"Felicitous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quoted. Mr. J. Addington Symonds pronounces the version to be executed with "peculiar literary vigour." Mr. Swinburne is complimentary, and even the Saturday deigns to declare "Captain Burton is certainly felicitous in the manner in which he has englished the picturesque lines of the original." But le style est de l'homme; and this is a matter upon which any and every educated man who writes honestly will form and express and retain his own opinion: there are ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... and thoroughly understood the principle as well as the details of the machine. When the case came on for trial, the learned sergeant was enabled to work the model on the table with such case and skill, and to explain the precise nature of the invention with such felicitous clearness, as to astonish alike judge, jury, and spectators; and the thorough conscientiousness and mastery with which he handled the case had no doubt its influence upon ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... relations with the said Filipinas Islands may—if the Christian faith is preserved and permanently maintained in the latter, and as deeply rooted and as pure and constant as at present—look, in the said matter of religion, for felicitous and great results. The same [may be said] for what concerns the service of your Majesty, and the profitable and advantageous increase of the royal estate, since even the profits which your Majesty at present enjoys and possesses in the said city and the other islands ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... ground—the undulations of the chaussee—and a bright blue sky above the green trees—all these things irresistibly rivet the attention and extort the admiration of a stranger. You may have your boots cleaned, and your breakfast prepared, upon these same boulevards. Felicitous junction of conveniences! ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... underlying drama of the situation and the cunning with which she managed to hide her anxiety to be "on" in the scene which must inevitably come. He examined his old friend, Thatcher, under whose perfect drawing-room manners, felicitous quips and ready laughter there was an almost feminine curiosity as to scandal and the inadvertent display of the family wash. And, having a certain amount of humor, he even turned an introspective eye inwards and owned up to more than a little excitement as to what was going to happen when ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... forms of household life, as things retiring before the tumult of new and revolutionary generations;—these traits in combination communicate to the papers a grace and strength of originality which nothing in any literature approaches, whether for degree or kind of excellence, except the most felicitous papers of Addison, such as those on Sir Roger de Coverley, and some others in the same vein of composition. They resemble Addison's papers also in the diction, which is natural and idiomatic even to carelessness. They are equally faithful to the truth of nature; and in this ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... nasty day that was— When every galoot in our crack Division who didn't lie flat was Dissuaded from further attack By the bullet's felicitous whack. ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... because when his brain had been working on some particular subject, he could not quiet it at once by going to bed, and it went on—in spite of himself—to a state of great cerebral excitement, during which production was rapid and felicitous—therefore tempting; but it was paid for too dearly by the nervous exhaustion surely following it. It was a great sacrifice on his part, because he liked nothing better than to wait till every one had retired and the house was all quiet and silent, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... of the host swept an almost felicitous wave of relief and then, as abruptly, his cheeks changed color again, fading to an ashen pallor tinged with greenish sickliness. In his eyes the light appeared to die. He licked his lips and a palsy shook him like a violent chill. The Virginian's eyes were still searching ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... on to describe Judge Cooley as equally felicitous in Latin verse, presenting in proof thereof the following, "sung at the junior class supper at ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... have strength enough to clear the passage. Occasionally, a short, sharp sentence comes like a flash of lightning from the cloud of his verbiage, and relieves the twilight of his diction. There are but few felicitous phrases in his manifold volumes. He has hardly any of those happy combinations of words which stick fast to the memory, and do more than pages to express the author's meaning. He has little command of expression. His imagery is common; and his manner of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... "these unfortunate ladies." Colin certainly would have been vexed if he had openly slighted them; but Alison, whom the brothers overtook on their way into Mackarel Lane, did not think the colonel looked in the most felicitous frame of mind, and thought the most charitable construction might be that he shared her wishes that she could be a few minutes in advance; to secure that neither Rose's sports nor Colinette's toilette ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which Mr. Perrowne, elated with liberal fees, was the soul of jocularity, and Mr. Douglas let the cat out of the bag as to his relations with Miss Graves. Mr. Bangs sang "He's a jolly good fellow" to every toast indiscriminately. The Squire was felicitous in his presidential remarks; but Mr. Terry broke down at the thought of parting with Madame and with Miss Ceshile that was. Mr. Errol made a good common-sense speech, and alluded roguishly to the colonel's setting a good example that even ministers were not too good to follow. Marjorie, in the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... and material conclusion, his address, like that of the apostle of temperance, is mostly mild and equable, with occasionally a little gentlemanly fervour to give animation to his discourse. His style is mostly felicitous, sometimes beautiful, lucid, precise, and elevated. In tone and manner of execution, in quiet steadiness of purpose, in the firm, intrepid spirit with which truth, or that which is conceived to be true, is followed, regardless of startling presentments, the Vestiges call ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... fear that Peter Siner would marry Cissie Dildine old Captain Renfrew was as felicitous as a lover newly reconciled to his mistress. He ambled between the manor and the livery- stable with an abiding sense of well-being. When he approached his home in the radiance of high noon and saw the roof of the old mansion lying a bluish gray in the shadows of the trees, it filled his heart ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... gladness in his aspect, a pleasing inquisitiveness concerning bird mystery, and a simple, candid style of self-revelation in his essays full of fascination, with touches now and again that remind one of the descriptive qualities of Francis A. Knight. The wood-joy that inspired the felicitous phrases and delightful reflections of John Burroughs in the Western Hemisphere finds its counterpart in these ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... a year while I was absent in Europe. I knew nothing of it until my return, though I have every reason to believe, in view of your excellent recommendations and family connections, that the choice was felicitous." ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... with a certain formality. Todd had therefore, on his arrival, unpinned from the inside of his jacket a portentous document signed with his owner's name and sealed with a red wafer, which after such felicitous phrases as—"I have the distinguished honor," etc.—gave the boy's age (21), weight (140 pounds), and height (5 feet 10 inches)—all valuable data for identification in case the chattel conceived a notion ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... he could as dexterously provoke as parry, could find the right clue and conduct a luminous train of reasoning to a triumphant close. His most elaborate arguments, though not comparable in essence with those of his chief opponent, Lord Campbell— which, in comprehensive outline, exact logic, felicitous illustration, and harmonious structure, excelled all others I have heard— were delivered in tones so nicely adapted to the minds and ears of the judges, with an earnestness so winning, and a confidence ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... instructed to follow the Bishops' Bible wherever they could do so fairly; but they were given power to use the versions already named from Wiclif down, as well as those fragmentary versions which were numerous, and of which no mention has been made. They ransacked all English forms for felicitous words and happy phrases. It is one of the interesting incidents that this same Hugh Broughton, who was left off the committee and took it so hard, yet without his will contributed some important matter ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... Pascal, Swift, Voltaire—writers with, in the first place, a genius and instinct for style.... Brilliant and powerful passages in a man's writings do not prove his possession of it. Emerson has passages of noble and pathetic eloquence; he has passages of shrewd and felicitous wit; he has crisp epigram; he has passages of exquisitely touched observation of nature. Yet he is not a great writer.... Carlyle formulates perfectly the defects of his friend's poetic and literary productions when ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... readers with sufficient care. Anyhow, it may be suspected that this retort of Tristram's is too often passed over as a mere random absurdity designed for his interlocutor's mystification, and that its extremely felicitous pertinence to the question in dispute is thus overlooked. The point of it, of course, is that the business in which the commissary was then engaged was precisely analogous to that of exacting salt dues from perverse ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... an occasional bookworm, it is certain that no poetical student, would have deplored its destruction, if its demerits—hardly relieved, as his first competent editor has happily remarked, by the occasional incidence of a fine and felicitous couplet—could in that case have been imagined. His translation of the first book of Lucan alternately rises above the original and falls short of it; often inferior to the Latin in point and weight ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the most majestic of the Greek poets was eminently felicitous. His birth was noble, his fortune affluent; his natural gifts were the rarest which nature bestows on man, genius and beauty. All the care which the age permitted was lavished on his education. For ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the heart with the terrible cold, Both to get back were most truly-solicitous, Never before was the saying old, "As cold as charity," half so felicitous. ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks
... The preziose held weekly receptions at their houses, and assembled poets and cavaliers from all quarters, who entertained the ladies with their lampoons and gallantries, their madrigals and gossip, their sonnets and their repartees. "Little by little the poets had the better of the cavaliers: a felicitous rhyme was valued more than an elaborately constructed compliment." And this easy form of literature became the highest fashion. People hastened to call themselves by the sentimental pastoral names of the ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... of composition has been the habit of all great orators. This, combined with the habit of reading and re-reading the best prose writers and poets, accounts in large measure for the felicitous style of such men as Burke, Erskine, Macaulay, Bolingbroke, Phillips, ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... whether it be a moral sentiment, like the friendship of Roland and Leoline, or only the flakes of falling light from the water-snakes—this joy, visiting him, now and again, after sickly dreams, in sleep or waking, as a relief not to be forgotten, [102] and with such a power of felicitous expression that the infection of it passes irresistibly to the reader—such is the predominant element in the matter of his poetry, as cadence is the predominant quality of its form. "We bless thee for our creation!" he might have said, in his later period of definite religious assent, "because the ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... under existing entanglements, the girl's speedy death would prove the most felicitous solution of this devouring riddle, which so unexpectedly crossed his smooth path; then what meant the vehement protest of his throbbing heart, the passionate longing to snatch her from disease, and disgrace, and keep her safe forever in the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... literature, and one of the truest painters of social life that any age has produced; not so much admired by women as by men; accurate in his delineation of character, though sometimes bitter and fierce; felicitous in plot, teaching lessons in morality, unveiling shams and hypocrisy, contemptuous of all fools and quacks, yet sad in his reflections on ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... meagre harmony or an unskillful counterpoint, may in vain be looked for throughout the entire range of his compositions; the prevailing characteristics of which, are, a feeling as uncommon as beautiful, a treatment as original as felicitous, a melody and a harmony as new, fresh, vigorous, and striking, as they are utterly unexpected and out of the common track. In taking up one of the works of Chopin, you are entering, as it were, a fairyland, untrodden ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... brains, we can, no doubt, arrive at surprisingly good results in no matter what environment. But it would not be 'right reason' to expend an excessive amount of will-power on brain-discipline when a slighter effort in a different direction would produce consequences more felicitous. A man whom fate had pitched into a canal might accomplish miracles in the way of rendering himself amphibian; he might stagger the world by the spectacle of his philosophy under amazing difficulties; people might pay sixpence a head to come and see him; but he would be ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... a chasm of two or three stanzas. The public deemed it equal to the expectations which had been raised of it; for my part I will confess that I was always deeply disappointed at it. There are in it occasional traces of Collins's genius and several good lines—but none grand—none of that felicitous flow and inspired vigour which mark the Ode to the Passions and other of his lyrics—none of that happy personification of abstract conceptions which is the characteristic of his genius. The majority of the lines lag and move heavily, and do not seem to me ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... nahura is not a felicitous one, as it was given under a mistake by Hodgson, the nahoor being quite another animal. I think Blyth's name of Ovis burhel should be adopted to the exclusion of the other, which, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... wittily called it, I thoroughly agree with you. Every prisoner on trial, even the rudest peasant, knows that they begin by disarming him with irrelevant questions (as you so happily put it) and then deal him a knock-down blow, he-he-he!—your felicitous comparison, he-he! So you really imagined that I meant by 'government quarters'... he-he! You are an ironical person. Come. I won't go on! Ah, by the way, yes! One word leads to another. You spoke of formality just ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... bank-officer (possibly the author had Barton in his mind while writing it) who fears he may become a second Fauntleroy. The piece contains one or two delightful passages, and is, in fact, full of happy touches and felicitous bits of description. Very charming (to me, at least) is the account of the plucking of the last peach, and very touching is the allusion to the babe Fauntleroy. But good wine (or a good peach) needs no bush; and therefore, without ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... egg? I am not sure that properly understood, it is so futile an inquiry after all. I am not concerned here to enter on those deep metaphysical and theological differences of which the chicken and egg debate is a frivolous, but a very felicitous, type. The evolutionary materialists are appropriately enough represented in the vision of all things coming from an egg, a dim and monstrous oval germ that had laid itself by accident. That other supernatural school of thought (to which I personally adhere) would be ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... old days? he thought to himself when he was alone. Old days, when the present had no care, and the future was all hope; when he was proud, and justly proud, of the public position he had achieved, and of all the splendid and felicitous circumstances of life that had clustered round him. He thought of those away, and with whom during the last three years he had so continuously and intimately lived. And his hired home that once had been associated ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... The proof of this rests mainly on the fact that the simple wants of man, as well as the most striking features of nature, are expressed in the Polynesian; while the secondary class of ideas is derived from the Sanscrit, or some other language, and usually grafted in a felicitous manner on the original stem. By an original language, I must be understood, however, to mean only a language which can not be derived from any other known tongue. I seek not to trace the language of Noah, ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... most felicitous question. The lady described material, took her measurements out of her purse, and discussed ruffles and tucks and described location and size of windows, during which talk the young girl was able to throw off the spell that ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... himself to the soul of Art, to pure expression, was, for this very reason, thought by his brother artists to be cold and unattractive. There is one sphere, however, where this exclusiveness of style and partition of labor are productive of the most felicitous results: namely, the minor drama. In England and America the same theatre exhibits opera, melodrama, tragedy, comedy, rope-dancing, and legerdemain; but in Paris, each branch and element of histrionic art has its separate temple, its special corps of actors and authors, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in the burying-ground of the Temple Church. Two years later a monument, with a medallion portrait by Nollekens, and a Latin inscription by Johnson, was erected to him in Westminster Abbey, at the expense of the Literary Club. But although the inscription contains more than one phrase of felicitous discrimination, notably the oft-quoted 'affectuum potens, at lenis dominator', it may be doubted whether the simpler words used by his rugged old friend in a letter to Langton are not a fitter farewell to Oliver Goldsmith,—'Let ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... disease, Wordsworth's of high health standing before a mirror. Both have a "demon," but Sartor's is exceedingly fierce, dwelling among the tombs—Wordsworth's a mild eremite, loving the rocks and the woods. Sartor's experience has been frightfully peculiar, and Wordsworth's peculiarly felicitous. Both have passed through the valley of the shadow of death; but the one has found it as Christian found it, dark and noisy—the other has passed it with Faithful, by daylight. Sartor is more of a representative man than Wordsworth, for many have had part at least of his ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... so ingenious nor so felicitous as the language- expedient of the man who wished to leave some luggage at a railway station in Rome, and knowing nothing of any foreign tongue but a few Latin phrases, mostly of an obituary character, pointed several times to his effects, saying, "Requiescat in pace," and then, ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... drawn with a point at once so precise and vivacious, so full of keen fun and inimitably happy invention, that I have not found their equal in comic etching anywhere ... the picturesque details of the room are etched with the same felicitous intelligence; but the marvel of the work is in the expression of the strange little faces, and the energy of the comical wee limbs."[90] In The Witches' Frolic ["Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft"], we find a happy blending of the terrible and the grotesque. Look at the old hags ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... suburban resorts, makes a capital background, and gives the group free play to meet with all sorts of picturesque opportunities. The story is told without any straining after climaxes, but with many felicitous touches that enhance the effect of every picture and incident. In scene, characters, and plot, "At the Red Glove" offers a brilliant opportunity to the dramatist, and one is tempted to think that the story must have been originally ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... the representatives of our Union in both Houses of the Congress at this time occurs under circumstances calling for the renewed homage of our grateful acknowledgments to the Giver of All Good. With the exceptions incidental to the most felicitous condition of human existence, we continue to be highly favored in all the elements which contribute to individual comfort and to national prosperity. In the survey of our extensive country we have generally to observe abodes of health and regions of plenty. In our civil and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams
... intercourse, no man could have been more aptly chosen than John Adams. While his high-toned manners opened the way to favor, his nervous logic followed up the advantage so gracefully won, and drove home his purpose to its end. Franklin was equally felicitous in attaching to himself the good-will of the court of Versailles. Their successors well sustained the respect which they had inspired; and it was a matter of surprise among the best educated Europeans that ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... front a man had risen from his seat—the felicitous Mr. Truesdale. Glancing around at his fellow-members he then began to explain in the impressive but conversational tone of one whose counsels are in the habit of being listened to, that this was merely a little measure to remedy a flaw in the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "It is a felicitous affair," said the Count, "which has the fortune to introduce me to this charming company," and the Count bowed first to Bulldog and then to the school with such a marked indication in one direction that Speug almost blushed. "My sorrow is to be so stupid a witness; but, monsieur, you will allow ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... still further lessened (1796) by the transfer of the Western Posts to the United States and by the presidential election which gave the Federal party a new lease of power, though no longer under Washington. Had Carleton remained in Canada these felicitous events would have offered him a unique opportunity of strengthening the friendly ties between the British and the Americans in a way which might have saved some trouble later on. But ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... incurred by the signatory powers to the Quintuple Treaty of 1839 guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium. Shorn from their context as they were, these sentences are by no means illuminating, and it cannot be said that their citation in this form by Sir Edward Grey was a very felicitous one. During the paper polemics of the past months these detached words of Gladstone have been freely used by Germany's defenders and apologists to maintain that Great Britain of 1870 would not have deemed the events of 1914 a casus belli, and that its entrance ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... Mr. Jackson had made for not releasing African slaves.[32] There were inquiries in the libraries for "Martin's Account of his Consulship," but it was never found. The paper may be read in the second volume of Franklin's Works, Sparks' edition, p. 518. None of Dr. Franklin's writings are more felicitous than this jeu d' esprit; and it was written only twenty-four ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... pleasantry in Mrs. Hofland's Comforts of Conceitedness; Virginia Water, by the editor, could hardly be written by his fireside—it has too much local inspiration in every line; Auguste de Valcour, by the author of Gilbert Earle, is in his usual felicitous vein of philosophic melancholy; Miss Roberts has a glittering Tale of Normandy; the Orphans, by the editor, is simple and pathetic; Palinodia ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... the hope, my lord, since I am to be that most fortunate man!' It was not the most felicitous moment, but Elmur was aware that in no other way could he assure Valerie's safety against ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... English style more charming in themselves than the epistles, whether published or still in manuscript, written by that versatile and wonderful person, Daniel Webster. (Nunquam tetigit quod non ornavit.) How copious is their expression! How facile and felicitous their illustrations! What grace! What beauty of diction! What simplicity, elevated by a matchless elegance! Nothing more clearly proves the various talents of both the Roman and the American statesman than that they ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... this very moment we have received sure tidings of the capture of Camerino. We beg that you will do honour to this message by an immediate improvement, and inform us of it, because, tormented as we are to know you so ill, nothing, not even this felicitous event, can suffice to afford us pleasure. We beg you also kindly to convey the present to the Illustrious Lord Don Alfonso, your husband and our beloved Brother-in-law, to whom we are not ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... yet in the shell has learnt to drink by swallowing a part of the white of the egg for its food; but not having experienced how to take up and swallow solid seeds, or grains, is either taught by the felicitous industry of its mother; or by many repeated attempts is enabled at length to distinguish and to swallow this kind ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... is an admirable book. Nothing could be more felicitous and fairer than the way in which he takes us through Carlyle's ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... volatility which never deserted him. His feelings, though always amiable, were not painfully deep, and amid joy or sorrow, the philosophic vein was ever evident. He more resembled Goldsmith than any man that I can compare him to: in his conversation, his apparent confusion of ideas ending with some felicitous phrase of genius, his naivete, his simplicity not untouched with a dash of sarcasm affecting innocence—one was often reminded of the gifted and interesting friend of Burke and Johnson. There was, however, one trait in which my father did not resemble Goldsmith: he had no vanity. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the dinner late and passed in front of the dais to my seat at the other end, while General Grant was speaking. He was not easy on his feet at that time, though afterwards he became very felicitous in public speaking. He paused a moment until I was seated and then said: "If Chauncey Depew stood in my shoes, and I in his, I would be a ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... benevolent friend obtains him the opportunity of lecturing. It is not uncharitable to suppose that he chooses a subject in which accurate knowledge and close argument will be less requisite than fluency, fancy, bold statement, and extraordinarily felicitous illustration. The five years spent in Edinburgh can now be turned to profitable account. Dugald Stewards lectures can be exhumed, decorated, and reproduced. The whole book reeks of Scotland. The lecturer ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... from the divinely gifted imagination of the composer, reveals in its own language a message of pathetic longing and ideal aspiration. The movement is very concise but in complete Sonata-form, and with an orchestration felicitous in the treatment of the horns and the wood-wind instruments. The Minuet, noteworthy for the three-measure rhythm of the ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... a remarkable knowledge of the motives and conflicts of the human heart. The style is noticeable for epigrammatic wit and wisdom in the lighter scene, and for dramatic power in the serious ones. There are a number of well-drawn characters, the heroine being a peculiarly felicitous study, and the hero a virile and striking portrait. It is a novel sure of many admirers among those who delight in intellectual subtlety and ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... struggles to rise into some superior class. The spirit of caste is found as keenly at work among the humblest as among the highest ranks. At Birmingham, there was a club of workmen with tails to their coats, and another without tails: the one looked down upon the other. Cobbett, so felicitous in his nicknames, called his political opponent, Mr. Sadler, "a linendraper." But the linendraper also has plenty of people beneath him. The linendraper looks down on the huckster, the huckster on the mechanic, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... felicitous ingenuity of your highness's idea," answered the interpreter, pointing ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... it is also a matter of common notoriety that large aggregates of men, not to speak of sporadic individuals, will on occasion shift their allegiance with the most felicitous effect and with no sensible loss of self-respect or of their good name. Such a shift is to be seen in multiple in the German nation within the past half-century, when, for instance, the Hanoverians, ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... remark more felicitous. The lad threw himself down on the grass, laughing boisterously. Amy joined, in natural reaction from her former fear, and even the "Californian" helped on the fun by observing them with an absurdly ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... enterprising negro, "why don't English barristers—white ones, I mean—go and practise there?" Feel that reference to colour is not felicitous; still, difficult to express ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... penal rules; since of this sort of light literature it may be especially said—tout genre est permis, hors le genre ennuyeux. Still, however, the more closely and happily the story is combined, and the more natural and felicitous the catastrophe, the nearer such a composition will approach the perfection of the novelist's art; nor can an author neglect this branch of his profession, without ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... merely oral tradition, and few have exercised so wide and mighty an influence. The profound, many-sided and intimate knowledge of human nature which it evinces, its vast variety of incident, its wealth of tears and laughter, its copious and felicitous diction, inevitably apt for every occasion, and, notwithstanding the frequent harshness, and occasional obscurity of its at times tangled, at times laboured periods, its sustained energy and animation of style must ever ensure for this human comedy unchallenged rank among the literary ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... closer together, voices were lowered, and the discussion became general, each one offering his or her advice. Nothing was said to shock the proprieties. The ladies, in particular, were most expert in felicitous turns of phrase, charming subtleties of speech for expressing the most ticklish things. A foreigner would have understood nothing, the language was so carefully veiled. But as the slight coating of modesty with which every woman of the world is ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... this one-man power of conception and execution gives to the Duke of Devonshire's palace at Chatsworth an interest and a value that probably do not attach to any other private establishment in England. In this felicitous characteristic it stands out in remarkable prominence and in striking contrast with nearly all the other baronial halls of the country. It is the parlor pier-glass of the present century. It reflects the two images in vivid apposition—the ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... conversing with Mr. Carlton the Librarian, and he quoted from memory a line from Catulle Mendes that seemed to me uncommonly felicitous: "La vie est un jour de Mi-Careme. Quelques-uns se masquent; moi, ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... a correspondent-besides the deep, quaint strain of the sentiment, and the curious introduction of some ludicrous touches amidst the serious and impressive, as was doubtless intended by the author-appears to us one of the most felicitous specimens of unique rhyming which has for some time met our eye. The resources of English rhythm for varieties of melody, measure, and sound, producing corresponding diversities of effect, having been thoroughly studied, much more perceived, by very few ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... occasional tracasseries between the War Minister and the Commander-in-Chief of the British troops in France and Flanders, there were faults on both sides. The wording of some of the telegraphic messages passing between Lord K. and Sir J. French did not strike one as altogether felicitous, and, if messages from G.H.Q. were provocative, the replies were not always calculated to pour oil on troubled waters. The truth is, that when a pair of people both of whom require "handling" become associated under conditions of anxiety and stress that are bound to be trying to the temper ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... enamored companionship in youth, the pure, unfettered, mystic attraction between the sexes in blossoming time, are practically unknown to the German social life. The full gloss of fancy, the velveting of manners, the felicitous fabrication of innocent emotions into a blessed garment of many colors, find their development outside the domain of Thor. Such associations have there no charming playtime, but forthwith make for permanent good ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... the Council of Nice, in the fourth century, Mr. Smith indulges his usual felicitous vein of humour, in a burlesque which he puts into the mouth of a slave of the Bishop of Ethiopia,—"a little, corpulent, bald-headed, merry-eyed man of fifty, whose name was Mark; whose duty it was to take charge of the oil, trim the lamps, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... into my confidence, and he thought that I had given expression to the overflowing emotion of two loving young hearts in a very felicitous and charming way. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the book is felicitous, and it is worked out with an acute and sympathetic appreciation of methods for enlisting the attention and impressing intelligently the memory of children. The illustrations are distinctly ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... application. Elsewhere his imagery is apt to become strange and unaffecting, his fancy to work in curious and desolate ways, his message to sound abstruse and strange; and these effects too are deepened by the qualities and the merits of his style. It is peculiarly his own, but it is not always felicitous. There are times when it has the true epic touch—or at least as much of it as is possible in an age of detail and elaboration; there are times when it has a touch of the pathetic—when in homeliness of phrase and triviality of rhythm it ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... impossible to listen to Scott's oral narrations, whether gay or serious, or to the felicitous fun with which he parried absurdities of all sorts, without discovering better qualities in his talk than wit—and of a higher order; I mean especially a power of vivid painting—the true and primary sense of what is called Imagination. He was like Jaques—though not a ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... composures of the both worthily excellent Master Beaumont and Master Fletcher," he adds his approval, "without wrong last to be named," of "the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekkar, and Master Heywood." This is not half so felicitous a classification as would be made by a critic of our century, who should speak of the "right happy and copious industry" of Master Goethe, Master Dickens, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... H. Crane, in a recent felicitous talk to the Society of American Dramatists, said that the 'Henrietta' was played exactly as its author had delivered it to the actors, without the change or the need of change in a single word, and with only the repetition late in ...
— The Autobiography of a Play - Papers on Play-Making, II • Bronson Howard
... connected with real life, it is not easy to understand why the radiant youth, "the world's fresh ornament," "only herald to the gaudy spring," etc., should need such an amount of persuasion to marry. Seventeen sonnets of great poetical beauty and felicitous language are devoted to this object. It is an exquisite treat to read them as works of art, but taken literally they are unspeakably absurd. No sane man would draw out such lengths of linked sweetness for the purpose named; nor would any youth, however credulous, take the sonnets at their face ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... Likely. "One is apt to be mistaken." Apt means facile, felicitous, ready, and the like; but even the dictionary-makers cannot persuade a person of discriminating taste to accept it as ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... as a friend; and assure you he is a Prince who has talent, but who will be the slave of his passions (SE FERA DOMINER PAR SES PASSIONS,"—not a felicitous prophecy, Herr General); "and will like nobody but such as encourage him therein. For me, I think all Princes are cast in the same mould; there is only a more and ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... G——— was ardent and enterprising; the prince, of a similar disposition, loved such characters. Endued with brilliant wit and a rich fund of information, G——— possessed the art of ingratiating himself with all around him; he enlivened every circle in which he moved by his felicitous humor, and infused life and spirit into every subject that came before him. The prince had discernment enough to appreciate in another those virtues which he himself possessed in an eminent degree. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... now lost all charm for him. The Hotel Drouot no longer tempted him. At that time, the goods of German residents, seized by the government, were being auctioned off;—a felicitous retaliation for the enforced journey which the fittings of the castle of Villeblanche had taken on the road to Berlin; but the agents told him in vain of the few competitors which he would now meet. He no longer felt attracted by these extraordinary bargains. Why buy ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... in reality a poet who imagines and creates. The microscope, the magnifying glass, the scalpel, are as it were the strings of a lyre. "The felicitous and fruitful hypothesis which constitutes scientific invention is a gift of sentiment" in the words of Claude Bernard; and of this king of physiology, who commenced by proving himself in works of pure ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... he watched her from the depths of a box. He was in no position to say how she might have struck him the night before, but what he saw during these charmed hours filled him with admiration and gratitude. She WAS in it, this time; she had pulled herself together, she had taken possession, she was felicitous at every turn. Fresh from his revelation of Nona he was in a position to judge, and as he judged he exulted. He was thrilled and carried away, and he was moreover intensely curious to know what had happened to her, by what unfathomable art she had managed in a few hours to effect such a change ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James
... author may deal well or ill with the sensations of sex; those sensations can provide material for fine art. It is a matter of treatment. Upon feelings of this sort Maupassant based some of his most felicitous stories. But Maupassant did not use sexual incidents for the sake of sex feeling; for him such incidents were various symbols, flickering images, of life, incarnations of the brooding spirit of cynicism and scorn. We have ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... commenced it yesterday, and concluded it to-day. It is a new style of novel, and, like all that is very clever, will lead to many copyists. The writer possesses a felicitous fluency of language, profound and just thoughts, and a knowledge of the world rarely acquired at his age, for I am told he is ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... Stories, by R. E. VernA"de (George H. Doran Company). This volume of stories which is drawn from the late Lieutenant VernA"de's output during the past twelve years reveals a genuine talent for the felicitous portrayal of social life in an English village, and suggests that he might have gone rather far in stories of adventure. "The Maze" is the best story in the volume, and makes it clear that a brilliant short story writer was lost in France ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... for an "appetizer," as he termed it. Here he met an acquaintance among the loungers present, and, of course, asked him to take a social glass also. This personage complied in a manner peculiarly felicitous, and in such a way as to give the impression that his acceptance of the courtesy was a compliment to Haldane. Much practice had made him perfect in this art, and the number of drinks that he was able to secure gratis in the ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... back to her with an alert and felicitous air. How could he help the falling out of this? Of course he could not ride upon the wagon and leave ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... and compliments were set aside by Garnache, who, at his best, was not felicitous with them. Valerie felt herself caught by the wrist, a trifle roughly she remembered afterwards, and hurried across the cobbles to the tethered horses, with which Rabecque was already busy. She saw Garnache raise his foot to the stirrup and hoist himself to the saddle. Then ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... was rudely flung adrift. It was true that the man was largely responsible for the troubles that had fallen upon him, but this was no reason for refusing him pity, and Cyril had his strong points. He had staunchly declined to profit by a felicitous change of fortune out of consideration for the relatives who had once disowned and the woman who had deserted him. Jernyngham had been a careless fool, and Prescott suspected that he was not likely to alter much in this respect, but he did not expect others to pay for his recklessness ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... beauty, which she was. The name of Cooleen Bawn was applied to her by the populace, whose talent for finding out and bestowing epithets indicative either of personal beauty or deformity, or of the qualities of the mind or character, be they good or evil, is, in Ireland, singularly felicitous. In the higher ranks, however, she was known as "The Lily of the Plains of Boyne," and as such she was toasted by all parties, not only in her own native county, but throughout Ireland, and at the viceregal entertainments in the Castle of Dublin. ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... poem was followed by a narrative of travel in Italy, happily written, full of felicitous description, and touched by a humor which, in quality and manner, was new to English readers. Then came one of those indiscretions of the imagination which showed that the dignified and somewhat sober young poet, the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... humanity? Have you a soul that goes out for men? Are you Christ-like? Will you spend yourself for the sake of elevating men who need to be lifted up? That is orthodox. I do not care what the creed is. If a church has a good creed, that is all the more felicitous; and if it has a bad creed, a good life ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... that, and in many another passage that I might quote; but as a general thing I should characterise the more metaphysical of our author's short stories as graceful and felicitous conceits. They seem to me to be qualified in this manner by the very fact that they belong to the province of allegory. Hawthorne, in his metaphysical moods, is nothing if not allegorical, and allegory, to my sense, is quite one of the lighter exercises of ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... going to see her daughter Alice, who was Mrs. Christopher Liggett, because Alice was an invalid. It had been only a few years after Alice's most felicitous marriage, a dozen years ago, when an accident had laid the lovely and brilliant woman upon the bed of helplessness that she might never leave again. There was no real reason why the spine should continue useless, the great specialists said, there was a hope—even ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... felicitous delineation of circumstances and visible scenes that constitutes our principal enjoyment. The faculty of penetrating through obscurity and confusion, to seize the characteristic features of an object, abstract or material; of producing a lively description in the latter case, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... neatness, are as graceful as they are quaint and clear. The writings of Sydney Smith rarely attain the perfect grace which uniformly distinguishes Elia; yet he never attempts magnificence, and he so unites brilliancy and plainness as to make his statements seem equally felicitous to the rude and the scholarly ear. His Peter Plymley letters are remarkable examples of the way in which one yeoman speaks to another. His literary bequest, however, is neither so valuable nor so charming as that of Charles Lamb. His powers were too various, and he engaged in too many fields ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... that might very well have sufficed for all the republics, both of antiquity and of our own time. But when the orator came to speak of the American character, and particularly of the intelligence of the nation, he was most felicitous, and made the largest investments in popularity. According to his account of the matter, no other people possessed a tithe of the knowledge, or a hundredth part of the honesty and virtue of the very community ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... perfection of a healthy mental organism by which over effort is felt to be as vicious and contemptible as indolence. He knew this too well to know the grounds of his knowledge, but we smaller people who know it less completely, can see that such felicitous instinctive tempering together of the two great contradictory principles, love of effort and love of ease, has underlain every healthy step of all healthy growth, whether of vegetable or animal, from the earliest conceivable time to the present moment. Nothing ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... observance of the Sabbath; required it of his children, and he expected it of the stranger within his gates. The family altar probably never failed from the day he first entered with his newly married wife, into their pioneer home, amid the forests, till his death. He was solemn, earnest and felicitous in prayer. The atmosphere of his home was eminently that of a christian household. Two of his four sons became officers in their churches, and also both his sons-in-law. Four of his grandsons entered the Christian ministry, and a granddaughter is the wife of a clergyman. Those ...
— Log-book of Timothy Boardman • Samuel W Boardman
... knew her business, and cared little what the rabble said. The Brownes, too, were in New York with Lord and Lady Hardy, who sailed in the same ship with Grey and Bessie. Just how much Augusta's wedding portion was, was never known, but that it was satisfactory was proven by the felicitous expression of Lord Hardy's face, which beamed with delight as he said good-by to his mother-in-law, whom he kissed in the exuberance of his joy. But his countenance fell a little when he heard her tell Augusta not to be so down in the mouth, for she should be over there herself ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... stood a great brickyard, with smoking chimneys. First they took out the soil to make bricks, and then they filled it up again with garbage, which seemed to Jurgis and Ona a felicitous arrangement, characteristic of an enterprising country like America. A little way beyond was another great hole, which they had emptied and not yet filled up. This held water, and all summer it stood there, with the near-by soil draining into it, festering and stewing in ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... lucky, rejoiced, blissful, cheery, glad, merry, rejoicing, blithe, delighted, jocund, mirthful, smiling, blithesome, delightful, jolly, pleased, sprightly, bright, dexterous, joyful, prosperous, successful, buoyant, felicitous, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... by Gleim maintain so high a rank among German poems, because they arose with and in the achievements which are their subject; and because, moreover, their felicitous form, just as if a fellow-combatant had produced them in the loftiest moments, makes us feel the most ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... size, structure, habits of growth and all, it seems more closely allied to the two larger ferns than to the little rock species. We shall group the three together as the large spleenworts, or for the sake of being more definite adopt Clute's felicitous phrase. ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton
... something peculiarly felicitous in this grave record. It was a rotund kind of learning which was cherished by Dr. Stiles and similar guardians of the old traditions of scholarship, and in the absence of much commerce with their ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... degree of good and kindness in thy daily life, for the result is a slight pleasurable sense that will seem to warm and delectate thee with felicitous self-laudings; and all that brings thy thoughts to thyself tends to invigorate that central principle by the growth of which thou art to give thyself ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Union. Negro-worshipers from Massachusetts and slave-drivers from South Carolina entered the vast hall arm in arm. The great meeting rose to its feet, and walls and roof shook with applause. General John A. Dix of New York called the Convention to order, and, in an eloquent and felicitous speech, stated the objects of the assembly—to renew fraternal feeling between the sections, heal the wounds of war, obliterate bitter memories, and restore the Union of the fathers. Senator Doolittle ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... another alternative presents itself, and the poise of incentive recurs. The Prodigal spits on a chip, and tosses it. "Wet—I crawl back home; dry—I see it out. Wet it is." So he goes, to meet the ring, and the robe, and the fatted calf. His latter alternative has taken him home; and a felicitous option on the old man's part has given him a welcome. But the earlier alternative is following him up, for the farm is gone! The old man himself cannot undo the effect ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... him, set living in ideal scenes to charm others. And it resulted from this specialty of structure that the greater reality of his earlier male historic figures, as compared with those of most of his rivals, is largely a matter of saner and more felicitous declamation—the play of his great and growing faculty of expression—since he had no more special knowledge of the types in hand than had his competitors. It is only when his unequalled receptive faculty has been acted upon by a peculiarly concentrated and readily assimilated body ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved by felicitous illustrations:—I am the individual destined to write that work—My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence—I show that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and the MAN—Snobs ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... humor never struck me as felicitous. "Thus, a friend meeting him one ten-degrees-below-zero morning in the winter, said: 'How cold it is, Mr. Choate.' 'Well, it is not absolutely tropical,' he replied, with ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... these national conventions was the State reports, which contained not only valuable specific information, but often felicitous little arguments quite equal to those of the more formal addresses. Such reports were received in 1886 from thirty different States. A large number of interesting letters also were read, among them one from George ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... felicitous simplicity and eloquence of diction which characterize all Mr. Woodworth's efforts for the ...
— The Diving Bell - Or, Pearls to be Sought for • Francis C. Woodworth
... graphic exposition of an abstruse subject, Bounce relapsed into silence, and the whole party continued for some minutes in a profound reverie. From this felicitous condition they were awakened by the sudden appearance of Black Gibault, who darted out of the poplar bluff and made towards them at the top of his speed. He uttered no cry, but, on coming near enough to permit of his features being clearly seen, it was observed ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... to carry a tablet with you, and, when you find yourself felicitous, take notes of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... instances of the strength which accompanied this absence of strain one already alluded to may be mentioned again. Scott is one of the most literary of all writers. He was saturated with reading; nothing could happen but it brought some felicitous quotation, some quaint parallel to his mind from the great wits, or the small, of old. Yet no writer is less bookish than he; none insults his readers less with any parade, with any apparent consciousness of erudition; and he wears his learning ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... kind of romanticism— melodrama in fact. I want to have in poetry what we are getting in fiction—the best sort of realism. Realism is now abjuring the heroic theory; it has thrown over the old conventions, the felicitous coincidences, life arranged on ideal lines; and it has gone straight to life itself, strong, full-blooded, eager life, full of mistakes and blunders and failures and sharp disasters and fears. Life goes shambling along like a big dog, but it has got its nose on ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... cases" in the Law Reports, which suggested to Mr. Smith the idea of writing a book under the name of "Leading Cases." He was engaged upon it from about the middle of 1835 till the early part of 1837. There was no book of the kind extant. The idea was felicitous; but much learning and judgment were requisite to work it out practically. Mr. Smith proved himself, however, fully equal to the undertaking. Though in 1835 and 1836 he composed and published, as we have seen, two other ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... picture of manners, the novel of Tom Jones is indeed exquisite: as a work of construction quite a wonder: the by-play of wisdom; the power of observation; the multiplied felicitous turns and thoughts; the varied character of the great Comic Epic keep the reader in a perpetual admiration and curiosity.(156) But against Mr. Thomas Jones himself we have a right to put in a protest, and quarrel with the esteem the author evidently has ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... much constructive and descriptive power. He is most felicitous in his word pictures of scenery, and imparts a fascinating dash to ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... Miss Olive G. Owen's tuneful lines on "The Mocking Bird." Of the quality of Miss Owen's poetry it is scarce necessary to speak; be it sufficient to say that the present piece ranks among her best. In the intense fervour of the sentiment, and the felicitous choice of the imagery, the touch of the born poet is alike shown. Through an almost inexcusable editorial mistake of our own, the first word of this poem is erroneously rendered. Line ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... proportions, and with a frank dash of gray in the silky waves of his hair, but still as pre-eminent as ever for that beauty, the charm of which depends less than any other upon youth, arising, as it does, from a felicitous combination of bearing and manner, and that exquisite suavity of expression which steals into the heart and pleases so much that it be comes a satisfaction to admire! Of Lord Castleton, indeed, it might be said, as of Alcibiades, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a shot. Then our men took to the rifle-pits—pits ten or twelve feet long by four or five deep, with the loose earth banked up a few inches high on the exposed sides. All the pits bore names, more or less felicitous, by which they were known to their transient tenants. One was called "The Pepper-Box," another "Uncle Sam's Well," another "The Reb-Trap," and another, I am constrained to say, was named after a not-to-be-mentioned tropical locality. Though this rude ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... its full maturity, we have reason to expect that the strain of his competition will be more confident and masterly; but his imagination, cramped by the rules which have been formerly laid down, will be still desirous of breaking the old fetters, rather than felicitous of inventing new ones. Though therefore it must be acknowledged that the same Faculty which is able to invent characters, and to colour sentiment may likewise discover the rules and principles of an Art, yet we have no ground to hope that it will often ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... one's higher faculties, rebelled against the futility of such worship. So many detestable sights and sounds were perpetually presented to one—not to mention broth of abominable things daily for dinner—that one turned, with thanksgiving, to beautiful form in art, to perfectly felicitous words and phrases. The meaning of them mattered but little just then. They freed one from the tyranny of more or less disgusting fact. They satisfied eye and ear. One asked nothing more just then—luckily, you will say, since the animal Destournelle has very surely ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... held to bridge the gap between those two extremes in a felicitous way. A more purely artistic mood, instinct with the serene joy and clear warmth of Italian skies, combining a good deal of youthful buoyancy with a sort of quiet and unpretending philosophy, is here represented. And it is submitted that the little classical fancies which Mrs. Shelley never ventured ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... It is a felicitous arrangement of our organs of sense, that where one organ fails to convey to our inward man information regarding the outward world, another often steps in to supply its place, and perform the needful duty. We ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... any more felicitous in their treatment of other points in controversy. In speaking of his "plastide particles," Professor Bastian, the most defiant challenger of vitalistic propositions now living, says: "Certain of these particles, ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... a striking resemblance to what is related of Oliver Goldsmith. Goldsmith was a man of the most felicitous endowments. His prose flows with such ease, copiousness and grace, that it resembles the song of the sirens. His verses are among the most spirited, natural and unaffected in the English language. Yet he was not contented. If he saw a consummate dancer, he knew no reason why he should not do as well, ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... ROSEBERY's introduction of the travelling Star; a model of terse, felicitous language. Only one hitch here. Speaking of Mr. G.'s honoured age, he likened him to famous Doge of Venice, "old DANDOLO." ROSEBERY very popular in Edinburgh. But audience didn't like this; something like groan of horror ran ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... Disloyalty was no longer popular in Ontario or in any other province, in fact among all who had been disaffected a reaction and revulsion of feeling set in, in favor of intense loyalty to the Dominion, and a most felicitous union was effected between the Conservatives and Reformers. The common danger brought all parties together, forgetful of old prejudices, and the old bitter hatred grew less and less until its final extinction. Henceforth there was but one party with but one object in view—the ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius |
