"Perfectly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a man," said Lord Dalgarno, whose shrewder knowledge of the English Court saw where his father's deficiency lay, "that had it so perfectly in his power to have made his way to the pinnacle of fortune as my poor father. He had acquired a right to build up a staircase, step by step, slowly and surely, letting every boon, which he begged year after year, become in its turn the resting-place for the next annual grant. But your fortunes ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the country, might have managed better—though even to-day I don't see clearly what she could have done; as for me, though I had been brought up in the belief that Paris was one of the most expensive places to live in, and though I was perfectly aware of its prices,—having kept my father's house for some years, on account of my mother's weak state of health,—I was entirely taken by surprise, and rather afraid of the reckoning at the end of the year. No one who has not attempted that kind of primitive existence has any idea of its ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... you slide along. Or even take off one Ski and try running on the other; lifting a Ski will often save a fall. For instance if the Skis get crossed, just lift the upper one and put it down beside the other again while running. It is perfectly easy and yet I have known people who, after weeks of practice, dared not lift a Ski off the ground while moving, only because they had never tried it as ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... perfectly well the little calendar in the hall. You gave it me at Christmas, and it was always out of order, and never kept right. But I could make ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... nodding his wooden head, as if to say, "It's the kind of life which would agree with me perfectly." ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... not forgotten. The teacher knew perfectly well that the boy would before long be at his old tricks again, and was reserving this story as the means of turning the whole current of public opinion against such tricks, ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... make her less evenly sympathetic with those about her than her heart's theory demanded. Willing to lay down her life for them, a matchless nurse in sickness, and in trouble revealing a tenderness perfectly lovely, she was yet not the one to whom first either of the children was ready to flee with hurt or sorrow: she was not yet all human, because she was not yet at home ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... perfectly willing that his world should see in him an incorrigible scoffer at moral conventions. He rather enjoyed being the object of maternal warnings to young daughters, but in financial affairs no stern moralist could have been more observant of rigid integrity, and in that, ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... young knight presented himself, who, more than any other in the procession, attracted the attention of the spectators. This youthful knight's visor was raised so as to disclose his features, and these were so comely, that, combined with his finely-proportioned figure, perfectly displayed by his armour, he offered an ensemble of manly attractions almost irresistible to female eyes. Nor did the grace and skill which he exhibited in the management of his steed commend him less highly to sterner judges, who did not fail to discover that his limbs, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... heats, ignites, and even burns the touching points, and the appearance is as if the spark passed on making contact, whereas it is only a case of ignition by the current, contact being previously made, and is perfectly analogous to the ignition of a fine platina wire connecting the extremities of ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... said Irene. "He has fixed on seven o'clock to-morrow for the conference. I am looking forward with curiosity to seeing Alfieri again. I remember him perfectly. Captain Stump and I had a good look at ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... beg you won't get out—sit still, my dear sir, I will drive you to the cafe—your second question I cannot so well answer. It would seem that my sister herself is nothing loth—sit easy, sir, the carriage is perfectly safe—but unfortunately it happens that the gentleman who has the control of her actions, her guardian, dislikes Americans extremely; and I have reason to believe that he has taken a particularly strong antipathy to you. Indeed, I have heard him swear that he'll cut your throat—pardon me, Mr. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... those of small pocketbooks. It is a perfectly respectable place, but people living on Fifth Avenue prefer ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... which had shaken the stability of the Roman power, and of consolidating an empire greater and more powerful than her greatest statesmen had previously dreamed of. But all the more delightful to these men must it have been to come into intimate contact with a man who, while perfectly appreciating their special gifts and aims, could bring them back from the stir and excitement of their habitual life to think of other things than social or political successes,—to look into their own hearts, and to live for a time for something ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... plain, simple, but abundant regimen of my table, shall not be tampered with by the indulgence in any of the pampering products of confectionery. They are absolutely and unconditionally prohibited—as every boy who hears me now knows perfectly well! ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... but, after a few years, Mrs. P. fell into the habit of drinking, and then such scenes as you witnessed grew frequent. I have often heard of them, and always that P. sat, as you describe him, his head bowed down and perfectly silent all through, whatever might be done or whoever be present, and always his aspect has inspired such sympathy that no person has questioned him or resented her insults, but merely got out of the way, so soon ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... I, "there is no doubt but it is the same turban; for besides that I know it perfectly well, I feel by the weight it is too heavy to be any other, and you will perceive this if you give yourself the trouble to take it in your hand." Then after taking out the birds, and giving them to the children, I put it into his hands, and he gave it to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... much the Holy Land is our country, appears from this, that to all Christians, however remote the places where they live, the scenes about Jerusalem are more familiar than those about the capital of his own nation; and with Egypt we are scarcely less intimately, though much less perfectly, acquainted. Within the last half century, great researches have been made, by individual or national enterprise, into the poetry and antiquities of Egypt, by the enterprise of travellers and the diligence of archaeologists, among whom England ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... and curious sight. The great hall is almost as it was in the twelfth century; it is spanned by Saxon arches, and lighted by a multiplicity of Gothic windows of all sizes; it is very lofty, clean, and perfectly well ventilated; a screen runs across the middle of the room, to divide the male from the female patients, and we were taken to examine each ward, where the poor people seemed happier than possibly they would have been ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hinted further back, was not an African with a perfectly clear record. The rumors about his belonging to a gang of river pirates in San Francisco were correct, and he had been engaged in some deeds which were of a character that the law puts the severest ban upon. ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... considered a young man; having married a wife, and left sack and all other bad habits; having no longer any fellowship with under-graduates, or army subs, or medical students, or young men about town, or any other class of the heterogeneous irregulars who make up "Young England"—being a perfectly disinterested party in the question, inasmuch as having lost my reputation for youth, I have never acquired one for wisdom—hereby raise my voice against the intolerable cant, which assumes every man to be a hare-brained scapegrace at twenty, and Solomon at forty-five. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... I perfectly accord with your opinion of old Wither. Quarles is a wittier writer, but Wither lays more hold of the heart. Quarles thinks of his audience when he lectures; Wither soliloquizes in company with a full heart. ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... older constitution of the realm, nor could he understand other men's reluctance to purchase undoubted improvements by the sacrifice of customs and traditions of bygone days. Without any theoretical hostility to the co-ordinate powers of the state, it seemed to him a perfectly reasonable and natural course to trample either baronage or Church under foot to gain his end of good government. He saw clearly that the remedy for such anarchy as England had endured under Stephen lay in the establishment of a kingly rule unembarrassed ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... Returning now, with health perfectly restored, to practise my profession for the rest of my life exclusively in my own country, I have brought with me this little book, in which the comparative leisure of my enforced sojourn at Nice has enabled me to ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... not so universally looked up to as old Mr. Darch. Not doing the business of the highest people in the county, and not mixing freely with the best society, like old Mr. Darch. A very sufficient man, in his way, nevertheless. Known as a perfectly competent and respectable practitioner all round the neighborhood. In short, professionally next best to Mr. Darch; and personally superior to him (if the expression might be permitted) in this respect—that Darch was a Crusty One, and ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... his fate to be carried early from the theatre of war as a prisoner, and in this character he arrived with General Sievers at Berlin. But his durance was light, his prison the large and pleasant city of Berlin, in which he could wander about perfectly free with the sole restriction of ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... some which, from over burning, are smaller than the average, they should be laid at the upper ends of the laterals. The cardinal rule of the tile layer should be never to have a single tile in the finished drain of smaller size, of more irregular shape, or less perfectly laid, than any tile above it. If there is to be any difference in the quality of the drain, at different points, let it grow better as it approaches the outlet and has a greater length above depending upon ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... also was somewhat reorganized and increased at Mill Creek, and though it had been perfectly satisfactory before, yet, on account of the changes of troops that had occurred in the command, I found it necessary to replace valuable officers in some instances, and secure additional ones in others. The gathering of information about the enemy was also industriously ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... Skin, Freckles, Wrinkles, Pimples, Blackheads, Crow's-feet, Blotches, Face Grubs, Tan, Sunburn, Chapped Hands, Sore Lips, etc. It teaches how to cure and prevent redness and roughness, and to make the skin soft, smooth, white and delicate, producing a perfectly healthy and natural appearance. It teaches how to cure and refine a coarse skin, so that it ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... pass unchallenged! A moment after, the sergeant came in, and I instantly engaged him in conversation, inducing him to tell some good stories, to keep him from missing my companion, and to allow as much time for a start as possible, before the inevitable alarm was given. I succeeded perfectly for some five minutes, when Wells came in, threw an uneasy glance around the room, and at ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... four kittens, and she said they were perfectly lovely, but liked most the one with a white breast and a sweet dot of a white nose. I told her she might have it for hers as quick as it was old enough to leave its mother. But she has never sent for it since. I guess ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... friends engaged in business in the city. It was also the room in which the Government held the public sales of opium of which Mackenzie Lyall & Co. had at one time the sole monopoly. There is a story told, and a perfectly true one, to the effect that one chest of opium was once bid up to the enormous sum of Rs. 1,30,955. The circumstances that brought this about originated in the China steamer being overdue and hourly expected; consequently the buyers ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... had been carried over a sunken reef, and lay with her masts pointing towards the shore, which could be distinguished through the gloom not more than half a mile away. My father stood by the mainmast perfectly composed, issuing orders as if nothing had occurred. Hands were sent aloft to furl the foretopsail; and he then directed that the boats on the starboard side should be brought over, so as to be launched ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... get perfectly exasperated when Cousin John does this way. There were at least a half dozen people I'd promised to introduce to him. If he had no consideration for me he ought to have for you. He has been keeping you at home entirely too much. He forgets that you are twenty years his junior; he ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... the second lieutenant going in one to command the expedition, and having Billy Blueblazes with him, Tom having charge of the other with Desmond, Pat Casey, and Peter the black, with Nick and Pipes. The sea was perfectly smooth, so that they were able to get alongside the wreck. A cursory examination left no doubt that she was the vessel of which they were in search. She was in a fearfully battered condition. Her after-cabin had been knocked to pieces, and the whole of her cargo washed ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... seemed perfectly consistent to the reformers. They felt the necessity of lodging somewhere that power of human control which had been formerly exercised by the pope. As one writer has said, "They could not understand that Christianity could prosper ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... desisted from this unexciting pastime as they drew near, and eyed them with the sullenness that comes of long isolation when the person's nature forbids that other extreme of babbling garrulity, for no man can live long months alone and remain perfectly normal. Nature, that stern mistress, always exacts a penalty from us foolish mortals who would ignore the instincts she has wisely implanted within us ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... the finest meridian circle is little more than a mass of imperfections. The ideal tube is perfectly rigid, the actual tube is flexible; the ideal divisions of the circle are perfectly uniform, the actual divisions are not uniform. The ideal instrument is a geometrical embodiment of perfect circles, perfect ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... calling for a song, to which call he who had proposed the King's health answered instantly and with evident satisfaction. His rich if somewhat rough voice came booming through the partitions, carolling a ballad to which the Puritan listened with a perfectly unmoved countenance, while the Lady Brilliana's eager face expressed every ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... which was made to slide along a straight edge and dots were repeatedly made on a glass-plate; when these were joined, the result ought to have been a perfectly straight line, and the line was very nearly straight. It may be added that when the dot on the card was placed half-an-inch below or behind the bead of sealing-wax, and when the glass-plate (supposing ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... perfectly well that her deposition would be the baron's death-warrant; but she persisted in her resolve, veiling her hatred and her insensibility under the ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... every one of his heroes, from Waverley to Quentin Durward. The owner visits Thrasymene every summer, and pretends that these iron harvests of the field, which he gleans each year from near the banks of the "Stream of Blood," were sown there in the time of Hannibal, with whose name he is perfectly familiar; and should you, on questioning him, make out that he was not quite au courant as to dates, and not quite certain that every spear-head was as old as the Punic war; his rule for sale is simple, (viz.) whenever there appears to be a doubt, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... finished, the senior native officer stepped forward, and in the name of the detachment assured the Major that the men were perfectly contented, and would in all cases follow their officers, even if they ordered them to march against their countrymen. At the conclusion of his speech he called upon the troops to give three cheers for the Major and officers, and this was responded to with ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... famine this year,' and when the contributions pour in they laugh and sing, and say, 'The distress for ever! Long live the famine!' The word goes round at stated intervals that they are to 'have a famine.' They jump at the suggestion, act well together, and carry out the idea perfectly. The Protestants never have any distress which calls for charitable aid. They live on the same soil, under the same laws, but they never beg. They pay their rents, too, much more regularly than the others, who of late years can hardly be got to pay either ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... complimentary tone, is a more than usually graceful tribute to our old Universities, and the introduction of the little analogue is singularly happy. The Duke, whose letters to Reeve are all in French, wrote this verbatim as here given, in correct English, perfectly well spelt. ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... formal recognition of the French Republic. Without entering, for the present, into a question on the good faith manifested in that measure, or on its general policy, I doubt, upon mere temporary considerations of prudence, whether it was perfectly advisable. It is not within, the rules of dexterous conduct to make an acknowledgment of a contested title in your enemy before you are morally certain that your recognition will secure his friendship. Otherwise it is a measure worse than thrown away. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... poetical composition, and we have done.—The art of composition is merely accessory to the poetical talent. But where that talent exists it necessarily gives its own character to the style, and renders it perfectly different from all others. As the poet's habits of mind lead to contemplation rather than communication with others, he is more or less obscure, according to the particular style of poetry he has adopted; less so, in epic or narrative and dramatic representation—more so, in odes and choruses. ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... may be perfectly reg'lar here," continued Jed Wallop. "Although, like you, I have my doubts. But unless you want me to stay, I'll git home." And a little later he took ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... at certain times occur in the experience of all of us, and seem to be something more than shrewd or lucky guesses, may be referred to the same power which we find, in the case just quoted, more perfectly developed. Nothing supernatural, but a natural gift, imperceptible to us in its familiar, moderate, and healthy exercise, brought first under our notice when some deranged adjustment of the mind has ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... which we are glad to be in, following upon a day of unwonted excitement and exertion. There are few pleasanter pieces of life. The worst of it is that they last such a short time; for nurse them as you will, by lying perfectly passive in mind and body, you can't make more than five minutes or so of them. After which time the stupid, obtrusive, wakeful entity which we call "I", as impatient as he is stiff-necked, spite of our teeth will force himself back again, and take ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... neared this great emporium of California, possessed of some of the details of its astonishing growth, and remembering it as it existed when its inhabitants could be easily counted in an hour, he was perfectly astonished to behold the great changes which a few short ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Muller both looked the young man over very carefully. He seemed perfectly innocent, and their suspicion that he might have turned the key in pretense only, soon vanished. It would have been a foolish suspicion anyway. If he were in league with the murderer, he could have let the latter escape with much more ...
— The Case of the Golden Bullet • Grace Isabel Colbron, and Augusta Groner
... to compose. One of these first attempts was a concerto so difficult that no one could play it; but the child undauntedly said, "Why, that's the very reason why it is called a concerto; people must practise it before they can play it perfectly." ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... has marked the chronology of this year by three signs which do not perfectly coincide with each other, or with the series of the history:—1. The corn was ripe when Sapor invaded Mesopotamia, 'cum jura stipula flavente turgerent'—a circumstance which, in the latitude of Aleppo, would naturally refer us to the month of April or May. 2. The progress of Sapor was ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... his calculations the chance that a perfectly sober engineer will get drunk one day and give orders so crazy that it costs tens of thousands to repair the damage? Who could foresee that against all probability a big vein of water would be tapped in tunnelling, and would burst out, flooding the workings ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... which requires the careful attention of those who desire to make themselves perfectly intelligible to all, irrespective of nationality, is the correct use of prepositions. In English the same preposition is often employed to express many diverse ideas, and it therefore becomes desirable to consider this ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 3 • Various
... by a certain person of a learned profession, "a spider of hell." My Lords, Sir Walter was a great soldier, a great mariner, and one of the first scholars of his age. To call him a spider of hell was not only indecent in itself, but perfectly foolish, from the term being totally inapplicable to the object, and fit only for the very pedantic eloquence of the person who used it. But if Sir Walter Raleigh had been guilty of numberless frauds and prevarications, if he had clandestinely picked up other men's money, concealed his peculation ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and still more disconcerted, this afternoon, to find my pony going badly. He was perfectly willing to walk, but at a most dignified rate, selected by himself. He apparently had no objection to catching up the party every now and then, but only to relapse into his funeral walk, after ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... him pause in his diatribe against Mrs. Newbolt and move his heel while she pushed the ant aside with a clover blossom. Her anxious gentleness made him laugh, but it seemed to him perfectly beautiful. Then he went on about ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... China, perfectly hardy, shrub-like but herbaceous; a rampant grower, attaining the height of 6ft. or 7ft., and spreading fast by means of root suckers. During the early spring it pushes its fleshy shoots, and the coloured leaves, which are nearly red, are very pleasing; as they unfold they are seen ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... it would have appeared as quite uniquely hideous until the red and yellow or the purple and orange ones had been seen; after that, no human being could have made a decision, where each was so unparalleled in its ugliness, and Old Kennebec's confusion of mind would have been perfectly understood by the connoisseur. ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... when I got married I'd be perfectly happy; but I never have been happy sence. It was the beginning of trouble to me. I never found things better than they looked; they was always worse. I've gone further an' further from the sunshiny meadow, ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... than such a retrospect as this? We look back on obstacles avoided and dangers overcome, on expectations more than realized and prosperity perfectly secured. To the hopes of the hostile, the fears of the timid, and the doubts of the anxious actual experience has given the conclusive reply. We have seen time gradually dispel every unfavorable foreboding and our Constitution surmount every adverse circumstance ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... great sob of uttermost anguish, she put back his hands, rose from the chair, and stood apart. Wilfrid rose and gazed at her in dread. Had the last calamity of human nature fallen upon her? He looked about, as if for aid. Emily read his thoughts perfectly; they helped ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... Jean in Pittsburgh as much as we want her here in Boston. Didn't I bring up Jean's father, I'd like to know; and her Uncle Bob as well? I guess I can be trusted to bring up another Cabot. It's ridiculous—that's what it is—perfectly ree-diculous!" That was Hannah's favorite expression—"Ree-diculous!" "I'd like my job," went on Hannah, "sending that precious child to Pittsburgh where her white dresses would get all grimed up ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... in a perfectly calm voice, "that my question is quite unnecessary: from your eagerness to finish this handsome piece of work, I ought to suspect that it is destined for some fine knight of yours whom you propose to send on a dangerous enterprise ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... a vast gathering! And I do not quite like the looks of Timocles; he is trembling; he has lost his head; he will spoil everything; it is perfectly plain, he will not be able to stand up to Damis. Well, there is one thing left us: we can ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... baffles me by his ANAN, and his DUNNA KNAW, and if hard pressed, turns his back on me composedly, and leaves the room. The girl, too, pretends to be as simple as he; but an arch grin, which she cannot always suppress, seems to acknowledge that she understands perfectly well the game which she is playing, and is determined to keep me in ignorance. Both of them, and the wench in particular, treat me as they would do a spoiled child, and never directly refuse me anything which I ask, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... be perfectly at home in the saddle, rode at the animal, it gave a snort and dashed off down a railroad track. Just ahead of it a freight train was coming, but the steer did not see it, as it dashed on, ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... are who can read Chaucer so as to understand him perfectly,' says Dryden, apologizing for 'translating' him. In our day, with the wider spread of historical study, with the numerous helps to Old English that the care of scholars has produced for us, with the purification ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... jollity prevailed, while a few lingering papas and mammas watched the revel from afar, and had not the heart to order these noble beings home till even the Father of his Country declared "that he'd had a perfectly splendid time, but couldn't keep his eyes open another minute," and very wisely retired to replace the immortal ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... Watson," he explained, in the early hours of the morning, as we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker Street, "it was perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League, and the copying of the 'Encyclopaedia,' must be to get this not over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every day. It was a curious way ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... the exile of Julia and the tragic failure of Tiberius's government, all the misfortunes great and small which struck the two families, were always consequences of the insoluble contradiction they tried to solve. You have had a perfectly characteristic example of it in the brief story I have been telling you. Agrippina becomes an object of universal hatred and dies by assassination because she defends tradition; her son disregards tradition and, chiefly for this very reason, ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... to find in one nest two eggs, one of the usual size, the other only about one third of the size. What is more surprising, it was perfectly formed, as regards ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... She made a lovely picture, and all—even caustic Deborah—capitulated to her kindliness and charm. If she had failed of complete comprehension and sympathy I could not have blamed her, but to have her perfectly at home among these men and women of the vanishing Border displayed her in ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... would have made Mrs. Stanhope perfectly miserable, and squandered every dollar that she holds ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... in great measure, by the instinct of self-preservation: we can easily believe that the Catholic princes had this motive before them when they decided on asking for the establishment of the Inquisition in their dominions. The danger was not imaginary; it was perfectly real. In order to form an idea of the turn which things might have taken if some precaution had not been adopted, it is enough to recollect the insurrections of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... self-restraint essential to the savoring of achievement or of any other pleasure. I believe that the successful invalid is more apt to be cynical about his success than the healthy failure about his failure. The latter is usually an optimist. But this is a hard belief to substantiate. For the perfectly healthy failure does not grow ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... of a community, are rarely found to co-exist with the sagacity and prudence necessary to conduct them to a successful issue; and to this remark the admiral was not destined to afford an exception. Though he ought to have been perfectly aware that his late attempt had rendered him an object of the strongest suspicion to his brother, and that he was surrounded by his spies, such was the violence and presumption of his temper, that he could not restrain himself from throwing ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... we enlist our Sepoys, as to the nature of the water they drink. This man had drunk the pea-soup like water of a tank dug in the side of the hill, rather than go a few hundred yards to a spring where the water is perfectly clear and pure. Though I have not met with another case of leeches being taken with drinking water, I am assured that such cases are occasionally met with about Agra and other towns in the North-West Provinces. This ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... and casino, all steeped in those deep, delicious hues, appeared like some vast work of art. As we drew nearer the whole scene opened to us in all its marvelous beauty. We floated slowly o'er the deep blue water which so perfectly mirrored a few pearly clouds that we seemed to be drifting above rather than beneath them. Then the little boats with their orange- colored sails made the place more romantic still. Just in front of us lay the dome-shaped ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... engagement as governess in the wealthy Budlong family. She devoted some time and definiteness to her first encounter with Challis Wrandall on board the westbound steamer, an incident that came to pass in a perfectly natural way. Her deck chair stood next to his, and he was not slow in making himself agreeable. It did not occur to her till long afterwards that he deliberately had traded positions with an elderly gentleman who occupied the chair on the first ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... combined to make this perfectly dear to Michael's mind, and if he needed no other warning those words of the letter, "Don't bring no one with you. If you do, I won't be there," were sufficient ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... excellent chancellor; and that all his decrees, while he possessed that high office, were equally remarkable for justness and for integrity: so difficult is it to find in history a character either wholly bad or perfectly good; though the prejudices of party make writers run easily into the extremes both ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... forest. And it was intensified by the way he came,—singly, or with but wife and child, or at best in very small company, a mere handful. And the surrounding presences were not only of the spiritual world. Human enemies who were soon as well armed as he, quicker of foot and eye, more perfectly noiseless in their tread even than the wild beasts of the shadowy coverts, the ruthless Indians whom he came to expel, these invisible presences were watching him, in a fierce silence he knew not whence. ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... They say that, until he had made his grand success at Fort Fisher, you never could persuade BUTLER that he was a great General. TUPPER, I am informed, would never believe that he was the most remarkable poet ever produced by England. Also a man may be great and be perfectly aware of it. Acquaintances of GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN, Gen. O'NEILL, and Count JOANNES, assert that no one knows, better than these gentlemen, that they are great men. Also a man may die calmly in the consciousness that he ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... there was no possible hesitancy or question there—the question was how to reach old Kronische. Jimmie Dale shook his head in a quick, impatient gesture, as though in irritation because his brain would not instantly respond to his demand to formulate a plan. It seemed simple enough, old Kronische was perfectly accessible—but it was, nevertheless, far from simple. He could not go to old Kronische as Jimmie Dale, there was an ugly turn that had been taken in that room of Forrester's now. If, as Jimmie Dale, he had had reason to keep out ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... convicted sinner interrupted, with a superior smile: "I've no inquiries to offer, Mr. Tombs. I know the plan of salvation, sir, perfectly! We're all totally depraved, and would be damned on Adam's account if we wa'n't, for we've lost communion with God and are liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and the pains ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... between the friends impressed the young men in spite of their prejudices, and it was in a perfectly serious tone that Archie said, "I fancy you'll find your hands full, Cousin, if you want work, for I've heard people say that wealth has its troubles and trials as ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... shoes and gold buckles and stock-buckle; a manner rather reserved and formal than intrusive, but withal showing only the formality of manner, by no means that of awkwardness; a countenance, the expressive and somewhat comic features of which were in complete repose—all showed a being perfectly different from the choice spirit of the evening before. A glance of shrewd and piercing fire in his eye was the only marked expression which recalled the man of ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry, or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly, as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea, presently, sometimes with pinches, nibs, and bobs, and other ways which I will not name, for the honor I bear them, so without measure misordered, that I think ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... sunny side of the street, went with Irving through life. Experimentally he joined his brothers, who were in the hardware trade; but when he seemed to be in danger of consumption they sent him to Europe, where he enjoyed himself greatly, and whence he returned perfectly well. Next he was sent on business to England; and there, when the Irving Brothers failed, their business having been ruined by the War of 1812, Irving manfully resolved to be no longer a burden on others and turned ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... ne'er were the sweet fellow's trade; 'Twas for war and the ladies my Colonel was made. And oh! had you heard, as together we walkt Thro' that beautiful forest, how sweetly he talkt; And how perfectly well he appeared, DOLL, to know All the life and adventures of JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU?— "'Twas there," said he—not that his words I can state— 'Twas a gibberish that Cupid alone could translate;— But "there," said he, (pointing where, small and remote, The dear Hermitage rose), ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... favorite horse at home, which would follow him from place to place as he worked in the garden, keeping his nose as near to him as possible. His wife remarked to him one day: "Egad, husband, if you loved me as well as you do that horse, I should be perfectly happy." ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... snap. By a few trials, the sticks can be arranged so as to spring the trigger easily, and where a hair trigger is used, a mere touch on the bait will suffice to discharge the gun. When all is found to work perfectly, the trap should be surrounded by a rude pen of sticks and branches, extending two or three feet beyond the muzzle, in order to insure an approach directly in the aim of the gun. The cap should now be placed on the nipple, after which the deadly device ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... stood like a man of iron, and extending his hand took the letter without a tremor. It was enclosed in a curiously-fashioned envelope, evidently made by the writer himself, and bore the Roman postmark; the direction, written in bold, scrawling, but perfectly legible characters, read: "M. Edmond Dantes, Deputy from Marseilles, No. 27 Rue du Helder, Paris, France. Personal and private." This ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... countenance and says with a knowing smile, that all girls are; whereat his admiring mamma pats him on the back and tells him not to be sly, which calls forth a general laugh from the young ladies, and another smile from Felix, who, thinking he looks very sly indeed, is perfectly satisfied. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... deliver me to a Slave Merchant at Constantinople, who would place me out in Domestic Service where I should not be ill-treated. But he very strongly advised me to turn Turk or Renegado, as he himself was, saying, that in such a case he would land me perfectly free at the Porte, where I should doubtless find some profitable Employment. This I scornfully refused; whereupon he shrugged his Shoulders, and said that I was a Fool, but might possibly think ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... as far as the door; I mind it perfectly, for I remember marking that the wooden bar my father had put upon it was gone, and the iron brackets as well. But whilst I was groping for the latch there came a taste of blood in my mouth, and I heard my dear lady's voice as if she were calling to me across the eternal ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... to suit the whims of the enemigos pagados, as the Spaniards call them, he has under his roof. Below stairs lounge the lordly employes (a charming newspaper neologism for hotel waiters, street sweepers, and railway porters), defiant, aggressive, and perfectly aware that they are masters of the situation. Daily they become more like the two Ganymedes of Griffith's boarding house: he called them Tide and Tide—because they waited on no man. They have long ceased to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the cavalry, but from love of a country life and from indolence he had retired and had begun to live peaceably and quietly, as landowners of the middling sort do live. Nenila Makarievna owed her existence in a not perfectly legitimate manner to a distinguished ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... him—perhaps he's a cousin, or something, and he has demanded more and more money, and Felix has refused, and now in revenge he has done this! And he's got Felix shut up somewhere to make him give in! That's why I haven't heard from him! Oh, it's perfectly plain! The thing to do now is to find this horrible Hugh Gordon and make him tell ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... premised: your letter of late I receiued, and found that you would haue me discouer vnto you the estate and quality of the countreyes of Tombuto and Gago. And that you may not thinke me to slumber in this action, wherein you would be truely and perfectly resolued, you shall vnderstand, that not ten dayes past here came a Cahaia of the Andoluzes home from Gago, and another principall Moore, whom the king sent thither at the first with Alcaide Hamode, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... Gallatin had not been nine years a citizen of the United States. This petition had been handed to Robert Morris, Mr. Gallatin's colleague for Pennsylvania, by a member of the legislature for the county of York, but he had declined to present it, and declared to Mr. Gallatin his intention to be perfectly neutral on the occasion—at least so Mr. Gallatin wrote to his wife the next day; but Morris did not hold fast to this resolution, as the votes in the sequel show. The petition was ordered to lie upon the table. On December 11 Messrs. Rutherford, Cabot, Ellsworth, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... before the appearance of the Roman army, he spent most of his time in civil feud, and succeeded in dividing the population into two hostile parties. He boasts that, though he took up his command at an age when, if a man has happily escaped sin, he can scarcely guard himself against slander, he was perfectly honest, and refrained from stealing and peculation[2]; but he is at pains to prove that he threw every obstacle in the way of the patriotic party, and did all that an open enemy of the Jews could have done to undermine the defense ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... who carried on the same game. It was not, however, at all a paying game, and the fact that the Boers had not held this hill themselves, though so close to their position, is sufficient of itself to show their remarkable skill in choice of ground. For the hill, conical and regular in shape, was perfectly bare, and while they behind the sharp ledges and in the fissures of the rocks below were well concealed from the men above, these as they crept round the smooth hillside came into immediate view against the sky. The sleet of ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... sick and so stiff and sore that he could scarcely move, the broad daylight was streaming through the blinds. The place was perfectly quiet, for the doctor's assistant who had brought him back to life, and who lay upon a couch at the further end of the room, slept the sleep of youth and complete exhaustion. Only an eight-day clock ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... woman recently," Mrs. Barnett went on, "who in the East was in college circles; now she's living in a hut. Think of it, a hut over on the other side among the Chinese and Mexicans! The only woman there, and practically alone. It seems perfectly incredible! I don't see how any decent woman could do a thing like that. Why, I'd rather work in somebody's kitchen. There, at least, one ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... expressing the sincere pleasure he had felt on listening to the time at which I had taken the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, told me that he had been compelled to hear it year after year taken by Mendelssohn at a perfectly distracting speed. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... "I still remember perfectly how Leonax returned in those days. What woman might not have been jealous of his enthusiasm for the Roman Hera? At that time I had not seen the portrait, and when I asked whether he thought Octavia more beautiful than the Queen, for whom Eros had inflamed his heart, as in the case of most of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... surprise which he expressed to Mollien at the rejection of his offers is probably genuine. Sensitive to the least insult himself, his bluntness of perception respecting the honour of others might almost qualify him to rank with Aristotle's man devoid of feeling. It is perfectly true that he did not make war on Prussia in 1806 any more than on England in 1803. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... are cultivated in this crop are very numerous, and it would be tedious to mention their names, as I have no observations to make on any one in particular. The fields which produce this crop must be perfectly level, as they are inundated during the greater part of the process of cultivation. Therefore, as the plain is by no means even, it has been divided into terraces. So much pains has been bestowed on this part of agriculture, that on the steep descents ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... substance from charitable and public purposes. He is highly esteemed by all who know him, for a life-long consistency of character, and sterling qualities as a man and a friend. The writer occasionally sees him on our crowded streets, although quite feeble, with a mind perfectly serene, and well aware that his race is almost run. His ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... not know if I make my meaning perfectly clear here. By conformity I do not mean silent conformity. It is a man's primary duty to convey his individual difference to the minds of his fellow men. It is because I want that difference to tell to the utmost that I suggest he should not leave the assembly. But in particular instances he ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... understand perfectly that I cannot at present correspond with your father. I heartily wish that I could, and hope the day may be not long distant, when mists shall have cleared away, and we may know each other. But I cannot preclude myself from the pleasure of sending you these few lines to say that Mr Q. has ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... thought that Royal would forget that foolish outburst. He has been perfectly lovely to me, taking me out and buying me flowers and telling me about his trips, but he hasn't said one word more of sentimental nature. I'm surely getting my share of fun and pleasure these days. There are so many things to enjoy, so much to learn from my ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... physician of Clitheroe been communicated to his historian, it may be questioned whether the portals of his provincial temple of fame would have opened to receive so heinous a transgressor. But Dr. Whitaker's deduction would have been perhaps perfectly warrantable, had Webster left no remains but his History of Metals, and Displaying of Witchcraft—so little do an author's latest works afford a clue to the character of his earliest. From 1654 to 1671, when he published his History of Metals, little is known of Webster's ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... it's a perfectly horrible suggestion. Do you mean to say that I would have brought about that—that infamous tragedy, that I would have sent thousands and thousands of our lads to their deaths to get a job for myself? If I thought for one ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... to be understood that the successful suitor for her hand would be the future lord of Humblethwaite, and the power with which she was thus vested gave her a prestige and standing which can hardly be attained by mere wit and beauty, even when most perfectly combined. It was not that all who worshipped, either at a distance or with passing homage, knew the fact of the heiress-ship, or had ever heard of the L20,000 a year; but, given the status, and the worshippers will come. The word had ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration, and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name. But as artificers do not work with perfect accuracy, it comes to pass that mechanics is so distinguished from geometry, that what is perfectly accurate is called geometrical; what is less so is called mechanical. But the errors are not in the art, but in the artificers. He that works with less accuracy is an imperfect mechanic: and if any could work with perfect accuracy, he would be the most perfect mechanic of all; ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... man's salary. It is human nature to wish to make all the money we honestly can: to get just as large a return for our services as possible. There is no qualifying that statement, and as most of the comforts of this life are had through the possession of sufficient money, it is perfectly natural that the subject of what we earn should be prominent in our minds. But too many young men put the cart before the horse in this question of salary. It is their first consideration. They are constantly asking what salaries are paid ...
— The Young Man in Business • Edward W. Bok
... "You are afraid I will not tell you! Why should I? This great adventure of mine is progressing perfectly. A tremendous stake, Haljan. A hundred million dollars in gold leaf. There will be fabulous riches for all ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... erect in the sunshine, a shade over-fed looking, but perfectly groomed in his regulation city garb, an enigmatic smile under his neat black moustache as he watched the reader, suggested nothing ugly or mean, nothing worse, indeed, than worldly prosperity and a frank enjoyment thereof. His well-kept ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... thing more to say. You remember Daniel Boone's schoolboy days, of which I have spoken. He left school a perfectly ignorant lad. Some say that he afterward learned to write, and produce as an evidence, a little narrative of his wanderings in Kentucky, supposed to be written by himself. I believe, however, that to the day of his death, he could not write his name. The narrative spoken of, ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... clearly, and I unhesitatingly assert that any action for battery brought against you would be flung out of court, and the bringer of said action be obliged to pay the costs, the original assault having been perpetrated by himself when he flung the liquor in your face; and to set your mind perfectly at ease I will read to you what Lord Chief Justice Blackstone ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Captain Morgan had thus seized upon as the fruit of the murder he had committed must have been as perfectly satisfactory to him as could be, for having paid a second visit that evening to Governor Modiford, the pirate lifted anchor the next morning and made sail toward the Gulf of Darien. There, after cruising about in those waters for about a fortnight without falling in with a vessel of any sort, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... that led her toward that ridge. You could not blame Mary V if the view from the top of it extended to Sinkhole Camp and beyond. She had not made the view, remember, nor had she advised the snakes to choose that ridge for their dens. She was not even perfectly sure that they did choose it. The boys had told her that Black Ridge was "full up" with snake dens, and she meant to see ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... this bride is perfectly splendid, the long train and veil are so sweet," said Jill, revelling in fine clothes as she turned from ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... for the Great Bear and the Bull!"—another command for the Hispaniola, for now that the ship was higher, she was passing among the stars, all as perfectly round as so many toy balloons, all marvelously luminous, and each most accommodatingly marked across its round, golden face (in great, black, capital letters!) with its ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates |
