"Feat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... self for the satisfaction of imperious duty. Such deliberate return towards suffering is no cowardice, but a triumph over weak flesh; and the awkward strife of diffidence may often prove a greater feat of arms than the supple fence ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... lex, our law-makers delight in very small jokes. When Mr. CECIL BECK, as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, delivered HIS MAJESTY's reply to the Address the House of Commons was chiefly interested in watching how he would accomplish the feat of walking backwards from the Table to the Bar. More than once in past history the task has proved too much for the man who essayed it, and the orderly retreat has degenerated into a shambling rout. But there was no such hitch to-day. Progressive politician though he is, Mr. BECK retraced his steps ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... execution. Hitherto his favourite had been Prometheus Unbound: I am fain to suppose that that great effort did not now hold a second place in his affections, though he may have considered that the Adonais, as being a less arduous feat, came nearer to reaching its goal. (To Peacock, August, 1821.) 'I have sent you by the Gisbornes a copy of the Elegy on Keats. The subject, I know, will not please you; but the composition of the poetry, and ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... of punch now, Miss Tierney; shure you're fainting away entirely for the want of a dhrop." The lady addressed was wiping, with the tail of her gown, a face which showed the labour that had been necessary to perform the feat of dancing down the whole company to the tune of the "wind that shakes the barley," and was now leaning against the wall, whilst her last partner was offering her punch made on the half and half system: "Take a sup, Miss Tierney, then; shure ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... When this road showed a tendency to sink below the level, Stephenson loaded the moss beyond the track to balance it; when water oozed through, he invented a new kind of drain-pipe formed of old tallow casks, headed into each other, and ballasted to keep them down, and at last the feat was accomplished—the railway was run over the wet quaking moss on firm ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Griseldis through her wit *Couth all the feat* of wifely homeliness, *knew all the duties* But eke, when that the case required it, The common profit coulde she redress: There n'as discord, rancour, nor heaviness In all the land, that she could not appease, And wisely bring them all ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... would take place. He ordered Forrest (about the ablest cavalry general in the South) north for this purpose; and Forrest and Wheeler carried out their orders with more or less destruction, occasionally picking up a garrison. Forrest indeed performed the very remarkable feat of capturing, with cavalry, two gunboats and a number of transports, something the accomplishment of which is very hard to account for. Hood's army had been weakened by Governor Brown's withdrawing the Georgia State ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... untrue. Addressing me, she said, 'O princess of Panchala, Yudhishthira will ever keep you in happiness, O excellent lady!' Having slain many thousands of kings possessed of active prowess, I see, O monarch, that through thy folly thou art about to make that feat futile. They whose eldest brother becomes mad, have all to follow him in madness. Through thy madness, O king, all the Pandavas are about to become mad. If, O monarch, these thy brothers were in their senses, they would then have ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... more to KITCHENER'S triumphant feat in transporting our army to France. We are not very far from Southampton, whence some of the troops must have sailed, but beyond the merest vague rumours we heard nothing. One lady, a fortnight ago, had word from some one that a Belgian padre had seen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various
... afternoon? There is nothing I really like so much as a walk. There are some very pretty points where the river skirts the park. And I will show you the spot on which Sir Guy de Palliser performed the feat for which the king gave him this property. It was a grand time when a man could get half-a-dozen parishes because he tickled ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... in the skill of the oarsmen in holding the boat on the pitch of the billow so that in its rush it takes you with it. The native boys do the feat standing on a plank. I was tempted to try this myself, but of course made ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... was so conspicuous to the two fleets that it is said the French officers after the battle toasted "the little black ship." She and the Suffolk, 74, Rowley's flagship, also suffered severely in this gallant feat. ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... but also to bring it back to the door of the corral, should be their general. The person who succeeded was accordingly elected; and doubtless made a fit general for such an army. This extraordinary feat has also been performed ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... man's attempt to encircle her waist with his free arm. In this maneuver Adelle did not assist him: instead, she pushed herself back against the cushion so firmly that it made it a difficult engineering feat to obtain possession of her figure. By this time his face was close to hers, and he was stammering incoherently such words as—"Adelle" ... "Dearest" ... "Love" ... etc. But we will spare the reader Mr. Ashly Crane's crude imitation of ardor. All love-making, even the most sincere ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... on the smallest provocation), that of a summer-day the sunblinds of its shops scarce dare to flap in the south wind; while the sun-browned tramps, who pass along and stare, quicken their limp a little, that they may the sooner get beyond the confines of its oppressive respectability. This is a feat not difficult of achievement, seeing that the streets of Cloisterham city are little more than one narrow street by which you get into it and get out of it: the rest being mostly disappointing yards with ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... where he came down the course a mile away. It made his heart beat quicker with a victorious headlong delight, as his knees pressed closer into Forest King's flanks, and, half stirrupless like the Arabs, he thundered forward to the greatest riding feat of his life. His face was very calm still, but his blood was in tumult, the delirium of pace had got on him, a minute of life like this was worth a year, and he knew that he would win or die for it, as the land seemed to fly like a black sheet under him, and, in ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... word for half a minute. The proposition was so astounding that it might well have appalled the stoutest heart. At that time no one had attempted to cross the Atlantic in a heavier-than-air plane, a feat later on successfully accomplished. Nobody had piloted the way in a Yankee-made seaplane; nor had any one navigated the air passage in a monster dirigible. The three thousand miles of atmosphere lying between Europe and America still stood an uncharted sea of vapor, where every imaginable evil ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... the performances were almost over. One last feat remained, the Finale, of which Mignon had spoken. It ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... startled her companion more than once by wild threats of swimming the Gouliot, which is a foolhardy feat even for a man, for the dark passage is rarely free from coiling undercurrents, which play with a man as though he were no more than a piece of seaweed, and try even a strong swimmer's nerve and strength. And when she spoke so, the boy took her sharply to task, and drew most ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... praise, had he not been loyal. I know he admires your poetry properly. God help him, and send some great artist from the country, (who can read and write beside comprehending Shakspeare, and who 'exasperates his H's' when the feat is to be done)—to undertake the part of Cosmo, or Gregory, or what shall most soothe his spirit! The subject of your play is tempting indeed—and reminds one of that wild Drama of Calderon's which frightened ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... will invite, When the merry Bells ring round, And the jocond rebecks sound To many a youth, and many a maid, Dancing in the Chequer'd shade; And young and old com forth to play On a Sunshine Holyday, Till the live-long day-light fail, Then to the Spicy Nut-brown Ale, 100 With stories told of many a feat, How Faery Mab the junkets eat, She was pincht, and pull'd she sed, And he by Friars Lanthorn led Tells how the drudging Goblin swet, To ern his Cream-bowle duly set, When in one night, ere glimps of morn, His shadowy Flale hath thresh'd the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... the first person simply shall foretells; In will a threat or else a promise dwells: {554} Shall in the second and the third does threat; Will simply then foretells the coming feat." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... a sort of clearing-house or joint-stock company in which the Bodhisattvas, kami and other miscellaneous beings, in either the native or foreign religion, were mutually interchangeable. In a large sense, this feat of priestly dexterity was but the repetition in history, of that of Asanga with the Brahmanism and Buddhism of India three centuries before. It was this Asanga who wrote the Yoga-chara Bhumi. The succession of syncretists in India, China ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... with her thimble finger. This proving of no avail, she was obliged to pry open the kitchen shutter, split open the screen of mosquito netting with her shears, and crawl into the house over the sink. This was a considerable feat for a somewhat rheumatic elderly lady, but this one never grudged trouble when she ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... some sudden and great unexpected crisis, is in a great measure performed unconsciously as to its mental means. The man is so totus in illo, that there is no bit of the mind left to watch and record the acts of the rest; therefore men, when they have done some signal feat of presence of mind, if asked how they did it, generally don't very well know—they just did it; it was, in fact, done and then thought of, not thought of and then done, in which case it would likely never have been done. Not that ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... the battle of Chickamauga that Garfield's most daring feat was performed. In the early part of 1863 he was made chief of the staff to General Rosecrans, and in this capacity organised his famous corps of scouts. The summer and autumn were spent in opposing ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... men and women laughed to one side, while the white people smiled as though they had admired the feat as a fine specimen of falling from the sublime to the ridiculous. Bending down over the well, the larger students caught hold of the teacher's arms ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... the congratulations of all, and though he pretended not to regard the thing in the light of a feat, he knew well that killing a "painter" was ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... the feat cheered wildly at this exhibition of the white man's magic, which they took as an omen of success, while the force the general had belonged to—which, indeed, as we ascertained afterwards, he had commanded—fell back in confusion. Sir Henry and Good ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... would have been content to rest with the laurel that such a performance as "Joan of Arc" had won. Not so with Charles Frohman. Every stupendous feat that he achieved merely whetted his desire for something greater. He delighted in sensation. Now he came to the point in his life where he projected what was in many respects the most unique and original ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... up the canyon and showed him her cave and Minervy's. And she had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing him doubled over the saddle-horn in a paroxysm of laughter when she led him to the historical washout and recounted the feat of the dead Indians with which he had made a safe passing ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... castle in Bavaria, how well I remember it, and the accomplished charm of its owner, who had made its grandeur cosey, a feat, indeed! But all this is detached from the real life of the nation, which is forever taking its cue from the court, leaving any independent or imposing social and political life benumbed and without vitality. There ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... it be so, sir, that you are the man Must stead us all, and me amongst the rest; And if you break the ice, and do this feat, Achieve the elder, set the younger free For our access, whose hap shall be to have her Will not so graceless be to ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... event a negative quantity. Long years afterwards he used to be chaffed about it, and stood it very badly. A few months since I chatted with one of the men who with myself took part in this plot. He still treasured it as a great diplomatic feat, and laughed immoderately at the recollection of the poor mate's troubles, and warmly complimented himself on the success of the enterprise, but added very seriously: "There is no knowing what might have happened had we ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... of United States vessels. No navy troop transports were torpedoed on east-bound trips although three were sunk on the return trip with loss of 138 lives. To the American and British navies must go the credit for carrying through this stupendous feat, and in the work of assuring the safety of the troop transports the navy of the United States may claim recognition for the larger share, since 82 per cent of the escorts furnished were American cruisers ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... all their time before them, ought never to compel or so much as to offer at the feat, if they do not find themselves quite ready: and it is less unseemly to fail of handselling the nuptial sheets, when a man perceives himself full of agitation and trembling, and to await another opportunity at more private ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... while the Parisians are preparing to second him in crushing their foes, they learn that the cowardly emperor has bought them off with a bribe and permission to winter in Burgundy. The Parisians, however, refused to give them passage and by an unparalleled feat of engineering they transported their ships overland for two miles and set sail again above the city. Next year, as Gozlin's successor, Bishop Antheric, was sitting at table with Abbot Ebles, a fearful messenger brought news that the acephali[36] ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... not see, since remembering the incident was to him an even greater feat of memory than recalling the name. It was a case of having to remember two things ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... of the persons engaged or exposed. The point of honour, among several of us, was of course nobly to defy the danger, and I feel again the emotion with which I both hoped and feared that the red flags, lurid signals descried from afar, would enable or compel us to renew the feat. That I didn't for myself inveterately renew it I seem to infer from the memory of other perambulations of the period—as to which I am divided between their still present freshness and my sense of perhaps ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... Marc was a tougher proposition than the wildest mustang that ever romped the desert. Not only was he unusually vigorous; he was robust and heavy, yet exceedingly active. I had seen him roll over in the dust three times each way, and do it easily—a feat Emett declared he had never seen ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... of us, and starts up at his usual brisk, striding gait. It is a test of lungs and heart, of skill and nerve to climb the North Cape, and let no one attempt it who is unfitted for the task. Steep almost as the side of a house, rocky as an unused pathway, it is a feat to accomplish. We were the first party of the season to go up, and the paths had not been entirely cleared of snow, which was two and three feet deep in places, the path itself sometimes a narrow ledge over a precipice. A rope guard was the only ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... infant daughter, had gone without warders for their protection. It was on this occasion that Phelim M'Davitt got into Montgomery's library and set fire to it, thus destroying hundreds of valuable volumes, printed and manuscript, a feat for which he is not censured—we are sorry to have to acknowledge it—by Philip O'Sullivan in his account of the fact. Elated by this successful raid, Sir Cahir called off his followers and proceeded to beleaguer Lifford, where there was a small garrison of English who could not be ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... this would have been nothing had not Nickem secured the old woman who had sold the herrings,—and also the chemist, from whom the strychnine had been purchased as much as three years previously. This latter feat was Nickem's great triumph, the feeling of the glory of which induced him to throw up his employment in Mr. Masters' office, and thus brought him and his family to absolute ruin within a few months in spite of the liberal answers which were made by Lord Rufford ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... imagine what a profound impression this extinction of the Burgundians would produce upon the minds of their neighbors the Rhine Franks. Fact, too, would soon become mingled with fiction. This new feat was ascribed to Attila himself, already too well known as the scourge of Europe and the subduer of so many German tribes. A very few years later, however, fate was to subdue the mighty conqueror himself. With the great battle of Chalons ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... Eve). The Hirpi would not be freed from military service and all other State imposts for merely doing what any set of peasants do yearly for nothing. Nor would Varro have found it necessary to explain so easy and common a feat by the use of a drug with which the feet were smeared. Mannhardt, as Mr. Max Muller says, ventured himself little 'among red skins and black skins.' He read Dr. Tylor, and appreciated the method of illustrating ancient rites ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... shouted again and again at this feat of their commander, and they went into the battle feeling sure that the victory would be theirs. They rushed upon the English with fury and although outnumbered three to one, completely defeated them. Thousands of the English were slain and a ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... daylight could do such a thing, he asserted. Even he himself, in the fullest of his strength, would never have attempted the feat. It was death to ascend ten yards. Miss Wardour begged that neither of them should try. She was already much better, she said. Besides, their presence was needed to control her father, who was clearly ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... indulge in none but the most obvious of all reflections—as, for example, that when a man is once drowned he won't win any more battles—and produce as the result a copy of verses which nobody can ever read without instantly knowing them by heart. How Cowper managed to perform such a feat, and why not one poet even in a hundred can perform it, are questions which might lead ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... me! I trust I was not well awake— The voice was very sweet, Yet a faint languor kept me in my seat. I saw a pouted lip, a toss, and heard Some low expostulating tones, but stirred Not even a leaf's length, till the pretty fay, Wondering, and half abashed at the wild feat, Climbed the low pales, and laughed my gloom away. And here again, but led by other powers, A morning and a golden afternoon, These happy stars, and yonder setting moon, Have seen me speed, unreckoned and untasked, A ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... seek to conceal the truth from himself. He had heard the sharply drawn breath that was taken through the parted lips of his tense observers as that admirably handled blade slid from its true course and spoiled what might have been heralded as a marvellous feat in surgery. It was as if something had snapped in the minds of these three men who watched. They had looked, however, upon all that was before him as he worked. They had seen, as he saw, the thing that no human skill could conquer. He felt their eyes upon him as he turned the knife ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... member had, Save fingers fine and feat[4] to see; Her head with hair Apollo clad, That gods had thought it gold to be: So glist'ring was the tress in sight Of this ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... own Luscinia, who winters not in Egypt and Arabia, but in Morocco and Algeria, the only note of his which can be mistaken for sorrow, is rather one of too great joy; that cry, which is his highest feat of art; which he cannot utter when he first comes to our shores, but practises carefully, slowly, gradually, till he has it perfect by the beginning of June; that cry, long, repeated, loudening and sharpening in the intensity of rising passion, till it stops suddenly, exhausted ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... must have filled a father's and a brother's breast—" (Here the speaker blew his nose and wiped a mist from his spectacles. Then he resumed.) "As I was saying, our friend has accomplished a wonderful feat, gentlemen. He has come twelve thousand miles in three days and a half. That's a thing to be proud of. He tells me he's going to get back in another three days and a half. I am sure I speak for you all when I say 'good luck to him!' ("hear! hear!") Think what it means, ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... felt instinctively. Nevertheless, when that night Jacqueline was placed in her dining chair, and while chatting with her brother she proudly displayed the clover leaf pin in a new little velvet case, Tessie wondered what could have been the original feat of heroism for which this badge had ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... fighting as ever took place, were waged between small bodies of men, and were not distinguished by any feats of generalship, so that they are not of any special interest to the historian. In fact, the only really noteworthy feat of arms of the war took place at New Orleans, and the only military genius that the struggle developed was Andrew Jackson. His deeds are worthy of all praise, and the battle he won was in many ways so peculiar as to ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... 326 B.C.—Alexander succeeded in crossing some miles higher up into the Karri plain under the low hills of Gujrat. Here, somewhere near the line now occupied by the upper Jhelam Canal, the Greek soldiers gave the first example of a feat often repeated since, the rout of a large and unwieldy Indian army by a small, but mobile and well-led, European force. Having defeated Poros, Alexander crossed the Chenab (Akesines), stormed Sangala, a fort of the Kathaioi on the upper Ravi (Hydraotes) ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... a fine feat to swim there from land," said young Fletcher to four of his companions. They agreed, and the five set forth. Fletcher and one other lad succeeded in reaching the island, but found its smooth cliffs sank so steeply into the water that there was no possibility of climbing ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... drank and sung till they were tir'd. And then they peacefully retir'd. When this Homeric speech was said, With drolling tongue and hanging head, The learned Doctor took his seat, Thinking he'd done a noble feat. Quoth Joe,[35] the crime is great I own, Send for the Juniors one by one. By this almighty wig I swear, Which with such majesty I wear, Which in its orbit vast contains My dignity, my power and brains, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... cheeks—you—a Gregoriev!" But the glittering eyes, striving to fathom those others, were caught in a sudden quiet depth, wavered for an instant, and—were lowered! Then Michael sat in a frown, elbows on the table, his chin on his hand, thinking. Ivan, meantime, this little feat accomplished, sat waiting, uneasily, for a decision or—a dismissal. He waited for some time; but the end was worth it—perhaps. When his father spoke again, his ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... London Bridge, young hero?" cried the amazed king. "How may that be? Have we a Duke Samson among us to do so great a feat?" ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... year, he would be needed in a presidential year. This reasoning reduces the governorship to a sort of spring-board from which to vault into the White House, and, although only one man in a century has performed the feat, it has always figured as a popular and potent factor in the settlement of political nominations. George Clinton thought promotion would come to him, and Hamilton inspired Jay with a similar notion, although it is doubtful if the people ever seriously considered the candidacy of either; ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... drinking deep. The drinking in cider counties seems always to have been worse as far as quantity goes than elsewhere, and the drink bills on farms were enormous. Marshall says that in Gloucestershire drinking a gallon 'bottle', generally a little wooden barrel, at a draught was no uncommon feat; and in the Vale of Evesham a labourer who wanted to be even with his master for short payment emptied a two-gallon bottle without taking it from his lips. Even this feat was excelled by 'four well-seasoned ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... the house. A large vase of Japan porcelain, filled with flowers that loaded the air with their perfume, stood in the salon. Julie, suitably dressed, and her hair arranged (she had accomplished this feat in less than ten minutes), received the count on his entrance. The songs of the birds were heard in an aviary hard by, and the branches of laburnums and rose acacias formed an exquisite framework to the blue velvet curtains. Everything in this charming retreat, from the warble ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... for which he sought, he died. Love denied was Love alive; Love granted was Love deceased. Do you follow me? They saw it was not the way of life to be hungry for what it has. To eat and still be hungry—man has never accomplished that feat. The problem of satiety. That is it. To have and to keep the sharp famine-edge of appetite at the groaning board. This was their problem, for they loved Love. Often did they discuss it, with all Love's sweet ardours brimming in their eyes; his ruddy blood spraying ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... answer to this monstrous request, "I do not think it would be expedient," was highly commendable as a feat of Ministerial restraint. But the gloom that has settled on him is only too solidly grounded. These afflicted Members are out to raise a sentimental public opinion in support of their silly demand. Then, of course, the Government will capitulate, and the country will go Bolshevik ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... As for Dickie's friends, most of them were of the country-house variety whom he visited once a year; next autumn would show whether Ruth would be included in those week and week-end invitations. Meanwhile, those few dwelling in London marvelled in a detached sort of way at Dickie's feat, liked Ruth, and pronounced it a shame that she should have been accused. Hal Burnham, the indirect promoter of the match, had ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... any one else who dares lay a hand on me!" shouted the captain, who was transformed from a mild-mannered individual into an angry, modern giant. There was a gasp of astonishment at his feat, as the ducked sailor crawled back into the small boat. And he did not again venture on the ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... and seventy cents—yes, sir—and the clostest shooting rifle I ever tossed to my shoulder." He seemed but small to have accomplished such a feat. He meditated for a little space. "I reckon when we strike the settlements again I should like to buy my Uncle Bob a present." With knitted brows he considered what this should be, canvassing Yancy's needs. He had about decided on a ring ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... things he was merely an awkward, overgrown midshipman. But then, let us remember that a locomotive engine, though excellent at running, would be a poor hand at flying. That is not its vocation. The engine will draw fifteen heavy carriages fifty miles in an hour; and that remains as a noble feat, even though it be ascertained that the engine could not jump over a brook which would be cleared easily by the veriest screw. We ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... engaged in dancing, are seated in a large semicircle as spectators, occasionally giving a rapturous exclamation of delight, as any part of the performance is well gone through or any remarkable feat of activity exhibited. Where natives have not much acquaintance with Europeans, so as to give up, in some measure, their original habits, if there is any degree of jealousy between the respective tribes, they ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... and grasped his club, speaking in the Queres language and with a vibrating tone—"why don't you look for a companion in your own tribe? Mitsha Koitza does not care for a husband who sneaks around in the timber like a wolf, and whose only feat consists in frightening the old women ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... pecked it apart, making three or four bites of it. After some practice he learned to swallow a berry whole, though it often required three or four attempts, and seemed almost more than he could manage. When he had accomplished this feat, he sat with his head drawn down into his shoulders, as though he found himself uncomfortably stuffed. Having eaten two or three raspberries, our distinguished visitor always picked another, with which he flew ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... brook, I beg of you!" cried Henri, seeing that, instead of running past the grand-stand, Zibeline apparently intended to attempt this dangerous feat. ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... cave. He had fashioned slowly a pair of rude crutches, if they could be so called,—two pine limbs trimmed down with his pocketknife, with their natural forks left to fit under his arms. Marion protested that he was attempting this feat much too soon, but she was compelled to watch him in an agony of suspense lest he should fall on the hard floor of the cave, or rest his weight on the injured leg, and so undo all that had cost them so much of care and labor. But ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... successful feats was in altering the foundation level of the city. It was found that the business quarter was laid too low—that it was damp, and could not be properly drained. It was determined to raise the whole quarter bodily from six to eight feet higher! And the extraordinary feat was accomplished with the help of screw-jacks, ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... great party; but the language and theory actually examined and allowed would hardly, in legal strictness, authorise much more than the very peculiar views of Mr. Gorham himself. And in the last case, the outside lay world has hardly yet done wondering at the consummate feat of legal subtlety by which the issue whether the English Church teaches that the Bible is inspired was transmuted into the question whether it teaches that every single part of every single book is inspired. It might seem that rulings, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... strains died away, the host pressed the English lord to bide long as a guest, promising rest for horse, and refreshment and pleasure for man, with many a joust, or feat at arms, for those who wished ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... the mere consciousness that guilt is suspected. If that was the case here, he felt himself powerless. It is only in melodramas that a well-conducted person can be steeped in crime, and he did not see his way very clearly to accomplishing that difficult and dangerous feat ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... much to see him take a flying spring on to the main boom in the dark, and hang there reefing while the vessel jerked so that you might have fancied she must send his ribs through the skin. I say it was nothing, because he performed this feat nearly every winter night, after the midnight haul, and the spectacle grew common. I