"Perfectly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... down the staircase with murder in his eyes. He returned, in a moment, with a sealed packet, which was perfectly dry. Ned broke the seal and glanced ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory. ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... separates and distinguishes poetry is more particularly the ornament of verse; it is this which gives it its character, and is an essential, without which it cannot exist. Custom has appropriated different metre to different kinds of composition, in which the world is not perfectly agreed. In England the dispute is not yet settled which is to be preferred, rhyme or blank verse. But however we disagree about what these metrical ornaments shall be, that some metre is essentially necessary is ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... best standing, it became me to give them an answer. This I could not do, without first consulting my master. I did so, and after giving the matter a careful consideration, he thought I had better go and see those gentlemen—he was perfectly willing to leave the ...
— A Narrative of The Life of Rev. Noah Davis, A Colored Man. - Written by Himself, At The Age of Fifty-Four • Noah Davis
... "Perfectly," answered Mr. Franklin. "That was the last morsel of the door to be finished. We wanted to get it done, on Wednesday last—and I myself completed it by three in the afternoon, or ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... naive demand, made in a perfectly serious tone, Priscilla laughed again. But Anne ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... waiting in the Mall a very charming girl of scarcely twenty years of age, of medium height, with a pretty, plump form delightfully outlined by the lines of her walking dress. This was of a gray cloth, perfectly cut, but almost military in its severity. Her mouth was small and proud, her eyes gray and solemn, her color high from walking in the chilly air, and her hair of that nondescript brown usually described as fair. Uncommon, yet not sensational; but with a delicate ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... making the front of the gown look like a pelisse. The corsage, ornamented with buttons and caps to the sleeves, ended in a point in front, and was laced up behind like a corset. This species of corset defined the back, the hips, and the bust perfectly. The skirt, trimmed with three rows of fringe, fell in charming folds, showing by its cut and its make the hand of a Parisian dressmaker. A pretty fichu edged with lace covered her shoulders; around her throat was a pink silk neckerchief, ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... "the Emperor wishes you to come immediately, just as you are." I obeyed instantly; and went, or rather ran, to the Emperor's cabinet, where I found him with the Empress, Queen Hortense, and another person whose name I do not perfectly recall. The Emperor deigned to give me a most cordial welcome; and as the Empress seemed to pay no attention to me, said to her in a manner whose kindness I shall never forget, "Louise, do you not ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... soon get over that feeling, Rod," said the lanky boy called Josh, taking the alarm at once, for he seemed perfectly contented to stay where he was; "just wait till we're spinning along on our bully machines down through Ostend, Dunkirk, and Calais to Boulogne, where we may take a steamer to the U. S. if we ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... wiped her forehead with a hand that trembled like a leaf. "Where was I?" said she. "O, I heard voices and was surprised and got up and went to her door. The noise I made unlocking my own must have startled her, for all was perfectly quiet when I got there. I waited a moment, then I turned the knob and called her: she did not reply and I called again. Then she came to the door, but did not unlock it. 'What is it?' she asked. 'O,' said I, 'I thought I heard talking here and I was frightened,' 'It must ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... himself on a correction of his own in the first page of Persuasion which he maintained to be worthy of Bentley, and which undoubtedly fulfils all the conditions required to establish the credit of an emendation; for, without the alteration of a word, or even of a letter, it turns into perfectly intelligible common-sense a passage which has puzzled, or which ought to have puzzled, two generations ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... was thrown into the somnambulic state, and her eyes covered with a bandage. At the invitation of the magnetiser, M. Dubois d'Amiens wrote several words upon a card, that the somnambule might read them through her bandages, or through her occiput. M. Dubois wrote the word Pantagruel, in perfectly distinct roman characters; then placing himself behind the somnambule, he presented the card close to her occiput. The magnetiser was seated in front of the woman and of M. Dubois, and could not see the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... pressure of his hands upon her throat strengthened and increased. A very little more and the lovely thing of life he watched would be broken and cold for ever. Her eyes were steady, she showed no sign of fear, she stood perfectly still, her hands loosely clasped together before her. He groaned, and his arms fell to his side, helpless. Without the slightest change of expression, ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... loss of the two horses caused us some little inconvenience, as it increased the loads of the animals. The daily ration of the party was now fixed at six pounds of flour per day, with three pounds of dried beef, which we found perfectly sufficient to keep up ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... perhaps without any reason, but from who knows what strange belief transmitted from father to son? And in the heart of the forest who is there to study and make experiments upon such leaves and fruits in order to ascertain if they are perfectly edible? ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... encouraging, doubtless; but Emma Harcourt is so perfectly elegant, so thoroughly refined, that I dread the effect upon her of any outre association—by the by, mother, if I obtain her permission to introduce you to her, you will not wear that brown hat in visiting her—a brown hat is my aversion—it is positively ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... paid from fifty to seventy cents per day, with quarters furnished and living guaranteed them at nine or ten cents a day. In sections where the wages system prevails, and where there have been no political disturbances, the negroes seem to be perfectly contented; at all events, the emigration fever has not spread among them. But it was found impracticable to maintain the wage system in the cotton districts. The negroes themselves fought against it, because it reminded them too much of the slave-gang, driven out at daybreak and home at ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... "How perfectly ridiculous!" said the orphan, bashfully turning her head still further aside, and bringing one ear-ring to bear strongly upon him. "You'd never be able to do fluting and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... brow retained its original fairness—presenting a startling contrast, like a wreath of snow lying late in spring-time high up on the side of a black fell. You would hardly say that they were devoid of expression, any more than that a perfectly drilled soldier is incapable of activity; but you got puzzled in making out what their natural expression was: it was not sternness, far less ferocity—the face was much too impassible for either; and yet its listlessness could never be mistaken for languor. ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... at ease with her, as if he had always known her, as if she and he understood each other perfectly. "I'm afraid you'll find me stupid," he went on. "I don't know much about any of ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... however, always best to accept an opportunity when presented, even where the chances of success are largely in the runner's favor. The stages of the game must be taken into consideration, and what may be a perfectly commendable play in one situation may be altogether reckless and foolhardy in another. Therefore, the most important faculty of all, the pendulum which regulates, and the rudder which guides, is judgment. An illustration may make ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... suggest for your consideration, whether it would not be best to keep perfectly quiet relative to him, until after he returns and settles with the directors. If he cannot then satisfy you, he will no doubt surrender up his documents and agency like a man, and ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... permission to be free that she might give her hand and her heart together to the young lord. Was it not natural that she should wish to do so? Within each hour, almost within each minute, he regarded the matter in lights that were perfectly antagonistic to each other. It was natural that she should wish to be a Countess, and that she should love a young lord who was gentle and beautiful;—and she should have his permission accorded freely. But then, again, it was most unnatural, bestial, and almost monstrous, that a girl ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... are perfectly simple and conveniently managed. The whole apparatus is contained in a little box 8 inches long, by 4 wide and deep. They may easily be sent to any part of the United States. To be had at the office of the Scientific Americcan, 128 Fulton st, 2nd floor, (Sun building) where they may be seen IN ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... still is tending? Our best thinkers maintain, that it is a state of individual freedom and self-government, rendered possible by the equal development and just balance of the intellectual, moral, and physical parts of our nature,—a state in which we shall each be so perfectly fitted for a social existence, by knowing what is right, and at the same time feeling an irresistible impulse to do what we know to be right., that all laws and all punishments shall be unnecessary. In such a state every ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... native girls went over to the Ngotak and Nagarnook party, who were, on this occasion, united. They then built a hut for Miago and lighted a fire; the old mother herself swept out the hut, so as to make it perfectly clean and nice; the brides then laid down in it, one on each side, so as to leave a vacant place in the centre for their new lord and master; and Miago's mother, having seen all these arrangements completed, ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... perfectly well aware, those three sable dignitaries, that something was wrong in the house; servants always do know when anything out of the common routine happens, and no pretence ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... fancied that unless he added "del Toboso" when he introduced the name of Dulcinea the verse would be unintelligible; which was indeed the fact, as he himself afterwards admitted. He wrote many more, but, as has been said, these three verses were all that could be plainly and perfectly deciphered. In this way, and in sighing and calling on the fauns and satyrs of the woods and the nymphs of the streams, and Echo, moist and mournful, to answer, console, and hear him, as well as in looking for herbs to sustain him, he passed ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... place where there were such goings on; it was as much as her character was worth. The gentlemen were after Mrs. Nevill Tyson from morning till night, you couldn't keep 'em off—not that lot. She hadn't much to say to them, but she fair ran after the Captain—it was perfectly disgraceful. When Mr. Tyson sent him to the right-about, she waited till her husband's back was turned, then she wrote to him to come. And, as if nothing else would serve her, she had him up in the nursery when her little baby was dying. They were actually whispering the two of them, and making ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... just three minutes more, and then if the Cresslers are not here I will speak to him. It seems to me to be perfectly natural, and not ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... reaction from almost unbridled sensualism. No wonder that in the temptations experienced by the monks the figures of nude women so often appeared before their heated imaginations. Sexual feeling suppressed in one direction broke out in another. Feelings, in themselves perfectly normal, became, as a consequence of repression and misdirection, pathologic. And one consequence of this was that many of the early Christian writers brought to the consideration of the subject of sex a concentration ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... was darkened by a brood of rumours, random calumnies, and idle tales. As we rode, late at night, through the hamlet near my house, we saw the fires lighted in the houses, and eager talkers discussing the last report. The King was sick; he was dying; he was perfectly well; he was seen riding furiously by night in the back parts of Apia, and covering his face as he rode. Mataafa was in favour with the Germans; he was to be made a German king; he was secure of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I've seen her work, and she works to a point. She beats having the lawyers sieving all the justice out of it. All the same, they've been too careless around here—that, and a small bad boy's desire to get their names up. I know one case where they hung a perfectly innocent man, for fun, and ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... be spared as much as possible," he said; "we ought to do all we can to save him annoyance. What do you think? Should we not put up with a little inconvenience, and ask Sharnall to bring the Bishop here, and lunch himself? He must know perfectly well that entertaining a Bishop in a lodging-house is an unheard-of thing, and he would do to make up the sixth instead of old Noot. We could easily tell ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... The breach between Hamilton and Jefferson was too wide and deep to be healed, and the president determined to check, as much as possible, if he could not control their hostility. In one thing, however, these men, sincere patriots at heart, perfectly agreed, namely, a desire that Washington should consent to a re-election. As we have already observed, such being the universal wish of the people, Washington reluctantly consented, and he was again chosen president of the United ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... little? Sally!" There was a long silence. Consideringly, Sally looked down, faintly excited, but unemotional. He vainly sought to achieve a mutual kiss; but she kept her head turned away. Strange! Her brain was perfectly clear! She was aware of every contact with him, knew his every wish; and was unmoved. How different it was from when she was with Toby! Gaga's voice resumed: "I think you ... love me a little, Sally, my dear, ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... firmly, from the apparent caution and hesitation with which they were at first published—the vehement contradiction in our papers of many pretended French accounts—and the abuse lavished upon them for falsehood, exaggeration, and gasconade. But is it not possible—is it not, indeed, perfectly natural—that the publishers even of known falsehood should assume this cautious demeanour, and this abhorrence of exaggeration, in order the more easily to gain credit? Is it not also very possible, that those ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... been specially pleased with a couple of allusions to Lola and this poor Mariette; but, to be perfectly candid—and being afraid that you would find the subject a little indecorous—I began to reproach myself for having mentioned it to you in my ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... the answer was stern in tone, though perfectly respectful: "I shall live as I have lived for ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... she began to indulge in a ceaseless flow of chatter. She had told him a score of times about her childhood at Clermont, and she constantly reverted to it. On the evening that her father, Captain Hallegrain, had suddenly died, she and her mother had been to church. She perfectly remembered their return home and the horrible night that had followed; the captain, very stout and muscular, lying stretched on a mattress, with his lower jaw protruding to such a degree that in her girlish memory she could not picture him ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... nature has made provision for that; but to take possession of the chamber where the young are deposited; to see that it be free from 'noisome smells, and all noises;' to attend to its temperature, and to 'avoid making a smoke, or raising a dust.' She must not enter the room till she is perfectly clean in person and dress, and must be clothed in a very plain habit; and in order to be more sensible to the temperature of the place, her dress must ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... us cease this absurd comedy, which has already lasted too long. You are playing the part of a simple little girl, and the role does not fit you at all, believe me. You know perfectly well that there can be no question of marriage between us, but merely of love. I have told you that I love you. It is the truth. I repeat, I love you. Don't pretend any longer not to understand me, and don't treat me as if I were ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... spirited as Faulconbridge. He delivered his insults with immense force and go. The letter "r" is not an easy one for him to pronounce, but he struggled manfully with this obstacle, and after a time I got perfectly accustomed to the bold tones in which he ordered Austria to "hang a calf-skin chround those chrechreant limbs." King Philip's legs were, perhaps, too much inclined to independence, and never quite seemed to have made up their minds where they would settle down, but when ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... entitled to be regarded as one of the clever books of the day. The writer shows artistic perception. He maintains throughout an atmosphere perfectly in harmony with the idea ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... gigantic extent; its point at this moment rested on the mountains of Palermo, probably one hundred miles off, and the entire figure was visible, the atmosphere over the mountains having become and continuing perfectly and beautifully transparent, although in the hundreds of valleys which were beneath us, from the east to the west of Sicily, and from the mountains of Messina down to Cape Passaro, there were still abundant vapors waiting ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... observed, after he had cordially welcomed me and ordered refreshments to be brought in. "Who knows but that one day I may become an admiral, or a governor of one of these islands? I am becoming ambitious, I assure you. I thought it was not in me. I was till lately perfectly contented with my lot. I proposed spending my youth knocking about in these seas, and when I found old age creeping on me, settling down in one of the many thousand beautiful isles of the bright Pacific to spend the remainder ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... not easily relinquished, and no man is very easily led to see with the eyes of another. If thou rest more upon thy own reason or experience than upon the power of Jesus Christ, thy light shall come slowly and hardly; for God willeth us to be perfectly subject unto Himself, and all our reason to be exalted by abundant ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... exploit, and exuded admiration. I fully expected to get a Carnegie medal before I got away. And it sounded so funny coming from a lot of Belgian officers who had for the last few weeks been going through the most harrowing experiences, with their lives in danger every minute, and even now with a perfectly good chance of being killed before the war is over. They seem to take that as a matter of course, but look upon our performance as in some way different and ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... correct: knife and fork, spoon, cruet, all perfectly clean, the crockery fine, the bread and butter thin—in fact, it was just as it would have been for a perfect stranger. This scrupulous neatness, in a household so slovenly and easy-going, where it was an established tradition that something should be forgotten or wrong, impressed Siegmund. ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... and he feared you were a bad boy, after all. But when I showed him your father's will, and he had read it, he caved in like an avalanche. He told me he thought, from your uncle's singular life, that something ailed him, and your story explained it perfectly. He was sorry you had not come to him, instead of going away. I told him you wanted to find your mother, and cared more for her than you did for the money. He praised you then, and hoped you would find her. He put the will in his safe, and you may be sure it will ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... singularly few, and an attentive explorer would be able to trace with considerable accuracy the greater part of the route pursued by the English army in their retreat out of Normandy towards Calais. The field of Azincour remains sufficiently in statu quo to render every account of the battle perfectly intelligible; nor are those wanting near the spot, whose traditionary information enables them to heighten the interest with oral description, accompanied by ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... The perfectly regular and wonderfully complex construction of the languages of many barbarous nations has often been advanced as a proof, either of the divine origin of these languages, or of the high art and former civilisation of their ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... Her Grace is the King's chief agent in his French affairs; and you are in them too, I hear. But that is His Majesty's way; he uses each singly, and never two together if he can help it." (This was perfectly true, and explained a good deal to me. I had heard much of the Duchess in France, but nothing at all of her ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... to write a word, call up a mental picture of it, and if the picture is not perfectly clear go to the dictionary and fix a correct image of it in your mind. Be careful to pronounce every word you use as correctly as possible and you will get all the aid pronunciation can give you. Careless ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton
... new to him, his quick eye discovered that the long line of cabs in front of the station were there to hire. He promptly engaged one, was driven to Hubbard's office and awaited his employer's arrival as calm and unruffled as though his surroundings were perfectly familiar. ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... you're home," she soothed. "Ebenezer'll help you if he can, and I know Deforrest will. I'm perfectly certain though, Tessibel Skinner would do nothing to make Frederick swerve ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... three forms of Round Barrow were in use at one and the same time, but that the Bowl Barrow was the earliest, followed by the Bell, and that the Disc is the latest form of all. From construction, if for no other reason, this hypothesis seems perfectly tenable. ...
— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens
... when I seriously reflect upon all this; I cannot but suspect the integrity of your procedure, deplore the sadness of your condition, and resolve to attempt the discovery of it to you; by all the instances, which an affection perfectly touch't with a zeal for your eternall interest can produce. And who can tell, but it may please Almighty God, to affect you yet by a weak instrument, who have resisted so many powerfull indications of his displeasure at your proceedings, ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... tended to ruin influence. There were no harvests to be expected from the barren rocks of negation and denials of faith in the highest good. Sin gives one nothing that one can keep. He must change his life, he must obey perfectly the spiritual laws of his being. He saw it, ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... perfectly aghast at this dreadful manifestation of human power; but She did but laugh ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... among a clump of bushes a short distance from the lake, and as soon as the sun had set went back to the boat again. They had already made another meal, and had finished their maize and water. They stood by the boat waiting until it should become perfectly dark, and looking across the tranquil sheet of water at the distant town, over which the smoke still hung heavily, and as the sky darkened flashes of fire could be seen. They were at last just going to get on board ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... relation of the parasite to its host and this part of the subject may be dismissed. From our standpoint we look upon the presence of parasites in the body as an abnormal condition. From a biological standpoint their presence there is perfectly normal; it is a necessary part of their life. We think that they have no business there, but from the viewpoint of the parasites their whole business is to be just there. If they are not, they perish. And when we take a dose of quinine or other ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... there or elsewhere. Went to Speyer, where the Dutch joined him (sadly short of numbers stipulated, had it been the least matter);—was at Germersheim, at what other places I forget; manoeuvring about in a languid and as if in an aimless manner, at least it was in a perfectly ineffectual one. Mentzel rode gloriously to Trarbach, into Lorraine; stuck up Proclamation, "Hungarian Majesty come, by God's help, for her own again," and the like;—of which Document, now fallen rare, we give textually the last line: "And ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... faintest tremor of bitterness or gibing in this. It was the simplest statement of facts. Tenney had stood perfectly still, but now he lifted one hand and looked at it casually, as he had that other time. He made an uncertain step, as if to pass her and enter the house, but Tira stretched out her arms. They barred ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... some five hundred lines of Andromeda, which in rhythm, ease, rapidity, and metrical correctness are quite amongst the best in the language. It is very rare to meet with any English hexameter which in rhythm, stress, and prosody is perfectly accurate. Andromeda contains many such lines, as ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... had killed, and was about to eat, his prey. One of the snakes came out one day in front of my window, and hung down two or three feet from the roof. If I had not been previously assured that he was perfectly harmless, it would have been rather an alarming apparition in the dark, and, even as it was, I must confess that for a moment I did feel rather frightened as I watched him spying about, darting his forked tongue in and ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... we see him face to face in two portraits drawn from life, one physical, by a truthful painter, Guerin, and the other moral, by a superior woman, Madame de Stael, who to the best European culture added tact and worldly perspicacity. Both portraits agree so perfectly that each seems to interpret and complete the other. "I saw him for the first time,"[1133] says Madame de Stael, "on his return to France after the treaty of Campo-Formio. After recovering from the first excitement of admiration there ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... settlements in Canada, where she had met her adventurous husband on one of his hunting expeditions. She was of manly stature and strength, and like her husband, was a splendid shot and skillful fisher. Both were passionately fond of forest life, and perfectly fearless of its dangers, whether from savage man ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... speaks. "Suppose you were asked to do a perfectly easy thing," she says; "and suppose you were rewarded for doing it by a present of a thousand pounds, as ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... liked Virginia, you know you would; but you perfectly hate the beldame aunt who sent for her to come to France; you think she must have been like the old schoolmistress, who occasionally boxes your ears with the cover of the spelling-book, or makes you wear one of the girls' bonnets, that smells ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... in the shade of a large tree; so that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is true he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great man has his adherents), perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his opinions. When anything that was read or related displeased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent and angry puffs; but ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... advantage is plain, for although he may be changed as much as he who goes from one extreme to the other, he only removes half-way from his natural condition. A Frenchman can live in New Guinea or in Lapland, but a negro cannot live in Tornea nor a Samoyed in Benin. It seems also as if the brain were less perfectly organised in the two extremes. Neither the negroes nor the Laps are as wise as Europeans. So if I want my pupil to be a citizen of the world I will choose him in the temperate zone, in France for example, rather ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... olive groves of Ramleh and Lydda, and the picturesque towers and minarets and domes of these large villages. In the plain itself were not many villages, but the tract of hills and the mountain-side beyond, especially in the north-east, were perfectly studded with them, and as now seen in the reflected beams of the setting sun they seemed like white villas and hamlets among the dark hills, presenting an appearance of thriftiness and beauty which certainly would not stand a closer ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... calmer now, and listened; but all was perfectly still, and a chill struck through him as he asked himself ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... earth-moon system was similarly in an unstable state, an infinitesimal cause might conceivably decide the fate of the system. We are necessarily in ignorance of what the determining cause might have been, but the effect it produced is perfectly clear; the moon did not again return to its mother earth, but set out on that mighty career ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... we could see of it, Auxerre appeared to be a very pretty place, it being at this time perfectly enwreathed with vines. In fact, every step of our journey increased our regret that we should be obliged to hurry through a country which it would have delighted us to view at leisure, each town that we passed through offering some inducement to linger on the ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... thinking something of the kind, just then, while she began assorting her silks; and Tom stood meekly by, longing to repair the mischief he had occasioned, but perfectly certain that he should only do a good deal more harm if ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... his knees, his eyes upon the ground, he thought a moment. When he began to speak, it was in a quiet and perfectly colorless tone. ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was perfectly calm; his lip slightly trembled; but he spoke in his usual grave, composed manner: "The king may not desire to see me; but I, as an officer and minister of state, have the most urgent reasons for desiring an audience. Go and ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... I had telephoned a local carpenter to meet me, and to bring a mason if possible. I found both men on the ground, and explained to them that there would be abundant work in their lines on the place for the next year or two, that I was perfectly willing to pay a reasonable profit on each job, but that I did not propose to make them rich out of any ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... type. It is senseless to talk about breeding them; for they are not a breed. They are, in cold fact, what Dickens describes: "a dustbin of individual accidents," of damaged dignity, and often of damaged gentility. The class very largely consists of perfectly promising children, lost like Oliver Twist, or crippled like Tiny Tim. It contains very valuable things, like most dustbins. But the Eugenist delusion of the barbaric breed in the abyss affects even ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... night, strengthening your misnamed party, and preparing the way by which you can lift yourself to a position where you can undo all that the party you hate, because it is composed of gentlemen, has accomplished for the honour and prosperity of your country. You are perfectly well aware that Genet was sent here to stir up a civil war, and embroil us with Europe at the same time, and you have secretly sympathized with and encouraged him. I cannot make up my mind whether you are a villain, or merely the victim of a sublimated and paradoxical ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... wisely no doubt, but perhaps a little too much at length. Sons and daughters, as well as fathers and mothers, will know very well what he said; so I need not repeat his words. I cannot say that Aaron listened with much attention, but he understood perfectly what the upshot of it was. Many a man understands the purport of many a sermon without listening to one word in ten. Mr. Beckard meant to be kind in his manner; indeed was so, only that Aaron could not accept as kindness any ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... no poaching on my grounds; for I won't have it. Recollect Codlin's the friend not Short!" With a wondering look Boz kept repeating in a low voice: "'Codlin's the friend not Short.' What can he mean? What do you make of it?" I knew perfectly, as did also the little lady who stood there smiling and flattered, but it was awkward to explain. But he played with the thing; and it could only be agreed that Forster at times was perfectly "amazing," or ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... though he took nothing in the morning, and simply a cup of chocolate between one and two o'clock in the day (before everybody), it being then the time to see him in public. I had not kept dumb with him thereupon, but all my representations were perfectly useless. I knew moreover, that Chirac had continually told him that the habitual continuance of his suppers would lead him to apoplexy, or dropsy on the chest, because his respiration was interrupted at times; upon which he had cried out against ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the only one of all the genteel company at Mr Merton's that thought Harry deserving the least attention. This young lady, who possessed an uncommon degree of natural benevolence of character, came up to him in such a manner as set him perfectly at his ease. Harry was destitute of the artificial graces of society, but he possessed that natural politeness and good nature, without which all artificial graces are the most disgusting things in the world. Harry had an understanding naturally strong; and Mr Barlow, while he had with ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... in Capri is the Blue Grotto (Grotta Azzurra), which is entered from the sea by an arch under the wall of limestone cliff, only available when the sea is perfectly calm. Visitors have to lie flat down in the boat, which is carried in by the wave and is almost level with the top of the arch. Then they suddenly find themselves in a magical scene. The water is liquid sapphire, and the whole rocky vaulting ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... very well. You feel completely happy. I know all that. Only, on the downhill path of a lonely, dreamy life, you never know where you are going. Oh! I understand you perfectly; you are incapable of doing any wrong. But sooner or later you might lose your peace of mind. Some morning, when it is too late, you will find that blank which you now leave in your life filled by some painful feeling ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... of riches upon the rich themselves is as bad as anything in modern life. While it is true that there are among the rich many very good citizens, it is also perfectly plain to any honest observer of conditions that great riches are producing moral havoc and disaster among the princes of wealth in this country. Mr. Carnegie has said that a man who dies rich dies disgraced, but there is even greater reason to believe that to be born rich is to be ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... to the study of Chinese literature. History refuses, however, to connect this industry with a desire for ethical instruction. Their efforts are said to have been limited to the tracing of ideographs and the composition of verselets. A perfectly formed ideograph possesses in Japanese eyes many of the qualities that commend a pictorial masterpiece to Western appreciation. Saga achieved the distinction of being reckoned among the "Three Penmen" of his era,* and ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... was a mere evasion is perfectly plain. Germany already knew that Austria would not ask for such a conference, for Austria had already refused Russia's request for an extension of time and had actually commenced its military operations. Germany's attitude is best indicated ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... with many acquaintances or amusements, and neither vexed nor pleased because people called him selfish, and gossipped about his palace in a garden as a place mysterious and secret. He was not quite in Paradise in his retreat there, because he was not a perfectly happy man; but he did not expect perfect happiness, and hoped for nothing better on earth than ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... and the later it got the better the small fish and kingfish seemed to bite. I caught one barracuda and six kingfish, while R. C. was performing a somewhat similar feat. Then he got a smashing strike from a sailfish that went off on a hard, fast rush, so that he hooked it perfectly. He jumped nine times, several of which leaps I photographed. He was a good-sized fish and active and strong. R. C. had him up to the boat in thirty minutes, which was fine work for the light tackle. I made sure that ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... hard, too,' I said, 'that a perfectly respectable Baptist plumber should be arrested as a burglar simply because he tried to relieve the pain of William Jones by a scientific method ...
— Frictional Electricity - From "The Saturday Evening Post." • Max Adeler
... Nothing so certainly kills love as reproaches; I do not believe any affection will stand it. Our hurt feelings may seem to us tenderness and depth of feeling, but they are selfish:—"fine feelings seldom result in fine conduct." If our love were perfectly selfless, we should be glad of all pleasure for our friend; failure in his allegiance to us would not change us, nothing would do that except failure in his allegiance to his better self. We should love our friends not for what they are to us, but for what they are in themselves. Of course, ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... out lightly with the penknife, for the eye must not be attracted by any line in particular. The more carefully and delicately you fill in the little gaps and holes the better; you will get on faster by doing two or three squares perfectly than a great many badly. As the tint gets closer and begins to look even, work with very little ink in your pen, so as hardly to make any mark on the paper; and at last, where it is too dark, use the edge of your penknife ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... not very often," the sieve-maker went on, "you see a patch of spilt wine stand up on a perfectly dry fabric and remain there awhile without soaking in, its surface shining wet and its edges gleaming round and smooth and curved, bright as a star. Well, the retaining of water in a sieve by the open meshes is like the momentary ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... find it perfectly comfortable. There's nothing like having the range of one's own house in summer." He looked out of the window on the ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... As the six were fastened to the hoop either where one of the upper chains ended or exactly between two of them each of the six was precisely twelve feet from those on either side of it and from the center chain hanging from the ring. The hoop hung perfectly level and each of the seven chains, about thirty feet below the level of the hoop, had hung to it an iron disk, a yard or more across, hanging by a ring-bolt in its center and perfectly level. From a second ring-bolt in the underside of each disk depended more of the same light, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... a collection of Jewish traditions compiled about the year 180, takes no notice of Christianity, though it contains a chapter headed 'De Cultu Peregrino, of strange worship.' This omission is thought by Dr. Paley to prove nothing, for, says he, 'it cannot be disputed but that Christianity was perfectly well known to the world at this time.' It cannot, certainly, be disputed that Christianity was beginning to be known to the world, but whether it had yet emerged from the lower classes of persons among whom it originated, ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... Alcoholic or etherial varnishes are the best for electrical apparatus. They dry quickly and perfectly, and tend to form surfaces unfavorable to the hygroscopic collection of water. Sealing wax dissolved in alcohol, or shellac dissolved in the same solvent are used for electrical apparatus, although the first is rather a lacquer than a varnish. Etherial solution of gum-copal is used to agglomerate ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... the mate. "That's one of his so-called 'jokes.' There's no danger, Mr. Tarbill. That was only a big wave that hit us. You are perfectly safe." ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... friends, despite the fact that Mea was still hoping and wishing for it, and her brother Kurt had proved himself in the right when he had doubted it from the beginning. Since the incident with Loneli, when Mea had told her friend her opinion in perfectly good faith, Elvira had not spoken to her any more and had remained angry. But Mea's nature was not inclined to sulk. Whenever she felt herself injured, words of indignation poured out from her ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... may do a great deal of good in this way.—I know not when I have been more affected, or my heart touched with stronger and more pleasing emotions, than at the sight and conversation of a little negro boy, not above seven years old, who read to me in the new testament, and perfectly repeated his catechism throughout, and all from the instruction of his careful, pious mistress, now I hope with God, enjoying the blessed fruits of her labours while on earth.—This example I would recommend to your serious imitation, ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... the saddle, as I know at one time I was sitting in a bunch on the stirrup! Then I heard most heart-rending yells from the poor old Aunts: 'Oh, the begonias! O Fanny, get off the grass!' and then, suddenly, the filly and I were perfectly still, and the house and the trees were spinning round me, black, edged with green and yellow dazzles. Then I discovered that some one had got hold of the cavesson rope and had hauled us in, as if ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Stonefield is an old attached and faithful friend of A. Stuart. The papers relative to the County of Lanark may safely be communicated to him. He is perfectly convinced of the propriety of what you and I agreed upon, that the subject ought to be talked of as little as possible, and never but among his ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... perfection above all other sciences, "which are, as Solomon speaks, but queens or concubines or maidens; but she is the 'Dove,' and the 'perfect one'—'Dove,' because without stain of strife; 'perfect,' because perfectly she makes us behold the truth, in which our soul stills itself and is at rest." But the same passage shows likewise how he viewed all human knowledge and human interests, as holding their due place in the hierarchy of wisdom, and among the steps of man's perfection. No account ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... to come in, give his order, (generally a stew,) and then go and set down in a box and drop the curting. It allers looks suspicious for a customer to drop his curting afore you bring him the oysters—arterwards it's all perfectly proper, in course. Afore the stew was ready, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... courteous manner, and providing another horse for him, he dismissed him with presents. He also sent a second horse to Richard, more beautiful than the first, and one which he caused Richard to be assured that he might rely upon as perfectly well trained. ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... them at the period when the Duke of Mecklenburg, with his family, sought refuge at Altona. Before leaving that town the Duchess of Mecklenburg, a Princess of Saxony, paid a visit to Madame de Bourrienne and loaded her with civilities. This Princess was perfectly amiable, and was therefore generally regretted when, two years afterwards, death snatched her from her family. Before leaving Altona the Duke of Mecklenburg gave some parties by way of bidding adieu to Holstein, where he had been so kindly received; and I can never forget ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... now roused himself and sat on his haunches, his ears moving quickly backwards and forwards. He kept his eyes fixed on me with a look so strange that he concentred all my attention on himself. Slowly he rose up, all his hair bristling, and stood perfectly rigid, and with the same wild stare. I had no time, however, to examine the dog. Presently my servant emerged from his room; and if ever I saw horror in the human face, it was then. I should not ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... with sleeves and facings of pink silk, and a round black velvet cap. This is the dress of state. The second consists of a habit and hood of scarlet cloth, the habit faced and the hood lined with pink silk. This habit, which is perfectly analogous to the second dress of the Doctor in Divinity, has lately grown into disuse; it is, however, retained by the Professors, and is always used in presenting to Degrees. The third or common dress of a Doctor in Law or Physic nearly resembles that of the Bachelor in these faculties; ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... placed close together side by side, and in each coffin was a dead man, his flesh dried to a mummy, his clothes all in tatters, and his face, though shrivelled and dried up, still preserving enough of the human expression to make the spectacle perfectly horrid. When Rollo and Minnie reached the place near enough to see what was there, the sacristan was moving his candles about over the coffins, one in each hand, so as to show the bodies plainly. At the first glance which Minnie obtained of this shocking sight, she uttered ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott |
