"Performance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exempt you from the performance of this sacred duty, Josepha," replied the empress firmly. "It is a time-honored custom of our family, that the princesses of Austria, who marry kings, should take leave of the graves of their ancestors. I cannot release the Queen of Naples from her duty. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Peasley," as he was called in Swan Creek, an incurable practical joker, loved and shunned by all who knew him. He asked me as he came up if I were "going to the show." Thinking it was best to dissemble, I told him I was, but said nothing of my intention to stop the performance; I thought it would be a lesson to That Jim to let him walk fifteen miles for nothing, for it was clear that he was going, too. Still, I wished he would go on ahead or drop behind. But he could not very well ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... peculiar uplifting of the brows which spoke a brittle humor, she looked at the floor as if selecting a place for the performance. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... to be throwing her very soul into the performance. Passers- by in Crane Court paused, regarded the first-floor windows of the publishing and editorial offices of Good Humour with troubled ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... been allotted to Writers who seem very little acquainted with the Nature of their Task, or very negligent about the Performance. They rarely afford any other Account than might be collected from publick Papers, and imagine themselves writing a Life when they exhibit a chronological Series of Actions or Preferments; and so ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... at Tafyle we changed our lodgings twice every day, dining at one public house and supping at another. We were well treated, and had every evening a musical party, consisting of Bedouins famous for their performance upon the Rababa, or guitar of the desert, and who knew all the new Bedouin poetry by heart. I here met a man from Aintab, near Aleppo, who hearing me talk of his native town, took a great liking to me, ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... appealed most strongly to me in these chambers of commerce was the manner in which they are dovetailed with the government in the performance of duties of a nature such as, in spite of their tremendous importance, we Americans generally regard as nobody's business in particular, and which are ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... celebrated Mr. Coleridge—himself a lecturer. He was not a 'constant' lecturer—not in constant harness like others for the business of the day. Indisposition was generally preying upon him, [26] and habitual indolence would now and then frustrate the performance of his own better wishes. I once came from Kensington in a snow-storm, to hear him lecture upon Shakspeare. I might have sat as wisely and more comfortably by my own fire-side—for no Coleridge appeared. And this I think occurred more than once at the ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... served in the bright little parlour, and her hostess was a compound of care and good-will; nothing was wanting to the feast but a merry heart. Fleda could not bring that, so her performance was unsatisfactory, and Mrs. Pritchard was distressed. Fleda went to her own room, promising better ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... epistle to the governors, that they might pay him due honor, and afford him whatsoever assistance he wanted, and as he pleased. "Leave off thy sorrow then," said the king, "and be cheerful in the performance of thy office hereafter." So Nehemiah worshipped God, and gave the king thanks for his promise, and cleared up his sad and cloudy countenance, by the pleasure he had from the king's promises. Accordingly, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... sympathetic pain. "She is so charming! What profanation to develop the seamy side of her nature! What pitiful tomfoolery! She is in the lion's mouth now—and yet how eagerly she seemed to desire it. Weissmann has made anything but the simplest ventriloquistic performance impossible—she cannot lift a hand. To save her from herself, as well as from Clarke, it is necessary to expose her weakness ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... upon the new-comer sharply. "Not likely to, Arthur. You know I hate all this sort of thing, and, as far as I can see, it's just a repetition of the usual performance—stale speeches, lionizing, gossip, and weak tea. I consider you've brought me here under false pretences. Where's the startling novelty you ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... young person, when at last obliged to leave the parental roof. 4, But that which most of all led me to this decision was, that, as in the Church of Christ the Lord has qualified the members of the body for the performance of certain work, and all have not the same gift and service, so, in the same way, certain believers are called and qualified above others, for instructing children, and give themselves to this particular service, and that, therefore, I ought to make use of the qualifications of such, and of their ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... and manifest to the senses, the Saviour changed into the spiritual and unseen. Now the law of God, pure and untainted with anything base, is the Decalogue itself, or those ten precepts distributed in two tables, for the prohibition of things to be avoided and the performance of things to be done. Although they constitute a pure body of laws, yet they are not perfect, but need to be completed by the Saviour. But there is that body of commands which are tainted with unrighteousness; such is the law ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... him. With Hermione, the watcher, he had been but as a Sicilian, another Gaspare in a different rank of life. Without Hermione he was Gaspare and something more. It was as if he still danced in the tarantella, but had now for the moment the power to stand and watch his performance and see ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and recommending it to his people as the best form of musical education. He holds that there is much in common between it and the folk-songs of Germany. At Court he revived classical dances like the minuet and the gavotte. He is devoted to opera and never leaves before the end of the performance. Concerts frequently take place in the royal palaces at Potsdam and Berlin, items on the programme for them being often suggested by the Emperor. The programme is then submitted to him and is rarely returned without alteration. Not seldom the concert is preceded by a rehearsal, ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... the moon as soon as it appears in the sky. In other respects the celebrations are exactly the same as in the Dragon Boat Festival, presents were exchanged between Her Majesty and the Court officials. The festival concluded with a theatrical performance which describes a scene in the moon. The belief is that a beautiful maiden lives in the moon, her only companion being a white rabbit, called a Jade Rabbit. According to the play this rabbit escapes from the moon to the Earth and becomes a young and beautiful girl. A golden rooster which lives ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... shame that the Maitland Club of Glasgow has not, ere now, volunteered an edition of Zachary's immortal performance. The Senatus would hardly object (if the expense were undertaken), as the circulation would ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 25. Saturday, April 20, 1850 • Various
... of the many other) names of the various kinds of Esoteric Knowledge or Sciences given, even in the exoteric Puranas. There is (1) Yajna-Vidya,[C] knowledge of the occult powers awakened in Nature by the performance of certain religious ceremonies and rites. (2) Maha-Vidya, the "great knowledge," the magic of the Kabalists and of the Tantrika worship, often Sorcery of the worst description. (3) Guhya-Vidya, knowledge of the mystic powers residing in Sound (Ether), hence in the ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... which most remarkably distinguishes M. Zschokke's little performance is the substitute for the punishment of death which it suggests. We believe it was here that M. Sue derived an idea which occupies so conspicuous a place in his Mysteries of Paris. That substitute is blindness. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... experience, does not make the most careful of motorists. As a matter of fact it was the first time Master Everard had driven without the chauffeur at his elbow, and, though he got on very well, his performance was not unattended ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... Meantime, the claims of music could not be ignored: there were frequent rehearsals for the public concerts; lessons to pupils; the composition of glees and catches, and the like; the superintendence of the practice of the chapel choir; and the study of sonatas and concertos for public performance. But all the leisure that could be made or stolen was occupied in labours which proved their own reward. Straight from the concert-platform rushed the musician to his workshop, and many a lace ruffle was torn by nails or bespattered ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... of this the Havasus had sat about apparently taking no particular interest in the performance. They had all seen it before so many, many times. But Jim Nance's sides were shaking with laughter, and the Pony Rider Boys were dancing about in high glee. They did not get such a chance at Stacy Brown every day in the year, and were ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... blood, consists of an "enormous mass of minute centres of action.... Every element has its own special action, and even though it derive its stimulus to activity from other parts, yet alone effects the actual performance of its duties.... Every single epithelial and muscular fibre-cell leads a sort of parasitical existence in relation to the rest of the body.... Every single bone-corpuscle really possesses conditions of nutrition peculiar to itself." Each element, as Mr. Paget remarks, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... westward—until the convict steamer was out of sight, when the bows of the Thetis were again turned eastward and her speed reduced to dead slow, for she now had to be stripped of her disguise and restored to her normal appearance again, and some convenient spot for the performance of this operation had to be found, Milsom not deeming it wise to return and effect it in the spot from which they had so recently come. This spot was eventually found, in the shape of a tiny cove near Point Lucrecia; and into ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... directly to the imagination, and excite those passions which urged the Romans to a career of conquest from generation to generation. No military review of modern times equaled those gorgeous triumphs, even as no scenic performance compares with the gladiatorial shows. The. sun has never shone upon any human assemblage so magnificent and so grand, so imposing and yet so guilty. And we recall the picture of it with solemn awe as it moves along the Via Sacra and ascends ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... required pressure on the keys is called, the most successful of which was dividing the pallet into two parts which admitted a small quantity of wind to enter the groove and release the pressure before the pallet was fully opened; but even on the best of organs the performance of music played with ease upon ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... at once. He began with the parrot, which he painted vermilion; then he passed the brush gaily along the newly varnished wood-work—daubed the masts and shrouds all over, obliterated the name on the life-buoys, and wound up a somewhat successful performance by emptying the pot over the Captain's best coat, which was laid in the sun ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... yearly to pay to the king, and in default whereof I should incur his majesty's displeasure, to my utter ruin. Yet, from the love I bear to the king of Persia, by whose ambassador I am solicited, and from affection for the English, together with the faithful performance of the writing left with me under their hands and seals by the two merchants before named, I hereby promise the English nation, under my hand and seal, if they will come like themselves, so fitted that I may derive more advantage from them than from the Portuguese, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... cutters took them in tow. One had no sooner received its melancholy freight, than it left the islets, on its way to the hospital-ship of the fleet. The others succeeded, in turn; the unhurt French willingly offering to assist in the performance of this pious duty. At length but three boats remained. One was Sir Frederick's gig, which Winchester had kept for his own particular use; another was the yawl of Andrea Barrofaldi; and the third, the little craft in which Carlo Giuntotardi had come from the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 'quiet set'; they are quiet enough; you might hear a pin drop, in there. Is some one going to offer up a prayer? How happy Olive must be, to be taken so seriously! They form an association for meeting at each other's houses, every week, and having some performance, or some paper read, or some subject explained. The more dreary it is and the more fearful the subject, the more they think it is what it ought to be. They have an idea this is the way to make New York society intellectual. There's a sumptuary law—isn't that what ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... scarcely comprehended all this, and imperfectly, when a terrifying thing occurred. The golden horse seemed to have paused and gathered all his forces for an effort that should make his best previous performance look like the silly antics of a colt. Suddenly, and without any warning manoeuver, he charged the full length of his rope straight at the man who held it coiled in his hand, with the end looped around the horn of his saddle. At the final bound, he reared as if to ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... the T.P.C. for the season of 1892 took place yesterday at the 'Star and Garter Hotel,' under the presidency of Sir Charles Russell, who was assisted in the performance of his duties by Mr. Frank Lockwood, Mr. Linley Sambourne, Mr. Edward Lawson, and Mr C. W. Mathews. The arrangements for the season were completed, and a digest was made of the subjects which claimed ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... were brilliant with electricity; electric signs popped magically with many-coloured lights on the front of a music hall where an audience was already gathering for the first performance, on public-houses, on the big red warehouses on the quay. The lighted tramcars with passengers inside looked like magic-lantern slides, and amid all the people using the triangle as a promenade or hurrying here and there on business, the newsboys ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... A few men went down for the grouse shooting late in the season; but they stayed but a short time, and when they went Lady Laura was left alone with her husband. Mr. Kennedy had explained to his wife, more than once, that though he understood the duties of hospitality and enjoyed the performance of them, he had not married with the intention of living in a whirlwind. He was disposed to think that the whirlwind had hitherto been too predominant, and had said so very plainly with a good deal of marital authority. This autumn and ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... they were received at a heava or dramatic performance, one portion of which illustrated robbery by two men, and Cook says it was acted "in such a masterly manner as sufficiently displayed the genius of the people in this vice." Fruit and vegetables being rather scarce, ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... Athenian drama. The theater originated in the Dionysiac mysteries of the Greeks, in which dramatic action and responsive choruses were employed. Sex symbols were used without reserve. Intoxication and ecstasy belonged to due performance. In later mysteries dramatic action was employed to present myths and legends, or religious doctrines, in order to get the powerful effects in suggestion which dramatic action exerts. Many myths presented acts such ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... of the army, that we might be in our place. We also accompanied the King whenever he went to reconnoitre, traced the lines of encampment, led the horse to water, inspected the head-quarters, and regulated the march and encampment, according to the King's orders; the performance of all which robbed us of much rest, we being but six officers to ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... On the other hand, those who desire to exercise dominion from the love of uses, do not desire it from themselves, but from the Lord; since the love of uses is from the Lord, and is the Lord himself: these regard dignities only as means to the performance of uses, setting uses far above dignities; whereas the former ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... announced, and the dining-room became the field of a hot verbal warfare. The members of the society were all present excepting Mrs. Harris, who had been greatly upset by her own performance. Bart Brierly, the painter, was there to defend the mystery of life against our scientific friend Miller, whose conception of the universe was very definite indeed. Mrs. Quigg supported Miller. Young Howard was everywhere in the lists, and his raillery ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... performance for two special reasons: first, because the audience evidently did not appear to appreciate or take kindly to the company from the California Theatre, and secondly on account of the rising wind which was beginning to blow up ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... in any box that he does not belong in, after the lowering of the lights for the curtain. Nor, in spite of cartoons to the contrary, does good taste permit conversation during the performance or during the overture. Box holders arriving late or leaving before the final curtain do so as quietly as possible and ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... Constitution the leading men of all sections considered emancipation essential to the realization of the American idea; for their government was founded on a theory, and avowed principles, which rendered it necessary, and which, with the performance of the pledges of the States and the exercise of the powers directly given to the Union, would make liberty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... deliberately rejected the doctrine of the earth's rotation, had to make certain other entirely erroneous suppositions. It was easily seen that each star required exactly the same period for the performance of a complete revolution of the heavens. Ptolemy knew that the stars were at enormous distances from the earth, though no doubt his notions on this point came very far short of what we know to be the reality. If the stars had been at very varied distances, then it would ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... state, and churches were publicly constructed for its worshippers; though even before that event, as we are led to infer from the testimony of Gildas, the most ancient of our native historians, particular structures were appropriated for the performance of its divine mysteries: for that historian alludes to the British Christians as reconstructing the churches which had, in the Dioclesian persecution, been levelled to the ground. But in the fifth century Rome, oppressed on every side by enemies, ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... of Burke's treatise is to be justly measured, it should be set side by side with those papers of Addison which Akenside expanded in his dismal Pleasures of the Imagination. The performance of Addison, grateful though one must be to him for attempting it, is thin and lifeless. That of Burke is massive and full of suggestion. At every turn it betrays the hand of the craftsman who works with his eye upon his tools. The speculative side of criticism ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... widely different as the two poems are, they have not only points of similarity but also a certain likeness of type. There is, however, this great dissimilarity, that in the Andreas the poet stops to speak of himself and of his inadequate performance, but still he will give us a little more. The most novel and extraordinary part is the voyage of Andrew to Mirmedonia. The ship-master is a Divine person, and the instructive conversation which the saint addresses to ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... the nut survey was then briefly presented by C. F. Walker, chairman of the committee, as a progress report. He stated that 1600 nut trees of various varieties had been recorded and data concerning tree performance ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... find the trio-conjurations more exhilarating than the metaphysical discourses of Wotan in the three true music dramas of The Ring. There is, however, no real atavism involved. Die Gotterdammerung, though the last of The Ring dramas in order of performance, was the first in order of conception and was indeed the root from which all the ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... should make a twenty-mile streak of relatively long-burning red sparks. A tiny auto-beacon in its nose was set to send microwave signals at ten-second intervals. On the face of it, it had looked like a rather futile performance. ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... very evident signal a figure emerged from the shelter of the opposite bushes and strode to the gate. The juniors gasped. They had all taken part in last Christmas's term-end performance, and they easily recognized the hat, long coat, and military moustache of the school theatrical wardrobe, the only masculine garments permitted at the Grange. Cynthia, being a new-comer, was not acquainted with them. Her agitated eyes merely took in a manly vision who was ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... There, in the guise of a stripling cherub, Satan tells the archangel Uriel that, having been absent at the time of creation, he longs to behold the earth so as to glorify God. Thereupon Uriel proudly rejoins he witnessed the performance, and describes how at God's voice darkness fled and solids converged into spheres, which began to roll around their appointed orbits. Then he points out to Satan the newly-created earth, whither ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... brisk the scourge, and willing flew the steeds. Thus whirl'd along, soon they approach'd the gates 230 Of Pylus, when Telemachus, his speech Turning to his companion, thus began. How, son of Nestor! shall I win from thee Not promise only, but performance kind Of my request? we are not bound alone To friendship by the friendship of our sires, But by equality of years, and this Our journey shall unite us still the more. Bear me not, I intreat thee, noble ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... performance Janina drew closer to Krenska and the latter, in a moment of weakness, betrayed the secret concerning her past life. She revealed to Janina a new realm, ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... shadows the lustre of a better life, at once earthly and immortal. Thou snatchest back the fleeting moments of history. With then there is no past, for at thy touch all that is great becomes for ever present, and illustrious men live through long ages in the visible performance of the very deeds which made them what they are. O potent Art! as thou bringest the faintly-revealed past to stand in that narrow strip of sunlight which we call 'now,' canst thou summon the shrouded future to meet her there? Have I not achieved it? ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Despite restrictions on cross-strait links, China has overtaken the US to become Taiwan's largest export market and its second-largest source of imports after Japan. China is also the island's number one destination for foreign direct investment. Strong trade performance in 2007 pushed Taiwan's GDP growth rate above 5%, and unemployment ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Committee reported in favor of ratification, saying: "This is the performance of solemn platform promises and we take great pride in the fact that to Tennessee has been accorded the signal distinction of passing a resolution which will secure the final adoption of the 19th Amendment." Speaker Seth M. Walker ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... "picked up" by himself, without any thought of ever abandoning his career as a violinist. Mr. Moore had expected to rehearse some orchestral accompaniments on a second piano with Paderewski, who was then preparing some concertos for public performance. Mr. Moore was taken ill and sent his talented musical friend, Mr. Bauer, in his place. Paderewski immediately took an interest in his talented accompanist and advised him to go to Paris to continue his studies ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... General Ripley, who commands the garrison and forts of Charleston. He is a jovial character, very fond of the good things of this life; but it is said that he never allows this propensity to interfere with his military duties, in the performance of which he displays both zeal and talent. He has the reputation of being an excellent artillery officer, and although by birth a Northerner, he is a red-hot and indefatigable rebel. I believe he wrote a book about the Mexican war, and after leaving the old army, he was a good deal in ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... a plaintive strain in his whole performance. Every sound is as merry as the laugh of a young child; and one cannot listen to him without fancying that he is indulging in some jocose raillery of his companions. If we suppose him to be making love, we cannot look upon him as very deeply enamored, but rather as highly delighted with his spouse, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... were injected into the room in a manner comparable with my own entrance. They were Hindoo students—young fellows returning to England after a continental holiday, who had been detained. Both were somewhat alarmed, but I speedily composed them. Later there was a repetition of the performance to admit three more Indian students. We all agreed that the German methods of introduction were decidedly novel and forceful if informal and unpleasant. The latest arrivals, however, were detained for only a short while. They were rich in funds and were equally astute in their distribution ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... around which in every time of need the strength of your military power, the sure bulwark of your defense—a national militia—may be readily formed into a well-disciplined and efficient organization. And the skill and self-devotion of the Navy assure you that you may take the performance of the past as a pledge for the future, and may confidently expect that the flag which has waved its untarnished folds over every sea will still float in undiminished honor. But these, like many other subjects, will be appropriately ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... A festival performance of Parsifal is to be given in Charlottenburg, to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Jutland. The proposal to substitute the more topical opera, The Flying Deutschmann, has been received ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... certain man came to the village to exhibit the strength of a wonderful cock, which could draw, when attached to its leg by a rope, a large log of wood. Many people went and paid to see this wonderful performance, which was exhibited in the back yard of a public house. One of the spectators present on one occasion had in his possession a four-leaved clover, and while others saw, as they supposed, a log of wood drawn through the yard, this person saw only a straw ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... anyhow, one does not have to put himself through a whole criminal performance to apprehend its spiritual experiences. I understood all, and especially what he unwittingly betrayed even now; that deep thirst for the dramatic element in one's own life, which, when social conformity fails to supply it, ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... water. We had still to cut some long poles; a couple of spars for masts, and two more for yards; a paddle to steer by, and one for each of us. Night was approaching by the time we had quite finished. Altogether we were well content with our performance, though perhaps a more experienced sailor would have hesitated to trust himself on such a structure. As the mosquitoes would have allowed us but little sleep had we attempted to remain near the lake at night, ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... oration which 'threw into the shade every other orator except Pitt,' was henceforth known by the nickname of 'Single-Speech'—not because he never addressed the House again, but because those who so nicknamed him chose to regard this performance as the distinguishing feature of his career. He continued to be known by that one discourse, and it is by virtue of it that he has a place in history. The fact is notable, and yet by no means uncommon. The world is, and always has been, full of Single-Speech Hamiltons—male ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... reduction of the public sector through privatizing publicly owned companies and downsizing the civil service. With the support of the World Bank, IMF, and other donors, these reforms have led to a turnaround in economic performance following a period of negative growth in the early 1990s. Kenya's real GDP grew at 5% in 1995 and 4% in 1996, and inflation remained under control. Growth slowed in 1997. Political violence damaged the tourist industry, and the IMF allowed Kenya's Enhanced Structural Adjustment ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... it is different. Here the man who has the most skill in planting will take most pleasure in being watched by others; and so too the most skilful sower. Ask any question you may choose about results thus beautifully wrought, and not one feature in the whole performance will the doer of it seek to keep concealed. To such height of nobleness (he added), Socrates, does husbandry appear, like some fair mistress, to conform the soul and disposition of those ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... knew well enough that it was not quite the right thing to do. All the inhabitants of Java are nominally Mohammedans, but, in the interior especially, a number of gross and idolatrous practices are mixed up with the performance of its ceremonies, while the upper orders especially are very lax in their principles. Most of them, in spite of the law of their prophet prohibiting the use of wine and spirits, drink them whenever they can ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... autumn of the year I was sent away to Ko-pen Creek's mouth. It was there that I heard, seated in my boat at midnight, the faint tones of a lute. It seemed as though I was listening to the tones of the gongs in the Palace of the Capital. On asking an old man, I learnt that it was the performance of a woman who for many years had cultivated the two talents of music and singing to good effect. In the course of time her beauty faded, she humbled her pride, and followed her fate by ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... when Norma Bonkowski, returning, climbed the stairs of the Tenement wearily. She was cold, for her clothes were thin; she was tired, for the day had been a hard one; she was dispirited, for the manager had been more than usually sharp and critical of her performance that night. ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... down Shaftesbury Avenue from Piccadilly to Charing Cross Road passes the Lyric Theatre. If it is the evening, a dramatic performance is probably taking place inside. It may be a tragedy, or some form of comedy. If it is a musical comedy and he enters, he will see elaborate scenery and a play which may open with a prologue and which is partly composed of dialogue between ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... the brewer's house, but we could prove nothing against the others, yet we laid all three in irons. I immediately sent Mr Towerson to the regent, to give him an account of the matter, and to desire the villains might be sought out and punished. He promised this should be done, but was very slack in performance. The Dutch merchants, hearing we had taken some of the incendiaries, and fearing the Chinese might rise against us, came very kindly to us armed, and swore they would live and die in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... experiences much inconvenience, which unhappily is found daily to increase. The submission of the limbs to the directions of the will can hardly ever be obtained in the performance of the most ordinary offices of life. The fingers cannot be disposed of in the proposed directions, and applied with certainty to any proposed point. As time and the disease proceed, difficulties ...
— An Essay on the Shaking Palsy • James Parkinson
... sleep in a bed at all; he slept on a heap of old inner tubes in Ike Levine's tire repair shop. He was about to resent this slander from Pee-wee with a glowering look and a threat, when suddenly something happened, which precipitately terminated his performance of his official functions. His father called him from a tenement across the street, accompanying his summons with such dismal predictions of what would happen if he did not obey that the official sentinel had no choice but to ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... according to the history could be adapted to these mystic senses, He made use of them, concealing from the multitude the deeper meaning; but where in the narrative of the development of super-sensual things there did not follow the performance of those certain events which was already indicated by the mystical meaning the Scripture interwove in the history the account of some event that did not take place, sometimes what could not have ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... people of sunbursts. They made me look as though my hair were trying to pull itself out by the roots and escape. So I was sent to the barber's. My little cousin, two years younger, went along in my charge. It was thought that the performance might entertain her. I was mounted in a chair and had a cloth tucked in round my neck, like a self-made millionaire about to eat consomme. The officiating barber got out a shiny steel instrument with jaws—the first pair of clippers I had ever seen—and he ran this up the back ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... once this increased tenfold. Pupils jumped over seats, ran into each other in the aisles, scurried and scampered from this place to that, while the teacher stood in the front of the room wildly waving her arms. The performance lasted several minutes. "There's spontaneity for you," the principal shouted above the roar of the storm. I acquiesced by a nod of the head,—my lungs, through lack of training, ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... paid to the merchant in Grozin either in money or silke to his contentment, within three dayes after the deliuerie of the karsies there, hauing a band of him made by the Metropolitanes owne hand, for the performance of the same, which is as sure as any here is to be deuised: and vpon the same I sent my Tolmach from me backe to Shamaki, with such goods as I bought at Teueris, and to the end hee might cause the worshipfuls ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... catch a bird in the singing mood in the winter; yet on December 19, a purple finch was piping quite a vivacious tune in the woods. Of course, he was not in his best voice, but his performance was good enough to entitle it to the name of bird music. The finches, by the way, are strong flyers. At your approach, instead of flitting off a little way, perhaps to the next tree or bush, after the manner of the tits and nuthatches and ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... behind screens and obstacles; with the least possible appearance in open view, with nothing that can glitter on either arms or clothes, and with no visible distinction between officers and men. War is now a genuinely Indian performance, just as Washington saw one hundred and fifty years ago ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... and, to the unspeakable surprise and indignation of everybody, officers as well as men, the whole of the poor fellows who had steered the ship during the unlucky chase of the preceding day were ordered to receive three dozen apiece, "for culpable negligence in the performance of their duty," Captain Pigot choosing to assert that, had the ship been properly steered, we should have overtaken and brought the French frigate to action. Now the manner in which the Hermione's helm had been manipulated on the occasion in question ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... psychologist? The latter, certainly. In fact, nearly all tests, such as those used in studying differential psychology, are objective. That is to say that the person tested is given a task to perform, and his performance is observed in one way or another by the examiner. The examiner may observe the time occupied by the subject to complete the task, or the quantity accomplished in a fixed time; or he may measure the correctness and excellence of the work ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... very sore When they showed her to the door. (I might hit off the door that was a jar!) To the spot she swift returned Where the poet sighed and yearned, And she told him that he'd gone a little far. "Your performance with this rhyme has Made me absolutely sick," She remarked. "I think the time ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... of the performance, sir," put in Fitzroy. "Mrs. Stewart promised she'd do it, and we shall be in a regular fix now if she gives it up. ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... for a full understanding of each event mentioned herein in connexion with the whole. From this connection of events it is evident, that in collisions in to which we have come with our opposers during the performance of the duties of our mission, we were under the direction of those invisible guardians who are labouring to introduce the promised new era of Truth and Righteousness, while our opposers were endeavouring to support the existing ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... cousins, breasting the clear, lilied water, and waiting in a dignified, not too eager, row while father pulls a bell in the old palace wall, tweaking the string impatiently with his beak, is better than any theatrical performance of this ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Thoroughly in the mood for such nonsense, now she proceeded to chant weird chants around the altar to protect us from all sorts of things on the road; to soften the hearts of traffic policemen; to keep the tires from bursting, and the machinery from cutting up capers. It was the most ridiculous performance I have ever seen and Aunt Phoebe and the Doctor laughed themselves almost sick over it. I laughed so myself that I could not take notes on what she was saying and so can't let you laugh at it for yourselves. As a reporter I'm afraid ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... A.O. Coffin has just been here for his final examination for his Ph.D., and desires me to report to you his performance. ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 6, June, 1889 • Various
... an hour had been spent in this performance he happened to glance at the clock and rose with an exclamation. He bustled out to his taxi and found the driver still intent upon his reading. "Here I am at last," he said cheerily, and had a foot on the step, when he stopped suddenly with a cry. It was a cry of alarm, but ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... return, and as coolly as if she had only left school the day before. Her studies were still quite elementary, for Cressy McKinstry had never been a brilliant scholar, but he perceived, with a cynical doubt of its permanency, that she had bestowed unusual care upon her present performance. There was moreover a certain defiance in it, as if she had resolved to stop any objection to her return on the score of deficiencies. He was obliged in self-defence to take particular note of some rings she wore, and a large bracelet that ostentatiously glittered on her white arm—which ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... was carried to great perfection among the ancients. Many paintings have been discovered, which show the numerous attitudes which the performers assumed. The figures have their heads enveloped in skins or caps, probably intended as a protection in case of falling. At the conclusion of the performance the dancer ran down the rope. Germanicus and Galba are said to have exhibited elephants dancing on ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... affair of public interest; inasmuch as it produces a necessary suspension of labor, leads men to reflect upon the duties of life and the errors to which human nature is liable, and provides for the public and private worship of God the creator and governor of the universe, and for the performance of such acts of charity as are the ornament ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... resolutions were apt to wither and die; but certainly, after dinner, he broke through the cautious reserve which he had always in public maintained toward Miss Raymond since Bruce's arrival. He not only talked to her incessantly, but tempted her to sing with him, during which performance they seemed rapidly lapsing ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... hunting-stories