never knew him bungle over a rope or make a bad slip, and it was simply a pleasure to see him steer. He never threw away ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... that the pass of the Little Saint-Bernard would have been practicable, and that the whole artillery could have crossed it without dismounting a gun or losing a man. It is true, however, that the feat would have been less glorious ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... ankle had been reenforced by his father's. Nor was the lad's revolt subdued when he was deposited upon the floor and the window closed. Indeed, it may be said that he actually never gave up, though it is a fact that the second potion was successfully placed inside him. But by the time this feat was finally accomplished, Mr. Schofield had proved that, in spite of middle age, he was entitled to substantial claims and honours both as athlete and orator—his oratory being founded less upon the school of Webster and more upon that ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth. The capitalist who, alone or in conjunction with his fellows, performs some great industrial feat by which he wins money is a welldoer, not a wrongdoer, provided only he works in proper and legitimate lines. We wish to favor such a man when he does well. We wish to supervise and control his actions only to prevent him ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... five men in front was even worse. Their rifles were stacked against the gate hardly a dozen feet away. But to run a gauntlet of a dozen feet against Laramie's rifle fire was a feat none had stomach for, nor were they ready at a hundred yards to pit revolvers against it. One of them might get him but they knew it would be after some of the others had practically ceased to be interested in ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... recognition of the King, whom she has never seen before; her reading of his mind; her wonderful influence over the French army, and much more of the kind, are part of a well-authenticated tradition with which the skeptical mind must make its peace as best it can. And the feat is not altogether easy. The modern rationalist will say, and is no doubt right in saying, that if we knew all the pertinent facts accurately from first to last, the Maid's story would fit perfectly into our scheme of scientific knowledge and would appear no more mysterious ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... differed from tournament, because in the former only lances were used, and only two knights could fight at once. It was not considered quite so important as the grand feat of arms which I have just described, but was often practised when the more serious encounter had finished. Lances or spears without heads of iron were commonly used, and the object of the sport was to ride ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... liked to think of the reckless courage of the men who drove the steel road through eight hundred miles of rugged wilderness to Port Arthur, and then on again through rocks and muskegs to the Western prairie. It was a daring feat, when one remembered the obstacles and that there was no traffic to be developed ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... location of the jewels. And, when he did recall this fact, and how easily he had been duped, Maitland could have ground his teeth in melodramatic rage—but for the circumstance that when first it occurred to him, such a feat was a physical impossibility, and even when ungagged the operation would have ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... to the ground, while his horse, after running a few hundred yards, approached the soldiers, one of whom ran out and caught hold of the long lariat attached to the bridle, and thus secured the animal. When I returned to the company, all of whom had witnessed my feat of killing an Indian at a range of fully four hundred yards, by general consent the horse of the victim was ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... to have multiplied rapidly. Impudently tame, they lined the gravel-bars, and regarded us curiously as we fought our way past them. Now and then a flock of wild ducks alighted several hundred yards from us. We had only a rifle. To shoot a moving duck out of a moving boat with a rifle is a feat attended with some difficulties. Once we wounded a wild goose, but it got away; which offended our sense of poetic justice. After crane soup one would seem ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... the wish to see him smile. Tall and lean like his brother, he had more bone and muscle; and while both young men had an appearance of athletic power, as if they could have leaped over the hearse, the elder gave you the further impression that he was actually longing to perform some such feat. The younger brother's half languid gait, that told of bodily strength impaired by disuse, had become in the elder an impatient elasticity as if he moved on springs. His thoughts were clearly elsewhere; his eyes wandered absently to and fro, and his pre-occupation was obvious enough ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... dimensions of the two membranes which sustain him in the air, you may well ask yourself how those little morsels of wings, thin as gold-beater's skin, can carry such a mass along. In fact, they only accomplish this feat of strength by dint of an excess of activity almost startling to think of. When you run as fast as you can, how many times, think you, do you move your legs in one second? You would be somewhat puzzled to say; and so should I: but I defy you to count ten. ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... perilous feat, my lord. We are going to drop. If we make it from this height, not only will we break all records, but will have proved the June Bug the superior in this respect, as she is in speed. It is our only chance in any circumstances, but with the Jarados at our side, we need not fear that the craft will ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... have an extraordinary power of abstracting your mind," Bernard said to her, observing it. "Studying philosophy at the Baden Kursaal strikes me as a real intellectual feat." ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... the competition which Hollyhock called 'The Zone of Danger' was that the Scots lassie or English girl, as the case might be, should perform a brilliant deed, a feat demanding skill, endurance, and nerve. But Hollyhock intended her zone of danger to be one really great and very terrible, something that was to take place at night. Very few girls in the school chose to compete for this prize, as they knew only too well that Holly would beat them into 'nothing ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... and moistened about the edges till every fibre was loosened, when the mass dropped. But instantly the entrance was made smaller, and changed so as to make the feat of ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... me that I hope he didn't get hurt," said Lady Julia. The old lady could not absolutely congratulate him on his feat of arms, but she did the next ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... ship that has been hanging over the water ever so long on the last rollers, with one gallant glide he took the sea, and towed them all like little cockle-boats in his wake. From sea to sea, from port to port, from tribe to tribe, from peril to peril, from feat to feat, David whirled his wonderstruck hearers, and held them panting by the quadruple magic of a tuneful voice, a changing eye, an ardent soul, and ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... fugitives were such that even supposing them to have marched—men, women and children—FIVE ABREAST and in close order, they would have formed a column 100 miles long, and this not including the baggage, sheep and cattle! Of course the feat was absolutely impossible. They could not have passed the Red Sea in a night ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... tears in his eyes, perspiration on his brow, and anguish in his voice, relate how, after a fearful struggle, he had emancipated himself from certain of Calvin's dictums; but while some clergymen present seemed astounded, I remarked at the close of the meeting that I had accomplished that feat for myself some quarter of a century agone, and what is more, though I did not say this to him, I did so without any tears, and without any anguish whatever. These personal references are merely to show that in taking up the cause of the newer ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... on the Schreiner property was built in the following summer, just before we started on our second expedition to Willow Clump Island. It spanned the brook at the gorge, and was therefore a more difficult engineering feat. Mr. Schreiner himself asked us to build it, and we felt greatly honored by the request. A search was made in the Van Syckel library for a suitable type. At last we found one that seemed properly suited to the ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... nature of their dances was utterly incomprehensible. The chief object the young men had in view seemed to be to exhibit their agility by every species of bound and fling of which the human frame is capable, including the rather desperate feat of dashing themselves flat upon the ground. The principal care of the girls seemed to be to keep out of the way of the men, and avoid being killed by a frantic kick or ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... in Turkey last year I had the misfortune not to be introduced to the privacy of a Turkish family gathering, so I have to confess that I have not yet accomplished this feat myself. ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... where the habitant in charge planted his broad feet for the downward slide, and was hurled aboard more or less en masse by the fierce velocity of his heavy-laden wheelbarrow. Amidst the confusion and hazard of this feat a procession of other habitans marched aboard, each one bearing under his arm a coffin-shaped wooden box. The rising fear of Colonel Ellison, that these boxes represented the loss of the whole infant population of Ha-Ha Bay, was checked by the reflection that the region could not have produced ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... and magnified as it was by a thousand echoes. The sound seemed to sink, and mount from cavity to cavity—to rebound and to divide—and at length to die in a good old age. The flash and the smoke produced, too, a momentary feeling of terror. Having performed this marvellous feat, I was nowise ambitious to qualify myself further for giving ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... man running for a car is the safest mark for a gamin's snowball, so Calumet K, through being a rush job as well as a rich one, offered a particularly advantageous field for Grady's endeavors. Men who were trying to accomplish the impossible feat of completing, at any cost, the great hulk on the river front before the first of January, would not be likely to stop to quibble at paying the five thousand dollars or so that Grady, who, as the business agent of his union was ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... attend the preparation of his powder had already gone by; and now, unless someone should dare to approach that terrible tap, and boldly turn it, a fearful explosion might take place. Doubtless it was too late already, and whoever might have the bravery to attempt the feat would ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... of the pain, to use a knee after it had been slightly injured. And to-day we are told of another who has had to lie by for years, because he did not know that the palpitation he suffered under resulted from overtaxed brain. Now we hear of an irremediable injury which followed some silly feat of strength; and, again, of a constitution that has never recovered from the effects of excessive work needlessly undertaken. While on every side we see the perpetual minor ailments which accompany feebleness. Not to dwell on the ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... from the Valley of Chamouni is considered, and with justice, as the most toilsome feat that a strong man can execute in two days. The combustion of two pounds of coal would ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... stiff as a poker, still measuring with his eyes the distance between the steps. He even made a mental note of the number of a constable who had watched the feat, in order to have a witness to appeal to if his account of it should be received with ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... and Belgium put together; and this great region had no industrial centres or other points of such great strategic importance that by the occupation of them the remaining area could be dominated. The feat which the Northern people eventually achieved has been said by the English historians of the war (perhaps with some exaggeration) to have been "a greater one than that which Napoleon attempted to his own undoing when he invaded Russia ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... feeling that influenced nearly all of them: that was ambition. They knew that to make such a journey would be something of a feat, and they wished to have the credit of performing it. To minds like that of Basil, even the danger had something attractive in it. It was resolved then to break up the encampment, and continue ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... did, accordingly, was undoubtedly to give the first copyist a start on the first letter he wished to send, then turn to the second and give him a start on the second letter, and so on, getting back to the first in time to keep him busy. Quite an intellectual feat, certainly! But not a feat requiring absolutely simultaneous attention to several different matters. In a small way, any one can do something of the same kind. It is not impossible to add columns of numbers ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... lips of the hardened and experienced ruffian he hears of exploits and deeds of darkness, which inflame while they pollute his imagination, and he longs to be free that he might add some daring feat of wickedness to the catalogue he has heard. There can be no doubt that the indiscriminate association of all grades of criminals is one of the most prolific sources from whence our convict prisons receive their constant and ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... to all eyes but our own," replied the Sorceress, smiling. "I have a magic charm powerful enough to accomplish that wonderful feat, and now that we have been warned of our danger by the Nome King's invasion, I believe we must not hesitate to separate ourselves forever from all ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... short story whose phraseology exhibits considerable talent and polish. The didactic element is possibly more emphasized than the plot, though not to a tedious extent. Whether or not a rough draft of a novel may be completed in the course of a single afternoon, a feat described in this tale, we leave for the fiction-writing members of the United to decide! Of the question raised regarding the treatment of the Indian by the white man in America it is best to admit in the words of Sir Roger de Coverly, "that much might be said on both sides". Whilst the ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... editorials against the dilatory methods of our foreign-mail service. Jaggers left London on March 11, 1899, and was back again on the 29th, having travelled nearly eighty-four hundred miles in eighteen days. On his return he was received literally by a crowd of thousands, and his feat was given official recognition by a gold medal pinned on his youthful chest by the Duchess of Rutland. Also, later on, at a garden fete he was presented to the Queen, and incidentally, still later, returned to the United States as "buttons" to my ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... kitchen and pantry, its elegances of parlor and drawing-room, and its decorations of pillar and cornice fitly joined together, travelled off with him to the far West. We do not despair of seeing such a feat performed some day, but we believe it has not yet been done, and Philip Oswald, at least, did not attempt it; he took with him, however, all those useful and ornamental contrivances in their several parts, ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... and known by that moment's feat; There took my station and degree; So grew my own small life complete, As nature obtained her best of me— One born to love ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... swam across. Alvarado stood on the brink, hesitating. Unhorsed and defenseless, he could not make his way across the gap, which was now crowded with the canoes of the enemy. He set his strong lance on the bottom of the canal and, using it as a leaping pole, sprang across. The feat was an extraordinary one, for although the width is not given, it was declared, by those who witnessed it, to be impossible for any mortal. It filled friends and foes alike with astonishment; and the spot is, to this day, known by the Mexicans as ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... I have no head and no ankles, and never ought to dream of mountaineering; and had I known that the ascent was a real mountaineering feat I should not have felt the slightest ambition to perform it. As it is, I am only humiliated by my success, for "Jim" dragged me up, like a bale of goods, by sheer force of muscle. At the "Notch" the real business of the ascent began. Two thousand feet of solid rock towered above us, four thousand ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... recognised as the one to whom most honour is due for successfully spanning the gap, and there are many reasons for awarding the chief praise to him. He was the first to attempt the feat, and although he was not the first to reach salt water on the north, he was the first to sight the open sea, and actually cross from sea to sea. Nor in so doing was he aided by the former successes of other explorers. He also was the one who crossed ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... took up from a chair his hat and riding-whip "'Tis no easy feat," he said, with grimness, "to put one's self in the place of Lewis Rand. But then, other things are not easy either. I'll not grudge a little straining." He stood before the Major, holding out his hand—a handsome figure in his mourning dress, resolute, quiet, no longer ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... shot. 5. The tadpole, or polliwog, becomes a frog. 6. An idle brain is the devil's workshop. 7. Mahomet, or Mohammed, was born in the year 569 and died in 632. 8. They scaled Mount Blanc—a daring feat. ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... usual, that the King should redeem them; but I think he will not, by what Sir G. Downing says. This our prisoners complain of there; and say in their letters, which Sir G. Downing shewed me, that they have made a good feat that they should be taken in the service of the King, and the King not pay for their victuals while prisoners for him. But so far they are from doing thus with their men, as we do to discourage ours, that I find in the letters ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... formidable force was never set in motion than the army I command, sir. They are our stark fighters—men who individually or in the mass can be depended on for any feat of arms in the power of mortals to accomplish. I know them from experience. They will blanch at nothing—yet ...
— A Man of the People - A Drama of Abraham Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... it frankly, it was something like fascination. She had come upon him so suddenly, her feat of horsemanship had been so audacious, her beauty was so marvellous that Stafford, perhaps for the first time in his life, found himself unable to utter a word in the presence of one of the opposite sex. It was only for a moment ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... the Norsemen was to toss three swords in the air and catch each by the handle as it came down. This was called the handsax game. The young men used also to try the feat of running along the oar-blades of the rowers as they were in motion, passing around the bow of the vessel with a spring and coming round to the stern over the oars on the other side. Few could accomplish this, but no one but Harald could do it and play the handsax ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... even his animal needs, but merely supplying them for the moment as he can, and living in squalor, filth, and extreme discomfort, yet daubs himself with grease and paint, and decorates his head with feathers, his neck with bear's claws, and his feat with gaudily-stained porcupine's quills? What of your black barbarian, whose daily life is a succession of unspeakable abominations, and who embellishes it by blackening his teeth, tattooing his skin, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... purring like a spinning-wheel, trying her claws in the wadding of his dressing-gown, and still more impressively reminding him of her presence by putting out a paw to intercept a warmed- over morsel of yesterday's chicken on its way to the Doctor's mouth. After skilfully achieving this feat, she scrambled down upon the breakfast-table and began to wash her face and hands. Evidently, these companions were all three on intimate terms, as was natural enough, since a great many childish impulses ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Yuba. 'G. H.' of course means 'gold here'; it's the regular sign. Six G. H.'s—one of 'em smudged. Huh! Yep, if I were you I'd try the American River first; but you want to look mighty sharp. It's no great feat in the gold fields to jump another fellow's claim, and even if you get there ahead that other party's liable to be hot after ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... somewhat irritably, following certain vague directions of the hotel clerk as to the finding of Johnston's wharf. He had found Johnston's wharf; extracted it neatly from a very wilderness of wharves, a feat upon which Mr. Johnston, making boats in a shed at the end of it, had ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... who danced and disported themselves right joyously. A stately castle rose on the verge of the forest, and in the garden the spirits whom Merlin the enchanter had raised up in the semblance of knights and ladies held carnival. Vivien, delighted, asked of Merlin in what manner he had achieved this feat of faery, and he told her that he would in time instruct her as to the manner of accomplishing it. He then dismissed the spirit attendants and dissipated the castle into thin air, but retained the garden at the request of Vivien, ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... This feat had caused Paul Rains to gasp with astonishment, and, in his heart, he was forced to acknowledge that he doubted if he were ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... dignified ones in the Empire? Is there, indeed, a single person between the Wall and the Bitter Waters on the South who is so devoid of ambition that he would miss the opportunity of subjecting, as it were, perhaps even the sacred Emperor himself to the exceptional feat?' ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... card.—To slip a card is to pretend to take the bottom card of the pack, and in reality to take the card which precedes it. To perform this feat without detection is a very simple affair, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Englishman, who in Bath Street, Cold Bath Fields, London, on the 28th of May, 1741, lifted three hogsheads of water, said to weigh, with the connections, eighteen hundred and thirty-six pounds. In the performance of this feat, Topham stood on a raised platform, his hands grasping a fixture on either side, and a broad strap over his shoulders communicating with the weight. An immense concourse of persons was assembled on the occasion,—the performance having been announced as "in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... gardens, suspended from the rigid side of the tower by a feat of architectural engineering surpassing anything in ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... or eight peaches before breakfast, and declared that he had only once in his life had as much wall-fruit as he wished. His consumption of tea was prodigious, beyond all precedent. Hawkins quotes Bishop Burnet as having drunk sixteen large cups every morning, a feat which would entitle him to be reckoned as a rival. "A hardened and shameless tea-drinker," Johnson called himself, who "with tea amuses the evenings, with tea solaces the midnights, and with tea welcomes the mornings." One of his teapots, preserved by a relic-hunter, contained two ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... Babylonian kings had all resulted in the cession of fresh territory to Assyria and in an increase of her international importance. Up to the time of Tukulti-Mnib no Assyrian king had actually seated himself upon the Babylonian throne. This feat was achieved by Tukulti-Mnib, and his reign thus marks an important step in the gradual advance of Assyria to the position which she later occupied as the predominant power in ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... grapnel, to which the other rope was attached, he got out on to the sill. It was not an easy task to climb up on to the ridge of the dormer window, and it needed all his strength and activity to accomplish the feat. Once astride of the ridge the rest was easy. At the first cast he threw the grapnel so that it caught securely on the top of the roof. After testing it with two or three pulls he clambered up, leaving the lower end of the rope ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... received a further welcome from the inhabitants of Cadiz, who considered that in some way or other his feat reflected a great lustre ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... you. There is an old saying that he who conquers himself performs a greater feat than he who takes a city. Some of us, Miss Marvin, may hereafter associate the lesson with ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... homes. Hardly had a century and a half elapsed before the sturdy colonists, who did not claim freedom but determined to keep it, formally revolted and fought their way to absolute independence—not, by the by, a feat whereof to be overproud when a whole country rose unanimously against a handful of troops. The movement, however, reacted powerfully upon the politics of Europe, which stood agape for change, and undoubtedly precipitated the great French ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... Dublin Fusiliers, the King's Royal Rifles, and the Royal Irish Fusiliers fell the brunt of the work, the task of capturing the Boer position, and the magnificent dash and courage with which the almost impossible feat was accomplished brought a thrill to the heart of all who had the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... them, one in each of his great hands, and before they could spear him dashed their heads together with such desperate strength that they fell down and never stirred again. This was always thought something of a feat, for as everybody knows the skulls ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... the Ambassadress had to call out the name of each one in a loud voice; and when the last one had passed she followed her out of the room, walking sideways so as not to turn her back on the royalties,—something of a feat when towing a train about fifteen feet long. When all the Ambassadresses had so passed, it was the turn of the Ambassadors, who carried out substantially the same programme, substituting low bows for curtsies. The Ambassadors were followed by the Ministers' wives, these ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... the Strait of Gibraltar, and for the first time beheld the great Atlantic Ocean. Proceeding along the coast of Spain, they founded Cadiz; and, not long after, creeping down the western coast of Africa, established colonies there. But their grandest feat was achieved about 600 years B.C., when they sailed down the Red Sea and the eastern coast of Africa, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, sailed up the western coast, and returned home by the Strait of Gibraltar. ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... called upon to emulate this classic example. The feat of filling his glass was deftly accomplished, and a moment later the poet raised it with, "'Drink to me only with thine eyes!'" An appropriate sentiment for Celestina who had nothing else to drink to him with. "Won't you ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... for his master, sent, secretly, for Kashkine—whom he believed endowed with miraculous powers wherever his Prince was concerned. But for once Kashkine's presence seemed powerless to rouse the composer from his lassitude: a feat which was eventually accomplished by one who knew him more intimately than ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... known courts and embassies and retired from them upon private life. . . . But who can explain friendship, even after all the essays written upon it? Certainly to be friends with a dead man was to my father a feat neither impossible nor absurd. ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... admiral was struck down on his poop-deck. The ship was burned to the water's edge. The Turkish fleet scattered before the shower of blazing sparks, and was only brought together under the guns of the Dardanelles. This exploit made Kanaris the hero of Greece. Within the same year he repeated the feat. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... waters, and took refuge under the guns of the Dardanelles. Kanaris, unknown before, became from this exploit a famous man in Europe. It was to no stroke of fortune or mere audacity that he owed his success, but to the finest combination of nerve and nautical skill. His feat, which others were constantly attempting, but with little success, to imitate, was repeated by him in the same year. He was the most brilliant of Greek seamen, a simple and modest hero; and after his splendid achievements in ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... series of violent emotional experiences in which he had had not the slightest share, and now required of him that he should catch up with the results of these experiences, upon a moment's notice and at a single bound. She could not realize the extreme difficulty of this feat. Nor, indeed, could Canning himself, confident by the ease with which his love had appeared to put down all personal irritations. To his seeming, as to hers, they had met ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... so far above its disordered mortal medium that she was hardly conscious of suffering, which was nevertheless very real. Sceptical reader! you smile in doubt, and think that if Madeleine's wisdom and patience could accomplish this feat, she was a rare instance of womanhood. Try her experiment ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... however, passed between two great boulders, over the lower one of which the river broke in a high white wave. It was the duty of the steersman to swing the boat between these giant rocks, almost straight across the course of the river, a feat of extreme difficulty with such a craft or indeed with any craft. This was the bad place in the channel ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... of this brilliant feat was electrical. The fires of patriotism were kindled afresh. New recruits were received, and the troops whose term of enlistment was expiring, agreed to remain. Howe was alarmed, and ordered Cornwallis, who was just ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... has been even more destructive than his very destructive uncivilized brothers of the magnificent mammalian life of the wilderness; for ages he has been rooting out the higher forms of beast life in Europe, Asia, and North Africa; and in our own day he has repeated the feat, on a very large scale, in the rest of Africa and in North America. But in South America, although he is in places responsible for the wanton slaughter of the most interesting and the largest, or the most beautiful, ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... Silas coming to look for us; for he had become anxious at not seeing Jerry return at all events, and feared something might have happened to us. Ben Yool had set off in the other direction to search for me. Therefore, instead of gaining a great deal of credit, as we expected, by the feat we had accomplished, we found that we had caused our friends no little trouble and anxiety. It was a lesson to me ever afterwards not to attempt to perform any useless undertaking simply because it might be ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... most general outline, is the story of a great and glorious feat of arms. A story told so soon after the event, while rendering bare justice to units whose doings fell under the eyes of particular observers, must do less than justice to others who played their ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... This feat was performed again, and as final security the boatswain formed a bight, which he thrust down and passed over the fan whose edge was almost ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn |
