"Feat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of his own right arm; for Bowie, though he has a rib or two "dinged in," is mighty still as Theseus' self; and both astonished his red-bearded compatriots, and won money for his master, by his prowess in the late feat of arms at ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... to lie back on the seat with the consciousness of a great feat achieved, to watch the gulls and sea-birds overhead and the flying-fish skimming the rippling sea. Major Dare had excellent sport with a couple of yellowtail—one of which was played fifty minutes and the other thirty-five—but the honors of the day rested ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... through the account of the sailor's murder. Then he sat still trying to work out a problem; to hand the murderers over to the police without his connection with the stolen diamond being made public, and after considerable deliberation, convinced himself that the feat was impossible. He was interrupted by a slight scuffling noise in the shop, and the cat came bolting into the room, and, after running round the table, went out at the door and fled upstairs. The ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... gradually worn a shallow gulley half filled with earth and gravel into the face of the mountain which checked the momentum of the goods in their downward passage, but afforded no foothold for a pedestrian. No one had ever been known to descend a slide. That feat was evidently reserved for the Pirate band. They approached the edge of the slide hand in hand, hesitated—and ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte
... up. It was incredible, but those heavy lashes disentangled quite easily. I was seized with a desire to see them again perform this interesting feat. "Verses?" said she, considering my slippers ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... say, travel in Space beyond the speed of light had not been accomplished; they believed such a feat an impossibility imposed by a condescending Nature that could be challenged too far. And they therefore knew no way of reaching beyond the planets of Ihelos and Thrayx for the food and resources that became so sorely depleted as both planets ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... have cross'd where I shall cross, Say that you'll neither sleep nor eat." James proudly took him at his word, But did not like the feat. It was a spot, which you may see If ever you to Langdale go: Into a chasm a mighty Block Hath fallen, and made a bridge of rock; The gulph is deep below, And in a bason black and small Receives a ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... evinces by the propriety of his metaphor. To be sure, there seems some incongruity in his throwing this lump of a two year old calf at his adversary. No arm but that of Milo could be strong enough for such a feat. Upon recollection, however, bold as this figure may seem, there are precedents ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... at her niece, 'she was trying to copy a feat which she had seen at the hippodrome, and was riding one pony and driving another tandem in front of her over ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... seem that the cudgels wielded by the Musree commanders were either not so strong or not so well applied, for on the first appearance of the hostile squadron, the heroes of Nezib evaporated as if by magic, but not before a similar feat of legerdemain had been performed by the rabble rout of Turks and Arabs; and on looking round, to inspire his followers with a speech after the manner of Thucydides, the colonel discovered the last of his escort disappearing at full speed on the other side of the plain, and the Europeans were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... everything ready to have a merry time with him. Kitty, who loved to play quite as much as any frolicsome Kitty of to-day, had spent all her spare time in knitting a pair of thick woollen stockings, which seems a wonderful feat for a little girl only eight years old to perform! Can you not see her sitting by the great chimney-place, filled with its roaring, crackling logs, in her quaint, short-waisted dress, knitting away steadily, ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... feat was the most wonderful of all, for Hela was none other than Death. And never did I see any one before over whom Death had so ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... attack on July 31st was succeeded by almost unprecedented rain throughout August. The brief improvement of September relapsed into the deluges which made the last stages of the struggle for Passchendaele so heroic a feat of endurance. The last month of the Somme Battle had been terrible, but the whole of the events now to be described were fought under far worse conditions. No trenches or dugouts were available for sheltering the ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... brought her the right quantity of butter! Not even a bannock, so far as she knew, was ever gone from the press, or an egg from the bossie where they lay heaped! There was more in it than she could understand! Her nephew's mighty feat, so far from explaining anything, had only sealed up the mystery. She could not help cherishing a shadowy hope that, when things had grown quiet, he would again reveal his presence by his work, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... break his armor to pieces; to dance and throw summersets; to mount upon a horse behind another person by leaping from the ground, and assisting themselves only by one hand, and other similar things. One feat which they practiced was to climb up between two partition walls built pretty near together, by bracing their back against one wall, and working with their knees and hands against the other. Another feat was to climb up a ladder ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... to expression not only in dreams but also in hysterical phobias and in other symptoms. If the dream continues and settles activities of the day and even brings to light valuable inspirations, we have only to subtract from it the dream disguise as a feat of dream-work and a mark of assistance from obscure forces in the depth of the mind (cf. the devil in Tartini's sonata dream). The intellectual task as such must be attributed to the same psychic forces which perform all such tasks during the day. We are probably far too ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... climbing it, cautiously grasping roots, and resting by bushes, till I safely reached the top. There, to avoid a village, I had to keep crawling slowly along the brush near the sea, on the top of that great ledge of rock—a feat I could never have accomplished even in daylight without the excitement; but I felt that I was supported and guided in all that life-or-death journey by my dear Lord Jesus. I had to leave the shore, and follow up the bank of a very deep ravine to a place shallow enough for ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... the famous Vola, or flight of a boy from the bell-tower of Saint Mark's to a window of the palace, where he presented a nosegay to his Serenity and was caught up again to his airy vaulting-ground. After this ingenious feat came another called the "Force of Hercules," given by a band of youths who, building themselves into a kind of pyramid, shifted their postures with inexhaustible agility, while bursts of fireworks wove yellow ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... China go with the conviction that there is room in heaven for the black and the yellow sinner. True, the black and the yellow man will first have to shed their somewhat irregular appearance and come forth white and radiant, but the belief in the possibility of such a feat is proof positive that we regard the nationality of a man as a transient business. Nationality is local, spirituality universal. Nationality is a form, a mould, a means; spirituality is the essence, the ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... me before I had being, or did he think of me during my begetting? or did he wish for me at the moment? Did he know what I should be? If so I would not advise him to acknowledge it or I should pay him off for his feat. Am I to be thankful to him that I am a man? As little as I should have had a right to blame him if he had made me a woman. Can I acknowledge an affection which is not based on any personal regard? Could personal regard be present ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Calloway's feat was accomplished before the battle. What he did was to furnish the Enterprise with the biggest beat of the war. That paper published