"First water" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the jewel in the lotus. Japanese poetry asks of the dewdrop "why, having the heart of the lotus for its home, does it pretend to be a gem?" For a thousand years Riy[o]bu Buddhism was received as a pure brilliant of the first water, and then the scholarship of the Shint[o] revivalists of the eighteenth century exposed the fraudulent nature of the unrelated parts and declared that the jewel called Riy[o]bu was but a craftsman's doublet and should be split apart. Only a splinter of diamond, they declared, ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... folk who had failed in every other line of business, took up land long before even the road to the dam was finished. These people waited in a pitiful state of hardship five years for water. They blamed the Service and they fought for first water. ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... properly belongs to the age before, is a phenomenon in the history of English literature. His pungent wit, his extraordinary ingenuity, and his command of words are rare endowments, but he has no poetic vein that yields jewels of the first water, and his place is not a high one in the path which leads upward to the ethereal ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... events which took place years ago, but I have seen no reason to change the opinion then formed, that Mr. Parasyte, the principal, was a "toady" of the first water; that he was a narrow-minded, partial man, in whom the principle of justice had never been developed. He was a good teacher, an excellent teacher; by which I mean only to say that he had a rare skill and tact for imparting ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... One, a tall young fellow, looks at a distance like a field-officer in a flashy uniform, but is only an English footman in a gaudy livery, who needs the training of a London winter or two, in a fashionable household, to make him a flunky of the first water. The other, an old man, with a severe countenance, is plainly dressed, but, with a less brilliant exterior, has a more respectable air than his companion. He, too, is the man in authority as, from time to time, he directs the party and urges them ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... plain truth. Josiah Crabtree, you are a trickster of the first water, but if I can prevent your trickery I am going to do it." Tom turned to Mrs. Stanhope, who was now crying violently. "Won't you go below and let me have it out ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... possessed charms for the fast ones. How else are we to explain Archbishop Stratford's stringent order in 1342 for the repression of the dandyism that prevailed among the young scholars? These young Cantabs of the fourteenth century were exquisites of the first water. Their fur- trimmed cloaks and their tippets; their shoes of all the colours of the rainbow; their dainty girdles, bejewelled and gilt, were a sight to see. And then their hair! positively curled and powdered, and growing over their shoulders, too; and when they passed their fingers through ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... acknowledge his claims. He is often truly delightful; but, like other brilliant persons, thinks himself not only privileged to be at times extremely dull, but his intensest stupidity is panegyrised as wit of the first water—while his not unfrequent rudeness, of which many a common month would be ashamed, passes for the ease of high birth or the eccentricity of genius. A very different feeling indeed exists towards unfortunate November. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... you and I, and all who know any thing of music, should use our best efforts to let the public know, that, so far from there being any thing in the nature of clap-trap about Tom, he is, in fact, a musical gem of the first water. Of course I have nothing to do with him; but I have been so highly pleased with his performances, that I thought it might be as well to let you know beforehand (in case you have not already heard him) what my own real impression is ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... stress has been placed on treating it with great care. It was not to be wholly removed at the time of cleaning, and it was not to be walked on, or indented, or in any other way consolidated or destroyed. In fact, in some cases, the wasting of the first water after cleaning has been advocated, for the reason that not a sufficient amount of this organic film would be left on top of the sand to begin the filtration process properly immediately ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... the whole day, for he had set out to seek his fortune: if he saw upon the ground a potsherd shining in the sunlight, he took care to pick it up, in the belief that he could change it into a diamond of the first water; if he saw in the distance the cupola of a Mosque sparkling like fire, or the sea glittering like a mirror, he would hasten up, fully persuaded that he had arrived at fairy-land. But ah! these phantoms vanished as he approached, and too ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... the G major Fantasia (a Virgilian poem!), the splendid "Wanderer"-dithyramb (C major Fantasia), 2 books of Impromptus, Moments Musicals and all his Valses (among which there are gems of the first water). All this will be sent to you forthwith; and ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... that my father was learned; but this is a mild description, for never did I know anyone quite so learned. He was one of those men who is so good all round that he became pre-eminent in nothing. A classic of the first water, a very respectable mathematician, an expert in theology, a student of sundry foreign languages and literature in his lighter moments, an inquirer into sociology, a theoretical musician though his playing of the organ excruciated most people because it was too correct, a really first-class ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... accepted it if I could," he said. "My entire life is spent in reading manuscripts in the hope of discovering one that will make a hit with the public to whom we cater. When successful I am as pleased as a South African who fishes a diamond of the first water out of the mine. Your story, Miss Fern, shows decided talent. You have a greater knowledge of some of the important things of life, I will wager, than your grandmother had at eighty, if she lived so long. As I am obliged to go now, let me add, without mincing matters, that you are very deficient ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... Tooth to expose the trick. The wily Indian, perhaps knowing the habits of the race he had forsaken, had been prowling about among the sullen prisoners. He openly laughed at them for the plight in which he found them, taunting them as cowards of the first water. ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... Mr. Meeson was addressing no less a person than Lord Holmhurst, G.C.M.G. Lord Holmhurst was a stout, short, dark little man, with a somewhat pompous manner, and a kindly face. He was a Colonial Governor of the first water, and was perfectly ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... were fixed on pillars behind the Rostra in the Forum, the most convenient place for regulating public business, and there they remained even in the time of Cicero[409]. But in the censorship next following that of Philippus the first water-clock was introduced; this indicated the hours both of day and night, and enabled every one to mark the exact time even on ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... son, now an Hungarian nobleman, cut a fine figure at court and gallantly distinguished himself in the Turkish wars against his former compatriots, his exploits winning for him the estate of Hidvar and the title of baron. His son again was a miser of the first water who could be enticed neither to court nor into the houses of his neighbours. He was continually scraping money together and was not over particular in the choice of his scraper. By adroit chicanery he acquired possession of the gold mines of Verespatak, which he exploited ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... bluntly, because the young man now staying at Government House is no more the Marquis of Beckenham than I am. He is a fraud, an impostor, a cheat of the first water, put up to play his part by one ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... them free from lint and dust. Prepare two tubs of lukewarm suds, the second very light, adding a little borax dissolved in boiling water to each. Never apply soap directly to the flannel, nor rub on a board, which mats the wool, but rub with the hands, squeezing and dipping up and down in the first water till clean, rinse in the second water, which should be of about the same temperature as the first, put through the wringer, shake well, pull into shape, and hang ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... Grand Duke, so, in the same way, she had taken some casual remark by my father, had worked it up delicately, given it a 'turn,' a precious title, set in it the gem of a glance from her own eyes, a gem of the first water, blended of humility and gratitude; and so had given it back transformed into a jewel, a work of art, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... ball of the Polo Club, and that was a social function of the first water—in the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... up at noon, and the deer, rabbits and birds, which for years had held undisputed possession of the promised land, were treated to a surprise of the first water. Horses which had never been asked to run before, were now compelled to assume a gait hitherto unknown to them. Wagons were upset, horses thrown down, and all sorts of accidents happened. One man, who had set ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... prepared from the bark of a tree called by the Mayas baal-che. The whites speak of the drink as pitarilla. It is quite popular among the natives, and they still attribute to it a sacred character, calling it yax ha, the first water, the primal fluid. They say that it was the first liquid created by God, and when He returned to His heavenly home He left this beverage and its production in charge of the gods of ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton
... I can tell you we were as anxious for them as for Giovanni now. But when they had crossed the first water-mountains, and gone down into the water-valleys beyond, they were quite out of sight of the crowd on the deck of the ship, daylight though ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... what he may have done," answered the consul; "he is a villain of the first water, and would shoot his own father and mother ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... preferred justice and mercy to tyranny and cruelty, and had a passion for logic and order"; and adds, "he was a man without beliefs or illusions or scruples." He began by being a fop and ultra-extravagant; and was always, if we may believe accounts, a libertine of the first water. He was, of course, an epileptic. In short, there is nothing in history to give an absolutely sure clue to his real self. But there is that passage in Madame Blavatsky, which I have quoted before, to the effect that ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... was an exceedingly sensible man, and a gentleman, every inch of him—ventured to preach a sermon on the Duties of Royalty. The "Quarterly," "so savage and tartarly," came down upon him in the most contemptuous style, as "a joker of jokes," a "diner-out of the first water," in one of his own phrases; sneering at him, insulting him, as nothing but a toady of a court, sneaking behind the anonymous, would ever have been mean enough to do to a man of his position and genius, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... saddle, and, as soon as he came to bay, I gave him a fourth, which finished him. This leopard was a very fine old male; in the conflict, the unfortunate Alert was wounded, as usual, getting his face torn open; he was still going upon three legs, with all his breast laid bare by the first water-buck. ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... as in all parts, they are addicted to horse-dealing; they are likewise tinkers, and smiths in a small way. The women are fortune-tellers, of course - both sexes thieves of the first water. They roam where they list - in a country where all other people are held under strict surveillance, no one seems to care about these Parias. The most remarkable feature, however, connected with the habits of the Czigany, consists in their foreign excursions, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... never use them. That is positive enough, I hope? Though I cannot admire his style, I admire the man who wrote to me, 'Re Tennyson—your remarks anent his "In Memoriam" make me sick': for though re is not a preposition of the first water, and 'anent' has enjoyed its day, the finish crowned the work. But here are a few specimens far, ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... the first water!" exclaimed he, after a tense pause. "The setting hasn't been touched, so there is ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... table, see that the water is boiling hard at the time you put in the eggs. When they have been in about four or five minutes, take them out, pour off the water, and replace it by some more that is boiling hard; as, from the coldness of the eggs having chilled the first water, they will not otherwise be done enough. The boiler may then be placed on the table, (keeping the lid closed,) and in a few minutes more they will be sufficiently ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... nearly so nice a place as it sounds. But it is the first water north of the Santa Fe, and now and then a wayfarer of the desert leaves the main highway and turns that way, driven by necessity. It is a secluded spot, too unattractive to tempt people to linger; because of its very seclusion it therefore tempted ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... cup and break it afterwards. To have painted the sordid facts of their lives, and they throughout invoking the death's head apparition of the family gentility to come and scare their benefactors, would have made Young John a satirist of the first water. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... has permitted lewdness Beneath his breast its foremost nail to delve! The pure man's heart is like a goblet deep: Whe the first water poured therin is foul, The sea itself could not wash out the spot, So deep the chasm where ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... latest style—that is to say, a fool of the first water —looks out upon himself from this looking-glass," said he, laughing. "It would be an affront to my majesty if any one were to presume to suspect the emperor under this absurd disguise. I hope I shall be as successful in the way of adventures as was ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... he spake, and the old woman passed forth from the hall to bring water for his feet, for that first water was all spilled. So when she had washed him and anointed him well with olive-oil, Odysseus again drew up his settle nearer to the fire to warm himself, and covered up the scar with his rags. Then the wise Penelope ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... business in Irvine. That is something of an unlovely and mysterious episode in Burns's life. Suffice it to say in his own words: 'This turned out a sadly unlucky affair. My partner was a scoundrel of the first water, and, to finish the whole business, while we were giving a welcome carousal to the New Year, our shop, by the drunken carelessness of my partner's wife, took fire and burned to ashes, and I was left, like a true ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... this portrait on vellum, done in crayons or body-colour, make it a gem of the first water. The drawing was done in black chalk, and the tints have been rubbed in with coloured crayons or given with the point where lines of colour were required. The work has the delicacy of a water-colour and the strength of oils. The broad, soft, red hat, though so fine a bit ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... shore, close to the soldiers' camp, other tents of explorers and travellers being close around us. From this point the troops were to start on their journey to Winnipeg. First, forty miles of road had to be constructed, and boats and everything had to be carried on waggons till the first water in the chain of lakes and rivers was reached. This had to be done for the whole of the 700 miles to Winnipeg; wherever possible the troops went by boat, and where there was no water on the route, a road had to be constructed and the waggons used. ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... engagement, and whose hand was icy cold as she held it up to the lamp-light to show the large diamond which flashed from the fourth finger as proof of what she said. The stone itself was of the first water, but the setting was old, so old that a connoisseur in such matters might wonder why Judge Markham had chosen such a ring as the seal of his betrothal. Ethelyn knew why, and the softest, kindliest feeling ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... is interesting to remember that Rossetti's first water-colour was an illustration of this poem, and has for subject and title the line, "Which is the poison ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... the end of it.' The rest of this worthy's report relates to certain treasurers placed within these three pyramids to guard their contents, and (like all or most of what I have already quoted) was a work of imagination. Ibn Abd Alkohm, in fact, was a romancist of the first water. ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... keep us waiting all day. The presses are like animals—they have to be fed, you know. First editions don't wait for gum-shoe men, even if they're of the first water. And I've got a city editor who has a temper like a bear with a sore nose in huckleberry time. So loosen up as soon ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... only much more sense than any of them, but is an excellent old man, humane, gentle, well-bred, and with none of the arrogant pertness of all the rest. if he is at Paris, you will see a good deal of the Comte d e Broglie at Madame du Deffand's. He is not a genius of the first water, but lively and sometimes agreeable. The court, I fear, will be at Fontainbleau, which will prevent your seeing many, unless you go thither. Adieu! at Paris! I leave the rest of my paper for England, if I happen to have any thing ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... that what I had witnessed was an annual celebration observed by the people of Mars on the occasion of arrival of the first water from the North Pole after commencement of the Martian Spring. It appears that this occasion is a very important event with the Martians, as the arrival of the life-giving moisture from the Arctic and Antarctic regions of the planet insures a season of plenty for the ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... the Major cried; "brilliants of first water; such as we saw, you know where; and any officer in the British army except myself, I do believe, would have had them at once in his camlet pouch—my dear, you know all about it. Bless my heart, how slow you are! Is it possible you have forgotten it? There came out a fellow, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... which the year has brought to our table this one stands out facile princeps—a gem of the first water, bearing upon every one of its pages the signet mark of genius.... All is told with such simplicity and perfect naturalness that the dream appears to be a solid reality. It is indeed a Little ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... whilst all the family were up, and the servants were moving about, was so great that this part of the affair had to be carried on in a manner different from the usual programme of pirates of the first water. Even the boys had to admit this; and they yielded to old Balla's advice on this point, but made up for it by additional formality, ceremony, and secrecy in pointing out the spot where the box was ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... covered with cold water, and require thirty minutes very slow boiling, from the time the water boils, for each pound; if it is very salt, pour off the first water and put it in another of boiling water, or it may be soaked one night in cold water. After meat commences to boil the pot should never stop simmering and always be replenished from ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... on two miles further, when Washington signified his determination to encamp at the first water they should find. The guide said nothing, but kept doggedly on. After a little while they arrived at an opening in the woods, and emerging from the deep shadows in which they had been travelling, found themselves in a clear meadow, rendered still more light by the glare of the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... on his behalf and arranged for subscriptions for a volume of his poems. The subscriptions were to be left at Button's, and when Savage called there a few days later he found a sum of seventy guineas awaiting him. Hill may, as has been asserted, have been a bore of the first water, but that kindly deed may stand ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... pleasant and friendly to Bonaparte; thither he came every day, and mixed with the social circles, which gathered in the evening in the drawing-rooms of the beautiful, witty Madame de Permont; and where men even of diverging political sentiments, aristocrats and ci-devants of the first water, were to be found. But Madame de Permont had forbidden all political discussion in her saloon; and General Bonaparte, now compelled to inactivity, dared no more show his anger against the Committee of Safety, or against the Convention, ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... a costly solitaire diamond, and continued: "Be so kind and grant us the favor of accepting this present. It is a diamond of the first water." ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... gradually ascending road which, slowly mounting the valley, finally takes you over the ridge, as it were, and deposits you at a height of 3800 feet, dusty but grateful, on the plain of Engelberg, must have been practical jokers of the first water. They lead you up in the right direction several thousand feet, then suddenly turn you round, and apparently take you clean back again. And this not once, but a dozen times. They seem to say, "You think you must reach the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... Fosse Way, it only just touches the valley of the Thames. It crosses the line of the river in a high embankment a mile or so below its traditional source at Thames head, but above the point where the first water is seen. A small culvert running under that embankment takes the flood water in winter down the hollow, but no ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... of the value of diamonds, we distinguish them as "diamonds of the first water," meaning those which possess the greatest perfection and purity, which ought to be that of the clearest drop of water: when they fall short of this perfection, they are said to be "of the second or third water," and so on till the stone may be ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... superiority &c 33; perfection &c 650; coup de maitre [Fr.]; masterpiece, chef d'ouvre [Fr.], prime, flower, cream, elite, pick, A 1, nonesuch, nonpareil, creme de la creme, flower of the flock, cock of the roost, salt of the earth; champion; prodigy. tidbit; gem, gem of the first water; bijou, precious stone, jewel, pearl, diamond, ruby, brilliant, treasure; good thing; rara avis [Lat.], one in a thousand. beneficence &c 906; good man &c 948. V. be beneficial &c adj.; produce good, do good &c 618; profit &c (be of use) 644; benefit; confer a benefit ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the case, Weishaupt—in view of the efficiency achieved by the Order—must have been a genius of the first water, and it is difficult to understand why so remarkable a man should not have distinguished himself on other lines, but have remained almost unknown to posterity. It would therefore appear possible that Weishaupt, although ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... the background and who could give the best hours of the day and night to the pleasures or duties of society, was best represented in our day by the Rev. William Harness and the Rev. Henry White. Mr. Harness was a diner-out of the first water; an author and a critic; perhaps the best Shakespearean scholar of his time; and a recognized and even dreaded authority on all matters connected with the art and literature of the drama. Mr. White, burdened only with the sinecure chaplaincies of the Savoy and the House ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... out the inside, considering that much flavor is lost by washing. I prefer to wash in one water, and dry quickly, though in the case of an old fowl, which often has a strong smell, it is better to dissolve a teaspoonful of soda in the first water, which should be warm, and wash again in cold, then wiping dry as possible. Split and wash the ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... before him, "like a tight ship, can weather a little bad weather. Perhaps you noticed our troupe? The old lady is Mrs. Adams. She is nearly seventy, but can dance a horn-pipe or a reel with the best of them. The two sisters are Kate and Susan Duran, both coquettes of the first water. Our juvenile man is a young Irishman who thinks much of his dress and little of the cultivation of mind and manners. Then," added the old man tenderly, "there ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... to wear upon her neck—a diamond necklet of superb stones, gradually swelling to one of the first water at the throat; and Rachel duly wore it at the dinner-party, with a rich gown of bridal white, whose dazzling purity had perhaps the effect of cancelling the bride's own pallor. But she was very pale. It was her first appearance at a gathering of the kind, not only ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... popularity. I believed that previous English anthologists had unjustly, even unaccountably, neglected our English carols, and promised myself to redress the balance. I hunted through many collections, and brought together a score or so of pieces which, considered merely as carols, were gems of the first water. But no sooner did I set them among our finer lyrics than, to my dismay, their colours vanished; the juxtaposition became an opposition which killed them, and all but half a dozen had to be withdrawn. There are few gems more beautiful than the amethyst: but ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... can keep my temper, and he cannot keep his. He has one advantage over most knaves, that he is not only a knave of the first water, but he is sometimes a fool, too. If it were only decent and right to take him into Downing's saloon, and give him just one more glass of whiskey than the blackguard would care to pay for, I could get at ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... the wind north-east. Between eleven and twelve we arrived at the first water, at the head of the Bight, and had a long and arduous task to get the sheep and horses watered, no natives being here to help us now, and the sand rushing in as fast as we could throw it out. By great exertion we ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with him. I thought I had best meet him on his own ground, so I said, "Your clients, sir, are happy in having so resolute a guardian of their confidence. I am ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... perhaps, with a cunning hand, and may pass well in the market as long as cairngorms are the fashion; but they are mere Scotch pebbles after all; now Tom Campbell's are real diamonds, and diamonds of the first water.' ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... trees—curious, by the way, to find olives so high!—in the receding waters the vagrant raven cheerfully picking out the eye of a defunct pterodactyl. The heavy clouds rolling off the sodden world—they must have indeed been heavy clouds, nimbus of the first water—as they had raised the world's water-level 250 feet per day during "the flood" ... surely ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... Morgan, didn’t you?—you are undoubtedly a scoundrel of the first water. I make the remark ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... It was Dr. David Throckmartin—"Throck" he was to me always, one of my oldest friends and, as well, a mind of the first water whose power and achievements were for me a constant inspiration as they were, ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... leave the churn, for there was his little babe crawling about on the floor, and "if I leave it," he thought, "the child is sure to upset it." So he took the churn on his back, and went out with it; but then he thought he'd better first water the cow before he turned her out on the thatch; so he took up a bucket to draw water out of the well; but, as he stooped down at the well's brink, all the cream ran out of the churn over his shoulders, and so ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... black and white suit, faced with silk on lapels and pockets—it really gave him a sort of minstrel-like appearance as though he should likewise have had his face corked—and he wore in a puffed maroon scarf a stone that flashed enough for half a dozen ordinary diamonds—whether it really was of the first water or not. ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... were to travel continuously for a whole year, using the most expeditious means at his command, and not wasting a day anywhere, it is doubtful whether, summer and winter, by sea and land, squeezing the last mile out of the seasons, travelling on the "last ice" and the "first water," he could even touch at all the mission stations. So, when a man from Nome speaks of Alaska he means his part of Alaska, the Seward Peninsula. When a man from Valdez or Cordova speaks of Alaska he means the Prince ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... his life. He has believed his wife to be mad, and, considering that she married him, his faith in the matter rested upon evidence of an entirely convincing nature. The Rector Kroll is a prig and a bore of the first water. When he discovers Rebecca's perfidy, he suggests that she may have inherited her proneness for treachery from her father—and, to her distressed astonishment, he gives the name of a gentleman, not hitherto recognised by her as a parent! The best line in the piece, to my mind—and it certainly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... are right! (Takes a ring from his finger.) Accept this, it is of the first water, worth two hundred ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... balance and fall with terrible risk to life and limb. But we soon discovered that he had mastered the accomplishment of sitting on air, and was as safe on his invisible seat as we on our hard benches; old as he was, he seemed to glory in the exploit—exploit, it must be allowed, of the first water. ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... excuse even want of resemblance. He soon began to be astonished at the wonderful rapidity and success of his execution. As to the sitters, they were in ecstasies, and proclaimed him every where a genius of the first water. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... the first water," she concluded as she was whisked down in the elevator. "I'm sure Mildred is in badly with this crowd, one urging her on in her trouble, the other making it worse and fleecing her into ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... water; wring out your cloth in it, rub it well on the soap, and scrub off the greasy mark first, and afterward wash the tub all over; rinse out your cloth, let out the water, and wash the tub again and wipe it dry. Sometimes, perhaps twice a week, put a little ammonia in the first water so that the tub will have an extra cleaning. If ever you have a really dirty tub to scrub, take gasoline on a flannel cloth and wash with that, and it will be like new; but tubs which are washed out ...
— A Little Housekeeping Book for a Little Girl - Margaret's Saturday Mornings • Caroline French Benton
... dozen miles will think of nothing, and speak of nothing, and dream of nothing else but you and your cousins until they have made your acquaintance. We have not much to excite us in the country, and to have the Court open again, with four young people to act as hosts, is a sensation of the first water. There will be a stream of callers after you have appeared in church on Sunday. You will have a busy time driving over the country returning their calls, and after these formalities are over the invitations will begin. I don't think you will ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... in the incipient stages of decay. However, it is claimed that a poisonous principle, called helvellic acid, has been isolated by a certain chemist, which acts as a violent poison. This principle is very soluble in hot water, and when care is used to drain off first water in which they have been cooked, squeezing the water well from the plants, they are pronounced harmless. The safer way would be to avoid ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... the patience which reads it, word for word. This one is Sir Victor from date to signature, I'll swear. Well, yes, Miss Darrell, I know the baronet, and he's a very heavy swell and a blue diamond of the first water. Talk of pedigree, there's a pedigree, if you like. A Catheron, of Catheron, was hand and glove with Alfred the Great. He's a very lucky young fellow, and why the gods should have singled him out as the recipient of their favors, and left me in the cold, is a problem I can't solve. He's ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... did not choose to be quite so communicate as she could have been, and, therefore, fixed the sad event upon the gay Charley Brandon, in whose constellation of gay doings it would, indeed, be a romantic diamond of the first water. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... the workers were all huddled together instead of working in their scattered homes; and large populations grew up around these new and artificial manufacturing centres. Their locality was, however, determined by natural causes; at first water-power was the best available force to drive the new machines, and consequently towns sprang up along the banks of rivers. But Watt's application of steam- power to machinery soon supplanted water; and for steam-power ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... chronicle, I beg that this Jacob Van Tassel of the Roost may not be confounded with another Jacob Van Tassel, commonly known in border story by the name of "Clump-footed Jake," a noted tory, and one of the refugee band of Spiting Devil. On the contrary, he of the Roost was a patriot of the first water, and, if we may take his own word for granted, a thorn in the side of the enemy. As the Roost, from its lonely situation on the water's edge, might be liable to attack, he took measures for defence. On a row of hooks above his fire-place, reposed his great piece of ordnance, ready charged and ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... the young lambs were bleating on the sheltered innings and making bright clean spots of white beside the ewes' fog-soiled fleeces, when the tegs had come down from their winter keep inland, and the sunset fell in long golden slats across the first water-green grass of spring. The years had aged him more than they had aged Joanna—the marks on her face were chiefly weather marks, tokens of her exposure to marsh suns and winds, and of her own ruthless applications ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... sheltered the Republic in its infancy; but when it grew to greatness, it deemed it unbecoming its dignity to have only a subordinate for its tutelar deity. Accordingly, Venice sought and obtained a god of the first water. The Republic brought over the body of St Mark, enshrined it in a magnificent church, and left its former patron no alternative but to cross the Lagunes, or ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... When other means of diversion failed we had recourse to Sumner, where a sutler's bar and gambling games flourished. But the most romantic traveler to arrive or pass during the winter was Captain Burleson, late of the Confederacy. As a sportsman the captain was a gem of the first water, carrying with him, besides a herd of nearly a thousand cattle, three race-horses, several baskets of fighting chickens, and a pack of hounds. He had a large Mexican outfit in charge of his cattle, which were in bad condition on their arrival in March, he having drifted about all winter, gambling, ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... arrived at Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square with the preconceived idea—where obtained from Heaven knows—that its seemingly commonplace, mean-minded, coarse-fibred occupants were in reality ladies and gentlemen of the first water; and time and observation had apparently only strengthened this absurd idea. The natural result was, Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square was coming round to the stranger's ...
— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the courtyard, and set to work, with feverish earnestness, to overhaul the booty they had procured. All three were good judges of stones, and a very brief examination was sufficient, even in the feeble evening light, to enable them to see that they were not only gems of the first water, but also stones of such a size as is seldom seen in these ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... My heroine is disporting herself at a ball 'glittering from head to foot with large diamonds of the first water.' But what booted beauty or rich attire? 'The paths of glory lead but to the grave.' They must either be murdered or die of a broken heart. There was no escape ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... where I looked for cricketing groups, I found reproductions of such works as "Love and Death" and "The Blessed Damozel," in dusty frames and different parallels. The man might have been a minor poet instead of an athlete of the first water. But there had always been a fine streak of aestheticism in his complex composition; some of these very pictures I had myself dusted in his study at school; and they set me thinking of yet another of his many sides—and of the little incident to which ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... Falloden wrathfully. "He is an impossible person. He wears a frilled shirt, scents himself, and recites his own poems when he hasn't been asked. And he curries favour—abominably—with the dons. He is a smug—of the first water. There is a movement going on in college to suppress him. I warn you I may not be able ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the steward still kept vigil over the fallen foe. The officer evidently did not relish his employment; but Mr. C. Augustus Ebenier had proved that he was a first-class tiger, as well as an exquisite of the first water. ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... would wear diamond shirt-studs, diamond rings, diamond pins; brilliants, all of the first water. My impression was, that he put them on to dazzle Afy. She told me once that she could be a grander lady, if she chose, than I could ever make her. 'A lady on the cross,' I answered, 'but never on the square.' Thorn was not a man to entertain honest intentions to one in the station of Afy Hallijohn; ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of Pictland did King Cormac obtain, in the third century, the skilled mill-wright, Mac Lamha, to build for him that first water-mill which he erected in Ireland, on one of the streams of Tara? And is it true, as some genealogists in this earthly world believe, that the lineal descendants of this Scottish or Pictish mill-wright ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... accusations against them; and they work harder—get up sooner, go to bed later—than the whole of them. They jump at midnight if their services are required by either a wild Irishman in Canal-street or a gentleman of the first water in any of our mansions. It is not a question of cloth but of souls with them. They are afraid of neither plague, pestilence, nor famine; they administer spiritual consolation under silken hangings, as well as upon straw lairs; in ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... 'Sagatmener', the second 'Osmener', the third 'Pummuckner'. These kind of acorns they vse to drie vpon hurdles made of reeds with fire vnderneath almost after the maner as we dry malt in England. When they are to be vsed they first water them vntil they be soft & then being sod they make a good victuall, either to eate so simply, or els being also pounded, to make loaues or lumpes of bread. These be also the three kinds of which, I said before, the inhabitants vsed to ...
— A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land Of Virginia • Thomas Hariot
... Putnam County, Ky., the world is as yet a romance to him. The fellow is interesting, because in him can be seen the genesis of a considerable element of the houseboat fraternity. I wonder how long it will be before his partner has him broken in as a river-pirate of the first water. ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... fellow who chanced to take up his quarters at Smith's Hotel, is a delegate sent here specially to hunt out Wong, and destroy him. I asked him how he meant to set about it, but his scheme is vague. He's an opportunist of the first water. 'Me catchee and killee Wong Li Fu one time,' was his best effort. I'm going to confront Len Shi with these two in Bow Street. They may worm something out of him. But will they own up if they do? Dashed if ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... following description of the process by which these reefs or rocks become beautiful and picturesque islands. Mr. Montgomery's poetical talent is altogether of the highest order, or, to use a familiar phrase, his Pelican Island is "a gem of the first water." How exquisite is the following picture ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various
... make the circulation of our paper 250,000 during the next six months. To accomplish which we will give absolutely free a genuine FIRST WATER Diamond Ring, and the Home Companion for one year, for only $2.00. Our reasons for making this unprecedented offer ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... admirer of Fletcher has expressed his opinion that Licia "sparkles with brilliants of the first water." A more temperate judgment is that of another, who says that he "took part without discredit in the choir of singers who were men of action too." Licia is what a typical sonnet-cycle ought to be, a delicate and almost intangible thread of story on which are ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... a very easy, good-natured man, but had no learning, though he was reckoned a savan of the first water. Eugene knew this, and wickedly took advantage of it. His father—the doctor—was in the habit of delivering a course of botanical lectures to a circle of very select ladies, and Eugene suspected that his father, notwithing his voluble ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... At the first water he paused, but would not allow Whirlwind to kneel to help him dismount. He let himself down rather gingerly and did not suffer therefrom. At the side of the little stream he examined his injury. The swelling was markedly less and he was able to press it without wincing. He had brought ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... two restaurants are managed by first-class men from the Riviera—the proprietors of the London House at Nice and of the Reserve at Beaulieu, were, I believe, last year the men in command—and the King of Greece, who is a gourmet of the first water, sets a praiseworthy example when he is at Aix of dining one day at the Cercle and the next at the Villa. The prices are Riviera prices ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... he declared, in a giant whisper, "the madam is a jewel of the first water. Ye're a ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... folly creates a hellish noise with his nonsense, while a man of refinement, who is not always a squeamish man, remains in his corner unseen. Remember that more moths are caught at night with a greasy candle than with a diamond of the first water." ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... and breathless. Lady Sunderbund had heard him to the end. Her bright face was brightly flushed, and there were tears in her eyes. It was like her that they should seem tears of the largest, most expensive sort, tears of the first water. ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... an earthen pot well leaded; so let them stand to infuse twenty four hours; so distil it in a Limbeck, keeping the strongest water by it self, put some sugar finely beaten into your glasses. If your first water be too strong, put some of the second to it as you use it. If you please you may tye some Musk and Ambergreese, in a rag, and hang it by a thread in ...
— A Queens Delight • Anonymous
... what the world says of him —whether it crown him with bays or pelt him with bad eggs; I care never a copper what his reputation or religion may be: If his babes dread his home-coming and his better-half swallows her heart every time she has to ask him for a five dollar bill, he's a fraud of the first water, even tho' he prays night and morn till he's black in the face and howls hallelujah till he shakes the eternal hills. But if his children rush to the front gate to greet him, and love's own sunshine illumes the face of his wife ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the festival at Mr. Rodman's house. Through the aperture the incendiary had stuffed the shavings, and dropped a card of lighted matches upon them, for he saw the remnants of it when he threw on the first water. Who had done this outrageous deed? Donald sprang upon the wharf as he recalled the shadowy form and the flapping sail he had seen. Leaping upon the pier, he rushed over to the other side, where he discovered a sail-boat slowly making her way, in ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... He had not been a week in St. Petersburg before he had gained the regard of one, William Glen, who, in 1825, had been engaged by the Bible Society to translate the Old Testament into Persian. The clever Scot, of whom Borrow was informed by a competent judge that he was 'a Persian scholar of the first water,' was probably too heretical for the Society which recalled him, much to his chagrin. 'He is a very learned man, but of very simple and unassuming manners,' wrote Borrow to Jowett.[100] His version of the Psalms appeared in 1830, and of Proverbs in 1831. Thus he was going home in despair, but ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... ear, evidently roused her pugnacity. She threw herself on all the girl's rose-colored appreciations with a scorn hardly disguised. All the "locals," according to her, were stupid or snobbish—bores, in fact, of the first water. And to Diana's discomfort and amazement, Oliver Marsham joined in. He showed himself possessed of a sharper and more caustic tongue than Diana had yet suspected. His sister's sallies only amused him, and sometimes ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... red skin, never combed its hair, and turned its toes in while walking, pronounced his sketch to be an absolute fright. Well, will you believe what I have to add? The man absolutely flew into a tremendous passion with me, and swore that she was a Venus, a Juno, a Minerva, a beauty of the first water in short; and finished by promising, that when I could point out any woman who was superior to her in personal attraction, he would on the instant write no less than a dozen consecutive sonnets in her praise. I now call ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... stability, the alteration of incidents with the maintenance of essentials. Change, for the sake of change, agitation for vanity, for applause or mischief, he has contemptuously repudiated. He is not like the Clear Grit, a republican of the first water, but on the contrary looks to the connection with the mother country, not as fable or unreality or fleeting vision, but as alike our interest and our duty, as that which should ever be our beacon, our guide ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... the first water,' replied Mr. Falkirk looking down into her eyes. 'To which some people add, two ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... while to freshen, has a weaker draught of this rancid and mawkish sentimentality. But having in those days missed (or failed over) Daniel, I thought it incumbent on me to gird myself up to its eight hundred pages. A more dismal book, even to skim, I have seldom taken up. The hero—a prig of the first water—marries one of those apparently only half-flesh-and-blood wives who, novelistically, never fail to go wrong. He cannot, in the then state of French law, divorce her, but he is able to return her on her mother's hands. Going to Trouville (about which, then a quite ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... of dignity and distinction! A town of enterprise and character! Ever since the first water-power mill in this country; the first powder mill in this country; the first chocolate mill in this country, and thus through a whole line of "first" things—the first violoncello, the first pianoforte, the first artificial spring leg, and the ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... back from Valley City before you know it. The rest of you fellows better lie around and chew tobacco until water comes. We'll get an early start to-morrow to make up for lost time. Peters, you and Mundy see that somebody looks out for the men that are hurt. Take them to the tent. They get first water if the cook has any. If not, Ben, you take them ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... ounce of Cloves, half an ounce of Nutmegs, all bruised, steep these together four days in an earthen Pot, and covered very close, distil them in an ordinary Still well pasted, and do it with a very slow fire; save the first water by it self, and the small by it self, to give to Children; when you have occasion to use it, take a spoonful thereof, sweetned with Loaf-Sugar; this Water is good to drive out any Infection from the heart, and to comfort ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... the first water, and after I had been in Fort Worth for a very short while I became possessed of a desire to see something of the far famed border towns along the Rio Grande frontier. So I went south to a town called Hallville, and found it a typical tough frontier town. ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... few Hops in the first Water is good, but they must be strained thro' a Sieve before the Water is put into the Malt; and to check its Heat with cold Liquor, or to let it stand to cool some time, is a right Method, lest it scalds and locks up the Pores of the ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... sensible man, and a gentleman, every inch of him—ventured to preach a sermon on the Duties of Royalty. The "Quarterly," "so savage and tartly," came down upon him in the most contemptuous style, as "a joker of jokes," a "diner-out of the first water" in one of his own phrases; sneering at him, insulting him, as nothing but a toady of a court, sneaking behind the anonymous, would ever have been mean enough to do to a man of his position and genius, or to any ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... Durgin, who reported this interview to me in a manner of able realism, that these men were both crooks of the first water. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... The first water-pipes used in New York City were bored logs; he fought against these, and finally induced the city to use iron pipes. As there was no iron pipe at this time made in America, he inaugurated a company to cast pipe. Very naturally his motives ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... it to those old folk-songs, unfathered but deathless, which seem to have risen out of the very heart of the people. Good sense is a fund slowly and painfully accumulated by the labor of centuries. It is a jewel of the first water, whose value he alone understands who has lost it, or who observes the lives of others who have lost it. For my part, I think no price too great to pay for gaining it and keeping it, for the possession of eyes that see and a judgment ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... are crowded, far more than they are in the daytime, by pleasure strollers of either sex in elegant array. The ball-room becomes radiant with costly chandeliers whose effulgence is reflected by diamonds of the first water. ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn
... she is a jewel of the first water," answered Miss Nestor. "We all like her, and she is anxious for another ride in a taxicab, as ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... in," he said. "To change the subject—your excellent father proposed to-day that I should send Riette every morning to Lancilly, to learn lessons with Mesdemoiselles de Sainfoy. It seems that Madame de Sainfoy herself proposed this obliging plan. The governess, it seems, is a jewel of the first water. Is that the lady I saw with ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... noncombatants who have assumed this task of arousing the war spirit are foreigners. A delicate task, this arousing resentment against one set of foreigners without arousing it against all. It means diplomacy of the first water. Thus, the foreign press is very insistent that the Huns be got rid of. One English paper naively remarks: "We do not like to see Germans free to wander about our streets at will." Which is well enough in its way, although it must ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... only a brief description of a marvelous accomplishment. I did not pause to mention the factories and mills that were attached to this city, nor have I told you that in less than one thousand years after this first water city was finished, there were floating, on the oceans of Plasden, no less than two hundred cities of various sizes, each a manufacturing center devoted to one or more lines ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... of the muses." Sandys went back to England for good, probably as early as 1625, and can, therefore, no more be reckoned as the first American poet, on the strength of his paraphrase of the Metamorphoses, than he can be reckoned the earliest Yankee inventor, because he "introduced the first water-mill into America." ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... this and with each other, struck me with force; one of them the truth of Outreau's description of her, the other the fact that the person bringing her could only have been Lady Beldonald. She was a Holbein—of the first water; yet she was also Mrs. Brash, the imported "foil," the indispensable "accent," the successor to the dreary Miss Dadd! By the time I had put these things together—Outreau's "American" having helped me—I was in just such full possession of her face ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James
... may have moved him, vanity perhaps; in any case there can be no comparison between them. Moryson is thorough, Coryat is not. Moryson is often dull, Coryat seldom. Moryson was a student, Coryat a cockscomb. Moryson was a plain man, Coryat a euphuist of the first water. I haven't the least doubt but that Shakespeare met him at the Mermaid—he called himself a friend of Ben Jonson's—and took the best of him. You will find him in Love's Labour's Lost as well as in All's Well. For a foretaste of his ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... Lover gives such joys to the soul, how does the soul give joy to the Divine Lover? Is she beautiful? She becomes so. Also the soul is a poet of the first water, though she uses no words; and the soul is a weaver of melodies, though she makes no sound; but above all, and before all, the soul is a great lover. Now we know in this earthly life that a lover desires above everything ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... off again, and being refreshed by our brief halt, made over a couple of ploughed fields, which Birch suggested "would make a few of the hounds look foolish"; and so on till we reached the first water we had encountered since the start. This was a trout-stream, well known to some of us who were fond of fishing—nowhere more than half a foot deep, and in some places easily passable, dry shod, on stepping-stones. Birch, however, avoided ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... a joke of the first water, (first brandy-and-water, CHARLES.) Cap your joke with another as good, and then consider yourself on our staff. Lead us to our ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... paces. Conscious that he could carry away only an infinitely small portion of the riches, Ashman found himself in the unparalleled situation of casting aside the smaller gems and taking only those that were large and of the first water. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... not remarkable. Just a good game, well rounded but not unique. Why is. Washburn great? Because, behind the big round glasses that are the main feature of Washburn on the tennis court, is a brain of the first water, directing and developing that all-round game. There is no more brilliant student of men in games than Washburn, and his persistence of attack is second ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... the appearance of the apartment into which he invited us. In that sorry house it looked as out of place as a diamond of the first water in a setting of brass. The richest and glossiest of curtains and tapestries draped the walls, looped back here and there to expose some richly-mounted painting or Oriental vase. The carpet was of amber-and-black, so soft and so thick that the foot ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was a brilliant of the first water. Under no better auspices could the Duke of St. James bound upon the stage. No man in town could arrange his club affairs for him with greater celerity and greater tact than the Earl; and the married daughters were as much like their mother ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... some carrots (scraped and shaped into cones) in separate pans. Then put them together in an earthenware close covered pan to simmer together in butter and gravy, the first water having been well drained from them. Season with pepper and salt and let them cook gently for ten or twelve minutes; do not uncover the pot to stir it, but shake it every now and then to prevent the ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various
... generally best when they are happiest, and deserve heaven most when they have learnt rightly to enjoy it. Tears of sorrow are only pearls of inferior value, but tears of joy are pearls or diamonds of the first water.—Richter. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... "Our first water mills were of that description denominated tub-mills. It consists of a perpendicular shaft, to the lower end of which an horizontal wheel of about four or five feet diameter is attached, the upper end passes through the bedstone and carries the runner after the manner ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... crawling myrmidons were rascals of the first water and that the Shazlis were infamously treated is very evident. It is also clear that Burton was more just than diplomatic. We cannot, however, agree with those who lay all the blame on Mrs. Burton. We may not sympathise with ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... conglomerate was specially distasteful to Milly. That was the black-walnut "parlor set," covered with a faded green velvet, the contribution of Grandma Ridge from her Pennsylvania home. It still seemed to the little old lady of the first water as it had been when it adorned Judge Ridge's brick house in Euston, Pa. Milly naturally had other views of this treasure. Somewhere she had learned that the living room of a modern household was no longer called the "parlor," by those who knew, but the "drawing-room," ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... extracting some kind of food. Hawks are screaming high in the air above the woods; the plow is just tasting the first earth in the rye or corn stubble (and it tastes good). The earth looks good, it smells good, it is good. By the creek in the woods you hear the first water-thrush—a short, bright, ringing, hurried song. If you approach, the bird flies swiftly up or down the creek, uttering an ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... your ducks, or rabbits, prepared in this manner: peel some onions, and boil them in plenty of water; then change the first water, and boil them two hours: take them up and put them in a colander to drain, and afterwards chop them on a board; then put them in a sauce-pan, sprinkle a little flour over them, and put in a large piece of butter, with a little milk or cream. Set them over the ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph
... walk on ahead until he comes to some house, where oil and a wrench can be borrowed. Bob must drive his horses on at a walk, and halt at the first water he sees. It's an unlucky accident for us, and it seems strange that it should have happened just when ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... strange a phenomenon? He knew very well, that if the exact truth of his position with regard to the little Venetian artist were known or guessed at by any of the men with whom he lived, he would have appeared to them an object of the utmost ridicule,—a dupe,—a fool of the very first water. What on earth could he have been about ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Brutus's armor-bearer, with him, went out to see what it was. They returned in a short space, and inquired about the water. Brutus, smiling with much meaning, said to Volumnius, "It is all drunk; but you shall have some more fetched." But he that had brought the first water, being sent again, was in great danger of being taken by the enemy, and, having received a ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough |
