... of spirits and heartiest of moods, though that may be an unnecessary superlative regarding a lady who had never been seen either moody or out of spirits since her cradle. She embraced Agatha warmly, and even went through the same ceremony with her brother Nathanael, which he bore with exemplary fortitude, but shook his hair after it, ... — Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock) Read full book for free!
... slinking, furtive, ever on a futile prowl. He especially engaged the interest of Tom McNeil, who said admiringly, as I, too, looked through the bars, "Ain't he a prompt little cuss?" I felt that with Tom it was the fascination of opposites; he never could understand superlative energy. ... — Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown Read full book for free!
... was the friendship of Hermia and Helena. Before he had got further than to realize this, there wheeled round amongst the dancers a lady whose tournure he recognized well. She was Paula; and to the young man's vision a superlative something distinguished her from all the rest. This was not dress or ornament, for she had hardly a gem upon her, her attire being a model of effective simplicity. Her ... — A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy Read full book for free!
... impermanencies of that ancient age, and left standing but the palaces built upon the rock of the Soul. The Soul made the Upanishads, as it mide Paradise Lost; it made the former in the Golden Age, and the latter in this Age of Iron; the former through men gifted with superlative vision; the latter through a blind old bard. Therein lies the difference: all our bards, our very greatest, have been blind,—Dante and Shakespeare, no less than Milton. Full-flowing Time washed away the ... — The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris Read full book for free!
... corruption in pick-axe, Mid. Eng. pikeys, Old Fr. piquois, picquois, "a pickax" (Cotgrave), from the verb piquer. The word posthumous has changed its meaning through folk-etymology. It represents the Latin superlative postumus, latest born. By association with humus, ground, earth, it came to be used of a child born, or a work published, after its author's death, a meaning which the derivatives of postumus have in all ... — The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley Read full book for free!
... Sup noktomangxi. Superb belega. Superficial suprajxa. Superficies suprajxo. Superfluity superfluo. Superfluous superflua. Superhuman superhoma. Superintend observi, zorgi pri. Superior supera. Superior, a superulo. Superiority supereco. Superlative (gram.) superlativo. Supernatural supernatura. Supernumerary ekstrulo. Superscription surskribo. Supersede anstatauxi. Superstition supersticxo. Superstitious supersticxa. Supervise observi. Supper noktomangxo. Supplant anstatauxi, uzurpi. Supple ... — English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes Read full book for free!
... moreover, it occupied most of the time of the child and taught him to be industrious and proficient, and to regard life with much more seriousness than does the home of to-day. The home or the family, therefore, is not the great superlative factor that it ought to be in the training and education of ... — Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall Read full book for free!
... has 40,000 new paletots, he does not mean that he has got that number packed up in a box. If required to do so, he will supply them to that extent,—or to any further extent. A long row of figures in trade is but an elegant use of the superlative. If a tradesman can induce a lady to buy a diagonal Osnabruck cashmere shawl by telling her that he has 1,200 of them, who is injured? And if the shawl is not exactly a real diagonal Osnabruck cashmere, what harm is done as long as the lady gets the value ... — The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope Read full book for free!
... enjoy the supper, which was most agreeable, but far more the conversation. Among the topics discussed, what gave me most delight was to hear your name mentioned by the Captain; nor was this all, for he still added to my pleasure, nay, to a superlative degree, by saying that, in the art of painting he held you to be sole and without peer in the whole world, and that so you were esteemed at Rome. I could not have been better pleased. You see that my judgment is confirmed; and so you must not deny that you are peerless, when I write it, since I ... — The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds Read full book for free!
... sir," said Johnson, "that is not so extraordinary: the King of Siam sent ambassadors to Louis the Fourteenth: but Louis the Fourteenth sent none to the King of Siam." This topic also enjoys another distinction. It is one of many proofs of the superlative excellence of Johnson's talk that it cannot be imitated. Hundreds of clever men have made the attempt, but, with the exception of a single sentence, not one of these manufactured utterances could impose for an instant upon a real Johnsonian. ... — Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey Read full book for free!
... The love of the superlative is deeply seated in the American mind. It is based on no very careful survey of the existing world. It is a conclusion to which it is easy to jump. I remember one week, traveling through the Mississippi Valley, stopping every night in some town that had something which was advertised as the biggest ... — Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers Read full book for free!
... are compared, the comparative and not the superlative degree should be used; thus, "Mary is the older of the two"; "John is the stronger of the two"; "Brown is the richer of the two, and the richest man in the city"; "Which is the more desirable, health or wealth?" "Which ... — The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres) Read full book for free!
... haggled about the price;[23] or the statue, while stepping into his niche, would turn round on the author to assist his invention. A patron of Peter Motteux, dissatisfied with Peter's colder temperament, composed the superlative dedication to himself, and completed the misery of the author by subscribing it with Motteux's name![24] Worse fared it when authors were the unlucky hawkers of their own works; of which I shall give a remarkable instance in MYLES DAVIES, a learned ... — Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli Read full book for free!
...superlative of beauty, wealth, and position, was married to the highest noble in the Three Kingdoms. Those who talked about such matters said that their progeny were exactly like their parents,—a peculiarity of the aristocratic and wealthy. ... — The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte Read full book for free!
... majority of the most populous and powerful historical peoples of the world have been located on soils that thirst for water, may find its explanation in the intrinsic value of arid soils. From Babylon to the United States is a far cry; but it is one that shouts to the world the superlative merits of the soil that begs for water. To learn how to use the "desert" is to make ... — Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe Read full book for free!
... practical-minded man that he is, he calls it conversion—being turned around. Ask Peter what it is and, as he looks back upon his old benighted condition, he cries that it is like coming out of the darkness into a marvelous light. Ask Paul what it is and, with his love of superlative figures, he cries that it is like being dead and being raised again with a great resurrection. Ask John what it is and, with his mystical spirit, he says that it is being born again. See the variety that comes from vitality—no stiff methods, ... — Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick Read full book for free!
... me honor, madam. It is the superlative felicity of my sublunary existence to congratulate you on this auspicious occasion," replied Mr. Sneed, as he gently pressed the gloved hand ... — Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic Read full book for free!
... natural gift. Social in its nature, it respects everything which tends to unite men. It delights in measure.[426] The love of beauty is mainly the love of measure or proportion. The person who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat, puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to be loved, love measure. You must have genius, or a prodigious usefulness, if you will hide the want of measure. This perception comes in to polish and perfect the parts of ... — Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson Read full book for free!
... education of women—and we may be content to accept the adjective without qualification, since it is after all only a comparative, and leaves us free to employ the superlative—may be and often is of very real value in certain cases and because of certain local conditions, such as the great numerical inequality of the sexes in nearly all civilized countries. It is valuable for that proportion of women, whatever it be, who, through ... — Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby Read full book for free!
... Chavis and Cazotte "Story of Bhazad (!) the Impatient." The name is Persian, Bih (well, good) Zad (born). In the adj. bih we recognize a positive lost in English and German which retain the comparative (bih-tar better) and superlative (bih-tarinbest). ... — Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton Read full book for free!
... Despite the superlative snappiness of Mr. Silberfarb's dress-suits his establishment was a loft over a delicatessen, approached by a splintery stairway along which hung shabby signs announcing the upstairs offices of "J. L. & T. J. O'Regan, ... — Free Air • Sinclair Lewis Read full book for free!
... on all things by the use of three terms: "out of date," "antiquated," "superannuated."[*] A man, a woman, or a piece of furniture might be "out of date"; next, by a greater degree of imperfection, "antiquated"; but as to the last term, it was the superlative of contempt. The first might be remedied, the second was hopeless, but the third,—oh, better far never to have left the void of nothingness! As to praise, a single word sufficed him, doubly and trebly uttered: "Charming!" was the positive of his admiration. "Charming, ... — Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac Read full book for free!
... of Chicago offered an unlimited sum for the provision of the University of that city with a "superlative" telescope. And it happened, fortunately, that a pair of glass discs, nearly 42 inches in diameter, and of perfect quality, were ready at hand. They had been cast by Mantois for the University of Southern California, when the erection of a great observatory on Wilson's Peak was ... — A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke Read full book for free!
... Saved her husband Nabal, when that he Should have been slain. And lo, Esther also By counsel good deliver'd out of woe The people of God, and made him, Mardoche, Of Assuere enhanced* for to be. *advanced in dignity There is nothing *in gree superlative* *of higher esteem* (As saith Senec) above a humble wife. Suffer thy wife's tongue, as Cato bit;* *bid She shall command, and thou shalt suffer it, And yet she will obey of courtesy. A wife is keeper ... — The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer Read full book for free!
... offered reward of ten pound, which was afterwards increased to twenty pound. Notwithstanding the most superlative, and, I may say, supernat'ral exertions on the part of this parish,' said Bumble, 'we have never been able to discover who is his father, or what was his ... — Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens Read full book for free!
... conscious, as at the time of our visit to the Burge Plantation, of the superlative soft sweetness of the ... — American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street Read full book for free!
... highest building, the largest steamer, the fastest train, the book reaching the widest circulation have, in America, a clear title to respect. When the just functions of things are as yet not discriminated, the superlative in any direction seems naturally admirable. Again, many possessions, if they do not make a man better, are at least expected to make his children happier; and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions. An experimental materialism, spontaneous and divorced from reason and from everything ... — The Life of Reason • George Santayana Read full book for free!
... American democrat had, of course, another political duty besides that of securing the election of himself and his friends. His political system was designed, not merely to deprive him of grievances, but to offer him superlative opportunities. In taking the utmost advantage of those opportunities, he was not only fulfilling his duty to himself, but he was helping to realize the substantial purpose of democracy. Just as it was the function of the national organization to keep itself undefiled ... — The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly Read full book for free!
... is nothing less than atrocious; and, in our judgment, the Adapter's actual purpose in putting it forth is to make his own superlative goodness seem proved by a ... — Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various Read full book for free!
... Thomson has gone over to Canada, and oh! wonder of wonders! Astley's has removed to Sadler's Wells!! The pyrotechnics of the former have gone on a visit to the hydraulics of the latter, the red fire of Astley's has come in contact with the real water of the Wells, yet, marvel superlative! the unnatural meeting has been successful—there has not been a ... — Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various Read full book for free!
... all the prime elements of perfect manhood, possibly no two persons may agree; yet none would deny that such was the manhood of Jesus, and none would question that there are two or three moral qualities which he exhibited in a superlative degree, qualities upon which ... — The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman Read full book for free!
... excellence, to revive public interest in the great body of his works. In the task of selection, it has been impossible to do full justice to his powers; for among the speeches omitted in this collection are to be found passages of superlative eloquence, maxims of political and moral wisdom which might be taken as mottoes for elaborate treatises on the philosophy of law and legislation, and important facts and principles which no student of history of the United States can overlook without betraying ... — The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster Read full book for free!
... rings up on his work for the Steelyard,—work which covered many years and more fine paintings than could even be enumerated here—with a superlative exhibition of all his powers. The oil portrait of Georg Gyze, or George Gisze, as it is often written, now in the Berlin Gallery (Plate 27), inscribed 1532, has called forth the enthusiastic eulogies of every competent judge. By a piece of rare good fortune ... — Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue Read full book for free!
... of the wisdom that comes with many years, tell you that if ever we are to free ourselves from the yoke of the oppressor, and to restore Peru to its ancient position of power and glory, we must be helped and guided in that great, that almost impossible task, by one who unites within himself superlative wisdom and superlative courage; and the crowning proof, to my mind, that heaven has now at last fulfilled its glorious promise is to be found in the fact that it has ordained our new Inca to be born an Englishman, possessed ... — Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood Read full book for free!
... variation to express different degrees of comparison. The regular degrees have been reckoned three; positive, comparative, and superlative. These are usually marked by changing the termination. The positive is determined by a comparison with other things; as, a great house, a small book, compared with others of their kind. This is truly a comparative degree. The comparative ... — Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch Read full book for free!
... told you," he began, "I bought the picture from a small dealer in the Bowery. I happened to notice it in his window, and, the 'Red Duchess' being one of the half-dozen superlative portraits of the world, I was naturally interested. It was certainly a fine copy, and I was pleased ... — The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen Read full book for free!
... have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domenichino and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterwards went to the beautiful cemetery of Bologna, beyond the walls, and found, besides the superb burial-ground, an original of a Custode, who reminded me of the grave-digger in Hamlet. He has a collection of capuchins' skulls, ... — Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various Read full book for free!
... confidence in fate. Eight years and three months nominally in the service, out of which in reality he had been absent four years and ten months either on furlough or without one, and already a general! Neither blind luck, nor the revolutionary epoch, nor the superlative ability of the man, but a compound of all these, had brought this marvel to pass. It did not intoxicate, but still further sobered, the beneficiary. This effect was partly due to an experience which ... — The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane Read full book for free!
... or dislikes under discussion. At such times he is no observer, much less worshipper, of proportion in his delineations. Thorough-paced, scarcely controllable, his enthusiasm for or against admits no degree in its expression, save and except the superlative. Hence Mr. Froude's statement of facts or description of phenomena, whenever his feelings are enlisted either way, must be taken with the proverbial "grain of salt" by all when enjoying the luxury of perusing his books. So complete is his self-identification with the sect or individual ... — West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas Read full book for free!
... objects; good horses, cruel riders, knowing men, dupes, jockeys, gamblers, and a large assemblage of mixed company. But this is a gayer scene than most others; and every epithet, appropriate to a course, diminutive or otherwise, must be in the superlative degree when applied to Ascot. This is the general, and often the only impression that most men carry ... — The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton Read full book for free!
... ought not to forget, because it is the chief: My duty to God will, I hope, always employ some good portion of my time, with thanks for his superlative goodness to me; and to pray for you and myself: for you, sir, for a blessing on you, for your great goodness to such an unworthy creature: for myself, that I may be enabled to discharge my duty to you, and be found grateful for all the blessings I shall receive ... — Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson Read full book for free!
... poured out his diatribe; and this thought was, that he was no longer conscious of any greatness in him. Through all the conflicts, trials, and formidable obstacles of previous years he had been sustained by his consciousness of superlative gifts combined with loftiness of purpose. Had not his greatness been dinned into his ears, he would have been as familiar with it. But he seemed to himself to have shrivelled, his very soul might have been in ashes—incremated ... — The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton Read full book for free!
... confinement in a temperate climate can form an idea of the beauty of the animal in its native desert. Born in the scorching sun, nursed on the burning sand of the treeless and shadowless wilderness, the gazelle is among the antelope tribe as the Arab horse is among its brethren, the high-bred and superlative beauty of the race. The skin is as sleek as satin, of a colour difficult to describe, as it varies between the lightest mauve and yellowish brown; the belly is snow-white; the legs, from the knee downwards, are also white, and are as fine as though carved from ... — The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker Read full book for free!
... a superlative moment in life when one stands on a structure as majestic as this which was at first a mere thought in the brain, which was afterward a plan on the paper, and which has been transported hither, from quarry and mine, from wood-yard and workshop, ... — Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley Read full book for free!
... Records, Part II. p. 983, as Josephus could not but know very well; but that he was esteemed as very ancient by them, and that they knew they had been first of all denominated "Danai" from this very ancient king Danaus. Nor does this superlative degree always imply the "most ancient" of all without exception, but is sometimes to be rendered "very ancient" only, as is the case in the like superlative ... — Against Apion • Flavius Josephus Read full book for free!
... Willis's, or an empty house for the occasion; of which alternatives it is ten to one that the latter will be adopted. True it is that the ball-room at Willis's (in old days so well known as Almack's), though far too narrow for its length, offers a floor of superlative smoothness, and that its position, in the very heart of the St. James's quarter, leaves nothing to be desired; but the place is so generally associated with festivities of the public and semi-public classes that anybody giving a private dance there may ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various Read full book for free!
... sharp, defined outlines, and without the waste of a word. The rhythmical structure of his prose is carefully correct. Scarcely a syllable is ever out of place. His ear for verse, though less true, is seldom wholly at fault, and whether in prose or verse, he had the superlative merit that he could never write nonsense. If one of the motives of poetical form be to clothe thought and feeling in the dress in which it can lie most easily remembered, Bunyan's lines are often as successful as the best lines of Quarles or George ... — Bunyan • James Anthony Froude Read full book for free!
... didst thou appear? In what Seraphic Orb didst thou arise? Surely that place admits of no disguise, Eternal Sight must know thee there, And being known, thou soon must disappear. But since the fatal Truth we know, Without the matter whence or manner how: Thou high superlative of Sin, Tell us thy nature, where thou didst begin? The first degree of thy increase, Debauch'd the Regions of eternal Peace, And fill'd the breasts of loyal Angels there With the first Treason ... — The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe Read full book for free!
... that he must prey or be preyed on. John Rex was no common swindler; his natural as well as his acquired abilities saved him from vulgar errors. He saw that to successfully swindle mankind, one must not aim at comparative, but superlative, ingenuity. He who is contented with being only cleverer than the majority must infallibly be outwitted at last, and to be once outwitted is—for a swindler—to be ruined. Examining, moreover, into the history of detected crime, John Rex discovered one thing. At the bottom of all these robberies, ... — For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke Read full book for free!
... strong and cutting. On the other hand, when the drawings of great painters are examined, the master mind shines forth in every touch, and we recognise the works of Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, Coreggio, and others, at a glance. The drawings of Rembrandt possess this quality in a superlative degree, and the slightest indication seems sufficient to mark the character and leading features of the object represented. His drawings are generally in pen outline, with a wash of bistre, or other warm colour; sometimes he makes use of black and red chalk; they are seldom finished ... — Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet Read full book for free!
... explain the wonder. Of all women, she was the least likely to do the thing predicted by experience. She had tremendous force of character for one scarce twenty years of age; indeed, she lived a superlative life, and the man, woman, child, or dog that came within radius of her existence presently formed a definite part of it, and was loved or detested according to circumstances. Neutrality she could not understand. If her interests were wide, her prejudices were ... — Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts Read full book for free!
... so swiftly Darrell was in a sort of waking dream, a state of superlative happiness, unmarred as yet by phantoms from the shrouded past or misgivings as to the dim, uncertain future; past and future were for the time alike forgotten. One image dominated his mind,—the form and face of the fair young hostess moving among her guests as a queen ... — At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour Read full book for free!
... documentary or actual. It is also necessarily an effect of fine shades, delicate values, vanishing distinctions, of evasiveness, inconsequence, suggestion. It is also absolute, unrelated—it is positive or negative or superlative—it is never comparative. Well, the Anglo-Saxon public is totally insensible to such things. They can no more feel them, than a blind worm can feel the colours of ... — The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland Read full book for free!
... These and their effects upon the several figures Carter was invited to admire, and so on to a score of topics. The first thing was to make Carter think and talk, which he did in the happy-go-lucky way of his class, uttering nine mighty simple remarks, and then a bit of superlative wisdom, or something that sounded like it. And when he had shot his random bolts, Mr. Eden would begin and treat each picture as a text, and utter much wisdom on it in ... — It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade Read full book for free!
... the same way and to the same type as the previous year. It is better to make selections from such a block than to take the most superior plants from all of the blocks, or from one which produced but one or but a few superlative ones, the rest ... — Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy Read full book for free!
... Felons on the left," and so on till every sort and condition and geographical situation had been thus distinguished. But the toasts proper aroused displays of the most affectionate loving-kindness. Each reference to a Felon was greeted with warm cheers, and each reference touched the superlative of laudation. Every stroke of humour was noisily approved, and every exhibition of tender feeling effusively endorsed. And all the estates of the realm, and all the institutions of the realm and of the town, and all the services of war and peace, and all the official castes were ... — Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett Read full book for free!
... familiar to need recalling here) A nation once again in the execution of which the veteran patriot champion may be said without fear of contradiction to have fairly excelled himself. The Irish Caruso-Garibaldi was in superlative form and his stentorian notes were heard to the greatest advantage in the timehonoured anthem sung as only our citizen can sing it. His superb highclass vocalism, which by its superquality greatly enhanced his already international ... — Ulysses • James Joyce Read full book for free!
... bound to say, I regard your claim to the possession of good taste as completely established.... 'Ware the horse, there! Look out! look out!" His eyes had followed the tall figure of the Mother-Superior, moving with the superlative grace and ease that comes of perfect physical proportion, carrying the black nun's robes, wearing the flowing veil of the nun with the dignity of an ideal queen. And the next instant, his charger, held with some others by a mounted orderly before the gates, and rendered nervous ... — The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves Read full book for free!
... both a mystery and a revelation. I had never before heard anything to compare with it, nor do I expect ever to hear the like again. Talent, taste, feeling, were there, all in superlative degree, and disclosed with the unassuming confidence of power; whilst long and loving practice in solitude had averted a certain artificiality which, in the judgment of the uninitiated, generally accompanies musical skill. His was no triumphant mastery of a complicated ... — Such is Life • Joseph Furphy Read full book for free!
... make it work. Where it breaks down with most young men who set out so valiantly with it, is the point where one sees the only girl in the world and recognizes the imperious necessity of winning her, of holding out lures for her, of surrounding her, once won, with the setting her superlative worth demands. That this did not happen to Anthony March was due to the fact that the young woman he—not so much saw as gradually perceived, was his ... — Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster Read full book for free!
... this word to the farmers of the country and to all who work on the farms: The supreme need of our own nation and of the nations with which we are co-operating is an abundance of supplies, and especially of foodstuffs. The importance of an adequate food-supply, especially for the present year, is superlative. Without abundant food, alike for the armies and the peoples now at war, the whole great enterprise upon which we have embarked will break down and fail. The world's food reserves are low. Not only during the present emergency, ... — Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson Read full book for free!
... regretted personality of the Great War. The place of no one else is worth disputing. Lloyd George is the consummate politician, limited by the meanness of his art. Clemenceau is the personification of nationality, limited by the narrowness of his view. Mr. Wilson alone had his hour of superlative greatness when the whole earth listened to him and followed him; an hour which ended with him only dimly aware of his vision and furiously ... — The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous Read full book for free!
... with them, we know no reason why any one else should; and I think Mrs. Bogus merits well of the republic, for doing what she can do towards the hospitalities of the season. I'm sure I never cursed her in my heart, even when her strong coffee has held mine eyes open till morning, and her superlative lobster salads have given me the very darkest views of human life that ever dyspepsia and east wind could engender. Mrs. Bogus is the Eve who offers the apple; but after all, I am the foolish Adam ... — Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe Read full book for free!
... her beauty, quite striking at night; her figure of "the goddess sailing on clouds," rendered still more striking a dignity, which no one possessed more than she did, and which she pushed, when it was necessary, to a most superlative haughtiness. ... — The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue Read full book for free!
... of your brain, that you imagine it impossible, but he must produce something greater and more perfect than the present scene of things, which is so full of ill and disorder. You forget, that this superlative intelligence and benevolence are entirely imaginary, or, at least, without any foundation in reason; and that you have no ground to ascribe to him any qualities, but what you see he has actually exerted and displayed in his productions. Let your gods, therefore, O philosophers, ... — An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al Read full book for free!
... I was strictly forbidden to let a hair of my paint- brush touch the little broken mass of carmine which was all that he possessed. We believed, but I do not know whether this could be the fact, that carmine of this superlative quality was sold at a guinea a cake. 'Carmine', therefore, became my shibboleth of self-indulgence; it was a symbol of all that taste and art and wealth could combine to produce. I imagined, for instance, that at Belshazzar's feast, the loftiest ... — Father and Son • Edmund Gosse Read full book for free!
... once, but a score of times. The brocades that I promised to show you after supper will be my witness. And there are some superlative satin and silk lengths which my Lady Rayne wished particularly to see. ... — The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen Read full book for free!
... a word exponent of a kind?—If it be, then moral philosophy is but a subdivision of physics. If not, then the writings of Paley and all his predecessors and disciples are false and most pernicious; and there is an emphatic propriety in the superlative, and in a sense which of itself would supply and exemplify the difference ... — Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge Read full book for free!
... The superlative is marked by various particles, sometimes preceding, and sometimes following, the adjective, and it is also formed ... — Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow Read full book for free!
... more wisely noticed or more truly benefited by such a period of close contact with people who ought by experience and knowledge to know better than he. The only thing that is probable is a falling-off, not an advance. I think it highly doubtful whether a ploughman from Ayrshire, however superlative his genius, would now be received at all in "the best houses" and by the first men and women in Edinburgh; and if not in Edinburgh, surely nowhere else would such a reception as that given to Burns ... — Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant Read full book for free!
... that I do not wonder at even good people finding little stimulus, or much that cheers, in the thought of passing thither. But if we do not know anything more—and we know very little more—let us be sure of this, that when God begins to compare His adjectives He does not stop till He gets to the superlative degree and that good begets better, and the better of earth ensures the best of Heaven. And so out of our poor little experience here, we may gather grounds of confidence that will carry our thoughts ... — Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren Read full book for free!
... today. The plain fact is that humanity has in it a depth of incapacity to behold, and of angry indisposition to admire, lofty and noble lives. The power of the darkness to blind men is set forth once in the superlative degree that we may all beware of it in the lower instances, by that fact, the most tragical in the history of the world, 'the Light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness ... — Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren Read full book for free!
... who had just returned from a lecturing-tour in the United States, and were much amused with her experiences. Having taken prolonged trips over the whole country from Maine to Texas for many successive years, Miss Anthony and I could easily add the superlative to all her narrations. She dined with us one day at Mrs. Mellen's, where we also had the pleasure of meeting Miss Jane Cobden, a daughter of the great Corn-law reformer, who was much interested in forming Liberal leagues, to encourage the Liberal party and interest women in ... — History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various Read full book for free!
... undoubtedly suppose that he abounded in filthy images, and excelled in describing the lower scenes of life." Let all such blockheads suppose what they choose. Pope—says Roscoe—"was well aware as any one of the superlative beauties and merits of Spenser, whose works he assiduously studied, both in his early and riper years; but it was not his intention in these few lines to give a serious imitation of him. All that he attempted was to show how exactly he could apply the ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various Read full book for free!
... character. Apart from any natural prepossession in my own favour, I believed I was. Still, in every page of this enlightened writer, I find some captivating hypocrisy which has never occurred to me before, or some superlative piece of selfishness to which I was utterly a stranger. I should quite blush for myself before this stupendous creature, if remembering his precepts, one might blush at anything. An amazing man! a nobleman indeed! any King or Queen may make a Lord, but only the Devil himself—and ... — Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens Read full book for free!
... covered the two miles and a half; and here she is, back at the nest, after foraging on the way, for the doughty creature arrives with her abdomen yellow with pollen. To come home again from the verge of the horizon is wonderful in itself; to come home with a well-filled pollen-brush is superlative economy. A journey, even a forced journey, ... — The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre Read full book for free!
... Or, to put it another way, he may have a strong conviction that he stands high in the scale of morally deserving persons, and yet be unable to define his position more nearly. Commonly, the conviction seems to be only definable as an assurance of a superlative of which the positive and comparative are suppressed. At most, his idea of his moral altitude resolves itself into the proposition, "I am a good deal better than Mr. A. or Mr. B." Now, it is plain that in these intuitive judgments on his own excellence, ... — Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully Read full book for free!
... London was lately consulted by a lady of quality, of most distinguished merit, what was the best History of England for her son to read. My friend recommended Hume's. But, upon recollecting that its usher was a superlative panegyrick on one, who endeavoured to sap the credit of our holy religion, he revoked his recommendation. I am really sorry for this ostentatious alliance; because I admire The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and value ... — Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell Read full book for free!
... Tennyson's 'Idyls,' with profound recognition of the finely elaborated execution, and also of the inward perfection of vacancy—and, to say truth, with considerable impatience at being treated so very like infants though the lollipops were so superlative. We gladly changed for one Emerson's 'English Traits;' and read that with increasing and ever increasing satisfaction every evening; blessing heaven that there were still books ... — Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold Read full book for free!
... that still forbids it me The reverence for the keys superlative Thou hadst in keeping in ... — Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri Read full book for free!
... love.—There is no love like His—so pure and constant and satisfying. What the sun is to a star-light, and the ocean to a pool left by the retiring tide, such is the love of Jesus compared with all other love. To have it is superlative blessedness; to miss it is ... — Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer Read full book for free!
... pride of caste, of family, of character, of intellect. But high self-discipline and pride in the human spirit are not the deepest or the highest notes man strikes. The cry, not of pride in self, but for fellowship with the Infinite, is the superlative expression of man. Augustine sounded the highest note of feeling when he wrote, "O God, Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." The words of the Lord Jesus gave the clearest insight of the ... — Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch Read full book for free!
... to the waiting secretary. He groped in the chambers of his imagery for some superlative adjective to express his emotion before this colossal display of wealth. But his ample vocabulary had faded quite. He could only shake his head and give vent to the ... — Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking Read full book for free!
... his antithetic drum—"servitude without loyalty and sensuality without love"—"dwarfish talents and gigantic vices"—"ability enough to deceive"—"religion enough to persecute." Every phrase is a superlative; every word has its contrast; every sentence has its climax. And withal let us admit that it is tremendously powerful, that no one who ever read it can forget it, and few even who have read it fail to be tinged with its fury and contempt. And, though a tissue of superlatives, it bears ... — Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison Read full book for free!
... the suggestion of purpose in the figure. There is something to inspire wonder in the most sluggish mind. It tells a story of some sort of heroism. It tells a story of a master mind triumphing over bodily weakness and suffering. It tells a story of superlative defiance—the defiance ... — The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum Read full book for free!
... disagreeable than I am by nature. And if I avoided her society, (which I am far from doing), it would be not for her sake, but for my own. For, though her society is to me a kind of anticipation of the joys of Heaven, yet when I leave it and find myself alone, the reaction is dreary in the superlative degree; and the fear, which perpetually haunts me (for I know nothing of her plans), lest I shall never see her again, is agonizing as a foretaste of—Heaven's antipode. ... — My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland Read full book for free!
... Spita-mens, Spita-des, etc. This, in Spita-ces, is followed by a guttural ending, which is either a diminutive corresponding to the modern Persian -efc, or perhaps a suffixed article. In Spit-amas, the suffix -mas is the common form of the superlative, and may be compared with the Latin -mus in optimus, intimus, supremus, and the like. Ehambacas contains the root rafno, "joy, pleasure," which we find in Pati-ramphies, followed by the ... — The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson Read full book for free!
... period so remote, that at present it was uncertain whether those twice banished, were thrust into their second exile by reason of their superlative knavery, or because of their comparative honesty. If the latter, then must the residue have been a precious ... — Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville Read full book for free!
... that Mrs. Fry's goodness was many-sided. Her charity did not expend itself wholly on prisons and lunatic asylums. It is right that, once in a while, characters of such superlative excellence should appear in our midst. Right, because otherwise the light of charity would grow dim, the distinguishing graces of Christianity, flat and selfish, and individual faith be obscured in the lapse of years, or the follies and fashions of modern life. Such saints were ... — Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman Read full book for free!
... utmost, paramount, preeminent, foremost, crowning; first-rate &c (important) 642, (excellent) 648; unrivaled peerless, matchless; none such, second to none, sans pareil [Fr.]; unparagoned^, unparalleled, unequalled, unapproached^, unsurpassed; superlative, inimitable facile princeps [Lat.], incomparable, sovereign, without parallel, nulli secundus [Lat.], ne plus ultra [Lat.]; beyond compare, beyond comparison; culminating &c (topmost) 210; transcendent, transcendental; plus royaliste que le Roi [Fr.], more catholic than the Pope ... — Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget Read full book for free!
... box to box, and welcomed everybody to the 'Royal property,' right royally did things go on! Who would then have dreamt that the illustrious George {170b}—he of the Piazza—would ever be 'honoured with instructions to sell'? that his eulogistic pen would be employed in giving the puff superlative to the Elysian haunts of quondam fashion—in other words—painting the lily-gilding refined gold? But, alas! Simpson, the tutelar deity, departed ('died,' some say, but we don't believe it), and, at the moment he made his last bow, Vauxhall ought to have been closed; it was madness—the ... — Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton Read full book for free!
... done exactly alike in the way it is worn in Paris. Their figures have the last "look" and their jewels are simply divine. With all this beyond criticism, it is very difficult to say whether they are beautiful or not, naturally; the general effect is so perfect. They, as far as grooming and superlative "turnedoutness" is concerned (I had to make a new word), are the counterpart ... — Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn Read full book for free!
... the moment is to exact. It surely should be translated, "And he, whom the God so leads to [Greek: ate], fares a very short time without it." The best translation of [Greek: ate] is, perhaps, infatuation. Moreover, how is the above translation reconciled with the very superlative [Greek: oligoston]? ... — Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various Read full book for free!
... distinguishes him from all other past and present Sansculottists. The grand unparalleled peculiarity of Teufelsdroeckh is, that with all this Descendentalism, he combines a Transcendentalism, no less superlative; whereby if on the one hand he degrade man below most animals, except those jacketed Gouda Cows, he, on the other, exalts him beyond the visible Heavens, almost to ... — Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle Read full book for free!
... to herself, using her favourite superlative with sublime disregard of suitability. She looked across the room to where Elma sat, resting her head against a brocaded blue cushion. One of the half-dozen cases of miniatures hung just behind the chair, and it was impossible not to notice the likeness between the living face and ... — Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey Read full book for free!
... that preserved his incorruptibility; but he had so sincere a desire for purity in their relations, that he had submitted without resentment to the freezing process that ensured it. He had in reserve his expectation of the day when, by some superlative achievement, he would take that soul, hitherto invincible, by storm. But now, in his inmost heart he owned that he ... — The Divine Fire • May Sinclair Read full book for free!
... only German name of the mistletoe, the parent of our English denomination, is Mistel, which is evidently only Meist-heyl (most heal, or healing), the superlative of the above Gut-heyl, and both wonderfully agreeing with the name which Pliny says it bore in his ... — Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various Read full book for free!
... gaiety of the crowds one could hear the shrill cry of some belated newsboys, calling an "Extra Special"—the only superlative left to one of the more enterprising papers whose every ... — The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve Read full book for free!
... restored to sight. And, truly with a notable, almost miraculous, speed, the feelings of all Norway for King Olaf changed themselves, and were turned upside down, "within a year," or almost within a day. Superlative example of Extinctus amabitur idem. Not "Olaf the Thick-set" any longer, but "Olaf the Blessed" or Saint, now clearly in Heaven; such the name and character of him from that time to this. Two churches dedicated to him (out of four that once stood) stand in London ... — Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle Read full book for free!
... say, will greatly weaken the plea and accusation of an enemy. But, says Jesus Christ, "Father, here is a plea brought in against my Joshua, that clothes him with filthy garments, but it is brought in against him by an enemy, by an enemy in the superlative or highest degree. One that hates goodness worse than he, and that loveth wickedness more than the man against whom at this time he has brought such a heinous charge." Then leaving with the Father the value of his blood for the accused, he turneth him to the accuser, and pleads against him ... — The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan Read full book for free!
... were active and muscular, and soon showed that they thoroughly understood how to use their clumsy tools to the best advantage. They were led by and worked under the directorship of a lean, shrunken, withered old grey-haired hag of superlative ugliness, who did no work herself, but went constantly back and forth along the line of workers, bearing in her hand a long thin pliant rattan, which she did not hesitate to smartly apply to the shoulders of those who seemed to ... — The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood Read full book for free!
... neither of whom could even steer, nor were they accustomed to go aloft; while he had fifteen prisoners below, who would naturally lose no opportunity of retaking the ship. His greatest difficulties were only now beginning. What consciousness of his superlative seaman-like qualities, what perfect and just self-reliance he must have possessed, to have undertaken the task of navigating a ship completely across the Atlantic with such means at his disposal! Considerate and ... — Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston Read full book for free!
... say this, as will be seen in a moment, as a criticism of the comparative Toryism of the South. I say it as a criticism of the superlative stupidity of English propaganda. On another page I remark on the need for a new sort of English propaganda; a propaganda that should be really English and have some remote reference to England. Now if it were a matter of making foreigners feel the real humours ... — What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton Read full book for free!
... on the Blackfeet were advancing up the narrow pathway with superlative though needless caution, and no small amount of timidity. Each man took advantage of every scrap of cover he could find on the way up, but as the owner of the hut had taken care to remove all cover that was removable, they did not find much, and if ... — The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne Read full book for free!
... considerable enjoyment resultant not only from her destination, long desired, now to be realized, but also from the sheer exuberance of handling the vehicle. Since pre-history, man's pleasure in the physical control of a speedy vehicle has been superlative, particularly when that vehicle is known by the driver to be unique in its class. The Hittite charioteer, bowling across the landscape of Anatolia, a Sterling Moss carefully tooling his automobile around the multi-curves of the Upper ... — Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds Read full book for free!
... that this answers to the "accidental definition of a classic." Most certainly; but not necessarily to that of a poetical classic. Jeffrey thought him "original and powerful." Granted; but there are plenty of original and powerful writers who are not poets. Wilson gave him the superlative for "original and vivid painting." Perhaps; but is Hogarth a poet? Jane Austen "thought she could have married him." She had not read his biography; but even if she had would that prove him to be a poet? Lord Tennyson is said to single out the following passage, which is certainly one of Crabbe's ... — Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury Read full book for free!
... is to be seen at the Palace of the Bishop of Winchester at Farnham in Surrey, but the land is quite exceptionally good, and in the palmy days of hop-growing, the adjoining fields commanded a rent of L20 an acre for what is known as the "Heart land of Farnham," where hops of the most superlative quality were grown. When the dappled deer are grouped under this noble avenue, in the light and shade beneath the elms, they form an old English picture of country ... — Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory Read full book for free!
... this book, this fundamental is most strictly adhered to; there is not a wicked action in any part of it, but is first and last rendered unhappy and unfortunate; there is not a superlative villain brought upon the stage, but either he is brought to an unhappy end, or brought to be a penitent; there is not an ill thing mentioned but it is condemned, even in the relation, nor a virtuous, just thing but it carries its ... — The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe Read full book for free!
... failed to realize his worship for his wife. His was a love such as rarely falls to the lot of woman. And his devotion to his girl and boy twins was something quite beyond words. These things were the mainspring of his life, and drove him to such superlative degrees of self-sacrifice that could surely only have been endured by a man of ... — The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum Read full book for free!
... card with the lines in horizontal position. Point to the lines and say: "See these lines. Look closely and tell me which one is longer. Put your finger on the longest one." We use the superlative as well as the comparative form of long because it is often more familiar to young subjects. If the child does not respond, say: "Show me which line is the biggest." Then withdraw the card, turn it about a few times, and present it again ... — The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman Read full book for free!
... slender fortune, and looking forward to a period not very remote when he may probably be obliged to return to the station from which he was taken, might sometimes be under temptations to sacrifice his duty to his interest, which it would require superlative virtue to withstand. An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the state to the acquisition of wealth. An ambitious man might make his own aggrandizement, by the aid of a foreign power, the price of his ... — The Federalist Papers Read full book for free!
... after the peace they spent some summer vacations in visits to the continent. They visited Switzerland, still unhackneyed, though Byron and Shelley were celebrating its charms. Long afterwards I used to hear from my mother of the superlative beauties of the Wengern Alp and the Staubbach (though she never, I suspect, read 'Manfred'), and she kept up for years a correspondence with a monk of the hospital on the St. Bernard. Her first child, Herbert Venn Stephen, was born September 30, 1822; and about this time a change took place in ... — The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen Read full book for free!
... framing it; then all the accumulated mass of sorrow, sorrows born from life and death, being recognized as attributes of body, and as this body is not 'I,' nor offers ground for 'I,' then comes the great superlative, the source of peace unending. This thought of 'self' gives rise to all these sorrows, binding as with cords the world, but having found there is no 'I' that can be bound, then all these bonds are severed. There are no bonds indeed—they ... — Sacred Books of the East • Various Read full book for free!
... second, the merchants have their warehouses; and in the third, they usually live with their families. Those three different regions, sorry am I to say it, are all very dirty; indeed they may be said to be the positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of uncleanness. There are no glazed sashes in the windows, so that when it rains, and the shutters are closed, you are involved in utter darkness. The furniture is miserably scanty—some old fashioned, high backed, hardwood chairs, with a profusion ... — Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott Read full book for free!
... De-laun's Pill, whereof I shall say nothing, being mentioned under the Name of the Pilule ex duobus, in the London Dispensitory, though some make them of the Extract of Coloquintida. The last of any Fame with us, were Dr. Goddard's Drops, a good Medicine, but not so universal, and superlative as he would have made the World believe, and was nothing else but what some Physicians many years since enjoyed. I well remember that in the late troubles, a Person then in great Authority, having cryed up this above all the Medicines in the World, a round wager ... — A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett Read full book for free!
... originally through the recommendation of the skin specialist or the family physician, become household remedies and toilet accessories in the homes of the refined and particular. The ideal, logical and scientifically approved care of the scalp calls for the use of STIEFEL'S Superlative BORACIC ACID SHAMPOO SOAP A most effective remover of Dandruff. Cleanses the scalp and opens the pores. Leaves the hair loose and fluffy, so that "You CAN do a thing with it" next day. Price: 25 cents ... — The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens Read full book for free!
... whilst, again, his harem, from the presence of numerous adult daughters, would be increased to an extent that might have overtaxed his once more active powers. Given some such rather exceptional situation, where a happy opportunity in superlative mother love wrestled with a for once satiated paternal appetite in desire, we may here discern a possible key of the sociological problem which occupies us, and which consisted in a conjunction within one ... — The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley Read full book for free!
... stomach. The waiter, who had never known a minute's ill-health in his life, swore vividly for fifteen minutes without repeating himself, and among many references to the commercial's ancestry, called him the two-est-faced knave that had ever set foot on the Shetland Islands. Such a superlative was felt by all to be a masterpiece of language, and turned ... — Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes Read full book for free!
... into a complete and passionate faith in the Christian religion and in the incarnation. He said that while love was the main principle in religion as a way of life, the most important contribution to humanity made by religion was hope. Hope in the destiny of man, in the superlative value of the individual, in the Personality of our Father ... — The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various Read full book for free!
... say that which I ought not." Mohammed disdained all metaphysical speculations respecting the nature of the Deity, or of the origin and existence of sin, topics which had hitherto exercised the ingenuity of the East. He cast aside the doctrine of the superlative value of chastity, asserting that marriage is the natural state of man. To asceticism he opposed polygamy, permitting the practice of it in this life and promising the most voluptuous means for its enjoyment in Paradise hereafter, especially to those who had gained the crowns of martyrdom ... — History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper Read full book for free!
... nothing of self-reliance. All she knew was to be a consequential young lady of distinction, full of exalted qualifying adjectives in the superlative degree. But she was not so much to blame as her parents for her simpering and tossing the head with overstocked affectation. She was to be pitied for her unfortunate surroundings. Her "splendid man," a "beautiful gentleman," was a coarse, burly headed "Legree" ... — A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland Read full book for free!
... action—puncture them practically instantaneously, before the absorbers could react. To that end they had arranged their circuits to hurl seven hundred sixty-five thousand kilofranks—the entire power of their massed accumulators and their highest possible cosmic intake—in one tiny bar of superlative density, less than one meter in diameter! Everything ready, Brandon shot in prodigious switches that launched that bolt—a bolt so vehement, so inconceivably intense, that it seemed fairly to blast ... — Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith Read full book for free!
... mind that can trade in corruption, and can deliberately pollute itself with ideal wickedness, for the sake of spreading the contagion in society, I wish not to conceal or excuse the depravity. Such degradation of the dignity of genius, such abuse of superlative abilities, cannot be contemplated but with grief and indignation. What consolation can be had, Dryden has afforded, by living to repent, and to ... — Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson Read full book for free!
... "The Tenses of the Subjunctive and the Potential Moods."—Ib., p. 80. "A triphthong is a union of three vowels uttered in like manner: as, uoy in buoy."—P. Davis's Practical Gram., p. xvi. "Common nouns are the names of a species or kind."—Ib., p. 8. "The superlative degree is a comparison between three or more."—Ib., p. 14. "An adverb is a word or phrase serving to give an additional idea of a verb, and adjective, article, or another adverb."—Ib., p. 36. "When several nouns in the possessive case succeed each other, each showing possession ... — The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown Read full book for free!
... for his work in vindicating the national power under the Constitution. That was the need in his day and he met it with superlative wisdom and skill. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that he favored federal encroachment upon the powers reserved to the states. On the contrary, he rendered decisions in favor of state ... — Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson Read full book for free!
... be three manner of plantations of new sects. By the power of signs and miracles; by the eloquence, and wisdom, of speech and persuasion; and by the sword. For martyrdoms, I reckon them amongst miracles; because they seem to exceed the strength of human nature: and I may do the like, of superlative and admirable holiness of life. Surely there is no better way, to stop the rising of new sects and schisms, than to reform abuses; to compound the smaller differences; to proceed mildly, and not with sanguinary persecutions; and rather to take off the principal authors ... — Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon Read full book for free!
... author of Oceana made no pretence of minute observation in the account of his travels. Had he not been content to fly through the country, viewing it mainly, as he admits, from 'softest sofas' of 'a superlative carriage lined with blue satin,' he might have seen not one, but many fine specimens of what Sir George Bowen has aptly called the ... — Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne Read full book for free!
... interested by now, but had no idea in the world of the marvel he was going to see. He started more perceptibly than even Mr. Carlyon had done seven years before, when he had realized the superlative... — Halcyone • Elinor Glyn Read full book for free!
... irreproachably high birth; her satins were embroidered with the symbols of nobility and matrimonial felicity; the gold fingernail guards, the jade and flowering pearls, her earrings and tasseled tobacco pouch and ivory fan, were all in the most superlative manner. ... — Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer Read full book for free!
... One is faith—"Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Heb. xi. 6). The other is uprightness—"I know also, my God, that Thou hast pleasure in uprightness" (1 Chron. xxix. 17). The former grace is the superlative and distinguishing feature of the people of God. It is indeed the foundation quality on which all others rest, and from which they spring. It is the broad separating act which marks the difference between the saint ... — Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F. Read full book for free!
... wryte in prayse of a gentlewoman, I would neither praise her christal eye, nor her cherrie lippe, etc. For these things are trita et obvia. But I would either find some supernaturall cause whereby my penne might walke in the superlative degree, or els I would undertake to answer for any imperfection that shee hath, and thereupon rayse the prayse of ... — Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark Read full book for free!
... descriptions of them superlative follows upon superlative. The cocks of most species are arrayed in scarlet and black; the hens are not a whit less brilliantly attired in yellow and sable. One species lives entirely in the plains, others visit them in the cold weather; the majority are permanent residents ... — A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar Read full book for free!
... Lady Clonbrony was particularly vexed that the appearance of the statira, canopy should be spoiled before the effect had been seen by Lady Pococke, and Lady Chatterton, and Lady G—, Lady P—, and the Duke of V—, and a party of superlative fashionables, who had promised TO LOOK IN UPON HER, but who, late as it was, had not yet arrived. They came in at last. But Lady Clonbrony had no reason to regret for their sake the statira couch. It would ... — The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth Read full book for free!
... remembered that the great Spaniard began his apprenticeship to art by copying still-life, which he did in a superlative manner; his Bodegones, or kitchen pieces, testify to this. Chardin, who led as laborious an existence as Degas, shutting himself away from the world, studied surfaces with an intensity that Zola, the apostle of realism, would have misunderstood. Later the ... — Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker Read full book for free!
... no love like His—so pure and constant and satisfying. What the sun is to a star-light, and the ocean to a pool left by the retiring tide, such is the love of Jesus compared with all other love. To have it is superlative blessedness; to miss it is to ... — Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer Read full book for free!
... fine irony of her present renovation that those who were for ever belauding her pictures, and her saints, and her architecture, as we praise things dead, they are the most angered by her appearance on this modern field all armed, just as she was, with works and art and songs, sometimes superlative, often vulgar. Note you, she is still careless of art or songs, as she has always been. She lays her foundations in something other, which something other our moderns hate. Yet out of that something other came the art and song of the Middle Ages. And what art or songs have you? ... — The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc Read full book for free!
... an inventor of the highest order, the Dance of Death also discloses an interpreter in wood of signal, and even superlative, ability. The designs are cut—to use the word which implies the employment of the knife as opposed to that of the graver—in a manner which has never yet been excelled. In this matter there could be no better judge than Mr. W. J. Linton; and he says that nothing, either by knife or by graver, ... — The Dance of Death • Hans Holbein Read full book for free!
... of love—how eloquent their song! All things in nature speak to me; they bless you for loving me! In the halo of that blessing, as I think of you, I am transfigured by a newly-born ecstacy! To breathe, to exist, is to realize the superlative degree of my exquisite happiness! Hidden away from the clouds and storms of life, by the golden mist which veils the measureless sea of love, infinite love, I sail serene and confident upon its heaving tide. Gently rocked by the lapping lullaby of the rythmical waves of paradise, ... — Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson Read full book for free!
... he will be a failure if he has not learned the great secret of dogged persistence in often unwelcomed toil. No character worth building up is built without continuous effort. If a man does not labour to be good, he will surely become bad. It is an old axiom that no man attains superlative wickedness all at once, and most certainly no man leaps to the height of the goodness possible to his nature by one spring. He has laboriously, and step by step, to climb the hill. Progress in moral character is secured by long-continued walking upwards, ... — Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren Read full book for free!
... by a salesgirl of such superlative dress and manner that her long jet earrings were like exclamations at the audacity of her personality. An habitual counter line-up of Broadway mental brevities in the form of young men with bamboo sticks and eyes with perpetual ogles in them, would while away the syncopated hours with her, occasionally ... — Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst Read full book for free!
... surprise to the first explorers of America that the natives used the bow and arrow so effectively. In fact, the sword and the horse, combined with the white man's superlative self-assurance, won the contest over the aborigines more than the primitive blunderbuss of the times. The bow and arrow was still more deadly than ... — Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope Read full book for free!
... happened at a period so remote, that at present it was uncertain whether those twice banished, were thrust into their second exile by reason of their superlative knavery, or because of their comparative honesty. If the latter, then must the residue have been a precious ... — Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville Read full book for free!
... daguerreotypes, from bric-a-brac to hosiery. The relics and treasures of past generations of the owner's family carpeted the house, until each room seemed in a worse state than the last, and the whole was altogether a most superlative mess. M. Guyot had shoveled paths through the different rooms as one shovels through several inches of ... — The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood Read full book for free!
... Donatello has carved some three dozen children, we have a series of instantaneous photographs. Nobody else had enough knowledge or courage to make rigid bars of children's legs: here they swing on pivots from the hip-joint. It is the true picture of life, rendered with superlative skill and bravura. But Donatello's children serve a purpose, if only that of decoration. At Padua they form a little orchestra to accompany the duets. The singing angels there are among the most charming of the company; and whether intentionally or not, they ... — Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford Read full book for free!
... degree of adjectives is formed by adding er, the superlative by adding est, to the positive; as, fair, fairer, fairest; lovely, lovelier, loveliest; sweet, sweeter, sweetest; low, ... — A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson Read full book for free!
... to R. N. Williams is a steady baseliner of second class. Williams is apt to crush a top-flight player in a burst of superlative terms, yet fall a victim to the erratic streak that is in him when some second-class player plays patball with him. Such defeats were his portion at the hands of Ritchie and Mavrogordato in England, yet on the same trip he scored notable victories ... — The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D Read full book for free!
... were an hallucination; something not objective; something real, but within the soul of him who looked upon it. It claimed sudden kinship with those blackest days when nevertheless the sun, the mere external unimportant sun, shines with superlative brilliancy. Emotions of a power to shake the foundations of life seemed vaguely to stir in answer to these their hollow symbols. For after all, we were contented at heart and tranquil in mind, and this was but the outer gorgeous show of an intense emotional ... — The Mountains • Stewart Edward White Read full book for free!
... caught, had it not been for some "untoward" occurrence, specifying the exact weight of the missing fish to an ounce—as fishermen generally do. On the fourth afternoon after his arrival, a letter was put into his hands, (just as the cloth was drawn, and the party were going to discuss the superlative merits of some genuine poteen,) which the servant said had been brought by a man, who waited in the hall. It was from Colonel ——, and briefly stated that peremptory orders had just been received ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various Read full book for free!
... worship for his wife. His was a love such as rarely falls to the lot of woman. And his devotion to his girl and boy twins was something quite beyond words. These things were the mainspring of his life, and drove him to such superlative degrees of self-sacrifice that could surely only have been endured by a man of his ... — The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum Read full book for free!
... Wherein lies the superlative picturesque appeal of the typical ledge stonework of Germantown? As distinguished from surfaced stonework, it possesses that flexibility in use so essential to the many and varied requirements of domestic architecture imposed by the personality ... — The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins Read full book for free!
... I ought not to forget, because it is the chief: My duty to God will, I hope, always employ some good portion of my time, with thanks for his superlative goodness to me; and to pray for you and myself: for you, sir, for a blessing on you, for your great goodness to such an unworthy creature: for myself, that I may be enabled to discharge my duty to you, and be found grateful for all the blessings I shall receive at the hands of Providence, by means ... — Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson Read full book for free!
... oratory was received with a very decided "ho!" of assent, as it well might be, for during nearly all the year there was nobody in that uninhabited land to attempt any of those violent proceedings. Dilating his eyes and nostrils with a look of superlative... — The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne Read full book for free!
... out of his own troubles by an acquaintance with the heroic sorrows of the world. There is no page of history, however dark, there is no beautiful old tale, however tragic, which does not impart some strength and some distinction to the awakening mind. It is possible to overrate the superlative merits of insipidity as a mental and moral force in the ... — Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier Read full book for free!
... Its summer breezes fill the lungs with wine. Its autumns are incomparable, a golden glow in which valley and hill bask lazily. Its winters are warm with sunshine and cold with the crisp crackle of frost. Its springs—they might be worse. Any Coloradoan will admit the climate is superlative. But there is one slight rift in the lute, hardly to be mentioned as a discord in the universal harmony. Sudden weather changes do occur. A shining summer sun vanishes and in a twinkling of an eye the wind is ... — The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine Read full book for free!
... myself as to the best place to land him. When considerately asked by my client whether he had any choice in the matter, he replied, somewhat facetiously, that he could not think of making a suggestion to one who had shown such superlative skill ... — The Crossing • Winston Churchill Read full book for free!
... clusters, on what is barefacedly called a bed, but which is nothing more nor less than a beggarman's shakedown, where the smell, the heat, the filth, and above all, the vermin, are intolerable to the very farthest stretch of the superlative degree. As soon as their eyes begin to close here, they are roused by the bell-man, and summoned at the hour of twelve—first washing themselves as aforesaid, in the lake, and then adjourning to the prison ... — The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton Read full book for free!
... a offered reward of ten pound, which was afterwards increased to twenty pound. Notwithstanding the most superlative, and, I may say, supernat'ral exertions on the part of this parish,' said Bumble, 'we have never been able to discover who is his father, or what was his mother's settlement, name, ... — Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens Read full book for free!
... and has been. Look I must do something to make my blood circulate, or I shall furnish a case for the coroner one of these mornings. I want excitement. I have taken up one thing after another, and gone just far enough to understand that there's no hope of reaching what I aimed at—superlative excellence; then the thing began to nauseate me. I'm like poor Jackson, the novelist, who groaned to me once that for fifteen years the reviewers had been describing his books as 'above the average.' In whatever I have undertaken ... — Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing Read full book for free!
... cheers, in the thought of passing thither. But if we do not know anything more—and we know very little more—let us be sure of this, that when God begins to compare His adjectives He does not stop till He gets to the superlative degree and that good begets better, and the better of earth ensures the best of Heaven. And so out of our poor little experience here, we may gather grounds of confidence that will carry our thoughts ... — Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren Read full book for free!
... walking about with his fellow creatures in broad daylight and enjoying himself, he gets down to the bottom of the well of his fancies, in the hope of now and then catching a glimpse of a star. Everything must be in the superlative for him: everything must be pure, and majestic, and etherial, and celestial: his heart must be always throbbing and heaving, even when he is standing before a puppet show. He never laughs or cries, but can only smile and weep; and forsooth there ... — The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck Read full book for free!
... purpose, as in olden times in the old country, 'FOR THE REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES;' and so yesterday we had a monster meeting on Bakery-hill, and I was the delegate of upwards of one thousand foreigners, or 'aliens,' according to the superlative wisdom ... — The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello Read full book for free!
... swearing, grog-drinking, tobacco-chewing, race of sea-officers, the Bens and the Mirvans of former times, Captain Jemmison, resolving, I suppose, to avoid their faults, went into the contrary extreme of refinement and effeminacy. A superlative coxcomb, and an epicure more from fashion than taste, he gloried in descanting, with technical precision, on the merits of dishes and of cooks. His table, even on shipboard, was to be equalled in elegance only ... — Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth Read full book for free!
... have quarreled with his owner over Jan's price. But it happened there were none. And the result was that Jan had to be put through his paces five separate times for the benefit of five separate prospective purchasers, not one of whom was really capable of appreciating his superlative quality, before the five hundred dollars demanded did eventually find its way into Jean's pouch and he was called upon to part with his leader. He intended to give Snip the leadership of his team now, because Snip was a curiously remorseless creature; and to buy a husky as cheaply as might be to ... — Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson Read full book for free!
... Museum at Madrid and gaze upon his canvases, sumptuous and opulent, diffusing colour like a sunset, indifferent to their story or meaning, happy and content with the flaming feast outspread for our enjoyment. We stand before his Entombment at the Louvre, dumb before its superlative painting, with hardly a thought for the tragedy that it represents. Titian accepts the literary motive, and the artist in him straight forgets it. We walk from The Entombment to the little chamber where Rembrandt's Christ at Emmaus ... — Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes Read full book for free!
... critical private transactions of Condorcet's life were pale and insignificant. In the tranquil seasons of history, when the steady currents of circumstance bear men along noiseless, the importance of the relations which we contract seems superlative; in times of storm and social wreck these petty fortunes and private chances are engulfed and lost to sight. The ferment was now rapidly rising to its intensest height, and Condorcet was the last man in France to remain cold to the burning agitations of the time. We have already seen ... — Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley Read full book for free!
... thousands of deer each year and sold the skins in the local markets or to the fur-traders from Virginia whose heavy pack-trains with their tinkling bells constantly traversed the course of the Great Trading Path. The superlative skill of one of these hunters, both as woodsman and marksman, was proverbial along the border. The name of Daniel Boone became synonymous with expert huntsmanship and almost uncanny wisdom in forest lore. ... — The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson Read full book for free!
... in everything else, sir, there is to be found the superlative, the quintessence,—the ideal. Consequently I have roamed East and West, and North and South, ... — The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol Read full book for free!
... being irreligious, as many think, it is the neglect of science that is irreligious—it is the refusal to study the surrounding creation that is irreligious. Take a humble simile. Suppose a writer were daily saluted with praises couched in superlative language. Suppose the wisdom, the grandeur, the beauty of his works, were the constant topics of the eulogies addressed to him. Suppose those who unceasingly uttered these eulogies on his works were content with looking at the outsides of them; and had ... — Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer Read full book for free!
... higher education of women—and we may be content to accept the adjective without qualification, since it is after all only a comparative, and leaves us free to employ the superlative—may be and often is of very real value in certain cases and because of certain local conditions, such as the great numerical inequality of the sexes in nearly all civilized countries. It is valuable ... — Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby Read full book for free!
... coquette, that most fascinating woman the world has ever known. Three weeks of steeping one's soul in the oldest, most complete and satisfactory ruins on the face of the earth. Here, in delving into the past, we would have no use for the comparative word "hundreds." We could boldly use the superlative word "thousands." What memories! what dreams! what fragments of half-forgotten history and romance came floating through the brain! I have, generally, little use for guide-books except, afterwards, to verify what I have ... — As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell Read full book for free!
... heard this she said, "Verily Al-Kuthayyir[FN193] was conspicuous for sweet speech and chaste, and he was superlative in his praise of Azzah when he sang" (and she began ... — The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton Read full book for free!
... if that poem did not make me, both lately, and when I read it in MS. No alderman ever longed after a haunch of buck venison more than I for a spiritual taste of that "White Doe" you promise. I am sure it is superlative, or will be when dressed, i. e., printed. All things read raw to me in MS.; to compare magna parvis, I cannot endure my own writings in that state. The only one which I think would not very much win upon me in print is "Peter Bell;" but I am not ... — The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb Read full book for free!
... undoubted superiority that it had of Serenus in the purest antiquity, yet being added in the transcendent degree to the word Emperour, the highest denomination that a Prince is capable of, it becomes of the same value. So that to interpret Illustrissimus unto diminution is to find a positive in a superlative, and in the most orient light to seek for darkness. And I would, seeing the near Boyars and Counsellors of his Tzarskoy Majesty are pleased to mention the Title given to his Tzarskoy Majesty by his Cesarian Majesty, ... — Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell Read full book for free!
... command of his ship, but with a crew of two men, neither of whom could even steer, nor were they accustomed to go aloft; while he had fifteen prisoners below, who would naturally lose no opportunity of retaking the ship. His greatest difficulties were only now beginning. What consciousness of his superlative seaman-like qualities, what perfect and just self-reliance he must have possessed, to have undertaken the task of navigating a ship completely across the Atlantic with such means at his disposal! Considerate and generous, as well as brave, as soon ... — Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston Read full book for free!
... ears and sense of the dear one to whom they are sent, is very sweet;—but for the girl who has made a shirt for the man that she loves, there has come a moment in the last stitch of it, sweeter than any that stars, haycocks, poetry, or superlative epithets have produced. Nora Rowley had never as yet been thus useful on behalf of Hugh Stanbury. Had she done so, she might perhaps have been happier even than she was during this journey;—but, without the shirt, it was one of the happiest moments of ... — He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope Read full book for free!
... Mr. Pantin's manner was urbane but, observing him closely, Mrs. Toomey noted that his eyes suddenly presented the curious illusion of two slate-gray pools covered with skim ice. It was not an encouraging sign and her heart sank in spite of the superlative suavity of the tone ... — The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart Read full book for free!
... blackguarding," the article continued, "as a fishwoman of Billingsgate. It is as natural to him as snarling to a tom-cat, or growling to a bull-dog.... He is the common mark of scorn and contempt of every well-informed American. The superlative dolt!" In this refined and chastened style did the defenders of American cultivation preserve its reputation ... — James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury Read full book for free!
... wide, candid hazel—the green iris thickly flecked with brown. A little shorter than Clive, a trifle more slender. But that which held the detective's eyes was something less tangible but at once more evident than superlative masculine good looks. It was a sort of shy joyousness and buoyance, which flushed the tan of his cheeks, sang in his voice, made ... — Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin Read full book for free!
... gentleman of portly proportions, who, at some other period, may have walked. Despite his dimensions, he was agile and graceful in his sweeping salaams; when he spoke he emphasized every word with an appropriate sweep of the arm, and his eyebrows arched and his eyes bulged in superlative, ecstatic moments. The tassel of his tarboosh, a little red inverted flowerpot capping the summit, gyrated violently in moments of excitement. Altogether he was a mighty person. Perceiving this, the five great ones from the far south paid court to him, addressed him ... — The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie Read full book for free!
... to which she had given the name "Snarleychology."[2] Her knowledge of the old man's ways was of longer date than mine, and she understood him infinitely better than I. "Suppose, now," I said "that Snarley had been able to express himself after the manner of superlative people like you and me, what would have come of it?" "Art," said Mrs. Abel, "and most probably poetry. He's just a mass of intuitions!" "What a pity they are inarticulate!" I answered, repeating the appropriate commonplace. "But they are not inarticulate," ... — Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks Read full book for free!
... chief orator make a most graceful and easy and beautiful and delicious speech—I never heard one that enchanted me more—although I did not understand a word of it, since it was in Hungarian. But the art of it! —it was superlative. ... — Innocents abroad • Mark Twain Read full book for free!
... incredulous amazement at the sight of this love-sick man in his intense pursuit of a girl who was able to twist him around her little finger and make him follow her about as if he were a green and callow youth. Palgrave, the lady-killer; Palgrave, the egoist; Palgrave, the superlative person, who, with nonchalant impertinence, had picked and chosen. Was ... — Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton Read full book for free!
... his lullaby. He needs no sheltering; for the rain does not wet him. He need fear no cold; for the tropics wait upon his wings. He is the nearest visible representation of a spirit I know of. He flies,—the superlative of locomotion; the poet in his most audacious dreams dare confer no superior power on flesh and blood. Sound and odor are no more native to the air than is the Swallow. Look at this marvellous creature! He can reverse the order of the seasons, and almost keep the morning or the ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various Read full book for free!
... religious education of German youth ever since. Though preceded by other catechisms from the pen of this and that colleague or disciple, it speedily displaced them all, not simply because of its authorship, but because of its superlative merit, and has alone maintained itself in general use. The versatility of the Reformer in adapting himself with such success to the needs of the young and immature is no less than extraordinary. Such a little ... — Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente Read full book for free!
... matters, we may as well confess that les Americaines do gown themselves with superlative taste. Our peeresses and visitors from the States know what to wear and how to wear it; they show so much tact in their choice of colors, they put on their gay gowns and hats with such a completeness of touch, and display so much instinct for style in the choice and use of ... — Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various Read full book for free!
... frequently follows only certain morbid impressions, with connoisseurs who make him restless, with auctioneers who receive every new work with praise and estimates of value such as would fitly honor the most superlative production. ... — Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot Read full book for free!
... I see," exclaimed Dick; "here's a bonnet, frightful—that's positive; another more frightful—that's comparative; and this with the superlative yellow tuft, I should call the most frightful of ... — The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker Read full book for free!
... Gothic: not Renaissance, Egyptian, nor Moorish. It gave the impression of being a mere fantastic creation of a gay and irresponsible brain. If a confectioner accustomed to work in coloured sugars were to dream of a superlative masterpiece, his exalted fancy might take some such shape ... — The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson Read full book for free!
... land adventures are as nothing compared to the daring of the hourly existence of the heroic souls whose lives are cast upon the banks of Newfoundland. The fishermen may seem wild and reckless, rough and illiterate; but supreme danger and superlative sacrifice breed noble qualities, and beneath the rough exterior of the fisherman you will never fail to find a MAN, and no cheap imitation of the genuine article. None but a man can face for a second time the frown of the North ... — Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell Read full book for free!
... surpassingly great though it is, is not the measure of the greatness of the leader of the Exodus. It is not in the deliverance from Egypt, it is in the constructive statesmanship that laid the foundations of the Hebrew commonwealth that the superlative grandeur of that leadership looms up. As we cannot imagine the Exodus without the great leader, neither can we account for the Hebrew polity without the great statesman. Not merely intellectually great, but morally great—a statesman aglow with the unselfish ... — Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various Read full book for free!
... journey thither; arid gravely asserts that he has often experienced, that if diamonds be wetted with May-dew, they will grow to a great size in a course of years. This probably is an improvement upon the Arabian philosophy or the production of pearls by the oysters catching that superlative seminal influence. The following singular article of intelligence respecting India, may be copied as a specimen of the work: "In that countree growen many strong vynes: and the women drynken wyn, and men not: and the women shaven hire berdes, and ... — A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr Read full book for free!
... consciousness that he must prey or be preyed on. John Rex was no common swindler; his natural as well as his acquired abilities saved him from vulgar errors. He saw that to successfully swindle mankind, one must not aim at comparative, but superlative, ingenuity. He who is contented with being only cleverer than the majority must infallibly be outwitted at last, and to be once outwitted is—for a swindler—to be ruined. Examining, moreover, into the history of detected crime, John ... — For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke Read full book for free!
... with games were few and simple. "Entries" were not arranged beforehand; men came and went, and competed or refrained, as they pleased, though, of course, there were a few well-known greyhound-like men and athletes who competed more or less in all games of the various districts around, and whose superlative powers prevented other ambitious men from becoming too numerous. These were, we may say, the ... — The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne Read full book for free!
... how all eyes were brightened by seeing you. If you occupy a position of authority whence you can bestow a favour which he requires, you are "most gracious, powerful, and good." His titles are all in the superlative, and his addresses full of wondering interjections. His object is more to please than to speak the truth. His art is nothing but delightful trickery by means of smoothing words and complacent looks. He would make men fools by teaching them to overrate their ... — Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate Read full book for free!
... from agnosticism into a complete and passionate faith in the Christian religion and in the incarnation. He said that while love was the main principle in religion as a way of life, the most important contribution to humanity made by religion was hope. Hope in the destiny of man, in the superlative value of the individual, in the Personality of ... — The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various Read full book for free!
... above quoted was cold beside the statue of one of the fathers of his country, he atones for it by his eloquence beside the tomb of the Vendramin. I must not spoil the force of Italian superlative by translation. ... — The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin Read full book for free!
... judgments unless his feeling of justice was injured; then he was implacable. Many sayings of his were current, among them a dry answer to a senator from Texas who, having dwelt in high- flown discourse on the superlative characteristics of the State he represented, wound up all by saying, "All that Texas needs to make it a paradise is water and good society,'' to which Wade instantly replied, "That 's all they need in hell.'' The nimbleness and ... — Volume I • Andrew Dickson White Read full book for free!
... appeared a row of teeth, for which one of the toothless grannies at Almack's would have given half her dowry, seemed to be anxious of trying the experiment of how far the heart of an Englishman was susceptible of the tender passion, especially when excited by objects of such superlative beauty. It may be supposed that neither Clapperton nor Houston had as yet taken any lessons in the art and mystery of African dancing, and as to waltzing, neither of them felt any great inclination to be encircled in the arms of a negress, who, although ... — Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish Read full book for free!
... nature behind a cloud of slang. He belittles everything he touches, he is afraid to utter a word from his inner heart, and his talk becomes a mere dropping shower of verbal counters which ring hollow. The superlative degree is abhorrent to him unless he can misuse it for comic purposes; and, like the ridiculous dummy lord in "Nicholas Nickleby," he is quite capable of calling Shakespeare a "very clayver man." I have heard of the attitude taken by two flowers of our society ... — The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman Read full book for free!
... surly, and the poor, worn-out horses were so stiff that they could barely travel any longer. The village, however, was only a few miles off, so that they were not more than an hour in reaching a miserable hovel, at the door of which was a man in the superlative degree of astonishment. He, at least, had never heard of Louvois and Louvois's orders, so that, for the promise of a gold-piece, he was easily induced to receive the desponding party. But his only bed was of straw, and he feared their excellencies would ... — Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach Read full book for free!
... aspect of the Soudan is that of misery; nor is there a single feature of attraction to recompense a European for the drawbacks of pestilential climate and brutal associations. To a stranger it appears a superlative folly that the Egyptian Government should have retained a possession, the occupation of which is wholly unprofitable; the receipts being far below the expenditure, "malgre" the increased taxation. At so great a distance from the ... — The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker Read full book for free!
... zigzag through Belgium, following most of the time dirt roads which, though not of superlative excellence, were an improvement on stone blocks. It took us practically all day to reach Antwerp, a hundred and ... — The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield Read full book for free!
... serve—but ideal and even ordinary romantic literature, does not, I think, substantially advance. Behold the prolific brood of the contemporary novel, magazine-tale, theatre-play, &c. The same endless thread of tangled and superlative love-story, inherited, apparently from the Amadises and Palmerins of the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries over there in Europe. The costumes and associations brought down to date, the seasoning hotter and more varied, the dragons and ogres left out—but the thing, ... — Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman Read full book for free!
... high: in the first or ground floor, are the shops; in the second, the merchants have their warehouses; and in the third, they usually live with their families. Those three different regions, sorry am I to say it, are all very dirty; indeed they may be said to be the positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of uncleanness. There are no glazed sashes in the windows, so that when it rains, and the shutters are closed, you are involved in utter darkness. The furniture is miserably scanty—some old fashioned, high backed, hardwood ... — Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott Read full book for free!
... held in order to allow of elbow room for a mass movement over a broad front. The German realized this and after he had lost Mametz and Bernafay he held all the more desperately to Trones, which, for the time being, was the superlative horror in woods fighting, though we were yet to know that it could be surpassed by Delville and ... — My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer Read full book for free!
... departed and a sort of limp, anaemic look about it. And when the wearer has lain upon the veldt at full length for long hours together in rain and sun and dust-storm his kit assumes an inexpressible dowdiness, and preserves only its one superlative merit of so far resembling mother earth that even the keen eyes behind the Mauser barrels fail to spot Mr. Atkins as he lies prone behind his ... — With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett Read full book for free!
... Miss Millicent at having found and attached to her service a young woman of such superlative domestic genius and taste, who seemed to be so thoroughly contented with her situation, was especially enhanced by the fact, that her own marriage was approaching, an occasion which any bride of good sense would ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various Read full book for free!
... of those superlative sunsets that burn themselves into the consciousness with a joy akin to pain, and of which only a few are allotted to each human life. I stood watching the sinking sun throw a crimson net over the snow mountains as the shadow ... — Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby Read full book for free!
... that. There was an instantaneous correspondence between the part and the player. The embodiment was as natural as a sunbeam. Shakespeare has left no doubt about his meaning in Perdita. The speeches of all around her continually depict her fresh and piquant loveliness, her innate superiority, her superlative charm; while her behaviour and language as constantly show forth her nobility of soul. One of the subtlest side lights thrown upon the character is in the description of the manner in which Perdita heard ... — Shadows of the Stage • William Winter Read full book for free!
... to even bring it before the notice of the public. The error of most original people is in being just a trifle too original. It was in his business qualities—and these, after all, are the most essential to success, that Mr. Darwin showed himself so superlative. These are not only the most essential to success, but it is only by blaspheming the world in a way which no good citizen of the world will do, that we can deny them to be the ones which should most command our admiration. We are in the world; surely so long as ... — Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler Read full book for free!
... could shed over the soul was still ours. It was not classed as a "necessary," and the retailers being free to charge freely for it could sell it at a price too "long" for the purses of the many. Dry bread is an unpalatable thing, and the new "Law's" loaf was superlative in that respect. The grocer was beginning to discriminate, so far as he dared, between his friends (his customers) and the casual purchaser, whose affected cordiality did not deceive the shrewd old wretch. Butter had ceased to be practical ... — The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan Read full book for free!
... while it bids God speed to him who robs his neighbor of himself? Slavery is the highest possible violation of the eighth commandment. To take from a man his earnings, is theft. But to take the earner, is compound, superlative, perpetual theft. It is to be a thief by profession. It is a trade, a life of robbery, that vaults through all the gradations of the climax at a leap—the dread, terrific, giant robbery, that towers among other robberies, ... — The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society Read full book for free!
... a scamp in the superlative degree, the burly ruffian who seated himself by his side looked the character much better. He was not a man to beat about the bush. As he expressed it, he wanted to come to business ... — Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr. Read full book for free!
... my accomplishments, you will find them out by inquiring at the Press Club, which is composed of as nice gentlemen as any lady of taste could wish; and I swear, sir, they have so much learning that they have killed several magazines of great respectability." Mr. Tickler said this with an air of superlative dignity; and having a beard and mustache of exquisite growth, he drew a delicate comb from his pocket, and commenced curling them with great care. In truth, Mr. Orlando Tickler was something of an exquisite, and as much ... — The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale" Read full book for free!
... Spanish countries the mental activity of the people is principally manifested in an exuberant imagination which finds expression in superlative and poetical language. If there were any corresponding creative genius and executive ability in material affairs such a fertile and well-watered land as Puerto Rico would be the home of one of the richest communities on the globe. By her situation she is ... — Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall Read full book for free!
... ill-health in his life, swore vividly for fifteen minutes without repeating himself, and among many references to the commercial's ancestry, called him the two-est-faced knave that had ever set foot on the Shetland Islands. Such a superlative was felt by all to be a masterpiece of language, and turned the ... — Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes Read full book for free!
... conceived, it is a sort of logical violation and unnaturalness; but the extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with this very folly. The desire for "freedom of will" in the superlative, metaphysical sense, such as still holds sway, unfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated, the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one's actions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society therefrom, involves nothing ... — Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche Read full book for free!
... those of Brahms as being among the great works in its class. Some of its lovers, in fact, would risk an unqualified superlative and call it the greatest. It certainly is remarkable for its inspired themes, its bold harmonies, its free and yet organic structure and for that sublime fervor which was the basis of Franck's genius. It is, in two respects, at least, ... — Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding Read full book for free!
... too minutely into the cause which might actuate him in this instance: suffice it to say, he immediately put the plan in execution; and in three days from the time he first saw the unfortunate Lieutenant, he had the superlative felicity of seeing him at liberty, and receiving an ample reward in the tearful eye and half articulated thanks of ... — Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson Read full book for free!
... life had never known deceit, suffered cruelly. There was an intermission to set the stage for the concert. The guests pressed around the Styvens's to express their admiration for Esperance, in the most dithyrambic, the most superlative terms. The concert began. Albert had to go upon the stage to play the Liszt duet with Esperance. He begged Francois Darbois to take his ... — The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt Read full book for free!
... was hated by the poor. In every case he would, if he had the power, visit every fault committed by them with the severest penalty awarded by the law. He was a stern, hard, cruel man, with no sympathy for any one, and was actuated by the most superlative contempt for the poor, from whom he drew his whole income. He was a clever, clear-headed, avaricious man; and he knew that the only means of keeping the peasantry in their present utterly helpless and dependent state, was to deny them education, and to oppose every scheme for their improvement ... — The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope Read full book for free!
... beings, passion and devotion wrapped in forms of ethereal mould, and surrounded by an impalpable effulgence which distinguished them from all others of the sex throughout the world. Whatever was of the South was superlative. To be Southern-born was to be prima facie better than other men. So the self-love of every man was enlisted in this sentiment. To praise the South was to praise himself; to boast of its valor was to advertise his own intrepidity; ... — Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee Read full book for free!
... gave the address of one of her milliners to Lady W——, who, complaining to her of the exorbitant prices of this superlative faiseuse, and plaintively stating that she had charged her fifty guineas for a simple morning dress, Lady A—— replied, "Ah, very likely, I dare say; I don't know anything ... — Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble Read full book for free!
... is nothing, they arrest a quiet decent-minded man like myself with the same spasmodic disgust as a pun in literature—the subject is a transparent excuse; they are mere indecent and unedifying exhibitions of himself. He thinks it is something superlative to do everything in a startling way. He cannot even sign his name without being offensive. He lacks altogether the fundamental quality of a gentleman, the magnanimity to ... — Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells Read full book for free!
... everybody's heard about Hal Dunbar. Everybody's scared of him. He can ride anything that's big enough to carry him; he can fight like a wildcat with his hands; and he can shoot like"—his eye wandered toward a superlative—"like Pete Reeve, almost," he concluded with a tone ... — Bull Hunter • Max Brand Read full book for free!
... assistant, and was so near discovering herself to May Hettly, by betraying her acquaintance with the celebrated receipt for Dunlop cheese, that she compared herself to Bedreddin Hassan, whom the vizier, his father-in-law, discovered by his superlative skill in composing cream-tarts with pepper in them. But when the novelty of such avocations ceased to amuse her, she showed to her sister but too plainly, that the gaudy colouring with which she veiled her unhappiness afforded ... — The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott Read full book for free!
... tis ballanst to be superlative politicke custome in these houres to dwell in shallowe accoutrements, as a defence for the abilitie of his pursse from the infringed Oath of some impudent face, that will borrowe a gentlemans revenewes if he be vestally adornd: Ile tell you sir by ... — A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen Read full book for free!
... has, than, put 'em all together, would make a South Carolina regiment. A mighty man among politicians, he was! Now the devil has cribbed him-he'll know how good it is!" Mr. Glentworthy says this with an air of superlative satisfaction, resuming his tune. The dead man is Milman Mingle, the vote-cribber, who died of a wound he received at the hands of an antagonist, whom he was endeavoring to "block out" while going to the polls to cast his vote. "Big politician, ... — Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams Read full book for free!
... us. She was, when at a distance, a baffling mass of canvas, from which a square-sail occasionally heliographed. She got abeam of us. Before the clippers have quite gone, it is proper to give grace for the privilege of having seen one, superlative as the ship of romance, and in such a time and place. She was a cloud that, when it mounted the horizon like the others, instead of floating into the meridian, moved over the seas to us, an immutable billow of luminous mist blown forward on the wind. She ... — London River • H. M. Tomlinson Read full book for free!
... somewhat dull, whilst, again, his harem, from the presence of numerous adult daughters, would be increased to an extent that might have overtaxed his once more active powers. Given some such rather exceptional situation, where a happy opportunity in superlative mother love wrestled with a for once satiated paternal appetite in desire, we may here discern a possible key of the sociological problem which occupies us, and which consisted in a conjunction within one group of ... — The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley Read full book for free!
... another little book, "The Kingdom of Light," the author, who is a lawyer, says that Concord, Massachusetts, has influenced America to a greater degree than New York and Chicago combined. I think I'll blot out the superlative degree in my grammar, for the comparative gives me all ... — Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson Read full book for free!
... you that I never made such a mistake (I mean of over-seriousness to indefinite compliments), no, never in my life before—indeed my sisters have often jested with me (in matters of which they were cognizant) on my supernatural indifference to the superlative degree in general, as if it meant nothing in grammar. I usually know well that 'boots' may be called for in this world of ours, just as you called for yours; and that to bring 'Bootes,' were the vilest of mal-a-pro-pos-ities. ... — The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Read full book for free!
... disagreeing with her. I am still of the opinion that their admirable system of government, social and political, and their encouragement and provision for universal culture of so high an order, had more to do with the formation of superlative character than the elimination ... — Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley Read full book for free!
... poetical and elevated the ideas are which are clustered around marriage, the more probable it is that experience will produce disappointment. If one spouse enters wedlock with the belief that the other is the most superlative man or woman living, the cases must be very few in which disappointment and disillusion will not result. Moreover, pair marriage, by its exclusiveness, risks the happiness of the parties on a very narrow and specific condition of life. The coercion of this arrangement for many persons ... — Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner Read full book for free!
... words describin' things. They's two kinds, comparative and superlative," Smith replied promptly. He added. "Adjectives kind ... — 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart Read full book for free!
... sapid and extremely oily as the superlative ao implies. There are no finer, fatter cheeses in the world than those made of rich sheep milk in the mountains of ... — The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown Read full book for free!
... the noble Roman, Giovanni Colonna, begins with a promise to tell something of a storm which deserved the title of 'poetic,' and in a degree so superlative that no epithet but 'Homeric' would suffice to do it justice. This exordium is singularly characteristic of Petrarch, who never forgot that he was a literary man, and lost no opportunity of dragging the great names of antiquity ... — Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds Read full book for free!
... in the greatest and gayest matters of Princes and Popes by the idle inuention of Monasticall men then raigning al in their superlative. So did every scholer & secular clerke or versifier, when he wrote any short poeme or matter of good lesson put it in ryme, whereby it came to passe that all your old Proverbes and common sayinges, which they would have plausible to the reader and easy to remember and beare away, were of that ... — The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham Read full book for free!
... distraction. She is fire and flesh and carnal—she is more than beauty. There is allurement about her body; sylph-like, sinuous; the olive tint of her complexion, the wonderful glory of her hair and the glowing night-black of her eyes. Men pause; she is of the superlative kind that robs the reason, a supreme glory of passion and life and beauty, at whose feet fools and wise men would slavishly frolic and folly. She seldom speaks, but those who have heard her say that it is like rippling water, of gentleness and softness and of the mellow flow that comes ... — The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint Read full book for free!
... indicative of the real character of the inhabitants. Yet it seemed to be a deserted village, a place of the dead rather than of the living, an ornamental graveyard. The liveliness of social beings was absent and was even inconsistent with the superlative neatness of all around us. It was a best parlor out-of-doors, where the gayety of frolicking children would derange the set order of the furniture, or an accidental touch of a sacrilegious foot might scratch the polish of a fresh-varnished fence, or flatten down the nap of the ... — Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse Read full book for free!
... three powers that can open the stage door to a girl who comes straight from private life,—a fortune, great influence, or superlative beauty. With a large amount of money a girl can unquestionably tempt a manager whose business is not too good, to give her an engagement. If influence is used, it must indeed be of a high social order to be strong enough ... — Stage Confidences • Clara Morris Read full book for free!
... city talk from the lips of the two ladies had the merit of being perfect of its kind—softly insinuating and sweetly censorious, superlative in eulogy and infallible in opinion. The good visitors most conscientiously discharged what they deemed a great moral and social duty by enlightening the Lady de Tilly on all the recent lapses and secrets of the capital. They slid over slippery ... — The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby Read full book for free!
... nearer to being angry with Tanno than I had ever been in our lives. I comprehended why he, with all his superlative equipment of tact and intuition, had blundered; he could not but assume that circumstances were as they should have been rather than as they were; yet the blunder was, in a sense, unforgivable, and had created a social situation than ... — Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White Read full book for free!
... mode might be seen at the Three Crowns, displayed by the hostess, as well as the last French entremet at its table; since, among other important accessories to the well-doing of the house, Madame Bonaventure kept a chef de cuisine—one of her compatriots—of such superlative skill, that in later times he must infallibly have been distinguished ... — The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth Read full book for free!
... these creatures as the Lord that He is, [271] for in that transit His mercy shines forth more; and thus said David (Psalm, XLVII, 21) Domini, Domini, exitus mortis; [272] whence that reduplication which the Hebrew grammar calls ohatsere, [273] signifies the superlative in name and action. The same is the declaration of divine wisdom (Proverbs, XX): In viis justitiae ambulo, in medio semitarum judicii, ut ditem diligentes me. [274] The Father celestial summons them for the relief of their burdens, and of the troubles ... — The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin Read full book for free!
... a word of overwhelming influence in any combination, that the total effect is one of sadness. And the book itself is a masterly presentment of gloom. Masterly—or most natural: it is often hard to say how much of Hamsun's effect is due to superlative technique and how much to the inspired disregard of all technique. Den Siste Gloede is a diary of wearisome days, spent for the most part among unattractive, insignificant people at a holiday resort; ... — Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun Read full book for free!
... all day while the daylight lasted they much preferred an evening of complete solitude. Rossiter's new robustness of taste included love of a gramophone. Money being no consideration with them, they acquired a tip-top one with superlative records; not so much the baaing, bellowing and shrieking of fashionable singers, but orchestral performances, heart-melting duets between violin and piano (what human voice ever came up to a good violin or violoncello?), racy comic songs, inspiriting two steps, xylophone symphonies, and dreamy, ... — Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston Read full book for free!
... regularly compared by adding er to the positive to form the comparative, and est to the positive to form the superlative. ... — Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg Read full book for free!
... gazelles who were marvellously adroit. They waited, carved and even divined the wishes of Blondine, Bonne-Biche and Beau-Minon. The dinner was exquisite—the chicken was splendid, the game and fish most delicate, the pastry and bonbons superlative. Blondine was hungry so she ate of all ... — Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur Read full book for free!
... the first place in your catechism, so it ought to be first of all laid to heart, and pondered as the one necessary thing. "One thing is needful," says Christ, Luke x. 42, and if any thing be in a superlative degree needful, this is it. O that you would choose to consider it, as the necessity and ... — The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning Read full book for free!
... * "I have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domenichino and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterwards went to the beautiful cemetery of Bologna, beyond the walls, and found, besides the superb burial ground, an original of a Custode, who reminded one of the grave-digger in Hamlet. He has a collection of capuchins' ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various Read full book for free!
... Spita-des, etc. This, in Spita-ces, is followed by a guttural ending, which is either a diminutive corresponding to the modern Persian -efc, or perhaps a suffixed article. In Spit-amas, the suffix -mas is the common form of the superlative, and may be compared with the Latin -mus in optimus, intimus, supremus, and the like. Ehambacas contains the root rafno, "joy, pleasure," which we find in Pati-ramphies, followed ... — The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson Read full book for free!
... of contents and a double arrangement of paging to match, neatly but simply bound (fronde licet gemina, munditieque nitens non operosa), and containing the juvenile productions of a certain Poet of no superlative merit (haud nimii poetae), written partly in Britain and partly in Italy, partly in English and partly in Latin. [Footnote: Critics have objected to Milton's volume, phrase "fronde licet gemina," on the ground that "fronte" would be the better Latin word ... — The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson Read full book for free!
... employed, so that the substantive carry it easily, is the strongest word in a sentence. But when once it loses its hold upon concrete reality it becomes the weakest, and not all the protests of debility, superlative degrees, and rhetorical insistence, can ... — Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh Read full book for free!
... rough as he seems, he would shudder to wrong A dog with the loss of a hair; And the angels of shine and superlative song See his heart ... — The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall Read full book for free!
... and not once, but a score of times. The brocades that I promised to show you after supper will be my witness. And there are some superlative satin and silk lengths which my Lady Rayne wished particularly to see. Will you allow ... — The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen Read full book for free!
... window-panes. At intervals, when the gloom deepened toward despair, Morris would produce the whisky-bottle, and at first John welcomed the diversion—not for long. It has been said this spirit was the worst in Hampshire; only those acquainted with the county can appreciate the force of that superlative; and at length even the Great Vance (who was no connoisseur) waved the decoction from his lips. The approach of dusk, feebly combated with a single tallow candle, added a touch of tragedy; and John suddenly ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... relating. My Friend carried his Discourse so far as to say, that it was for higher Beings than Men to join Happiness and Greatness in the same Idea; but that in our Condition we have no Conception of superlative Excellence, or Heroism, but as it is surrounded with ... — The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele Read full book for free!
... appropriate accompanying card with the lines in horizontal position. Point to the lines and say: "See these lines. Look closely and tell me which one is longer. Put your finger on the longest one." We use the superlative as well as the comparative form of long because it is often more familiar to young subjects. If the child does not respond, say: "Show me which line is the biggest." Then withdraw the card, turn it about a few times, and present ... — The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman Read full book for free!
... years. I do not find one virtue in him. In Julius Caesar, a voluptuary and red with carnage, there were yet multitudinous virtues. We do not wonder men loved him and were glad to die for him. He had a soul, and honor, and remembrance of friendship. He was a genius, superlative and bewildering. We can forget and forgive some things in such a man; but for such a sovereign as Charles V, what can we say, save that he was not so execrable as Philip II, his son? Charles, being Flemish in birth, both Flanders and himself considered ... — A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle Read full book for free!
... Mrs. Bogus merits well of the republic, for doing what she can do towards the hospitalities of the season. I'm sure I never cursed her in my heart, even when her strong coffee has held mine eyes open till morning, and her superlative lobster salads have given me the very darkest views of human life that ever dyspepsia and east wind could engender. Mrs. Bogus is the Eve who offers the apple; but after all, I am the foolish Adam who take and eat what I know is going to hurt me, ... — Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe Read full book for free!
... Meeser—the positive, comparative and superlative of infamy hitherto! but we must turn to "Grand old Texas" to find unblushing effrontry and irremediable rascality. Some months ago a creature named Otis, who conducts somewhere in Southern California a putrid abortion miscalled a newspaper, declared in his columns ... — Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann Read full book for free!
... Arabs are highly imaginative, and their world is peopled with supernatural beings, whilst Ovid is surpassed in the number and ingenuity of their metamorphoses. Their nerves are highly strung, they are emotional to the hysteric degree, and they do everything in the superlative fashion. They love at first sight, and one glimpse of a face is enough to set them in flames; they cease to sleep or to eat until they are admitted to the adored presence, they weep till they faint, they rend their garments, pluck their beards, buffet their faces, ... — Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton Read full book for free!
... which they missed during this excursion of fancy. When they hear the warning advertisement of "certainly for the last time this season," they will deem it time enough to attend to the performance. To cure them of this presumption in favour of our patience, and of their own superlative quickness, we should press that quickness to its utmost speed. Whenever we call for their attention, let it be on subjects highly interesting or amusing, and let us give them but just sufficient time with their fullest exertion to catch our words and ideas. As ... — Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth Read full book for free!
... with those of Brahms as being among the great works in its class. Some of its lovers, in fact, would risk an unqualified superlative and call it the greatest. It certainly is remarkable for its inspired themes, its bold harmonies, its free and yet organic structure and for that sublime fervor which was the basis of Franck's genius. It is, in two respects, at least, a highly original work: in the unusual moods of the several movements, ... — Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding Read full book for free!
... Serenus in the purest antiquity, yet being added in the transcendent degree to the word Emperour, the highest denomination that a Prince is capable of, it becomes of the same value. So that to interpret Illustrissimus unto diminution is to find a positive in a superlative, and in the most orient light to seek for darkness. And I would, seeing the near Boyars and Counsellors of his Tzarskoy Majesty are pleased to mention the Title given to his Tzarskoy Majesty by his Cesarian Majesty, gladly ... — Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell Read full book for free!
... the South, to the "manor born," having shown their superiority in the superlative excellencies of murder, usurpation and robbery (and I maintain they have gone further in the execution of these infamies than was true of the Negro-Carpet-bag bacchanalia); having made majorities dwindle into iotas and vaulted themselves into power at the point of the shot gun and ... — Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune Read full book for free!
... counsel, how she Saved her husband Nabal, when that he Should have been slain. And lo, Esther also By counsel good deliver'd out of woe The people of God, and made him, Mardoche, Of Assuere enhanced* for to be. *advanced in dignity There is nothing *in gree superlative* *of higher esteem* (As saith Senec) above a humble wife. Suffer thy wife's tongue, as Cato bit;* *bid She shall command, and thou shalt suffer it, And yet she will obey of courtesy. A wife is keeper of thine husbandry: Well may the sicke man bewail and weep, There as there ... — The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer Read full book for free!
... of Leeds, as a last resource, fell to denouncing Macaulay as a placeman; a stroke of superlative audacity in a party which, during eight-and-forty years, had been out of office for only fourteen months. It may well be imagined that he found plenty to say in his own defence. "The only charge which malice can prefer against me is ... — Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan Read full book for free!
... pomegranates, sweet Arabian dates, Peaches and plums, and clusters fresh from vines, And all imaginable sweets, and cakes, And here are drinking-cups, and long-necked flasks In wicker mail, and bottles broached from casks, In cellars delved deep, and winter cold, Select, superlative, and centuries old. What more can I desire? what book can be As rich as Idleness and Luxury? What lore can fill my heart with joy divine, Like luscious fruitage, and enchanted wine? Brimming with Helicon I dash the ... — The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various Read full book for free!
... the epithet of "doggerel" to it, the "sincere and rational meaning" which pervades his compositions renders such an epithet improper. "His ear for rhythm," he continues, "though less true than in his prose, is seldom wholly at fault, and whether in prose or verse, he had the superlative merit that he could never write nonsense." Bunyan's earliest prison work, entitled "Profitable Meditations," was in verse, and neither this nor his later metrical ventures before his release—his "Four ... — The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables Read full book for free!
... do we labour? I know that we are obliged to act as we do; I know, too, that we cannot do better; but should we rejoice at the fatal necessity which pushes us on to exert an action comparatively good and which will unavoidably end in a superlative evil?" ... — Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre Read full book for free!
... the supper, which was most agreeable, but far more the conversation. Among the topics discussed, what gave me most delight was to hear your name mentioned by the Captain; nor was this all, for he still added to my pleasure, nay, to a superlative degree, by saying that, in the art of painting he held you to be sole and without peer in the whole world, and that so you were esteemed at Rome. I could not have been better pleased. You see that my judgment is confirmed; ... — The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds Read full book for free!
... tourist woman whom I met at the foot of Yosemite Falls may have felt secretly suffocated by the filmy grandeur of the incomparable spectacle, notwithstanding that she was conscious of no higher emotion than the cheap wonder of a superlative. The Grand Canyon's rim is the stillest crowded place I know. I've stood among a hundred people on a precipice and heard the whir of a bird's wings in the abyss. Probably the majority of those silent gazers were suffering something akin to pain at their ... — The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard Read full book for free!
... follow the history of these Semitic names in order to see that, in spite of their superlative meaning, they proved no stronger bulwark against polytheism than the Latin Optimus Maximus. The very names which we saw explained before as meaning the Highest, the Lord, the Master, are represented in the Phenician mythology as standing to each other in the relation of Father and ... — Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller Read full book for free!
... my maisteris dere, Gowere and Chaucere, that on the steppis satt Of rethorike quhill thai were lyvand here, Superlative as poetis laureate, In moralitee and eloquence ornate, I recommend my buk in lynis sevin, And eke thair soulis un-to ... — A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand Read full book for free!
... drawings of great painters are examined, the master mind shines forth in every touch, and we recognise the works of Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, Coreggio, and others, at a glance. The drawings of Rembrandt possess this quality in a superlative degree, and the slightest indication seems sufficient to mark the character and leading features of the object represented. His drawings are generally in pen outline, with a wash of bistre, or other warm colour; sometimes he makes use of black and red chalk; ... — Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet Read full book for free!
... back with all the glory of its russet brown departed and a sort of limp, anaemic look about it. And when the wearer has lain upon the veldt at full length for long hours together in rain and sun and dust-storm his kit assumes an inexpressible dowdiness, and preserves only its one superlative merit of so far resembling mother earth that even the keen eyes behind the Mauser barrels fail to spot Mr. Atkins as he lies prone ... — With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett Read full book for free!
... who has described his person for us minutely, meaning Antony Aston, in his theatrical pamphlet, called the Brief Supplement? Why it is absolutely this,—"Mr. Betterton," says his truthful panegyrist, "although a superlative good actor, laboured under an ill figure, being clumsily made, having a great head, a short, thick neck, stooped in the shoulders, and had fat, short arms, which he rarely lifted higher than his stomach. He had little eyes and a broad face, a little pock-fretten, a corpulent body, and thick legs, ... — Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent Read full book for free!
... nowhere. I don't say they do it with malice prepense, or that they plot against us to our ruin; the thing operates rather as an extraordinary effect of their mere successful blatancy. They're blatant, truly, in the superlative degree, and I call them successfully so for just this reason, that poor Mother is to all appearance perfectly unaware of it. Maria is the one member of all her circle that has got her really, not only just ostensibly, into training; and it's a part of the general irony of fate that neither ... — The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo Read full book for free!
... can bring out to clearer demonstration the superlative glory of Christ than a thoughtful consideration of the story of the forerunner. They were born at the same time; were surrounded from their birth by similar circumstances; drank in from their earliest days the same ... — John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer Read full book for free!
... Gentleness was superlative kindness, and no woman who had not had just that sort of kindness from the man she married, could help being rather nasty. He had owed it to Estelle—no matter whether she told ... — The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome Read full book for free!
... and any sense, but the eyes and ears and sense of the dear one to whom they are sent, is very sweet;—but for the girl who has made a shirt for the man that she loves, there has come a moment in the last stitch of it, sweeter than any that stars, haycocks, poetry, or superlative epithets have produced. Nora Rowley had never as yet been thus useful on behalf of Hugh Stanbury. Had she done so, she might perhaps have been happier even than she was during this journey;—but, without ... — He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope Read full book for free!
... several figures Carter was invited to admire, and so on to a score of topics. The first thing was to make Carter think and talk, which he did in the happy-go-lucky way of his class, uttering nine mighty simple remarks, and then a bit of superlative wisdom, or something that sounded like it. And when he had shot his random bolts, Mr. Eden would begin and treat each picture as a text, and utter much wisdom on it ... — It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade Read full book for free!
... the Rev. William Shepherd's innocent affair, "The Life of Poggio Bracciolini"; but the deficiencies of the biographers have been supplied by a true man of genius, Poliziano, who has hit off his character in a noun substantive and an adjective in the superlative. In his History of the Pazzi and Salviati Conspiracy against Lorenzo de' Medici,—which plot to overthrow the government Bracciolini's third son, Jacopo, joined, and was hanged for his pains in front of the first floor windows of ... — Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross Read full book for free!
... want a little space for yourself and your cause." The Baltimore Evening Herald commented: "From the foregoing it will be observed that in the dark and devious avocation of working the unsophisticated editor, Mrs. Upton is truly a past mistress, entitled to wear the regalia and jewels of the superlative degree." ... — The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper Read full book for free!
... the passionate rhapsody. He knew a thing or two, he allowed, about these wonderful Roses of Sharon and this Song of Songs. Lies, all lies, every word of it! Yet, in spite of himself, from time to time, he liked to reread it. He fancied this was because of the sardonic pleasure its superlative phrases gave him, but the truth was it held him. He despised sentiment, tenderness, and, by the strangeness of the human mind, he went, by way of paradox, to the tenderest, most sublime spot in a book supreme in tenderness ... — Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius Read full book for free!
... up with this sublime comparison, Methinks we may proceed upon our narrative, And, as my friend Scott says, "I sound my warison;"[752] Scott, the superlative of my comparative— Scott, who can paint your Christian knight or Saracen, Serf—Lord—Man, with such skill as none would share it, if There had not been one Shakespeare and Voltaire, Of one or both of whom he ... — The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron Read full book for free!
... than what was the truth in speaking of his success, he became a subscriber to the Wiener Theaterzeitung, and had it sent to Warsaw. The criticism is somewhat long, but as this first step into the great world of art was an event of superlative importance to Chopin, and is one of more than ordinary interest to us, I do not hesitate to transcribe it in full so far as it relates to our artist. Well, what we read in the Wiener Theaterzeitung of August 20, ... — Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks Read full book for free!
... in degree. This change of form is called comparison. There are three degrees of comparison: the positive, the comparative, and the superlative. Adjectives are regularly compared by adding the syllables er and est to the positive to form the comparative and superlative degrees. In some cases, especially in the case of adjectives of more than one syllable, the adverbs more and most are placed before the positive degree in order to form the other two degrees [long, longer, longest; beautiful, ... — Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks Read full book for free!
... means of vigorous support which had not previously been estimated at its full value. In every loyal state there was a "war governor." Upon these men the burdens of the war had rested so heavily that they understood, as they would not otherwise have understood, the superlative weight of cares that pressed on the President, and they saw more clearly than they otherwise could have seen, the danger in swapping horses while crossing the river. These war governors rallied with unanimity and with ... — The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham Read full book for free!
... ridicule instead of reason, which suggests the inquiry whether, if self-restraint and wise discipline are desirable for every faculty of the mind and body, the tongue and hand alone should be allowed to riot in wanton excess. If even the legitimate superlative must be handled, like dynamite, with extreme caution, blackguardism of every degree is a nuisance to be summarily discountenanced and abated by those who know the difference between grandeur and bigness, between Mercutio and Tony Lumpkin, ... — Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis Read full book for free!
... the storm were an hallucination; something not objective; something real, but within the soul of him who looked upon it. It claimed sudden kinship with those blackest days when nevertheless the sun, the mere external unimportant sun, shines with superlative brilliancy. Emotions of a power to shake the foundations of life seemed vaguely to stir in answer to these their hollow symbols. For after all, we were contented at heart and tranquil in mind, and this was ... — The Mountains • Stewart Edward White Read full book for free!
... comported well with her stature, a perfect oval face, framed by beautiful hair of a light shade, large eyes marked by eyebrows of the same hue, a perfect nose, a charming mouth, teeth of exceptional beauty displayed in a delicious smile, the rarest of complexions," etc., etc. He continues his superlative adjectives, indicating that the King was not the only susceptible person in the Park, finally adding: "The features of the Marquise were lighted by the play of infinite variety, but never could one perceive any ... — Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various Read full book for free!
... The Doge reigned supreme as in the past. Beneath the ceiling of Veronese the dreaded Three still sat in secret council. Venice was still the city of subtle poisons and dangerous mysteries, but the days were gone when she had held the balance in European affairs, and she had become, in a superlative degree, the city of pleasure. Nowhere was life more varied and entertaining, more full ... — The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps Read full book for free!
... to the noble Roman, Giovanni Colonna, begins with a promise to tell something of a storm which deserved the title of 'poetic,' and in a degree so superlative that no epithet but 'Homeric' would suffice to do it justice. This exordium is singularly characteristic of Petrarch, who never forgot that he was a literary man, and lost no opportunity of dragging the great names of antiquity into his rhetorical compositions. The catastrophe ... — Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds Read full book for free!
... atmosphere. Dryden, one may safely say, would have been greater had he lived earlier, Fielding had he lived later. But one cannot imagine Pope thriving in any other air or producing equal work under different influences. The qualities most esteemed by his contemporaries he possessed in a superlative degree; his limitations were common to the society in which he moved, and neither he nor it was conscious of them as such; consequently, what would have been impediments to a different nature were to his means of free and spontaneous action. And not only does he represent the ideas of his ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various Read full book for free!
... that he took the world quietly, and his doing so undoubtedly had important bearings on his style. We give another anecdote, which illustrates this peculiarity of his mind as well as the superlative folly of duelling. Not long after his marriage, with all his indifference to his wife, he was persuaded into a fit of singular jealousy. He was intimate with an ex-captain of dragoons, by name Poignant, who had retired to Chateau-Thierry; a ... — The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine Read full book for free!
... looking unusually well, and even those who had dubbed her "The Beautiful Yankee" added another superlative adjective. A spot of bright red burned in either cheek and she held her head very high. "How haughty she is!" Prescott heard some one say. Her height, her figure, her look lent colour ... — Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler Read full book for free!
... speeches of universally acknowledged excellence, to revive public interest in the great body of his works. In the task of selection, it has been impossible to do full justice to his powers; for among the speeches omitted in this collection are to be found passages of superlative eloquence, maxims of political and moral wisdom which might be taken as mottoes for elaborate treatises on the philosophy of law and legislation, and important facts and principles which no student of history of the United States can overlook without betraying ... — The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster Read full book for free!
... is easy to understand why this first city venture of the budding author is always successful. He is primed by necessity to a superlative effort; mid the iron and stone and marble of the roaring city he has found this spot of singing birds and green grass and trees; every tender sentiment in his nature is baffling with the sweet pain of homesickness; his genius is aroused as it never ... — Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry Read full book for free!
... price;[23] or the statue, while stepping into his niche, would turn round on the author to assist his invention. A patron of Peter Motteux, dissatisfied with Peter's colder temperament, composed the superlative dedication to himself, and completed the misery of the author by subscribing it with Motteux's name![24] Worse fared it when authors were the unlucky hawkers of their own works; of which I shall give a remarkable ... — Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli Read full book for free!
... happens that the superior nature is dominated by one not its equal. Phillida did not question the superlative excellence of Mrs. Frankland, from whom she drew so many inspirations. That eloquent lady in turn admired and loved Phillida as a model disciple. Phillida drew Mrs. Hilbrough to the readings, and Mrs. Frankland bestowed on that lady all the affectionate attention ... — The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston Read full book for free!
... fill the lungs with wine. Its autumns are incomparable, a golden glow in which valley and hill bask lazily. Its winters are warm with sunshine and cold with the crisp crackle of frost. Its springs—they might be worse. Any Coloradoan will admit the climate is superlative. But there is one slight rift in the lute, hardly to be mentioned as a discord in the universal harmony. Sudden weather changes do occur. A shining summer sun vanishes and in a twinkling of an eye the ... — The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine Read full book for free!
... thing—looking out from a tower and waving a handkerchief. But her new friend had promised, and why should he tease her so? The effect of a blow is as proportionate to the texture of the object struck as to its own momentum; and she had such a superlative capacity for being wounded that little hits struck ... — A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy Read full book for free!
... classic." Most certainly; but not necessarily to that of a poetical classic. Jeffrey thought him "original and powerful." Granted; but there are plenty of original and powerful writers who are not poets. Wilson gave him the superlative for "original and vivid painting." Perhaps; but is Hogarth a poet? Jane Austen "thought she could have married him." She had not read his biography; but even if she had would that prove him to be a poet? Lord Tennyson is said to single out the following passage, which ... — Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury Read full book for free!
... object of his arbitrary likes or dislikes under discussion. At such times he is no observer, much less worshipper, of proportion in his delineations. Thorough-paced, scarcely controllable, his enthusiasm for or against admits no degree in its expression, save and except the superlative. Hence Mr. Froude's statement of facts or description of phenomena, whenever his feelings are enlisted either way, must be taken with the proverbial "grain of salt" by all when enjoying the luxury of perusing his books. So complete is his self-identification with the sect or ... — West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas Read full book for free!
... made the most of the little hair that remained to him. He wore a neat pair of trousers, a soft shade of some dark color, a silk waistcoat of superlative elegance and the very newest cut, a shirt with open-work, its linen hand-woven by a Friesland woman, and a blue-and-white cravat. His watch chain, like the head of his cane, came from Messrs. Florent and Chanor; and the coat, cut by old Graff himself, was of the very finest cloth. ... — Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac Read full book for free!
... "I appreciate your spirit and, permit me to say, also your attempt to make me treat this terrible affair in a spirit of sport. But old Margaret is the superlative of stubbornness. We cannot expect to go to her to obtain information. I have lived in the house with her for more than six years. Can I say whether she is a saint or a crafty villainess? No. I know no more now than when I shook her in my anger ... — The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child Read full book for free!
... his coarse face, and his eyes shone like diamonds dropped on a muck-heap. "Is it really the brave girl from Cottin?" he muttered, in a voice so smothered that he alone heard it. "You are fine," he said, after a pause, using the curious word, "godaine," a superlative in the dialect of those regions used by lovers to express the combination of fine ... — The Chouans • Honore de Balzac Read full book for free!
... feelings changed as he uttered those interjections, and the tones of his voice were as if the words were positive, comparative, and superlative. ... — The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn Read full book for free!
... thoughtless parents into consideration and concern about their most important interests,—a precious repayment of all the long toils and cares, endured to support them through the period of childhood, and an example of that rare class of phenomena, in which (as in the instance of the Grecian Daughter) a superlative beauty arises from an inversion of the order ... — An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster Read full book for free!
... whole idea is nothing less than atrocious; and, in our judgment, the Adapter's actual purpose in putting it forth is to make his own superlative goodness seem proved by ... — Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various Read full book for free!
... and slang expressions. The greatest blemish of the conversation and manners of the young people of to-day is obtrusiveness and exaggeration. By obtrusiveness I mean a style of speech and manners that attracts attention and remark; by exaggeration I mean the too constant use of the superlative in conversation, and a certain incongruity and inappropriateness of expression which is very offensive to the cultivated taste. Such expressions as "perfectly awful," "perfectly beautiful," "too lovely for anything," "hateful," "horrible," may constantly be heard in conversation ... — Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett Read full book for free!
... would furnish the only efficacious antidote to Mirabelle. And he needed an antidote, and a powerful one, for during the past two weeks Mirabelle had been surpassing herself. That is, if one can surpass a superlative. ... — Rope • Holworthy Hall Read full book for free!
... among the Men of Honour Many were tainted with Pride and Superstition at the same Time; but there were others in whom superlative Bravery was ... — An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville Read full book for free!
... and, boy! There plain as the nose on your face is a card among the flowers readin', 'to a fellow artist, from Sarah Bernhardt.' And—whilst we are, so to speak, on the subjeck—you can put in likewise what Eleanora Duse said o' me. You know who she is, I suppose, the very most superlative genius o' the stage, suh. Yes, suh, the very most. An' she says o' me when she went back to Italy, how I was the best artist on ... — A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht Read full book for free!
... breathed deeply in relief. "I knew you wouldn't fail me. Look at that field, Phares—oh, this is a perfect day! There should be a superlative form of perfect for a day like this! Those fields have as many colors as the shades reflected on a copper plate: lilac, tan, purple, rose, ... — Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers Read full book for free!
... if the Covenants be excepted, to give the Covenanted Church decision, stability, permanence, spiritedness, and undecaying strength, than the superlative formulas of truth produced by this illustrious Assembly. Our inheritance received from their hands should awaken our admiration for the men and our interest ... — Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters Read full book for free!
... be tired of all these fussy appreciations. But what one seems to miss nowadays is the presence of a writer of superlative lucidity and humanity, for whose books one waits with avidity, and orders them beforehand, as soon as they are announced. For one thing, most people seem to me to write too much. The moment a real success is scored, the temptation, no doubt adroitly whispered ... — The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson Read full book for free!
... objects of the same sort, a big man, a bigger man, the biggest man. These degrees are called positive, indicating possession of bigness; comparative, indicating possession of more bigness than some other man; superlative, indicating possession of more bigness than any other man. When we wish to tell the amount of the quality without comparing the possessor with any other object or group of objects we use a modifying word later to be described ... — Word Study and English Grammar - A Primer of Information about Words, Their Relations and Their Uses • Frederick W. Hamilton Read full book for free!
... loan from England the year before, and had expended the whole of it in making electric light in Cetinje and building a Government house of superlative ugliness, and so vast that it seemed obviously intended to administer a much ... — Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith Read full book for free!
... holding him now, holding by the sleeve of his superlative black coat of ceremony, plucking at it, striving to stir him to sympathy and understanding; the face, hopeful and afraid, ... — Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon Read full book for free!
... particularly vexed that the appearance of the statira, canopy should be spoiled before the effect had been seen by Lady Pococke, and Lady Chatterton, and Lady G—, Lady P—, and the Duke of V—, and a party of superlative fashionables, who had promised TO LOOK IN UPON HER, but who, late as it was, had not yet arrived. They came in at last. But Lady Clonbrony had no reason to regret for their sake the statira couch. It would have ... — The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth Read full book for free!
... heavy British hand there,' Sarrasin thought, recalling his many memories of many lands and races. He lay with his right arm thrown carelessly over the coverlets, and his left arm hidden. Given any assassin who is not of superlative quality, he will be on his guard as to the disclosed right arm, and will not trouble himself about the hidden left. The door opened. Somebody came gliding in. The somebody was breathing too heavily. 'A poor ... — The Dictator • Justin McCarthy Read full book for free!
... in Richard II (Act i, sc. 2) the terms "fair and crystal" applied to a clear sky, and in Romeo and Juliet (Act i, sc. 2) the word is used to denote superlative excellence, where a lady's love is to be weighed against her ... — Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz Read full book for free!
... was a love such as rarely falls to the lot of woman. And his devotion to his girl and boy twins was something quite beyond words. These things were the mainspring of his life, and drove him to such superlative degrees of self-sacrifice that could surely only have been endured by a ... — The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum Read full book for free!
... The supreme need of our own nation and of the nations with which we are co-operating is an abundance of supplies, and especially of foodstuffs. The importance of an adequate food-supply, especially for the present year, is superlative. Without abundant food, alike for the armies and the peoples now at war, the whole great enterprise upon which we have embarked will break down and fail. The world's food reserves are low. Not only during the present ... — Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson Read full book for free!
... finished the reading, the chorister arose with superlative dignity, and gave the key. Unfortunately, the choir dropped a tone or two too low, and the first verse was sung at that disadvantage. Discovering the blunder, the key was again given, but the singers were now ... — Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller Read full book for free!
... the Lord's profound generalization and comprehensive summarizing of the "law and the prophets"[1121] will appeal to all students of human nature. It is a common tendency of man to reach after, or at least to inquire after and marvel about, the superlative. Who is the greatest poet, philosopher, scientist, preacher or statesman? Who stands first and foremost in the community, the nation, or even, as the apostles in their aspiring ignorance asked, in the kingdom of heaven? Which ... — Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage Read full book for free!
... Browning possesses one superlative excellence, and it is upon this that he relies. It is upon this that he has emerged and attacked the heart of man. It is upon this that he may possibly fight his way down to posterity and live like a fire forever in the bosom ... — Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman Read full book for free!
... called to the directorship of the famous Arion Male Chorus in New York, a position which he held for eleven years with remarkable results. In 1892 he took his chorus on a tour in Europe and won superlative praises everywhere. ... — Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes Read full book for free!
... was lifted out of his own troubles by an acquaintance with the heroic sorrows of the world. There is no page of history, however dark, there is no beautiful old tale, however tragic, which does not impart some strength and some distinction to the awakening mind. It is possible to overrate the superlative merits of insipidity as a mental and moral force in the development ... — Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier Read full book for free!
... it difficult to believe me perhaps when I assure you that I never made such a mistake (I mean of over-seriousness to indefinite compliments), no, never in my life before—indeed my sisters have often jested with me (in matters of which they were cognizant) on my supernatural indifference to the superlative degree in general, as if it meant nothing in grammar. I usually know well that 'boots' may be called for in this world of ours, just as you called for yours; and that to bring 'Bootes,' were the vilest of mal-a-pro-pos-ities. Also, I should have understood 'boots' ... — The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett Read full book for free!
... my own people. Of all the miserable individuals I ever saw, they were superlative—they were not enjoying the change of climate in the least—with heads tucked down and streams of water running from their nasal extremities, they endeavoured to avoid the storm. Perfectly thoughtless ... — The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker Read full book for free!
... Slowly, as silently as possible, he reached for the sheath knife he carried and drew it. He had a gun, but a knife, the old cracksman had said, was much better for a fight in the dark and it had the superlative virtue of noiselessness. He became motionless again, his eyes vainly straining to pierce the darkness, waiting for the other to make a move. The silence and inaction became unbearable. He gathered his nerve and muscles for a rush to where the door ought ... — The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller Read full book for free!
... and righteous men. It was so in the past, and in modified forms it is so today. The plain fact is that humanity has in it a depth of incapacity to behold, and of angry indisposition to admire, lofty and noble lives. The power of the darkness to blind men is set forth once in the superlative degree that we may all beware of it in the lower instances, by that fact, the most tragical in the history of the world, 'the Light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness ... — Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren Read full book for free!
... of my maisteris dere, Gowere and Chaucere, that on steppis satt Of rhetorick, quhill thai war lyvand here, Superlative as poets laureate, In moralitee and eloquence ornate, I recommend my buik in lynis seven, And eke their saulis ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various Read full book for free!
... was a light to Clarice. She knew it for the superlative in Mallinson's grammar of abuse. Bourgeois! The term was the palm of a hand squashed upon a lighted candle; it snuffed you out. Convicted of bourgeoisie, you ought to tinkle a bell for the rest of your life, or at the easiest be confined east of ... — The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason Read full book for free!
... the North ever knew. Their women were "ladies"—gentle, refined, ethereal beings, passion and devotion wrapped in forms of ethereal mould, and surrounded by an impalpable effulgence which distinguished them from all others of the sex throughout the world. Whatever was of the South was superlative. To be Southern-born was to be prima facie better than other men. So the self-love of every man was enlisted in this sentiment. To praise the South was to praise himself; to boast of its valor was to advertise his own intrepidity; to extol its women was ... — Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee Read full book for free!
... emotion. In most cases such minds result from artificial training, and they break down in real trials. I do not say that they cannot weather a storm or a duel, or stand fire, or get through what novelists regard as superlative stage trials; but, in a moral crisis, the gentleman or lady whose face is all Corinthian brass is apt like that brass in a fire to turn pale. These folk get an immense amount of undeserved admiration as having Will or self-command, when they owe what staying ... — The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland Read full book for free!
... as there are continually allusions to Parliamentary speeches and events, they are often obscure to me till I get them explained; and besides, I do not know several of the satirised heroes even by sight: however, the poetry and wit make amends, for they are superlative. ... — Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole Read full book for free!
... his hands became a far-reaching club. And, swinging it like a fiercely driven flail, he rushed into the crowd of savages, scattering them like chaff in a gale. The smashing blows fell on heads that split under their superlative force, and the ground about him became like a shambles. In a moment he discovered another figure in the shadowy darkness, fighting in a similar fashion, and he knew by the crude, disjointed oaths which were hurled with each blow, so full of a venomous hate, that Peigan Charley had somehow ... — The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum Read full book for free!
... broke down; amid this hubbub of unfamiliar intervals I should not myself have recognised the slip, but the audience were quick to catch it, and to jeer. To crown all, the Makin company began a dance of truly superlative merit. I know not what it was about, I was too much absorbed to ask. In one act a part of the chorus, squealing in some strange falsetto, produced very much the effect of our orchestra; in another, the dancers, leaping like jumping-jacks, with arms extended, passed through ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... not." Mohammed disdained all metaphysical speculations respecting the nature of the Deity, or of the origin and existence of sin, topics which had hitherto exercised the ingenuity of the East. He cast aside the doctrine of the superlative value of chastity, asserting that marriage is the natural state of man. To asceticism he opposed polygamy, permitting the practice of it in this life and promising the most voluptuous means for its enjoyment in Paradise hereafter, especially to those who ... — History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper Read full book for free!
... educated to music by his rhythm. Coleridge and Goethe are the only critics who have expressed our convictions with any adequate fidelity; but there is in all cultivated minds a silent appreciation of his superlative power and beauty, which, like ... — English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various Read full book for free!
... reckoning? Is not that my Rosinante yonder? Here, Tom Leicester, you put my side-saddle on that gray horse, and the man's saddle on the piebald there. And now, Griffith Gaunt, it is your turn: you must withdraw your injurious terms, and end this superlative folly." ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various Read full book for free!
... in English spelling in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, [8] but it has since been overcome. Great writers sometimes introduced spellings of their own. Caesar wrote Pompeiii (gen. sing.) for Pompeii, after the Oscan manner. He also brought the superlative simus into use. Augustus, following in his steps, paid great attention to orthography. His inscriptions are a valuable source of evidence for ascertaining the correctest spelling of the time. During and after the time of Claudius affected ... — A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell Read full book for free!
... troubling Mr. Langhope. After such an illness, the next months of Cicely's life should be all happiness. And money won't buy the kind she needs: one can't pick out the right companion for such a child as one can match a ribbon. What she wants is spontaneous affection, not the most superlative manufactured article. She wants the sort of love that Justine ... — The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton Read full book for free!
... displeasure. The true character of this person had escaped the keen discernment of Horace, as well as the sagacity of the emperor; for in two epistles addressed to Lollius, he mentions him as great and accomplished in the superlative degree; maxime Lolli, liberrime Lolli; so imposing had been the manners and address of this ... — The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus Read full book for free!
... the merit of the hymn of Cleanthes to Jupiter, which you ascribe to it. It is as highly sublime as a chaste and correct imagination can permit itself to go. Yet in the contemplation of a being so superlative, the hyperbolic flights of the Psalmist may often be followed with approbation, even with rapture; and I have no hesitation in giving him the palm over all the hymnists of every language, and of every time. Turn to the 148th ... — Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson Read full book for free!
... influence was working its inward way. My paramount interest had always been literary, though regarded as a gentle diversion, not degraded to a bread-and-butter concern. Ever since I had fallen under the superlative spell of R.L.S., in whom the cunning enchantment of the written word first became manifest, I had understood that books did not grow painlessly for our amusement, but were the issue of dexterous and intentional skill. I had thus made a stride from Conan Doyle, Cutcliffe Hyne, Anthony ... — Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley Read full book for free!
... fear he goes astray after ignes fatui. He is a clever man. By the bye, I saw a miniature of his as far excelling any in his shew cupboard (that of your sister not excepted) as that shew cupboard excells the shew things you see in windows—an old woman—damn her name—but most superlative; he has it to clean—I'll ask him the name—but the best miniature I ever saw, equal to Cooper and them fellows. But for oil pictures!—what has he [to] do with Madonas? if the Virgin Mary were alive and visitable, he would not hazard himself in a Covent-Garden-pit-door ... — The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas Read full book for free!
... signs of altruism are visible in Greece. There are few Germanophiles. "Do not fear for us," said M. Kalogeropoulos, to the French. "Greece will not ally herself to a corpse"—meaning Germany. In fact, there is among the Greeks only Graecophilism. If superlative and clamorous love of country is a virtue—they have it. For Greece, when you are down, you are down. As for fallen Germany, so for Russia in her humiliation Greece has no extra thought or care. Not a humanitarian and philanthropic nation! ... — Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham Read full book for free!
... renovation that those who were for ever belauding her pictures, and her saints, and her architecture, as we praise things dead, they are the most angered by her appearance on this modern field all armed, just as she was, with works and art and songs, sometimes superlative, often vulgar. Note you, she is still careless of art or songs, as she has always been. She lays her foundations in something other, which something other our moderns hate. Yet out of that something other came the art and ... — The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc Read full book for free!
... A medicinal tincture of superlative worth is prepared by Homoeopathic practitioners from the sting of the Honey bee. This makes a most valuable and approved medicine for obviating erysipelas, especially of the head and face; likewise, for a puffy sore throat with much swelling about the tonsils; also for dropsy ... — Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie Read full book for free!
... utter poverty,—dwelling in low, dark, smoky huts, with earthen floors,—it is yet wonderful to see how these people preserve not merely the decencies, but even the amenities of life. Their clothes are a chaos of patches, but one sees no rags; all their well-worn white garments are white in the superlative degree; and when their scanty supply of water is at the scantiest, every bare foot on the island is sure to be washed in warm water at night. Certainly there are fleas and there are filthinesses in some directions; and yet it is amazing, especially for one accustomed to the Irish, to see an extreme ... — Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various Read full book for free!
... yoke of the oppressor, and to restore Peru to its ancient position of power and glory, we must be helped and guided in that great, that almost impossible task, by one who unites within himself superlative wisdom and superlative courage; and the crowning proof, to my mind, that heaven has now at last fulfilled its glorious promise is to be found in the fact that it has ordained our new Inca to be born an Englishman, possessed of all that courage, that ... — Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood Read full book for free!
... feeling nearly as well. Excuse my levity on such an occasion. I never felt deeply in my life if that poem did not make me, both lately, and when I read it in MS. No alderman ever longed after a haunch of buck venison more than I for a spiritual taste of that "White Doe" you promise. I am sure it is superlative, or will be when dressed, i. e., printed. All things read raw to me in MS.; to compare magna parvis, I cannot endure my own writings in that state. The only one which I think would not very much win upon me in print is "Peter Bell;" but I am not certain. You ... — The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb Read full book for free!
... before some great biological laboratory, richly endowed, slendidly equipped, and in the present enjoyment of freedom that is without bounds, and in a secrecy that to-day is as complete as can be imagined. What can he learn with certainty of what goes on within? If he hears claims of superlative gains by the experiments there carried on, how is he to weigh and decide their value? If there is cruelty behind those barred doors, how is he to prevent its constant recurrence? What, in short, should ... — An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell Read full book for free!
... became one of the most active and daring of their number. Courage, cunning and cruelty were considered by them to be the most important qualifications of a bona-fide bucanier, and they soon found that these were possessed by Rowland, in a most superlative degree, and this added to the influence of his talents and early education, caused him to rise rapidly to a station of command among them. As it was his motto 'to make hay while the sun shines,' he sailed as soon as possible from Madagascar, from which he had not been absent but twenty days when ... — Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker Read full book for free!
... satins were embroidered with the symbols of nobility and matrimonial felicity; the gold fingernail guards, the jade and flowering pearls, her earrings and tasseled tobacco pouch and ivory fan, were all in the most superlative manner. ... — Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer Read full book for free!
... of Liszt there is a strong temptation to work the superlative to its limit. In this instance it is well to overcome temptation ... — Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard Read full book for free!
... Johnson's own superlative powers of wit set him above any risk of such uneasiness. Garrick had remarked to me of him, a few days before, 'Rabelais and all other wits are nothing compared with him. You may be diverted by them; but Johnson gives you a forcible hug, and shakes laughter out of ... — Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell Read full book for free!
... development of Spanish countries the mental activity of the people is principally manifested in an exuberant imagination which finds expression in superlative and poetical language. If there were any corresponding creative genius and executive ability in material affairs such a fertile and well-watered land as Puerto Rico would be the home of one of the richest communities on the globe. By her situation ... — Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall Read full book for free!
... which followed so swiftly Darrell was in a sort of waking dream, a state of superlative happiness, unmarred as yet by phantoms from the shrouded past or misgivings as to the dim, uncertain future; past and future were for the time alike forgotten. One image dominated his mind,—the form and ... — At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour Read full book for free!
... voluble compliments on the success of a coiffure he felt to be his own creation. The fellow was too familiar, thought Oliver, with increasing irritation. He darkened, grew glum and silent; and when, after dinner, Martigues approached him with a luckless tribute to Madame Shaw's superlative loveliness, he answered curtly, and turned on his heel. Myra witnessed the brief discourtesy, and later very gently taxed him with it. What had the unfortunate artist done? He faced her like a sulky boy and would not answer; but she was ... — O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various Read full book for free!
... up to such a superlative height," said the critic to Mr. Weil, "that the chute will be simply tremendous! How simply, how elegantly his sentences flow! If he can handle the necessary wickedness that must follow, the sale of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' or 'Thou Shalt Not,' will be eclipsed ... — A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter Read full book for free!
... hate the MacTavishes, don't you, Lubin? Do hate the MacTavishes! Fancy—nine of them, no less, counting the old ones, and all of them coming together. What a family! I despise people who breed like rabbits, as though they thought they were so superlative that the rest of the world could never have ... — Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour Read full book for free!
... loved her once and for all. She was the sublimation of every dream that his romantic heart had conceived. He felt faint for a moment at the difficulties which bristled between himself and this superlative being, but he was a youthful conqueror, and life had been very amiable to him. He shook courage into his spirit and asked to be ... — The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton Read full book for free!
... age when the fire of desire may have become somewhat dull, whilst, again, his harem, from the presence of numerous adult daughters, would be increased to an extent that might have overtaxed his once more active powers. Given some such rather exceptional situation, where a happy opportunity in superlative mother love wrestled with a for once satiated paternal appetite in desire, we may here discern a possible key of the sociological problem which occupies us, and which consisted in a conjunction within one group of ... — The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley Read full book for free!
... trumpets and tramp of armies, with King Messiah at the head; yet this new Teacher spoke of it as having so small a beginning as to be comparable to a mustard seed. To make the illustration more effective He specified that the seed spoken of was "the least of all seeds." This superlative expression was made in a relative sense; for there were and are smaller seeds than the mustard, even among garden plants, among which rue and poppy have been named; but each of these plants is very small in maturity, ... — Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage Read full book for free!
... sprang up from a chair and curtsied fearsomely at the astonishing spectacle of Mr. Prohack, was fat in a superlative degree, and her obesity gave her a middle-aged air to which she probably had no right by the almanac. She looked quite forty, and might well have been not more than thirty. She made a typical London figure of the nondescript industrial class. ... — Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett Read full book for free!
... Prose Story. In the prose story Job is pictured as a man of superlative piety and prosperity. According to the popular standards of the earlier day he lived a blameless life. His afflictions came simply as a means of demonstrating the unselfish character of his piety. In rapid succession he is stripped of all his possessions and afflicted ... — The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent Read full book for free!
... while it required firmness to uphold the dignity of the empire which he represented, as the only diplomatic functionary as well as commander-in-chief in the North, tact, wisdom, and forbearance were equally indispensable. These qualities Sir James possessed in a superlative degree, and the Author, who from his knowledge of the Swedish language was employed confidentially on all the communications which subsequently took place, can testify that it is to the wise policy of the Admiral that the nation owes the success ... — Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross Read full book for free!
... the last "look" and their jewels are simply divine. With all this beyond criticism, it is very difficult to say whether they are beautiful or not, naturally; the general effect is so perfect. They, as far as grooming and superlative "turnedoutness" is concerned (I had to make a new word), are the counterpart of ... — Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn Read full book for free!
... d'Indy. His music is "psychologically subtle and spiritually rarefied: in colour it corresponds to the violet end of the spectrum." I turned the pages until I came to the name of Miss Gena Branscombe: "Inexhaustible buoyancy, a superlative emotional wealth, and wholly singular gift of musical intuition are the qualities which have shaped the composer's musical personality (without much effort of the imagination we might say that they are the qualities that shaped Beethoven's musical personality).... ... — The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten Read full book for free!
... word expressive of divinity is kalou, which, while used to denote the people's highest notion of a god, is also constantly heard as a qualificative of any thing great or marvellous, or, according to Hazlewood's Dictionary, 'anything superlative, whether good or bad.'... Often the word sinks into a mere exclamation, or becomes an expression of flattery. 'You are a kalou!' or, 'Your countrymen are gods!' is often uttered by the natives, when hearing of the triumphs of art among civilized nations."[702] The Fijians distinguished ... — The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer Read full book for free!
... lady; and not once, but a score of times. The brocades that I promised to show you after supper will be my witness. And there are some superlative satin and silk lengths which my Lady Rayne wished particularly to see. Will ... — The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen Read full book for free!
... at Madrid and gaze upon his canvases, sumptuous and opulent, diffusing colour like a sunset, indifferent to their story or meaning, happy and content with the flaming feast outspread for our enjoyment. We stand before his Entombment at the Louvre, dumb before its superlative painting, with hardly a thought for the tragedy that it represents. Titian accepts the literary motive, and the artist in him straight forgets it. We walk from The Entombment to the little chamber where Rembrandt's Christ at ... — Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes Read full book for free!
... liquors which the cellar abounds with'; the pictures in the Long Gallery were shown them by 'my Lord himself.' At Doncaster, 'a neat market-town which consists only in one long street,' they had some superlative salmon just taken out of the river. By Knaresborough Spaw, where they drank the waters and had icy cold baths, and dined at the ordinary with a parson whose conversation startled the propriety of the Templar, the travellers made their way to York, and for the first and last time a ... — In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell Read full book for free!
... she breathed deeply in relief. "I knew you wouldn't fail me. Look at that field, Phares—oh, this is a perfect day! There should be a superlative form of perfect for a day like this! Those fields have as many colors as the shades reflected on a copper plate: lilac, tan, purple, rose, green ... — Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers Read full book for free!
... German name of the mistletoe, the parent of our English denomination, is Mistel, which is evidently only Meist-heyl (most heal, or healing), the superlative of the above Gut-heyl, and both wonderfully agreeing with the name which Pliny says it bore in his time, ... — Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various Read full book for free!
... said Victorine. "I know that she will not be invited. The marchioness hates her; Mrs. Gilmer is the only rival whom Madame de Fleury takes the trouble to detest; and it makes me indignant to see a lady of her superlative fascinations annoyed by this little upstart American. One must admit that Mrs. Gilmer is very pretty; her figure scarcely needs help, and she is so vivacious, and has so much aplomb, so much dash, that the notice she attracts renders her alarmingly ambitious. Still, for ... — Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie Read full book for free!
... graces, who had discovered that Miss Chester also possessed these qualities above all other people in Atlanta or anywhere else from Greenland to Patagonia. She showed Father Abram the letter over which she had been weeping. It was a manly, tender letter, a little superlative and urgent, after the style of love letters written by young men full of goodness and the graces. He proposed for Miss Chester's hand in marriage at once. Life, he said, since her departure for a three-weeks' visit, was ... — Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry Read full book for free!
... eight or ten flounces, and a big-handled parasol, and a mountain of back hair. Men wear less than women, not because they are more moral, but because they cannot stand it. As it is, many of our young men are padded to a superlative degree, and have corns and bunions on every separate toe from wearing ... — Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage Read full book for free!
... said. "I appreciate your spirit and, permit me to say, also your attempt to make me treat this terrible affair in a spirit of sport. But old Margaret is the superlative of stubbornness. We cannot expect to go to her to obtain information. I have lived in the house with her for more than six years. Can I say whether she is a saint or a crafty villainess? No. I know no more ... — The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child Read full book for free!
... whom do we labour? I know that we are obliged to act as we do; I know, too, that we cannot do better; but should we rejoice at the fatal necessity which pushes us on to exert an action comparatively good and which will unavoidably end in a superlative evil?" ... — Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre Read full book for free!
... happened there were none. And the result was that Jan had to be put through his paces five separate times for the benefit of five separate prospective purchasers, not one of whom was really capable of appreciating his superlative quality, before the five hundred dollars demanded did eventually find its way into Jean's pouch and he was called upon to part with his leader. He intended to give Snip the leadership of his team now, because Snip was a curiously remorseless creature; and ... — Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson Read full book for free!
... Henry's impulsive, buoyant letters would furnish the only efficacious antidote to Mirabelle. And he needed an antidote, and a powerful one, for during the past two weeks Mirabelle had been surpassing herself. That is, if one can surpass a superlative. ... — Rope • Holworthy Hall Read full book for free!
... Medea. Fancy a woman of superlative beauty, of the highest courage and calmness, a woman of many resources, of genius, brought up by a petty princelet of a father, upon Tacitus and Sallust, and the tales of the great Malatestas, of Caesar Borgia and such-like!—a woman whose one ... — Hauntings • Vernon Lee Read full book for free!
... be to the poatas to b' wearied so by stoopid people," observed a tall, stout, superlative fop with sleepy eyes and long whiskers to another ... — The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne Read full book for free!
... as princes and kings, whom fortune has placed in such a station that they can give away much, and can only receive very little and quite inadequate returns for what they give. I have spoken of kings and princes, who alone can cause works to be accomplished, and whose superlative power depends upon the obedience and services of inferiors; but some there are, free from all earthly lusts, who are scarcely affected by any human objects of desire, upon whom fortune herself could bestow nothing. I must be worsted in a contest of benefits with Socrates, ... — L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca Read full book for free!
... notice of his journey thither; arid gravely asserts that he has often experienced, that if diamonds be wetted with May-dew, they will grow to a great size in a course of years. This probably is an improvement upon the Arabian philosophy or the production of pearls by the oysters catching that superlative seminal influence. The following singular article of intelligence respecting India, may be copied as a specimen of the work: "In that countree growen many strong vynes: and the women drynken wyn, and men not: and the women ... — A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr Read full book for free!
... of Dryden he says:—'Of the mind that can trade in corruption, and can deliberately pollute itself with ideal wickedness for the sake of spreading the contagion in society, I wish not to conceal or excuse the depravity. Such degradation of the dignity of genius, such abuse of superlative abilities, cannot be contemplated but with grief and indignation. What consolation can be had Dryden has afforded by living to repent, and to testify his repentance.' Johnson's Works, vii. 293. He quotes Congreve, and of Congreve he says: 'It is ... — Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill Read full book for free!
... in my own case just related, they must huddle themselves in clusters, on what is barefacedly called a bed, but which is nothing more nor less than a beggarman's shakedown, where the smell, the heat, the filth, and above all, the vermin, are intolerable to the very farthest stretch of the superlative degree. As soon as their eyes begin to close here, they are roused by the bell-man, and summoned at the hour of twelve—first washing themselves as aforesaid, in the lake, and then adjourning to the prison which I am about to describe. There is not on earth, with ... — The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton Read full book for free!
... feet. By the clock above the fire, as well as by these more speaking signs, the service had not long begun; and the unhappy sinner, if his father had really gone to church, might count on near two hours of only comparative unhappiness. With his father, the superlative degree returned infallibly. He knew it by every shrinking fibre in his body, he knew it by the sudden dizzy whirling of his brain, at the mere thought of that calamity. An hour and a half, perhaps an hour and three-quarters, if the doctor was long-winded, and then ... — Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... presence of numerous adult daughters, would be increased to an extent that might have overtaxed his once more active powers. Given some such rather exceptional situation, where a happy opportunity in superlative mother love wrestled with a for once satiated paternal appetite in desire, we may here discern a possible key of the sociological problem which occupies us, and which consisted in a conjunction within one group ... — The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley Read full book for free!
... was satirical or insolent, as the case might demand, in three degrees, of which the snuff-box was the comparative, and the spy-glass the superlative. He had learned this on the stage; in annihilating Quin he had just used the snuff weapon, and now he drew his spy-glass upon ... — Peg Woffington • Charles Reade Read full book for free!
... likes or dislikes under discussion. At such times he is no observer, much less worshipper, of proportion in his delineations. Thorough-paced, scarcely controllable, his enthusiasm for or against admits no degree in its expression, save and except the superlative. Hence Mr. Froude's statement of facts or description of phenomena, whenever his feelings are enlisted either way, must be taken with the proverbial "grain of salt" by all when enjoying the luxury of perusing his books. So complete is his self-identification ... — West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas Read full book for free!
... Spanish. I have already referred to the phenomenal success of Perez Galdos's Electra within the last few months. It must, however, be ascribed chiefly to the moment of its presentation rather than to any superlative merit in the drama. It is well written, which is what may be said of almost all Spanish plays, for the language is in itself so dignified and so beautiful that, if it be only pure and not disfigured by foreign slang, it is always sonorous and charming. To the state of the popular temper, ... — Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street Read full book for free!
... made me feel their kinship. For Banks, too, gave me the impression of having a soul that came something nearer the surface of life than is common in average humanity—a look of vitality, zest, ardour—I fumbled for a more significant superlative as I returned his stare. And yet behind that ardour there was, in Arthur Banks, at least, a hint of determination and shrewdness that I felt must be inherited from the sound ... — The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford Read full book for free!
... five years' term of governorship, the absurdity of which is superlative. It is so entirely contrary to the system of management in private affairs that it is difficult to imagine the cause that could have given rise to such a regulation. In matters great or small, the capability ... — Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker Read full book for free!
... littered about, the enemy must indeed have beat a hasty retreat. The dug-outs were filthy to the last degree, and there was no sign of any system of sanitation having been used by these people, who (p. 062) considered their "Kultur" to be superlative, and who desired to impose it on the rest of mankind. All through the campaign, whenever one had the opportunity of inspecting hostile trenches and billets, one always found the same thing, filth and ... — Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose Read full book for free!
... discretional discussion for mutual consideration, which were not possible to be transacted in writing, and consequently required the talents and address judiciously employed on the occasion. Lord Hood was no stranger to the superlative ability which he possessed for negotiation; and how much more rarely that quality is to be found in British naval officers, than the natural bravery which seems common to all, or even the great nautical skill which may justly be boasted by ... — The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison Read full book for free!
... low, dark, smoky huts, with earthen floors,—it is yet wonderful to see how these people preserve not merely the decencies, but even the amenities of life. Their clothes are a chaos of patches, but one sees no rags; all their well-worn white garments are white in the superlative degree; and when their scanty supply of water is at the scantiest, every bare foot on the island is sure to be washed in warm water at night. Certainly there are fleas and there are filthinesses in some directions; and yet it is amazing, especially for one accustomed to the Irish, ... — Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various Read full book for free!
... renders one should be first, or chief. We find that it was a sacred title; and, when single, it was conferred upon a Babylonish Deity: but, when repeated, it must denote greater excellence: for the Amonians generally formed their superlative by doubling the positive: thus Rab was great; Rabrab signified very great. It is, indeed, plain from the account, that it must have been a superlative; for he says it was designed to represent what was esteemed summum maximumque, the most eminent and great. I should, therefore, ... — A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant Read full book for free!
... legs,—from Mr. Brooke's failure to elicit a companion's ideas, or from Celia's criticism of a middle-aged scholar's personal appearance. I am not sure that the greatest man of his age, if ever that solitary superlative existed, could escape these unfavorable reflections of himself in various small mirrors; and even Milton, looking for his portrait in a spoon, must submit to have the facial angle of a bumpkin. Moreover, if Mr. Casaubon, speaking for himself, has rather a chilling ... — Middlemarch • George Eliot Read full book for free!
... occurred; so, we turned round to an unshorn, sallow-looking cobbler, who was standing next us with his hands under the bib of his apron, and put the usual question of 'What's the matter?' The cobbler eyed us from head to foot, with superlative contempt, and laconically ... — Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens Read full book for free!
... side, but under the guidance of different laws. The problems of vegetable life are, it must be said, extremely obscure, and for the penetrating of that darkness we have long had to wait for instruments of a superlative sensitiveness. This has been the principal reason for our long clinging to mere theory, instead of looking for the demonstration of facts. But to learn the truth we have to put aside theories, and rely only on direct experiment. We ... — Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose Read full book for free!
... the use of superlative adjectives to describe things which do not deserve such descriptions, there is a crowd of rarer words used in a special sense to ... — Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill Read full book for free!
... Baron," he said, "of a superlative amount of ingenuity, I was able to prevent that misfortune. Now lean over and read the label on the ... — Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim Read full book for free!
... not inclined to class Lord Ormont alongside Murat, a first-rate horseman and an eagle-eye, as Shalders rightly said; and Matey agreed that forty thousand cavalry under your orders is a toss above fifteen hundred; but the claim for a Frenchman of a superlative merit to swallow and make nothing of the mention of our best cavalry generals irritated him to call Murat ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith Read full book for free!
... imprisonment! The sentence defined was the sum of daily shame, sorrow, homesickness and misanthropy. Shame in the proud man admits of no degrees of intensity. If it exist at all, it is superlative. To this was added the loss of Rachel. How little it would take to satisfy him, now that she was wholly denied to his eyes! Only to look down on her again, unseen, from his aery in the ... — The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller Read full book for free!
... catalogues like a museum curator every species of flaw that he can possibly pick in the scenes and events of rustic life. But while the career of the farmer is assuredly not one of uninterrupted bliss, it were folly to assert that Nature's superlative loveliness is not more than enough to compensate for its various infelicities. No mind of high grade is so impervious to aesthetic emotion that it can behold without admiration the wonders of the rural realm, even though a vein of sordid ... — Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft Read full book for free!
... things are dark and impossible of explanation, but we have already been taught a few lessons of superlative importance. We have learned that the soul is made for the light; that it can be satisfied only with love and truth; that every hindrance may be overcome; that the animal was made to be the servant of the spirit; ... — The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford Read full book for free!
... that it gives birth to it by virtue of its inexhaustible fruitfulness.[642] The Supreme Good is GOD himself, and he is designated "the good" because this term seems most fittingly to express his essential character and essence.[643] It is towards this superlative perfection that the reason lifts itself; it is towards this infinite beauty the heart aspires. "Marvellous Beauty!" exclaims Plato; "eternal, uncreated, imperishable beauty, free from increase and diminution... beauty which has nothing sensible, nothing corporeal, as hands or ... — Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker Read full book for free!
... he had suspected that it was Jewdwine's coldness that preserved his incorruptibility; but he had so sincere a desire for purity in their relations, that he had submitted without resentment to the freezing process that ensured it. He had in reserve his expectation of the day when, by some superlative achievement, he would take that soul, hitherto invincible, by storm. But now, in his inmost heart he owned ... — The Divine Fire • May Sinclair Read full book for free!
... of a one-word comparative degree in the case of both piano and forte seems to necessitate the hyper-superlative degree as given above, but the practice of using four, or even five p's or f's is ... — Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens Read full book for free!
... school, was lifted out of his own troubles by an acquaintance with the heroic sorrows of the world. There is no page of history, however dark, there is no beautiful old tale, however tragic, which does not impart some strength and some distinction to the awakening mind. It is possible to overrate the superlative merits of insipidity as a mental and moral force in the development ... — Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier Read full book for free!
... ever with him; and he being at the right hand of the Father, their position will be one of great honor. The special honor, therefore, of the church is that of being the glorious bride or associate of the Lord Jesus, the King of glory. His recognition of her station as his own wife pictures the superlative degree of her honor and glory. Jesus said: "Father, I will ... that they be with me where ... — The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford Read full book for free!
... better than expose it; he improved upon, and enlarged, it and made it a thing of magnitude; he and others of his quality discarded petty larceny and ascended into a sphere of superlative grand larceny. They knew with a cynical perception that society, with all its pompous pretensions to morality, had evolved a rule which worked with almost mathematical certainty. This rule was the paradoxical, but nevertheless ... — Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers Read full book for free!
... another Missouri Compromise. If you have the drink you'll have the drunkenness. If you have the cause you will have the effect. If you have the positive you will have the superlative: Positive drink, comparative drinking, superlative drunkenness. You may try high-tax and low-tax but all the time you will have sin-tax and ... — Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain Read full book for free!
... hypnotism is before you can know what it's like. It's really the art of imposing one's will upon someone else's, of making that other person see things as you want them to see them—not as they really are. It's the power of deception carried to a superlative degree. And when that power is exhausted, the ticket may be said to have expired—and the prisoner returns to the dungeon. Sometimes he takes the other person with him. Sometimes he ... — The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell Read full book for free!
... water. It was too large; it spun round and burned his nose when he tried to drink. He raged that Finkelstein was like that lump of ice. But he won through; he kept up his banter till they grew tired of the superlative jest and turned to the ... — Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis Read full book for free!
... qualities of objects, the reflections of phenomena, the vibrations of aboriginal power, pass in blessed freedom, without deflection or jar, and on which the mysterious attraction of the Infinite exerts its supreme spell. To be there in a superlative degree is to have a mind which is an infinitesimal mirror of the All, and a heart responsive to that mind, every perception of truth in the realm of the intellect generating a correspondent emotion of good in the realm of affection. Not ... — The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger Read full book for free!
... golden land; but melancholy is it to say, for the old purpose, as in olden times in the old country, 'FOR THE REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES;' and so yesterday we had a monster meeting on Bakery-hill, and I was the delegate of upwards of one thousand foreigners, or 'aliens,' according to the superlative wisdom of your ... — The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello Read full book for free!
... of the divine and superlative excellency of the things of religion; a real sense of the excellency of God and Jesus Christ, and of the work of redemption, and the ways and works of God revealed in the gospel. There is a divine and superlative glory in these things; an excellency that is of a vastly higher kind, and ... — The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser Read full book for free!
... thing, sir, I ought not to forget, because it is the chief: My duty to God will, I hope, always employ some good portion of my time, with thanks for his superlative goodness to me; and to pray for you and myself: for you, sir, for a blessing on you, for your great goodness to such an unworthy creature: for myself, that I may be enabled to discharge my duty to you, and be found grateful for all the blessings I shall receive at the hands of Providence, ... — Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson Read full book for free!
... Johnson, "that is not so extraordinary: the King of Siam sent ambassadors to Louis the Fourteenth: but Louis the Fourteenth sent none to the King of Siam." This topic also enjoys another distinction. It is one of many proofs of the superlative excellence of Johnson's talk that it cannot be imitated. Hundreds of clever men have made the attempt, but, with the exception of a single sentence, not one of these manufactured utterances could impose for an instant upon a real Johnsonian. That single exception ... — Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey Read full book for free!
... is a good abbe,' that is the positive. If I say, 'My abbe is better than another abbe,' that is the comparative. And," he continued, turning his eyes toward the queen with an expression of intense affection, "if I say, 'My mamma is the dearest and best of all mammas,' that is the superlative." [Footnote: The dauphin's own words.—See Beauchesne's "Louis XVII.," vol. ... — Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach Read full book for free!
... with loneliness this mighty knight of years had before he slept—a loneliness more than that of empty house and echoing stair; more than that, even, of Crusoe's manless island; utterly beyond even that of an alien planet; of spaces not even coldly sown with God-aloof stars—the excellent, the superlative loneliness of one soul for another. It is a strange, misty, Columbus-voyage upon which that hardy soul goes who dares to be the ... — The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various Read full book for free!
... sunfrapo. Sup noktomangxi. Superb belega. Superficial suprajxa. Superficies suprajxo. Superfluity superfluo. Superfluous superflua. Superhuman superhoma. Superintend observi, zorgi pri. Superior supera. Superior, a superulo. Superiority supereco. Superlative (gram.) superlativo. Supernatural supernatura. Supernumerary ekstrulo. Superscription surskribo. Supersede anstatauxi. Superstition supersticxo. Superstitious supersticxa. Supervise observi. Supper noktomangxo. Supplant anstatauxi, uzurpi. Supple ... — English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes Read full book for free!
... We had now reached the bottom of the street again, after having made at least a dozen promenades to and fro, and were on the point of retiring to our hotel to dress for dinner, when Heartly directed my attention to a dashing roue, who, dressed in the extreme of superlative style, was accompanied by a beautiful piece of fair simplicity in the garb of a Puritan. "That," said my friend, "is the beautiful Miss D**T—one of the faithful, whom the dashing Count L***c***t has recently induced to say ay for life: thus gaining a double prize of no mean importance by one ... — The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle Read full book for free!
... muscular, and soon showed that they thoroughly understood how to use their clumsy tools to the best advantage. They were led by and worked under the directorship of a lean, shrunken, withered old grey-haired hag of superlative ugliness, who did no work herself, but went constantly back and forth along the line of workers, bearing in her hand a long thin pliant rattan, which she did not hesitate to smartly apply to the shoulders of those who seemed to her to be doing less than their ... — The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood Read full book for free!
... made. Lady Clonbrony was particularly vexed that the appearance of the statira, canopy should be spoiled before the effect had been seen by Lady Pococke, and Lady Chatterton, and Lady G—, Lady P—, and the Duke of V—, and a party of superlative fashionables, who had promised TO LOOK IN UPON HER, but who, late as it was, had not yet arrived. They came in at last. But Lady Clonbrony had no reason to regret for their sake the statira couch. It would have been lost upon them, as was everything else which she had prepared with so much pains ... — The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth Read full book for free!
... the Men of Honour Many were tainted with Pride and Superstition at the same Time; but there were others in whom superlative Bravery was united with the ... — An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville Read full book for free!
... be a success. So did you. Anything you might attempt would be successful. You'd have made a successful lawyer, or cook, or actress, or hydraulic engineer, because you couldn't do a thing badly. It isn't in you. You're a superlative sort of person. But that's no reason for being any of those things. If you won't admit a debt to humanity, surely you'll acknowledge you've ... — Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber Read full book for free!
... which rises up out of a flat in the form of a cone, and is planted with Scotch fir-trees. Here I used to take the eggs and young ones of crows and magpies. This hill was a famous object in the neighbourhood. It served as the superlative degree of height. 'As high as Crooksbury Hill,' meant with us, the utmost degree of height. Therefore, the first object my eyes sought was this hill. I could not believe my eyes! Literally speaking, I for a moment thought ... — Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous Read full book for free!
... retiring man, and in the course of time produced some books that are worthless, or all but worthless, now. Of course the Bayreuth worshippers and idolizers of the Wagner family will have it that he, being one of the family, was inevitably a man of superlative gifts; but as I have already indicated, there is nothing to justify such an assumption. A cultivated man of sound sense he must have been; and it is true he was in some slight touch with a few of the stronger artistic ... — Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman Read full book for free!
... entered and approached the bedside, Traverse saw that the suffering but heroic father must have made some superlative effort before he could have reduced his haggard face and writhing form to its present state of placid repose, to meet his daughter's eyes ... — Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth Read full book for free!
... had settled once more upon the place. The peace of it all was superlative. It was peace to which Effie was something more than averse. She dreaded it. For all her two years of life in the meagre home her husband had provided her with, it required all her courage and fortitude to endure it. ... — The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum Read full book for free!
... better than any one in the world—to snatch her from the very jaws of destruction—she would have encountered a lion. To have this friend constantly with her; to make her mind easy with respect to her family, would it not be superlative bliss? ... — Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft Read full book for free!
... I eat," cried Amelia. "The care of the body is entirely beneath those who have learned to prize the superlative value of ... — Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt Read full book for free!
... incurred the emperor's displeasure. The true character of this person had escaped the keen discernment of Horace, as well as the sagacity of the emperor; for in two epistles addressed to Lollius, he mentions him as great and accomplished in the superlative degree; maxime Lolli, liberrime Lolli; so imposing had been the manners and address ... — The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus Read full book for free!
... aren't going to believe this," I say. "Once I didn't believe it myself. I realize that it all sounds impossible. But after you've once been there—" Then I'm off. When I've finished, there isn't an hysterical superlative adjective or a complimentary abstract noun unused in my vocabulary. I've told all the East about California. I've told many of the countries of Europe about California. I even tell Californians about California. I will ... — The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin Read full book for free!
... too familiar to need recalling here) A nation once again in the execution of which the veteran patriot champion may be said without fear of contradiction to have fairly excelled himself. The Irish Caruso-Garibaldi was in superlative form and his stentorian notes were heard to the greatest advantage in the timehonoured anthem sung as only our citizen can sing it. His superb highclass vocalism, which by its superquality greatly enhanced his already international ... — Ulysses • James Joyce Read full book for free!
... spiritual kinship drew him to Schiller, whose splendor of imagery and impassioned rhetoric were the very gifts which he himself in a superlative degree possessed. The breath of political and religious liberalism which pervades the writings of the German poet was also highly congenial to Tegner, and last, but not least, they were both light-loving, beauty-worshipping Hellenists, and, though ... — Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen Read full book for free!
... have read your eighth chapter. What you facetiously call "the three trifles" seem to me to be three most important points, even if you had described them simply as fine taste, deep feeling, and a good ear. Who expects superlative excellence from the age in which he lives, and who dares to attack it, in its most vulnerable parts? You grow more harsh and disagreeable, and you do not seem to consider how many enemies you make, among ... — Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck Read full book for free!
... date," "antiquated," "superannuated."[*] A man, a woman, or a piece of furniture might be "out of date"; next, by a greater degree of imperfection, "antiquated"; but as to the last term, it was the superlative of contempt. The first might be remedied, the second was hopeless, but the third,—oh, better far never to have left the void of nothingness! As to praise, a single word sufficed him, doubly and trebly uttered: "Charming!" was the positive ... — Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac Read full book for free!
... hymis of my maisteris dere, Gowere and Chaucere, that on steppis satt Of rhetorick, quhill thai war lyvand here, Superlative as poets laureate, In moralitee and eloquence ornate, I recommend my buik in lynis seven, And eke their saulis unto the blisse ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various Read full book for free!
... another. He poured out his soul in words he had left unspoken to her. He was back again before the fire, telling her all that he did not tell her then. One gorgeous image after another swarmed to his brain. He was like a poet gone mad. He crowded sentence upon sentence, superlative upon superlative, until he found himself upon his feet, his cheeks hot, and his breath coming short. Then he caught sight of the crimson stain upon the wall and felt himself a murderer. He staggered back and threw himself ... — The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett Read full book for free!
... battlements have proudly bidden defiance to the storms and blasts of half a thousand winters, and there still stand the gnarled old trees which have gently swayed to and fro while many a baron has ruled the Hall, and whose leaves after growing in superlative beauty, seeming to partake in the grandeur and pride of the "King of the Peak," have drooped and fallen, after having made, with their rich autumnal tints, a succession of beautiful living pictures which have delighted the lords and ladies of ... — Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday Read full book for free!
... have a sort of sneaking affection even for his Barnardines;—whose very Iagos and Richards are awful, and, by the counteracting power of profound intellects, rendered fearful rather than hateful;—and even the exceptions, as Goneril and Regan, are proofs of superlative judgment and the finest moral tact, in being left utter monsters, nulla virtute redemptae, and in being kept out of sight as much as possible,—they being, indeed, only means for the excitement and deepening of noblest emotions towards the Lear, Cordelia, &c. and employed with the severest ... — Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge Read full book for free!
... Lammas stands as a day of account, and Latter Lammas will consequently signify the day of doom, which in effect, as to all payments of money, or worldly transactions in money, is never. Latter here is used for last, or the comparative for the superlative, just as it is in a like case in our version of the book of Job, "I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth," meaning of course the last day, or the end of the world. That the last day, or Latter Lammas, as to all temporal affairs ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various Read full book for free!
... the English; yet when it is necessary to distinguish the sexes, alca is used for the masculine, and domo for the feminine. The comparative is formed by prefixing jod or doi to the positive, and the superlative by cad or mu. Thus from chu limpid, are formed doichu more limpid, and muliu most limpid. There are no diminutives or augmentatives, which are supplied by means of the adjectives picki little, and buta great. Diminutives are also formed by changing a harsh sound into ... — A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr Read full book for free!
... pictures, mere puns in paint. What they mean is nothing, they arrest a quiet decent-minded man like myself with the same spasmodic disgust as a pun in literature—the subject is a transparent excuse; they are mere indecent and unedifying exhibitions of himself. He thinks it is something superlative to do everything in a startling way. He cannot even sign his name without being offensive. He lacks altogether the fundamental quality of a gentleman, the magnanimity to be ... — Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells Read full book for free!
... was never finished. As the gloves fell open in his grasp he uttered a sudden, sharp ejaculation and I a smothered shriek. An object of superlative brilliancy had rolled out from them. The diamond! the gem which men said was worth a king's ransom, and which we all knew had just cost ... — The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green Read full book for free!
... only two objects are compared, the comparative and not the superlative degree should be used; thus, "Mary is the older of the two"; "John is the stronger of the two"; "Brown is the richer of the two, and the richest man in the city"; "Which is the more desirable, health ... — The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres) Read full book for free!
... of their foolish experiences, with reported tales of the dupes yet more heavily befooled and bled, caught and bound these men in fellowship. They had both met with some queer ones in their travels, and they compared notes: but they always came back to this superlative old fraud. After long wise and disconnected talk about the set of the wind, or the rates of pay on various lines, or stowage, or freights, or rigs, or currents, or the characters of various skippers and mates, or the liveliness ... — Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch Read full book for free!
... about a swelled head, Lance must have been rotting. He wasn't troubling about women or girls—except for tennis and dancing; and Miss Arden was a superlative performer; in fact, rather superlative all round. As a new experience, she seemed distinctly worth cultivating, so long as that process did not seriously hamper the novel,—that was unashamedly his first consideration, ... — Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver Read full book for free!
... said, "Verily Al-Kuthayyir[FN193] was conspicuous for sweet speech and chaste, and he was superlative in his praise of Azzah when he sang" (and she began ... — The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton Read full book for free!
... in his hands became a far-reaching club. And, swinging it like a fiercely driven flail, he rushed into the crowd of savages, scattering them like chaff in a gale. The smashing blows fell on heads that split under their superlative force, and the ground about him became like a shambles. In a moment he discovered another figure in the shadowy darkness, fighting in a similar fashion, and he knew by the crude, disjointed oaths which were hurled with each blow, so full of a venomous hate, that Peigan ... — The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum Read full book for free!
... hitherto refrained from criticising the periodicals of the day, from the mistaken idea that superlative excellence was not expected in every number of every daily or weekly journal in the land. He did not know that, if every such journal was not edited so as to suit the comprehension of all classes of cursory critics, ... — Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various Read full book for free!
... moments, it wore that frank and kindly aspect which wins upon the affections of our species. His frame was so muscular, that his knee was described as resembling that of a Highland bull, evincing strength similar to that animal. His exercise of the broadsword was, even in those days, superlative; and his intimate knowledge of the wild country over which he may be said to have ruled, gave him as great an advantage as his personal prowess. To these qualifications may be added another, perhaps more important still,—that quick perception of character, and that penetration into ... — Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson Read full book for free!
... the banquet I heard their chief orator make a most graceful and easy and beautiful and delicious speech—I never heard one that enchanted me more—although I did not understand a word of it, since it was in Hungarian. But the art of it! —it was superlative. ... — Innocents abroad • Mark Twain Read full book for free!
... dispute it. He was content: it failed to lower his standing with his fellows or to impress them unfavourably. In fact, he was treated as one who has attained a slight distinction. At least, he owned one superlative, no matter what its quality, and it lifted him out of the commonplace. It helped him to become better known, and boys liked to be seen with him. But one day, there was a rearrangement of the seating in the schoolroom: Wesley Bender was given a desk next in front ... — Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington Read full book for free!
... in the moat of the Chateau de Miramel (in the zone of the armies in France) are of an age and ugliness incredible and of a superlative cynicism. One of them—local tradition pointed to a one-eyed old reprobate with a yellow face—is the richer these hundred years past by an English ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various Read full book for free!
... haste now uncloses The paper, perfum'd with fresh Otto of Roses. "In fortune's dear name," he exclaims, "what is this [p 8] 'The Peacock at Home!' Oh! superlative bliss! My feelings, prophetic, the honor foretold; Yes! The Peacock at Home shall be printed in gold: How just the description! what grace, and what spirit! Aye—this is ... — The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown Read full book for free!
... his own name, in three-foot letters of red, before the doors of the theater. He could read, and the large block type always pleased him. "THIS WEEK: GIDEON." That was all. None of the fulsome praise, the superlative, necessary definition given to lesser performers. He had been, he remembered, "GIDEON, America's Foremost Native Comedian," a title that was at once boast and challenge. That necessity was now past, ... — The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various Read full book for free!
... Trichy, I do confess it; and am not a bit clever; but don't scold me; you see how humble I am; not only humble but umble, which I look upon to be the comparative, or, indeed, superlative degree. Or perhaps there are four degrees; humble, umble, stumble, tumble; and then, when one is absolutely in the dirt at their feet, perhaps these big people won't wish one to stoop ... — Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope Read full book for free!
... a surprise, a pleasant one. Did one wicker basket equal so many fine products of superlative technology? Apparently it did. The natives had different values. To them, one pair of goggles was worth more than three carbines, a package of needles easily the equivalent of a ... — Bolden's Pets • F. L. Wallace Read full book for free!
... been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domenichino and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterwards went to the beautiful cemetery of Bologna, beyond the walls and found, besides the superb burial ground, an original of a Custode, who reminded me of the ... — A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury Read full book for free!
... holy Oracles pronounce upon the Deluge, like other Christians; and had the surprising Mr. L—y[4] been content with the Employment of refining upon Shakespear's Points and Quibbles, (for which he must be allowed to have a superlative Genius) and now and then penning a Catch or a Ditty, instead of inditing Odes, and Sonnets, the Gentlemen of the Bon Goust in the Pit would never have been put to all that Grimace in damning the Frippery of State, the Poverty and Languor of Thought, ... — The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele Read full book for free!
... the reading, the chorister arose with superlative dignity, and gave the key. Unfortunately, the choir dropped a tone or two too low, and the first verse was sung at that disadvantage. Discovering the blunder, the key was again given, but the singers were now getting nervous, and ... — Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller Read full book for free!
... observed, so far as verb forms were concerned, but in the comparison of adjectives and in the use of the cases it steadily made headway, and ultimately triumphed over the synthetical principle. The method adopted by literary Latin of indicating the comparative and the superlative degrees of an adjective, by adding the endings -ior and -issimus respectively, succumbed in the end to the practice of prefixing plus or magis and maxime to the positive form. To take another illustration of the same characteristic of popular ... — The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott Read full book for free!
... by one who knew him and who has described his person for us minutely, meaning Antony Aston, in his theatrical pamphlet, called the Brief Supplement? Why it is absolutely this,—"Mr. Betterton," says his truthful panegyrist, "although a superlative good actor, laboured under an ill figure, being clumsily made, having a great head, a short, thick neck, stooped in the shoulders, and had fat, short arms, which he rarely lifted higher than his stomach. He had little eyes and a broad face, a little pock-fretten, ... — Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent Read full book for free!
... in a very agreeing frame of mind) with your argumentum ad hominem, about the highness of the Australian Flora from the number of species and genera; but here comes in a superlative bothering element of doubt, viz., the effect ... — The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin Read full book for free!
... [548] The superlative dextimus does not differ in meaning from the positive dexter. See Zumpt, S 114, note 1. [549] Minime cari; that is, maxime viles, 'who were most indifferent,' or 'valueless to him,' whose lives he was least inclined to spare. [550] 'As if he ... — De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius) Read full book for free!
... of my maisteris dere, Gowere and Chaucere, that on the steppis satt Of rethorike quhill thai were lyvand here, Superlative as poetis laureate, In moralitee and eloquence ornate, I recommend my buk in lynis sevin, And eke thair soulis un-to the ... — A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand Read full book for free!
... the development of Spanish countries the mental activity of the people is principally manifested in an exuberant imagination which finds expression in superlative and poetical language. If there were any corresponding creative genius and executive ability in material affairs such a fertile and well-watered land as Puerto Rico would be the home of one of the richest communities on the globe. By her situation she is adapted to become the centre of a flourishing ... — Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall Read full book for free!
... tracks or landmarks, we had marched seven miles without being able to see thirty yards, and had yet hit off the direct track to a T; of course, it was only coincidence, though some people might credit themselves with superlative navigating powers on such evidence. The wind increased, and with the knowledge I now have of blizzards I would camp at once. Then I thought it better to shove on, as the ponies were marching splendidly. ... — The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard Read full book for free!
... and he had chosen early to enter a financial house which took him to the East and Constantinople. He was about twenty-seven years old at this period and was considered by himself and a number of women to be a creature of superlative charm. ... — The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn Read full book for free!
... not classed as a "necessary," and the retailers being free to charge freely for it could sell it at a price too "long" for the purses of the many. Dry bread is an unpalatable thing, and the new "Law's" loaf was superlative in that respect. The grocer was beginning to discriminate, so far as he dared, between his friends (his customers) and the casual purchaser, whose affected cordiality did not deceive the shrewd old wretch. ... — The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan Read full book for free!
... lordship has seen it." "My taste is driving, my lord, mayhap your lordship has seen me handle the ribbons." "My horses are all bloods, mayhap your lordship has noticed my team." "I pride myself on my seat in the saddle, mayhap your lordship has seen me ride." "If I am superlative in anything, 'its in my wines." "So please your ladyship, 'tis dress I most excel in ... 'tis walking I pride myself in." No matter what is mentioned, 'tis the one thing he did or had better than ... — Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. Read full book for free!
... of "doggerel" to it, the "sincere and rational meaning" which pervades his compositions renders such an epithet improper. "His ear for rhythm," he continues, "though less true than in his prose, is seldom wholly at fault, and whether in prose or verse, he had the superlative merit that he could never write nonsense." Bunyan's earliest prison work, entitled "Profitable Meditations," was in verse, and neither this nor his later metrical ventures before his release—his "Four Last Things," his "Ebal and Gerizim," and his "Prison Meditations"—can be said to show much poetical ... — The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables Read full book for free!
... seventy years of age. He was a rough diamond, kindly in his judgments unless his feeling of justice was injured; then he was implacable. Many sayings of his were current, among them a dry answer to a senator from Texas who, having dwelt in high- flown discourse on the superlative characteristics of the State he represented, wound up all by saying, "All that Texas needs to make it a paradise is water and good society,'' to which Wade instantly replied, "That 's all they need in hell.'' The nimbleness and shrewdness of some public men he failed to appreciate. ... — Volume I • Andrew Dickson White Read full book for free!
... it was! The bite is always the biggest fish. There is something very charming—something of which the cynic knows nothing at all—about this propensity of ours to attribute superlative qualities to the unrealized. It is a species of philosophic chivalry. It is a courtesy that we extend to the unknown. We do not know whether the joys that never visited us were really great or small, so we gallantly allow them the benefit of ... — Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham Read full book for free!
... the reasons which had led to an exception being made in their case, and congratulated himself and everybody else upon the happy issue of that exception, going on to say that but for the warlike knowledge and skill of the visitors, and the superlative importance of the parts which they had played in planning and carrying out the scheme of defence, that day of triumph and glory for Izreel would never have dawned. And he wound up by saying that, in acknowledgment and recognition of the enormously important and valuable ... — The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood Read full book for free!
... in any case, succeeded in placing himself in close relation with our friend's companion; a gentleman rather stout and importantly short, in a hat with a wonderful wide curl to its brim and a frock coat buttoned with an effect of superlative decision. His French had quickly turned to equal English, and it occurred to Strether that he might well be one of the ambassadors. His design was evidently to assert a claim to Madame de Vionnet's undivided countenance, ... — The Ambassadors • Henry James Read full book for free!
... was set in the grand hall and was heavily laden with products of the State of New York. Owing to the approaching close of the Exposition, the agricultural and horticultural exhibits were heavily drawn upon. Great heaps of New York's superlative fruit and prize vegetables were used in decorating the table. Messrs. Bayno & Pindat served a tempting menu, features of which were those dishes always associated with Thanksgiving Day—roast turkey and pumpkin ... — New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis Read full book for free!
... philosophers say, is a misfortune, but not to be deceived is a superlative misfortune. If it is human to err, why should a man be called unhappy because he errs, since he was so born and made, and it is the fate of all? Do we pity a man because he cannot fly or does not walk on four legs? We might as well call the horse unhappy because it does ... — Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga Read full book for free!
... the same shore by daylight I recognised that the shells, the mosses, the flowers I trampled on, were, each in its way, as perfect as those great stars: that on these— and on Harry—as surely as on the stars—God had spent, if not infinite pains, then at least so superlative a wisdom that to conceive of them as wastage was to deny the mind which called ... — Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch Read full book for free!
... that there is a further reason why the custom of branding sexual variations from the norm as "immoral" is not so harmless as some affect to believe: such variations appear to be not uncommon among men and women of superlative ability whose powers are needed unimpeded in the service of mankind. To attempt to fit such persons into the narrow moulds which suit the majority is not only an injustice to them as individuals, but it ... — Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis Read full book for free!
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