"Masterly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by Ferrara, and several smaller ones. But how shall I attempt to describe to you the St. Catherine? This lovely picture combines all the refined elegance of the Venus de Medici, in form, contour, and flowing lines, with an astonishing delicacy of colour, and masterly yet softened execution. The eyes are turned upwards with an expression of heavenly resignation, the neck, flesh and life itself, the hands, arms, and shoulders so sweetly rounded, while the figure melts into the background with the ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... one of those ten excellent manuscripts which were found among Bunyan's papers after his decease in 1688. It had been prepared by him for publication, but still wanted a few touches of his masterly hand, and a preface in his characteristic style. He had, while a prisoner for nonconformity, in 1672, published a treatise upon this subject, in reply to Mr. Fowler, who was soon after created Bishop of Gloucester; but that was more peculiarly ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... over nature indicated by the turning of water into wine, by the miracle of the loaves and fishes, calming the storm, if facts, are facts unparalleled in any other biography, but seem possible, however unintelligible, when considered as emanating from such a masterly and commanding ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... by every trick of fence to come between me and the silent little figure holding the candle aloft. As I have often said, he was a pretty swordsman, and at this crisis, with life at stake, and all the fury of the seven devils of disappointed vengeance to nerve his arm, his sword play was most masterly. ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... never, Sir, be sorry to have been in the wrong, when one's errors are pointed out to one in so obliging and masterly a manner. Whatever opinion I may have of Shakspeare, I should think him to blame, if he could have seen the letter you have done me the honour to write to me, and yet not conform to the rules you have there laid down. When he lived, there had not been a Voltaire both to give laws to the stage, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... depicts a scene, with masterly pencil, where Von Bethmann-Hollweg himself is charged by the All-Highest to be schoolmaster. It is a grim department of the training. Think of the unseen as well as that shown. What you do see is the lordly, truculent Kaiser, raising that menacing finger ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... landed near the place from Quebec. The two generals met with no opposition in disembarking their troops; and by a happy concurrence in the execution of a well-concerted plan, Colonel Haviland joined them with his detachment the next day. The strength of these combined armies, and the masterly disposition made by the commanders, convinced M. de Vaudreuil that resistance would be ineffectual, and he demanded a capitulation; and on the 8th of September, 1760, Montreal, Detroit, Michili-Mackinac, and all other places within the government of Canada, were surrendered to his Britannic ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... nor will Dumas' "Count of Monte Cristo," "The Three guardsmen" and "The Black tulip." "Les Miserables" and "The Mill on the Floss" will fully satisfy the demand for "great troubles," treated in a masterly fashion. We should include Thackeray's "Henry Esmond," "The Newcomes" and "The Virginians"; Bulwer's "Last Days of Pompeii," "Harold," "Rienzi" and "The Last of the barons"; Charles Kingsley's "Westward Ho," "Hereward the Wake" and "Hypatia"; Charles Reade's "Cloister ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... you to fear from me for such a masterly performance! Be assured nobody can appreciate your value and Mr. Kelley's as I do. It is ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... not care for the countess, for all that I went up to her room after dinner with the greater part of the guests. The count arranged a game of whist, and Walpole played at primero with the countess, who cheated him in a masterly manner; but though he saw it he laughed and paid, because it suited his purpose to do so. When he had lost fifty Louis he called quarter, and the countess asked him to take her to the theatre. This was what the good-natured Englishman wanted; and he and the countess ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... it is no chariot of Elijah, nevertheless. Was ever style more delightful, of its kind, than Dryden's? Was ever style more heavy and monotonous than that of Swedenborg in his theological works? But I have read Dryden, not indeed without pleasure in his masterly exquisite ease and sureness of statement and his occasional touches of admirable good sense, yet with no slightest liberation of spirit, with no degree, greater or less, of that magical and marvellous evocation, of inward resource, whose blessed surprise now ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... sign escaped me. After Mr. Stephens, three other opposing counsel fired their guns, but I withstood their shot and shell, and when I came out of the box Mr. Findlay said I had done well. This was praise enough for me. Then he gave his evidence in his usual masterly convincing way and I listened ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... letter upon the subject to a friend, which being shewn to them, made them ashamed, and afraid of being publickly exposed; so they were forced to a compliance. It is now in my possession, and is, perhaps, one of the best productions of his masterly pen[996]. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... But he does; knows more than Admiral FIELD, or Admiral MAYNE, or even Colonel GOURLEY. Presently rose and delivered slashing speech, laying low the Reverberating COLOMB as if he had been set up in the Place Vendome; reviewing the British Fleet in masterly style; nimbly running up the mainmast and sighting Jerusalem and Madagascar, to the absolute confounding of the First Lord ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... Francaise de Rome for December 1895, but of the existence of which I had never heard until Father Ehrle shewed it to me. On reading it, I found that M. Fabre had completely anticipated me; he had done exactly what I had come to Rome to do, and in such a masterly fashion that I could not hope to improve upon his work. After some consideration I determined to verify his conclusions by carefully examining the locality, and to make a fresh ground-plan of it for my own ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... half over when Mrs. Yellett laid down her knife, which she had handled throughout the meal with