"Piece of work" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the front and rear of the house, and in the daytime the apartment was as light and cheerful as the rooms up stairs. Across the end, under the front windows, was a workbench, with a variety of carpenter's tools, few in number, and of the most useful kind. On the bench was an unfinished piece of work, whose intended use would have puzzled a philosopher, if several similar specimens of mechanism, completed and practically applied, had not appeared in the ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... the demoralisation of the island, intended the capture to be a swift piece of work, and Poussielgue had helped him by winning over some natives and French Knights to his side. The Grand Master, Von Hompesch, seems to have been utterly unnerved by the bewildering problems before him, and the cowardice and irresolution he displayed were a disgrace to the traditions of the Order. ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... very visualizing of Lampton as a girl, comical as it had been, had forced before his eyes another face and another form which he had been striving to forget. Whenever he was idle, and too often when he was busy over some piece of work which ought to have engrossed his entire thoughts, her haunting charm and beauty would suddenly become more real and vivid than the bright blues and greens and reds of the pigments on the white walls of the tomb upon which he was at work. With well-practised mind-control he had ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... night," he said; "it is a most charming piece of work. I am really extremely grateful to you for bringing it to my notice." He rose, and going to Carroll, put his hand on his shoulder. "My boy," he said, "I congratulate you. I should like to be your age, and to have written that play. Come to my theatre to-morrow and we will talk ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... the room were several persons with cloaks over their shoulders, and, hat in hand, sitting silent and solemn, evidently waiting the return of the commissioner. At the further end, in the deep window recess, sat two ladies. The back of one was turned towards him. The other was looking down at a piece of work on which she was engaged. Though jaded and looking very sad, her countenance was, he was certain, that of Mrs Armytage. His quick step roused both the ladies. They turned round. In an instant Edda's hand was placed in his. The rich ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... which simple device Tony, with his azure orbs, was made, as it were, to wink black and gaze blue. The general effect having thus been blocked in, the artist devoted himself to the finishing touches, and at last turned out a piece of work which old Samuel Ravenshaw himself would have failed to ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... purse, substituted for his own, and which contained his fifteen gold louis, was worked with gilt beads. The rings and tassels bore witness to Adelaide's good taste, and she had no doubt spent all her little hoard in ornamenting this pretty piece of work. It was impossible to say with greater delicacy that the painter's gift could only be repaid ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... it like a feather across the garden, you would be perfectly amazed. One of these days, when we have finished our present history, I will tell you that other one, which is equally worth the trouble. It is enough for the present to know, that a very complicated piece of work is being carried on there, in which almost all the muscles of the body take part at the same time, contracting and relaxing in turn, like so many springs, of which each either drives forward or holds ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... also found another piece of work for Aurelia. A dark cupboard was opened, revealing shelves piled with bundle of old letters and papers. There was a family tradition that one of the ladies of the Delavie family had been an attendant of Mary of Scotland for a short time, and had received from her a recipe for ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... we descended twelve steps into a large roughly-shaped grotto, carved wholly out of the living rock. Helena blasted it out when she was searching for the true Cross. She had a laborious piece of work, here, but it was richly rewarded. Out of this place she got the crown of thorns, the nails of the cross, the true Cross itself, and the cross of the penitent thief. When she thought she had found every thing and was about ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... have played and will play an important part; and that our interests have been served in more than one way by the possession of the islands. But our chief reason for continuing to hold them must be that we ought in good faith to try to do our share of the world's work, and this particular piece of work has been imposed upon us by the results of the war with Spain. The problem presented to us in the Philippine Islands is akin to, but not exactly like, the problems presented to the other great civilized powers ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... for a stout cavalier[79] Of twenty-five or thirty—(come, make haste) But for a child, what piece of work is here! I really, madam, wonder at your taste— (Come, sir, get in)—my master must be near: There, for the present, at the least, he's fast, And if we can but till the morning keep Our counsel—(Juan, mind, you ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... still and do nothing. He took hold of one end of his trunk and pulled it out of his tent, and, stumbling and floundering over the inequalities of the ground, he at last got it to a place which he supposed would be out of reach of a sudden flood, and the difficulties of this little piece of work assured him of the utter futility of attempting to move the bags in the darkness. He had a lantern, but that would be of little service on such a night and ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... another bottle of Port. The regulation couple of bottles had been consumed in equal partnership, and the Rev. Doctor and his host were free to pay a ceremonial visit to the drawing-room, where they were not expected. A piece of work of the elder ladies, a silken boudoir sofa-rug, was being examined, with high approval of the two younger. Vernon and Colonel De Craye had gone out in search of Crossjay, one to Mr. Dale's cottage, the other to call at the head and under-gamekeeper's. They were said to be strolling ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his promise, and, for whatever reason, did not even seek to justify or excuse himself, there came upon Mallard a strong mood of scorn, which for some hours enabled him to act as though all his anxiety were at an end. He set himself a piece of work; a flash of the familiar energy traversed his mind. He believed that at length his degradation was over, and that, come what might, he could now face it sturdily. Mere self-deception, of course. The sun veiled itself, and hope was ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... illustrations, while others forwarded budgets of stories, long and short. To sift the mass of matter, and bring the various portions of it into proper sequence, would have been a lengthy and difficult piece of work had I not been ably assisted by Mr. Harry L. Neligan, D.I.; but I leave it as a pleasant task to the Higher Critic to discover what portions of the book were done by him, and what should be ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... ship, and her paper plans looked very weak sometimes, as bills turned out to be larger than she had allowed for, or her patronage unaccountably dwindled. But if the difficulties were great, the girl's courage was greater. "It is simply a big piece of work," she assured herself, "and may be a long one, but there never was anything better worth doing. Every new business has difficulties, I mustn't think of them. I must just push and push and push—a little ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... on the service performed. In the first instance you will receive a retaining fee of 4000 marks ($1000) a year. You will be allowed 10 marks ($2.50) a day for living expenses, whether in active service or not. For each individual piece of work undertaken you will receive a bonus, the amount of which will vary with the importance of the mission. Living expenses accruing while out on work must not exceed 40 marks ($10) a day. The amount of the bonus you are to ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... European press was at that stage expressing doubt on this point.] In this connection I may say that I regard Zola as a man of very calm, methodical, judicial mind. He is no ranter, no lover of words for words' sake, no fiery enthusiast. Each of his books is a most laborious, painstaking piece of work. If he ever brings forward a theory he bases it on a mountain of evidence, and he invariably subordinates his feeling to his reason. I therefore venture to say that if he has come forward so prominently in this Dreyfus case it is not because he feels that wrong has ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... that it has so many borrowed words. 2. Tweed's defiant question was, "What are you going to do about it?" 3. The question ever asked and never answered is, "Where and how am I to exist in the Hereafter?" 4. Hamlet's exclamation was, "What a piece of work is man!" 5. The myth concerning Achilles is, that he was invulnerable in every ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... keep out, or else you are blown up, you are dismembered, Ralph: keep out, for I am about a roaring piece of work. ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... shelves over the bottom for fifty feet; so that when Ive been sitting at the foot of the first pitch, and my hounds have run into the caverns behind the sheet of water, theyve looked no bigger than so many rabbits. To my judgment, lad, its the best piece of work that Ive met with in the woods; and none know how often the hand of God is seen in the wilderness, but them that rove it ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... face its pinks, and the lips their carnation, and the eyes their blackness, very lively to see; and he adorned the hair very craftily with gold-leaf, and he painted the shirt of the adorable boy a very living crimson. It was a very beautiful piece of work with all these embellishments, and though there were some that said it was an idol and should not be tolerated, yet, for the most part, the Florentines liked it well enough, and it saved the cost of a new ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... just estimate thereof. And I should have told you with regard to those masters of the different crafts who are at the head of such houses as I have mentioned, that neither they nor their wives ever touch a piece of work with their own hands, but live as nicely and delicately as if they were kings and queens. The wives indeed are most dainty and angelical creatures! Moreover it was an ordinance laid down by the King that every man should follow his father's business ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... boots," he cried to his wife. "I will go and catch those young vipers. They shall pay for this piece of work!" And, drawing on the magic boots, ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... as, this little affair; an important transaction. The plural affairs has a distinctive meaning, including all activities where men deal with one another on any considerable scale; as, a man of affairs. A job is a piece of work viewed as a single undertaking, and ordinarily paid for as such. Trade and commerce may be used as equivalents, but trade is capable of a more limited application; we speak of the trade of a ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... cannot settle them decisively, for it is a body which mirrors only to a certain extent the real mind and temper of the constituencies represented in it. One thing is certain, that only by allowing fullest possible play to the principle of "local option" could any wholly new piece of work on the part of revisionists, however excellent it might be in itself considered, find acceptance. To allow features introduced into the body of an existing service to be accounted optional, would indeed be impossible, without gendering the very wildest confusion. Upon such points the Church ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... of old shoes at Callerton. George was on one occasion favoured with the shoes of his sweetheart to sole. One can imagine the pleasure with which he would linger over such a piece of work, and the pride with which he would execute it. A friend of his, still living, relates that, after he had finished the shoes, he carried them about with him in his pocket on the Sunday afternoon, and that from time to time he would pull them out and hold them up, exclaiming, "what a capital ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... they found the gifts for Odysseus all set in order against his departure. Then Alcinous brought a golden goblet, beautifully fashioned, and richly chased, and bade Arete bring a coffer to hold the gifts. The coffer was displayed, and was in itself a gift of no mean value, being a choice piece of work. ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... A piece of work, as minute and fine as that of an engraver upon stone, is slowly executed on my person; and their lean hands harrow and worry ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... "soft-strong." By many children the piano is regarded as a great nuisance, the swallower-up of time which could be much more agreeably occupied, and is accordingly shown much less respect than is given to a phonograph or a musical-box. Yet the modern piano is a very clever piece of work, admirably adapted for the production of sweet melody—if properly handled. The two forms of piano now generally used are the upright, with vertical sound-board and wires, and the grand, ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... city, eh?" muttered the veteran. "This is an important capture, Captain. I must compliment you on a very pretty piece of work. I shall ...
— The Liberty Boys Running the Blockade - or, Getting Out of New York • Harry Moore
... of the Harrow schoolboys, but it will hardly satisfy those who consider that accuracy, lucidity and ease are essential to a good translation. Its carelessness is absolutely astounding, and it is difficult to understand how a publisher like Mr. Routledge could have allowed such a piece of work to issue from his press. 'Il descend avec le sourire d'un Machiavel' appears as 'he descends into the smile of a Machiavelli'; George Sand's remark to Flaubert about literary style, 'tu la consideres ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... who was terribly frightened when he felt the Ogre's hand touching his head, as he had already touched his brothers'. But when the Ogre felt the golden crowns, he said, "Indeed, I was near making a nice piece of work of it. I see that I drank too much in ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... business ships of your daily life as the Saturday draws to its close, leaving them to ride peacefully upon the flow or the ebb until Monday morning comes again. O the delight, the lull, of feeling: "No need to settle this question—no need to think of this piece of work—for a whole long, sweet thirty-six hours!" Why do you take Sunday papers, to keep your nerves astir with business on the Lord's own day of rest? Why do you add up and consult and consider in the pauses of the sermon, or make opportunity for a ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... I'll confess to you candidly, Trebell, that I don't know of any man available for this piece of work but you. ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... true. As we had never been thrown much together I knew but little of him. I had no personal objection to him, and certainly could have none to his corps. I was expected to do an extremely dangerous piece of work, and knowing the Sixth Corps well—my cavalry having campaigned with it so successfully in the Shenandoah Valley, I naturally preferred it, and declined the Fifth for no other reason. But the Sixth could not be given, and the turn ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... wrong; he put his stockings on wrongside out, tied his shoes in a hard knot, pulled on his pantaloons with the back part before, and drew his arms through his jacket upside down. Did you ever hear of such a piece of work? ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... is typical of all that is best in the translation. It is a thoroughly accurate piece of work, failing only where Wyatt's edition of the text is unsatisfactory. Translations like 'gave vent to secret thoughts of strife' and 'thou hast prevailed in the rush of battle' show that the work is the outcome of long thought and deep appreciation. At times the translation, as here, verges on a ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... as the band with hoarse laughter cried aloud, "That would be a fine piece of work if they all had ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... about with Professor Rosello. For the boy fish still kept up his trapeze work—at least, the greater part of it—he did his usual tank work, and in addition he rehearsed each day with Lizzie. He was not yet quite ready to put that act on in public. He wanted to make it a finished piece of work, with no chance for failure, as far as ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... ice-calorimeter (1870), the vapour calorimeter (1887), and the filter pump (1868), which was worked out in the course of a research on the separation of the platinum metals. Mention must also be made of another piece of work of a rather different character. Travelling was one of his favourite relaxations, and in 1846 he paid a visit to Iceland. There he investigated the phenomena of the geysers, the composition of the gases coming ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Another piece of work that Lumley gave me to superintend at this time was the construction of a water-wheel and dam to drive our pit-saw. You see, I had a turn for mechanics, and was under the impression that my powers in that way were greater than they afterwards turned out to be. We were sitting ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... H.H. Armstead, R.A., and is gracefully carried out entirely in white marble. The only fault in the memorial is that there is too much work in proportion to the size of the tablet. The topmost portion above the projecting cornice is a charming piece of work, illustrating Charity, but too high above the ordinary visitor's head to be seen or appreciated as it should, and the group rather ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse
... He reflected that in the ordinary course of affixing them to the envelope he would put them to his lips in any case. It was not sense to do the same piece of work twice over. ...
— If Winter Don't - A B C D E F Notsomuchinson • Barry Pain
... their visiting list in order have comparatively little work. But those who are not in the habit of entertaining on a general scale, and yet have a large unassorted visiting list, will have quite a piece of work ahead of them, and cannot begin ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... blue mountain in the distance. Around the entire scene, in a semicircle, was the word "Illusion," singularly wrought into the shafts of light, and undecipherable without the closest scrutiny. The figure of an old man in the foreground was contemplating the scene. It was a crude piece of work, but impressive. There was a large mahogany cabinet, mounted with brass; but its double doors were locked and its drawers immovable. Beside the bed was a worm-eaten door, and in idle curiosity Paul tried the handle. It opened easily, revealing a spacious closet, with hooks and shelves. Throwing the ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... began his statement. He was full of smiles and nods and pleasant talk, gestures indicative of a man who had a piece of work before him in which he could take delight. It is always satisfactory to see the assurance of a cock crowing in his own farm-yard, and to admire his easy familiarity with things that are awful to a stranger ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... being as particular as a girl about his nails; but he felt that with all his efforts he was but a bumpkin compared with certain other men—Rodney Temple, for example—who never took any pains at all. Looking at her now, her pure, exquisite profile bent over her piece of work, while the sun struck coppery gleams from her masses of brown hair, he felt as he had often felt in rooms filled with fragile specimens of art—flower-like cups of ancient glass, dainty groups in Meissen, mystic ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... marry you," Leah wrote. "I am going to set you free. I pray God that I may never see your dear face again, for this is the hardest piece of work I have ever done in my life. Mr. Herrick has been talking to me; he has made me see things in a different light. I know now that I am no fit wife for you, my life has been too soiled and degraded. In experience I ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... after the colonel whose regiment held it. Fourteen years later there was another and more famous Gorham's Post, on the south shore of the St Lawrence near Quebec, opposite Wolfe's Cove. The arming of this battery was a stupendous piece of work. The guns had to be taken round by sea, out of range of the Island Battery, hauled up low but very dangerous cliffs, and then dragged back overland another mile and a quarter. The directing officer was Colonel Gridley, who drew the official British maps and ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... rich fool's splendid house and park certain unmistakable traces of a living nobleman's estate and to start in genuine amazement and regret when the world insisted on identifying the nobleman and the fool. And when Pope had once done a good piece of work, he had all an artist's reluctance to destroy it. He kept bits of verse by him for years and inserted them into appropriate places in his poems. This habit it was that brought about perhaps the gravest charge that has ever been made against Pope, that of accepting L1000 to suppress a satiric ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... in a voice almost choaked with terror; 'What shall I do! What shall I do! Here is a fine piece of work! Nothing but misfortunes! Nothing but dead people, and dying people! Oh! I shall go distracted! I ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... body shall be sustained, and the material world becomes the shadow of the spiritual. The former is made to serve the latter, and man's free effort lifts him into a higher region of thought, and into a larger field of action. The more mind there is put into a piece of work, says Channing, the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... me then what a thing like this might do to a name. You know, Mag, every bit of recognition an actress steals from the world is so much capital. It isn't like the old graft when you had to begin new every time you took up a piece of work. And your name—the name the world knows—and its knowing it makes it worth having like everything—that name is the sum of every scheme you've planned, of every time you've got away with the goods, of every laugh you've lifted, of every bit of cleverness you've ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... divided their gang and started a fake fight up at one end, to draw us there, while they worked against our big herd at the other end. It was a slick piece of work. No wonder they shot more than they hit. They wanted to keep us away from the ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... a good-enough piece of work, for my day and time," laughed the father. "But I want a fine finish on you. While you're looking around for your life-work, how about doing a little unpaid ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... by making only money he would be killing his living. Do we not speak of the call of a missionary from an unshepherded flock to a large city parish as a call to "a wider sphere of usefulness"? When you or I conceive of any piece of work as "important" is it not because it involves either great numbers or great sums of money? Then we hear much today of the need for leaders. The need could not be exaggerated, but does not this lack exist, in part, because ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... to the assembling of the motor. In October, 1913, it required nine hours and fifty-four minutes of labour time to assemble one motor; six months later, by the moving assembly method, this time had been reduced to five hours and fifty-six minutes. Every piece of work in the shops moves; it may move on hooks on overhead chains going to assembly in the exact order in which the parts are required; it may travel on a moving platform, or it may go by gravity, but the point is that there is no lifting or trucking ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... satisfaction in making things, in looking over some concrete piece of work accomplished when the day ends. It is a satisfaction that belongs to the artisan. Is it not probable that many said that it was a great pity when Jesus gave up so useful a trade as His? To them He seemed to be ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... a remarkably clever piece of work and would assuredly have won the prize. It was too clever, in fact. It contained information which astonished me—information which could not be obtained from the school library. It was information, in fact, such as I myself had obtained after special research, and which had been embodied ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... Ryder called the Three Black Crows to him at this juncture, one certain afternoon in the month of April. They were his best agents. The plums that the "Company" had at its disposal generally went to the trio, and if any man could "put through" a dangerous and desperate piece of work, Strokher, Hardenberg and Ally Bazan were ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... be an awful piece of work to pack off all those contraptions, and it strikes me it is pretty hard on the missionaries. There's a gravel pit down back of the Bolton place, ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... I had assaulted a Mayor at Oxford; I had parted with my cloak, which contained life and death in the lining of it, to a stranger; and more than all, I had given my love to a fellow who, if the Welshman was right, was a horrible traitor and Papist! A fine piece of work, verily, and little wonder if my conceit was somewhat ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... painting was the decoration of a pope's chapel in Rome and the wall of a room in Venice. Michael Angelo wrought the one, and Tintoret, the dyer's son, the other. And the little 'Dutch landscape, which you put over your sideboard today, and between the windows tomorrow, is' no less a glorious 'piece of work than the extents of field and forest with which Benozzo has made green and beautiful the once melancholy arcade of the Campo Santo at Pisa,' ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... task which took him nearly twenty years to complete: a painstaking treatise on the Sphaeriaceae of Vaucluse, that singular family of fungi which cover fallen leaves and dead twigs with their blackish fructifications; a remarkable piece of work, full of the most valuable documentation, as were the theses whose subjects I have just detailed; but without belittling the fame of their author, one may say that another, in his place, might have acquitted ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... particular. Therefore, puzzlers who are given to the use of words of double meaning, or words whose reputation is shady in the slightest respect, so to speak, will please bear this in mind and not in such a way spoil an otherwise excellent piece of work which they may desire ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... rather than his gay, good-tempered smile. The face of this man was concerned with the past, not with the future; and yet on its surface it was a good likeness, as Ben said, and had both power and distinction. "I think it a cracker-jack piece of work," he ended. ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... majestic but spoilt works undoubtedly the noblest in design is that of the Death of the Blessed Virgin. The Last Supper is also exceedingly beautiful, and the Incredulity of S. Thomas is a splendid piece of work. But in the course of ages these latter works especially have suffered grievously, as of course has ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... a far finer piece of work and is certainly the most elaborate chantry in the cathedral. It displays no fewer than fifty-five richly-groined niches, all different in pattern; only two of them are tenanted, and these by very recent figures, on either ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant
... be described as a species of design by description or by dictation. The attempt is made, by indicating the conditions under which a given piece of work was executed, to present to the student the same problem that the workman of old was called upon to solve. The student can then compare his own solution of it with the one that has come down to him, thus receiving correction and guidance in his work from the hand of ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol 1, No. 11, November, 1895 - The Country Houses of Normandy • Various
... Evadne, whom she watched with fear as well as with interest, doubting much what would come of all that was unaccustomed about the girl. The sweet grave face and half shut eyes appealed to her pathetically that afternoon in particular, as Evadne sat silently beside her, busy with a piece of work she had brought. Lady Clan thought her lips too firm; as she grew older, she feared her mouth would harden in expression if she were not happy—and the old lady inwardly prayed Heaven that she might be saved from that; prayed ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... child could bring to that sacrament. Alas! the wedding was never to be; and the rich work, into which her delicate fingers had knit so many maiden dreams and hopes and fears, was offered for sale in the resort of strangers. It could not have been want only that induced her to put this piece of work in the market, but the feeling, also, that the time never again could return when she would have need of it. I had no desire to purchase such a melancholy coverlet, but I could well enough fancy why she would wish to part with what must be ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... as "The Short Lay of Sigurd."[26] This is one of the most important of the Northern heroic lays, in every respect; and, among other reasons, as an example of definite artistic calculation and study, a finished piece of work. It shows the difference between the Northern and the Western standards of epic measurement. The poem is one that gives the whole of the tragedy in no longer space than is used in the poem of Maldon for the adventures of a few hours of battle. There are 288 ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... When they find birds they draw to their points in the best possible style; stiffen out—and wait. It is now, according to all good ethics, up to the Man. And the Man and his companions go right on by, paying absolutely no attention either to the situation or one's own magnificent piece of work! What is one to conclude? That our early training is all wrong? that we are at one experience to turn apostate to the settled and only correct order of things? Or that our masters are no gentlemen? That is a pretty difficult thing, an impossible thing, to ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... a classic? Well, it is a large word that. You mean by a classic a piece of work which passes into the permanent literature of the country. As a rule, you only know your classics when they are in their graves. Who guessed it of Poe, and who of Borrow? The Roman Catholics only canonize their saints a century after their death. So with our classics. The choice lies with our ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... including the time spent on the designs) he finished gloriously the work, the magnitude of which one must see to comprehend. On All Saints' Day, 1512, the ceiling was uncovered, and Michael Angelo was hailed, little though he cared for such clamorous hailing, as a painter indeed. For this piece of work Michael Angelo ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... a Villa, down in the City, is so vivid a representation of all that pleased a whole type of the city-bred and poor nobles of Italy at the time when Browning wrote the Dramatic Lyrics that I cannot omit it. It is an admirable piece of work, crowded with keen descriptions of nature in the Casentino, and of life in the streets of Florence. And every piece of description is so filled with the character of the "Italian person of quality" who describes ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... away, at last, to the Alps; worn out and in despondent reaction after all this excitement. He spent a month at Macugnaga, reading Shakespeare and trying to draw boulders; drifting gradually back into strength enough to attack the next piece of work, the study of Turner sites on the St. Gothard, where he made the drawings afterwards engraved in "Modern Painters." In August, J.D. Harding was going to Venice, and arranged for a meeting at Baveno, on the Lago Maggiore. ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... make the exchange, and regard the transaction in the light of an omen, an epoch. I have been craving for something different from the facts of Bordereau, who has been my companion all these days. A solid little piece of work, by the way, which often set me wondering whether our British public would care to pay four shillings for a technical account of the climate, history and natural products of some remote Egyptian oasis. But perhaps the cost of production has been ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... has done a fine big piece of work. * * * One might quote at length from the old doctor's homely philosophy. The book can not be read without the keenest enjoyment and at the end of the story one feels that the people are old friends, real flesh and blood characters, so human ...
— The Uncrowned King • Harold Bell Wright
... railroad, of the village against the town. A conception, you will perceive, which is opposed to that of Lenin and the orthodox Communists, and which explains why official Bolshevism is not over-enthusiastic about Pilniak. The Crossways is a good piece of work (it can hardly be called a story) and it just gives a glimpse of that ambitious vastness of scale on which Pilniak was soon to ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... rear, and before the final lap is half over has retired from the race, covered with glory for his useful piece of work. But anxious eyes are turned to the other three. The Londoner holds his own, and Bloomfield's rush up seems to have come to nothing. About a quarter of a mile from home an ominous silence drops upon the crowd, and for a few moments Willoughby is too disheartened to cheer. ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... strongly influenced by object lessons than by theories. The effect on men of such an object lesson as the following will be apparent. Suppose that two men, named respectively Smart and Honest, are at work by the day and receive the same pay, say 20 cents per hour. Each of these men is given a new piece of work which could be done in one hour. Smart does his job in four hours (and it is by no means unusual for men to soldier to this extent). Honest does his in ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... piece of work," said Lionel. "He has been coming it a little too strong for my father, it seems! Well, poor Caroline will be let alone, that is one good thing; but I am afraid he will go and get into some tremendous scrape, if it is only for the sake of spiting ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... novel The Manxman (London: William Heinemann) is a big piece of work altogether. But, on finishing the tale, I turned back to the beginning and read the first 125 pages over again, and then came to a stop. I wish that portion of the book could be dealt with separately. It cannot: for it but sets the problem in human ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... admit inferiority or lack of interest on the part of the splendid rural boy. He is filling the big jobs in our cities today, and will as long as the cities last. The teen age teacher in the rural school needs to master himself for his task. He is doing a bigger piece of work than his brother of the city school. He is preparing men ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... laughing, happy little fellow he once was, till she has not a heart to reprove him. And all this day she has toiled with a sick and fretful baby in her lap, and her little shivering, hungry boy at her side, whom Mary's patient artifices cannot always keep quiet; she has toiled over the last piece of work which she can procure from the shop, for the man has told her that after this he can furnish no more; and the little money that is to come from this is already portioned out in her own mind, and after that she has no ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... his services, but who demands also solid rewards. But, on the other hand, it may be urged, that it is a sordid thing to argue about money, when the question is about showing gratitude to a benefactor; and that the claimant is not asking wages for a piece of work, but honour such as is due for an ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... "that's a piece of work well done." Then he tossed the hazel-nut under the roots of an oak-tree near by, and went ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... of crazy saints, and the people who met it crossed themselves piously. . . . And Yakov was very much pleased that it was so creditable, so decorous, and so cheap, and no offence to anyone. As he took his last leave of Marfa he touched the coffin and thought: "A good piece of work!" ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... will also be necessary for you to consult "The Monthly Book of Fashions," and to imitate, as closely as possible, those elegant and artistical productions of the gifted burin, which show to perfection "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties!" &c.—You must not consult your own ease and taste (if you have any), for nothing is so vulgar as to suit your convenience in these matters, as you should remember ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... attention on the discourse, and think only such thoughts as he would like to remember at the day of judgment. As we walked out of the yard, I caught sight of her twinkling black eyes over the window-curtain. Such a piece of work too as she makes getting up out of her chair! How handsome and noble he looked, fit for an emperor! Dreadful red, though, by the time we got sot down in meeting; for our pew is a good way up, and his boots squeaked, and we'd heard that all the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... drew a long breath and shook her head. "Abominable," she repeated, almost as though such an abominable piece of work demanded respect. "Ach! You leave old Zweifarbe's studio," she exclaimed. "Send your easel over to me. You want to make some money? Good. There are many artists here in DAYsseldorf who say I cannot paint; there is not one who will say I have not made ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... conjuring, the use of words independent of ideas. Her native superiority caused her to despise the art, but the necessity for employing it at intervals subjected her to fits of admiration of the conjurer, it being then evident that a serviceable piece of work, beyond her capacity to do, was lightly performed by another. The lady's practical intelligence admitted the service, and at the same time her addiction to the practical provoked disdain of so flimsy a genius, which was identified by her with the genius of the Irish ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Pollux, is a fine piece of work, and Pontius says you executed the drapery without a model. I said, and I repeat, that ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... head-sails fairly fill, when the main-yard and the yards above it can be swung readily, and the tacks and sheets hauled in. If the crew are too few in number, or too slow at their work, and the sails get fairly filled on the new tack, it is a fatiguing piece of work enough to "board" the tacks and sheets, as it is called. You are pulling at one end of the rope, but the gale is tugging at the other. The advantages of lungs are all against you, and perhaps the only thing to be done is to put the helm down a little, and set the sails shaking again ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... piece of work well and thoroughly done, pick a busy man. The man of leisure postpones and procrastinates, and is ever making preparations and "getting things in shape"; but the ability to focus on a thing and do ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... submitted to Her Majesty, who criticised all the details with minute care, and constantly suggested improvements. The frieze, which encircled the base of the monument, was in itself a very serious piece of work. "This," said Mr. Scott, "taken as a whole, is perhaps one of the most laborious works of sculpture ever undertaken, consisting, as it does, of a continuous range of figure-sculpture of the most elaborate description, in the highest alto-relievo of life-size, of more than ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... by the kitchen table, clear-starching one of her caps—a piece of work which she always performed with her own hands. She moved one side to make room for Susy's bird-cage, but said she did not approve of washing canaries; she thought it must be ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... my father; "your world and my world are not the same. Books for me, and men for you. Neither Kitty nor I can change our habits, even for friendship: she has a great piece of work to finish, and so have I. Mountains cannot stir, especially when in labor; but Mahomet can come to the mountain ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... work than he happens to choose. All this increases the readableness of the book. But it does not all increase its importance, and the fact is that not even the greatest of the Lives is as fine a piece of work as the Preface to the Shakespeare. Moreover, the work as a whole suffers from a disadvantage from which the Shakespeare is conspicuously exempt. It deals very largely with matters in which scarcely ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... out. Well, I've never borne him an ounce of malice for his delusion. Maybe at this very moment he still honestly thinks himself the author of that play; but I've always stood by him, and always will. Many's the piece of work I've put in his hands; and I will say he's never failed me on his side, either. Old Reliable Dav, that's what I call him; Old Reliable Dav, and I'd trust him with every dollar I've got in the world." He finished with a clap of good fellowship on Davenport's shoulder, and then fell upon the remainder ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... how it wastes and scatters itself, how it raises up obstacles to itself and destroys itself in its ignorance and blindness. It needs a brain, this irresistible force, lest in its ignorance it should resist itself. What a piece of work is man! says the poet. Yes: but what a blunderer! Here is the highest miracle of organization yet attained by life, the most intensely alive thing that exists, the most conscious of all the organisms; and yet, how wretched are his brains! Stupidity made sordid and cruel ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... as they could wish. She said she was forty-five years old, and had ten children living, but the four eldest were grown up. The eldest of those she had with her was a little girl of about thirteen; she said, in answer to a question from papa, that the children had made a great piece of work at parting with their father, but the woman herself seemed quite cheerful and satisfied with ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... boyish piece of work, undertaken with his brother Charles) appeared under the title Poems by Two Brothers (1827). In 1830, and again in 1832, he published a small volume containing such poems as "The Palace of Art," "The Lotos-Eaters," "The Lady of Shalott" and "The Miller's Daughter"; but the critics of the ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... "penetrating countenance" indexed a brain as direct as a drill, and as inflexible. A loyal and affectionate comrade, preferring to enter upon a task with his chosen mate, he nevertheless could not wait inactive if official duties prevented co-operation, but would set out alone on any piece of work on which he had set his heart. The portrait of Bass which we possess conveys an impression of alert and vigorous intelligence, of genial temper and hearty relish. It is the picture of a man who was abundantly ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... raised her head suddenly at the sound of footsteps. "Ah, Archbishop, I was just calling Mr. Meryton's attention to this wonderful Botticell——" (she looked at it more closely)——"this wonderful Dana Gibson. A beautiful piece of work, is it not?" The intruders passed on to the supper-room, and they ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... acquaintance which might very profitably ripen into intimacy, he would have each of these poets treated in the whole measure of his work as many or most of them had been topically or partially treated by the quotational critics. Some one here made him observe that he was laying out rather a large piece of work, and to this he answered, Not at all; the work had been already done. Asked then, somewhat derisively, why it need be done over again, he explained, with a modesty and patience which restored him to the regard he had lost by the derision (all had impartially ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells |
