"First-rate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had everywhere won respect for his personal probity in the administration of Indian affairs, and there must also have been some convincing qualities in a personality which drew from Napoleon at St. Helena the remark: "I do not believe that Cornwallis was a man of first-rate abilities: but he had talent, great probity, sincerity, and never broke his word.... He was a man ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... I would not trust my family to his care. While we were up the St. Johns, he put the Islander in first-rate condition. He has had her boiler and machinery overhauled, and declares she has the best engine he ever saw in a steamer. I went down to see her as soon as we arrived. He has engaged a steward, waiters, and others, and I think ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... "These here are first-rate shoes, Miss Baker. Look here, Mister Grannis, get on to the shoes Miss Baker gi' me. You ain't got a pair you don't want, have you? You two people have less junk than any one else in the flat. How do you manage, Mister Grannis? You old bachelors ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... the administration of the Word and Sacraments, comes the education of the young in the principles of the Christian faith. The New Zealand Church is happy in possessing two secondary boys' schools of first-rate importance—Christ's College Grammar School in the South Island, and the Wanganui Collegiate School in the North. Both were founded in the early 'fifties, and endowed with lands which now yield a substantial revenue. ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... (we told him that the "Sydney" must be kept for Sundays) was a perfect fund of amusement in his zealous practice. He knew as much about the matter as a cow might, and was rather less active. But if perseverance could have made a cricketer, he would have turned out a first-rate one. Not content with two or three hours of it every fine evening, when we all sallied down to the marsh, followed by every idler in Glyndewi, he used to disappear occasionally in the mornings, and for some days puzzled us ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... whom he at once turned into soldiers to fight for him, so Nassar was enlisted into his service. "Do you know," he wrote, "I have forgiven the head slaver Nassar, and am employing him; he is not worse than others, and these slavers have been much encouraged to do what they have done. He is a first-rate man, and does a great deal of work. He was in prison for two weeks, and was then forgiven." Other quotations could be made from his letters showing that he had formed a high opinion of the abilities ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... men educated in Irish hedge schools, as they were called, have proved themselves to be better classical scholars and mathematicians, generally speaking, than any proportionate number of those educated in our first-rate academies. The Munstor masters have long been, and still are, particularly celebrated for making excellent classical and ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... which they existed to an even greater extent, but became very apparent when brought into contact with a power whose few officers knew how to play their own parts very nearly to perfection, and, something equally important, knew how to make first-rate crews out of what was already good raw material. Finally, a large proportion of James' abuse of the Americans sufficiently refutes itself, and perhaps Cooper's method of contemptuously disregarding him was the best; but no harm can follow from ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the hermit demeaned himself much like a first-rate critic of the present day at a new opera. He reclined back upon his seat, with his eyes half shut; now, folding his hands and twisting his thumbs, he seemed absorbed in attention, and anon, balancing his expanded ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... man as Roderick Vawdrey. That is a kind of question which has been asked very often in the history of men and women. Lord Mallow could find no satisfactory answer thereto. Mr. Vawdrey was well enough in his way—he was good-looking, sufficiently well-bred; he rode well, was a first-rate shot, and could give an average player odds at billiards. Surely these were small claims to the love of a tenth muse, a rarely accomplished and perfect woman. If Lord Mallow, in his heart of hearts, ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... saw a correspondent did in a recent number of the Country Gentleman, that the cause is want of cleanliness or neglect in some way. But I can vouch that that is not so. I have been in yards where everything was first-rate, where the cleanliness was almost painfully complete, where no fault in the way of neglect could be found, and yet the gapes were there; and on the other hand, I have known places where every condition seemed favorable ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... when he walked fast. I know now that he was the lord of all the other men about that place, that he lived in the house which looked over the sea, and that the boy and girl who put me in with the yellow-toothed rabbit were his children. He was what the farmers called "a first-rate all-round sportsman," which means, my friend—but what is ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... strangers to see you," I said, after our greetings were over. "You remember our cousin Jack Haultaught; he insisted on coming, he is a first-rate capital fellow, and ...
— The African Trader - The Adventures of Harry Bayford • W. H. G. Kingston
... to be a first-rate type of an Americanized Irishman. His wife was a Scotch woman. They had a family of five or six children, two of them grown-up daughters,—modest, comely young women as you would find anywhere. The elder of the two ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... a very cheerful little affair. The scouts sat on the roof of the cabin in the sunshine, with their cups beside them, and their hostess spread butter liberally on the slices of a large cottage loaf, and encouraged them to eat heartily, and set them a first-rate example herself. ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... business—but was regarded as a public calamity to the town and neighbourhood, the prosperity whereof had been enhanced in no inconsiderable degree by the carrying on of so extensive an establishment in their midst, and by the enterprise and energy of the proprietors, both of whom were first-rate business men. The failure was in no measure attributed either to dishonesty or want of prudence on the part of Messrs. Gowanlock and Van Duzer, but simply to the invention of a new patent which rendered valueless the particular agricultural ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... kind in that 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 ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... by instinct, a good dresser by the force of original genius; a first-rate tyer of cravats on the involuntary principle. When a boy at Eton, in 1790, he acquired his first distinction not by "longs and shorts," but by the singular nicety of his stock with a gold buckle, the smart cut of his coat, and his finished study of manners. Others might see glory ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... art, and thought it highly probable that the words chemistry and alchymy were both derived from his name." Others say, the art was derived from the Egyptians, amongst whom it was first founded by Hermes Trismegistus. Moses, who is looked upon as a first-rate alchymist, gained his knowledge in Egypt; but he kept it all to himself, and would not instruct the children of Israel in its mysteries. All the writers upon alchymy triumphantly cite the story of the golden calf, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... 