"First-rate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Noel's birthday presents was a cricket ball. He cannot bowl for nuts, and it was a first-rate ball. So some days after the birthday Oswald offered him to exchange it for a coconut he had won at the fair, and two pencils (new), and a brand-new note-book. Oswald thought, and he still thinks, that this was a fair exchange, and so did Noel at the time, and he agreed to it, and was ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... "It's a first-rate place! Ain't it, Unc' Balla?" they said, as they entered the chamber where their mother and ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... veteran, like the late Mr. GOUGH, such a collection as may be found from p. 217 to p. 239 of this catalogue, would be considered a first-rate acquisition. I am aware that the gothic wainscot, and stained glass windows, of Enfield Study enshrined a still more exquisite topographical collection! But we are improved since the days of Mr. West; and every ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Professor Pillans, he became tutor in the family of Mr. John Donaldson, W.S., of whose house, 124 Princes Street, he became an inmate. "What I want," said Mr. Donaldson to the professor, "is a gentleman." "Well," replied Pillans, "I am sending you first-rate raw material; we shall see what you will make of it." He retained this situation till the close of his University course, to the entire satisfaction of his employer and his family, and with great comfort to himself—the salary being more than ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... the Loire, in every one who carries a key. It is true that at Langeais there is no great occasion to indulge in the tourist's weak- ness of dawdling; for the apartments, though they contain many curious odds and ends of, antiquity, are not of first-rate interest. They are cold and musty, indeed, with that touching smell of old furniture, as all apartments should be through which the insatiate American wanders in the rear of a bored domestic, pausing to stare at a faded tapestry ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... "Jerrold's no such slouch as you make him out. He's lazy, and he likes to spoon, and he puts up with a good deal of petting from the girls,—who wouldn't, if he could get it?—but he is jolly and big-hearted, and don't put on any airs,—with us, at least,—and the mess like him first-rate. 'Tain't his fault that he's handsome and a regular lady-killer. You must admit that he had a pretty tough four years of it up there at that cussed old Indian graveyard, and it's only natural he should enjoy getting here, where there are theatres and concerts and ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... boy; stick to your school, and I will see that you have a first-rate place when you have taken the medal. Haven't we got most to ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... compared with work that has no meaning, all great work is distinct,—compared with work that has narrow and stubborn meaning, all great work is indistinct; and if we find, on examining any picture closely, that it is all clearly to be made out, it cannot be, as painting, first-rate. There is no exception to this rule. EXCELLENCE OF THE HIGHEST KIND, WITHOUT ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... prejudice and ignorance, I do not mean to quarrel with them politically, so long as they force no quarrel on me. Their organised Christian State is nearer the organised State I want than our present plutocracy. Our ideals will fight some day, and it will be, I know, a first-rate fight, but to fight now is to let the enemy in. When we have got all we want in common, then and only then can we afford to differ. I have never believed that a Socialist Party could hope to form a Government in this ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... charming to hear how fond Mrs. Harewood was of Lance, and how the having such a companion had made it possible to keep her Willie at the cathedral school, where the mixture of lads was great, but the master first-rate. He thought highly of the promise of both; 'but to tell the truth,' said Mrs. Harewood, as she sat and fanned herself with her husband's trencher cap, looking more than ever like a frog in a strawberry bed, 'though ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all very odd. Verot is a first-rate inspector, a very sober-minded fellow; and he doesn't get frightened easily. You might go and fetch him. Meanwhile, I'll look ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... heartily. "I've been a little tough on you occasionally, that I'll admit, and if I've done too much, I'm sure I beg your pardon. I saw you had the right stuff in you that day when you stuck to the horse until you rode him, and I've always liked you first-rate since then. And I wouldn't worry about this last matter. You were green to the country, and were put down here without definite instructions. You trusted Davidson, of course, and got fooled in it; but then you just followed Bishop's lead in that. He'd been ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... sir. He's a first-rate hand with a comb and a pair of scissors. You let him do your head, sir and you ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... a first-rate boy, and I'd hate to hear worse of him. But I mustn't take your time over our affairs. I think ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... opposite revels in the ginger; he is the father of the ward, being forty-seven, a pathetic, time-worn, veldt-worn old reservist, utterly done up by the fatigues of the campaign. He has had a bad operation, and suffers a lot, but he is always "first-rate, couldn't be more comfortable," when the Sisters or doctors ask him; "as long as I never cross that there veldt no ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... "It depends upon the quality of the audience." An audience composed largely of trained concert-goers, many of whom are themselves musicians, can listen to a program composed of interesting works and presented by a first-rate artist even though it extends through a period of two and a half hours, although on general principles a two-hour program is probably long enough. But one made up mostly of people who have had very little musical training, who read little except the daily newspaper and the lightest sort of fiction, ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... all the go. Dr. Lucas said so when mother wrote to ask if she had better bring me home for advice," said Armine. "He knows all about Dr. Medlicott, and said he was first-rate, and they've been writing to each other about me. The doctor stethoscoped me all over, and then he did a map of my lungs, Cecil said, to send ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... behind, kicking the scum of London into the firing-line. Damn 'em. But I'll kick 'em right enough. Then there's Major Tixall—major, by gad—a slinking cut-throat, with a face the colour of pigs' liver. What he's majoring it for, Brocton and the devil alone know. The only good thing is we've got a first-rate drill sergeant. He's Brocton's toady, and for that I don't like him, but he does know his business, I must say that ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... interior, with the result that to-night all the matchboarding is completed. The floor linoleum is the only thing that remains to be put down; outside, the roof and ends have to be finished. Then there are several days of odd jobs for the carpenter, and all will be finished. It is a first-rate building in an extraordinarily sheltered spot; whilst the wind was raging at the ship this morning we enjoyed comparative peace. Campbell says there was an extraordinary change as ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Egyptian Astronomical Society has just finished constructing a new radio telescope. It's a first-rate instrument from which we expect great things. Your father and I were in at its birth, so to speak. We consulted on the initial designs during a meeting of the ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... as far as Dinah is concerned," he thought, as he laid his head on his pillow. "Herrick can make her believe anything he likes, she has such faith in him; he has only to say that it is a capital plan, and that I shall make a first-rate farmer, and she will be ready to take out her ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... "It will be first-rate fun," said Emily. "How they will search for us! It will be as good as a game of hide ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... in Germany, were scarcer among the Italians. For some days Rome talked of nothing else. The noise made by this affair doubtless brought the Dominican into public notice. He studied, collected all the Mallei, and other manuscript handbooks, and became a first-rate authority in the processes against demons. His Malleus was most likely composed during the twenty years between this adventure and the important mission entrusted to Sprenger by Pope ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... My ragged veterans. Crabb Robinson recorded in his diary that Lamb had the "finest collection of shabby books" he ever saw; "such a number of first-rate works in very bad condition is, I think, nowhere to be found." Leigh Hunt stated in his essay on "My Books" in The Literary Examiner, July 5, 1823, that Lamb's ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... subsequently persuaded that with four horses he could have a carriage dragged through the desert to the forest, which would be more comfortable for the ladies; and he made that arrangement in his own and their behalf. Freddy B. is a first-rate horseman, and an Arab steed was ordered for him. Mr. Buckle was determined to go in a thing called a mazetta, a sort of huge bedstead with curtains, borne on the back of a camel, big enough to carry a small family, in which he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... of discovery was of much more value than Nuno thought. He saw in it a first-rate slave hunting-ground, but it became the starting-point for trade and intercourse with the Negro States of the Senegal and the Gambia, to the south and east. It was here, in the bay of Arguin, where the long desert coast of the Sahara makes its last bend towards the ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... burst out Tom. "Pop's a first-rate fellow, and the captain has got to have more proof against him before I'll ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... and leave it all. Is there any difference? The transitoriness is the same, and the eternal consequences are eternal alike in both; and yet there is a very solemn sense in which the one man's life has utterly perished, and the other's abides. Suppose a man, educated to be a first-rate man of business, dies. Which of his trained faculties will he have scope for in that new order of things? Or a student, or a lawyer, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... doctor has been to see them. Mr. Rudolph, I said to myself, 'Ah! but this is the coalheaver doctor, this black man; he can feel their pulse without soiling his hands!' But never mind, color is skin deep; he seems to be a first-rate hand, all the same. He ordered a potion for Madame Morel, which relieved ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... at him, and you could see dozens of them stretch their fists above the sea of torch-lighted faces and shake them at him; and it was all a wild picture, and stirring to look at; and the priest was a first-rate part of it, too, for he stood there in the strong glare and looked down on those angry people in the blandest and most indifferent way, so that while you wanted to burn him at the stake, you still admired the aggravating coolness of him. And his winding-up was the coolest thing of all. ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... 1836 was not an eventful one at home; the Whig Ministry were too weak to carry measures of first-rate importance, and could hardly have maintained themselves in power against the formidable opposition of Sir Robert Peel without the support of O'Connell. Parliament was chiefly occupied by the consideration ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... letters and diary the perpetual hiatus, and asterisks, and initials are exceedingly tantalising; but altogether it is very amusing. As to Byron, I have never had but one opinion about his poetry, which I think of first-rate excellence; an enormous heresy, of course, more particularly with those whose political taste rests upon the same foundation that their religious creed does—that of having been taught what to admire in the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... picturesque satirical description of Mandeville; if all such comparisons were not impertinent. A really great and original write sense, Sterne was not a wit, nor Shakespear a poet. It is easy to describe second-rate talents, because they fall into a class and enlist under a standard; but first-rate powers defy calculation or comparison, and can be defined only by themselves. They are sui generis, and make the class to which they belong. I have tried half a dozen times to describe Burke's style ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... a first-rate football player if he had the chance," put in Randy. "I've seen him play, and ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... in the walls of S. Nicolo. There are several ruined churches which appear to be of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. Some of them have been altered at a later period, but they contain nothing of first-rate interest. Nona had sixteen in the Middle Ages. We walked out to S. Nicolo, an early church, which crowns a hillock thickly sown with asphodels in blossom, some little distance from the road and a mile or so from Nona. It ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... assent, though she expressed no direct dissent. As regarded her own feelings, she would much preferred to have been left to live through her misery alone; but she could not but appreciate the kindness which endeavoured to throw over her and hers in their trouble the aegis of first-rate county respectability. She was saved from the necessity of giving a direct answer to this suggestion by the return of Mrs Robarts and Grace herself. The door was opened slowly, and they crept ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... talents of Cato as an orator something will be said in the next section. His miscellaneous writings, though none of them are historical, may be noticed here. Quintilian [27] attests the many-sidedness of his genius: "M. Cato was at once a first-rate general, a philosopher, an orator, the founder of history, the most thorough master of law and agriculture." The work on agriculture we have the good fortune to possess; or rather a redaction of it, slightly modernized and incomplete, but nevertheless containing a large amount of really genuine ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... if I can see any way out of it but to make you up a shakedown in the longboat. She's got nothing in her except her own gear—which we can clear out. The jolly-boat is turned over on top of her, making a capital roof to your house, so that you'll sleep dry and comfortable. Why, she'll make a first-rate cabin for ye, and you'll have her all to yourself. There's some boards on the top of the galley that we can lay fore and aft on the boat's thwarts, and there's plenty of sails in the sail locker to make ye a bed. Why," he exclaimed, in admiration of his own ingenuity, "when all's done you'll ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... that were sure to affect the decision. Early in his experience as a lawyer he had to be content with fees that seem absurdly small; once, he rode from Springfield to Bloomington to argue a case, and got but five dollars for his services. But he was a first-rate man of business, and soon had a good income ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... accustomed them to bear the noise of trumpets and drums, and of firing, without starting, tired them out by long rides the evening before every review, and bit his lips to prevent himself from laughing when people declared that General Daumont de Croisailles was a first-rate rider, who was really ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... grades of the diplomatic service in European countries. Until lately we had no highest grade answering to that of "ambassador," perhaps because when our diplomatic service was organized the United States did not yet rank among first-rate powers, and could not expect to receive ambassadors. Great powers, like France and Germany, send ambassadors to each other, and envoys to inferior powers, like Denmark or Greece or Guatemala. When ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... hastily because I doubted. "She's sitting over a fire, toasting her toes, and gossiping and having a cup of tea, or whatever people like that use for an equivalent in these parts." I suppressed the unwelcome thought that a woman living here alone ran a first-rate chance of getting her throat cut by strolling vagrants. "Shall we have to wait until she comes back?" I asked. "Then let's sit down. I choose ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... another at all; and I suppose that is just what they wanted to do. Then again: all the other gods practise some useful profession, either here or on earth; for instance, I am a prophet, Asclepius is a doctor, you are a first-rate gymnast and trainer, Artemis ushers children into the world; now what are these two going to do? surely two such great fellows are not to have ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... his guests found themselves charmed with his discourse, and felt inclined to vote him a man of first-rate intellect. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... he had published two volumes of Macaronea, was praise indeed. His theory was, that as Macaronics were the ultra-extravagance of poetry, he who wrote most recklessly in them did best; in fact, that they should excel in first-rate BADNESS; and from this point of view it is possible that Breitmann's Latin lyric is not devoid of merit, since assuredly nobody ever wrote a worse. The late LORD LYTTON, or "Bulwer," was also kind enough to take an interest ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... first-rate court should, indeed, be the minister of foreign affairs for his country on a small scale; and we know well enough that the duties devolving on a minister for foreign affairs are grave, are ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... their tracks, found them at a small water-hole passed by us yesterday. Saddled up and reached camp at eleven o'clock, and found all well. Yesterday morning the dogs caught an emu, off which we made a first-rate breakfast, not having had anything to eat since the previous ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... equalled Aristotle in the range of his intellectual powers; but in point of intensity of grasp in any one subject, he has many rivals; so that to obtain his equal, we have only to take two or three first-rate moderns. ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... preacher Schubart was at first very popular; he imitated Cramer; but at the same time manifested first-rate pulpit talents of his own. These, however, he entirely neglected to improve: presuming on his gifts and their acceptance, he began to 'play such fantastic tricks before high Heaven,' as made his audience sink to yawning, or explode in downright laughter. He often preached extempore; ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... first-rate bonnet, as I think you would prove, I could afford to give from forty ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... been able to feel that it was best that she should not have a bicycle. Now that the new governess had come and had proved so "horrid," she felt it still less. "Half the money she gets would buy me a first-rate safety," she had thought often and often and often, as she ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... green at the line—green ye know, Sar Chawls, reely green?' 'No, sir,' says the old naboob, ''tis blue.' 'Whoy, ye don't sa—ay so!' says the young chap, pullin' a long face." "Why, Jim," another hand drops in, "that's the very chap as sings them first-rate sea-songs of a night! I seed him myself come out o' the mizen-chains!" "Hallo!" says another at this, "then there's some'at queer i' the wind!" I thought he gave rather a weather-look aloft, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... Of late years there has been a great change in this respect, and some of the presses produce beautiful vernacular work, and soon their English printing will leave little to be desired. Bookbinding also shows sufficient promise to indicate that first-rate results would be forthcoming if there was more demand for it. Some of the more enterprising newspaper proprietors are issuing festal numbers of their publication in imitation of our Christmas numbers, ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... our head engineer. He's a regular first-rate fellow! He can do anything;' my hero-worship and my pride in my chief all coming into play. Besides, if I was not clever and book-learned myself, it was something to belong to some one ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... dear boy, Captain Barker is rather short of apprentices, and he has no objection to taking you in place of one if you will make yourself useful. He is a first-rate seaman. You will imbibe a vast deal of useful knowledge and gain a free passage, and when we reach the Indies I shall be able, I doubt not, by means of my connections, to assist you in the first steps of what, I trust, will ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... gallant general, with his elegant wife and accomplished daughter; a celebrated commander in the navy; two highly distinguished members of Congress, and even an ex-president. Also several of the most eminent among the American literati, and two first-rate artists. ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... unused, but were of an obsolete pattern; they were single-loaders, and fresh supplies of cartridges would be nearly as difficult to procure for them as for the Italian. The Austrian and German patterns were both first-rate; the rifles were up-to-date clip-loaders, and, what was the most important consideration, ammunition for them would be easily procurable in the United Kingdom or from America ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... grounds—looking, for example, to the position of Locke and Newton in the science of the last century, and to that of Darwin in our own—it may be argued that there is some quality in English thought which makes them strike out as many, if not more, first-rate and original suggestions than nations of greater scientific culture and more diffused scientific interest. In both cases I believe the reason of the English originality to be that government by discussion quickens and enlivens ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... he's first-rate blood, and a genuine sprig of the chivalry. He's a devil of a secessionist, sir. If ye were to hear that fellow make a stump speech on States' rights, you'd think him a Samson on Government. His father is the head of a good mercantile house here; ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... "First-rate," I said, when I had finished. "Not a weak line in it. Not a single weak line. And there's nothing to prevent its being taken even in this d——d England, I think. The title's the worst part. You'll ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... I present any lady Whose conduct is shady Or smacking of doubtful propriety; When Virtue would quash her I take and whitewash her And launch her in first-rate society. I recommend acres Of clumsy dressmakers - Their fit and their finishing touches; A sum in addition They pay for permission To say that ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... ought to have got on very well together; one finding beef and mutton for dinner, and the other potatoes and greens. They might even have paid each other handsome compliments across the table. Abel might have said "My dear Cain, these vegetables are first-rate," and Cain might have replied, "My dear Abel, I never ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... when his turn came to be introduced, "strange as it may sound, I know less about my nephew than you yourself, but if he resembles his father in character as he does in appearance, you've chosen well, and let me add, ma'am, that he seems to have made a first-rate selection ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... hold out a dangerous lure to decoy the unwary to their ruin, by making them part with the earnings of their labour for a prospect of imaginary wealth. The great principle of the project was an evil of first-rate magnitude; it was to raise artificially the value of the stock, by exciting and keeping up a general infatuation, and by promising dividends out of funds which could never be adequate to the purpose. In a prophetic spirit he added, that if the plan succeeded, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... paper declared that these rumors were entirely unfounded, for the reason that "at the present time all our Government departments are weighed down with problems of first-rate national importance which brook no delay, [1] and they could scarcely find time to busy themselves with such matters as the Jewish question, which requires mature consideration ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... ha!" he merrily shouted. "You surely look ill, professor! I'd like to have your picture now! Ha, ha, ha! It would make a first-rate picture ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... the Schwartz vedding, an' dere vas dat blizzard. He owned up he vas new, an' vanted some vun vhat knew to tell him vhat vas goin' on. 'Course I could do it. Me an' my vife give him addresses an' a lot of items. He vorked 'em up good. Dot up-town page is gettin' first-rate. He says he don' know vhat he'd have done if he hadn't turned ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... ever ceases. They are about thirty-five miles away. The whole country is quite peaceful, and the crops coming on splendidly. The farm produces delicious brown eggs—and you should see—and taste—the omelets the farmer's wife makes! Coffee too—first-rate! How these French women work! Our men are always helping them, and the children hang round our ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... appearance the Afridi is a fine, tall, athletic highlander with a long, gaunt face, high nose and cheek-bones, and a fair complexion. On his own hillside he is one of the finest skirmishers in the world, and in the Indian army makes a first-rate soldier, but he is apt to be home-sick when removed from the air of his native mountains. In character the Afridi has obtained an evil name for ferocity, craft and treachery, but Colonel Sir Robert ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... tongue, horrid thing," said Bevis; "I will not listen to anything you have to say. Here is a brick, this will do, first-rate, to pound you with, and now I think of it, I will come a little nearer so as to ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... Terry, he's a first-rate engineer. I'm amazed. He was with us ten years before you entered the employ—worked up from oiler; in fact, I must have an explanation of your action ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... "Double-Marriage" of Prussia with England; which once had such a sound in the ear of Rumor, and still bulks so big in the archives of the Eighteenth Century; which worked such woe to all parties concerned in it; and is, in fact, a first-rate nuisance in the History of that poor Century, as written hitherto. Nuisance demanding urgently to be abated;—were that well possible at present. Which, alas, it is not, to any great degree; there being an important young Friedrich inextricably wrapt up in it, to whom it was of such ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... not be beauties," continued Jim; "and you can't exactly call them racers; but, somehow, they keep afloat, and one can manage them first-rate." ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... this was just what he desired, for the old Indian was not a little vain of his skill, and he wished to make a show of it in the eyes of his companions. His vanity, however, was the more pardonable, as he was in reality a first-rate shot, which he proved to the satisfaction of everybody within half-an-hour. The instrument had scarcely been finished and laid aside, when a loud screaming and chattering was heard in the air, and on looking up a flock of large birds was ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... sometimes takes a series of representations to act out one piece in its entirety. The Japanese are far in advance of the Chinese in their scenery and properties, and their pieces are sometimes capitally got up: a revolving stage enables them to shift from one scene to another with great rapidity. First-rate actors receive as much as a thousand riyos (about L300) as their yearly salary. This, however, is a high rate of pay, and many a man has to strut before the public for little more than his daily rice; to a ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... of a Liverpool privateer. He talked well and fluently, and with an air of command and decision, taking the lead in the company, although it might have been considered that he was not by any means the principal person in it. The owner, during the evening, informed me that he was a first-rate officer, of great personal courage, and that he had made a great deal of money, which he had squandered away almost as ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... of all the hares and rabbits. Hares are almost formed on purpose to be good sport, and make a jolly good dish, a pleasant addition to the ceaseless round of mutton and beef to which the dead level of civilisation reduces us. Coursing is capital, the harriers first-rate. Now every man who walks about the fields is more or less at heart a sportsman, and the farmer having got the right of the gun he is not unlikely to become to some extent a game preserver. When they could not get it they wanted to destroy it, now they have got it they want to keep ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... everything and anything for money, and selling our souls and bodies by the pound and the inch after wasting half the day haggling over the price. Decidedly, whether you think Jesus was God or not, you must admit that he was a first-rate political economist. ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... the thing,' says she, very positively, 'until the owner turns up and redeems it;' which he never did, being, as I discovered, a strolling portrait painter very much down on his luck. So there the mystery remained. But (as I was telling you), though a first-rate manager, my poor dear wife had a number of romantic notions; and often she has said to me after I'd shut up shop, 'If wishes grew on brambles, Ebenezer, it's not a pawnbroker's wife I'd be at this moment.' 'Well, my dear,' I'd ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... of the arguments on the Erie case before the Assembly Committee on Railroads, Mr. BURT is said to have stated his belief that Mr. CROUCH is a contributor to PUNCHINELLO. Our best thanks are due to Mr. BURT for his "first-rate notice," though, at the same time, we wish to inform him that no contributor of the name of CROUCH has hitherto made his appearance in these columns. To speak plainly, PUNCHINELLO never Crouches. As he has no "slouch" about him, so he has ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... Madeira, but I must explain that the sledges had wooden runners, and that the road was paved with a black stone that was very smooth. We went at a creditable pace down the steep inclines, each sledge being drawn or pushed by three or four swarthy natives, who seemed to be possessed of first-rate legs ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... him in something, so that he might have had a couple of rooms "parterre"—as the Germans call the rez-de-chaussee—and could have been as comfortable as he pleased. But no one ever attempted to account for Dr. Claudius at all. He was a credit to the University, where first-rate men are scarce,—for Heidelberg is not a seat of very great learning; and no one troubled to inquire why he did not return to his native country when he had obtained his "Phil.D." Only, if he meant to spend the rest of his life ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... it give promise to its friends that a new political power had been born into the world. The general tone was more literary than political; and though it contained much that was well worth reading, none of its articles were of first-rate quality. ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... Hardman, if not a first-rate poet, is a gallant soldier, and I rejoice to see his name in the Army List for March, 1854. I cannot ascertain at what period he joined the army, but he was present at the cavalry engagements of Sahagun and Benevente, on December 20th and 27th, 1808, on the retreat of Sir John Moore's army ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... respects, of whose life we have the record. She had a powerful intellect of the practical order. She wrote admirable descriptive psychology, possessed a will equal to any emergency, great talent for politics and business, a buoyant disposition, and a first-rate literary style. She was tenaciously aspiring, and put her whole life at the service of her religious ideals. Yet so paltry were these, according to our present way of thinking, that (although I know that others have been moved differently) I confess that my only feeling ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... brilliant exterior; excelled in all martial exercises; rode well, fenced well, managed his lance to perfection, was a first-rate marksman with the arquebuse, and added the accomplishment of being an excellent draughtsman. He was bold and chivalrous, even to temerity; courted adventure, and was always in the front of danger. He was a knighterrant, in short, in the most extravagant sense of the term, and, "mounted on ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... prevailing dulness of Jamaica life was found in a bar of first-rate talent. There was so much wealth passing from hand to hand, and so many disputed titles in the continual mutations of ownership among the estates under the reckless system of conducting them prevalent, that the disciples of the law found ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... would like to know how many of the boasted literary and religious people of Edinburgh have bought and read Father Coleridge's delightful book. A hundred? Ten? Five? I doubt it. Or how many have so much as borrowed from the circulating library Mrs. Cunninghame Graham's first-rate book? Of Teresa's Letters, that greatest living authority on Teresa says—'That long series of epistolary correspondence, so enchanting in the original. It is in her letters that Teresa is at her best. They reveal all her shrewdness ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... of the pack-outfit we bought at an auction sale in rather a peculiar manner. About sixty head of Arizona horses of the C. A. Bar outfit were being sold. Toward the close of the afternoon they brought out a well-built stocky buckskin of first-rate appearance except that his left flank was ornamented with five different brands. The ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... near and close together as they can. The most numerous occur at the highest part of the hill now worked. The article is much prized for ornaments by the Chinese and Singphos, but is never of much value; five rupees being a good price for a first-rate pair of earrings. Meinkhoon is visited by parties of Chinese for the purpose of procuring this article. There are at present here a Lupai Sooba and a few men, from a place three or four days' journey beyond the ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... bearings, Philip came to the conclusion he must be either a seafaring man or an escaped lunatic. So he answered him to the point. "I should think," he said quietly, "as Miss Blake's are extremely respectable lodgings, in a first-rate quarter, and with a splendid view, you'll probably have to pay somewhere about ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... men are first-rate. It is impossible to pay too high a tribute to the manner in which they settled down to this job of submarine hunting, and to the intelligence, resource, and courage which they have exhibited. They came on the scene at the opportune moment. Our men had been in the mill for many ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... some of us you devoted yourself to high art, Gandish,' Mr. Smee says, and sips the wine and puts it down again, making a face. It was not first-rate tipple, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... little, to be more decorous in passing by the stranger. He stops to look at them with a pleased expression of countenance, and then says, addressing the driver, with a face of much seriousness, "That's a first-rate horse of yours. Would you like to sell him? He seems to be very spirited." The horse immediately begins to prance and caper. "You must have paid a high price for him. You must take good care of him. Give him plenty of oats, and ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... town, and then stood alone, and notwithstanding that many large and rich ones in the same business have since been added, the original company have so progressed in fame and fortune, as to be now considered one of the first-rate breweries in Europe; and by the improved quality of their porter have, in a great degree, excluded the English from the West India market, their porter getting the preference there, as well as in Bristol and Liverpool, to which places large quantities are annually sent by that company. ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... of Leonardo's painting must ever deplore, since it lured him into a thousand side-paths; for the vastness of scope of Michelangelo, or even the all-embracing curiosity of Albrecht Duerer; it must be seen that as a painter he covered more ground than any first-rate master of the sixteenth century. While in more than one branch of the painter's art he stood forth supreme and without a rival, in most others he remained second to none, alone in great pictorial decorations of the monumental order ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... to eat a buffalo steak now first-rate," said Dave, smacking his lips. "It would touch the spot and chase ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... them," replied Madame Desvarennes. "You have made enemies. Without speaking of projects which I had formed, I may say that my daughter has had offers from the best folks in Paris; from first-rate firms! Our ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might. I could see them first-rate, but they couldn't see me. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... He endeavoured to make men familiar with the wisdom of the ancients by a collection of 1451 adages selected from their works. His Colloquies, the most popular book of his age, sold in 24,000 copies. At first he was more a scholar than a divine; and though he learnt Greek late, and was never a first-rate Hellenist, published editions of the classics. In later life the affairs of religion absorbed him, and he lived for the idea that reform of the Church depended on a better knowledge of early Christianity, in other words, on better self-knowledge, which could only result from a ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... island's population emigrated, mostly to Canada and the US. Limited home rule from Denmark was granted in 1874 and complete independence attained in 1944. Literacy, longevity, income, and social cohesion are first-rate by world standards. ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... are a genius, and contrive to conceal the fact, you really deserve to get on in the world, and you will do so, if only you keep on the level road. Remember always that the world is a place where second-rate people mostly succeed: not fools, nor first-rate people. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... used to drive a handsome team of four horses, and, of course, attracted a good deal of attention whenever he made his appearance in the streets. On one occasion the late Lord Sefton, who was through life a first-rate whip, drove up to Heywood's bank in his usual dashing style. Dr. Solomon was tooling along behind his lordship, and desirous of emulating his mode of handling the reins and whip, gave the latter such a flourish as to get the lash so firmly fixed round his ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... difficult, and, when successfully employed, is more artistic, than the direct method. But seldom is either used to the exclusion of the other; and it would be possible to illustrate by successive quotations from any first-rate novel, like "The Egoist" for example, how the same characteristics are portrayed first by the one and ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... lad carried a first-rate sword and a splendid coat of mail; and when they found me, my brave father told me what had happened, and what the magistrates had said to him. Then he kissed me on the forehead and both eyes, and gave me his hearty blessing, saying: "May the power of goodness of God be ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... a beautiful rifle," he said. "Its only fault is that it is rather heavy, but it shoots all the better for it. It is evidently a French gun, I should say by a first-rate maker, built probably for some French officer who knew what he was about. It is a good workmanlike piece, and, when you learn to hold it straight, you ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... is most charming, and utterly sincere. He's got the entree everywhere here. He is a first-rate scientist, by the way. But, Monsignor, I'd sooner not talk about him. Do ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... very little concern. Altogether I felt very strongly disposed to close with Brown's offer, the only really serious obstacle in the way being the fact that I felt I had a duty to perform to the three seamen who had formed part of our little company in the gig. First-rate fellows they were, all three of them, knowing their vocation to its smallest detail, and thoroughly at home aboard a ship in blue water, though ashore they were as guileless and helpless as babes, ready to fall an easy prey to the first ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... the iron-barred opening through which came light and air, for any purposes of escape it might as well not have been there, for its lower edge was nearly fourteen feet from the ground; and although Paco, who was a first-rate leaper, did, in his desperation, and in the early days of his captivity, make several violent attempts to jump up and catch hold of the grating, they were all, as may be supposed, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... the memory of Lord George, and his book affords material for an impartial judgment. At that period the noble lord was a distinguished patron of the turf: all England knew him as a sporting gentleman, a first-rate judge of horses, and an extensive winner on the course. In allusion to his habits in these respects, it became a popular sneer that the Conservatives required "a stable mind," after the versatile performances of Sir Robert Peel, and they had at last found such in Lord George. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... aware of the—I would say, desolate—position of our young friend, offers to place her at a first-rate establishment where her education shall be completed, where her comfort shall be secured, where her reasonable wants shall be anticipated, where she shall be eminently qualified to discharge her duty ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... at the door, saying good-by to a first-rate customer, when Hiram came up with his cart, and directed his two reams of ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Frank," he asked suddenly one morning, when his master was evidently rather gloomily disposed—"what say you to a tramp to the diggings? wouldn't it be famous? We could take it easy; there's first-rate fishing in the Murray, I hear. We could take our horses, our fishing-tackle, our guns, our pannikins, and our tether-ropes; we must have plenty of powder and shot, and then we shall be nice and independent. If you'd draw out, sir, what you please ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... and exquisite beauty the Jonquil has long been considered one of the most valuable of the Narciss family for cultivation in pots, and it is also a first-rate border and woodland flower. When forced, the treatment should agree as nearly as possible with that prescribed for the Narcissus. Four or five bulbs may be planted in ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... scene or a concatenation of dramatic scenes. Let the novelist first, therefore, with scrupulous fidelity and with minute regard for the possible significance of every observable detail, fill his notebooks, amass his materials, master his subject. After Flaubert, a first-rate sociological investigator is three-fourths of a novelist. The rest of the task is to arrange and set forth these facts so that they shall tell the truth about life impressively, in scene and dramatic spectacle, the meaning of which shall be implicit ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... boy. They'll come for 'ee fast enough when they want 'ee." No one, least of all perhaps his mother, could take quite seriously that little square short-footed man, born when she was just seventeen. Sure of work because he was first-rate with every kind of beast, he was yet not looked on as being quite 'all there.' He could neither read nor write, had scarcely ever been outside the parish, and then only in a shandrydan on a Club treat, and he knew no more of the world than the native of a small South Sea Island. His life ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... wage. A man must be worth his salt and something over to get it, and will not do so unless labour is scarce and in much demand. Those who contract, or do work by the piece, often make as much and more if they are first-rate workers; and that kind of engagement is preferred by both employers and ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... better that a girl should return from school a first-rate reader, than a first-rate performer on the pianoforte. The accomplishment, in its perfection, would give more pleasure. The voice of song is not sweeter than the voice of eloquence; and there may be eloquent readers, as well as eloquent ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... how he liked him. His reply was, "I like your father, Jack, for he is a straightforward, honest, good-tempered man, and, moreover, has a good natural judgment. I think it a great pity that such a man as he is should be so early in life lost, as it were, to the country. He is a first-rate seaman; and although there are many like him, still there are none to spare. However, if his country loses, he may himself gain, by being so soon called away from a service of great temptation. The sailor who has fought for his country, Jack, has much to be thankful for when he ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... "Yes; a first-rate meal. And I think she will be a good mother. She seems to have any amount of milk—more than is comfortable ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... was very comfortable where I was, settin' in the hotel room there, smoking my pipe. GREEN the Guide gave us, "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," in first-rate style—he is a singer, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... urgent, pressing, critical, instant. paramount, essential, vital, all-absorbing, radical, cardinal, chief, main, prime, primary, principal, leading, capital, foremost, overruling; of vital &c. importance. in the front rank, first-rate; superior &c. 33; considerable &c. (great) 31; marked &c. v.; rare &c. 137. significant, telling, trenchant, emphatic, pregnant; tanti[Lat]. Adv. materially &c. adj.; in the main; above all, , par excellence, to crown all, to beat all. Phr. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... school education. He could neither read nor write. But he was not ignorant. He knew well how to do the work intrusted to him, and was a first-rate man ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... she answered; "and I know something of your foothill folks. I've been a book agent. Oh, indeed? You know that. Well, I did first-rate, but that was the book, which sold itself—a beautiful book. Maybe you know it—The Milk of Human Kindness? When we're better acquainted, I'd like to read you," she looked hard at Ajax, "some o' ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... the family intimating that stains of blood were on my undershirts (second hand), I was amused to see Mrs. J. lifting them with the tongs. They have been thoroughly washed, and prove to be a first-rate article. I am proud of them, for they ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... innovation that machinery is freely used, make no essential difference, provided always that there is no semblance of a keel. But once the keel is introduced the whole constructional idea is changed and the ways of savages are left behind. A first-rate keeled canoe, built of white cedar, brass shod and copper fastened, fitted with air tanks and life-line, a lateen sail and portage handles, is the very perfection {26} of a handy little cruiser for all sorts of inland waters. One like this, but built of basswood, proved quite serviceable ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... hitched her up to a plough," went on Fulham, not heeding, "we shouldn't be overtaxing her physical strength any more than she overtaxes her mental strength when she tries—the ordinary woman, I mean, like Miss Vroom—to keep up to the pace set by men of first-rate caliber." ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... in a way. I have been to dine with one or two of our neighbours, and we had some really first-rate music; and then, you see, we live at a long distance from the ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... being tasteful in their potages and entrees, do not stultify their ideas for lack of that element which Horace, Hafiz, and Byron have praised so much. The champagne—think of champagne Cliquot in East Africa!—Lafitte, La Rose, Burgundy, and Bordeaux were of first-rate quality, and the meek and lowly eyes of the fathers were not a little brightened under the vinous influence. Ah! those fathers understand life, and appreciate its duration. Their festive board drives the African jungle fever ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... see you again, Mr. Sawyer," and the Deacon's grasp was a firm one. "I didn't get up to the Town Hall that night, for I didn't feel first-rate and Sophia didn't want to go alone, but Abner told me what you did and said, and I reckon added a ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... very glad to have him with me. He will be one on whom I can depend on a pinch, and I shall like to think, when I am far away, that you are remembering me and him in your prayers, while you sit out here selling your apples. And here, Mrs Sunnyside, Bill's outfit, I know, is not very first-rate; take these three guineas, and spend them as you think best. You know as well as I do what he wants. And here is ten shillings in addition, just to put a little lining into Bill's and his brothers' and sisters' insides. A good meal or two will cheer ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... Rio Janeiro friend to-morrow morning, if you like,' said Smithson, presently, 'and tell him to send a first-rate skipper and crew. Lady Lesbia has made up her mind to see St. Malo Regatta, and with such a sacred charge I can't be ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... for the most part doggerel. We should have a first-rate choir and anthems—not necessarily taken from the Bible. Why should not Shakspere be sung in churches—Shakspere's divine poetry instead of the nonsense-rhymes that people call hymns? Shakspere and Milton; Shelley ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... as a mate, and could put them up to a good deal more than they usually knew about the Bush. Norah was invariably Jim's first thought. He was a big, quiet fellow, very like his father; not over-brilliant at books, but a first-rate sport, and without a trace of meanness in his generous nature. At school he was worshipped by the boys—was not he captain of the football team, stroke of the eight, and best all-round athlete?—and liked by the masters, who found ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... driven up the harbour, under the guns of the fort of Puntal, where the admiral's ship and another first-rate were set on fire by their own crews, and the rest run aground. Of these, two fine ships fell into the hands of the English; and the lord admiral having refused to accept of any ransom for the remainder, saying that ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the windows, Norbert saw a man, stout, robust, bald and red-faced, wearing a mustache and slight beard. His clothes were evidently made by a first-rate tailor, but ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... Stevenson is always directly or indirectly preaching a sermon—enforcing a moral—as though he could not help it. "He would rise from the dead to preach a sermon." He wrote some first-rate fables, and might indeed have figured to effect as a moralist-fabulist, as truly he was from beginning to end. There was a bit of Bunyan in him as well as of AEsop and Rousseau and Thoreau—the mixture ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... every impediment in its way. It is surprising to hear how Palmerston is spoken of by those who know him well officially—the Granvilles, for example. Lady Granville, a woman expert in judging, thinks his capacity first-rate; that it approaches to greatness from his enlarged views, disdain of trivialities, resolution, decision, confidence, and above all his contempt of clamour and abuse. She told me that Madame de Flahault had a ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... infinitive with those two tenses. In the midst of this damaging criticism Doederlein quotes Walther, who has also commented upon the Annals, but in terms of enthusiastic commendation, for he praises such writing as first-rate workmanship—"adjustments by design," says the ingenious German; not, of course, the unconscious errors, that a modern European might make in a case of forgery: the discovery reminds me of Mr. Ruskin's unqualified eulogies of everything ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... of the Exchequer," said Sir Raffle, speaking very loud and with much authority, "that unless he had some first-rate man to send from elsewhere I could name a fitting candidate. 'Sir Raffle,' he said, 'I mean to keep it in the office, and therefore shall be glad of your opinion.' 'In that case, Mr Chancellor,' said I, 'Mr Crosbie must be the man.' 'Mr Crosbie shall be ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... me (a passenger, God wot!) Whether my vessel be first-rate or not? The ship itself may make a better figure, But I that sail am neither less nor bigger. I neither strut with every favouring breath, 300 Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth. In power, wit, figure, virtue, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... is given to gambling, it would seem," the valet went on. "And, moreover, she is under the thumb of a third-rate actor in a suburban theatre, whom, for decency's sake, she calls her godson. She is a first-rate cook, it would seem, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... have a potato with me," said Kathleen; "they are first-rate when you don't put a knife or fork ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... man," said Ted, when he had disposed the last bit of drapery according to an ingenious colour-scheme, in which Audrey's hair sounded a brilliant staccato note—"a first-rate artist—who was asked to decorate a lady's room. What do you think he did? He made her take all the pictures off the walls, and he covered them over with little halfpenny Japanese fans, and stuck little halves and quarters ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... things—rocks, plants, and animals; and one with a mind so keenly set upon explaining these things and assigning them to their causes, that none of his observations are trivial, but all of value and many of first-rate importance. The book is addressed, as are all of Darwin's books, to the general reader. It seemed to be natural to him to try and explain his observations and reasonings which led to them and followed ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... Another first-rate novel by a woman! The plot well conceived and worked out, the characters individualized and clear-cut, and the story so admirably told that you are hurried along for two hours and a half with a smile often breaking out ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... his grandfather had gone about the same business; and as lonely at heart as a man can well be—the wound of love unhealed, the wound of friendship still deep and unconsoled. To bring social peace and progress, as he understood them, to this bit of Midland England a man of first-rate capacities was perhaps sacrificing what ambition would have called his opportunities. Yet neither was he a hero to himself nor to the Buckinghamshire farmers and yokels who depended on him. They had liked ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