over the wine and cigars. With the departure of the older members came the inevitable quarter-race, with its accompaniment of riding feats which would have done credit to a Don Cossack. The equestrian performance was commenced by Kit Gillam (who now dismounts and leads over every little ditch) forcing his active chestnut up the wooden steps and into the club-room, and rearing him on the dining-table. Then came a leaping-match over a ten-railed fence, resulting in the barking of some ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... He remembers from his school lessons or reads in the newspapers of the greatness of England in past centuries, and naturally feels that with such a past and with so great an Empire existing to-day, his country should be a very great Power. But as he discovers what the actual performance of Germany is, and becomes acquainted with the results of her efforts in science, education, trade, and industry, and the way in which the influence of the German Government predominates in the affairs of Europe, he is ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... sentimental. He wasn't here for sentiment. He was here for cold, hard business. He was taking this confounded journey to witness an amateur performance of a Shakespeare play, when he loathed traveling in hot weather, detested amateur performances of anything, particularly of Shakespeare, on the millionth of a chance that Antoinette Holiday might be possessed of a tithe ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... enchanted with this performance. It chimes with her independent notions, but not with my prudent ones. However, it is done, and I never saw a more satisfactorily mated couple. It would have been a cruel pity to see that light, good little heart quelled by a morose husband, or its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... Coleridge's) was offered to Mr. Harris, manager of Covent Garden. For myself, I had no hope, nor even a wish (though a successful play would in the then state of my finances have been a most welcome piece of good fortune), that he should accept my performance; so that I incurred no disappointment when the piece was judiciously returned as not calculated for the stage. In this judgment I entirely concurred; and had it been otherwise, it was so natural for me to shrink from public notice, that any hope I might have ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... column of marching slaves was sighted in the distance, on a course paralleling their own, and Jason expected a repeat performance of the previous day's meeting. He was agreeably surprised that it was not. The sight of the others threw Ch'aka into an immediate rage that sent his slaves rushing for safety in all directions. By leaping into the air, howling with anger and beating his club ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... himself in the room. The 22d of last March, being, about eleven o'clock at night, busy looking over some lists of works in his study, with three lads who are his domestics, they all heard distinctly a rustling of the papers on the table; the cat was suspected of this performance, but M. de S. having taken a light and looked diligently ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... sat to Scott for the portrait of the elder Redgauntlet, the rugged and dangerous Herries of Birrenswark. Within the last fifty years it was a custom of Halloween in many of the houses in Dumfriesshire and Galloway to celebrate by a rude theatrical performance the evil memory of the ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... Pantheism might be presented in an allegorical or dramatic form by supposing a dialogue between two persons in the pit of a theatre at Milan during the performance of a piece. One of them, convinced that he is in Girolamo's renowned marionette-theatre, admires the art by which the director gets up the dolls and guides their movements. "Oh, you are quite mistaken," says the other, "we're in the Teatro della Scala; it is the manager ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... perceived that General Hancock announces that he will make the law the rule of his conduct; that he will uphold the courts and other civil authorities in the performance of their proper duties, and that he will use his military power only to preserve the peace and enforce the law. He declares very explicitly that the sacred right of the trial by jury and the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be crushed ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... beaten track through space are by astronomical incident—but as an epoch sui generis, a century d'elite, picked out from the long ranks of time for special service, charged by Fate with an extraordinary duty, and decorated for its successful performance. Those of its historic comrades even partially so honored are few indeed. They will not make a platoon—scarce a corporal's guard. We should seek them, for instance, in the Periclean age, when eternal beauty, and something very like eternal truth, gained a habitation upon earth through ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... and crime!" frantically whispered the accompanying warder, as Axel stood silent. Axel repeated the formula of the night before. Every time these visits were made he had to go through this performance, his heels together, his ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... parishioners considered they had been subjected, by the sudden appearance of six strange choirboys and the lanky youth in a black gown, who had carried a gilt cross round and round the tiny precincts of their simple little Church, which,—until the occurrence of this remarkable "mountebank" performance as they called it,—had been everything to them that was sacred in its devout simplicity. Finally, in despair, Mr. Arbroath wrote a long letter of complaint to the Bishop of the diocese, and after a considerable time of waiting, was informed by the secretary of that ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... The performance in itself was crude and commonplace, but the demonstration in regard to it was unusual. Although this scene had been enacted both afternoon and evening for the past six weeks, the audience at the Vaudeville was showing its appreciation by an ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... given them for three years. The performance of each sort was recorded for each year. At the end of the third year those sorts which had come good two years out of the three were again lifted and planted in another soil and watched closely for another period of three years. This gave us a pretty definite ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... the implements and return to his reading, and so on continuously. I noticed Bell watching with great surprise, much shocked at such unusual table manners, and presently he could not forbear very gently nudging my elbow to draw my attention to the performance. ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... her English governess; table-rappings and table-tippings were the order of the evening; and some rather surprising results were obtained through Miss Shepard's fingers. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 31.] Powers related a still more surprising performance [Footnote: Italian Note-book.] that he had witnessed, which was conducted by D. D. Home, an American mountebank, who hoaxed more crowned heads, princes, princesses, and especially English duchesses than Cagliostro ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... written, together with many other effusions, at such leisure moments as have been accorded to one who, during the whole time of their composition, has had to apply himself, almost without cessation, to the performance of newspaper press duties; and those who know anything about such things need not be told that a taste for versification is, to a press-man, as a rule, what poverty is to most people—a very inconvenient and by no means a profitable companion. In my ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... hundred in number, and their camp was pitched on a hill, a half mile from the town. The night, after a beautiful day, turned raw and chill, warning that early spring, even in those southern latitudes, was more of a promise than a performance. But the young troops built several great fires and those who were not on guard basked ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Actuarial accounting works pretty well: well enough to run the juggernaut banking, insurance, and gambling industries on. It's good enough for divvying up the royalties paid by musical rights societies for radio airplay and live performance. And it's good enough for counting how many copies of a book are distributed online ...
— Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books • Cory Doctorow
... wife was one of the greatest living pianists. For, owing to the accident to his hand, though he could still improvise, he could not appear in public to interpret his own compositions, which depended so much for their success on a sympathetic performance, since they differed so greatly from the prevalent style of Hummel and the classical masters, that even so gifted a musician as Mendelssohn failed to understand them. But Clara made it the task of her life to secure ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... word and honor, God helping me, that I will refrain from making any engagement elsewhere, that might interfere with the faithful and constant performance of the duties devolving on me at Oak Hill; that I will conscientiously keep my word as to the time of my return, when absent from my home at the academy; that I will yield a prompt and cordial obedience to all the rules and ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... is pleasing, nearly always, and more especially in its reactions is it pleasing. The actual performance of discovery may be fraught with hardships and with inconveniences and even with perils; as witness Christopher Columbus making his first voyage over this way in a walloping window-blind of a tub of a ship and his last one back with chains at his wrists and ankles; as witness ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... the soldier, "if to the word happiness you give the right interpretation. To me the performance of one's present duty is the only real thing that brings contentment. And duty need not always be stern and forbidding; to laugh and play and be merry may, at the proper time and in the proper circumstances, be a duty both to ourselves ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... compositions in the language, whether for thought, wit, or style. It is so capital and undeniable a proof of the author's talents, that Dr. Johnson, who did not like Swift, would not allow that he wrote it. It is hard that the same performance should stand in the way of a man's promotion to a bishopric, as wanting gravity, and at the same time be denied to be his, as having too much wit. It is a pity the Doctor did not find out some graver author, for whom he felt a critical kindness, on whom to ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... accomplish, making large innovations upon the ancient common law. If I differ from you as to her political rights, it is because I think that, from political as well as moral considerations, she is unfit for, indeed incapacitated from, the performance of most of the duties which are now performed by men as members of the body politic; but there are many avocations and professions now exclusively occupied by men which women are as well, perhaps better fitted to fill. I ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the show bills, and then began to get ready for the performance. With some old sheets they made a curtain across one corner of the barn, in front of the haymow. Nan helped with this, as she could use a needle, thread and thimble ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Meadow Brook • Laura Lee Hope
... why, in this little piece d'occasion, written for a performance in aid of the funds of the project for establishing a National Theatre as a memorial to Shakespear, I have identified the Dark Lady with Mistress Mary Fitton. First, let me say that I do not contend that the Dark Lady was Mary Fitton, ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... heavy load of meat and skins, and the animal evidently resented this, for he suddenly began to run and kick, scattering fresh meat along the road, to the merriment of the crowd. But the boy turned actor, and made it appear that it was at his wish the mule had given this diverting performance. He clung to the back of his plunging and braying mount like a circus rider, singing a Brave Heart song, and finally brought up amid the laughter and cheers of his companions. Far from admitting defeat, he ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... type, every attempt failed, until at last the spirits signified by knocks that he was a disturbing agency, and that while he remained all our efforts would fail. Upon this some of the company proposed that he should leave, of which invitation he took advantage with a sceptical sneer at the whole performance. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... and, as it turned out, the last performance of their circus took place that afternoon. Jerry felt a thrill of expectancy as they began to don their costumes. Once he thought he almost heard again that low, cheerful strumming that had seemed to beat upon his ears when he first saw the poster ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... countries the losses by such cessations from labour are little as compared with those due to the spirit which in England is called "ca'-canny" or the shirking of performance of work, and of sabotage, which means the deliberate destruction of machinery in operation. Everywhere the phenomenon has been observed that, with the highest wages known in the history of modern times, there has been an unmistakable lessening of efficiency, and that with an increase ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... the way in the performance of this task, and while he was engaged in it he could not help exclaiming, as his glance surveyed the wide forest, "Would that I could now perceive the golden bough which I must find before entering Hades; for in this ample forest, how can I begin to search for it?" Scarcely had ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... professors abroad: The necessity of justifying myself will excuse my vanity, when I tell the reader that I have near a hundred honorary letters from several parts of Europe (some as far as Muscovy) in praise of my performance. Besides several others, which, as I have been credibly informed, were open'd in the post-office and never sent me. 'Tis true the Inquisition in Portugal was pleased to burn my predictions, and condem the author and readers of ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... population, especially in rural areas, derives its living from agricultural activity, often on a subsistence basis. On a per capita basis, real income has stagnated at 1980 levels. Most observers attribute Paraguay's poor economic performance to political uncertainty, corruption, limited progress on structural reform, and deficient infrastructure. The economy rebounded between 2003 and 2007, posting modest growth each year, as growing world demand for commodities combined with high prices and favorable ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... was Bradshaw's Grove, where the entire party spent the day picnicking in the woods and, as reported by several reliable witnesses, playing games. It was not so strange that holidaying boys should play games; the amazing feature of the performance was that Peep O'Day, a man old enough to be grandfather to any of them, played with them, being by turns an Indian chief, a robber baron, and the driver of a stagecoach attacked by Wild ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... invisible from a distance of a few yards, both from their great velocity of movement and from not having the metallic lustre of the rest of the body. The expanded white tail covered more space than all the rest of the bird, and was evidently the grand feature in the performance. Whilst one was descending, the other would shoot up and come slowly down, expanded. The entertainment ended in a fight between the two performers; but whether the more beautiful or the more pugnacious were the accepted suitor, I know not. Another fine humming-bird ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... more annoyed as the time of their association seemed to grow more brief, Kirkwood approached the captain; but Stryker continued to be exhaustively absorbed in the performance ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... In fact, while they waited for Godolphin's promised letter, they made use of their leisure to count the chickens which had begun to hatch. The actor had agreed to pay the author at the rate of five dollars an act for each performance of the play, and as it was five acts long a simple feat of arithmetic showed that the nightly gain from it would be twenty-five dollars, and that if it ran every night and two afternoons, for matinees, the weekly return from it would be two hundred dollars. Besides this, Godolphin had once said, ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... it, another thing that I believe you cannot forget, and that is this, that there is an element in true life and in true service which dollars do not pay for. There is an element that is higher and finer which we usually think of when we think of the faithful performance of our work, the work allotted to us and the faithful keeping of business secrets that are intrusted to us. There is something finer than that. It would be supposed that the men of the learned profession were the men who ...
— Silver Links • Various
... sight, unless one were suspicious and looked closely, not a face; but to the Indian eyes were everywhere. Every house they passed—for they were in the residence section now—had its pair or multiple pairs peering out through the slats of a blind, or, as in a theatre preceding a performance, at the side of a drawn curtain. Like wildfire the news had spread; like turtles timid women folk had drawn close within their shells; yet everywhere curiosity they could not repress prompted them to take a last look before the storm. ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... is a rough diagram of the internal ear— the only auditory structure of our type (compare Rabbit, Sheet 7). To dissect out the auditory labyrinth without injury is a difficult performance, but its structure may be made out very satisfactorily by paring away successive slices of the otic mass. Such a section is shown by Figure 3b; through the translucent hyaline cartilage the utriculus and horizontal canal can be darkly seen. The ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... the quadrangle, took the book, and began to serve out pecks of oats like water, and to note them down with such exactness that the landlord, who stood watching him, was greatly pleased with his performance. "I wish to God," he said, "your master would not come, and that you would make up your mind to stop with me; you would lose nothing by the change, believe me. The hostler who has just quitted me came here eight months ago all in tatters, and as lean as a shotten herring, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... merits, and he thought it was his duty to set everything right that seemed to him wrong. He was very angry with me, because I would not join in his condemnation of the St. Petersburg dictionary. Icould not do that, because, without being blind to its defects, Iconsidered it a most valuable performance, highly creditable to all its collaborators; nay, Ifelt bound to say so publicly in England, because it was in England that this excellent work had been unduly condemned. This embittered my relations with Professor Goldstcker, and when the attacks by the ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... boughes, which we must take away, and that is the chiefe and most needfull point to be knowne in lopping. And we may well assure our selues, (as in all other Arts, so in this) there is a vantage and dexterity, by skill, and an habite by practise out of experience, in the performance hereof for the profit of mankind; yet doe I not know (let me speake it with the patience of our cunning Arborists) any thing within the compasse of humane affaires so necessary, and so little regarded, ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... Exactly what this performance meant, it would be difficult to say. Mr. Belcher, in his visits to the city, had frequented theaters and admired the villains of the plays he had seen represented. He had noticed figures upon the boards that reminded him of his own. His addresses to his ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... so Darwin was a naturalist for naturalists. It is when his writings are used in the critical and more exacting spirit with which we test the outfit for our own enterprise that we learn their full value and strength. Whether we glance back and compare his performance with the efforts of his predecessors, or look forward along the course which modern research is disclosing, we shall honour most in him not the rounded merit of finite accomplishment, but the creative power by ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... But if in ninety-two you had asked him for his masterpiece, his magnum opus, his life-work, he would mention nothing that he had written, but refer you, soberly and benignly, to that colossal performance, ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... and of several other incidents unchronicled by the press—of his going with the police at Old Manninglea when there was the bad riot, of his joining the Crown keepers when they went out to catch the poachers, of his wild performance when Mr. Creech's bull got loose. Goring bulls, bludgeoning men, tempest and flood—wherever and whatever the danger, he went straight to it. But it was not fair to her and the babes. His thrice precious life! And she grew cold as she thought that an accident—like a curtain descending when a ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... in com. Hertford, yeoman; my object being to ascertain the nature of some transaction he had with Milton, in July 1674, referred to in a bond which the former executed, dated the 27th of that month, for performance of the covenants contained in an indenture ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.04.06 • Various
... said Rosamond, who was in wild spirits, coming on a worn-out body and mind, and therefore perfectly unguarded. "Don't shake your head at me, Jenny, Archie is one of the family, and that makes you so, and I must tell you of his last performance. You know he is absolutely certain that his dear daughter is more infallible than all the Popes, even since the Council, or than anybody but himself, and that whatever goes wrong here is the consequence of Julius's ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The performance of Jean La Marche was highly relished by the critical boatmen, and drew from them that flattering mark of approval, so welcome to a vocalist,—an encore of the whole long ballad, from ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... feet of one of the labourer's mistaken friends. Morrison was wily, if not wise. He distinguished between oratory and logic. He kindled the flames of indignation and resentment with the one and fed them with the other. But in the performance of each duty he never lost ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... and she made her first appearance in a new oratorio. Her songs proved a principal feature in the performance. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... his native country. His next work was a statue of AEsculapius, larger than life; a short time before his death, when he saw this statue, he sorrowfully declared that "his progress had by no means corresponded with the indications of excellence in this performance of his youth." About this time he executed an Apollo and Daphne which was never entirely finished, and when twenty-two years old he completed a group of Daedalus and Icarus for the Senator Pisani. This was intended for an exterior decoration ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe |