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 make ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... the necessity of commanding their voluble propensities if they would wish to pass for Englishmen. It is certain, more words would have been uttered in this little lugger in one hour, had her crew been indulged to the top of their bent, than would have been uttered in an English first-rate in two; but the danger of using their own language, and the English peculiarity of grumness, had been so thoroughly taught them, that her people rather caricatured, than otherwise, ce grand talent pour le silence that was thought ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... greatest possible degree of ugliness and bad taste at the least possible expense, and certainly never included any notion of ornament in the details. Now, large sums are expended on places of worship, without reference to creed. First-rate architects are employed. Fine Gothic structures are produced. The rebuilding of the Greyfriars' Church, the restoration of South Leith Church and of Glasgow Cathedral, the very bold experiment of adopting a style little known amongst us, the ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... correspondent J., I would ask if he has any photographic apparatus? if so, the answer to his question "What extra apparatus is required to a first-rate microscope in order to obtain photographic microscopic pictures?" would be None; but if not, he would require a camera, or else a wooden conical body, with plate-holder, &c., besides the ordinary photographic outfit. Part ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... approval. On his earnest invitation she visited him in Paris. Fortunately, she did not have to resort to the Herbert Spencer expedient of wearing ear-muffs for protection against loquacious friends. She liked Comte first-rate, until he began to make love to her. Then ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... famously," Mr. Forcythe told his wife that night. "She has a first-rate head on her shoulders for a girl of her age." Mary heard him, and was pleased. She liked—we all like—to be counted useful and valuable. The bit of praise sent her back to ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... said Mr. Browne, who seemed pleased by her admission. To do him justice, he would not undermine a classmate, although he had other rules of conduct which might eventually require a little straightening out. "Worthy's a first-rate fellow, a little quick-tempered, perhaps, and inclined to go his own way. He's got a good mind, and he's taken to using it lately. He has come pretty near being ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of his momentary trance. "Yes, yes, Mr. Williams. They'll be low enough. Times is kind of dull now and I'd like a movin' job first-rate. I'll give 'em to you to-morrer. But—but Olive'll have to move, won't ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... despondency are more than apparent; yet bravely buckling to her work, and encouraged by her success with Fontenelle, she Englished with rare skill his Theory of the System of Several New Inhabited Worlds, prefixing thereto a first-rate 'Essay on Translated Prose.' She shows herself an admirable critic, broad-minded, with a keen eye for niceties of style. The Fair Jilt (licensed 17 April, 1688),[48] Oroonoko, and Agnes de Castro, followed in swift succession. She also published Lycidus, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... in through the doorway, and, with that splendid disregard for sentiment displayed by a fox-terrier who has just come out of a first-rate fight, shook ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... was not a man to slumber on a circumstance which, in his opinion, seemed to be important, without having handled and dissected it, with the patience of a first-rate anatomist; in spite of all he could do (and it was a privilege or defect of his organization), every material impression that his mind received presented itself for analysis, by its most prominent features, in such a manner that poor Chicot's ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... 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 tasted a ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... ask you to do so. As soon as we come to anchor, and see the lay of the land, we can tell exactly what and how to do it. We have plenty of money, and we can have a first-rate time if you only think so. Leave it all to me, and I will bring it out right," continued the confident Sanford, who appeared to be the leader ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... 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
... compliment, as she perhaps expected, roundly assured her that for one beauty in France, hundreds might be counted in England, where gentlemen were, therefore, not so easily satisfied; and that a woman regarded by them only as an ordinary person would pass for a first-rate beauty among French beaux, on account of the great scarcity of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... affairs. A member of the States-General which had taken so hardly the kingly airs of Frederick Henry, he had assisted at the Congress of Munster, and figures conspicuously in Terburgh's picture of that assembly, which had finally established Holland as a first-rate power. The heroism by which the national wellbeing had been achieved was still of recent memory—the air full of its reverberation, and great movement. There was a tradition to be maintained; the sword by ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... anxious as myself to have the little vessel well manned, he had persuaded four good men—like himself formerly of the Europa, wounded in our fight with the brigantine and now convalescent—to join, thus forming at a stroke the nucleus of a first-rate crew. But he had done a good deal more than this; for in addition to the four men above referred to there were aboard the guardship about a dozen others recently discharged from the hospital and only requiring a few days of pure ocean air to set them on their pins again, ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... and friends for his really amiable and endearing qualities, by the world at large for the serious loss which society sustains, and the disappointment of the expectations of what he one day might have been. He occupied as large a space in society as his talents (which were by no means first-rate) permitted; but he was clever, lively, agreeable, good-tempered, good-natured, hospitable, liberal and rich, a zealous friend, an eager political partisan, full of activity and vivacity, enjoying life, and anxious that the circle of his enjoyment should be widely extended. George ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... organize a new movement. Mr. Edwin Booth takes the character of Brutus and Mr. Lawrence Barrett takes that of Cassius. I would not want to take the character of Cassius myself, even if I had run short of character and needed some very much indeed, but Mr. Barrett takes it and does first-rate. Mr. Booth also plays Brutus so that old settlers here say it seems almost like having ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... be it bad or good, they exerted such and such an influence;' in a word, they must form a link in the great chain of a nation's authors, which may be afterwards forgotten by the superficial, but without which the chain would be incomplete. And thus, if not first-rate for all time, they have been first-rate in their own day. But Castruccio is only the echo of others—he can neither found a school nor ruin one. Yet this" (again added De Montaigne after a pause)—"this melancholy ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the question of reminiscence aside, how the delicate vision of Mr de la Mare has been coarsened, how commonplace his exquisite technique has become in the hands of even a first-rate ability! It remains to be added that Mr Squire is ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... is also a first-rate weapon in a skilful hand for procuring small birds. I must confess I cannot use it as well as some young friends of mine, who knock over nearly every sitting bird they aim at, and even now and then are successful with such difficult ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... activities—pottery and tile-making, breweries and flour mills, linen and silk manufacture, are mostly modern and have been fostered by the exceptional railway facilities. In its Grammar school, founded in 1526 by John Grice, it still has a first-rate educational establishment with the added value of a notable past, for here was educated Clarendon, the historian of the Great Rebellion, ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... said my companion as we drove through the guarded gate, "you could see 'em at work, for they're putting up their defences, and doing it first-rate, too." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... not; there is a considerable difference of calibre between them. I should say now that LONGFELLOW was a first-rate artist with a second-rate imagination, and that PIERPONT was only a second-rate artist with a first-rate fancy. There is no ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... tool, for it is the instrument which we make use of in certain cases when we wish to find out what other men have thought and done. Perhaps you will not be as ready to admit that a tool is a book. But take for example the plow. Compare the form in use to-day on a first-rate farm with that which is pictured on ancient stones long hid in Egypt—ages old. See how the idea of the plow has grown, and bear in mind that its graceful curves, it fitness for a special soil, or for a special crop, its labor-saving shape, came not ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... not saying that you do. Ben's getting along first-rate. He has a college degree and father isn't poor. I know several girls who would jump at a chance for him. Of course, we would all rather have you. Then at Avis Manning's party you gave him the sweetest of your smiles, and lured ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... unable to see the good noble gifts of actual life—I would the devil had it! The direction which Henrik is now taking grieves me seriously. I had rejoiced myself so in the thought of his being a first-rate miner; in his being instrumental in turning to good account our mines, our woods and streams, those noblest foundations of Sweden's wealth, and to which it was worth while devoting a good head; and now, instead of that, he hangs his on ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... peace of Schoenbrunn marked the initiation of a policy which dissolved the peace of Tilsit. There could now no longer be any serious question of marriage between members of the two courts. Compelled by circumstances to choose between a dual alliance with a first-rate power which must share on equal terms in the dominion of the world, and one with a second-rate power whose armies were surpassed by none, Napoleon had deliberately chosen the latter, as the shortest way to absolute and complete supremacy, to the assertion of a sovereign ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... the spirit of the old Army, and Lord Kitchener was ready to stand over any of them. He would do the best he could for our division on the old lines. He would, I am certain, have said that he had done the best thing possible for it in appointing to the command an Irishman who was a first-rate soldier and a first-rate man to supervise the training of troops. So far as my judgment is able to go, the credit for making the Sixteenth Division what it was when we went to France belongs chiefly to the divisional general ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... 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 ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... being the Achates of our AEneas, or rather the Hephaestion of our Alexander, was Fireblood. He had every qualification to make second-rate GREAT MAN; or, in other words, he was completely equipped for the tool of a real or first-rate GREAT MAN. We shall therefore (which is the properest way of dealing with this kind of GREATNESS) describe him negatively, and content ourselves with telling our reader what qualities he had not; in which number were humanity, modesty, and fear, not one grain ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... dangerous prowess; it was absolutely like the "grand Empereur smashing the vase to inspire dismay." So, at last, crowning himself with his bonnet-grec, and taking his ruined "lunettes" from my hand with a clasp of kind pardon and encouragement, he made his bow, and went off to the Athenee in first-rate humour ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... religion received more lustre than from her presence. John was delighted to see how they all gazed at her and wondered. Lillie looked like a first-rate French picture of the youthful Madonna,—white, pure, and patient. The day was hot, and the hall crowded; and John noticed, what he never did before, the close smell and confined air, and it made him uneasy. When we are feeling with the ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... "His talents are first-rate!" said the Doctor. "We must find a proper field for them!" And he assured her most respectfully of his regret at having so greatly discomposed her. "It's all for my poor Catherine," he went on. "You must know ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... the Crammers and Coaches on your bended knees, beseeching them to come out and govern you? Then, again, as to your public business of all sorts, your Financial statements and your Budgets; the Public knows much, truly, about the real doers of all that! Your Nobles and Right Honourables are first-rate men? Yes, and so is a goose a first-rate bird. But I'll tell you this about the goose;—you'll find his natural flavour ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... success. That was the bird's-eye view of the whole situation a week ago, and it still holds good. The week's news does not enable us to judge whether the Boers have grasped it. You can never be too strong at the decisive point, and a first-rate general never lets a single man go away from his main force except for a necessary object important enough to be worth the risk of a great failure. The capture of Mafeking, of Kimberley, and even of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, would not compensate the Boers ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson
... very positive objection entertained by me towards a certain Mr. Desole Arcubus, who, by provision of an immutable Medo-Persic edict promulgated by Mrs. Silvernail, occupied the chair next mine at the first-rate table of that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "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 have ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... was such a fastidious chap about appearances, and such a connoisseur of good looks. I have written a descriptive account of her to Dr. Mackenzie, and he will prepare his patient for her arrival. She is to go up the day after to-morrow. We are lucky to get her, for she is quite first-rate, and she has only just finished with a long consumptive case, now on the mend and ordered abroad. So you see, Jeanette, all is shaping well.—And now, my dear girl, you have a story of your own to tell me, and my whole attention shall be at your disposal. ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... them, and in as satisfactory a mood as I had ever been in my life; for the night was favorable, and the men hearty and in first-rate condition. ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... same time gratefully squeezing her hand, "you're a first-rate divinity—a tip-top goddess—divil a thing else. Miss Joolia, may I presoome for to have the plisure and polite gallantry to help you off the car; 'pon honor it'll be quite grateful and prejudicial to my ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... glad that you think poor Nannie well off. She has an inquiring mind, and though before coming here she had received no religious instruction and had not even a Bible, she is now constantly asking me questions which prove her to be a first-rate thinker and reasoner. She went to the theatre last night and came home quite disgusted, saying to herself, "I shouldn't like to die in the midst of such gayeties as these." She urged me to tell her if I thought it wrong for her to go, but I would not, because ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... they are such rabid teetotallers, that they would not sleep a wink to-night if they thought there was any spirits about the place.' 'I am mum,' says I. And the boys took a jug out of a hollow stump, and gave me some first-rate peach brandy. And during the fortnight that I was in Vermont, with my teetotal relations, I was kept about as well corned as if I had been among my hot water friends ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... windows were comparatively unknown: the rooms were lighted from above; the aperture for the light was open to the sky; whatever air could be procured was precious. Colonnades and dark passages were first-rate appendages of a fashionable man's habitation. His sleeping apartment was a dark recess impervious to the sun's rays, lighted only by the artificial glare of lamps, placed on those elegant candelabra, which must ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... which is some like our "sh" in its effect, is a very pretty letter, and enough of them would make very attractive trimming for pantalets or other clothing. The entire Arabic alphabet, I think, would work up first-rate into trimming for aprons, ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... followed each other in rapid succession. During which, our elegant London visitor favoured the company with the following effusion, sung in a style equal to (though unaccompanied with the affected airs and self-importance of) a first-rate professor:— ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... high at the peak, and one jib. She is sometimes quite open, sometimes half-decked, and sometimes fully decked, according to her size. She carries generally from ten to thirty tons of cargo, and is much used in the coasting trade, all the way from Civita Vecchia to the Diamante. The model of a first-rate felucca is very like that of a Viking's ship which was discovered not many years since in a ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... "does Victorine, too, need a password to leave the palace? My dear brother, I admire your genius! You are qualified to make a first-rate jailer." ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... first-rate," he continued, "but somehow Hallin damps you down, at least he did me last year; what you want just now is fight—and, my word! Mr. Wharton let ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... good marble; more pasture land than at first survey might have been expected, sufficient certainly for sheep and goats; fisheries productive; silver mines once, but long since worked out; figs fair; oil first-rate; olives in profusion. But what he would not think of noting down, was, that that olive tree was so choice in nature and so noble in shape, that it excited a religious veneration; and that it took so kindly to the light soil, as to expand into woods ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... purest embodiment of the true Greek spirit, in its faultless form, and its austere restraint and rejection of the unessential. It was, moreover, the order par excellence of the Greek temple of the mainland. The Erechtheum was the only Ionic temple of first-rate importance in Greece, and the employment of the Ionic order in Greece was confined to interiors and minor buildings. As for the Corinthian order, the favourite order of the Romans, it was scarcely recognized by the Greeks. In all their great ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... 1830, Paganini saved the Musical Festival, which would have failed but for his individual attraction, although supported by an army of talent in every department. All was done in first-rate style, not to be surpassed. There were Braham, Madame Stockhausen, H. Phillips, De Begnis, &c. &c., Sir G. Smart for conductor, Cramer, Mori, and T. Cooke for leaders, Lindley, Nicholson, Anfossi, Lidel Hermann, Pigott, and above ninety musicians in the orchestra, and more than one hundred ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... 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 knight- errant, in short, in the most extravagant sense of ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... was a sincere believer in the Law of Buddha and wished to build a new vihara for the monks, first convoked a great assembly. After giving the monks a meal of rice, and presenting his offerings (on the occasion), he selected a pair of first-rate oxen, the horns of which were grandly decorated with gold, silver, and the precious substances. A golden plough had been provided, and the king himself turned up a furrow on the four sides of the ground within which the building was supposed to be. He then endowed the community of the ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... It was dry to us that winter because we did not want to know any thing about it. Any book will be dry when we don't care to read it. I have found that no study is dry which I really want to know about. I like grammar first-rate now." ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... California had the smallest stoves and the biggest liars in the world. Now Jim—well, there's an old saying busted. But you'll see Arizona'll go back on the Democrats. If they put wool on the free list she'll stay Republican, and they won't want her admitted, which suits me first-rate. My people here are better off ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... do deeds of daring, being detailed one day to drive mules and the next-to shoot sick horses. But I decided to do whatever I had to do, well, and so preparations were made for the executions. The glandered horses were brought out first, and then the ones with sore backs. Many of them were first-rate horses, their only fault being sores made from the saddles, and as it would take months to cure them up, and as the army was going to move soon, it had been decided to kill them rather than leave them to fall into the enemy's hands, ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... Him therefore he recommended to the soldiery—that is, to the prtorian cohorts. The soldiery had no particular objection to the old general, if he and they could agree upon terms; his age being doubtless appreciated as a first-rate recommendation, in a case where it insured a speedy renewal ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... them?" said Maggie. "Oh, they're first-rate, and not really dull at all; and the whole place is lovely, and all the people I met to-day were so nice, except, indeed, that ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... please, sir," said Jack, "we captured that ship with the cutter the night after we went away—I'm not a first-rate navigator, and I was blown to the Zaffarine Islands, where I remained two months for want of hands: as soon as I procured them I made sail again—I have lost three men by sharks, and I have two wounded in to-day's ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... the coadjutor aforesaid—a bashful Teucer, over whom Professor Tyndall has, like a second Ajax Telamon, extended, with chivalrous haste, the shelter of his shield—does 'not hesitate to propose that one single ward or hospital under the care of first-rate physicians or surgeons, containing a number of patients afflicted with those diseases which have been best studied, and of which the mortality rates are best known, should be, during a period of ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... day, please! I think you're a first-rate story-teller. You're almost as good as old Mary O'Grady. I've often sat by her peat fire and heard about the banshee and the leprechaun; only, she believes in them. I'm so glad I've moved into this bedroom! I like you far better than those ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... we have had nothing like the romantic comedy—the comedy of sentiment, of love, the comedy which is at once serious and witty, and which contains the elements of tragedy. This appears, or is at least foreshadowed for the first time, about four years after Stevenson's "first-rate screaming farce," as Symonds has dubbed it, in the Damon and Pithias of Richard Edwardes, a writer with whom, as we have seen, Lyly was thoroughly familiar. Indeed, the play in question anticipates our author in many ways, for example in the introduction of ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... those mighty detectives whose proceedings form a school, as it were, and whose names will always remain inscribed on the judicial annals of Europe. He lacks the flashes of genius that illumine a Dupin, a Lecoq or a Holmlock Shears. But he possesses first-rate average qualities: perspicacity, sagacity, perseverance and even a certain amount of intuition. His greatest merit lies in the fact that he is absolutely independent of outside influences. Short of a kind of fascination which Arsene Lupin wields ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... ground; it is a hut, all roof and no walls. I was very clumsy, and so, in good truth, was my man. Still, at last, by dint of perseverance, we have made it wind and water tight. It was a job that should have taken us about a couple of days to have done in first-rate style; as it was, I am not going to tell you how long it DID take. I must certainly send the man to the right-about, but the difficulty is to get another, for the aforesaid hut is five-and-twenty miles (at the very least) from any ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... 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, or ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... Richard,' said Brass, on the second day of Mr Swiveller's clerkship. 'Sally found you a second-hand stool, Sir, yesterday evening, in Whitechapel. She's a rare fellow at a bargain, I can tell you, Mr Richard. You'll find that a first-rate stool, Sir, take my ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... this or that rendering, and arguments for and against various readings, &c., till Mr Silver found himself fairly out of his depth. At first this puzzled him, and he very nearly committed the mistake of pronouncing John Brown a first-rate scholar in the common-room; but when he found his performance at lecture did not by any means keep pace with the remarkable erudition sometimes displayed by him in private, he began in his turn to suspect the trick. He dared not refuse to play his part, when called upon, in these ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... neighbors, and are most skilful in taking advantage of cover. An Afghan will throw himself flat, behind a stone barely big enough to cover his head, and scoop a hollow in the ground with his left elbow as he loads. Men like these only require training to make first-rate irregular troops. ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... Bab and Betty thought it was first-rate. I didn't," said Ben, moved to confidence by the discovery of Miss ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... Ross survey the poll, make wigs, and puff away even when powder was exploded? What caused him to seek the applause of the 'nobs' among the cockneys, and struggle to obtain the paradoxical triplicate dictum that he was a werry first-rate cutter!' What made him a practical Tory? (for he boasts of turning out the best wigs ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... a very wealthy man, who devoted much of his time and money to doing good to his country. Among the many praiseworthy institutions founded and entirely supported by him was the college for orphans, the Dabetsane Daneshe, and the Eftetahie School. The colleges occupy beautiful premises, and first-rate teachers are provided who instruct their pupils in sensible, useful matters. The boys are well fed and clothed and are made quite ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... does not attain (nor was such her intention) the deep philosophy and exquisite melody of the great Spanish poet, she has produced a first-rate specimen of the romance drama, rococo perhaps, and with quaint ornaments, but none the less full of life, incident ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... there's another thing you may do, if so be you have made up a mind to be a first-rate musician; if you haven't, I need not bother myself ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... by a man of family?—O, I'll give you a general idea of what I mean. Let us give him a first-rate fit out; ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... used it she used it as she might use a tramcar. It was her custom, every day except Saturday, to walk to the shop about eleven o'clock, after her house had been set in order. She had been thoroughly trained in the business, and had spent a year at a first-rate shop in High Street, Kensington. Millinery was her speciality, and she still watched over that department with a particular attention; but for some time past she had risen beyond the limitations of departments, ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... water over their heads, the mill-pond at Red Hook played an important part in their daily life there. They sailed it, and fished it, and camped out on its banks, with Ed Curtis—before Ed went to West Point—and with Dick Hawley, Josie Briggs, and Frank Rodgers, all first-rate fellows. But that is ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... 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 of fans in the corners and under the ceiling. Then he put ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... I do not by any means advocate a woman, who can afford to pay a first-rate cook, avoiding the expense by cooking herself; on the contrary, I think no woman is justified in doing work herself that she has the means given her to get done by employing others. I have no praise for ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... oldest, these tops are certainly the most widely distributed. If a good whip top cannot be bought, a first-rate article can be made from a section of a rounded timber, either natural or turned. It may be of any size, but from two to three inches in diameter, and about a half inch or more in length is the best. Whittle this, with care, ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... "Good!" said he,—"first-rate! Of course you know all about 'em. Why can't you pick me out a couple of what you think are the best of 'em? I shall be greatly obliged to you. I have a sick friend, and I want to get two nice sweet ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... F.W.A. Froebel, but more recent writers have carried it much further, notably W.T. Preyer (The Mind of the Child, 1881), whose psychological studies stamp him as one of the chief pioneers in new methods of investigation. Other authorities of first-rate importance (their chief works only being given here) are J. Sully (Studies of Childhood, 1896), Earl Barnes (Studies in Education, 1896, 1902), J.M. Baldwin (Mental Development in the Child and the Race, 1895), Sigismund (Kind und Welt, 1897), A.F. Chamberlain ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... imagined the ghosts had been too much for him, and that he was dead. Then he said: "What a pity! and such a fine fellow he was." The youth heard this, got up, and said: "It's not come to that yet." Then the King was astonished, but very glad, and asked how it had fared with him. "First-rate," he answered; "and now I've survived the one night, I shall get through the other two also." The landlord, when he went to him, opened his eyes wide, and said: "Well, I never thought to see you alive again. ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... 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 they make for ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... actress, of whose early life the details are meagre. At first she was so unsuccessful on the stage as to be more than once dismissed; but she was coached by her lover the earl of Rochester, who had laid a wager that in a short time he would make a first-rate actress of her, and the results confirmed his judgment. Mrs Barry's performance as Isabella, queen of Hungary, in the earl of Orrery's Mustapha, was said to have caused Charles II. and the duke and duchess ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... a good dinner, and do not know in what manner to set about it, you will do wisely to order it from Birch, Kuehn, or any other first-rate restaurateur. By these means you ensure the best cookery and ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... a natural inclination towards a liberal or eccentric morality, but he was no thinker, and he gave way to a middle-class phraseology—with exceptions, as when he gives it as the opinion of his old master, the Norwich solicitor, that "all first-rate thieves were sober, and of well-regulated morals, their bodily passions being kept in abeyance by their love of gain." Sometimes Borrow allows these two sides of him, his private and his social sides, to appear together dramatically. For example, he more than half seriously advises Jasper to ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... profess themselves of both orders. The templar is, generally speaking, a prig, so is the abbe: both are distinguished by an air of petulance and self-conceit, which holds a middle rank betwixt the insolence of a first-rate buck and the learned pride of a supercilious pedant. The abbe is supposed to be a younger brother in quest of preferment in the church—the Temple is considered as a receptacle or seminary for younger sons intended for ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... do of Metals, nor by the Lump, but the intrinsick Value. New cast your Poems; purge 'em of their Dross; reduce 'em to the Bulk of the Dispensary, and if then they weigh in the Balance with that, we will allow you a Place among the First-Rate Heroick Poets. ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... great ones too— Would mob a savage from Latakoo, Or squeeze for a glimpse of Prince Le Boo, That unfortunate Sandwich scion— Hundreds of first-rate people, no doubt, Would gladly, madly, rush to a rout That promised a ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... a military appearance about it. It is short and to the point. Friend Augusta was well known in Norristown as a first-rate hair-dresser and a prompt and trustworthy Underground Rail Road agent. Of course a speedy answer was returned to his note, and he was instructed to bring the eleven passengers on to the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... until freedom was again won in the 16th century by the patriot king, Gustavus Vasa. By the 17th century had extended her rule across the seas into certain portions of the empire, but selling these in the beginning of the 18th century, fell from her rank as a first-rate power. In 1814 Norway was annexed, and the two countries, each enjoying complete autonomy, are ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... result—for our carelessness might have cost us very dearly—I was about to turn away when I saw that Maignan had mounted and was preparing to follow. I stayed accordingly to see the end, and from my elevated position enjoyed a first-rate view of the race which ensued. Both were heavy weights, and at first Maignan gained no ground. But when a couple of hundred yards had been covered Fresnoy had the ill-luck to blunder into some heavy ground, and this enabling ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... deal, and I say that it is so. And my good friend knows it as well as I do, and is one of the first to lend a helping hand. In all such cases he does more than I do, whenever they come within his knowledge. But let us return to the matter in hand. Here is a young man, a first-rate sailor, who would have been under my guardianship, I know, but for—but for sad circumstances. Is he to be grinding at Virgil and Ovid till all his spirit goes out of him, because we have patched up a very shabby peace? It can never last long. Every Englishman hates ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... fell on the gigantic rollers and the enemy's cannon roared and the waves broke in thunder on the beach, Wolfe was standing up in the stern-sheets, scanning every inch of the ground to see if there was no place where a few men could get a footing and keep it till the rest had landed. He had first-rate soldiers with him: grenadiers, Highlanders, ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... one of 'em foul. We been digging here for too long. We ain't no prairie dogs to go delving into the bosom of the earth. We thought you must be plumb deceased anyhow: we couldn't get a peep out of you. I was in favour of leavin' you lay myself. This yere butte seemed like a first-rate imposing tomb; and I was willing myself to carve a few choice sentiments on some selected rock. Sure I can carve! But Jed here allowed that you owed him ten dollars and maybe had some ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... he is not my protege, you know; only I knew an uncle of his who sent me a letter about him. However, I think he is likely to be first-rate—has studied in Paris, knew Broussais; has ideas, you know—wants to ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... derive from the ease and peace enjoyed in such a university. They are inestimable to the student from association, tranquillity, and convenience. The very "dim religious light" of college rooms are solicitations to reflection. Then there are the conveniences of first-rate professors, and access to the writings of the learned in all ages. Thus some who professed a distaste for a university life, have returned to it again, and made it the arena where they have conquered a lasting reputation—such, for example, was the ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... up, Hugh; for it was, and indeed is, a first-rate farm. Including sedges and salt-meadows, you will remember that there are quite five hundred acres of ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... Jack, "I have a great desire to visit some of the other islands of the South Seas. Here we have a first-rate schooner at our disposal, so I don't see what should ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... I approve of your table-cloth; it would not be a bad thing for me to have here in the wood, where the cooking is not first-rate. I will strike a bargain with you. There hangs a soldier's knapsack in the corner, which looks old and unsightly, but it has wonderful qualities; as I have no further occasion for it, I will give it to you in ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... Italy, by a deputation to him at Paris, I happened to be there. Many Italians, besides the deputies, went on the occasion, and, among them, we had the good fortune to meet the Abbe Fortis, the celebrated naturalist, a gentleman of first-rate abilities, who had travelled three-fourths of the globe in mineralogical research. The Abbe chanced one day to be in company with my husband, who was an old acquaintance of his, where many of the chopfallen ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... "And a first-rate seaman, one who had seen long and honorable service, as became a man charged with the interests of a house so important as that of Morrel & ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... third year. At the fifth year they reach maturity, and then continue in their prime for as long as ten or fifteen years. Those grown upon the higher, and therefore cooler, ranges will sometimes remain in first-rate condition ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... American makes a first-rate soldier. He wants his officers to be efficient and high-toned leaders. It thrills him to have their actions pitched in a high key. He wants to be well instructed. He wants to be led with tact and diplomacy. He wants them to be neat, to dress immaculately, ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... Literally, they were nothing but skin and bone. But after a week's feeding on impoop, as they called the mealie-meal porridge which was their staple food at the mines, they began to pick up. At the end of a month they would be sleek and in first-rate fettle. ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... 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 man,' said the ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... She was first-rate when he was sick, and nobody could take care of him like her, cooling his pillow and making the bed easy, and keeping everybody quiet; and when he began to get well she would cook things that tasted better than anything you ever knew: stewed chicken, and toast with gravy on, ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... away from the schoolhouse he was sorry for it. Whether dignity is the mask we wear to hide ignorance, I am not sure, yet when Paddy Byrne was the schoolmaster he was a man severe and stern to view; but when he was plain Paddy Byrne he was a first-rate ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... later—after a round of novelties full of interest to a provincial sight-seer, to say nothing of a Londoner. I entered and found the Variety Entertainment was "on." I was about to walk into an enclosure, and seat myself in a first-rate position for witnessing the gambols of some talented wolves, when I was informed that I could not do this without extra payment. Unwilling to "bang" an extra sixpence (two had already been expended) I tried to find a gratuitous ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... voices! I've lived in coal-camps in Colorado, wintered with Maine lumbermen, hopped the ties with hobos, and enjoyed the friendship of thieves. I don't mean to brag, but I suppose there isn't a really first-rate crook in the country that I don't know. And down in the underworld they look on me—if I may modestly say it—as an old reliable friend. I've found these contacts immensely instructive, as you may imagine. Don't get nervous! I never stole ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... proposed line, they all sang its praise. "First-rate! excellent!" they cried, "the natural talents of your second son, dear friend, are lofty; his mental capacity is astute; he is unlike ourselves, who have read books ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... seventh Leipsic edition, chiefly in conformity with the readings of his lately discovered MS.(129) And yet the Codex in question abounds with "errors of the the eye and pen, to an extent not unparalleled, but happily rather unusual in documents of first-rate importance." On many occasions, 10, 20, 30, 40 words are dropped through very carelessness.(130) "Letters and words, even whole sentences, are frequently written twice over, or begun and immediately cancelled: while that gross blunder ... whereby ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... "First-rate," returned the other briefly, rising to go. "That's a fine, serious young fellow," he added, for Whyland's ear alone. "There's ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... the church of that establishment in the way. It is built entirely in the Italian style of architecture: is exceedingly spacious: has a fine organ, and is numerously attended. The pictures I saw in it, although by no means of first-rate merit, quite convince me that it is in churches of Roman, and not of Gothic architecture, that paintings produce the most harmonious effect. This college and church form a noble establishment, situated ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... to do; but on this small capital I went to work, and succeeded. At least, Jacobus Kirchelheimer said so—and he ought to know, for he was a first-rate fellow, and sent me over and above the price agreed upon, a dozen bottles of Rudesheimer. A suspicion seemed indeed to haunt his mind that the portrait resembled himself much more than it did the late Herr Kirchelheimer, pere,—but he speedily ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... spin out and multiply our academic prelections we shall work in more and more stuffing, more and more rubbish, more and more irrelevant, useless detail which the student will get rid of just as soon as he leaves us. Then the next thing will be a new organization, with an examining board of first-rate practical men, who will ask the candidate questions that mean business,—who will make him operate if he is to be a surgeon, and try him at the bedside if he is to be a physician,—and not puzzle him with scientific ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of your prejudices, are a very superior nation to us. Their skill and knowledge are both infinitely higher. Every man in France is a first-rate cook—in fact, they are a nation of cooks; and one of our late travellers assures us that they have discovered three hundred methods of ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... had to go five miles from de town to get him. Dat what took me so long. Here am a letter, sah, from the doctor. First-rate man ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... reputation is so difficult to establish as that of first-rate poetic excellence. During the last fifty years, many meritorious competitors for bardic renown have successively aspired to public favour, and have each in their turns exhibited their fancy-woven bouquets, as containing a more beautiful ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... mischeevious little tyke like her would ha' turned out a first-rate learner, after all?" queried Auntie, beaming upon me good- naturedly from behind her gold-bowed spectacles. "I al'ays tol' ye, Ezry, ye'd be proud o' her ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... entry into the East India Company's service. He was born in Pembrokeshire in humble circumstances, and went to sea at an early age. According to one account, he served in Hawke's ship, but, wherever his training was received, it had made him a first-rate seaman. In 1747, he entered the Company's marine service, being then about twenty-six years ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... for a moment to the scheme. He spoke of his wife almost with awe, when Mr. Fenwick left him to make this second attack. "She has never had nothing to say to none sich as that," said the farmer, shaking his head, as he alluded both to his wife and to his sister; "and I ain't sure as she'll be first-rate civil to any one as mentions ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... makes both war and the gun is the man behind them. And if that man really means the peace of the world to be kept, he will take care to have a gun to keep it with. The League of Peace must have a first-rate armament, or the League of War will very soon make mincemeat of it. The notion that the men of evil intent are to have all the weapons will not work. Theoretically, all our armaments should be pooled. But as we, the British ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... He is facile princeps here in his own world, but we do not know how it may be when he is measured with public schoolmen, who have had more first-rate tutorship than ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... 