"Superlative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... devour me; for whom do we labour? I know that we are obliged to act as we do; I know, too, that we cannot do better; but should we rejoice at the fatal necessity which pushes us on to exert an action comparatively good and which will unavoidably end in a superlative evil?" ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... claims to preeminence among recognized forms of verse will soon convince any intelligent reader of its superlative worth and beauty. ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... a third day's work in these parts as soon as possible. I should like to get to the third degree of comparison, and perhaps the superlative will turn up trumps for me somehow. Are there many more young women in the place as pretty as Mrs. Winburn? This marrying complaint is very catching, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... barefacedly called a bed, but which is nothing more nor less than a beggarman's shakedown, where the smell, the heat, the filth, and above all, the vermin, are intolerable to the very farthest stretch of the superlative degree. As soon as their eyes begin to close here, they are roused by the bell-man, and summoned at the hour of twelve—first washing themselves as aforesaid, in the lake, and then adjourning to the prison which I am about to describe. There is not on earth, with the exception of pagan rites,—and ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... divinity is kalou, which, while used to denote the people's highest notion of a god, is also constantly heard as a qualificative of any thing great or marvellous, or, according to Hazlewood's Dictionary, 'anything superlative, whether good or bad.'... Often the word sinks into a mere exclamation, or becomes an expression of flattery. 'You are a kalou!' or, 'Your countrymen are gods!' is often uttered by the natives, ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... of spirits and heartiest of moods, though that may be an unnecessary superlative regarding a lady who had never been seen either moody or out of spirits since her cradle. She embraced Agatha warmly, and even went through the same ceremony with her brother Nathanael, which he bore with exemplary fortitude, but shook his hair after it, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... slinking, furtive, ever on a futile prowl. He especially engaged the interest of Tom McNeil, who said admiringly, as I, too, looked through the bars, "Ain't he a prompt little cuss?" I felt that with Tom it was the fascination of opposites; he never could understand superlative energy. ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... was the friendship of Hermia and Helena. Before he had got further than to realize this, there wheeled round amongst the dancers a lady whose tournure he recognized well. She was Paula; and to the young man's vision a superlative something distinguished her from all the rest. This was not dress or ornament, for she had hardly a gem upon her, her attire being a model of effective simplicity. Her ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... impermanencies of that ancient age, and left standing but the palaces built upon the rock of the Soul. The Soul made the Upanishads, as it mide Paradise Lost; it made the former in the Golden Age, and the latter in this Age of Iron; the former through men gifted with superlative vision; the latter through a blind old bard. Therein lies the difference: all our bards, our very greatest, have been blind,—Dante and Shakespeare, no less than Milton. Full-flowing Time washed away the ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... corruption in pick-axe, Mid. Eng. pikeys, Old Fr. piquois, picquois, "a pickax" (Cotgrave), from the verb piquer. The word posthumous has changed its meaning through folk-etymology. It represents the Latin superlative postumus, latest born. By association with humus, ground, earth, it came to be used of a child born, or a work published, after its author's death, a meaning which the derivatives of postumus have in all ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... Sup noktomangxi. Superb belega. Superficial suprajxa. Superficies suprajxo. Superfluity superfluo. Superfluous superflua. Superhuman superhoma. Superintend observi, zorgi pri. Superior supera. Superior, a superulo. Superiority supereco. Superlative (gram.) superlativo. Supernatural supernatura. Supernumerary ekstrulo. Superscription surskribo. Supersede anstatauxi. Superstition supersticxo. Superstitious supersticxa. Supervise observi. Supper noktomangxo. Supplant anstatauxi, uzurpi. Supple ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... moreover, it occupied most of the time of the child and taught him to be industrious and proficient, and to regard life with much more seriousness than does the home of to-day. The home or the family, therefore, is not the great superlative factor that it ought to be in the training and education of ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... has 40,000 new paletots, he does not mean that he has got that number packed up in a box. If required to do so, he will supply them to that extent,—or to any further extent. A long row of figures in trade is but an elegant use of the superlative. If a tradesman can induce a lady to buy a diagonal Osnabruck cashmere shawl by telling her that he has 1,200 of them, who is injured? And if the shawl is not exactly a real diagonal Osnabruck cashmere, what harm is done as long as the lady gets the value ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... enjoy the supper, which was most agreeable, but far more the conversation. Among the topics discussed, what gave me most delight was to hear your name mentioned by the Captain; nor was this all, for he still added to my pleasure, nay, to a superlative degree, by saying that, in the art of painting he held you to be sole and without peer in the whole world, and that so you were esteemed at Rome. I could not have been better pleased. You see that my judgment is confirmed; and so you must not deny that you are peerless, when I write it, since I ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... sir," said Johnson, "that is not so extraordinary: the King of Siam sent ambassadors to Louis the Fourteenth: but Louis the Fourteenth sent none to the King of Siam." This topic also enjoys another distinction. It is one of many proofs of the superlative excellence of Johnson's talk that it cannot be imitated. Hundreds of clever men have made the attempt, but, with the exception of a single sentence, not one of these manufactured utterances could impose for an instant upon a real Johnsonian. ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... The love of the superlative is deeply seated in the American mind. It is based on no very careful survey of the existing world. It is a conclusion to which it is easy to jump. I remember one week, traveling through the Mississippi Valley, stopping every night in some town that had something which was advertised as the biggest ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... are compared, the comparative and not the superlative degree should be used; thus, "Mary is the older of the two"; "John is the stronger of the two"; "Brown is the richer of the two, and the richest man in the city"; "Which is the more desirable, health or wealth?" "Which ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... haggled about the price;[23] or the statue, while stepping into his niche, would turn round on the author to assist his invention. A patron of Peter Motteux, dissatisfied with Peter's colder temperament, composed the superlative dedication to himself, and completed the misery of the author by subscribing it with Motteux's name![24] Worse fared it when authors were the unlucky hawkers of their own works; of which I shall give a remarkable instance in MYLES DAVIES, a learned ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... superlative of beauty, wealth, and position, was married to the highest noble in the Three Kingdoms. Those who talked about such matters said that their progeny were exactly like their parents,—a peculiarity of the aristocratic and wealthy. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... majority of the most populous and powerful historical peoples of the world have been located on soils that thirst for water, may find its explanation in the intrinsic value of arid soils. From Babylon to the United States is a far cry; but it is one that shouts to the world the superlative merits of the soil that begs for water. To learn how to use the "desert" is to make ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... practical-minded man that he is, he calls it conversion—being turned around. Ask Peter what it is and, as he looks back upon his old benighted condition, he cries that it is like coming out of the darkness into a marvelous light. Ask Paul what it is and, with his love of superlative figures, he cries that it is like being dead and being raised again with a great resurrection. Ask John what it is and, with his mystical spirit, he says that it is being born again. See the variety that comes from vitality—no stiff methods, ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... me honor, madam. It is the superlative felicity of my sublunary existence to congratulate you on this auspicious occasion," replied Mr. Sneed, as he gently pressed the gloved hand ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... natural gift. Social in its nature, it respects everything which tends to unite men. It delights in measure.[426] The love of beauty is mainly the love of measure or proportion. The person who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat, puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to be loved, love measure. You must have genius, or a prodigious usefulness, if you will hide the want of measure. This perception comes in to polish and perfect the parts of ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... education of women—and we may be content to accept the adjective without qualification, since it is after all only a comparative, and leaves us free to employ the superlative—may be and often is of very real value in certain cases and because of certain local conditions, such as the great numerical inequality of the sexes in nearly all civilized countries. It is valuable for that proportion of women, whatever it be, who, through ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... Chavis and Cazotte "Story of Bhazad (!) the Impatient." The name is Persian, Bih (well, good) Zad (born). In the adj. bih we recognize a positive lost in English and German which retain the comparative (bih-tar better) and superlative (bih-tarinbest). ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Despite the superlative snappiness of Mr. Silberfarb's dress-suits his establishment was a loft over a delicatessen, approached by a splintery stairway along which hung shabby signs announcing the upstairs offices of "J. L. & T. J. O'Regan, ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... on all things by the use of three terms: "out of date," "antiquated," "superannuated."[*] A man, a woman, or a piece of furniture might be "out of date"; next, by a greater degree of imperfection, "antiquated"; but as to the last term, it was the superlative of contempt. The first might be remedied, the second was hopeless, but the third,—oh, better far never to have left the void of nothingness! As to praise, a single word sufficed him, doubly and trebly uttered: "Charming!" was the positive of his admiration. "Charming, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... of Chicago offered an unlimited sum for the provision of the University of that city with a "superlative" telescope. And it happened, fortunately, that a pair of glass discs, nearly 42 inches in diameter, and of perfect quality, were ready at hand. They had been cast by Mantois for the University of Southern California, when the erection of a great observatory on Wilson's Peak was ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... Saved her husband Nabal, when that he Should have been slain. And lo, Esther also By counsel good deliver'd out of woe The people of God, and made him, Mardoche, Of Assuere enhanced* for to be. *advanced in dignity There is nothing *in gree superlative* *of higher esteem* (As saith Senec) above a humble wife. Suffer thy wife's tongue, as Cato bit;* *bid She shall command, and thou shalt suffer it, And yet she will obey of courtesy. A wife is keeper ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... offered reward of ten pound, which was afterwards increased to twenty pound. Notwithstanding the most superlative, and, I may say, supernat'ral exertions on the part of this parish,' said Bumble, 'we have never been able to discover who is his father, or what was his ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... conscious, as at the time of our visit to the Burge Plantation, of the superlative soft sweetness of the ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... highest building, the largest steamer, the fastest train, the book reaching the widest circulation have, in America, a clear title to respect. When the just functions of things are as yet not discriminated, the superlative in any direction seems naturally admirable. Again, many possessions, if they do not make a man better, are at least expected to make his children happier; and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions. An experimental materialism, spontaneous and divorced from reason and from everything ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... American democrat had, of course, another political duty besides that of securing the election of himself and his friends. His political system was designed, not merely to deprive him of grievances, but to offer him superlative opportunities. In taking the utmost advantage of those opportunities, he was not only fulfilling his duty to himself, but he was helping to realize the substantial purpose of democracy. Just as it was the function of the national organization to keep itself undefiled ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... is nothing less than atrocious; and, in our judgment, the Adapter's actual purpose in putting it forth is to make his own superlative goodness seem proved by a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... Thomson has gone over to Canada, and oh! wonder of wonders! Astley's has removed to Sadler's Wells!! The pyrotechnics of the former have gone on a visit to the hydraulics of the latter, the red fire of Astley's has come in contact with the real water of the Wells, yet, marvel superlative! the unnatural meeting has been successful—there has not been a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... all the prime elements of perfect manhood, possibly no two persons may agree; yet none would deny that such was the manhood of Jesus, and none would question that there are two or three moral qualities which he exhibited in a superlative degree, qualities upon which ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... excellence, to revive public interest in the great body of his works. In the task of selection, it has been impossible to do full justice to his powers; for among the speeches omitted in this collection are to be found passages of superlative eloquence, maxims of political and moral wisdom which might be taken as mottoes for elaborate treatises on the philosophy of law and legislation, and important facts and principles which no student of history of the United States can overlook without betraying ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... rings up on his work for the Steelyard,—work which covered many years and more fine paintings than could even be enumerated here—with a superlative exhibition of all his powers. The oil portrait of Georg Gyze, or George Gisze, as it is often written, now in the Berlin Gallery (Plate 27), inscribed 1532, has called forth the enthusiastic eulogies of every competent judge. By a piece of rare good fortune ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... of the wisdom that comes with many years, tell you that if ever we are to free ourselves from the yoke of the oppressor, and to restore Peru to its ancient position of power and glory, we must be helped and guided in that great, that almost impossible task, by one who unites within himself superlative wisdom and superlative courage; and the crowning proof, to my mind, that heaven has now at last fulfilled its glorious promise is to be found in the fact that it has ordained our new Inca to be born an Englishman, possessed ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... variation to express different degrees of comparison. The regular degrees have been reckoned three; positive, comparative, and superlative. These are usually marked by changing the termination. The positive is determined by a comparison with other things; as, a great house, a small book, compared with others of their kind. This is truly a comparative degree. The comparative ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... told you," he began, "I bought the picture from a small dealer in the Bowery. I happened to notice it in his window, and, the 'Red Duchess' being one of the half-dozen superlative portraits of the world, I was naturally interested. It was certainly a fine copy, and I was pleased ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domenichino and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterwards went to the beautiful cemetery of Bologna, beyond the walls, and found, besides the superb burial-ground, an original of a Custode, who reminded me of the grave-digger in Hamlet. He has a collection of capuchins' skulls, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... confidence in fate. Eight years and three months nominally in the service, out of which in reality he had been absent four years and ten months either on furlough or without one, and already a general! Neither blind luck, nor the revolutionary epoch, nor the superlative ability of the man, but a compound of all these, had brought this marvel to pass. It did not intoxicate, but still further sobered, the beneficiary. This effect was partly due to an experience which ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... or dislikes under discussion. At such times he is no observer, much less worshipper, of proportion in his delineations. Thorough-paced, scarcely controllable, his enthusiasm for or against admits no degree in its expression, save and except the superlative. Hence Mr. Froude's statement of facts or description of phenomena, whenever his feelings are enlisted either way, must be taken with the proverbial "grain of salt" by all when enjoying the luxury of perusing his books. So complete is his self-identification with the sect or individual ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... objects; good horses, cruel riders, knowing men, dupes, jockeys, gamblers, and a large assemblage of mixed company. But this is a gayer scene than most others; and every epithet, appropriate to a course, diminutive or otherwise, must be in the superlative degree when applied to Ascot. This is the general, and often the only impression that most men carry ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... ought not to forget, because it is the chief: My duty to God will, I hope, always employ some good portion of my time, with thanks for his superlative goodness to me; and to pray for you and myself: for you, sir, for a blessing on you, for your great goodness to such an unworthy creature: for myself, that I may be enabled to discharge my duty to you, and be found grateful for all the blessings I shall receive ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... poured out his diatribe; and this thought was, that he was no longer conscious of any greatness in him. Through all the conflicts, trials, and formidable obstacles of previous years he had been sustained by his consciousness of superlative gifts combined with loftiness of purpose. Had not his greatness been dinned into his ears, he would have been as familiar with it. But he seemed to himself to have shrivelled, his very soul might have been in ashes—incremated ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... confinement in a temperate climate can form an idea of the beauty of the animal in its native desert. Born in the scorching sun, nursed on the burning sand of the treeless and shadowless wilderness, the gazelle is among the antelope tribe as the Arab horse is among its brethren, the high-bred and superlative beauty of the race. The skin is as sleek as satin, of a colour difficult to describe, as it varies between the lightest mauve and yellowish brown; the belly is snow-white; the legs, from the knee downwards, are also white, and are as fine as though carved from ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... a superlative moment in life when one stands on a structure as majestic as this which was at first a mere thought in the brain, which was afterward a plan on the paper, and which has been transported hither, from quarry and mine, from wood-yard and workshop, ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... Records, Part II. p. 983, as Josephus could not but know very well; but that he was esteemed as very ancient by them, and that they knew they had been first of all denominated "Danai" from this very ancient king Danaus. Nor does this superlative degree always imply the "most ancient" of all without exception, but is sometimes to be rendered "very ancient" only, as is the case in the like superlative ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... Willis's, or an empty house for the occasion; of which alternatives it is ten to one that the latter will be adopted. True it is that the ball-room at Willis's (in old days so well known as Almack's), though far too narrow for its length, offers a floor of superlative smoothness, and that its position, in the very heart of the St. James's quarter, leaves nothing to be desired; but the place is so generally associated with festivities of the public and semi-public classes that anybody giving a private dance there may ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... sharp, defined outlines, and without the waste of a word. The rhythmical structure of his prose is carefully correct. Scarcely a syllable is ever out of place. His ear for verse, though less true, is seldom wholly at fault, and whether in prose or verse, he had the superlative merit that he could never write nonsense. If one of the motives of poetical form be to clothe thought and feeling in the dress in which it can lie most easily remembered, Bunyan's lines are often as successful as the best lines of Quarles or George ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... didst thou appear? In what Seraphic Orb didst thou arise? Surely that place admits of no disguise, Eternal Sight must know thee there, And being known, thou soon must disappear. But since the fatal Truth we know, Without the matter whence or manner how: Thou high superlative of Sin, Tell us thy nature, where thou didst begin? The first degree of thy increase, Debauch'd the Regions of eternal Peace, And fill'd the breasts of loyal Angels there With the first Treason ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... that he must prey or be preyed on. John Rex was no common swindler; his natural as well as his acquired abilities saved him from vulgar errors. He saw that to successfully swindle mankind, one must not aim at comparative, but superlative, ingenuity. He who is contented with being only cleverer than the majority must infallibly be outwitted at last, and to be once outwitted is—for a swindler—to be ruined. Examining, moreover, into the history of detected crime, John Rex discovered one thing. At the bottom of all these robberies, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... strong and cutting. On the other hand, when the drawings of great painters are examined, the master mind shines forth in every touch, and we recognise the works of Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, Coreggio, and others, at a glance. The drawings of Rembrandt possess this quality in a superlative degree, and the slightest indication seems sufficient to mark the character and leading features of the object represented. His drawings are generally in pen outline, with a wash of bistre, or other warm colour; sometimes he makes use of black and red chalk; they are seldom finished ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... explain the wonder. Of all women, she was the least likely to do the thing predicted by experience. She had tremendous force of character for one scarce twenty years of age; indeed, she lived a superlative life, and the man, woman, child, or dog that came within radius of her existence presently formed a definite part of it, and was loved or detested according to circumstances. Neutrality she could not understand. If her interests were wide, her prejudices were ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... so swiftly Darrell was in a sort of waking dream, a state of superlative happiness, unmarred as yet by phantoms from the shrouded past or misgivings as to the dim, uncertain future; past and future were for the time alike forgotten. One image dominated his mind,—the form and face of the fair young hostess moving among her guests as a queen ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... documentary or actual. It is also necessarily an effect of fine shades, delicate values, vanishing distinctions, of evasiveness, inconsequence, suggestion. It is also absolute, unrelated—it is positive or negative or superlative—it is never comparative. Well, the Anglo-Saxon public is totally insensible to such things. They can no more feel them, than a blind worm can feel the colours of ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... These and their effects upon the several figures Carter was invited to admire, and so on to a score of topics. The first thing was to make Carter think and talk, which he did in the happy-go-lucky way of his class, uttering nine mighty simple remarks, and then a bit of superlative wisdom, or something that sounded like it. And when he had shot his random bolts, Mr. Eden would begin and treat each picture as a text, and utter much wisdom on it in ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... the same way and to the same type as the previous year. It is better to make selections from such a block than to take the most superior plants from all of the blocks, or from one which produced but one or but a few superlative ones, the rest ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... Felons on the left," and so on till every sort and condition and geographical situation had been thus distinguished. But the toasts proper aroused displays of the most affectionate loving-kindness. Each reference to a Felon was greeted with warm cheers, and each reference touched the superlative of laudation. Every stroke of humour was noisily approved, and every exhibition of tender feeling effusively endorsed. And all the estates of the realm, and all the institutions of the realm and of the town, and all the services of war and peace, and all the official castes were ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... familiar to need recalling here) A nation once again in the execution of which the veteran patriot champion may be said without fear of contradiction to have fairly excelled himself. The Irish Caruso-Garibaldi was in superlative form and his stentorian notes were heard to the greatest advantage in the timehonoured anthem sung as only our citizen can sing it. His superb highclass vocalism, which by its superquality greatly enhanced his already international ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... bound to say, I regard your claim to the possession of good taste as completely established.... 'Ware the horse, there! Look out! look out!" His eyes had followed the tall figure of the Mother-Superior, moving with the superlative grace and ease that comes of perfect physical proportion, carrying the black nun's robes, wearing the flowing veil of the nun with the dignity of an ideal queen. And the next instant, his charger, held with some others by a mounted orderly before the gates, and rendered nervous ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... both a mystery and a revelation. I had never before heard anything to compare with it, nor do I expect ever to hear the like again. Talent, taste, feeling, were there, all in superlative degree, and disclosed with the unassuming confidence of power; whilst long and loving practice in solitude had averted a certain artificiality which, in the judgment of the uninitiated, generally accompanies musical skill. His was no triumphant mastery of a complicated ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... make it work. Where it breaks down with most young men who set out so valiantly with it, is the point where one sees the only girl in the world and recognizes the imperious necessity of winning her, of holding out lures for her, of surrounding her, once won, with the setting her superlative worth demands. That this did not happen to Anthony March was due to the fact that the young woman he—not so much saw as gradually perceived, was his ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... this word to the farmers of the country and to all who work on the farms: The supreme need of our own nation and of the nations with which we are co-operating is an abundance of supplies, and especially of foodstuffs. The importance of an adequate food-supply, especially for the present year, is superlative. Without abundant food, alike for the armies and the peoples now at war, the whole great enterprise upon which we have embarked will break down and fail. The world's food reserves are low. Not only during the present emergency, ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... regretted personality of the Great War. The place of no one else is worth disputing. Lloyd George is the consummate politician, limited by the meanness of his art. Clemenceau is the personification of nationality, limited by the narrowness of his view. Mr. Wilson alone had his hour of superlative greatness when the whole earth listened to him and followed him; an hour which ended with him only dimly aware of his vision and furiously ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... with them, we know no reason why any one else should; and I think Mrs. Bogus merits well of the republic, for doing what she can do towards the hospitalities of the season. I'm sure I never cursed her in my heart, even when her strong coffee has held mine eyes open till morning, and her superlative lobster salads have given me the very darkest views of human life that ever dyspepsia and east wind could engender. Mrs. Bogus is the Eve who offers the apple; but after all, I am the foolish Adam ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... her beauty, quite striking at night; her figure of "the goddess sailing on clouds," rendered still more striking a dignity, which no one possessed more than she did, and which she pushed, when it was necessary, to a most superlative haughtiness. ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... of your brain, that you imagine it impossible, but he must produce something greater and more perfect than the present scene of things, which is so full of ill and disorder. You forget, that this superlative intelligence and benevolence are entirely imaginary, or, at least, without any foundation in reason; and that you have no ground to ascribe to him any qualities, but what you see he has actually exerted and displayed in his productions. Let your gods, therefore, O philosophers, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... I was strictly forbidden to let a hair of my paint- brush touch the little broken mass of carmine which was all that he possessed. We believed, but I do not know whether this could be the fact, that carmine of this superlative quality was sold at a guinea a cake. 'Carmine', therefore, became my shibboleth of self-indulgence; it was a symbol of all that taste and art and wealth could combine to produce. I imagined, for instance, that at Belshazzar's feast, the loftiest ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... once, but a score of times. The brocades that I promised to show you after supper will be my witness. And there are some superlative satin and silk lengths which my Lady Rayne wished particularly to see. ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... a word exponent of a kind?—If it be, then moral philosophy is but a subdivision of physics. If not, then the writings of Paley and all his predecessors and disciples are false and most pernicious; and there is an emphatic propriety in the superlative, and in a sense which of itself would supply and exemplify the difference ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... The superlative is marked by various particles, sometimes preceding, and sometimes following, the adjective, and it is also formed ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... more wisely noticed or more truly benefited by such a period of close contact with people who ought by experience and knowledge to know better than he. The only thing that is probable is a falling-off, not an advance. I think it highly doubtful whether a ploughman from Ayrshire, however superlative his genius, would now be received at all in "the best houses" and by the first men and women in Edinburgh; and if not in Edinburgh, surely nowhere else would such a reception as that given to Burns ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... that I do not wonder at even good people finding little stimulus, or much that cheers, in the thought of passing thither. But if we do not know anything more—and we know very little more—let us be sure of this, that when God begins to compare His adjectives He does not stop till He gets to the superlative degree and that good begets better, and the better of earth ensures the best of Heaven. And so out of our poor little experience here, we may gather grounds of confidence that will carry our thoughts ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... today. The plain fact is that humanity has in it a depth of incapacity to behold, and of angry indisposition to admire, lofty and noble lives. The power of the darkness to blind men is set forth once in the superlative degree that we may all beware of it in the lower instances, by that fact, the most tragical in the history of the world, 'the Light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... who had just returned from a lecturing-tour in the United States, and were much amused with her experiences. Having taken prolonged trips over the whole country from Maine to Texas for many successive years, Miss Anthony and I could easily add the superlative to all her narrations. She dined with us one day at Mrs. Mellen's, where we also had the pleasure of meeting Miss Jane Cobden, a daughter of the great Corn-law reformer, who was much interested in forming Liberal leagues, to encourage the Liberal party and interest women in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... undoubtedly suppose that he abounded in filthy images, and excelled in describing the lower scenes of life." Let all such blockheads suppose what they choose. Pope—says Roscoe—"was well aware as any one of the superlative beauties and merits of Spenser, whose works he assiduously studied, both in his early and riper years; but it was not his intention in these few lines to give a serious imitation of him. All that he attempted was to show how exactly he could apply the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... character. Apart from any natural prepossession in my own favour, I believed I was. Still, in every page of this enlightened writer, I find some captivating hypocrisy which has never occurred to me before, or some superlative piece of selfishness to which I was utterly a stranger. I should quite blush for myself before this stupendous creature, if remembering his precepts, one might blush at anything. An amazing man! a nobleman indeed! any King or Queen may make a Lord, but only the Devil himself—and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... covered the two miles and a half; and here she is, back at the nest, after foraging on the way, for the doughty creature arrives with her abdomen yellow with pollen. To come home again from the verge of the horizon is wonderful in itself; to come home with a well-filled pollen-brush is superlative economy. A journey, even a forced journey, ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... Or, to put it another way, he may have a strong conviction that he stands high in the scale of morally deserving persons, and yet be unable to define his position more nearly. Commonly, the conviction seems to be only definable as an assurance of a superlative of which the positive and comparative are suppressed. At most, his idea of his moral altitude resolves itself into the proposition, "I am a good deal better than Mr. A. or Mr. B." Now, it is plain that in these intuitive judgments on his own excellence, ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... London was lately consulted by a lady of quality, of most distinguished merit, what was the best History of England for her son to read. My friend recommended Hume's. But, upon recollecting that its usher was a superlative panegyrick on one, who endeavoured to sap the credit of our holy religion, he revoked his recommendation. I am really sorry for this ostentatious alliance; because I admire The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and value ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... Tennyson's 'Idyls,' with profound recognition of the finely elaborated execution, and also of the inward perfection of vacancy—and, to say truth, with considerable impatience at being treated so very like infants though the lollipops were so superlative. We gladly changed for one Emerson's 'English Traits;' and read that with increasing and ever increasing satisfaction every evening; blessing heaven that there were still books ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... that still forbids it me The reverence for the keys superlative Thou hadst in keeping in ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... love.—There is no love like His—so pure and constant and satisfying. What the sun is to a star-light, and the ocean to a pool left by the retiring tide, such is the love of Jesus compared with all other love. To have it is superlative blessedness; to miss it is ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... a superlative degree that general tendency of Provencal exteriors to be without definite or logical proportions. A large, square tower, heavier than that of Grasse, served as a lookout, a tall, thin little turret ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... pride of caste, of family, of character, of intellect. But high self-discipline and pride in the human spirit are not the deepest or the highest notes man strikes. The cry, not of pride in self, but for fellowship with the Infinite, is the superlative expression of man. Augustine sounded the highest note of feeling when he wrote, "O God, Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." The words of the Lord Jesus gave the clearest insight of the ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... to the waiting secretary. He groped in the chambers of his imagery for some superlative adjective to express his emotion before this colossal display of wealth. But his ample vocabulary had faded quite. He could only shake his head and give vent to the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... his antithetic drum—"servitude without loyalty and sensuality without love"—"dwarfish talents and gigantic vices"—"ability enough to deceive"—"religion enough to persecute." Every phrase is a superlative; every word has its contrast; every sentence has its climax. And withal let us admit that it is tremendously powerful, that no one who ever read it can forget it, and few even who have read it fail to be tinged with its fury and contempt. And, though a tissue of superlatives, it bears ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... the suggestion of purpose in the figure. There is something to inspire wonder in the most sluggish mind. It tells a story of some sort of heroism. It tells a story of a master mind triumphing over bodily weakness and suffering. It tells a story of superlative defiance—the defiance ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... disagreeable than I am by nature. And if I avoided her society, (which I am far from doing), it would be not for her sake, but for my own. For, though her society is to me a kind of anticipation of the joys of Heaven, yet when I leave it and find myself alone, the reaction is dreary in the superlative degree; and the fear, which perpetually haunts me (for I know nothing of her plans), lest I shall never see her again, is agonizing as a foretaste of—Heaven's antipode. ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... Spita-mens, Spita-des, etc. This, in Spita-ces, is followed by a guttural ending, which is either a diminutive corresponding to the modern Persian -efc, or perhaps a suffixed article. In Spit-amas, the suffix -mas is the common form of the superlative, and may be compared with the Latin -mus in optimus, intimus, supremus, and the like. Ehambacas contains the root rafno, "joy, pleasure," which we find in Pati-ramphies, followed by the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... period so remote, that at present it was uncertain whether those twice banished, were thrust into their second exile by reason of their superlative knavery, or because of their comparative honesty. If the latter, then must the residue have been a precious ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... that Mrs. Fry's goodness was many-sided. Her charity did not expend itself wholly on prisons and lunatic asylums. It is right that, once in a while, characters of such superlative excellence should appear in our midst. Right, because otherwise the light of charity would grow dim, the distinguishing graces of Christianity, flat and selfish, and individual faith be obscured in the lapse of years, or the follies and fashions of modern life. Such saints were ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... utmost, paramount, preeminent, foremost, crowning; first-rate &c (important) 642, (excellent) 648; unrivaled peerless, matchless; none such, second to none, sans pareil [Fr.]; unparagoned^, unparalleled, unequalled, unapproached^, unsurpassed; superlative, inimitable facile princeps [Lat.], incomparable, sovereign, without parallel, nulli secundus [Lat.], ne plus ultra [Lat.]; beyond compare, beyond comparison; culminating &c (topmost) 210; transcendent, transcendental; plus royaliste que le Roi [Fr.], more catholic than the Pope ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... box to box, and welcomed everybody to the 'Royal property,' right royally did things go on! Who would then have dreamt that the illustrious George {170b}—he of the Piazza—would ever be 'honoured with instructions to sell'? that his eulogistic pen would be employed in giving the puff superlative to the Elysian haunts of quondam fashion—in other words—painting the lily-gilding refined gold? But, alas! Simpson, the tutelar deity, departed ('died,' some say, but we don't believe it), and, at the moment he made his last bow, Vauxhall ought to have been closed; it was madness—the ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... done exactly alike in the way it is worn in Paris. Their figures have the last "look" and their jewels are simply divine. With all this beyond criticism, it is very difficult to say whether they are beautiful or not, naturally; the general effect is so perfect. They, as far as grooming and superlative "turnedoutness" is concerned (I had to make a new word), are the counterpart ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... the moment is to exact. It surely should be translated, "And he, whom the God so leads to [Greek: ate], fares a very short time without it." The best translation of [Greek: ate] is, perhaps, infatuation. Moreover, how is the above translation reconciled with the very superlative [Greek: oligoston]? ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various
... distinguishes him from all other past and present Sansculottists. The grand unparalleled peculiarity of Teufelsdroeckh is, that with all this Descendentalism, he combines a Transcendentalism, no less superlative; whereby if on the one hand he degrade man below most animals, except those jacketed Gouda Cows, he, on the other, exalts him beyond the visible Heavens, almost to ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... to herself, using her favourite superlative with sublime disregard of suitability. She looked across the room to where Elma sat, resting her head against a brocaded blue cushion. One of the half-dozen cases of miniatures hung just behind the chair, and it was impossible not to notice the likeness between the living face and ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that preserved his incorruptibility; but he had so sincere a desire for purity in their relations, that he had submitted without resentment to the freezing process that ensured it. He had in reserve his expectation of the day when, by some superlative achievement, he would take that soul, hitherto invincible, by storm. But now, in his inmost heart he owned that he ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... only German name of the mistletoe, the parent of our English denomination, is Mistel, which is evidently only Meist-heyl (most heal, or healing), the superlative of the above Gut-heyl, and both wonderfully agreeing with the name which Pliny says it bore in his ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various
... gaiety of the crowds one could hear the shrill cry of some belated newsboys, calling an "Extra Special"—the only superlative left to one of the more enterprising papers whose every ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... restored to sight. And, truly with a notable, almost miraculous, speed, the feelings of all Norway for King Olaf changed themselves, and were turned upside down, "within a year," or almost within a day. Superlative example of Extinctus amabitur idem. Not "Olaf the Thick-set" any longer, but "Olaf the Blessed" or Saint, now clearly in Heaven; such the name and character of him from that time to this. Two churches dedicated to him (out of four that once stood) stand in London ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... say, will greatly weaken the plea and accusation of an enemy. But, says Jesus Christ, "Father, here is a plea brought in against my Joshua, that clothes him with filthy garments, but it is brought in against him by an enemy, by an enemy in the superlative or highest degree. One that hates goodness worse than he, and that loveth wickedness more than the man against whom at this time he has brought such a heinous charge." Then leaving with the Father the value of his blood for the accused, he turneth him to the accuser, and pleads against him ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... were active and muscular, and soon showed that they thoroughly understood how to use their clumsy tools to the best advantage. They were led by and worked under the directorship of a lean, shrunken, withered old grey-haired hag of superlative ugliness, who did no work herself, but went constantly back and forth along the line of workers, bearing in her hand a long thin pliant rattan, which she did not hesitate to smartly apply to the shoulders of those who seemed to ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... neither of whom could even steer, nor were they accustomed to go aloft; while he had fifteen prisoners below, who would naturally lose no opportunity of retaking the ship. His greatest difficulties were only now beginning. What consciousness of his superlative seaman-like qualities, what perfect and just self-reliance he must have possessed, to have undertaken the task of navigating a ship completely across the Atlantic with such means at his disposal! Considerate and ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... say this, as will be seen in a moment, as a criticism of the comparative Toryism of the South. I say it as a criticism of the superlative stupidity of English propaganda. On another page I remark on the need for a new sort of English propaganda; a propaganda that should be really English and have some remote reference to England. Now if it were a matter of making foreigners feel the real humours ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... on the Blackfeet were advancing up the narrow pathway with superlative though needless caution, and no small amount of timidity. Each man took advantage of every scrap of cover he could find on the way up, but as the owner of the hut had taken care to remove all cover that was removable, they did not find much, and if ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... superlative kindness, and no woman who had not had just that sort of kindness from the man she married, could help being rather nasty. He had owed it to Estelle—no matter whether she told him the truth ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... considerable enjoyment resultant not only from her destination, long desired, now to be realized, but also from the sheer exuberance of handling the vehicle. Since pre-history, man's pleasure in the physical control of a speedy vehicle has been superlative, particularly when that vehicle is known by the driver to be unique in its class. The Hittite charioteer, bowling across the landscape of Anatolia, a Sterling Moss carefully tooling his automobile around the multi-curves of the Upper ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... that this answers to the "accidental definition of a classic." Most certainly; but not necessarily to that of a poetical classic. Jeffrey thought him "original and powerful." Granted; but there are plenty of original and powerful writers who are not poets. Wilson gave him the superlative for "original and vivid painting." Perhaps; but is Hogarth a poet? Jane Austen "thought she could have married him." She had not read his biography; but even if she had would that prove him to be a poet? Lord Tennyson is said to single out the following passage, which is certainly one of Crabbe's ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... is to be seen at the Palace of the Bishop of Winchester at Farnham in Surrey, but the land is quite exceptionally good, and in the palmy days of hop-growing, the adjoining fields commanded a rent of L20 an acre for what is known as the "Heart land of Farnham," where hops of the most superlative quality were grown. When the dappled deer are grouped under this noble avenue, in the light and shade beneath the elms, they form an old English picture of country ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... this book, this fundamental is most strictly adhered to; there is not a wicked action in any part of it, but is first and last rendered unhappy and unfortunate; there is not a superlative villain brought upon the stage, but either he is brought to an unhappy end, or brought to be a penitent; there is not an ill thing mentioned but it is condemned, even in the relation, nor a virtuous, just thing but it carries its ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... failed to realize his worship for his wife. His was a love such as rarely falls to the lot of woman. And his devotion to his girl and boy twins was something quite beyond words. These things were the mainspring of his life, and drove him to such superlative degrees of self-sacrifice that could surely only have been endured by a man of ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... card with the lines in horizontal position. Point to the lines and say: "See these lines. Look closely and tell me which one is longer. Put your finger on the longest one." We use the superlative as well as the comparative form of long because it is often more familiar to young subjects. If the child does not respond, say: "Show me which line is the biggest." Then withdraw the card, turn it about a few times, and present it again ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... slender fortune, and looking forward to a period not very remote when he may probably be obliged to return to the station from which he was taken, might sometimes be under temptations to sacrifice his duty to his interest, which it would require superlative virtue to withstand. An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the state to the acquisition of wealth. An ambitious man might make his own aggrandizement, by the aid of a foreign power, the price of his ...
— The Federalist Papers
... after the peace they spent some summer vacations in visits to the continent. They visited Switzerland, still unhackneyed, though Byron and Shelley were celebrating its charms. Long afterwards I used to hear from my mother of the superlative beauties of the Wengern Alp and the Staubbach (though she never, I suspect, read 'Manfred'), and she kept up for years a correspondence with a monk of the hospital on the St. Bernard. Her first child, Herbert Venn Stephen, was born September 30, 1822; and about this time a change took place in ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... framing it; then all the accumulated mass of sorrow, sorrows born from life and death, being recognized as attributes of body, and as this body is not 'I,' nor offers ground for 'I,' then comes the great superlative, the source of peace unending. This thought of 'self' gives rise to all these sorrows, binding as with cords the world, but having found there is no 'I' that can be bound, then all these bonds are severed. There are no bonds indeed—they ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... second, the merchants have their warehouses; and in the third, they usually live with their families. Those three different regions, sorry am I to say it, are all very dirty; indeed they may be said to be the positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of uncleanness. There are no glazed sashes in the windows, so that when it rains, and the shutters are closed, you are involved in utter darkness. The furniture is miserably scanty—some old fashioned, high backed, hardwood chairs, with a profusion ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... De-laun's Pill, whereof I shall say nothing, being mentioned under the Name of the Pilule ex duobus, in the London Dispensitory, though some make them of the Extract of Coloquintida. The last of any Fame with us, were Dr. Goddard's Drops, a good Medicine, but not so universal, and superlative as he would have made the World believe, and was nothing else but what some Physicians many years since enjoyed. I well remember that in the late troubles, a Person then in great Authority, having cryed up this above all the Medicines in the World, a round wager ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... originally through the recommendation of the skin specialist or the family physician, become household remedies and toilet accessories in the homes of the refined and particular. The ideal, logical and scientifically approved care of the scalp calls for the use of STIEFEL'S Superlative BORACIC ACID SHAMPOO SOAP A most effective remover of Dandruff. Cleanses the scalp and opens the pores. Leaves the hair loose and fluffy, so that "You CAN do a thing with it" next day. Price: 25 cents ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... whilst, again, his harem, from the presence of numerous adult daughters, would be increased to an extent that might have overtaxed his once more active powers. Given some such rather exceptional situation, where a happy opportunity in superlative mother love wrestled with a for once satiated paternal appetite in desire, we may here discern a possible key of the sociological problem which occupies us, and which consisted in a conjunction within one ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... stomach. The waiter, who had never known a minute's ill-health in his life, swore vividly for fifteen minutes without repeating himself, and among many references to the commercial's ancestry, called him the two-est-faced knave that had ever set foot on the Shetland Islands. Such a superlative was felt by all to be a masterpiece of language, and turned ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... into a complete and passionate faith in the Christian religion and in the incarnation. He said that while love was the main principle in religion as a way of life, the most important contribution to humanity made by religion was hope. Hope in the destiny of man, in the superlative value of the individual, in the Personality of our Father ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... say that which I ought not." Mohammed disdained all metaphysical speculations respecting the nature of the Deity, or of the origin and existence of sin, topics which had hitherto exercised the ingenuity of the East. He cast aside the doctrine of the superlative value of chastity, asserting that marriage is the natural state of man. To asceticism he opposed polygamy, permitting the practice of it in this life and promising the most voluptuous means for its enjoyment in Paradise hereafter, especially to those who had gained the crowns of martyrdom ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... nothing of self-reliance. All she knew was to be a consequential young lady of distinction, full of exalted qualifying adjectives in the superlative degree. But she was not so much to blame as her parents for her simpering and tossing the head with overstocked affectation. She was to be pitied for her unfortunate surroundings. Her "splendid man," a "beautiful gentleman," was a coarse, burly headed "Legree" ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... action—puncture them practically instantaneously, before the absorbers could react. To that end they had arranged their circuits to hurl seven hundred sixty-five thousand kilofranks—the entire power of their massed accumulators and their highest possible cosmic intake—in one tiny bar of superlative density, less than one meter in diameter! Everything ready, Brandon shot in prodigious switches that launched that bolt—a bolt so vehement, so inconceivably intense, that it seemed fairly to blast ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... mind that can trade in corruption, and can deliberately pollute itself with ideal wickedness, for the sake of spreading the contagion in society, I wish not to conceal or excuse the depravity. Such degradation of the dignity of genius, such abuse of superlative abilities, cannot be contemplated but with grief and indignation. What consolation can be had, Dryden has afforded, by living to repent, and to ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... "The Tenses of the Subjunctive and the Potential Moods."—Ib., p. 80. "A triphthong is a union of three vowels uttered in like manner: as, uoy in buoy."—P. Davis's Practical Gram., p. xvi. "Common nouns are the names of a species or kind."—Ib., p. 8. "The superlative degree is a comparison between three or more."—Ib., p. 14. "An adverb is a word or phrase serving to give an additional idea of a verb, and adjective, article, or another adverb."—Ib., p. 36. "When several nouns in the possessive case succeed each other, each showing possession ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... for his work in vindicating the national power under the Constitution. That was the need in his day and he met it with superlative wisdom and skill. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that he favored federal encroachment upon the powers reserved to the states. On the contrary, he rendered decisions in favor of state ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... be three manner of plantations of new sects. By the power of signs and miracles; by the eloquence, and wisdom, of speech and persuasion; and by the sword. For martyrdoms, I reckon them amongst miracles; because they seem to exceed the strength of human nature: and I may do the like, of superlative and admirable holiness of life. Surely there is no better way, to stop the rising of new sects and schisms, than to reform abuses; to compound the smaller differences; to proceed mildly, and not with sanguinary persecutions; and rather to take off the principal authors ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... author of Oceana made no pretence of minute observation in the account of his travels. Had he not been content to fly through the country, viewing it mainly, as he admits, from 'softest sofas' of 'a superlative carriage lined with blue satin,' he might have seen not one, but many fine specimens of what Sir George Bowen has aptly called the ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... interested by now, but had no idea in the world of the marvel he was going to see. He started more perceptibly than even Mr. Carlyon had done seven years before, when he had realized the superlative ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... irreproachably high birth; her satins were embroidered with the symbols of nobility and matrimonial felicity; the gold fingernail guards, the jade and flowering pearls, her earrings and tasseled tobacco pouch and ivory fan, were all in the most superlative manner. ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... One is faith—"Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Heb. xi. 6). The other is uprightness—"I know also, my God, that Thou hast pleasure in uprightness" (1 Chron. xxix. 17). The former grace is the superlative and distinguishing feature of the people of God. It is indeed the foundation quality on which all others rest, and from which they spring. It is the broad separating act which marks the difference between the saint ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... wryte in prayse of a gentlewoman, I would neither praise her christal eye, nor her cherrie lippe, etc. For these things are trita et obvia. But I would either find some supernaturall cause whereby my penne might walke in the superlative degree, or els I would undertake to answer for any imperfection that shee hath, and thereupon rayse the prayse of ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... descriptions of them superlative follows upon superlative. The cocks of most species are arrayed in scarlet and black; the hens are not a whit less brilliantly attired in yellow and sable. One species lives entirely in the plains, others visit them in the cold weather; the majority are permanent residents ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... Lady Clonbrony was particularly vexed that the appearance of the statira, canopy should be spoiled before the effect had been seen by Lady Pococke, and Lady Chatterton, and Lady G—, Lady P—, and the Duke of V—, and a party of superlative fashionables, who had promised TO LOOK IN UPON HER, but who, late as it was, had not yet arrived. They came in at last. But Lady Clonbrony had no reason to regret for their sake the statira couch. It would ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth |
