"Surpass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quite freely, this adjustment would be so nice that no military apportionment of forces among different brigades, regiments, etc., made consciously and by the most intelligent commanding officer, could surpass the perfection of it. There would be also an equally fine adjustment of the comparative amounts of capital devoted to different industries. In the actual productive organism each man goes where he will—capitalist, laborer, and employer of capital and labor alike. ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... was only the precursor of greater vessels. These were to sail between New York and Liverpool, carrying the mails under a contract with the American government. In size, and speed, and splendor of fittings, these new ships were to surpass the old; even their names were, if possible, to be more grand and expressive. The vessels of Cunard's Line had lately appropriated the names of the four great continents of the globe, but the oceans remained, and their names were adopted; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... the circumstances, as a display of the most brazen-faced assurance and the most unmitigated impudence I ever met with in my life! I have known for years that you were capable of great presumption, but in this insolent and dictatorial address you surpass yourself—you positively out-Herod Herod! In the whole history of the country, and of parties, I venture the assertion, that a parallel piece of impudence, and downright bold-faced assurance, cannot be pointed to, as the act of any partisan. It is really past all belief, ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... father's arms, thou sweet resemblance Of the perfections of your much-lov'd mother; A loss each day felt more—yet, my Constantia, What tho' your charms and virtue shou'd surpass All that e'er center'd in a virgin frame, To be the choice of this exalted youth Causes a thousand ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... functions the liveried servants, often with knee-breeches and powdered hair, are like those seen at similar European functions; there is not the democratic simplicity which better suits our own habits of life and ways of thought. But the South Americans often surpass us, not merely in pomp and ceremony but in what is of real importance, courtesy; in civility and courtesy we can well afford to take lessons ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... pages present so many delightful pictures of mountain scenery that we know not which to choose in illustration of her remarkable descriptive powers. We have already alluded to her faculty of pictorial presentment; it is one in which few of her sex surpass her; she puts a scene before us with as much life and distinctness as a Constable or a Peter Graham, and the reader, who would form a clear and well-defined conception of the Rocky Mountains in their picturesque aspects, cannot ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... and is the instrument by which the spoken word is made visible to the eye. The aims in its design should be legibility, beauty, and compactness, in this order; but these are more or less conflicting qualities, and it is doubtful if any one design can surpass in all. Modern type is cleaner-cut than the old, but it may be questioned whether this is a real gain. William Morris held that all types should avoid hair-lines, fussiness, and ugliness. Legibility should have the right of ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... wonder that the people should have regarded the railroads as fanciful schemes. No one could then have dreamed how rapidly they would increase and multiply, and that in less than fifty years they should so far surpass the canals in service to the public that some of these would be abandoned by the state, and become grass-grown ditches hardly distinguishable in their look of ancient ruin from the works of the Mound Builders. At the most there were once nine hundred miles ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... vigil in the Vale of St. John, with the moonlit valley (itself a worthy pendant even to the Melrose), and the sudden and successful revelation of the magic hold when the knight flings his battle-axe, does not even surpass the Tale. Nor do I think that the actual adventures of this Childe Roland in the dark towers are inferior. The trials and temptations are of stock material, but all the best matter is stock, and this is handled with a rush and dash which more ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... fashionable boarding-house then kept by an aunt of mine, at the corner of Second and Thirteenth streets. He never said anything while there, until he came to pay his board bill, when bidding my aunt farewell, he observed: "Mrs. SAGOE, for terseness and brevity, your steaks surpass any I have ever met with." Aunt Sarah had these words neatly framed, and they have hung in her back ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... there gathering in the last sheaves of a plentiful harvest. The farmers of Laidlaw were wont to boast, and with reason, too, of their wheat-crops, and their fine roads and fences, declaring that there was not in all Canada a district that would surpass or even equal theirs in respect of these things. But beauty of this sort a child cannot be supposed to appreciate. Christie's home for the first ten years of her life had been in a lovely Scottish village, ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... surrender: the most retreated in great disorder. At Castiglione alone a brave stand was made. But Augereau, burning to wipe out the disgrace of Vallette,[10] forced the position, though at a severe loss. Such was the battle of Lonato. Thenceforth nothing could surpass the discomfiture and disarray of the Austrians. They fled in all directions upon the Mincio, where Wurmser himself, meanwhile, had ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... general appearance is very striking, and in a fine specimen is certainly one of great beauty. When fresh from the water and in brilliant sunshine the fish rivals the object after which it is called; the living rainbow on its side shows a play of delicate colour which it would be hard to surpass or to equal, even ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... city! and alas, The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away! Alas for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay, And Livy's pictured page! But these shall be Her resurrection; all beside—decay. Alas for Earth, for never shall we see That brightness in her eye she ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... young crocodiles. Opposite to this group is another equally celebrated, viz., the colossal statue of the Tiber, with the she-wolf giving suck to Romulus and Remus by his side. The mosaic pavements in this Museum surpass in richness any in the world. In one of the halls, among the works of modern times, are two beautiful marble tables richly inlaid with all sorts of stones of value, with bas-reliefs on them; the one representing the visit of ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... constitute seven, five, three, or only one species. Opinions differ, and can hardly be brought to any decisive test. However it be determined, it may still be said that the extreme differences among the yews do not surpass those of the recognized variations of the European yew, the cultivated ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... wish to have all your exploits crowded into a few short years of youth, that mature age will have nothing to surpass? Listen,—I believe that when the historians, by whom our dear Cicero is so anxious to be remembered favourably, write their books, they will say something of my name,—good or bad, the Genius knows,—but fame at least will not be denied me. Twelve years ago when I was in Spain I was reading ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... wholesome agnosticism we are confirmed when we see that while some animals are deprived of certain senses which we possess, and all of them of the gift of reason, others are apparently endowed with senses unknown to us, and are taught by seeming instincts which surpass what reason could effect; whence we may infer that the likelihood of our being en rapport with the greater part of the possible phenomena amidst which we live, or of our possessing all possible senses or the best of ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... thousand louis, will probably sell for somewhat less money. The workmen of Paris are making rapid strides towards English perfection. Would you believe, that in the course of the last two years, they have learned even to surpass their London rivals in some articles? Commission me to have you a phaeton made, and, if it is not as much handsomer than a London one, as that is than a Fiacre, send it back to me. Shall I fill the box with caps, bonnets, &c.? Not of my own choosing, but—I was going to ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... relate their experiences among the fair sex, losing nothing of the point from the effect of the numerous empty bottles around. All the scandalous cases in the courts of justice, all the coarse jokes and adventures of the district, were related over again. Each tried to surpass his neighbor. To hear these men of position boast of their gallantries with all classes, one would have thought that the entire canton underwent periodical changes and became one vast Saturnalia, where rustic satyrs courted ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Bishop Hough, in the Westminster Abbey style; but the obelisk at the back is not loaded with a globe and a human figure, like Mr. Kent's design for Sir Isatc Newton; an absurdity which nothing but himself could surpass, when he placed three busts at the foot of an altar-and, not content with that, placed them at the very angles—where they have as little to do as they have ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... search, it were useless to expatiate: every one is sensible of it, and, sooner or later, it must occur. Let us not allow our grandchildren to surpass us in everything, but let us set about this ourselves. Monstrous as the idea seems, it is simple ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... however, Eric never realized until the close of his third year. Though limping a good deal, he had been able to be up and around for a month before the exams and he had been slaving like a forty-mule team. Still, work as hard as he could, the boy was conscious that there were others who could surpass him. Especially there was one, a fellow called Pym Arbuthnot, who ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... been productive of much benefit to the literary world; the numbers of egregious travellers have been such, that they demanded a very Gulliver to surpass them. If Baron de Tott dauntlessly discharged an enormous piece of artillery, the Baron Munchausen has done more; he has taken it and swam with it across the sea. When travellers are solicitous to be the heroes of their own story, surely they must ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... traveled on it. It had not many comforts; several days and nights were required for the New York trip; yet it was a wonderful and beautiful experience. He felt that even Pet McMurry could hardly have done anything to surpass it. He arrived in New York with two or three dollars in his pocket and a ten-dollar bill concealed in ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... taking farewell of their husbands, sons, and brothers during the past few days, and nothing could surpass the courage with which they have sent them off to the war. They have struggled bravely to conceal their emotion, and only after the men have gone have the women given their feelings free play. An American lady who has seen some of these departures told me the other day that the ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... none surpass in obstinacy and ferocity the Bull-dog. The head is broad and thick, the lower jaw generally projects so that the under teeth advance beyond the upper, the eyes are scowling, and the whole expression calculated to inspire terror. It is remarkable for the pertinacity with which ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... more amazed to discover that the aristocracy of mind could bestow a grace that no aristocracy of birth could surpass. He was prepared for a simple, blushing village girl, and involuntarily he bowed low his proud front at the first sight of that delicate bloom, and that exquisite gentleness which is woman's surest passport to the respect of man. Neither in the first, nor the second, nor ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... many hundred performances of a masterly rendering of Shylock. The character had, for many years previous to Macklin's assumption of it, been allotted to comic actors, but Macklin effectively concentrated his energy on the tragic significance of the part with an effect that Garrick could not surpass. Macklin was also reckoned successful in Polonius and Iago. John Henderson, the Bath Roscius (1747-1785), who, like Garrick, was buried in Westminster Abbey, derived immense popularity from his representation of Falstaff; ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... help wishing for the sake of our national reputation, that his rise at court had been a little longer delayed: It may easily be seen that allegory was brought to great perfection before the appearance of Spencer, and if Mr. Sackville did not surpass him, it was because he had the disadvantage of writing first. Agreeable to what Tasso exclaimed on seeing Guarini's Pastor Fido; 'If he had not seen my Aminta, he had ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... those who cannot afford as fine clothes, as good an equipage, and who have not (as their term is) as much money in their pockets: on the other hand, they are gnawed with envy, and cannot help discovering it, of those who surpass them in any of these articles; which are far from being sure criterions of merit. They are likewise jealous of being slighted; and, consequently, suspicious and captious; they are eager and hot about trifles because trifles were, at first, their affairs of consequence. 'Les manieres nobles' ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... contributed to keep up the notion, that demonstrative truths follow from definitions rather than from the postulates implied in those definitions, is, that the postulates, even in those sciences which are considered to surpass all others in demonstrative certainty, are not always exactly true. It is not true that a circle exists, or can be described, which has all its radii exactly equal. Such accuracy is ideal only; it is not found in nature, still less can it be realized ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... the first century after the Revolution; what will the population of Canada be in fifty years, if it increases as rapidly as the population of the United States in the last fifty, etc.; at the present rate of increase, when will Canada catch up to Great Britain? When surpass her? Indicate thus the possible position and power of Canada in the not distant future, in order to deepen the sense of responsibility for the use made of our opportunities. (Let the pupils search for as much of the material needed for these calculations as ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education
... Jesuits for the overthrow of the Shogun there seems little doubt. In the massacre which ensued several thousand Christians were put to death. "Their unflinching devotion compels our admiration. One may search the grim history of early Christian martyrology without finding anything to surpass the heroism of the Roman Catholic Martyrs of Japan. Burnt on stakes made of crosses, torn limb from limb, buried alive, they yet refused to recant. We are told of one Jesuit priest, Christopher Ferreya, who, after enduring ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... batteries at Saint-Menges had been thundering as if determined to surpass all previous efforts, and Captain Beaudoin, who was still tramping nervously up and down before his company line, at last stepped up to the colonel. It was a pity, he said, to waste the men's morale in that way and keep their minds on the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... Ormsby in 1885. The translation by John Jarvis has probably had the greatest vogue. The passages given in this collection are from his version. H. E. Watts, author of a notable recent "Life of Cervantes," published also a translation of "Don Quixote," which has been thought to surpass others.] ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... but cowardly act of shooting Prof. Lawrence." This body of citizens voted to prosecute the scoundrel Chandler, who did the shooting, and raised the money at once to carry forward that prosecution! Good for Jellico, say we all!! Will Iowa permit Tennessee to surpass her in ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... into the Kingdom of Heaven" (S. Matt. v. 17-20). So far from coming to destroy the Law, He had come that it might be fulfilled by His subjects, as it had never been fulfilled before. For they would be required to surpass even the Scribes and Pharisees in their observance of it, by keeping it in the spirit, as well as in the letter; otherwise they would prove themselves unfit for His Kingdom. And then followed examples of the observance of some of the ...
— The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it? • Edward Burbidge
... situated on the south of the River Aln. It is about half-way between Newcastle and Berwick. It is not now an important town, having only about eight thousand inhabitants, but it has a history which few towns surpass in interest. Old customs linger long here. The curfew-bell is still tolled; and, until the year 1854, the custom of "leaping the well" was observed. This absurd, though amusing ceremony, was performed by all young freemen ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... little formality in their entertainments. Nuts and apples, or doughnuts and cheese, was usually the extent of their efforts in the way of refreshments, except on special occasions, when formal invitations were given. Then, it must be confessed, the chief aim of each housekeeper seemed to be to surpass all others in the excellence and variety of the good things provided. But for the most part no invitations were given or needed, they dropped in on one another in a ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... arising from the emotions whereby we are assailed are stronger, in proportion as the said emotions are more vehement; wherefore their force and increase must be defined solely by the power of external causes, which, when compared with our own power, indefinitely surpass it (IV:iii.); hence the desires arising from like emotions may be more vehement, than the desire which arises from a true knowledge of good and evil, and may, consequently, ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... in water about as fishes do on Earth. Their homes and cities under water described. Fishing for land animals. Illustration. Some of their inventions far surpass ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... equally correct if applied to the Devil's Canon; but the following appears to surpass it in the power of the volcano below. It is condensed from a description by the same traveller, whose name cannot ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... distant prospects. Even in the Latin poems of the wandering clerks, we find no traces of a distant view—of landscape properly so called; but what lies near is sometimes described with a glow and splendor which none of the knightly minstrels can surpass. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... being made in the missions of Leyte—Alangalang, Carigara and others; nearly three thousand persons were baptized therein during the years 1600-1602. At Alangalang there are in the Jesuit church three choirs of Indians, who "surpass many Spaniards." The Christians at Ogmuc are exceedingly fervent; and the children instructed in the Jesuit school become, in their turn, teachers of their parents. The Indians of the Alangalang mission practice flagellation during ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... plain round basin; we will suppose the latter. When the jelly has got quite cold we can turn it out on to a dish, say a silver dish, with a piece of white ornamental paper at the bottom. We now have to ornament this mould of blackberry jelly, and, as a rule, it will be found that no ornament can surpass natural ones. Before boiling the blackberries for the purpose of extracting their juice, pick out two or three dozen of the largest and ripest, wash them and put them by with some of the young green leaves of the blackberry plant itself, which should ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... unwedded girls, the youths? Arise in response: forsooth the Star of Eve displays its Oetaean fires. Thus 'tis; see how fleetly have they leapt forth? Nor without intent have they leapt forth, they will sing what 'tis meet we surpass. Hymen O Hymenaeus, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... thermometer for many days every winter sinks lower than in St. Petersburg, but where there are no such incredible precautions taken as in the land of double windows cemented down, and fur-lined shubas. It is remarkable that the gypsies, although of Oriental origin, are said to surpass the Russians in enduring cold; and there is a marvelous story told about a Romany who, for a wager, undertook to sleep naked against a clothed Muscovite on the ice of a river during an unusually cold night. In the morning the Russian was found frozen stiff, while the ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... They then rose and drew from the various hiding-places the garments which they were to use, placed the various suits together, and then tried to put them on. A fearful, awful picture, such as a painter of hell, such as Breugel could not surpass in horror!—a queen and a princess, two tender, pale, harmless women, busied, deep in the night, as if dressing for a masquerade, in transforming themselves into those very officials who had led the king to the scaffold, and who, with their pitiless iron hands, were detaining ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... the most mischievous nature. She was now convinced that her father or her aunt could have no agency in the business. She even wished her aunt had returned. It must be exceedingly difficult to cross the moat, as the draw bridge was up; it must be still more difficult to surpass the wall of the enclosure; it was impossible for any human being to enter the house, and still more ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... twenty-five thousand heads of capitation, of whom seven thousand were discharged by that prince from the intolerable weight of tribute. A just analogy would seem to countenance the opinion of an ingenious historian, that the free and tributary citizens did not surpass the number of half a million; and if, in the ordinary administration of government, their annual payments may be computed at about four millions and a half of our money, it would appear, that although the share of each individual was four times ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... "Nothing could surpass the universal propriety of the negroes' conduct on the first of August, 1834! Never was there a more beautiful and interesting spectacle exhibited, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... One song may surpass many a sermon in its power over a life. Great songs have sung men into battle and stiffened their melting hearts. Great songs have touched our clay and thrilled it to the divinely heroic. Songs sung in the stillness ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... glistening gloriously in the new light. The jasper tents on the everlasting hunting grounds, and the motionless streams were brightning with living flame. Thousands of Indians, strong and fair, in countless groupings, seemed, to surpass even the sky itself in their ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... downfall beyond endurance; such an antagonist is he now with his own hands preparing against himself, a portent that shall baffle all resistance; who shall invent a flame more potent than the lightning, and a mighty din that shall surpass the thunder; and shall shiver the ocean trident, that earth-convulsing pest, the spear of Neptune. And when he hath stumbled upon this mischief, he shall be taught how great is the difference ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... we may ridicule the ugliness of our houses, this much must be admitted in favor of our villages and country towns, that in cleanliness and an appearance of substantial comfort, they infinitely surpass their rivals in Europe. I do not except the villages in England. Who can walk through one of our New England country towns, where majestic elms throw their shadows over spacious streets, and the white rose clambers over the front doors of the neat, white painted ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... lucidity of the thought and value of the work. Writers contemporary with the copyists naturally avail themselves of the obvious advantages of these marks in their own work, and with such assistance as the flies of their own household may be willing to grant, frequently rival and sometimes surpass the older compositions, in respect at least of punctuation, which is no small glory. Fully to understand the important services that flies perform to literature it is only necessary to lay a page of some popular novelist alongside a saucer of cream-and-molasses in a ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... CENSORIUS (Cons. 133), well known as the adversary of the Gracchi, an eloquent and active man, and staunch adherent of the high aristocratic party, was also an able writer of history. That his conception of historical writing did not surpass that of his predecessors the annalists, is probable from the title of his work; [35] that he brought to bear on it a very different spirit seems certain from the quotations in Livy and Dionysius. One of the select few, in breadth ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... them; for 'tis true, They have most ample cause for what they do O fruitful Britain! doubtless thou wast meant A nurse of fools, to stock the continent. Though Phoebus and the Nine for ever mow, Rank folly underneath the scythe will grow The plenteous harvest calls me forward still, Till I surpass in length my lawyer's bill; A Welsh descent, which well-paid heralds damn; Or, longer still, a Dutchman's epigram. When, cloy'd, in fury I throw down my pen, In comes a coxcomb, and I ...
— English Satires • Various
... settled in War, is subject to general laws, and whether these are capable of indicating a useful line of action, will be partly investigated in this book; but so much is evident in itself, that this, like every other subject which does not surpass our powers of understanding, may be lighted up, and be made more or less plain in its inner relations by an inquiring mind, and that alone is sufficient to realise ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... at the Aldine Press. 1519. 8vo. 3 vols. Surely this copy is the ne plus ultra of a VELLUM ALDUS! In size, condition, and colour, nothing can surpass it. When I say this, I am not unmindful of the Royal copies here, and more particularly of the Pindar and Ovid in St. James's Place. But, in truth, there reigns throughout the rectos and reverses of each of these volumes, such a mellow, quiet, and genuine tone ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and fresh and clear, thy music doth surpass. ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... to the entering cook, "I propose honoring you to-day with a very important and significant affair. I wish, on the day after to-morrow, to prepare an entertainment which in splendor and magnificence shall surpass anything hitherto seen. You know that the major-domos of the other diplomatists have become my irreconcilable enemies through envy; they cannot forgive me for having more inventive faculties and better taste than any of them! We must bring these major-domos to despair, and ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... fairly rigorous piece of self-analysis; but there are abundant facts to show that he exercised authority with a kindly and friendly disposition, and did not surpass the limits of wisdom. Men like a commander who can command; the weak inspire no confidence. Flinders had the art of attracting people to him. His servant, the faithful John Elder, willingly endured imprisonment with him, and would not leave him until his own health gave way. John ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... the most princely and most worthy of empire, as is agreed by all who appear to have had personal knowledge of him. In the first place, while he was yet with his brother and the other youths, he was a boy, and when he was receiving his education thought to surpass them all in everything. For without exception the sons of the Persian nobles are educated at the gates of the king;[46] where they may learn many a lesson of virtuous conduct, but can see or hear nothing disgraceful. In this place the boys see some honored by the king, and others disgraced, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... name is," said he to Mills: "Hodgkinson," replied the other. "I thought that there must be an O or a MAC to his name by the aisy affability with which he helped himself to the great chair. Old Maclaughlin, that blackguard Jew that calls himself Macklin, could not surpass it for modesty." I rose. "Och, to the d—l with your manners honey," said he, clapping his two hands on my shoulders and pressing me down into the chair, "stay there since you're in it, and be ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... is the custard apple, filled with a ruddy compounded substance, which no cook can surpass. As also the rinon (Anona squamosa), a kidney-like fruit in form, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... themselves more impious and deserving a more signal punishment than that sacrilegious Jew whose knife had drawn drops of miraculous blood from the transubstantiated wafer. Not the parish priests, nor the doctors of the Sorbonne, could surpass the infuriated populace in loud execrations of the wretch for whom burning alive seemed too mild ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... has attained an eminent position among her literary contemporaries as one of the most careful, natural, and effective writers of brief dramatic incident. Few surpass her in expressing the homely pathos of the poor and ignorant, while the humor of her stories is quiet, pervasive, and ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... art grown to a monarch; a people is thine; And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one head combine! On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and rage (like the throe That, a-work in the rock, helps its labour and lets the gold go) High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning them,—all Brought to blaze on the head of one ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... hard to surpass Skibbereen in the intensity and variety of its famine horrors. Dr. Donovan, writing on the 2nd of December, says: Take one day's experience of a dispensary doctor. It is that of a day no further off than last Saturday—four days ago. He then proceeds with the diary of that ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... next week, mystery lurked in every corner of the McAlister house. With three novices to be trained in their Christmas rite, Hope and Theodora and Hubert felt that this basket must surpass all those of previous years, and they ransacked their brains, their house, and the shops for the jokes and nonsensical offerings which added spice to their simple presents. If the Christmas spirit of happiness and good-will were the true test, the McAlisters lived up to the full tradition ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... other perceptions which vary greatly in their frequency and vividness. They are impulses of reassurance, joy, hope, victory. They surpass all other ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... consulted Adair, who had approved of his proposal on the subject, and so excellent was his "kettler" pronounced, that from henceforward it was the everyday meal of the party; and though others tried to surpass him when their turn came, they all confessed that they could never do it, and it was voted that it was unequalled by the best Scotch hotch-potch, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... which a Byzantine noble, ruined by lavish extravagance, had been glad to cede to the accommodation of Antagoras and other officers of Chios, the young rival of Pausanias feasted the chiefs of the Aegean. However modern civilization may in some things surpass the ancient, it is certainly not in luxury and splendour. And although the Hellenic States had not, at that period, aimed at the pomp of show and the refinements of voluptuous pleasure which preceded their decline; ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... impatience to see all the riches of her house, not daring to come while her husband was there, because of his blue beard, which frightened them. They at once ran through all the rooms, closets, and wardrobes, which were so fine and rich, and each seemed to surpass all others. They went up into the warehouses, where was the best and richest furniture; and they could not sufficiently admire the number and beauty of the tapestry, beds, couches, cabinets, stands, ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... my mind. I had acted upon no plan. I had conceived no means of concealing my deed, after it had once been effected. But it was over now. One short minute had effected a reverse in my situation, the suddenness of which the history of man, perhaps is unable to surpass. ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... and remember that if Conde yielded too readily to its fascinations, and fell into shameful excesses, he yet bore with meekness the pointed remonstrances of faithful friends, and in the end shook off the chains with which his enemies had endeavored to bind him fast.[655] As a soldier, no one could surpass Conde for bravery.[656] If his abilities as a general were not of the very first order, he had at least the good sense to adopt the plans of Gaspard de Coligny, the true hero of the first four civil wars. The relations ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... two-thirds of the size of Saint Peter's, and within the ground plan of Saint Peter's the Colosseum could stand. It used to be said that a thousand persons lived under the roof outside of the gallery and the private apartments, which alone surpass in extent the majority of royal residences. Without some such comparison mere words can convey nothing to a mind unaccustomed to such size and space, and when the idea is grasped, one asks, naturally enough, how the people lived who built such houses—the ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... organized races. Football requires better organization than do other games, a higher order of intellect, hence its popularity with the people. The best universities may be expected to furnish the best football teams. The superior organization of the North enabled it to surpass the South in peace and crush it in war. The public schoolteacher, being the chief factor in organization, to him must be given the credit for the quick recovery of the South from the ravages of civil war. He is the chief power in things material as ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... should a talented race like the Persians, situated to begin with in a far less remote position than Japan, and therefore more favourably for the acquisition of foreign ways, be able to emulate, and even in a short time surpass, the marvellous success attained by the little Islanders of ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the mountains of India greatly surpass the Cordilleras of South America by their astonishing elevation (which, after being long contested, has at last been confirmed by accurate measurements), they can not, from their geographical position, ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... of the labor of Africa secured to herself. With its scores of millions of population under her direction, she hopes to compete with American slavery in the production of cotton; and not only to compete with it, but to surpass it altogether, and, in time, to render it so profitless as to force emancipation upon us. She will there have access to a population ten fold greater than that of the slave population of the United States; and the only doubt of success ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Kielland yet manages to get psychologically closer to his problem. His pietists are more humanly interesting than those of Daudet, and the little drama which they set in motion is more genuinely pathetic. Two superb figures—the lay preacher Hans Nilsen and Skipper Worse—surpass all that the author had hitherto produced in depth of conception and brilliancy of execution. The marriage of that delightful, profane old sea-dog Jacob Worse with the pious Sara Torvestad, and the attempts of his ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... answered the Colonel, warmly, "I consider it the greatest privilege to have been permitted to study your methods of working. I confess that they quite surpass my expectations, and that I am utterly unable to account for your result. I have not yet seen the vestige of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... would get a faint idea of it. They come occasionally down to the Sabbath-school at the South End; in fact, they come quite frequently, though I'm sure I can't see why. It certainly isn't for any good that they get. Their actions, Mrs. Roberts, surpass anything that ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... own enthusiastic and fearless convictions. It must be amusing to the Author of Waverley to hear his readers and admirers (and are not these the same thing?[A]) quarrelling which of his novels is the best, opposing character to character, quoting passage against passage, striving to surpass each other in the extravagance of their encomiums, and yet unable to settle the precedence, or to do the author's writings justice—so various, so equal, so transcendant are their merits! His volumes of poetry were received as fashionable and well-dressed acquaintances: ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... who surpass the natives of India in the training of elephants or other wild animals. For many ages the custom has prevailed among the native princes of that country of educating not only the elephant and the dog, but the leopard and the falcon to assist them ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... natives of the Gilbert, Kingsmill, and other Pacific equatorial islands are expert shark fishermen; but the wild people of Ocean Island (Paanopa) and Pleasant Island (Naura), two isolated spots just under the equator, surpass them all in the art of catching jackshark. It was the fortunate experience of the writer to live among these people for many years, and to be inducted into the native method of shark-catching. In frail canoes, made of short pieces of wood, sewn together with coco-nut fibre, the Ocean Islanders ...
— Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... Challoner in her old one. But it was no use. Mrs. Mayne never set off her handsome dresses; with her flushed, good-natured face and homely ways, she showed to marked disadvantage beside Mrs. Challoner's faded beauty. Mrs. Challoner's gown might be antique, but nothing could surpass the quiet grace of her carriage, or the low pleasant modulations of her voice. Her figure was almost as slim as her daughters', and she could easily have passed for their ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... shape, as always; the road seemed much better for a bicycle than it had been for a car, and with the bracing atmosphere made a combination difficult to surpass. Before the hour was up he had dropped off at the bridge, and stood there leaning ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... beyond which it is unwholesome, any more than he can prescribe the exact degree of fineness to which we must comminute our food; granted, again, that some can do more than others, and that at all times all men sport, so to speak, and surpass themselves, still we know as a general rule near enough, and find that the strongest can do but very little at a time, and, to return to Mr. Spencer, the fusion of two such hitherto unassociated ideas as race and experience was a ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... The four or six horses would start off with a flourish. The music of the horn I have always thought most stirring. The two rival companies vied with each other in stage effect. If one driver had an especial flourish, the other tried to surpass him, and so it went on. No automobile, no matter how high powered, can hold a candle to those stage coaches in picturesque effect, ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... with earnest eyes. "Why, Olive, you are quite a speaker yourself!" she exclaimed. "You would far surpass me if ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... us in England; they keep their waggons in the very middle of the road, and will not move for the highest nobleman in the land; this, however, is contrary to the police regulations. The land carriage here is almost entirety managed by mules. These are from 13 to 14 hands high, and surpass in figure and limb anything I could have imagined of the sons and daughters of asses. The price of these animals varies from L.10 to L.40, according to size and temper. They are found of all colours; but white, grey, and bay are the most uncommon. Our journey this day was only ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... reason? Any similitude must be infinitely more unlike than like the reality. Nevertheless, that I may drive out forms from your mind by forms, I will try to give you a picture of these ideas which surpass all forms, and to sum up a long discourse in a few words. A certain wise theologian says that God, in regard to His Godhead, is like a vast circle, of which the centre is everywhere, and the circumference nowhere. Now consider the image which follows. If anyone throws a great stone into ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... do overlook The woody knaps an' winden brook, An' leaene's wi' here an' there a hatch, An' house wi' elem-sheaeded thatch, An' vields where chaps do vur outdo The Zunday sky, wi' cwoats o' blue; An' maidens' frocks do vur surpass The whitest deaesies ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... only in this but in very many of his arguments and writings. He may have been twenty-four or twenty-five years old when he finished this work. He gained great fame and reputation by it, so that already, in the opinion of the world, not only did he greatly surpass all others of the time and of the times before, but also he challenged ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... vital and indispensable to England, continue: "Boundless plans are veiled beneath the Navy Bill (1897). The hotspurs among the water-patriots dream of a first-class navy which might rival, yes, even surpass the British fleet. ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... prove that they were the equals of men, they have had to prove that they were the equals of both women and men; they have had to learn and to be all that other women know and are, and, in addition, to equal men in the points where men surpass women; while their masculine rivals are exempt from all the demands for time and thought bestowed ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... Nothing could surpass the exquisite moulding and fairness of the arm extended alternately to feed and caress the pet animal before her. No wonder the little creature looked up at her with its soft, almost human eyes, and gazed in her face, as if half bewildered ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... their scholarly editing, their typographical excellence, their compendious form, and their cheapness." The BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW says: "In compendiousness, elegance, and scholarliness the Globe Editions of Messrs. Macmillan surpass any popular series of our classics hitherto given to the public. As near an approach to miniature perfection ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... sicknesses cured, tempests laid, pestilences put to flight, famines remedied, judgments inflicted, and there will be no need of analyzing the causes, whether supernatural or natural, to which they are to be referred. They may, or they may not, in this or that case, follow or surpass the laws of nature, and they may do so plainly or doubtfully, but the common sense of mankind will call them miraculous; for by a miracle is popularly meant, whatever be its formal definition, an event which impresses upon the mind the immediate ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... principles of his life and conduct that hereby was set forth the love of God, and applied to the needs of man. He used often to say that countless other things manifested the boundless love of God to men, but of those we know, these surpass the greatness of all the rest, which He ceases not to bestow before man's rise and after his setting. "To touch lightly a few of these in the case of men who rise and set: God the Son of God gave for each man before he was born the ransom of His own death. ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... can be the worst enemy of himself. Single-Speech Hamilton was not satisfied with his big success, but spoke again. Nothing could have been more unwise. He should have rested on his laurels—unless indeed, he could have been quite sure that he would surpass his former triumph. Unless one can be perfectly certain of that, it is, best, in ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... young Princesse de Savoy. He announced that on that occasion he should be glad to see a magnificent Court; and he himself, who for a long time had worn only the most simple habits, ordered the most superb. This was enough; no one thought of consulting his purse or his state; everyone tried to surpass his neighbour in richness and invention. Gold and silver scarcely sufficed: the shops of the dealers were emptied in a few days; in a word luxury the most unbridled reigned over Court and city, for the fete had a huge crowd of spectators. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... in League history bids fair to surpass, in exciting events, that of every preceding series of years known in the annals of professional base ball. The decade in question began with the players' revolt in 1890 and was followed up by the secession of the ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... auxiliaries, the unfortunate and superannuated Royal Marines. A sight of such noble institutions, with suitable pictures and statues of naval heroes and their glorious atchievements, in which Lord Nelson and his transcendent actions must for ever stand pre-eminently conspicuous, would far surpass, in genuine grandeur, perhaps, and certainly in rational and philosophical contemplation, the loftiest and most stupendous pillar or pyramid ever raised by human art and industry, for little other purpose than to attract the gaze of profitless ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... the abundant dinner set before the gallant Zouaves. There was lamb, and green peas, new potatoes, fresh tomatoes, custard pudding, and raspberries, all of which was pronounced "fine," although Jimmy declared there never was any dish at Delmonico's to equal or surpass his fried ham, and the others ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks, Part First - Being the First Book • Sarah L Barrow |