exclusively and in detail the news of the attack on the lines of the Russian General on the ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... the feat of pugilism, doubled his fists and extended them awkwardly, coming with a rush. Mr. Pike suddenly squatted and leaned forward, balancing on his finger-tips, until number two was about to fall upon him and crush him, and then he arose with that rigid right ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... Ambassadress had to call out the name of each one in a loud voice; and when the last one had passed she followed her out of the room, walking sideways so as not to turn her back on the royalties,—something of a feat when towing a train about fifteen feet long. When all the Ambassadresses had so passed, it was the turn of the Ambassadors, who carried out substantially the same programme, substituting low bows for curtsies. The Ambassadors were followed by ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... after work for the day had come to an end. Dave and Roger stood on an elevation of ground surveying the unfinished bridge—or rather chain of bridges—which spanned a river and the marshland beyond. It had been a great engineering feat to obtain the proper foundations for the bridge where it spanned the marshland, and make them impervious to the floods which came with great force during ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... great Saxon race. But as they see a certain portion believe in Mr. Gladstone they may expect them to believe in anything. To swallow the G.O.M. plus Harcourt, Healy, Conybeare, Cobb, O'Brien, and the Home Rule Bill is indeed a wonderful feat of deglutition. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... They stand opposite one another, and each begins at an end and eats towards the other. They may not touch the cake with their hands, but must hold it between their teeth all the while they are eating, and if they are unable to accomplish this feat and kiss when they get to the middle it is a sure sign that they are not suited to one another, and so the partnership is not concluded. In some parts of Friesland and in Voorburg, one of the many villages near The Hague, ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... feet wide, with a chute of terrific velocity. Repeated attempts have been made by reckless miners to take a boat through, but it is much the same as trying to shoot the rapids below Niagara, and the place has well earned its title of "The Miners' Grave." Still, the feat has ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... and women laughed to one side, while the white people smiled as though they had admired the feat as a fine specimen of falling from the sublime to the ridiculous. Bending down over the well, the larger students caught hold of the teacher's arms and ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... an athlete, but in 1891, shortly before his ordination, he accomplished the feat of walking with two athletic friends from London to Cambridge in a day, a distance of more than fifty miles. The following description is by Mr. A. N. C. Kittermaster, who was ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... and leave the grim Vignemale to its isolation? They did not. They grimly went on with the attack. Before darkness had fallen, they stood upon the summit,—the first human beings to accomplish the feat. They had to spend the night upon the mountain, but it was ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... of these patients had a due discharge of urine, and of the natural colour, was not the feat of the disease confined to some part of the thorax, and the swelling of the legs rather a symptom of the obstructed circulation of the blood, than of a paralysis of the cellular lymphatics of ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... did not see, since remembering the incident was to him an even greater feat of memory than recalling the name. It was a case of having to remember two ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... succeeds in destroying one is the hero of the hour. A man may on one hunting trip kill several bears or wolves, or many other animals, and there is not much said about it, but to kill a wolverine, that pest and scourge of the hunters, is indeed a feat that any ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... Yet, the most difficult feat remained to be accomplished. The battledoor was in the very depths of the pocket; only the point ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... Josef plunged into his studies with great fervor, and his progress was most rapid. He was now possessed with a desire to compose, but had not the slightest idea how to go about such a feat. However, he hoarded every scrap of music paper he could find and covered it with notes. Reutter gave no encouragement to such proceedings. One day he asked what the boy was about, and when he heard the lad was composing a "Salve Regina," for twelve voices, he remarked it ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... them crowded others, and at that instant every one of those wretches know that defeat and capture stared them in the face. All their labor, all their cunning and their skill had come to naught. All realized that the greatest detective feat on record had been accomplished. All knew that there was no escape, unless quickly with their own hands they freed ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... French provinces teaches you to regard as the highest attainable form of accommodation. Such an economy I was unable to practise. I could only go to Blois (from Tours) to spend the day; but this feat I accomplished twice over. It is a very sympathetic little town, as we say nowadays, and a week there would be sociable even without company. Seated on the north bank of the Loire, it presents a bright, clean face to ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... mysteriously to its own. Of course the affair would be simple enough if composition could be kept out of the question; yet by what art or process, what bars and bolts, what unmuzzled dogs and pointed guns, perform that feat? I had to know myself utterly inapt for any such valour and recognise that, to make it possible, sundry things should have begun for me much further back than I had felt them even in their dawn. A picture without composition slights its ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... During this feat everybody displayed the cheerful and courteous disposition usual to the Brazilians. At this season you must wear wading boots to eat a meal or do anything else about the house. Sleeping is somewhat easier as the hammocks are suspended about three ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... a loaf to every bird, But just a crumb to me; I dare not eat it, though I starve, — My poignant luxury To own it, touch it, prove the feat That made the pellet mine, — Too happy in my ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth. The capitalist who, alone or in conjunction with his fellows, performs some great industrial feat by which he wins money is a welldoer, not a wrongdoer, provided only he works in proper and legitimate lines. We wish to favor such a man when he does well. We wish to supervise and control his actions only to prevent him from doing ill. Publicity can do no harm ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... was magnificent, and it appeared as if the metropolis of the world wished to show by the way in which she honoured a feat of navigation that it is not without reason that she bears on her shield a vessel surrounded by swelling billows. It is a pleasant duty for me here to offer my thanks for all the goodwill we, during those memorable days, enjoyed on the part of the President of the Republic, ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... have been trade depression in those parts at any time from the bronze-age up to the times of Brown Bess; for the strike-a-lights, still to be got at a penny each, can have barely kept the wolf from the door. And Mr. Snare is not merely an artisan but an artist. He has chipped out a flint ring, a feat which taxed the powers of the clever neolithic knappers of pre-dynastic Egypt; whilst with one of his own flint fishhooks he has taken a fine trout from the Little Ouse that runs ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... attempts he finally reached the north coast in 1862, his rival Burke having been the first to do so. Stuart might have been first, but he seems to have under-valued his rival, and wasted time in returning and refitting when he might have performed the feat in two if not one journey; for he discovered a well-watered country the whole way, and his route is now mainly the South Australian Transcontinental Telegraph Line, though it must be remembered that Stuart had something like fifteen hundred miles ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... will be better satisfied than I to see Mr. Darwin's book refuted, if any person be competent to perform that feat; but I would suggest that refutation is retarded, not aided, by mere sarcastic misrepresentation. Every one who has studied cattle-breeding, or turned pigeon-fancier, or "pomologist," must have been struck by the extreme ...
— Time and Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... was, Dan made the boat before Tom Foss could accomplish that feat alone. Truth to tell, Foss was very nearly "all in." Had rescue been delayed a few moments longer, Foss and his fair companion must ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... awhile on our way to this camp, gazing at these pinnacles of the North Peak, we fell to talking about the pioneer climbers of this mountain who claimed to have set a flagstaff near the summit of the North Peak—as to which feat a great deal of incredulity existed in Alaska for several reasons—and we renewed our determination that, if the weather permitted when we had reached our goal and ascended the South Peak, we would climb the North Peak also to seek for traces of this ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... earlier, and every now and then, after this date one or other of our few printers ventured to issue what they called a directory, but the procuring a complete list of all and every occupation carried on in Birmingham appears to have been a feat beyond their powers, even sixty years back. As far as they did go, however, the old directories are not uninteresting, as they give us glimpses of trade mutations and changes compared with the present time that appear strange now even to our oldest ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... His nature has none of the richness and juiciness, none of the instinctive soul of humor, which must have vent in the ludicrous. Occasionally an adversary or adverse dogma is demolished with excellent logic, and then comes a dismal grin or chuckle at the feat, which hardly reminds us of the sly, shy smile of Addison, or the frolic intelligence which laughs in the victorious eyes of Pascal. Still, with all abatements, "The Greyson Letters" make a book well worthy of being read, contain much admirable matter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Durham Light Infantry, hearing the terrific din and gathering that something out of the ordinary was happening, though he did not know what, slung a maxim tripod over his shoulders, picked up a gun under each arm, and went straightaway to the centre of activity—a feat not only of wonderful physical strength, but considerable initiative and courage. We did not suffer heavy casualties, but 2nd Lieut. Mould's platoon had their parapet destroyed in one or two places, and had to re-build it under heavy fire, in which Pte. J.H. Cramp, the Battalion hairdresser, distinguished ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... the poor devils arouse themselves, and rub their eyes; but the majority slumbered on. Liverpool Jack becomes exasperated, and rushing among them, seizes the legs of the stools, and dumps every sleeper upon the floor. Having accomplished this feat, he resumes his ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... my business of artilleryman, and every day performed some extraordinary feat, whereby the credit and the favour I acquired with the Pope was something indescribable. There never passed a day but what I killed one or another of our enemies in the besieging army. On one occasion the Pope was walking round the circular keep, ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... the remark that genius is almost one hundred per cent directness, but whether or not this applied to Mr. Humphrey Crewe remains to be seen. "Dynamics" more surely expressed him. It would not seem to be a very difficult feat, to be sure, to get elected to a State Legislature of five hundred which met once a year: once in ten years, indeed, might have been more appropriate for the five hundred. The town of Leith with its thousand inhabitants had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... any misgivings and doubts upon the matter before, however, this remonstrance settled them. A little opposition was all that was needed to set him off. Modestly calling the attention of all the others to the fact that he was about to attempt a feat never before tried, Young Joe lay at full length upon ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... piebald balked, and balked most awfully. Again the two men, at imminent danger to life and limb, jerked at the rope bridle, and again barely escaped with their lives as they performed the perilous acrobatic feat of falling headlong into the carriage while it was ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... eagerness to escape, stumbled and fell. The next instant she was in the water, disappearing under the ice. Just at that moment, a tall athletic figure dashed swiftly to the hole and, stooping quickly, caught the child by the dress. Then, by a feat of almost superhuman strength which awed the crowd into silence, he drew the little victim out to safety, not much the ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... the apartment, the two ladies facing inward, like soldiers on their post when about to salute a superior officer, dropped on either hand of the father a curtsy so profound that the hoop petticoats which performed the feat seemed to sink down to the very floor, nay, through it, as if a trap-door had opened for the descent of the dames who performed this ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... seeing an attack made on themselves, and that those who came in the way were slaughtered without distinction, had retired within the city. Did that seem to the Romans worthy of a triumph? They should not consider it an extraordinary and wondrous feat to raise a tumult at the enemy's gates, as they should soon see greater confusion ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... bottom, we have not the least recollection of having willed any one of those countless muscular movements which have been necessary to what, but for its every-day occurrence, would be accounted the greatest feat of legerdemain ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... his mouth with water and ejected it in a fine spray over Dam's head and chest. He was very proud of this feat, but, though most refreshing, Dam could have preferred that the water ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... certainly might. Let us decamp now and do something great in the way of education—teach Rollo, though he is but a short-haired dog, to go into the water. That will be a feat. ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... removed his agents, who inconvenienced you, it seems; then, the moment that he had the proof in hand of the abominable alliance of Natacha Feodorovna with the Nihilists who attempt the assassination of her father your intervention has permitted that proof to escape him. And you have boasted of the feat, monsieur, so that we can only consider you responsible for the attempts ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... eyes. From beyond the waters there is a hand held out; beyond the waters too live brothers. I would only the Book were an Epic, a Dante, or undying thing, that New England might boast in after times of this feat of hers; and put stupid, poundless, and penniless Old England to the blush about it! But after all, that is no matter; the feebler the well- meant Book is, the more "pathetic" is the whole transaction: and so we will go on, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... same Time when the General, at the House of 'Squire Lycomedes, performed this Feat, Miss Deidamia, one of the Maids of Honour, was visiting at the same Place. This young Lady soon discovered that the General was a Man; for indeed he got ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... Tazewell, who died in 1706, on which is engraved the coat of arms of the family,—a lion rampant, bearing a helmet with a vizor closed on his back; an escutcheon, which is evidently of Norman origin, and won by some daring feat of arms, and which could only have been held by one of the conquering race. A wing of the present manor-house of Lymington, built by James Tazewell, the father of William, who died ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... was torn down, brick by brick, while at the same time the new building was being erected—and all without disturbing the traffic or hindering the 75,000 to 125,000 people that passed through the station each day. This was an extraordinary engineering feat, for not only were 3,000,000 yards of earth and rock taken out to provide for the underground development, but hundreds of tons of dynamite were used for blasting. Among the improvements introduced in the new station are ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... captain is a mysterious character, who courts death with all his might, without being able to accomplish his desire; so that each time he rushes into mortal danger he performs some brilliant feat which ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... I have heard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa as a feat of architecture," replied his Aunt Caroline firmly. "I do not propose to ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... character of the country began to change. Grass appeared on its lower-lying stretches, then bushes, then occasional trees and among the trees a few buck. Halting the caravan I crept out and shot two of these buck with a right and left, a feat that caused our grave escort to stare in a fashion which showed me that they had never seen anything of ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... was never tired of praising the wonderful talents of the chevalier, in whom he discovered new treasures of sleight-of-hand each day. Croustillac had finished by putting into his mouth the ends of burning candles, and by swallowing forks. This last feat had carried the captain beyond bounds of enthusiasm; he formally offered the Gascon a situation for life on board ship if the chevalier would promise to charm thus agreeably the tedium of ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... to look for us; for he had become anxious at not seeing Jerry return at all events, and feared something might have happened to us. Ben Yool had set off in the other direction to search for me. Therefore, instead of gaining a great deal of credit, as we expected, by the feat we had accomplished, we found that we had caused our friends no little trouble and anxiety. It was a lesson to me ever afterwards not to attempt to perform any useless undertaking simply because it might be difficult or dangerous. Many people ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... had not been in so wild a panic he would have given himself up, for no man willingly invites the discharge of a deadly weapon a few paces behind him. But the youth was bent on escape if the feat were possible and ran ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... As a proof that they should not be delivered unarmed to the enemy, his majesty permitted them to pillage the arsenal, and the people shouted: "Thanks, may God give to the Tzar many years to live!" This was a very wise idea of Rostopchine to have the arsenal emptied, a feat which he could not have accomplished in time in any other way. The pillage lasted several days and ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... choosing the exercise he considers most calculated to warm and invigorate him after his dip. The children require no second bidding to follow father's example, and as they emerge from the water breathless, pantingly join in the fun. Sons try to go one better than the father in some gymnastic feat which the latter's stoutness renders impossible! The merry peals of laughter which accompany the display speak eloquently of the thorough enjoyment of ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... on him!" quoth false Sextus; "will not the villain drown? But for this stay, ere close of day we should have sack'd the town!" "Heaven help him!" quoth Lars Porsena, "and bring him safe to shore; For such a gallant feat of arms was never seen before." And now he feels the bottom; now on dry earth he stands; Now round him throng the Fathers to press his gory hands; And now, with shouts and clapping, and noise of weeping loud, He enters through ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... employed thus to disarrange the plans of a French general, commanding an army of one hundred thousand men, by a band of two battalions of Portuguese, and a couple of thousand undisciplined guerillas. It is a feat that I, myself, or any other general in the British army, might well be proud to have performed; and too much praise cannot be bestowed upon Colonel O'Connor, and the three British officers acting under his command; of all whose services, together ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... This feat of engineering is considered the most important work of its kind ever done. Engineers from all over the Mississippi have ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 33, June 24, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... still undecided. She was very desirous of gratifying Rollo, but yet she had not courage to undertake quite so great a feat as to walk six miles. At length Mr. Holiday proposed that they should at least set out and go ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... my hips, so there was no bravery in the feat, and I felt a fool as I went wading out to the spot where, by this time, the dog's head had again appeared among the water-lily pads, the living image of a gargoyle. But as I hauled him out, with a word of encouragement, the poor chap's gratitude repaid me. Looking like a vert-de-gris statue ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... endanger even life in her service, and the thought, "I can at last win a little respect, as well as sympathy," nerved him to double his ordinary powers. Like most country boys, he had been a bold, active climber, and his knowledge and former skill made the attempted feat possible. The main question was whether in his feeble state his strength would hold out. But the strong excitement of the moment would serve him in place of muscle. He had thrown off his coat and boots, and, with a small rope fastened about his waist, he swiftly ascended to the top ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... climb up than it had been to get down, but she accomplished the feat at last with sundry abrasions, shut the window, replaced the flower pots, got into the first and second, and went back to bed. Her night-dress was wet with dew, and her feet were scratched and dirty; but she was too ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... one thereby escapes so much abstractionism. Abstractionism of the worst sort dogs Mr. Russell in his own trials to tell positively what the word 'truth' means. In the third of his articles on Meinong, in Mind, vol. xiii, p. 509 (1904), he attempts this feat by limiting the discussion to three terms only, a proposition, its content, and an object, abstracting from the whole context of associated realities in which such terms are found in every case of actual knowing. He puts the terms, ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... the right to a separate individuality, the right to be useful in a wider sphere (a phrase that stands for so much that is good and less good). Mr. WELLS has realised this gracious, shy and beautiful personality with a fine skill. It is no mean feat. He might so easily have made a dear mild ghost. And oh! if ladies of influence who regiment their inferiors in orderly philanthropic schemes had some of the wisdom and tolerance of Lady Harman in her dealings with ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... not take the boy long to repeat his feat with the lariat, and soon, having found a key, he opened the door from without, releasing Mortimer ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... Shorne appears to have been rector of North Marston, in Buckinghamshire, about the year 1290, "and was held in great veneration for his virtues, which his benediction had imparted to a holy well in his parish, and for his miracles, one of which, the feat of conjuring the devil into a boot, was considered so remarkable that it was represented in the ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... Hadria. "A woman without means of livelihood, breaks away from her moorings—well, it is as if a child were to fall into the midst of some gigantic machinery that is going at full speed. Let her try the feat, and the cracking of her bones by the big wheels will attest its hopelessness. And yet I long to try!" Hadria added ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... now completed, and is one of the most important features of the Park. It is worthy to rank as a feat of engineering skill with, any of the great works of modern times. The Commissioners decided to put its powers to the test yesterday afternoon, but owing to the unpropitious weather of the forenoon the trial was postponed. Nevertheless, Commissioners Stranahan, Fiske, ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... way, Toby would not have had a hope. But today, for some reason known to himself, Druro had an objection to hitting Gay's dog and contented himself with wrenching Weary's jaws apart, a dangerous and not very easy feat to accomplish. Weary, however, came in for several sound kicks and cuffs from other directions, and his mistress was in by no means an angelic frame of mind by the time she had her champion safe back between her knees, held ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... Butterfield's bedroom window with her thimble finger. This proving of no avail, she was obliged to pry open the kitchen shutter, split open a mosquito netting with her shears, and crawl into the house over the sink. This was a considerable feat for a somewhat rheumatic elderly lady, but this one never grudged trouble when she wanted ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the wolverines discovered an exit, just as they had found the passage through the mountain. Taggi nosed into a darker line down the face of the cliff and disappeared, Togi duplicating that feat. Shann trailed them, finding the opening a ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... said Cleopatra, smiling her slow smile. "Has the golden skein of stars got tangled, my astronomer? or dost thou plan some new feat of magic? Say what is it that thou dost so poorly grace our feast? Nay, now, did I not know, having made inquiry, that things so low as we poor women are far beneath thy gaze, why, I should swear that Eros had found thee ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... instinct for the jugular vein' of an argument." [Footnote: Page 80.] "Rapid reading," says Koopman, [Footnote: Koopman, The Mastery of Books, p. 47.] "is the... difficult art of skipping needless words and sentences. To recognize them as needless without reading them, is a feat that would be thought impossible, if scholars everywhere did not daily perform it. With the turning of a few leaves to pluck out the heart of a book's mystery—this is the high art of reading, the crowning proof that the ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... some four or five yards of calico print, whose tasteful pattern was rather disfigured by the yellow stains of the tobacco with which it had been brought in contact. In drawing this calico slowly from his bosom inch by inch, Toby reminded me of a juggler performing the feat of the endless ribbon. The next cast was a small one, being a sailor's little 'ditty bag', containing needles, thread, and other sewing utensils, then came a razor-case, followed by two or three separate plugs of negro-head, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... his purpose. Say, rather, the expression of her face performed that feat. He saw, likewise, the paper which she carried, the pencilled sketch,—and he followed her with his eyes when she crossed the room and placed it on the mantel under the engraving of the city of Fatherland. This act took the parents to the fireplace, for discussion and criticism of their daughter's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... stubby tail, reminded Helen May that it was time for lunch. They had used almost a full box of shells, and Helen May had succeeded in shooting from the back of the pinto and in hitting a certain small hummock of pure sand twice in six shots. She was tremendously proud of the feat, and she took no pains to conceal her pride. She wanted to start in on another box of shells, but Pat's eyes were so reproachful, and her sense of hospitality was so urgent that she decided to wait until they had eaten the lunch she ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... This wondrous feat of archery evoked the loudest applause, and had not the Sheriff been so foolish a man, must have awakened suspicion in his breast. But, no—Master Monceux pompously gave over the Arab horse with its saddle, and the purse of gold to the victorious ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... a fear that the discontent with the colossal strife was deep-rooted. General Thomas, at Chickamauga, saved the Union Army from destruction, but the call for 300,000 three-years' men denoted that the end was not even glimpsed. Nevertheless, this latter feat of arms gladdened tremulous Washington, and among the exploits was cited to the President the desperate victualing of General Thomas' exhausted troops by General Garfield. He performed a dangerous ride from Rosencrantz to the beleagured victor and ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... in the year 30 (or thereabouts) at Cana in Galilee. If I should live so long, I shall take great interest in the announcement of the performance of this operation, say, nine years hence; and, if there is no objection raised by chemical experts, I shall accept the fact that the feat has been performed, without hesitation. But I shall have no more ground for believing the Cana story than I had before; simply because the evidence in its favour will remain, for me, exactly where it is. Possible or impossible, that evidence is worth nothing. To ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... corner, abandoned like a poor dog, and would die of despair and anger. What other course then? She must dissemble, mask her face with indifference, if possible with tenderness, and undertake the difficult task of separating Micheline from the man whom she adored. It was quite a feat of strategy to plan. To bring out the husband's faults and to make his errors known, and give her the opportunity of proving his worthlessness. In a word, to make the young wife understand that she had married an elegant manikin, unworthy of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... trooper performed this feat was not a little ingenious. Having noticed several bees about, he caught one, and with a little gum, attached to it a piece of down from a large owl that somebody had shot. Releasing the insect, it ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... to stay aboard; for I was dead tired after an unusually long and trying day, which had begun at 2 a.m., when, using a precious instalment of east wind, we had started on a complete passage of the sands from the Elbe to the Jade. It was a barely possible feat for a boat of our low speed to perform in only two tides; and though we just succeeded, it was only by dint of tireless ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... own against Hippias, the handsome young heathen, who, like most of the drivers in the arena, was an agitator by profession. A story was told of his having driven over a bridge which was not quite as wide as the outside edges of his chariot-wheels; and there were many witnesses to the feat he had performed of writing his mistress' name with his chariot-tracks in the sand ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... shingle, he fits out a fleet, and, on that little mud-puddle over the street, his fancy, in purest good faith, will make sail round the globe with a puff of his breath for a gale, will visit, in barely ten minutes, all climes, and do the Columbus-feat hundreds of times. Or, suppose the young poet fresh stored with delights from that Bible of childhood, the Arabian Nights, he will turn to a crony and cry, 'Jack, let's play that I am a Genius!' Jacky straightway makes Aladdin's lamp out of a stone, and, for hours, they enjoy ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... sight of the Captain with his checked legs and his arm in a sling began to smile. Observing this smile, and fancying himself deceived, the Captain attempted to put his eyeglass into his left eye with his right hand, and regularly failed. His efforts towards this feat changed the smiles ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... fortune as courage, beat down the captain's guard, and, pressing on, thrust, as it seemed, his sword clear through the body of his antagonist, who, with a deep groan, measured his length on the ground. A score of voices cried to the conqueror, as he stood fixed in astonishment at his own feat, "Away, away with you!—fly, fly—fly by the back door!—get into the Whitefriars, or cross the water to the Bankside, while we keep off the mob and the constables." And the conqueror, leaving his vanquished foeman on the ground, fled ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... body. During the fight with the second bull, which was an extremely fierce and powerful creature, a young girl of eighteen dressed in male attire, who was trained to the brutal business, took an active part in the arena with the banderilleros. One remarkable feat which she performed was that of leaping by means of a pole completely over the bull when he was charging at her. At Madrid, where the author witnessed a similar exhibition, the introduction of a young girl among the fighters was omitted, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... numbers of the Gazette thoroughly, she had practised the symbols for motor technologies, and she was not troubled by being watched. Indeed, Babson seemed to have enough to do in keeping his restless spirit from performing the dismaying feat of leaping straight out of his body. He leaned back in his revolving desk-chair with a complaining squawk from the spring, he closed his eyes, put his fingers together piously, then seized the chair-arms and ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... there was a noisy crowd of men and boys. He strode nearer to them, and heard the hoarse voices of the vikings calling out in loud praise of a feat that had been performed by someone in their midst. Sigurd joined the crowd, and saw a boy step out upon the vessel's narrow gangplank, and there, standing between the ship and the shore, begin to throw ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... which are fitted with telephonic connections with a phonograph that explains the features of the Canal Zone as the appropriate points are passed. Next to seeing the Canal itself, a sight of this miniature is the most interesting and instructive view possible of the great engineering feat. In one way it is even better than a trip through the Canal. It gives the broad general view impossible from any point ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... January 17, 1718-19, he published an Advertisement to justify his character against a report that had been spread to his disadvantage: and he did not scruple to declare in all companies that his life was attempted by his enemies, or otherwise he should have attended his feat in the Irish Parliament. His behaviour, about this time, made many of his friends judge he was become delirious; his passions were certainly exceeding strong, nor were his vanity and jealousy less. Upon his coming to England he had lost no time ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... Beelzebub, one thing is certain, that when at last the baron vaulted into his saddle and sallied forth from his ancient castle, he was accompanied by both cat and dog. Now, though it was no uncommon thing for Miraut to follow him abroad, Beelzebub had never been known to attempt such a feat before. ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... off to have her hair re-washed and rinsed, and came back ten minutes later, proudly complacent, to seat herself in the most comfortable stool and eat roast apple with elegant enjoyment. She was evidently quite ready to enlarge upon her latest feat, but the sisters had exhausted the subject during her absence, and had, moreover, a piece of news to communicate which was of ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... playing chess," made a kind of Budhist vow never to injure living thing and felt his foot paralyzed from having accidentally trod upon an ant, (p. 30.) At twenty, thoughts of rebellion and greatness rose in his mind; at twenty-one, he seems to have performed his first feat of arms. He was a practised warrior when he served, in his twenty-seventh ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... is never so amusing—so pathetically and unconsciously amusing—as when trying to take part in general conversation and at the same time to conceal the writhings of his tortured spirit. There is but one thing which will drive him to attempt the feat, and that is the necessity of making himself agreeable to some man, or the wife of some man, from whom he ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... naked eye. I guessed the distance and my shot fell just below the mark. Then I raised the hind sight of my Winchester a notch and the next shot shattered the stone to pieces. At this the Indians went wild. They had thought it impossible for any man to perform this feat of marksmanship, and were most enthusiastic in the profession of their admiration. Gladly would they have adopted me into their tribe as a great chief or medicine man had I wished to ally myself to them. There was the opportunity of a lifetime, but ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... electric art is its penetration by a photographic ray of substances until now called opaque. Professor Roentgen's account of how he wrought this feat forms one of the most stirring chapters in the history of science. Next follows an account of the telegraph as it dispenses with metallic conductors altogether, and trusts itself to that weightless ether which brings to the eye the luminous wave. To this succeeds a chapter which considers ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... to Oakdean, and is glad. And how Maurice calls to her, and she performs an Acrobatic Feat. And how ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... Jove, sir, had an amiable low: And some such strange bull leap'd your father's cow, And got a calf in that same noble feat, Much like to you, for ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... infinitely easier in the saddle than it is on the floor, and your riding master will be exceedingly pleased at the ease with which you effect it. There is no necessity for telling him that the little feat is quite familiar to you. The woman of sense keeps as many of her doings secret as she can, and the wise pupil confesses no knowledge except that derived from her master. Being, in spite of his superior knowledge, a mortal man, he will take twice the pains with her, and a hundredfold more pride ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... He will do the feat of valour, will not bring disgrace and stain, Nor is task in all this wide earth which a Brahman tries ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... progression of augmented chords, his mode of fingering is invariably that of the schools, not that which would seem most natural to a blind child never taught to place a finger. Even when seated with his back to the piano, and made to play in that position, (a favorite feat in his concerts,) the touch is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... noisily in their places he glanced around the little room, and wished he might turn a handspring, just to let off steam and be able to write to Harwood and the other fellows to say his office was big enough to admit of the feat. He wisely crushed the desire, for he recognized the fact that he was under surveillance. Just outside the windows stretched a little lawn, with a star-shaped flower-bed in the middle. Up and down this green space, ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... wonder of singers breaking glasses with their great power of voice; the automaton flute-player, talking engines, echoes, &c. The Mechanical causes are less numerous: among them we are glad to see noticed the feat of lifting heavy persons, which we ourselves have often seen accomplished; but Sir David Brewster does not supply the cause. As the matter may be new to many readers, we quote ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various
... combat, or harder to trick into civility, or more impervious to the injunctions of the Ten Commandments? I suppose it will be said that he is; that the black fellow bolted the whole code at a gobble, and wagged his tail, as if the feat must surely please his new masters; that he had long had the benefit of civilized cooking, and knew a gentleman by his toggery; that, moreover, he was of a teachable, plastic nature, and was meant to lie down in due time upon the hearth rug ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... be a science of universals,"[691] and "that sensation alone can not furnish us with scientific knowledge."[692] How, then, does he propose to attain the knowledge of universal principles? How will he perform that feat which he calls "passing from the known to the unknown?" The answer is, by comparative abstraction. The universal being constituted by a relation of the object to the thinking subject, that is, by a property recognized ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... there are disadvantages in such a division of energy. Scott wanted to reach the Pole: a dangerous and laborious exploit, but a practicable one. Wilson wanted to obtain the egg of the Emperor penguin: a horribly dangerous and inhumanly exhausting feat which is none the less impracticable because the three men who achieved it survived by a miracle. These two feats had to be piled one on top of the other. What with the Depot Journey and others, in addition to these two, we were sledged out by the end of our second sledging season, ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... struggled to her feet and stood upright—rather shakily, it is true, but still able to accomplish the feat without much difficulty. She began ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... comfort his stomach with drink that was "both strong and stale,"—the "jolly good ale and old," I suppose, of free and easy Bishop Still's song,—found that he both could and did oftentimes drink New England water very well,—which he seems to look upon as a remarkable feat. He could go as lightclad as any, too, with only a light stuff cassock upon his shirt, and stuff breeches without linings. Two of his children were sickly: one,—little misshapen Mary,—died on the passage, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the translation of prose or poetry into another language. The work of translating the Latin of the Roman Breviary into English was attempted and completed years ago. The work was great and creditable, but not renowned as a feat of translation. The hymns of the Breviary have been translated by several authors in every country of Christendom, and with different degrees of success. The study of the Breviary hymns is a highly interesting one, and when it is supported by the different efforts of different ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... prevent their piercing a man at the first stroke, as they have at Lisbon. I have seen a man, when the bull came at him with the utmost fury, spring directly over the beast's head, and perform this feat several times, and at last jump on his back, and there sit a considerable time, the bull the whole time attempting every means to throw him. But though this practitioner was successful, several accidents happened while ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... small band of Brummagem bouncers patriotically provided us with a real "Republican Club," and proud of the feat announced the world-stirring fact to the "Hero of Caprera." The simple honest-hearted General, who knew not the guile of their hearts, was deluded into wishing them success. Ten years have passed since "Mio Caro ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... that with Cecilia, when once she had set her heart upon a generous feat of this kind, remonstrance would be in vain; she dreaded that she would, if prevented from the meditated division of the sapphires, purchase for her a new set: she had not the least idea what the expense was, but, at the moment, she thought anything would be better ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... him to lecture in English. He gave his first lecture on the 6th of October 1597. In 1601 Bull went abroad. He visited France and Germany, and was everywhere received with the respect due to his talents. Anthony Wood tells an impossible story of how at St Omer Dr Bull performed the feat of adding, within a few hours, forty parts to a composition already written in forty parts. Honourable employments were offered to him by various continental princes; but he declined them, and returned to England, where ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... This feat of skillful archery on the part of the page called forth no shout, nor even a word of applause, from the partial group of flatterers, who had so loudly commended the Atheling's less successful shots. Their silence, however, was best pleasing ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... speech is, as may be seen, exactly the same as in the Rolls of Parliament. Another specimen of pithy eloquence will be found in the apostrophe addressed to the Earl of Stafford by John Philpot, a mercer of London, after his naval feat of 1378. ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... parents sent them to bed early—and not without difficulty was this feat accomplished—on the night before the great day, and the morning found them refreshed and wildly eager for ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... little pure air which the yurt afforded made the boyish feat of standing upon one's head a very desirable accomplishment; and as the pungent smoke filled my eyes to the exclusion of everything else except tears, I suggested to Dodd that he reverse the respective positions of his head and feet, and try it—he would escape the smoke and sparks from the ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... circus is formed, within which the strange men exhibit their horsemanship, rushing past each other, in and out, after the manner of a reel, the tall man occasionally balancing himself upon the saddle, and standing erect on one foot. He had just regained his seat after the latter feat, and was about to push his horse to a gallop, when a figure started forward close from beside me, and laying his hand on his neck, and pulling him gently downward, appeared to whisper something into his ear; presently the tall man raised his head, and scanning the crowd for a moment ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... performed this mighty feat they sounded another parley, having, as they supposed, mightily beat down the hearts of the besieged. Colonel Rigby's chaplain then appeared at the gate with a letter that Sir Thomas Fairfax had received from Lord Derby, who was now at Chester, on his return from the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the blinds of the offices had been left undrawn. The man and the boy, who were alone visible, seemed, in a sense, to be working under protest. Every now and then the former stopped to yawn, and the latter performed a difficult balancing feat upon his stool. De Grost, having satisfied his curiosity, came presently from his shelter, almost running into the arms of a policeman, who looked at him closely. The Baron, who had an unlighted cigarette in his mouth, stopped to ask for a light, and his appearance at once set at ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of advanced ideas—men with honorary titles and personal ambitions. The great suffragist was very much at home with them. Her deep, musical voice resounded like a bell as she uttered her dicta and her witticisms. She—like the men—was smoking a cigarette, a feat which she performed without coquetry or consciousness. She was smoking because she liked to smoke. It took no more than a glance to reveal the fact that she was further along in her pregnancy than Marna—Marna who started back from the door when a stranger appeared at it lest she ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... here with me, her fair and generous mind would rest, I am sure, after due comparisons, in the very same conclusions. Fausta is in these respects too, as in others, but her second self. There is not a feat of horsemanship or archery, nor an enterprise in the chase, but she will dare all and do all that is dared or done by Zenobia; not in the spirit of limitation or even rivalry, but from the native impulses of a soul that reaches at all things ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... phrase, "it is said." This is an utter impossibility. The skin of no living creature will contain eighty-six thousand times its own weight in a day. I have raised enough caterpillars to know that if one ate three times its own weight in a day it would have performed a skin- stretching feat. Long after writing this, but before the manuscript left my hands, I found that the origin of this statement lies in a table compiled by Trouvelot, in which he estimates that a Polyphemus caterpillar ten days old weighs one half grain, or ten times its ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... was merely an awkward, overgrown midshipman. But then, let us remember that a locomotive engine, though excellent at running, would be a poor hand at flying. That is not its vocation. The engine will draw fifteen heavy carriages fifty miles in an hour; and that remains as a noble feat, even though it be ascertained that the engine could not jump over a brook which would be cleared easily by the veriest screw. We all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... body vigorous and his muscles hard and strong. Slowly he drew himself up out of the clinging ooze which closed behind him with a sickening, sucking sound. Once clear of the mud, it was an easy feat to go up the rope hand over hand and soon he was standing beside Charley at the foot of the tree where they were speedily ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... secure privacy for a conference, they decided to go and breakfast in a bastion near the enemy's lines, and wagered with some officers they would stay there an hour. It was a position of terrible danger, but the feat was accomplished, and the wild undertaking of the musketeers was acclaimed with tremendous enthusiasm ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... was gone, Mr. Juxon paced his library alone in the greatest uncertainty. He had told the vicar in his anger that he would find Goddard with the help of Stamboul. That the hound was able to accomplish the feat in the present weather, and if Goddard had actually stood some time at the cottage window on the previous night, he did not doubt for a moment. The vicar had mentioned the window to him when he told him that Mrs. Goddard had seen her husband. He ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... drift. They faced each other, and were evidently discussing mirthfully how the obstacle was to be met. The man stooped to untie the shoes, his pockets bulging with the day's luncheon; but suddenly the woman backed away and began to climb the fence, a difficult feat. The man lumbered after her, catching one shoe in the top rail, finally freeing himself. Then the two black figures were lost over the dip of the hill. The smile still lingered on Mrs. Short's face,—the smile that two beings, man and woman, still young ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... written about A.D. 140. Several of these works appear to have enjoyed a popularity in excess of that which attached to some of the books now included in the canon. Nevertheless they were rejected when they were examined. It was not merely a wonderful intellectual feat on the part of the Church to have sifted out this mass of literature; it was an action in which the Christian cannot fail to see the hand ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... from the Neck. His desperate hope was that, the attention of the guard being concentrated on the escaping boat, he might, favoured by the darkness and the confusion—swim to the peninsula. It was not a very marvellous feat to accomplish, and he had confidence in his own powers. Once safe on the peninsula, his plans were formed. But, owing to the strong westerly wind, which caused an incoming tide upon the isthmus, it was necessary ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... blaze of rage crimsoned the girl's face. In all her life she never had been thus spoken to. For a second she clenched her fist, as though to strike down this sodden brute there in the seat before her—a feat she would have been quite capable of. But second thought convinced her of the peril of such an act. Ahead of them a long down-grade stretched away, away, to a turn half-hidden under the arching greenery. ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... lively combing my roan's mane; thought he would jump into the engine-room. By the way, yesterday, when waiting for his hay coming down the line, his impatience caused him to jump half over the breast-bar, bursting one head rope; an extraordinary feat in view of the narrowness and lowness of his stall. He hung in a nasty position for a minute, and then we got him to struggle back. Another horse died in the night, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... stood, and other men were coming on the run. The tall blacksmith's black eyes were flashing with pride over the daring feat his son ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... seen in old wine-cellars, into the water. One such pitch-fungus had grown several yards in length in the three weeks between our first and second visit; and on another, some of our party performed exactly the same feat as ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... and Braintree in 1810. This and the similar transportation of the Bowditch house from Beacon Street in Boston to Quincy a couple of years later would have fascinated the red man, as the recital of the feat ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... long story that I had read of his climbing to the top of that tree, though it was a well-nigh impossible feat, and securing the nest by great perseverance and daring, I asked him if the story were a true one. "Oh, I've heard something about it; somebody said that somebody watched me, or something of the kind. But I don't remember ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... again about midnight, the hour appointed for the commencement of my feat. The sky had clouded over, and not a star was to be seen. All the better, indeed, for the experiment; for now there was no light to be seen in any direction, except where down the coast glimmered the Beacon Ledge Beacon—now faintly coming around the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... field is the great and controlling element. The streams that have eaten their way through it with untold difficulty are found in narrow and deep canyons having no land for cultivation. A dangerous feat for man to descend these precipices, the passage by an animal of burden is almost impossible. The Rio Grande passes for eighty miles or more through its black abyss, with walls of seven or eight hundred feet in height, crowned with perpendicular ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... stenographic, and sat up many a night followed by a day of headache, to write them in final form, that none of the freshness and glow might fade. The sheer labor of this process, not to mention the difficulty, can be measured only by one who attempts a similar feat. Let him try to report the best conversation of a lively evening, following its course, preserving its point, differentiating sharply the traits of the participants, keeping the style, idiom, and exact words of each. Let him reject all parts of it, however diverting, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... body are brought into action. One may observe that even the arms and legs are called into requisition when a tenor sings his highest tone as forcibly as possible, though this is often overdone in a way to be condemned. Art should not be reduced to a gymnastic feat. ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... hearers at Palmetto and Macon would take place. He ordered Forrest (about the ablest cavalry general in the South) north for this purpose; and Forrest and Wheeler carried out their orders with more or less destruction, occasionally picking up a garrison. Forrest indeed performed the very remarkable feat of capturing, with cavalry, two gunboats and a number of transports, something the accomplishment of which is very hard to account for. Hood's army had been weakened by Governor Brown's withdrawing the Georgia State troops for the purpose of gathering in the season's crops for ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... Marriage," and argues accurately that, once the adventurous descends to the habitual, it takes on an offensive and degrading character. The intimate approach, to give genuine joy, must be a concession, a feat of persuasion, a victory; once it loses that character it loses everything. Such a destructive conversion is effected by the average monogamous marriage. It breaks down all mystery and reserve, for how can mystery and reserve survive the use of the same ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... Diehards (seventy men and two uniforms) wore dark blue coats and pantaloons, with red facings, yellow wings and tassels, and white waistcoats. Would you know by what feat they earned their name? Listen. I quote the very words of their commander, Captain Bond, who survived to write a History of Looe—and a sound book it is. "The East and West Looe Volunteer Artillery was established in 1803, and kept in pay from Government for six years. Not a single man of ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and there were more varieties of startling street noises even than in New York. The cable cars were like live, untamed things that scorned to wait the convenience of wretched little human beings. Such women and girls as had performed the feat of clambering on board didn't dream for a moment that the creatures might be induced to stop and let them get down. They simply hurled themselves off as they could, and my heart was in my mouth for them, and for myself, many times while my cab mingled ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... part in the cotton raising industry. This was a cotton-picking machine covered by two patents granted to A. P. Albert, a native Louisiana Creole. Mr. Albert invented a second machine which is said to have the merit of perfect practicability, a feat not easy of accomplishment in that class of machinery. Special significance is attached to this case because of the inventor's experience in putting through his application for a patent. He was obliged ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various |
