said, "but even Pamba, the rat, must have some good quality, but she is what I have told you and therefore I hate her and ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... had managed to shelter for the night. Mrs. Lightfoot was there with Mrs. Rivett, her daughter, elder son, and a grave-looking man servant, Mr. Henshaw, a Barbados merchant, with his wife, and a very worn battered shabby personage, but unmistakably a gentleman of quality, and wounded in the wars, for he was so lame that the merchant had to help ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was a devoutly and sincerely religious man, hospitable, charitable to the poor, fearless in fight, active, enterprising, and possessed of a large and generous nature. He had in him a quality of being able to overlook moderate injuries, and being able to forgive and forget mortal ones as soon as he had soundly trounced the authors of them. He was prompt to take up any poor devil's quarrel and risk his neck to right him. The common folk ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... admirable quality," said Sarakoff. He put his glass on the table and for some time we sat ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... improving air and water quality; acid rain; agricultural fertilizer and pesticide pollution; management of sparse natural water resources in west; desertification; tsunamis, volcanoes, and earthquake activity around Pacific Basin; continuous permafrost in northern Alaska is a ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... measure which is neither so small as to preclude us from distinguishing its parts, nor so extensive as to prevent us from taking the whole in at one view. This is, therefore, merely an external definition of the beautiful, derived from experience, and founded on the quality of our organs of sense and our powers of comprehension. However, his application of it to the drama is remarkable. "It must have an extension, but such as may easily be taken in by the memory. The determination of the length according to the wants of the representation, does not come within ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... mental discipline, while to another and equally valuable class of minds it presents difficulties so great as actually to crush and discourage. There are, we will venture to say, in every ten boys in Boston four, and those not the dullest or poorest in quality, who could never go through the discipline of the Boston Latin School without such a strain on the brain and nervous system as would leave them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... once said to him, appealing to his patriotism, which was of a hardy quality, "this is no way to treat American seamen. You don't call it American ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... by no means simple to carry out, seem at least to possess the quality of definiteness and straightforwardness. "Follow them and all will be clear," I seem to imply. But I regret to say that this is not really the case. For my experience tells me that even after the above directions have been followed with the greatest possible zeal, the ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... Coercion is of small avail in some cases," says Olga, regarding her with the calm dignity of one who plainly considers the person addressed of very inferior quality indeed. ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... exercise-book, certainly containing anything but elegant specimens of penmanship. Ethel's best writing was an upright, disjointed niggle, looking more like Greek than anything else, except where here and there it made insane efforts to become running-hand, and thereby lost its sole previous good quality of legibility, while the lines waved about the sheet in almost any direction but the horizontal. The necessity she believed herself under of doing what Harry called writing with the end of her nose, and her always holding her pen with her fingers ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... radical of which the English word old (eld) is cognate. From the root al, "to grow, to make to grow, to nourish," spring also the Latin words proles, "offspring," suboles, "offspring, sprout," indoles, "inborn or native quality." ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... Leader; Prince ARTHUR, content to sit lower down. It seemed to some that when vacancy occurred JOKIM, that veteran Child of Promise, would step in, and younger men wait their turn. But youth of certain quality must come to the front, as BONAPARTE testified even before he went to Italy, and as PITT showed when the Rockingham Administration went ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 20, 1892 • Various

... biological standpoint the probability of gregariousness being a primitive and fundamental quality in man seems to be considerable. It would appear to have the effect of enlarging the advantages of variation. Varieties not immediately favorable, varieties departing widely from the standard, varieties even unfavorable to the individual, may be ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... it a weakness," said I. "It's the quality that makes the chief difference between us and the common run—the fellows that have no purposes beyond getting comfortably ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... rapid depletion of nonrenewable mineral resources, the depletion of forest areas and wetlands, the extinction of animal and plant species, and the deterioration in air and water quality (especially in Eastern Europe, the former USSR, and China) pose serious long-term problems that governments and peoples are ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... of the world—or even its own weakness—as was too often the case with the giddy maidens whom he had known through Demorest's companionship. It was, therefore, more with a sense of recalling this distinctive quality of his wife than any loyalty to Demorest that he suddenly resolved to confide to her the ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... life have the remarkable quality of restoring a lost organ, and of living as separate individuals if divided. This power gradually diminishes as we ascend the scale of life, and is lost by the higher forms. It is a remarkable fact, however, that the lower human races, the lower classes ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... had not been before by the dynamic quality of the grass; never the same for successive instants. Constant movement and struggle as the expanding parts fought for room among themselves, pushing upward and outward, seemed to indicate perceptible ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... the climate and rudeness of the country, do not permit to the Ladakians much latitude in quality and colors of costume. They wear gowns of simple gray linen and coarse dull-hued clothing of their own manufacture. The pantaloons of the men only descend to their knees. People in good circumstances wear, in addition to the ordinary ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... boy came whistling down the lane to deliver the rump-steak or mutton-chop I had decided on for dinner; the greengrocer delivered his vegetables; the cheesemonger took solemn affidavit concerning the freshness of his stale eggs and the superior quality of a curious article which he called country butter, and declared came from a particular dairy famed for the excellence of its produce; the milkman's yahoo sounded cheerfully in the morning hours; and the letter-box was ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... parts of the world, and now have a far wider range than any other rodent, living free under the cold climate of Faroe in the north and of the Falklands in the south, and on many islands in the torrid zones. Hence I am inclined to look at adaptation to any special climate as a quality readily grafted on an innate wide flexibility of constitution, which is common to most animals. On this view, the capacity of enduring the most different climates by man himself and by his domestic animals, ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin

... paper had no solidity, and answer to it was made in another, in which the former was utterly demolished [98] with sharp arguments. The provincial made another reply, over his signature, of the same quality as the former document, but with not slight attacks on the authority and patronage of our king. On the same day when the governor entered the city [i.e., August 24] in the afternoon, on that morning came ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... consonance and propriety. He saw immediately of his own conceptions what was to be chosen and what to be rejected, and, in the works of others, what was to be shunned and what was to be copied. But good sense alone is a sedate and quiescent quality, which manages its possessions well, but does not increase them; it collects few materials for its own operations, and preserves safety, but never gains supremacy. Pope had likewise genius; a mind active, ambitious, and adventurous, always investigating, ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... probably advise delay in sympathy with the hardships of the troops, when the same officers would have sprung with ardor to the work under a brief and strong appeal from a confident leader, presenting the broader reasons for energetic persistent activity. It was this quality of leadership in Sherman which made Grant say to Stanton in December, "It is refreshing to see a commander, after a campaign of more than seven months' duration, ready for still further operations without wanting any outfit ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... delightfully anemic Madonna, and Holman Hunt's 'Light of the World.' A day or two ago I was talking to a lady who pronounced that—" he extended his finger toward the Hunt—"the greatest work of art produced in the last hundred years. Her reason? Its comforting quality. I am sure ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... found swift expression and were as swiftly forgotten; that a grown ranchman could nourish resentment towards a girl, and that because she was attempting to take charge of her own property, was well beyond his comprehension. For he had that quality which is common to all born leaders: he understood in what good and faithful service should consist; with this addition, that he was far more fitted to ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... furnished an article for 'L'Actualite'. In all honor, Jacquemin was really the spoiled child of the Baroness, the director of the entertainments at her house. With a little more conceit, Jacquemin, who was by no means lacking in that quality, however, might have believed that the pretty little woman was in love with him. The truth is, the Baroness Dinati was only in love with the reporter's articles, those society articles in which he never forgot her, but paid, with a string ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Miss Anthony spoke in Cincinnati to an audience of 2,000, under the management of A. W. Whelpley, city librarian.[46] The Commercial Gazette commented: "Miss Susan B. Anthony had every reason for congratulation on the audience, both as to quality and quantity, which greeted her Sunday afternoon at the Grand Opera House. Her discourse proved to be one of the most entertaining of the Unity Club lectures this season, and if she did not succeed in gaining many proselytes ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... looking for young teachers could ascertain their strong and weak points as they developed during their apprenticeship in classrooms and in other educational activities, as well as the quality and trend of their scholarship. They would not rest satisfied with ascertaining the minute corner of the field of philosophy, history, or physics in which a man recommended had done research. Records could be ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... your Basket about with several sorts of small Ribbons: Do not take this for a simple Fancy, for I assure you, it is the very same that I taught to a young Gentlewoman to give for a Present to a Person of Quality. ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley

... French Sorrel is not only served as a separate dish, but is mingled with Spinach, and is also used as an ingredient in soups, sauces, and salads. Leaves of the finest quality are obtainable from plants a year old, and when the crop has been gathered the ground may with advantage be utilised for some other purpose. Light soil in fairly good heart suits the plant. The seed should be sown in March or early April, ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... editions. The critics declared that his lyrics were the finest of his generation, and vowed the time could not be far off when he would unite the imaginative energy of his first long poems with the nightingale quality of his later, and produce one of the greatest poetical dramas in the language. But the man had been cast into outer darkness. Society had dropped him, and the young Queen would not permit his name to be mentioned in her presence. That gentle spirit, the Countess of Blessington, indifferent ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton

... to be got about Covent-garden Market, and that was more company—warm company, too, which was better. Toast of a very substantial quality, was likewise procurable: though the towzled-headed man who made it, in an inner chamber within the coffee-room, hadn't got his coat on yet, and was so heavy with sleep that in every interval of toast and coffee he went off anew behind the partition into complicated ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... made their appearance. "Now, you will take a glass with me," said Dago; "it is the pure Cogniac, quality one, letter A." ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... complaining of the fact. As for groans—old hinges groan when the wind blows and so do rickety gutters and water pipes. But this groan, or so it seemed to Mrs. Barnes, had a different and distinct quality of its own. It ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... scheme works," declared Amy. Her manner changed to one of great seriousness. "I know your way is brave and true, believe me I do. And I know what it costs you to follow it. I respect and admire the quality in men that leads them so straightly along the path. But I could not do it. Ideas and things are inspiring and great and to be worked for with enthusiasm and devotion, I know. No one loves the Service more than I, nor would make more personal ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... and sigh,—that a more or less solitary habit had, by long familiarity, become pleasant. Actual loneliness he had never experienced, because it was not in his nature to feel lonely. His well-balanced intellect had the brilliant quality of a finely-cut diamond, bearing many facets, and reflecting all the hues of life in light and colour; thus it quite naturally happened that most things, even ordinary and common things, interested him. He was a great ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... of course, "pretty considerably," astonished at the quality and powers of the persons who addressed him, and, rather incredulously asked if they were quite sure that they could ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... The young man had one sorry quality, for one considers as something great everything which resembles strength, and often men invent extravagances. Henri knew not how to pardon. That returning upon itself which is one of the soul's ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac

... with a bad knee, an' she said 'twould take up my time an' help her; we was a large family. They'll buy all the folks can do down here to Addicks' store. They say our Dunnet stockin's is gettin' to be celebrated up to Boston,—good quality o' wool an' even knittin' or somethin'. I've always been called a pretty hand to do nettin', but seines is master cheap to what they used to be when they was all hand worked. I change off to nettin' long towards spring, and I piece up my trawls and lines ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett

... these of Mildred Lawson and John Norton are exquisitely finished. They are half-lengths, with a quality of coloring fascinating in its repelling truth. Every tint and shade have been cunningly and caressingly laid in, so that the features, living and animated, are yet filled with suggestions of the spiritual barrenness in the originals. Very human they are, and yet ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... machine. Knowing nothing of the fortunes, nor of the past, nor of the future of my family, I was unaware of this devoted service which the Comte de Mortsauf well remembered. Moreover, the antiquity of our name, the most precious quality of a man in his eyes, added to the warmth of his greeting. I knew nothing of these reasons until later; for the time being the sudden transition to cordiality put me at my ease. When the two children saw that we were all three fairly engaged in conversation, Madeleine slipped her head from ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... feel. Sometimes it was touching, sometimes it was revolting; and in Italy it is not otherwise. The Campo Santo of San Miniato at Florence, the Campo Santo at Bologna, the Campo Santo wherever else you find it, you find of one quality with the Campo Santo at Genoa. It makes you the helpless confidant of family pride, of bruised and lacerated love, of fond aspiration, of religious longing, of striving faith, of foolish vanity and vulgar pretence, but, if the traveller would read the local civilization aright, he cannot ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... the King's City—but its light was not the light of the day, for that was gone; nor of the moon, not risen; and no false lights vexed the dark. Yet he was looking into a cup of light, as clear as the light in a gazing-crystal and of a quality as wholly at variance with reality. The rocky coast of Yaque was literally a massive, natural wall; and girt by it lay the heart of the island, fertile and populous and clothed in mystery. This new face which Nature turned to him was a glorified face, and ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... courts and debating societies; classes in French, Spanish, and Greek. There were Bible students and students in the arts and sciences prosecuting their varied studies. The gutta-percha ring-makers were quite numerous, and it was really astonishing to see the quality of the work turned out, being handsomely engraved and inlaid with silver. There were diversion and amusement for everybody and every class of men, except croakers and grumblers. They had no lot, parcel, or place, and such characters were not permitted to indulge in their evil forebodings. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... something to me, too? I don't like you to talk as if I did all the giving and you all the taking. I don't know how the girls and I would get along without your advice and help here at the Hall. I think," her voice broke into a troubled laugh, "I think you forget that the quality of friendship ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris

... here with a trumped-up charge against the grant of a crown and a vote of thanks, and should have spent so many words upon it—that is a sign of personal enmity and jealousy and meanness, not of any good quality. {280} And that he should further have discarded every form of lawsuit against myself, and should have come here to-day to attack the defendant, is the very extremity of baseness. It shows, I think, Aeschines, that your motive in undertaking this ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes

... I—a thousand times better, more's the pity. Very well! I rest the case with you. Tell me, out of all your knowledge of the man, what 'good quality' he ever showed, how he ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... hand in both of his, pressing it for an instant in a quick muscular grasp which had in it something of the nervous vigor that lent a peculiar vibrant quality to his voice. ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... cousin, and his particular friends, till one day he finds that he is sixty-five years of age, that he has lost so much time in consulting first cousins and particular friends that he has no time to follow their advice." This is good sense, though humorously put. Promptitude is a quality that should be assiduously cultivated. Like punctuality, it becomes a most valuable habit. "Procrastination," it is said, "is the thief of time," and "hell is paved with good intentions." These proverbs are full of wisdom. When we hear people saying, "They are going to be this ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees

... of Anne's called 'Home.' Emily was sixteen at the time of writing; Anne about twenty-one or twenty-two. Both sisters take for their motive the exile's longing thought of home. Emily's lines are full of faults, but they have the indefinable quality—here, no doubt, only in the bud, only as a matter of promise—which Anne's are entirely without. From the twilight schoolroom at Roehead, Emily turns in thought to the distant upland of Haworth and the little stone-built house ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... settlers corresponded well with the style of their buildings and the quality of their furniture. The hunting-shirt of the militiaman and the hunter was in general use. The rest of their apparel was in keeping with it—plain, substantial, and well adapted for comfort, use, and economy. The apparel of the ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley

... mean, the most cruel and contemptible thing under the sun!" she said, passionately. "What is the quality that makes a great hero—a great general—nowadays? Courage? Not a bit. It is callousness!—an absolute indifference to the slaughtering of human lives! You sit in your tent—you sit on horseback—miles away from the fighting; and if the poor wretches ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... watched. One thing easily suggests another, interesting too, it may be; and when an essay is to be written, anything,—especially if it have so worthy a quality as interest to recommend it,—anything is allowed to go in. Such a sentence as the following can be explained on no other principle: "Just then James came rushing downstairs like mad to find the fellow who had punched a hole in the tire of his bicycle, ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... of different races. Mysterious as this circumstance appears to be, it is not more surprising than that the body of one's fellow-creature, directly after death, and before putrefaction has commenced, should often be of so deleterious a quality that the mere puncture from an instrument used in its ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... their houses and refused us an entry until matters were explained. The barns allotted to the men were found half full of the produce of the harvest. The usual work was carried on; new drafts arrived steadily, men of good quality, but of little experience, though always with a leaven of old 1st/4th men returning after wounds and sickness. A number of new officers, 17 in all, also joined the Battalion from a variety of regiments, 5th Norfolks, 4th Northants, 4th Royal Sussex and 10th Middlesex, no supplies from our own ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... to their theory. And did we not say, that all sensations arise thus: they move about between the agent and patient together with a perception, and the patient ceases to be a perceiving power and becomes a percipient, and the agent a quale instead of a quality; but neither has any absolute existence? But now we make the further discovery, that neither white or whiteness, nor any sense or sensation, can be predicated of anything, for they are in a perpetual ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... into good strong cloth. Flax was also raised, and I remember how they pulled it, rotted it by spreading on the green meadow, then broke and dressed it, and then the women made linen cloth of various degrees of fineness, quality, and beauty. Thus, by the labor of both men and women, we were clothed. If an extra fine Sunday dress was desired, part of the yarn was colored and from this they managed to get up a very nice plaid goods for ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... I tell you, that though there are all kinds and ways of art,—large work for large places, small work for narrow places, slow work for people who can wait, and quick work for people who cannot,—there is one quality, and, I think, only one, in which all great and good art agrees;—it is all delicate art. Coarse art is always bad art. You cannot understand this at present, because you do not know yet how much tender thought, and subtle care, the ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... process lies the true secret of heredity. The inherited energies retain their full measure of power, and all their original quality in the growing and dividing chromosomes (the chromosome is one of the segments into which the chromoplasmic filaments of a cell-nucleus break up just before indirect division). On the other hand, the egg-substance of the female ...
— Sex - Avoided subjects Discussed in Plain English • Henry Stanton

... spoke it was the same voice, and yet how new! The quality in it made Sinclair sit ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... himself was unreasoning, hasty, impulsive—in a word, often thinking and acting very foolishly—yet, somehow, either from some quality in his character, or from the loyalty of nature in those with whom he had to deal in his every-day life, he had made his place and position clear as the arbiter and law-giver of his household. On his decision, as that of husband, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... a.m. we stood 3200 feet above sea-level (aner. 26.79), high enough to make our tents look like bits of white macadam. What most struck us was the increased importance of the vegetation, both in quantity and quality; the result, doubtless, of more abundant dew and rain, as well as of shade from each passing mist-cloud. The view formed a startling contrast of fertility and barrenness. At every hundred yards the growths of the plain became more luxuriant in the rich humus filling the fissures, and, contrary ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... Herself born of a noble family, and distinguished both for her beauty and her wit, she had reigned for a quarter of a century the favourite subject of Sir Joshua; had flirted with Lord Carlisle, and chatted with Dr. Johnson. But the most remarkable quality of her ladyship's destiny was her preservation. Time, that had rolled on nearly a century since her birth, had spared alike her physical and mental powers. She was almost as active in body, and quite as lively in mind, as when seventy years before she skipped in Marylebone Gardens, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... effects he produced could not have been even hinted at. His touch was weird, his technique indescribable, and one no longer listened to the piano, but to one of those instruments of Eastern origin in which glass and metal are extensively used. The quality of tone emanating from the piano was brittle, so to speak; in a word, sounded so thin, sharp, and at times so wavering as to suggest the idea that it might at any moment break. And then it made me indescribably nervous to see his talon-like fingers threading their way ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... Scots Postman, or the New Edinburgh Gazette, there is no mention of the Scots Atalantis" (Letters, p. 306, n. 1). The title of this work and of Defoe's Atalantis Major are derived from Mrs. Manley's New Atalantis or Secret Memoirs and Manners of several Persons of Quality of both Sexes from the New Atalantis, an island in the Mediterranean (1709). The OED records that the word atalantis enjoyed a brief currency in the eighteenth century with the meaning, "a secret or ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe

... its noun; ditto, with respect to an adj. and noun —relative position of, and adj., not a matter of indifference —excluded by certain pronom. adjectives; what ones precede it; its position in respect to an adj. of quality, limited by too, so, as, or how —position of, when an adj. is preceded by another adv. than too, so, as, or how —do., when an adj. follows its noun —whether the insertion or the omission of, can greatly affect the import of a sentence —Article, repetition ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... engage may be overpowered before those following them come up; but the balance of chances is generally in their favor, and in the particular instance would have been markedly so, as was shown by the results of the two days' fighting, which had proved the superior quality of ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... ancestor of the many who bear the name of May in this country. In 1650 the old house on May's Lane was built by Mr. Bridge, and since 1771 it has been owned and occupied by the direct descendents of John May. It has always been a typical New England fruit farm, noted for the fine quality of its cherries, peaches, pears, apples, and berries of various kinds. In the early days it covered many acres, including the beautiful hill now occupied by the fine estates of the Bowditch family and others, and the ...
— Annals and Reminiscences of Jamaica Plain • Harriet Manning Whitcomb

... military force, the water side by gunboats. An ample supply of provisions was stealthily (for fear of the mob) introduced into the building; a bevy of royal cooks was sent to see that the food was of good quality, and to render it as palatable as their art could make it. About this building, in which the witnesses were immured from August till November, the London mob would hover like a cat round the cage of a canary. Such confinement ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... statures of the men, based on the quality of their voices, was not exactly borne out. For it was the big man who had the high pitched, squeaky voice, and the little man who ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton

... religious the age still was—that this widespread artistic activity was a religious enthusiasm also; those early sculptors have still, for their contemporaries, a divine mission, with some kind of hieratic or sacred quality in their ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... served him half a Year, and then he marry'd her, and dying in a Year more, left her worth fifty thousand Pounds Sterling, besides Plate and Jewels: She's a great Gallant, but assuming the humour of the Country Gentry, her Extravagancy is very pleasant, she retains something of her primitive Quality still, but is ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... square look quite frisky and inviting with a shimmer of green over the black trees, and the spring-cleaned windows sending out flashes of light; it's a very different spectacle on a November afternoon. Five minutes' acquaintanceship with Pastimes showed, however, that its predominating quality was cheerfulness. There was a great deal of panelling on the walls, but it was of white wood, not oak, and the old, small latticed windows had been converted into deep bays, filled with great panes of plate glass—a pagan proceeding from an artistic point of view, but infinitely cheerful ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the classic number and arrangement of themes; and they are also poetic, being not a presentation of abstract tone patterns, but illustrative of some external idea which shapes the course of the music entirely to its own needs.[245] The distinguishing quality of the Symphonic Poem is its unbroken continuity. Although objective points are reached, and while there are broad lines of demarcation with reference to the varied moods of the poem to be illustrated, there are no rigid stops—everything is fused ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... succeeded better in their attempts upon Goodman, who disappeared; so that one witness only remained, and Fenwick began to think his life was out of danger. Admiral Russel acquainted the house of commons that he and several persons of quality had been reflected upon in some informations of sir John Fenwick; he therefore desired that he might have an opportunity to justify his own character. Mr. secretary Trumball produced the papers, which having been read, the commons ordered that sir John Fenwick should be brought ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... Adjective is a word added to a substantive, to express its quality."—Lowth, Murray, Bullions, Pond, and others. Here we have the choice of two meanings; but neither of them is according to truth. It seems doubtful whether "its quality" is the adjective's quality, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... When it was published Miss Barrett wrote to Mr. Browning that she found it in her heart to covet the authorship of this poem more than any other of his works, and he said in answer that he, too, liked Pippa better than anything else he had yet done. Mr. Sharp, while emphasizing the undramatic quality of the play, counts it "the most imperishable because the most nearly immaculate of Browning's dramatic poems." "It seems to me," he adds, "like all simple and beautiful things, profound enough for the sinking plummet of the most curious explorer of the depths ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... beast would sniff curiously, close to that of its prospective supper. The red forked tongue would pass rapidly over its face and the rabbit made no attempt to move. Whether it was the effect of some anaesthetic quality in the breath of the snake or the traditional charm of the serpent, it was hard to say, but the rabbit made no move to escape. Slowly but surely it yielded to the fascination of the snake, the large transparent ears dropped to the side of ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe

... Everyone who reflects can know that the inmost vitality of man is from love, since he grows warm from the presence of love and cold from its absence, and when deprived of it he dies.{1} But it is to be remembered that the quality of his love is what determines the quality of ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg

... flute and pipe? Again the pantomime supplies you. I say nothing of the excellent moral influence of public opinion, as exercised in the theatre, where you will find the evil-doer greeted with execration, and his victim with sympathetic tears. The pantomime's most admirable quality I have yet to mention,—his combination of strength and suppleness of limb; it is as if brawny Heracles and soft Aphrodite were presented to us in ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... envelope too, please. Postmark, London, S.W. Date, July 7. Hum! Man's thumb-mark on corner,—probably postman. Best quality paper. Envelopes at sixpence a packet. Particular man in his stationery. No address. 'Be at the third pillar from the left outside the Lyceum Theatre to-night at seven o'clock. If you are distrustful, bring two friends. You are a wronged woman, and shall have justice. Do not bring police. If ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle

... promised did not arrive, and the crews were put on half rations, and eked these out by catching fish. At last, when the supplies were just exhausted, the victualling ships arrived, with one month's fresh rations, and a message that no more would be sent. So villainous was the quality of the stores that fever broke out in ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... said shows clearly enough the Literal meaning of the first part. In the second, there is to be understood how it makes manifest what I experienced from the struggle within me; and this part has two divisions. In the first place it describes the quality of these oppositions, according as their cause was within me. Then I narrate what the one and the other voice of opposition said; and upon that firstly which described what was being lost, in the passage which is the second of that part and the third of the Song. In evidence, then, of ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... these similies of fire and air, the teacher tries to show Nachiketas the subtle quality of the great Self, who, although one and formless like air and fire, yet assumes different shapes according to the form in which It dwells. But, being all-pervading and unlimited, It cannot be confined to these ...
— The Upanishads • Swami Paramananda

... warmth, and his sincerity was so strikingly manifest, that a thrill of sympathy ran through the whole audience. At that time, philosophy was too fashionable with the young men of quality for these not to be among the first to respond to an appeal, though addressed to others than themselves. They rose with chivalrous enthusiasm and turned round to the people, who, carried away by their noble example, rose likewise. There was a wild uproar, and one and all, conscious of their dignity ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... enumerated; King of the Eastern and Western Indies and of the continents on terra firma adjacent, King of Jerusalem, Archduke of Antioch, Duke of Burgundy, and King of the Ocean, having seen that the archdukes were content to treat with the States-General of the United Provinces in quality of, and as holding them for, countries, provinces, and free states over which they pretended to no authority; either by way of a perpetual peace or for a truce or suspension of arms for twelve, fifteen, or twenty years, at the choice of the said States, and knowing that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... spare angular figure and sharp-featured face did not look encouraging; but surely never before was seen such a dazzling white apron, such a stiffly starched collar, such spotless cuffs. Margaret's cleanliness had in it, it was true, an aggressive quality, but Ted admired it nevertheless. The kitchen and all its appurtenances bore witness to the same scrupulous nicety. No floor in Thornleigh village was raddled so carefully, no fire-irons glittered so bravely; the very walls seemed to shine; and as for the pots and pans they ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... touch him, as indeed it ought, than the private respect of one man; so that the cause being throughly heard, and all things done in good order as near as might be to the course of our law in England, it was concluded that Mr. Doughtie should receive punishment according to the quality of the offence. And he, seeing no remedy but patience for himself, desired before his death to receive the communion, which he did at the hands of Mr. Fletcher, our minister, and our General himself accompanied him in that holy action, which, being done, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... little scholars. From the moment they were washed and cleanly clad, a new and better spirit came upon them. They were more orderly and obedient, and more teachable. There was, or seemed to be, a tenderer quality in their voices as they sang their hymns ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... pond is our private property, and we do not care to have strangers there until we know if they are birds of quality.' ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice

... excellent coal, and, more important than all perhaps, the highly improved state of inland navigation in England; although I am aware that the English use of Swedes iron may be thought to be owing in some degree to its superior quality. ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... $20 an acre is about the average price of the average land. I had an option on a three hundred and sixty acre farm cornering the corporation limits of the County Seat for $30 an acre, and all agreed that the farm was above the average in quality. ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins

... of the Jews for their sacred books manifests itself in their numerous rules for the guidance of copyists in the transcription of the rolls designed for use in the synagogue service. They extend to every minute particular—the quality of the ink and the parchment (which latter must always be prepared by a Jew from the skin of a clean animal, and fastened by strings made from the skins of clean animals); the number, length, and breadth of the columns; ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... held many a discussion upon the new verses—brimful of local allusions and circumstances which everybody knew—over their ale as they rested in the village changehouse, or among the fumes of their punch in their evening assemblies. Verses warm from the poet's brain have a certain intoxicating quality akin to the toddy, and no doubt the citizens slapped their thighs and snapped their fingers with delight when some well-known name appeared, the incidents of some story they knew by heart, or the features ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... abstain from all liquors of an intoxicating quality, whether they be ale, porter, wine or ardent ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... for much of it, unfortunately, is lost to a foreign reader, in consequence of its dependance on the piquant old Tuscan idiom, and on popular sayings and allusions. Yet I should think it impossible for Pulci in general to be severe at the expense of some more agreeable quality; and I am sure that the portion of his wit most obvious to a foreigner may claim, if not to have originated, at least to have been very like the style of one who was among its declared admirers,—and who was a very polished writer,—Voltaire. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... honorable son of the tribe of Nimrod, was the best of comrades. The striking quality in Ware was his beautiful humanness, which had given him a peculiar hold upon men. Thatcher was far from being a saint, but, like many other cheerful sinners in our capital, he had gone to church in the days when Ware occupied the First Congregational ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson



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