masterly efficiency. Mary watched her in hopeless embarrassment, and wondered if her own timid use of a tin fork could be construed as an unfriendly comment upon the Yelletts' more simple and direct ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... through to a successful conclusion. He infused others with his own animation, and managed to set a whole cityful of lazy people building a temple grander far in its rich simplicity than the world had ever seen. By his masterly eloquence and the magic of his presence, Pericles infused the Greeks with a passion for beauty and a desire to create. And no man can inspire others with the desire to create who has not taken sacred fire from the altar of the gods. The creative genius is the highest gift vouchsafed to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... if you will, but she is the greatest actress the modern world has seen, and that's something to have done for your generation. To have moved the feelings and widened the knowledge of thousands by such delicate, such marvellous, such conscientious work as hers—there is an achievement so great, so masterly, that I for one will throw no ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... cut, his nose swollen to twice its natural size, undertook a series of masterly retreats. It was then that Madame, at the keyhole, began to fear for her furniture, and considered interference. Chairs were overturned, the table went crashing. At last a foot-stool completed what Philip's fists had begun. Channing tripped over it, fell heavily for the ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... the same principle that led Mrs. Allen to give a certain tone to her entertainments by inviting many literary and scientific men. She might be unable to appreciate the works of the savants, but as they appreciated the labors of her masterly French cook, many compromised the matter by eating the petits soupers and shrugging their ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... interesting to the foreign student for its sidelights on folklore and family life; to the native scholar, who professes to smile at the subject-matter as beyond the pale of genuine literature, it is simply invaluable as an expression of the most masterly style of which his ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... coldly. "At that time any soldier who found his wife unfaithful, as we call it, could shoot her with impunity and receive the plaudits and possibly a presentation from the populace, though he himself may not have been impeccable while away—a masterly method of securing a divorce. But, as I told you, our procedure has changed since then; and even soldiers now have to go to work in ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... orders, and just as carefully, the wagon men carried them out. Under Kid Wolf's masterly leadership they had regained their nerve. Panic left them, and they ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... she had done the king, that she might have her case upon the bed. The lady avenged full sore, that he had rumpled thus her clothes. What availed his mickle force and his giant strength? She showed the knight her masterly strength of limb; she carried him by force (and that must needs be) and pressed him rudely 'twixt a clothes-press and ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... India, Dr. Bose attended the Indian Science Congress at Lucknow. He then attended the ceremony of the laying of the foundation stone of the Hindu University at Benares. On that occasion he delivered a masterly address. He said:— ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... an influence at the time necessarily covert, studiously disguised. His relation to the new intellectual development of his age might, perhaps, be characterised as Socratic; though certainly not because he lacked the use, and the most masterly use, of that same weapon with which his younger contemporary brought out at last, in the face of his time, the plan of the Great Instauration. In the heart of the new establishment which the magnificent courtier, who ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... this statement of the case—and it was certainly a masterly statement—would end any attempt to get what he regarded as an unsatisfactory and dangerous peace. But President Wilson could not be deterred from pressing the issue. His conviction was firm that this winter of 1914-1915 represented the most opportune time to ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... and hold the possessor, with irresistible power and nerve, to almost superhuman effort. The educated touch can almost perform miracles. The educated taste can achieve wonders almost past belief. What a contrast between the cultured, logical, profound, masterly reason of a Gladstone and that of the hod-carrier who has never developed or educated his reason beyond what is necessary to enable him to ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... immediately realised through the officiousness of my new vassal. A fancy seized me to give him my violin to see if he could, perchance, play some beautiful melodies for me. How surprised I was to hear a sonata, so beautiful and singular, rendered in such an intelligent and masterly manner as I had never heard before. Astonishment and rapture overcame me so completely that I swooned away. On returning to consciousness, I hastily took up my violin, hoping to be able to play at least a part of what I had heard, but in vain. The sonata I ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... other side of the street two figures which all France knew and will know for all time. Whatever vicissitudes of politics, whatever campaigns ensue, whatever changes come in the world after the war, Joffre's victory at the Marne and Castelnau's victory in Lorraine, which was its complement in masterly tactics, make their niches in ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... one killed by pestilence. While every mind was full of dismay at its effects, a craving for excitement had led us to peruse De Foe's account, and the masterly delineations of the author of Arthur Mervyn. The pictures drawn in these books were so vivid, that we seemed to have experienced the results depicted by them. But cold were the sensations excited by words, burning though they were, and describing the death and misery ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... the Whigs at that time sided with Fox. But Burke turned away from Parliament and politicians in one of the most masterly productions of his pen, entitled, "An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs." One of the autograph-letters in the collection before us, addressed to the amanuensis, Swift, relates to the last corrections of this tract, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... is not given at all in the earlier standard history, and it is by no means proved that the undoubtedly early Chinese knowledge of the loadstone extended to the making of compasses. Yet, as Renan has justly pointed out in effect, in his masterly evidences of Gospel truth, a weak tradition is better worth considering than no tradition at all. Besides, there is some slight indirect confirmation of this, for in 880 B.C. or thereabout, a King of ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... business matters, and finds him a great stand-by; and the other day she told Miss A.—as you call the senior clerk—she ought to be ashamed of herself, bringing in a copy of the Vie Parisienne. The way she settled Mrs. Gordon's affairs—you remember, No. 3875 you catalogued the case—was masterly; and Mrs. G. has insisted on paying 5 per cent. commission on the recovered property. And it was Beryl who found out that leakage in the 'Variegated Tea Rooms' statement of accounts. I hadn't spotted it. No. I think we needn't be anxious about Beryl, especially whilst I am in Wales and ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... a University don and an historian. His works are distinguished by their brilliant style and the masterly manner in which he wields the English language—a power which was also manifested in his political speeches and proclamations. Mr. Wilson sprang into political and general fame when he was President of the University of Princeton, ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... he said, at length raising his eyes to the ceiling with the air of a man who was reflecting seriously on what he had read; 'upon my honour, the most masterly composition, the most delicate thoughts, the finest code of morality, and the most gentlemanly sentiments in the universe! Ah Ned, Ned, if you would but form your mind by such precepts, we should have but one common feeling on every subject that ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... and put under arrest. Morgan risks his life to save them. The final escape, the thrilling encounter with a squad of red coats, when they are exposed equally to the bullets of friends and foes, told in a masterly fashion, makes of this volume one of the most ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... beast," continued Scaife, "was masterly. I heard every word, though my head was bursting. I shall tell Lovell that you saved us. Oh, Lord—didn't I give the ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... masterly sketch of the condition of woman in uncivilized life, in which the subject is illustrated by the most apposite quotations from the works of different travellers and historians. It is the writer's opinion that in uncivilized life, the degradation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... museum of London. Mr. Douglass is also the sole owner of the printing establishment from which the paper is issued, and was promoted to this responsible position, by the power of his talents. He is a masterly letter writer, ably edits his paper, and as a speaker, and orator, let the scenes of a New York tabernacle, within two years, answer instead. Mr. Douglass is highly respected as a citizen and ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... vision of the Genius of Liberty. It was a felicitous effort of the poetic muse. The gradual but certain dissolution of ancient despotic systems was predicted, as by the spirit of inspiration; and the blessings and joys of well regulated freedom were described with a masterly pencil, as extending and spreading in all parts of the civilized world. It was the electrifying voice of genius speaking to hearts full of gratitude ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... worshipers. To the end of his life, neither society nor the critics ever forgave him, and did not even do justice to his genius. His espousal of the popular cause in Europe embittered the conservative element, and the freedom of speculation in such masterly works as 'Cain' brought upon him the anathemas of orthodox England. Henceforth in England his poetry was judged by his liberal and unorthodox opinions. This vituperation rose to its height when Byron dared to satirize ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... one of the men who can write only one sort of thing. The numerous little poems contained in the first volume of this series show his sympathetic knowledge of children, while his essays prove that he could handle serious subjects in a most masterly manner. The extract from Treasure Island which you have just been reading displays his skill in still another field—the writing ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... home in a pensive mood, my vanity got the better of my pity. I could not but highly plume myself on my masterly management in getting rid of Bartleby. Masterly I call it, and such it must appear to any dispassionate thinker. The beauty of my procedure seemed to consist in its perfect quietness. There was no vulgar ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... its outlet in a deeper interest in the life about him than his brothers ever knew; and who later felt the magic of the world of books; and, still later, the need of expression, an expression which finally showed itself in a masterly interpretation of country life and experiences. The same heredity here, the same environment, the same opportunities—yet how different the result! The farmer has tended and gathered many a crop from the old place ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... our generals will carry to-day's work out, my lad. That's it: Cracis has calculated upon its being like this, and this place will be instead of a retreat a masterly scheme which will end ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... of Vertue and Honor,' introduced as a song of one of the shepherds into these pastorals, exhibits no very masterly strokes of a sublime and inventive fancy. It has much of the trite imagery usually applied in the fabrication of these ideal edifices. It, however, shows our author in a new walk of poetry. This magnificent tower, or castle is built on inaccessible cliffs of flint: the walls ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... first prophet of the Socialists. Sartor Resartus is an admirable fantasia; The French Revolution is, with all its faults, a really fine piece of history; the lectures on Heroes contain some masterly sketches of personalities. But I think it is in Past and Present, and the essay on Chartism, that Carlyle achieves the work he was chosen by gods and men to achieve; which possibly might not have been achieved by a happier or more healthy-minded ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... meteoric theory of the sun's heat, and in 1854 Professor William Thomson applied his admirable mathematical powers to the development of the theory; but six years previously the subject had been handled in a masterly manner by Mayer, and all that I have said about it has been derived from him. When we consider the circumstances of Mayer's life, and the period at which he wrote, we cannot fail to be struck with astonishment at what he has accomplished. Here was a man of genius working in silence, animated solely ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... Christian experience, and a voice of edification and warning sounding through all ages for all who are willing to believe." Of the original sources of history, particularly for the earlier centuries, his knowledge was profound, and his use of them masterly. How thorough and how fair he is, can be fully appreciated only by those who explore for themselves the fountains from which he drew his materials. His chief defect is in the matter of form. He had but little dramatic power. He ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... him to his own staff and to recommend him for promotion to the grade of major-general to take rank from the date of his original appointment, declaring in support of his recommendation that he felt "under more than ordinary obligations for the masterly manner in which he discharged the duties of his position." Later he recommended that Smith be put first of all the army on the list for promotion, adding: "He is possessed of one of the clearest military heads in the army, is very practical and industrious," ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... intended to march towards Egra. The enemy, deceived by this feint, and imagining he wras going to execute some design, distinct from the object of the other armies, detached a body of twenty thousand men to observe his motions; then he made a sudden and masterly movement to the left, by which he cut off all communication between that detachment and the main army of the Austrians, which, having been reinforced by the army of Moravia, by the remains of the corps lately ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... them justice, make the most of their limited opportunities. Who knows, but that the peace of the world may be owing to it? For as there are about 230 representatives, we should have had, but for it, just as many masterly demonstrations of the title of the Republic to the whole of Oregon—and something more. In such a cause, they would make nothing of beginning with the creation of the world, and ending with the last protocol of Mr Buchanan! Decidedly, but for "the one-hour ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... a distant resemblance to "honest Iago" in Othello, though Molire has only faintly shadowed forth what Shakespeare has worked out in so masterly ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... Dominic (which had already been treated in a masterly manner by Fra Guglielmo, in the "arca" at Bologna, and by Traini in his picture at Pisa), Fra Angelico has, in some scenes, given a fuller development, but with less dramatic sentiment; exactly the good and bad ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... him insolently, taking stock of the fresh cheeks, the keen blue eyes, the square, massive, masterly jaw, the assertive air, the clothing which was civilisation's conventional garb and which in the matter alone of heavy laced boots made concession to the mountains. The man was young, perhaps had not yet gotten into his thirties, and none the less had already ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... hasty remarks without expressing a wish that one of your correspondents in particular would take up this subject, to handle which in a masterly manner, his position is a guaranty of his ability. I refer to the gentleman holding the office of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... gone well. By one of the most daring and masterly manoeuvres that Ramiro had ever seen in his long and varied experience upon the seas, the little Swallow, with her crew of three men, had run the gauntlet of the fort which was warned and waiting for her; had sunk and sailed through the big Government boat ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... fond of her in spite of his analysis. He thought with pride that she was thoroughbred, capable of masterly strokes. Yet, alas! the opportunities for masterly strokes would come so rarely; meanwhile she was a dangerous, febrile, nervous, chemical compound—something to be isolated. With her five-day enthusiasms, her quick wit, her restlessness, her sense of dress, ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... and we have come nearer together both from a friendly and an artistic standpoint. His fourth Concerto (Conzert-Symphonie) is a marked advance on the previous ones. He played this, as well as the third Concerto, the day before yesterday, in a truly masterly and electric, living manner. Frau Dr. Steche will have told you about it. Perhaps in your next number you will put in a short appreciative notice ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... splendid qualities of courage, tact and restraint. As a study of American womanhood of modern times, the character of Bettina Vanderpoel stands alone in literature. As a love story, the account of her experience is magnificent. The masterly handling, the glowing style of the book, give it a literary rank to which very few modern ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... speech yesterday, Mr. Ratcliffe. I am glad to have a chance of telling you how much I was impressed by it. It seemed to me masterly. Do you not find that it has had a ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... seigneurial system was not a leading cause of the rebellion, but it was one of the grievances included by the habitants in their general bill of complaint. Hence, when Lord Durham came to Quebec to investigate the causes of colonial discontent, the system came in for its share of study. In his masterly Report on the Affairs of British North America he recognized that the old system had outlived its day of usefulness, and that its continuance was unwise. But Durham outlined no plan for its abolition. He believed that if the province ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... real, they do not become poetical. The extract which we have made from Irving is not poetical. Accurate, vivid, life-like, it is. We cannot read it without a feeling of pleasure. We admire the genius of the writer; we wonder at the magnificence of the spectacle which, by a few masterly touches, he has raised up before us. But there is no more poetry in it than in his description of Herr Van Tassel's supper table, covered with all the luxuries of Dutch housewifery. It is true, there may ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... husband seems to be sufficiently absolute, depending, nevertheless, in great measure on the dispositions of the respective parties. Iligliuk was one of those women who seem formed to manage their husbands; and we one day saw her take Okotook to task in a very masterly style, for having bartered away a good jacket for an old useless pistol, without powder or shot. He attempted at first to bluster in his turn, and with most women would probably have gained his point. But with Iligliuk this would not do; she saw at once the absurdity ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... other allusion to food, but talked amusingly and made her visitor talk amusingly too. At the same time she cut the bread-and-butter with a masterly skill and produced red pepper and sliced lemon, where so many women would merely have produced reasons and regrets for not having any. Cushat-Prinkly found that he was enjoying an excellent tea without having ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... his perspiring face, his forehead, and, finally, his whole head and neck, manipulating the huge handkerchief in a masterly manner almost ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... worldly wise; else, how could he have been simple enough to suppose, that Mazarine would leave such a question to be voted 'pro' and 'con', and decided by thirty emissaries in London! And, how could he have reconciled Mazarine's having any share in Charles's death with his own masterly account, pp. 98, 99, 100? Even Cromwell, though he might have prevented, could not have effected, the sentence. The regicidal judges were not his creatures. Consult the Life ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... that can be said, the work surprises us by the erudition it displays. Nor is that surprise lessened when we have gone through the masterly analysis of its contents, which Dr. Luard has given us in the Preface to his first vol. Such as it was, it became the great text-book on which Roger of Wendover founded his own labours when he incorporated it into the chronicle which he left behind him. Roger of Wendover did good work, and laboriously ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... Hall, Dudley was sent for there. The squire, it seems, wanted a set of drawings made up, of which Mannering had done the first four, but was interrupted by his hasty departure in his purpose of completing them. Dudley says he has seldom seen anything so masterly, though slight; and each had attached to it a short poetical description. Is Saul, you will say, among the prophets? Colonel Mannering write poetry! Why, surely this man must have taken all the pains to conceal his accomplishments that others do to display theirs. How ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... scarcely be added after all that has been said about light and atmosphere in connection with Titian and Tintoretto, and their handling of real life, that Bassano's treatment of both was even more masterly. If this were not so, neither picture-fanciers of his own time, nor we nowadays, should care for his works as we do. They represent life in far more humble phases than even the pictures of Tintoretto, and, without recompensing effects of light and atmosphere, they ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... whole evening might well be devoted—because only three years ago my talented predecessor in this chair, Sir William Armstrong, made it the subject of his inaugural address, and dealt with it in so masterly and exhaustive a style as to render it absolutely impossible for me to usefully add anything to his remarks. I cannot, however, leave this branch of the subject without mentioning, not a piece of ordnance, but a small arm, invented since the date of Sir William's ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... regarded the murderers as benefactors. Antonius spoke so as to turn their minds from rejoicing to regret at a great man's untimely death and so as to justify himself and win the hearts of the populace. And in what a masterly way Antonius won them! We shall render, along with the oration, the interjected remarks of the crowd, inasmuch as they too are evidences of Shakespeare's understanding of the human soul and his realization of the manner in ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... had new views on art and original ideas. As a great artist he knew that "there never was an artistic period. There never was an Art-loving nation." Again and again he reached pure beauty of expression. The masterly persiflage, too, filled me with admiration and I declared that the lecture ranked with the best ever heard in London with Coleridge's on Shakespeare and Carlyle's on Heroes. To my astonishment Oscar would not admit the superlative quality of Whistler's talk; he thought the message ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... gallery of art, to do anything that her brother can do. St. Paul is dead and rotten, and ought to be forgotten—(Applause, laughter, and a few hisses)—so far as this doctrine goes, mark you! for his is the noblest figure in all history, except that of Christ, the broadest and most masterly intellect of any age; but he was a Jew and not a Christian; he lived under Jewish civilization and not ours, and was speaking by his own light, and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... aloft, in his own domain, as an accumulator, his credit as a judge of testimony is nearly as high. The deciding test of his critical sagacity is the masterly treatment of the case against the Templars. They were condemned without mercy, by Church and State, by priest and jurist, and down to the present day cautious examiners of evidence, like Prutz and Lavocat, give a faltering verdict. In the face of many credulous forerunners and of much ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... called—a Carmen Triumphale. Never in my recollection has any work ... excited such a ferment ... I sold on the day of publication—a thing perfectly unprecedented—10,000 copies.... Mr. Moore says it is masterly—a wonderful performance. Mr. Hammond, Mr. Heber, D'Israeli, every one who comes ... declare their unlimited approbation. Mr. Ward was here with Mr. Gifford yesterday, and mingled his admiration with the rest ... and Gifford did, what I never knew him do before—he repeated several ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... contributing to form a true public sentiment in that new State. Consequently, she speaks from absolute knowledge of the present state of the freedmen. Her criticism of the theories of reconstruction was masterly, showing that the fundamental principles of this Government are set aside and really endanger all that we have seemed to gain by the war, and that nothing but the admission of the black man to the franchise can save the nation from future disgrace and ultimate ruin.—National Anti-Slavery ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... 'The greatest wit, though not the best poet of our nation,' Dryden called him; the greatest intellect, that is, which had expressed itself in poetry. Dryden himself was not always careful to distinguish between what material was fit and what unfit for verse; so that we can now enjoy his masterly prose with more equable pleasure than his verse. But he saw clearly enough the distinction in Donne between intellect and the poetical spirit; that fatal division of two forces, which, had they pulled together ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... noted that from that instant Jack Turnbull rose forty good points in Lucile's estimation. It gave her a feeling of grateful security to be piloted through the crowd in this masterly fashion. Soon they had covered the length of the platform and had reached the curb, which was lined with ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... aspire to the glory of masters like Maimonides and Jehudah ha-Levi. But the task he set himself was to comment upon the Bible and the Talmud, the two living sources that feed the great stream of Judaism, and he fulfilled the task in a masterly fashion and conclusively. Moreover he touched upon nearly all branches of Jewish literature, grammar, exegesis, history, and archaeology. In short his commentaries became inseparable from the texts they explain. For, if in some respects his work despite all this may ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... opinion freely upon this subject, and I must confess to being a willing listener, for she does not gossip, she portrays, and often with a masterly touch. The woes of her countrywoman, the Ponsonby's housekeeper, often stir her to the quick. The Ponsonby household is perhaps one of the most "difficult" on the Bluffs, because its members are of widely divergent ages. The three Ponsonby girls ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... they meet. And so when you peruse the pages of Old Man Curry's book, you will find Charlie Van Loan at his very best. When one says that it means you will follow a trail blazed by one of the most masterly short story writers we ever had. Better yet, he writes about real people and they do real believable things. You are not asked to stretch your imagination or endeavor to form an excuse for the happening as portrayed. You will find it all logical and you will be able to follow the old man and ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... on the opposite side, and sunk in sad thoughts, was contemplating a large portrait of Henry the Eighth, the masterly production of Holbein. As he gazed on that countenance, indicative at once of so much dignity and so much ferocity; as he contemplated those eyes which shone with such gloomy severity, those lips on which ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... will put an end to her masterly inactivity." Lloyd chuckled so vindictively that Symonds glanced ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... thought so," he muttered, after he had left the house—"a masterly stroke, that; a masterly stroke! This villain Jew Mike is the cher amie of Sow Nance, as she is called; and Nance is in the confidence of Tickels; what wonder that the dirty slut recommended her pal and ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... introduced his Bill, which, being a Government Bill, took precedence of ours and became law as the Trade Boards Act. In 1910 again, on the Home Office Vote, an occasion on which Dilke always made a masterly review of the industrial history of the year, he asked me to second him, and to deal particularly with lead-poisoning in the Potteries. He always tried to detach Labour questions from party. It was entirely owing to him that I took an ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... form in his mind when I rapped our code-sign for bishop? In vain and often I asked him this very question. In vain he tried to describe in words that mental image of something he had never seen but which nevertheless he was able to handle in such masterly fashion as to bring confusion upon me countless times ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... gloaming in tropical countries," said Bertie indulgently; "but I like the masterly reticence with which you treat the cobra's motive for gloating. The unknown is proverbially the uncanny. I can picture nervous readers of the SMOKY CHIMNEY keeping the light turned on in their bedrooms all night out of sheer ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... Charles Nodier and Jules Janin. Nodier was delighted to see his old friend, and after a long conversation, Jasmin said that "he left him with tears in his eyes." Janin complimented him upon his works, especially upon his masterly use of the Gascon language. "Go on," he said, "and write your poetry in the patois which always appears to me so delicious. You possess the talent necessary for the purpose; it ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... the treasures from her coasts," and that of the widowed Margaret Huntington, at Roxbury, of which there is still a well-preserved record, in the handwriting of John Eliot. The guiding and controlling influence of Hooker's masterly mind upon all, whether laymen or divines, with whom he came in contact, must be apparent to those who are familiar with the biography of one, to whom the learned and religious institutions of New England are more indebted, perhaps, than to any other single person. Hooker's settlement at ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... upper chapel, where it hangs quite lost upon those below. It is as beautiful as its altarpiece in wood; the three central compartments filled with large figures of the Abbot of St. Claude and his Apostles; below, on a small scale, the Last Supper, and other subjects, treated in a masterly manner. The colours are still bright, though the whole is in a terribly dirty state, and below the central figure is a coronal of the loveliest little cherub heads. Unfortunately, no photograph is to be ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... manufacture is simple, yet it needs a masterly touch. After the potter has finished his work at the wheel and while the clay is still soft, the decorator makes his rough design with a blunt-pointed stylus. A line of black glaze is painted around each figure. Then the black ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... paper, entitled The Caesars, will be found in Blackwood's Magazine for the present month. It is full of attractive lore, and contains, to our thinking, a masterly estimate of the actual character of Caesar. It displays very considerable learning, research, and knowledge of life, or that treasure which we call world-knowledge. It is not a cut-and-dry classical character "by way of abstract," but such a whole-length portrait as we wish to see drawn of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... their future, with a real future before them, with an unexplained life to live: not goblets whose contents have been drained, but fountains that still flow when the traveller who drank from them has passed on. Jarno, for example, a man of firm and definite outlines, and drawn here with masterly distinctness, without a blur or a wavering of the hand in the whole delineation, is yet the unexplained, unexhausted Jarno, when the book closes. He goes forward with the rest, known and yet unknown, a man of very definite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... the date and place of composition has been treated by Cornill, "Einleitung in das Alte Testament," 235 fol., by Prof. Duhm, "The Book of Job" (cf. "The New World," June, 1894), and others. But the most lucid, masterly, and dispassionate discussion of the subject is to be found in Prof. Cheyne's ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... characters and similar situations; both thought and phraseology became somewhat mannerised. I put this down myself to the belief that life was beginning to be more interesting to him than art. But there suddenly appeared the book which made him famous, a book both masterly and delicate, full of subtle analysis and perception, and with that indescribable sense of actuality which is the best test of art. The style at the same time seemed to have run clear; he had gained a perfect command of his instrument, and I had about this book, what I had never ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the luminous passages on evolution in it surrounded with a dense fog of abstractions on time, space, the unknowable, etc.? Until these last few years a vain effort was made to consign, by a conspiracy of silence, the masterly work of Marx to oblivion, but now his name is coming to rank with those of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer as the three Titans of the scientific revolution which begot the intellectual renaissance and gave fresh ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... 'proofs that among various savages religious ideas do not exist.' 'Sir John Lubbock has given many of these.' But it would be well to advise the reader to consult Roskoff's confutation of Sir John Lubbock, and Mr. Tylor's masterly statement.[5] Mr. Spencer cited Sir Samuel Baker for savages without even 'a ray of superstition' or a trace of worship. Mr. Tylor, twelve years before Mr. Spencer wrote, had demolished Sir Samuel Baker's assertion,[6] as regards ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... General Li Yuan-hung desired above all was to be forgotten completely and absolutely—springing to life when the hour of deliverance finally arrived. His policy was shown to be not only psychologically accurate, but masterly in a political sense. The greatest ally of honesty in China has always been time, the inherent decency of the race finally discrediting scoundrelism in every period of ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... radiance that was never quite missing from her smile, and Susan felt a mad impulse to- day to have a long comforting cry on the broad shoulder. She thoroughly loved Mrs. Carroll, even if she thought the older woman's interest in soups and darning and the filling of lamps a masterly affectation, and pitied her for the bitter fate that had robbed her of home and husband, wealth and position, at the very time when her children needed these ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... surprise, when the "Syllabus" appeared, however much its publication may have struck with astonishment and alarm the party of revolution and unbelief. Catholics, at least, could not fail to be swayed by such a masterly exposition of Catholic theology on so many subjects, all intimately connected with human conduct in private life as well as in affairs of public import. And there were Catholics everywhere—among the rulers of the world and its leading statesmen, no ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... and the respect I feel for your illustrious person, induce me to intrude on you with this letter, and also to send you a small portion of my music, which I venture to submit to your masterly judgment. Last year, at Monaco, in Bavaria, I wrote an opera buffa ("La finta Giardiniera") for the Carnival. A few days previous to my departure from thence, his Electoral Highness wished to hear some of my contrapuntal music; ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... intimate friends looked upon his picture as prophetic; and so he seemed to regard it himself. The artist worked with diligence, seemingly with an apprehension that he would not live to complete the piece. Finish it, however, he did in a masterly style, grouping everything that could denote the end of all things. Prominent were a broken bottle, an old broom, a bow unstrung, the butt-end of an old musket, a crown tumbled in pieces, towers in ruins, the moon in her wane, the map ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... my last visit to England in 1876-7, I spent part of a day at the residence of the Rev. Wm. Arthur, A.M., who showed me the works in his library from which he had derived the principal materials of his masterly work on The Pope and The People. Among other works he shewed me some volumes written by Father Thyner, containing an account of the proceedings of the Council of Trent. "Why," I said, "I know Father Thyner personally," and related my acquaintance with him. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... lawful heir, and the Princes of Italy were affording him unhindered passage through their States. This was not at all to Charles's liking. Indeed, unless he bestirred himself, it might prove to be checkmate from an altogether unexpected quarter, rendering vain all the masterly play with which he had ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... it is the fifth act, and some blood must therefore be shed; Garrick's refusal, in all likelihood, spared him the worse mortification of seeing it rejected on the stage. Yet there is here and there in it a masterly ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... herausgegeben von H. A. Keller, Tuebingen, 1836, p. cxxxviii.; Dyocletianus Leben, von Hans von Buehel, herausgegeben von A. Keller, Quedlinburg und Leipzig, 1841, p. 45. All students of this subject are acquainted with Domenico Comparetti's masterly essay Ricerche intorno al Libro di Sindibad, Milan, 1869, which has recently been made accessible to English readers in a version published by the English Folk-Lore Society in 1882. The Persian and Arabic texts may be consulted ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... policy of masterly inactivity. He would have wished to exclude Stanislaus from the Polish throne, but he was not willing to go to war with France. He could not bring himself to believe that the interests of England were concerned in the struggle to such a degree as to warrant the waste of English money ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both. And there was a great cry, and the Scribes that were on the part of the Pharisees, arose and strove, saying, "We find no evil in this man" &c. This, indeed, was a masterly manoeuvre, and produced the desired effect; and Paul by this shows his knowledge of the human heart, in trusting to make his Judges forget what he was accused of, by making an appeal to their sectarian passions. For, in truth, ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... which were the same—to give the railroad and other corporations a succession of colossal gifts and other special privileges—laws, many of which will be referred to later—we shall pass on to one of the final masterly strokes of the railroad magnates in possessing themselves of many of such of the last remaining valuable public lands ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... three of his notices in the "Acropolis." The names of painters famous before his time you will not find in the largest dictionaries now. Four journalists committed suicide after he had burlesqued their syntax, and two statesmen resigned office owing to his masterly examination of their policy. We were all much shocked when a popular actor set fire to his theatre on a first night because Curtis and his dramatic critic refused to take champagne and chicken between the acts. This may give you some ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... worth hearing, indeed, for under his masterly touch the instrument sang, laughed and wept, and whispered love-words at his will; now, one high string pleaded its passionate melody to a low and sighing accompaniment that never swelled to reach it; and now, the nineteen strings sounded together as ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... Gissing, Joseph Conrad, and H. G. Wells. Some of the better examples of modern fiction have always had a special topographical appeal to me. I greatly enjoy the work of a writer who has set himself to treat a given countryside exhaustively. This, more even than his masterly irony, his philosophy, his remarkable fullness of mind and opulent allusiveness, has been at the root of the immense appeal Hardy's work makes to me. ('Q,' in a different measure, of course, makes a similar appeal.) Let the Wessex master forsake his ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... This masterly stratagem created something like a panic in the ranks of the Forty Thieves. At the end of two years they found themselves exhausted with the protracted campaign, their movements hampered by a lot of worn-out plant and antiquated machinery, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... gradually, and should not be hastened, but should only keep pace with the new conceptions. Nevertheless, there should not be too tenacious a clinging to the old forms, which expressed lower conceptions, when the masterly thought of the day is forging out higher and purer ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... about sanitation in the prophylaxis of disease and in the prevention of contagion in the modern time, the more have we come to appreciate highly the teachings of these old times on such subjects. Moses made a masterly exposition of the knowledge necessary to prevent contagious disease when he laid down the rules with regard to leprosy, first as to careful differentiation, then as to isolation, and finally as to disinfection after it had come to be sure that cure had taken place. The great lawgiver ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... relieve the pain. I could scarcely walk at all, from excessive weakness. The most powerful opiates had ceased to have any effect. A consultation was held, which resulted in having the thumb split open. Mr. Langford performed the operation in a masterly manner, dividing thumb, bone, and all. An explosion ensued, followed by immediate relief. I slept through the night, all day, and the next night, and felt much better. To Mr. Langford, General Washburn, Mr. Stickney ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... divan, and onto this, with a gurgle of pleasure, she made a dive, placed two cushions for her head, put one little hand under her face, snuggled into an attitude of perfect comfort and deliberately went to sleep. It was masterly. ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... emotion on another occasion, so that eventually, whenever we see that object, we respond by a blend of the two emotions. Your chief may terrify you on some occasions, at other times amaze you by his masterly grasp on affairs, and again win your affection by his care for your own welfare; so that your attitude toward "the boss" comes to be a blend of fear, admiration and gratitude. Religion and patriotism furnish good ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... then maneuvering his masterly all-American offensive in the San Michel. Our Seventh Division, with the 28th on the left and the 92d on the right, now reached the high full tide of martial responsibility; merging from the reserve into the attack; and taking its place with the Immortal Combat Divisions ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... Conference of 1907, the work of several committees, and a masterly report by Professor Renault, Parl. Papers, No. iv. (1908), p. 9, resulted in The Hague Convention, No. xii. of that year, providing for the establishment of a mixed Court of ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... time, I will say in self-defence that, if I had a very long summer in which to keep coming and dwelling long hours in the company of these frescos, I think I might live back into the spirit which invented the fables, and enjoy even more the amusing taste that was never tired of their repetition. Masterly conception and incomparable execution are there in histories which are the dreams of worlds almost as extinct as the dead planets whose last rays still reach us and in whose death-glimmer we can fancy, if we will, ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells |