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 Innocent ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... have chiefly to do with is the force of instance which he has lent to my assertion that men who have not had real training in pure logic are unsafe reasoners in matter which is not familiar. It is hard to get first-rate examples of this, because there are few who find the way to the printer until practice and reflection have given security against the grossest slips. I cannot but think that his case will lead many to take what I have said into consideration, among those who are competent to ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... trooper of them all could manage to put the bracelets on him. The way he'd work it would be to leave his horse a good way the other side of George Storefield's, and to make up as a regular blackfellow. He could do that first-rate, and talk their lingo, too, just like one of themselves. Gin or blackfellow, it was all the same to Warrigal. He could make himself as black as soot, and go barefooted with a blanket or a 'possum rug round him and ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... is probably the most encyclopaedic all-round scholar now living. His new volume on the Origin of the Aryans is a first-rate example of the excellent account to which he can turn his exceptionally wide and varied information.... Masterly and ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... glad to hear that," said Felix; "I can hike as well as the next fellow; but just the same when I'm off for pleasure I don't like to keep moving all the time. This suits me first-rate. Then I expect to do some paddling when we find the right sort of a log, with Josh at the bow casting his flies, and Tom at the stern trolling ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... people as impractical, given over to barren political discussion and utterly unable to make useful things such as ships and linen. He also says that Dublin is dirty, that the rates are exorbitantly high, and that the houses have not got bath-rooms in them. I put it to him that there are two first-rate ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... days since, and we found less than twenty fathoms, as far as we went. That chap up to the nor'ard there, draws something like a hundred fathoms, if he draws an inch. He shows more above water than a first-rate's truck." ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 at sight." ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... I called upon the First Lord of the Admiralty, and procured for Swinburne a first-rate building—that is to say, ordered to be built. This he had often said he wished, as he was tired of the sea, after a service of forty-five years. Subsequently I obtained leave of absence for him every ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... held sacred at the price of the kingdom, he had great respect for her, but could not think of fighting. But they didn't seem to understand square Yankee talk; the consequence of which, in Mr. Smooth's opinion, would be the Bear getting his cubs in motion, to do some first-rate fighting. In this fighting Mr. Smooth would not have the least objection to taking a hand, provided always that there was some coin to be made at it. However, before entering upon the fighting business, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... attraction. She was really very good-looking too, very young, had beautiful eyes and teeth, and the high spirits of youth and health and enthusiasm. Pity she thought she could draw. How much better if she had gone in for first-rate plain cooking! He was sure she could learn that—if it ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... hour Judith was tempted to give up. But she did her best, and although Eleanor was distracted by all the numberless things demanding attention, she found time to stop and say at the end of the first act, "Good work, Judy! I knew I could depend on you. You'll make a first-rate Scrooge, and you are a brick to get to work without any fuss." And although Judith did not believe the remark about her acting, her face flushed with pleasure and she determined that she would not spend another moment in questioning. This ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... violence. Civilisation has extended its mollifying influence, even to the professional robber. On the other hand, in former times, men were transported for very trivial offences: poaching, with its consequences, formed the leading crimes of the English counties; yet many poachers were otherwise first-rate men, both in disposition and physical development. The modern convicts are, more generally, criminals in the popular sense. The abolition of capital punishments, and the erection of penitentiaries at home, left the penalty of transportation ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... fine gentleman. Hardly a day had passed during which he had not been at some large breakfast or wine-party, or formed one of a select little body of supping aristocrats. He did very little work, and pretended to do none, (for Bruce was a first-rate specimen of the never-open-a-book genus), although at unexpected hours he took care to get up the lecture-room subjects sufficiently well to make a display when he was put on. Even in this he was unsuccessful, for scholarship cannot be acquired per saltum, and Mr ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... following year she became the mistress of a house of her own, of which I was the master. David settled down as the medical man of the district. Stanley, though he occasionally went out hunting, became a first-rate farmer, ably assisted by Timbo, Chickango, and Igubo and his two sons, who expressed no desire to return to their part of Africa. Jack Handspike accompanied Mr Gritton to sea, but lately came back again, saying that he had had enough of it, and was determined ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 thought all through ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... widderers here at the P'int. That was what was in my mind," said Captain Ben, in a tone of meek apology. "There is the Widow Keens, she that was Azubah Muchmore. I don't know but what she would do; Lyddy used to think every thing of her, and she is a first-rate of ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... because he wants things for less than their value; and a dupe because, as a matter of course, he does not get what he wants. I made no bargain at Liverpool,—at least, no cheap bargain; but I have made arrangements for a sufficient supply of a first-rate unadulterated article at its proper market price, and I do not fear but the results will be remunerative." And then, as they went home in the railway carriage the mother talked to her son about his farming as though she had forgotten her other trouble, ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... up the natural gait of a horse he is made to attain an exceptional speed, it is true, but in doing so he has contracted an abnormal sort of movement for which it is impossible to find a name. It is something between a trot and a racking pace, and with it a first-rate trotter can make four kilometres (two miles and a half) in seven minutes and a half, and not much less, whatever may be said to the contrary. I know that certain time-keepers have marked this distance as having been done in seven minutes, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various |
