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More "First-rate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "First-rate," returned the other briefly, rising to go. "That's a fine, serious young fellow," he added, for Whyland's ear alone. "There's stuff ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... subject is more acute than it needs to be because the suffrage atmosphere just now is highly charged with electricity. The Shafroth Amendment is a first-rate little amendment and the sooner it passes ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... weight of Dinmont, on looking up at his size and strength, apparently judged him too heavy metal to be rashly encountered, and suffered him to pursue his course unchallenged. Following in the wake of this first-rate, Mannering proceeded till the farmer made a pause, and, looking back to the chairman, said, "I'm thinking this will ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... be first-rate. I know something about such things. I had a home of my own once. My father was one of the ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... been a very acceptable average teacher, advocate, or official. Here, however, after leaving the intermediate school, it was necessary for him to take a conscientious valuation of his mental capacity; and he arrived at the conclusion that it would be better to become a first-rate factory-overseer than a mediocre teacher or official. And he could carry out this—perhaps too severe—resolve without socially degrading himself, for in Freeland manual labour does not degrade as it does in Europe and America, where the assertion ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... a letter to Lord Haddington dated the 22nd of May, 1843, "that all our old vessels of war, save the class of eighty-gun ships and a few first-rate and large frigates, are almost worthless; whilst our steam department is deficient in most of the properties which constitute effective vessels. No blockades worthy of the name can now be maintained by fleets of sailing ships; nor can accompanying steamships be ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... one to do the work," added Yegor, smiling. "We have first-rate literature. I saw to that myself. But how to get it into ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... his veins, or to lie deeply and calmly in her cheeks. Their eyes at the present moment were brighter than usual, and wore the peculiar expression of pleasure and self-confidence which is seen in the eyes of athletes, for they had been playing tennis, and they were both first-rate at the game. ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... the Gimmerton band, mustering fifteen strong: a trumpet, a trombone, clarionets, bassoons, French horns, and a bass viol, besides singers. They go the rounds of all the respectable houses, and receive contributions every Christmas, and we esteemed it a first-rate treat to hear them. After the usual carols had been sung, we set them to songs and glees. Mrs. Earnshaw loved the music, and so ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... not easy to calculate the height to which the memory may be cultivated. To take an ordinary case, we might refer to that of any first-rate actor, who must be prepared, at a very short warning, to "rhapsodize" night after night, parts which, when laid together, would amount to an immense number of lines. But all this is nothing to two instances of our own day. Visiting ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... say," said he to me, "that these nails are first-rate fish-hooks; but, one thing I do know, and that is, with proper bait they will act as well as the best. But this biscuit is no good at all. Let me but just get hold of one fish, and I shall know fast enough how to use it to catch ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... them to bear the noise of trumpets and drums, and of firing, without starting, tired them out by long rides the evening before every review, and bit his lips to prevent himself from laughing when people declared that General Daumont de Croisailles was a first-rate rider, who was really fond ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... "It's first-rate work for the muscles, Ben," remarked George, flinging an armful of wood on the brick floor, and kneeling beside the stove to kindle a fire in the old ashes. "I haven't a doubt but it's better for the back and arms than horseback riding. All the ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... been able to feel that it was best that she should not have a bicycle. Now that the new governess had come and had proved so "horrid," she felt it still less. "Half the money she gets would buy me a first-rate safety," she had thought often and often and often, as she ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... would have felt himself an awful owl were he to say it, but it somehow suited the tall, pink boy, and did not sound one particle "dudish," or offensive, and during the ten-mile drive across the Kamloops Hills Banty decided that Con was a first-rate fellow, notwithstanding his abominable clothes and "swagger" English accent. At the ranch house door they were greeted by Banty's parents and a couple of range riders, and Eena, who, Indian-like, never revealed the fact by word or look that he had observed the patent leather ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... at first very popular; he imitated Cramer; but at the same time manifested first-rate pulpit talents of his own. These, however, he entirely neglected to improve: presuming on his gifts and their acceptance, he began to 'play such fantastic tricks before high Heaven,' as made his audience ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... unstinted quantity in the rural districts and in the Paris shops; and, I believe, it was also procurable in the cafes of the Parisian working classes, provided it formed a part of a meal costing not more than five francs, or some such sum. In a first-rate place it was, of course, impossible to get any sort of meal for five francs, or ten francs either; especially after the ten per cent luxury ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... important argument in favor of the best construction. The amount thus saved in the short streets of the village, where the principal traffic is over rough country roads, would not be very great, but it would enable the road authorities of the township to realize the advantage of first-rate roads and the degree to which the narrowing of the roadway cheapens construction. As a result, there would soon be an extension of the improvement over the more important highways into the country; where a well-metalled width of twelve feet would accommodate nearly ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... Should he take her to Port Royal in safety, he might reasonably expect to obtain his long waited-for promotion. Although the majority of the men sent with us were the least reliable of the crew, we had an old quartermaster, Ben Nash, and three other seamen, who were first-rate hands, and we took care to put two of them into each watch. Of course there was plenty of work to do in getting the ship to rights. As soon as the men knocked off we heard Larry's riddle going. Stepping forward, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... almost without food. Literally, they were nothing but skin and bone. But after a week's feeding on impoop, as they called the mealie-meal porridge which was their staple food at the mines, they began to pick up. At the end of a month they would be sleek and in first-rate fettle. ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... natural scenery with the passions; [Footnote: The great poets of Scotland, like the great poets of all other countries, never write dissolutely, either in matter or method; but with stern and measured meaning in every syllable. Here's a bit of first-rate ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... all school-like, the dialogues being illustrative of scenes in common life, including some first-rate conversations pertinent to school-room duties and trials. The speeches are brief and energetic. It will meet with ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... "She draws human nature, delights in the opposition of character, and has, in fact, written a first-rate modern novel." ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... serious loss which society sustains, and the disappointment of the expectations of what he one day might have been. He occupied as large a space in society as his talents (which were by no means first-rate) permitted; but he was clever, lively, agreeable, good-tempered, good-natured, hospitable, liberal and rich, a zealous friend, an eager political partisan, full of activity and vivacity, enjoying life, and anxious that the circle of his ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... and have a snug little house and farm it. But I guess I shall do better at fishing. Give me a trig-built topsail schooner painted up nice, with a stripe on her, and clean sails, and a fresh wind with the sun a-shining, and I feel first-rate." ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... the same way; and when you are tired of the intense care required for this, you may fall into a little more easy massing of the leaves, as in Fig. 10 (p. 55). This is facsimiled from an engraving after Titian, but an engraving not quite first-rate in manner, the leaves being a little too formal; still, it is a good enough model for your times of rest; and when you cannot carry the thing even so far as this, you may sketch the forms of the masses, as in Fig. 16,[22] taking care always to ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... after a moment, "then Hosy and you ought to get along first-rate together. He's down on hypocrites and make-believe piety as bad as you are. The only time he and Mr. Partridge, our minister in Bayport, ever quarreled—'twasn't a real quarrel, but more of a disagreement—was over what sort of a place Heaven was. Mr. Partridge was certain ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... in first-rate order," said he to himself. "Father will be sure to find the money when he comes back, and I shall have plenty of time to see how the vulture's nest is to be got at. Mr. Seymour shall have the birds, no matter what trouble and danger it may cost me. He shall soon see that I am neither ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and unwillingly enough, I returned to a khan, and crossed over early the following morning. At his offices, close to the river, I found M.M., le Directeur de la Quarantine, and general manager of all the other departments. He accompanied me to the hotel, which, though not exactly first-rate, appeared luxurious after my three months of khans and tents. I was somewhat taken aback at finding that the steamer to Belgrade was not due for two days, and moreover that the fogs had been so dense that it had not yet passed ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... pursued, "being aware of the—I would say, desolate—position of our young friend, offers to place her at a first-rate establishment where her education shall be completed, where her comfort shall be secured, where her reasonable wants shall be anticipated, where she shall be eminently qualified to discharge her duty in that station of life ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... American consul gave the captain for Hay. It never did Hay a ha'porth of service, but I thought it might do the old gentleman's business for him, and stood up. 'Yorana!' says I. 'Yorana!' says he. 'Look here,' I said, 'I've got some first-rate stuff in a bottle; it'll fix your cough, savvy? Harry my[1] and I'll measure you a tablespoonful in the palm of my hand, for all our plate is at the bankers.' So I thought the old party came up, and the nearer he came the less I took to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wondered about that, but I didn't like to ask. Well, she went away for a few minutes, and then we had lunch. Everything was A-1 of course; first-rate wines to choose from, and a rattling good cigar afterwards—for me, I mean. She brought out a box; said they were her husband's, and had a laugh ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... In Memoriam may be, indeed is, regarded by robust, first-rate, and far from sensitive minds, as a "damned vacillating state." The poet is not so imbued with the spirit of popular science as to be sure that he knows everything: knows that there is nothing but atoms and ether, with no ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... of the saints that has most, acteth best of all: but yet none of these three can act so as they should and would, and, consequently, so depart from iniquity as is their duty. Witness those four that I mentioned but now, for they are among the first-rate of saints, yet you see what they did, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his life through an impenetrable veil. Then in the letters and diary the perpetual hiatus, and asterisks, and initials are exceedingly tantalising; but altogether it is very amusing. As to Byron, I have never had but one opinion about his poetry, which I think of first-rate excellence; an enormous heresy, of course, more particularly with those whose political taste rests upon the same foundation that their religious creed does—that of having been taught what to admire in the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... versions of his novels were often very poor, but Hazlitt wished that he would "not leave it to others to mar what he has sketched so admirably as a ground-work," for he saw no good reason why the author of Waverley could not write "a first-rate tragedy as well, ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... for the enemy, keeping the rendezvous, which was also the enemy's destination, to leeward, so as to be readily regained. The "Queen Charlotte," Keith's flagship, covered the inner line, and, being a first-rate, was competent to handle any force that could come out of Toulon. There is a good deal of human nature in this captious unofficial attack on a superior, whose chief fault, as towards himself, was that he had been the victim of disobedience; but it is not pleasant to see in ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... a natural inclination towards a liberal or eccentric morality, but he was no thinker, and he gave way to a middle-class phraseology—with exceptions, as when he gives it as the opinion of his old master, the Norwich solicitor, that "all first-rate thieves were sober, and of well-regulated morals, their bodily passions being kept in abeyance by their love of gain." Sometimes Borrow allows these two sides of him, his private and his social sides, to appear together dramatically. ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... you all back; for he was a prime book-keeper before he lost his eyesight. He's a good scholar, too, and got a first-rate salary." ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... may possess the greatest number of the larger works of the old masters, yet England undoubtedly possesses the greatest portion of their first-rate productions, which is accounted for by the great painters exerting all their talents on such pictures as were not too large to be actually painted by their own hands, while in their larger works they resorted to inferior ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... been in for Greats, my girl, and done first-rate. But the strain's been a bit too much for you, and you've had another collapse of memory. You had one in the end of November. You've been uncommonly well ever since, and worked like a Trojan, but you've not been quite your usual ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... driver. As they draw near, they check the play a little, to be more decorous in passing by the stranger. He stops to look at them with a pleased expression of countenance, and then says, addressing the driver, with a face of much seriousness, "That's a first-rate horse of yours. Would you like to sell him? He seems to be very spirited." The horse immediately begins to prance and caper. "You must have paid a high price for him. You must take good care of him. Give him plenty of oats, and don't drive him hard when it is hot weather. And if ever ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... from his Continental episode of life, to settle down to his desk,—his heart had been always there. The death of his father gave him, as a birthright, a high position in a respectable though second-rate firm. To make this establishment first-rate was an honourable ambition,—it was his! He had lately married, not entirely for money,—no! he was worldly rather than mercenary. He had no romantic ideas of love; but he was too sensible a man not to know that ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Leipzig, Ronnie, could you look in at Zimmermann's—a first-rate place for musical instruments of all kinds—and choose me a small organ for the new church? I saw a little beauty the other day at Huntingford; a perfect tone, twelve stops, and quite easy to play. They had had ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... head, proved to be a first-rate type of an Americanized Irishman. His wife was a Scotch woman. They had a family of five or six children, two of them grown-up daughters,—modest, comely young women as you would find anywhere. The elder of the ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... establishment was the first of the kind in that town, and then stood alone, and notwithstanding that many large and rich ones in the same business have since been added, the original company have so progressed in fame and fortune, as to be now considered one of the first-rate breweries in Europe; and by the improved quality of their porter have, in a great degree, excluded the English from the West India market, their porter getting the preference there, as well as in Bristol and Liverpool, to which places large quantities are annually sent by that company. ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... gone out to Chicago to work somewhere there. He kept it pretty dark from us, but when he went off on the late train last night, Joe Evans saw him, and he said he'd had the offer of a first-rate job and was going to it. How you stare, Sue! Your eyes look as if they'd pop out o' ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a week in London—not the London Gladys remembered as in a shadowy dream. The luxurious life of a first-rate hotel had nothing in it to remind her of the poor, shabby lodging on the Surrey side of the river, which was her early and only recollection of the great city. At the end of a week they crossed from Dover to Ostend, and in the warm, golden light of a lovely autumn evening arrived in quaint, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... feelings, she would much preferred to have been left to live through her misery alone; but she could not but appreciate the kindness which endeavoured to throw over her and hers in their trouble the aegis of first-rate county respectability. She was saved from the necessity of giving a direct answer to this suggestion by the return of Mrs Robarts and Grace herself. The door was opened slowly, and they crept into the room as though they were aware ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... 'em first-rate," she said, speaking low so as not to wake the baby. "Mamie, Ellen, Jamie, Fred, George—say thank ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... was correspondingly flattered; but the father stepped in and discouraged such work, warning Benjamin that "verse-makers were generally beggars." So, perhaps, we were spared a mediocre poet and given a first-rate prose writer, for the stuff of poetry was not in Franklin's ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... visitor and were to choose our own hour, so we settled upon four, there being a service at five. Walter Swain has sailed all over the world; his home is at New Bedford. He is, I believe, a first-rate harpooner and makes a good deal by his skill. He says he has already made 800 dollars during the year, and, of course, will make still more before he gets home. We are sending our letters by this whaler ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... little tyke like her would ha' turned out a first-rate learner, after all?" queried Auntie, beaming upon me good- naturedly from behind her gold-bowed spectacles. "I al'ays tol' ye, Ezry, ye'd be ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... were at work a special misfortune had befallen the house of Girdlestone. Finding that their fleet of old sailing vessels was too slow and clumsy to compete with more modern ships, they had bought in two first-rate steamers. One was the Providence, a fine screw vessel of twelve hundred tons, and the other was the Evening Star, somewhat smaller in size, but both classed A1 at Lloyd's. The former cost twenty-two thousand pounds, and the latter seventeen ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... four now. We've shut the house for the night. You're in a first-rate house, my dear, and if you behave yourself, you'll make money—a lot more than you ever could at a dive like Zeist's. If you don't behave well, we'll teach you how. This building belongs to one of the big men in ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... of the district, to whom we were greatly indebted for furthering us on our voyage: boats being very difficult to procure, we were, however, detained here from the 16th to the 19th. I was fortunate in being able to compare my barometers with a first-rate standard instrument, and in finding no appreciable alteration since leaving Calcutta in the previous April. The elevation of the station is 130 feet above the sea, that of Kishengunj I made 131; so that the Gangetic valley is nearly a dead level for fully a hundred miles ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... Frank Sedley rather outgeneraled Tony, and his crew were more used to pulling than we. But Frank is a first-rate fellow." ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... praises—how he had taken a brilliant degree at Oxford, and was now private secretary to the Home Secretary, and would go into public life before long; how he could paint and act, and might have made a reputation as a musician; how he went into the best houses, and was a first-rate official; how, in short, he had the promised land before him, and was just on the ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... stuff in him," Edith went on. "He began at the bottom, only a few months ago, preferring to work his way up, though he was offered a first-rate position to begin with." ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... education," observed Mrs Davenport. "She is already as well informed as most girls of her age, but probably a few accomplishments would be advantageous to her. With our increased income we can now afford to send her to a first-rate school. I have heard of one where the mistress is not only an accomplished lady, but a pious woman, who watches over the most important interests of her pupils, and from the account I have heard from the young ladies under her charge, I feel sure that Grace cannot ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... us, and that in the most decided manner; for it has put forth poetry by a young man, and that where we should least expect it—namely, in a prize poem. These productions have often been ingenious and elegant but we have never before seen one of them which indicated really first-rate poetical genius, and which would have done honour to any men that ever wrote. Such, we do not hesitate to affirm, is the little work before us; and the examiners seem to have felt it like ourselves, for they have assigned the prize to the author, though the measure in which he writes was never before, ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... you may do, if so be you have made up a mind to be a first-rate musician; if you haven't, I need not bother myself ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... engaging that Kitty answered it—kindred spirits, subconsciously recognizing each other. Fire; but neither of them knew that; or that two lonely human beings of opposite sex, in touch, constitute a first-rate combustible. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... the Conqueror, in 1066, two fundamental principles may be said to have been firmly fixed in the English political system. The first was that of thoroughgoing local self-government. The second was that of the obligation of the king, in all matters of first-rate importance, such as the laying of taxes and the making of laws, to seek the counsel and consent of some portion of his subjects. In the period which was inaugurated by the Conquest neither of these principles was entirely ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... musical knowledge, an improvement would soon follow. The organ is a very good one. It was given by the late T. Miller, Esq., and H. Miller, Esq., and placed in the church in 1844. Recently it has been put in first-rate condition, for organs, like the players of them, get worse for wear, by T. H. and W. P. Miller, Esqrs. The organist knows his work, and is able to ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... in Pennsylvania wrote me that he wanted "to raise a first-rate crop of potatoes." I answered him as follows through ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... beach, Wolfe was standing up in the stern-sheets, scanning every inch of the ground to see if there was no place where a few men could get a footing and keep it till the rest had landed. He had first-rate soldiers with him: ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... Secondly. Look if the principal windows and doors have pointed arches with gables over them. If not pointed arches, the building is not Gothic; if they have not any gables over them, it is either not pure, or not first-rate. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... which are conditioned from within. The individual acts for the advantage of the group rather than for his personal advantage, and the stimulus to this action must be furnished socially. Group preservation being of first-rate importance, no group would survive in which the public showed apathy on this point. Lewis and Clarke say of ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... He esteemed a man who was not going to let himself go cheap. "Or if it isn't, we can make it. You and March will pull together first-rate. I don't care how much ideal you put into the thing; the more the better. I can look after the other end of the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... studies. That he laboured hard, both at Brienne and at Paris, we may judge; for his after-life left scanty room for book-work, and of the vast quantity of information which his strong memory ever placed at his disposal, the far greater proportion must have been accumulated now. He made himself a first-rate mathematician; he devoured history—his chosen authors being Plutarch and Tacitus; the former the most simple painter that antiquity has left us of heroic characters—the latter the profoundest master of political wisdom. The poems of Ossian were then new to ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... (Vol. vii., p. 616.; Vol. viii., p. 86.).—It is frequently stated that the Turks are admirers of red hair. I have lately met with a somewhat different account, namely, that the Turks consider red-haired persons who are fat as "first-rate" people, but those who are ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... to it real soon," said Rock. "I felt just as you do before I went to school, and it is worse for a boy; the other boys just go for him, and I had a hard time for the first few weeks, but now I like it first-rate." ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... condition than that of securing him from expense; but when the public, which neglected the first volume, had discovered the rich mine opened in the Task, and assigned the author his merited place among the first-rate English poets, Mr. Johnson would not avail himself of his advantage, but displayed a liberality which has been warmly acknowledged by that admirable, though ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... country you, in your situation, ought to be thoroughly acquainted with. It is a very perilous one. Its prosperity, its integrity, nay its existence as a first-rate power, hangs by a thread, and that thread but little better and stronger than a cotton one. Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat. I look in vain for that constitutional vigour, and intellectual power, which once ruled the destinies ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Forks. Ryan had warned them to keep out of the way of the part-owner, Scoville Austin, a surly person naturally, so exasperated at the tax, and so enraged at the rumour of Government spies masquerading as workmen, checking his reports, that he was "a first-rate man to avoid." But Seymour, the Superintendent, was, in the words of the soothing motto of the ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... is a greater air of movement and life and progress about the little seaport, what with the railway and the harbor-works, than at any other place I have yet seen; and each great undertaking is in the hands of men of first-rate ability and experience, who are as persevering as they are energetic. After looking well over these most interesting plans there was nothing left for us to do except to make a sudden raid on the hotel, pick up ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... Ethel. He is facile princeps here in his own world, but we do not know how it may be when he is measured with public schoolmen, who have had more first-rate tutorship ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... boy, and a first-rate fellow, too, who came out with judge Turner, was my comrade. We staid at the Lake four days —I had plenty of fun, for John constantly reminded me of Sam Bowen when we were on our campaign in Missouri. But first and foremost, for Annie's, Mollies, and Pamela's comfort, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... en famille, crossed by sorrows entirely personal in their nature—deaths, defections, and then the general state of affairs in which we have suffered, you and I, from the same causes. My time is spent in amusing the children, doing a little botany, long walks in summer—I am still a first-rate pedestrian—and writing novels, when I can secure two hours in the daytime and two in the evening. I write easily and with pleasure. This is my recreation, for my correspondence is numerous, and there lies work indeed! If one had ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... it is a decidedly successful imitation of the movement of the original. Madhus has done a first-rate piece of work. The language of witch-craft is as international as the language of science. But only a poet can turn ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... been watching Corporal Barrow and his new recruit squad, Sergeant," Dick announced. "The men are doing first-rate for new men. Corporal Barrow is a ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... yacht had all she needed, and that more would only stop her by burying her: and I had my way. But we were foaming through it, too; we wanted no more pressure; the freshening wind had worked the schooner into a fair nine knots, and it was first-rate sailing too, considering the character of the sea and the weight of the breeze. 'Twas now certain beyond all question that the steamer meant to close us, though I thought she had a queer way of doing it, for sometimes she'd head right at us, and then put her helm down and keep on a course ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... repetitions? Sometimes the tittle-tattle of a fine lady, sometimes that of an old nurse, always tittle-tattle; yet so well gilt over by airy expressions, and a flowing style, she will always please the same people to whom Lord Bolingbroke will shine as a first-rate author. She is so far to be excused, as her letters were not intended for the press; while her labours to display to posterity all the wit and learning he is master of, and sometimes spoils a good argument by a profusion of words, running out into several pages a thought that might have been ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... what conclusion I have come to?" said Peterkin. "I have made up my mind that it's capital—first-rate—the best thing that ever happened to us, and the most splendid prospect that ever lay before three jolly young tars. We've got an island all to ourselves. We'll take possession in the name of the king; we'll go and enter the service of its black inhabitants. ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... for the vegetables, if ever there are any. Flax shelters the bed on the other side. The digging is rather laborious, as there are large stones which have to be extracted with a crowbar. The soil is first-rate, and so far no mildew has been met with. One of the greatest enemies to the seeds will be the fowls, and because of them probably we shall have to sow first in boxes. Graham has made a needle and mesh so that we can make nets. Repetto has shown us how to start netting. ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... accomplished daughter; a celebrated commander in the navy; two highly distinguished members of Congress, and even an ex-president. Also several of the most eminent among the American literati, and two first-rate artists. ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... we grew up. My elder sister, Caroline, had a notable musical gift, and even as a small child had a fine voice, which developed into a rich contralto. Our father, always anxious to do his duty by us, gave her a first-rate musical education, sending her abroad to study under famous Continental teachers, and at eighteen she made her first appearance in public, exciting much attention by the powerful dramatic qualities of her voice. It was evident that her right course was to go in for operatic ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... surface of our lakes a field of endless variety. But among the Alps, where every thing tends to the grand and the sublime, in surfaces as well as in forms, if the lakes do not court the placid reflections of land objects those of first-rate magnitude make compensation, in some degree, by exhibiting those ever-changing fields of green, blue, and purple shadows or lights, (one scarcely knows which to name them) that call to mind a sea-prospect contemplated from ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... those edible things and then gave him unsuitable things for food. And these were exceedingly nice and beautiful to see and were very much acceptable to Rishyasringa. And she gave him garlands of an exceedingly fragrant scent and beautiful and shining garments to wear and first-rate drinks; and then played and laughed and enjoyed herself. And she at his sight played with a ball and while thus employed, looked like a creeping plant broken in two. And she touched his body with her own and repeatedly ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... me good, strong preaching, any day, in preference to good praying. A man may get along with second-rate prayers, but he stands in need of first-rate preaching." ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... you fellows have kind of excited me a little when telling about that thrilling sound you heard," he admitted candidly. "I'd like first-rate to do some prowling around up there to satisfy myself that it wasn't a peacock that screamed, or even ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... any sensibilities to be acted upon. And on the other hand, there is a great amount of affectation in the apparent enthusiasm of many persons in admiring and applauding music of which they have not the least real appreciation. They do not know whether it is good or bad, the work of a first-rate or a fifth-rate composer; whether there are coherent elements in it, or whether it is nothing more than 'a concourse of sweet sounds' with no organic connections. One must be educated, no doubt, to understand ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... outfits belonging to their complexion, respectively. I had an old great-aunt, who was a tip-top eccentric. I had never seen anything just like her in books. So I said, I will have you, old lady, in one of my stories; and, sure enough, I fitted her out with a first-rate odd-sounding name, which I got from the directory, and sent her forth to the world, disguised, as I supposed, beyond the possibility of recognition. The book sold well, and the eccentric personage was voted a novelty. A few weeks after it was published a lawyer called upon me, ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... familiar to you all. As the inventor of murder, and the father of the art, Cain must have been a man of first-rate genius. All the Cains were men of genius. Tubal Cain invented tubes, I think, or some such thing. But, whatever were the originality and genius of the artist, every art was then in its infancy, and the works must be criticised with a recollection of that fact. Even ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... best are the Berlin edition of the early Greek Fathers (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderie, 1897 ff.), and the Vienna edition of the Latin Fathers (Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 1867 ff.), both of first-rate importance. There is a convenient English translation of most of the writings of the ante-Nicene Fathers by Roberts and Donaldson (Ante-Nicene Christian Library, 25 vols., Edinburgh, 1868 ff., American reprint in nine vols., 1886 ff.). A continuation of it, containing selected ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... position by one dexterous sweep of his long, double-bladed paddle. The paddle, which varies from ten to fifteen feet, is simply a pole with a blade at each end. It is grasped in the centre, and each end dipped alternately on either side of the kayak, as this canoe is called. Eskimo kayaks are first-rate sea-boats. They can face almost any sort of weather. They are extremely light, and are propelled by the natives very swiftly. In these frail canoes the natives of the Polar Regions pursue seals and whales, and even venture to attack the walrus in his native element. ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... thing," said Bevis; "I will not listen to anything you have to say. Here is a brick, this will do, first-rate, to pound you with, and now I think of it, I will come a little nearer so as to make ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... of the land, and of the earth, are carried up thither; there are the best markets, and there the best workmen. It is the centre of trade, the supreme court of fashion, the umpire of rival talents, and the standard of things rare and precious. It is the place for seeing galleries of first-rate pictures, and for hearing wonderful voices and performers of transcendent skill. It is the place for great preachers, great orators, great nobles, great statesmen. In the nature of things, greatness and unity go together; excellence implies a centre. And such, for the third ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... lazy, and he likes to spoon, and he puts up with a good deal of petting from the girls,—who wouldn't, if he could get it?—but he is jolly and big-hearted, and don't put on any airs,—with us, at least,—and the mess like him first-rate. 'Tain't his fault that he's handsome and a regular lady-killer. You must admit that he had a pretty tough four years of it up there at that cussed old Indian graveyard, and it's only natural he should enjoy getting here, where there ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... I say is confirmed by the frequent fact that the work of art which gives us this full and vivid pleasure (actually refreshing! for here, at last, is refreshment!) is either fragmentary or by no means first-rate. We have remained arid, hard, incapable of absorbing, while whole Joachim quartets flowed and rippled all round, but never into, us; and then, some other time, our soul seems to have drunk up (every fibre blissfully steeping) a few bars of a sonata (it was Beethoven's 10th violin, and they were ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... She's living down at Winchester now, close to the cathedral, one of the most respectable ladies there. Chaperones girls at the country ball, if you please. No river for Liz, thank you! You remind me of Liz a little: she was a first-rate business woman—saved money from the beginning—never let herself look too like what she was—never lost her head or threw away a chance. When she saw I'd grown up good-looking she said to me across the bar "What are you doing there, you little fool? wearing out your health and ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Although a first-rate player, Eunice often had streaks of bad luck, and, too, inexpert partners were a dangerous factor. But, though she sometimes said that winnings and losings came out about even in the long run, she had found by keeping careful account, her skill made it probable ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... unusual exertions. The Federals, as yet, manifested no intention of marching upon Winchester, nor was the Confederate cavalry in need of immediate assistance. The force numbered 300 sabres. The men were untrained; but they were first-rate horsemen, they knew every inch of the country, and they were exceedingly well commanded. Lieutenant-Colonel J.E.B. Stuart, who had been a captain of dragoons in the United States army, had already given token of those remarkable qualities which were afterwards to make him famous. Of an ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... the hinge upon which depended the defence of the northern frontier of France was broken. It was to an almost forlorn hope that the British Army was committed when it took its place on the left of the French northern armies at Mons to encounter for the first time since Waterloo the shock of a first-rate European force. But for its valour and the distraction caused by the Russian invasion of East Prussia, Paris and possibly the French armies might not ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... bets, and the like. It was evident that Howel, too, was well initiated into such matters. Mr Rice Rice asked him when the question of the hounds was to be decided, and Howel said that kennels were in preparation, and that he hoped to have a first-rate pack by the winter. There arose a dispute about a celebrated racer that Howel appeared to possess in London, and that was expected daily at Abertewey. Howel declared his intention of letting her run at the Carmarthen races. Captain Dancy, having heavy ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... following, viz.: I have fully ascertained from officers home on furlough, that these passages are never read in India, nor is the student ever examined in them. They can interest only such little minds as are of the most contemptibly frivolous description. A man may be a first-rate English or French scholar, yea, an accomplished statesman, without being conversant with the infinite variety of dishes, &c., set down on the carte of a ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... of western England seems a not less incongruous act than to set about renovating the adjoining crags themselves," and well might he sigh over the destruction of the grand old tower of Endelstow Church and the erection of what the vicar called "a splendid tower, designed by a first-rate London man—in the newest style of Gothic art and full of ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... much used chiefly because they are good emulsifiers or good solvents (dissolve things well). Soap is a first-rate emulsifier; water is the best solvent in the world; but it will not dissolve oil and gummy things sufficiently to be of use when we want them dissolved. Turpentine, alcohol, and gasoline find one of ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... short but potent line met his eye: "An overflowing and exceedingly fashionable house greeted the Negro Minstrels last night. First-rate talent never goes begging in our city." George sips his coffee and smiles. Wonderfully clever these editors are, he thinks. They have nice apologies for public taste always on hand; set the country by the ears now and then; ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... do not think Gray a first-rate poet. He has not a bold imagination, nor much command of words. The obscurity in which he has involved himself will not persuade us that he is sublime[1183]. His Elegy in a Church-yard has a happy selection of images, but I don't like what are called his great ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... beaming. "There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and soul in her household—and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true Southern lady of lacking in domesticity—but ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... learn to know the sound of his voice, especially when perhaps he and five hundred of his family are, with their heads half out of the water, amusing themselves in the performance of a concert, each striving to outdo his neighbour in the loudness of his tones. He is a first-rate swimmer; and when driven out of the hole in which he passes the warm hours of the day, he plunges into the water, and skims along the surface some distance before he dives below it. Only on such occasions, or when, perhaps, a dark thunder-cloud shrouds the sky, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... Mr. What's-his-name's health on my own account. I want to thank him for his story, which had only one mistake in it. Melchior should have kept the effervescing papers to put into the beer; it's a splendid drink! Otherwise it was first-rate; though it hit me rather hard. I want to say that though I didn't mean all I said about being an only son (when a fellow gets put out he doesn't know what he means), yet I know I was quite wrong, and the story is quite right. I want particularly to ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... he had some talents for speaking and writing. His rhetoric, though deformed by every imaginable fault of taste, from bombast down to buffoonery, was not wholly without force and vivacity. He had also one quality which, in active life, often gives fourth-rate men an advantage over first-rate men. Whatever he could do he could do without effort, at any moment, in any abundance, and on any side of any question. There was, indeed, a perfect harmony between his moral character and his intellectual ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... advantages in the event of a naval war must ultimately render it the chief general depot of these States. The government appears quite sensible of the policy of rendering this noble station perfectly secure in good season: a series of defences, of first-rate importance, are in a course of erection which, when completed, it is supposed will render the harbour impregnable to any attempt from the sea. To Fort Adams, the rough-work of which is completed, I paid more than one visit; and nothing can be more ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... a brief smile of friendship. "That would do first-rate," he explained; "only, you see, there's no Kafirs, kiddy. Every nigger that had ever seen a boat was snapped up a week ago, when the big flit was happening. That dead-scared crowd that cleared out then took every single sailorman ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... precisely given as the nearest; and yet further, there was the same absence of the colouring which is caused in natural objects by light and heat, and in mental pictures by the fire of imaginative passion. The result is a product which is to Fielding or Scott what a portrait by a first-rate photographer is to one by Vandyke or Reynolds, though, perhaps, the peculiar qualifications which go to make a De Foe are almost as rare as those which form ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... I do in a way. I have been to dine with one or two of our neighbours, and we had some really first-rate music; and then, you see, we live at a long distance from the ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... way the flaming rhetoric of the Hebrew prophets until we think of them chiefly as indicters of a social order. They were not chiefly this but something quite different and more valuable, namely, religious geniuses. First-rate preaching would deal with Amos as the pioneer in ethical monotheism, with Hosea as the first poet of the divine grace, with Jeremiah as the herald of the possibility of each man's separate and personal communion with the living God. But, of course, ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... A relation of my own, who was very intimate with her before her marriage, has often described her to me as being of a very modest, retiring, religious disposition, very clever with her pencil, and as having received a first-rate education from masters in Paris. These gifts, natural and acquired, made her a remarkable young person, amidst the crowd of frivolous idlers who at that time formed "good society," not only in Paris, but even in provincial towns, of which ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... there," cried the aggrieved Arthur, "and you never told me! Why, it is the best water about here, and yesterday was a first-rate day. ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... luck to it!" said the lad, flinging it away, plate and all. "It would have been first-rate but for the dirthy pot, and the blackguard cinders, and its burning to the bottom of the pot. That owld hag, Mrs. R—-, bewitched it with her ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... is an entr'acte, shorter than those at Covent Garden, by the way. M. MAUREL first-rate as the Don, both in acting and singing, even better in former than latter; but the dear old serenade, which never can be vulgarised, in spite of its popularity, was encored, and the encore was gracefully ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various
... said in a letter to Lord Haddington dated the 22nd of May, 1843, "that all our old vessels of war, save the class of eighty-gun ships and a few first-rate and large frigates, are almost worthless; whilst our steam department is deficient in most of the properties which constitute effective vessels. No blockades worthy of the name can now be maintained by fleets of sailing ships; nor can accompanying steamships be kept for months ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... the figure he uses wonderfully apt. Suppose you are going to travel in Europe: you go to the optician, and you ask for a first-rate magnifying-glass, that you may scan the ocean, and view the remote corners of cathedrals. Now imagine him saying that he has for you something far better than that: he has a lovely kaleidoscope: apply your eye to the orifice, turn a little wheel, and you will behold all sorts of pretty ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... of his wife almost with awe, when Mr. Fenwick left him to make this second attack. "She has never had nothing to say to none sich as that," said the farmer, shaking his head, as he alluded both to his wife and to his sister; "and I ain't sure as she'll be first-rate civil to any one as mentions sich ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... commerce at Manila are provided with three or four stout ships that, in case of any accident, the trade may not be suspended. The largest of these ships, whose name I have not learned, is described as little less than one of our first-rate men-of-war, and indeed she must be of an enormous size, for it is known that when she was employed with other ships from the same port to cruise for our China trade, she had no less than 1,200 men on board. Their other ships, though far inferior in bulk to this, are ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... first-rate," she said, speaking low so as not to wake the baby. "Mamie, Ellen, Jamie, Fred, George—say thank you, and ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... owe, is Creditor."—Marsh cor. "Declaring the curricle was his, and he should have in it whom he chose."—A. Ross cor. "The fact is, Burke is the only one of all the host of brilliant contemporaries, whom we can rank as a first-rate orator."—Knickerb. cor. "Thus you see, how naturally the Fribbles and the Daffodils have produced the Messalinas of our time."—Dr. Brown cor. "They would find in the Roman list both the Scipios."—Id. "He found his wife's clothes on fire, and ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... cigar. "I was on the point of discharging him, you remember, with the hearty approval of the directors. His stuff was dismal, abysmal, and hopeless. One day he turned around and began handing in stuff of a totally different kind. First-rate, some of it. I thought at first that he must be hiring somebody to do it for him. Did you see the ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Judith was tempted to give up. But she did her best, and although Eleanor was distracted by all the numberless things demanding attention, she found time to stop and say at the end of the first act, "Good work, Judy! I knew I could depend on you. You'll make a first-rate Scrooge, and you are a brick to get to work without any fuss." And although Judith did not believe the remark about her acting, her face flushed with pleasure and she determined that she would not spend another moment in questioning. This job ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... and down stairs; here was heard the jingling and rattling of drinking glasses and jovial hunting choruses, there the footsteps of those dancing to the sound of the shrill music,—everywhere loud mirth and jollity; so that for four or five weeks together the castle was more like a first-rate hostelry situated on a main highroad than the abode of a country gentleman. This time Freiherr Roderick devoted, as well as he was able, to serious business, for, withdrawing from the revelry of his guests, he discharged ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... also wrote for the newspapers, and had been a contributor to the Northern Star. He was well brought up and was intended for the University, but he did not stick to his Latin and Greek, and as he showed some talent for drawing he was permitted to follow his bent. His work, however, was not of first-rate quality, and consequently orders were not abundant. This was the reason why he had turned to literature. When he had any books to illustrate he lived upon what they brought him, and when there were no books he renewed his acquaintance with politics. ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... engineer. He's a regular first-rate fellow! He can do anything;' my hero-worship and my pride in my chief all coming into play. Besides, if I was not clever and book-learned myself, it was something to belong to ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... more deference, and addresses him in a higher vein than he observes to others. The Epistles to Lapraik, to Smith, and to Rankine, are in a more familiar, or social mood, and lift the veil from the darkness of the poet's condition, and exhibit a mind of first-rate power, groping, and that surely, its way to distinction, in spite of humility of birth, obscurity of condition, and the coldness of the wealthy or the titled. The epistles of other poets owe some of their fame to the rank ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... neat stone building, near the barracks; a Wesleyan meeting, a stuccoed building in Bathurst-street; and a small Catholic chapel in Patrick-street. There are several excellent academies, and a seminary for young ladies, where first-rate accomplishments are taught, and every possible care taken of the health and morals of their pupils, by Mrs. Midwood and Miss Shartland; there are also day charity schools, on the Lancastrian system, for the children ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... dress. These societies of theirs had no ulterior aims; the rabbinical notion that they were schools and academies in which the study of the Torah and of sacred history was pursued imports later ideas into an earlier time. First-rate importance on the whole cannot be claimed for the Nebiim, but occasionally there arose amongst them a man in whom the spirit which was cultivated within their circles may be said to have risen to the explosive pitch. Historical influence was exercised at no time save by these individuals, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... the lake a more northeast and southwest direction. The Hore map has met the fate that usually overtakes the early surveys of every region. It rendered good service as long as it was the best map; but the Moore expedition had first-rate appliances for computing longitudes, and as Captain Hore lacked these, it is not strange that his map has been found ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... jingle to the Broomielaw; or, if you like that better, to ascertain the quality of the soil three feet beneath your own wine-cellar; and you are booked for a month's residence in London, free quarters in a first-rate hotel, five guineas a-day, and all expenses paid. I confess that this regimen seems to me both profitable and pleasant. I have been here for six weeks feeding on the fat of the land, drinking claret which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... it can possibly be to you, to meet once more after so many years: and of course I shall be ready to give you all the benefit of such medical skill as I have: only, you know, one mustn't violate professional etiquette! And you are already in the hands of a first-rate London doctor, with whom it would be utter affectation for me to pretend to compete. (I make no doubt he is right in saying the heart is affected: all your symptoms point that way.) One thing, at any rate, I have already done in my doctorial capacity—secured you a ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... almost formed on purpose to be good sport, and make a jolly good dish, a pleasant addition to the ceaseless round of mutton and beef to which the dead level of civilisation reduces us. Coursing is capital, the harriers first-rate. Now every man who walks about the fields is more or less at heart a sportsman, and the farmer having got the right of the gun he is not unlikely to become to some extent a game preserver. When they could not get it they wanted ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... extended scale; and the public school in Has Keuy, superintended by Kevork, had been committed to the general supervision of one of the great bankers residing there, that it might be remodeled according to his own wishes, and made a first-rate school. This was deemed a needful preliminary to shutting up the mission High School. Early in the year, the parents were summoned before the vicar, and ordered to withdraw their sons from that school. ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... nary home, and nary friend; only my mother"—Bert hesitated, and grew serious; then suddenly changed his tone—"and Hop Houghton. I told him to meet me here, and we'd have a first-rate Thanksgiving dinner together; for it's no fun to be eatin' alone Thanksgiving Day! It sets a feller thinking of everything, if he ever had a home and then hain't got ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... of Italy, by a deputation to him at Paris, I happened to be there. Many Italians, besides the deputies, went on the occasion, and, among them, we had the good fortune to meet the Abbe Fortis, the celebrated naturalist, a gentleman of first-rate abilities, who had travelled three-fourths of the globe in mineralogical research. The Abbe chanced one day to be in company with my husband, who was an old acquaintance of his, where many of the chopfallen deputies, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... denied that men of undoubted talents, and even poets of true, though not of first-rate, genius, have from a mistaken theory deluded both themselves and others in the opposite extreme. I once read to a company of sensible and well-educated women the introductory period of Cowley's preface ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... call her Smith, the governess. Well, Mr. Frank's father, being as proud as Lucifer, said "No," as to marrying the governess, when Mr. Frank wanted him to say "Yes." He was a man of business, was old Gatliffe, and he took the proper business course. He sent the governess away with a first-rate character and a spanking present, and then he, looked about him to get something for Mr. Frank to do. While he was looking about, Mr. Frank bolted to London after the governess, who had nobody alive belonging to her to go to but an aunt—her father's sister. The ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... known as to supersede all others; and indeed we have little doubt that such would already have been the case, but for the fact that comparatively few of our most ingenious mechanics are also expert riflemen, and none but a first-rate shot can thoroughly appreciate all the requirements ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... or three officers from Montreal, with side whiskers, a long pedigree, and a first-rate opinion of themselves, were the only gentlemen who had the temerity to approach the goddess of the ball—oh! excepting the Reverend Augustus Clare, who, in his intense admiration, was almost tongue-tied, ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... of your prejudices, are a very superior nation to us. Their skill and knowledge are both infinitely higher. Every man in France is a first-rate cook—in fact, they are a nation of cooks; and one of our late travellers assures us that they have discovered three hundred methods of dressing eggs, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... therefore very different from ecclesiastical articles of faith or religious dogmas, which are either pure fictions (resting on no empirical evidence), or simply irrational (contradicting the law of causality). As instances of rational hypotheses of first-rate importance may be mentioned our belief in the oneness of matter (the building up of the elements from primary atoms), our belief in equivocal generation, our belief in the essential unity of all natural phenomena, as maintained by monism (on which compare my General Morphology, ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... by the appearance of Christal, followed by one of the young Fludyer boys, with whom she had become a first-rate favourite. Her fearless frankness, her exuberant spirits, tempered only by her anxiety to appear always "the grand lady," made her a welcome guest at Farnwood Hall. Indeed, she was rarely at home, save when appearing, as now, on a hasty visit, which ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... is young, and hardly knows the meaning of the term 'hard experience,' as we know it. Still, in his way, he's useful enough, and first-rate in a fight; and when he comes to bank his share he'll forget to feel over particular as to how he acquired it. That's mere ordinary human nature, and Holmes is far from being ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... locker, and bring along anything you think would be nice? We'll make a fire and have supper on the beach—if it isn't first-rate, ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... that looked well enough but turned out worthless; sometimes I have chucked it away in the fool's manner men do here. I have just come back from a prospecting tour in the country of the Utes, where I found two or three things that seemed good; one of them first-rate, the best thing, I think, I have seen since I ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... not tell you that I was skilful in all games of mingled skill and chance? It requires an arithmetical head for that: a first-rate card-player is a financier spoilt. I am certain that you never could find a man fortunate on the turf or at the gaining-table who had not an excellent head for figures. Well, this French is good enough, apparently; there are but a few idioms, here and there, that, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... taking any frog legs home this time," Bandy-legs was saying, in a half regretful tone; "our girl says she won't cook the same, and my folks seem like they was set against frog for eatin'. Now I like 'em first-rate, but you see I've just got to keep on the good side of our cook, 'cause she gives me lots of scraps for my pet cub. And if that cute little bungler don't improve pretty soon, I just don't know what I'm agoin' to do with him. He makes us so much trouble all the time, ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... practice of Demonology and Witchcraft among them. On the slopes of the Nilgiris live several semi-wild people: 1st, the "Curumbers," who frequently hire themselves out to neighbouring estates, and are first-rate fellers of forest; 2nd, the "Tain" ("Honey Curumbers"), who collect and live largely on honey and roots, and who do not come into civilized parts; 3rd, the "Mulu" Curumbers, who are rare on the slopes of the hills, but common ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... I tell you what I'll do. I can help you and you in turn can assist me. I have no attraction here for Saturday night. You can therefore make use of what scenery you require, under the circumstances, without the drop curtain; but I have a first-rate green baize in the storeroom and I will loan all of it to you. My property room is well stocked, and you can have the use of the props. Moreover, I'll send my stage manager up to Gotown to ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... asked me to lunch with her, and I'm going tomorrow. The young man who played the accompaniment bowed, clicked his heels together, caught up my hand, and kissed it. He didn't say anything. Kloster says he is passionately devoted to music, and so good at it that he would easily have been a first-rate musician if he hadn't happened to have been born a Junker, and therefore has to be an officer. It's a tragedy, apparently, for Kloster says he hates soldiering, and is ill if he is kept away long from music. He went away soon ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... a good nap, mother dear, I feel first-rate, and Frank can see to me if I want anything. Do, now," he added, with a persuasive nod toward the couch, and a boyish relish in stirring up his ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... They are swift as deer, when they choose, though somewhat lazy and indolent. All the kings and chiefs have been special adepts in the invigorating pastime of surf-swimming, and the present king's sisters are considered first-rate hands at it. The performers begin by swimming out into the bay, and diving under the huge Pacific rollers, pushing their surf-boards—flat pieces of wood, about four feet long by two wide, pointed at each end—edgewise before them. For the return journey they select a large ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... just to our friends. A large part is also due to the industrious earth-worm, whose place in nature Darwin first taught us to estimate at its proper worth. For there is much detritus and much first-rate soil even on hills not covered by glaciers. Some of this takes its origin, it is true, from disintegration by wind or rain, but much more is caused by the earth-worm in person. That friend of humanity, so little recognized in his true light, has a habit of ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... so dreadfully bad,' continued Alice in the undertone. 'She's always saying she cares for nothing but to see Emma married. What shall we do? And everything seemed so first-rate. Suppose she summonses ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... place; camped in the sand hills one hour after dark. Here we found some pig-faces* which the horses eat freely. (* These pig-faces belong to the Mesembryaceae, of which the common ice-plant of our gardens is an example.) There is a great deal of moisture in them, and they are a first-rate thing for thirsty horses; besides, they have a powerful diuretic effect. I was unable to fix Beda Hill, all my time being taken up in looking for water, but I hope to get its position at Pernatta. The ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... and then regales the provinces with an exhibition of his proficiency. The strollers are now merged in the "stars." The apprentice has become the master, which may possibly account for the fact, that the work accomplished is not invariably of first-rate quality. ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the principal windows and doors have pointed arches with gables over them. If not pointed arches, the building is not Gothic; if they have not any gables over them, it is either not pure, or not first-rate. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... and Joe and Jim Sharpe; and there's Sam McGrath—though he'd be quarrelling all the time. Maybe Charley Smith's father would let him go. He is a first-rate fellow. You'd ought to see him ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... very few men out of whom such a genius could be fashioned, I have not ceased to regret the death of the author of this volume. For Zola is the supreme type in our day of the novelist-journalist, the man who begins by getting up his facts at first-hand with the care and the exhaustiveness of a first-rate journalist, and who then works them up with the dramatic and literary skill of a great novelist. Charles Reade was something of the kind in his day; but he has ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... measure as I have indicated would be excellent; and though we could never hope to retain India merely by the sword against the combined hostility of its various peoples, the Native Army must always be a factor of first-rate importance, both for the prevention and the repression of any spasmodic outbreak of revolt. It is no secret that reiterated attempts have been made to shake its loyalty, and in some isolated cases not altogether ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... notice a few cases of looseness, either of thought or of expression, to be met with in these pages; a point of style to be particularly looked to when the occurrence or the absence of such forms one very sensible difference between the first-rate and the second-rate ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... admiration for what he called the "little speech" of the painter. "Your friend has such a flow of language, such a memory!" he had said to her when the painter had come to a standstill, "I've seldom seen anything like it. He'd make a first-rate preacher. By Jove, I wish I was like that. What with him and M. Brechot you've drawn two lucky numbers to-night; though I'm not so sure that, simply as a speaker, this one doesn't knock spots off the Professor. It comes more naturally with him, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... to get the bitter of it. I'd kept company pretty steady with Russell. I hadn't give much thought to it, neither; I liked his ways, and he seemed to give in to mine very natural, so't we got along together first-rate. It didn't seem as though we'd ever been strangers, and I wasn't one to make believe at stiffness when I didn't feel it. I told Russell pretty much all I had to tell, and he was allers doin' for me and runnin' after me jest as though he'd ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... in 1830, Paganini saved the Musical Festival, which would have failed but for his individual attraction, although supported by an army of talent in every department. All was done in first-rate style, not to be surpassed. There were Braham, Madame Stockhausen, H. Phillips, De Begnis, &c. &c., Sir G. Smart for conductor, Cramer, Mori, and T. Cooke for leaders, Lindley, Nicholson, Anfossi, Lidel Hermann, Pigott, and above ninety musicians in ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... not ad nauseam. We have all used in this way the flaming rhetoric of the Hebrew prophets until we think of them chiefly as indicters of a social order. They were not chiefly this but something quite different and more valuable, namely, religious geniuses. First-rate preaching would deal with Amos as the pioneer in ethical monotheism, with Hosea as the first poet of the divine grace, with Jeremiah as the herald of the possibility of each man's separate and personal communion with the living God. But, of course, such religious ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... "you trust too much to these stunted oaks, if you believe it exceeds my power to hunt you out of their cover, at pleasure. But I take you at your word. The Coquette shall receive you on these conditions, and with the confidence that a first-rate city belle would enter ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... to see Mr. Babbage while he was making his Calculating-machines. He had a transcendant intellect, unconquerable perseverance, and extensive knowledge on many subjects, besides being a first-rate mathematician. I always found him most amiable and patient in explaining the structure and use of the engines. The first he made could only perform arithmetical operations. Not satisfied with that, Mr. Babbage constructed an analytical engine, which could be so arranged ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... light of the prominence which in all his school stories he properly gave to out-of-door sports and athletic exercises, to have it, on the authority of his old school-fellow, that he excelled in all manly exercises. He was a first-rate football- player, and a good all-round cricketer; he was an excellent oar, and a fairly good swimmer; and until the last few months of his life no man could enjoy with more zest a game of quoits, or tennis, or a day devoted to the royal game ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... their dresses and modes of travelling. The servants who attended them contradicted the inferences to be drawn from the garb of their masters, and, according to the custom of the knights of the rainbow, gave many hints that they were not people to serve any but men of first-rate consequence. These gentlemen, who had come thither chiefly for the purpose of meeting with Mr. Redgauntlet, seemed moody and anxious, conversed and walked together apparently in deep conversation, and avoided any communication with the chance travellers whom ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... possessed it, or could have managed it, one cable would have been worth them all. Much has been said,—much written,—on the art of governing. Why has the simple truth been overlooked or suppressed, that the moral character of the rulers of nations is of first-rate importance? Except the Lord build the city, vain is the labour of them who build it; except religion and virtue guide the state, vain are the talents and the acts of legislators. Is it possible that motives ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... the good old principle "Abuse the plaintiff's attorney." These arts fully account for the downfall of criticism in our day and the deafness of the public to such literary verdicts. But a few years ago a favourable review in a first-rate paper was "fifty pounds in the author's pocket": now it is not worth as many pence unless signed by some well-known scribbling statesman or bustling reverend who caters for the public taste. The decline and fall is well expressed in ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... City is a cheerful little town rendered doubly attractive by light-coloured soil and gaily painted buildings. There is a first-rate hotel adjoining the railway station, which contained a gorgeous bar with several billiard and "ping-pong" tables, the latter game being then the rage in every settlement from Dawson to the coast. I mention the bar, as it was the scene of a ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... indirect method is of course more difficult, and, when successfully employed, is more artistic, than the direct method. But seldom is either used to the exclusion of the other; and it would be possible to illustrate by successive quotations from any first-rate novel, like "The Egoist" for example, how the same characteristics are portrayed first by the one and then by ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... Philip," replied his mother, in a solemn tone of voice. "Hear me, my son. Your father's disposition was but too like your own;—O may his cruel fate be a lesson to you, my dear, dear child! He was a bold, a daring, and, they say, a first-rate seaman. He was not born here, but in Amsterdam; but he would not live there, because he still adhered to the Catholic religion. The Dutch, you know, Philip, are heretics, according to our creed. It is now seventeen years or more that he sailed for India, in his fine ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... likely to have a long ride, and Mary was anxious for a canter over Gum Plain, and beyond the first span of the mountain, where the way is over sand, shaded on both sides by the dark thicket of the gum tree and the forest scrub. She had brought her habit with her, and as she had been taught to be a first-rate horsewoman up at her father's cattle station, I resigned the saddle, and the horse, feeling such a light weight and such a dainty hand, was off like a bird. It was good to watch her as we drove far behind; good to note her pretty figure as she came cantering back and ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... given to gambling, it would seem," the valet went on. "And, moreover, she is under the thumb of a third-rate actor in a suburban theatre, whom, for decency's sake, she calls her godson. She is a first-rate cook, it would seem, and ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... I would like to become a traveling auctioneer!" said the boy to himself, as he hurried down Broadway. "I wish I had enough money so that we could go in as equal partners. He seems a first-rate chap in every way, and honest, too, or he would not have gotten into that ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... hands; the ladies waved their handkerchiefs; and Robert felt quite proud, when, as he reached the bottom of the hill, some boys gathered round, and pronounced his sled "a first-rate runner." ...
— The Nursery, February 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... at our house with a broken leg. It's not at all dangerous, and he gets his gulden of pay and his allowance of bread regularly every week. I only wish I was a journeyman, then I could go and fight and earn some money for you. And Hillner the Defensioner has got on first-rate; the officers all like him, and the governor himself talks to him ever so often. Our mistress loves to see him come into the house, and I'm sure she will marry him as soon as the siege is over, and he is ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... from a real sense of the duty I owed to my future employers, whomsoever they might be, in making myself a first-rate hand in the cutting, shaping, and sewing line, I would not have found courage in my breast to have helped me out through such a long and dreary time. The change from our own town, where every face was friendly, and ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... know what were his particular directions. We are told that he reckoned a sheep and a medimnus (of wheat or barley?) as equivalent, either of them, to a drachma, and that he also prescribed the prices to be paid for first-rate oxen intended for solemn occasions. But it astonishes us to see the large recompense which he awarded out of the public treasury to a victor at the Olympic or Isthmian games: to the former, five hundred drachmas, equal to one year's income of the highest of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... you, Mr Frank," he asked suddenly one morning, when his master was evidently rather gloomily disposed—"what say you to a tramp to the diggings? wouldn't it be famous? We could take it easy; there's first-rate fishing in the Murray, I hear. We could take our horses, our fishing-tackle, our guns, our pannikins, and our tether-ropes; we must have plenty of powder and shot, and then we shall be nice and independent. If you'd draw out, sir, what you ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... see you again, Mr. Sawyer," and the Deacon's grasp was a firm one. "I didn't get up to the Town Hall that night, for I didn't feel first-rate and Sophia didn't want to go alone, but Abner told me what you did and said, and I reckon added a little on ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... terms. All I can say at present is that a certain farmer named Hardy has consented to take him. I have not seen the man yet, he was called away suddenly on some important business and could not let me know in time to stop rife coming here to see him. I am told it's a first-rate farm and the man is well off, which is security against Henry suddenly being discharged owing to impecuniosity on the farmer's part, a thing which seems to be of pretty frequent occurrence about ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... Then there's Major Tixall—major, by gad—a slinking cut-throat, with a face the colour of pigs' liver. What he's majoring it for, Brocton and the devil alone know. The only good thing is we've got a first-rate drill sergeant. He's Brocton's toady, and for that I don't like him, but he does know his business, I must say that ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... "You'll make a first-rate swimmer in a few days, sir," said Paul Truck, as he assisted him up the side. "I'll tell you why—you have no more fear than a Newfoundland dog. The reason people can't swim is that they fancy that they can't; whereas, the Newfoundland dog knows that ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... the short but potent line met his eye: "An overflowing and exceedingly fashionable house greeted the Negro Minstrels last night. First-rate talent never goes begging in our city." George sips his coffee and smiles. Wonderfully clever these editors are, he thinks. They have nice apologies for public taste always on hand; set the country by the ears now and then; and ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... did not then expect to need your services so soon, if at all, in this branch of our agreement; but, as the horse business is agreed upon, and as the fellow may possibly be something of a hindrance to my plans of operation in the future, I think this will be a first-rate occasion on which to dispose of him. As I said, somebody will be accused of stealing the horses, and as it is known that you, gentlemen, have recently been in these parts, and as suspicion has long since pointed to you as having ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... but fragments of a single song[106] remain to us" from this first period—fragments, it may be added, which, though interesting enough, can, in no possible judgment that can be called judgment, rank as in any way first-rate poetry. So, too, the habit of comparing the Nibelungenlied to the Iliad and Kudrun to the Odyssey (parallels not far removed from the Thucydides-and-Tennyson order) may excite resentment. But the Middle High German verse of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is in itself ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... to drive a handsome team of four horses, and, of course, attracted a good deal of attention whenever he made his appearance in the streets. On one occasion the late Lord Sefton, who was through life a first-rate whip, drove up to Heywood's bank in his usual dashing style. Dr. Solomon was tooling along behind his lordship, and desirous of emulating his mode of handling the reins and whip, gave the latter such a flourish as to get the lash so firmly fixed round his neck as to require his ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... obtained leave from Mr. Harcourt, who lives three miles from here, to put up a target at the foot of some bare hills on his property, and we will walk over there twice a week to practice. I used to be considered a first-rate shot with a rifle when I was a young man in America, and I have got down a rifle for my own use. I do not want you to speak about what we are doing to your mamma, or indeed to any one. We shall keep our rifles at a cottage near where we shoot, and no one need know ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... awful owl were he to say it, but it somehow suited the tall, pink boy, and did not sound one particle "dudish," or offensive, and during the ten-mile drive across the Kamloops Hills Banty decided that Con was a first-rate fellow, notwithstanding his abominable clothes and "swagger" English accent. At the ranch house door they were greeted by Banty's parents and a couple of range riders, and Eena, who, Indian-like, never ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... answers I. "The members are a picking up produce now, I shan't go empty-handed on my mission. All the members are wide awake about that. Crops have been first-rate." ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... will do first-rate. I shouldn't want one any better, really. I know"—here he gave a very approving glance about the room. "Now come, do! It would ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... that was no matter. If her father needed a stimulant he must have it. She dressed herself quickly, and put her purse and the brandy-flask into her pocket. Then she hurried to the shed, where she saddled the bronco. Her father had once told her that she would have made a first-rate cowboy. Well, now was her chance ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... you are," said Simpson rapidly. "I'm getting on first-rate. This is the third hole, Archie. It will be rather good, I think; the green is just the other side of the pond. I can make ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... our room—a valuable old painting of the Mater Dolorosa. I always fancied there was a look of my mother, particularly about the eyes, in the countenance. I should like to have it copied by some first-rate artist to hang ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... Wolston had formed an intimacy with the boatswain of the Nelson, named Willis, and he, on his side, held Wolston and his family in high esteem. Willis was likewise a great favorite with his captain—they had served in the same ship together when boys; Willis was known to be a first-rate seaman; so great, indeed, was his skill in steering amongst reefs and shoals, that he was familiarly styled the "Pilot," by which cognomen he was better known on board than any other. At the particular request of ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... of York, Pennsylvania, has considerable interest in the branch of the Baltimore Railroad, from Lancaster. In 1849, he had a warehouse in York, and owned ten first-rate merchandise cars on the Road, doing a fine business. His son, Glenalvon G. Goodrich, a young man of good education, is a good artist, and proprietor of ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... money. "Now I am at my ease for three years at least, I can shut myself in my studio, and work. I can buy colours, pay for a comfortable lodging and good food. I have enough for every thing; nobody can tease or badger me now. I'll get a first-rate lay-figure, order a plaster torso, model feet, buy a Venus, have engravings of all the great masters. And if I work steadily for three years, quietly, without hurry, without being obliged to sell my pictures for my daily bread, I shall astonish the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... causes were at work a special misfortune had befallen the house of Girdlestone. Finding that their fleet of old sailing vessels was too slow and clumsy to compete with more modern ships, they had bought in two first-rate steamers. One was the Providence, a fine screw vessel of twelve hundred tons, and the other was the Evening Star, somewhat smaller in size, but both classed A1 at Lloyd's. The former cost twenty-two thousand ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... village, I found the natives hard at work collecting their crops of wheat and barley, and stowing them away, generally upon the flat tops of their houses. They seemed altogether a peaceful, primitive race; but, although their ground appears in first-rate order, they themselves are uncultivated and dirty in the extreme. The ladies, I am sorry to say, are even rather worse in this matter than the gentlemen. The female costume consists generally of robes of sheep and goat skins thrown across the shoulders; while a long tail of twisted ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... of two by giving a few meals. To-day one crawled upon the gallery to lie in the breeze. He looked as if shells had lost their terrors for his dumb and famished misery. I've taught Martha to make first-rate corn-meal gruel, because I can eat meal easier that way than in hoe-cake, and I prepared him a saucerful, put milk and sugar and nutmeg—I've actually got a nutmeg. When he ate it the tears ran from ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... York, and to appoint him while Hamilton was in, and before it should be known he was going out, would excite a newspaper conflagration, as the ultimate arrangement would not be known. He said McLurg had occurred to him as a man of first-rate abilities, but it is said that he is a speculator. He asked me what sort of a man Wolcot was. I told him I knew nothing of him myself; I had heard him characterized as a cunning man. I asked him whether some person could not take ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... member of the pack-outfit we bought at an auction sale in rather a peculiar manner. About sixty head of Arizona horses of the C. A. Bar outfit were being sold. Toward the close of the afternoon they brought out a well-built stocky buckskin of first-rate appearance except that his left flank was ornamented with five different brands. The auctioneer called attention ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... Dr. Upround, holding council with himself; "evidently a good clerk, and perhaps a first-rate scholar. One of the very best Greek scholars of the age does all his manuscript in printing hand, when he wishes it to be legible. And a capital plan it is—without meaning any pun. I can read ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... an adept in the art, and thought it highly probable that the words chemistry and alchymy were both derived from his name." Others say, the art was derived from the Egyptians, amongst whom it was first founded by Hermes Trismegistus. Moses, who is looked upon as a first-rate alchymist, gained his knowledge in Egypt; but he kept it all to himself, and would not instruct the children of Israel in its mysteries. All the writers upon alchymy triumphantly cite the story of the golden calf, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... space necessary to give a clear and interesting account of the all-important movements, customs, institutions, and achievements of western Europe since the German barbarians conquered the Roman Empire. Such matters of first-rate importance as feudalism, the medival Church, the French Revolution, and the development of the modern European states have received much fuller treatment than has been customary in histories ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... city—have visited haunts frequented only by thieves—the Old Mint, the New Mint, the worst part of St. Giles's, and other places—but I've nowhere seen any one who came up so completely to my notion of a first-rate housebreaker as the individual before us. Wherever I saw him, I should pick him out as a man designed by nature to plan and accomplish the wonderful ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... rated in quality as first, or second, or third. If it rates first, it may be called a first-rate article. The word is properly used as an adjective, but should not be employed as an adverb, as in the ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... keep him out of the brig," said this low-down friend of mine, "I think they might make a first-rate mess hand out of him," at which remark both of the girls, who up to this moment had been studying me silently, exploded into loud peals of mirth and then I knew where I had met them before—at Kitty Van Tassel's coming out party, and I distinctly recalled having spilled some punch on ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... making you uncomfortable? No? I'm glad of that; you're a first-rate sailor. Let us go back to that jolly alcove at the end of the smoking-room looking aft, where we can see the great green-black waves ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... Scotland, here confines himself to the lower portions of the Tweed, more than twelve miles of which he has rented at different times. We in some measure regret that one so able to inform us, from his extensive experiences regarding the nature and localities of the first-rate though rather precarious angling for salmon which may be obtained in the northern parts of Scotland, should not have contrived to include an account of the more uproarious Highland streams and placid lakes frequented by this princely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... help to attract Men. She went home thinking it over and the next time she started for a Dinner, she added a Dash of Red and a few Brilliants to the Costume and cut loose up to a reasonable Limit. She got along first-rate, even though she was doing a lot of Things that none of the Men approve, but somehow love to ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... put it. Father was a timekeeper at Dudley; brother, a mechanic there. I was over to see her yesterday; we had only just said good-bye when I met you. She's remarkably well educated, all things considered: very fond of reading; knows as much of books as I do—more, I daresay. First-rate intelligence; I guessed that from the first. I can see the drawbacks, of course. As I said, she isn't what you would call a lady; but there's nothing much to find fault with even in her manners. And the long and the short of it is, I'm ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... the memory of this homelessness, and the fear of its coming again, that spurred Timothy Haskins and Nettie, his wife, to such ferocious labor during that first year. "'M, yes; 'm, yes; first-rate," said Butler, as his eye took in the neat garden, the pig-pen, and the well-filled barnyard. "You're gitt'n' quite a stock around yeh. Done well, eh?" Haskins was showing Butler around the place. He had not seen it for a year, having spent the year in Washington and Boston with Ashley, ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... were of an obsolete pattern; they were single-loaders, and fresh supplies of cartridges would be nearly as difficult to procure for them as for the Italian. The Austrian and German patterns were both first-rate; the rifles were up-to-date clip-loaders, and, what was the most important consideration, ammunition for them would be easily procurable in the United Kingdom or ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... requisites are very important; and the poetry of a nation not eminent for the gifts on which they depend, will more or less suffer by this shortcoming. In poetry, however, they are after all secondary, and energy is the first thing; but in prose they are of first-rate importance. In its prose literature, therefore, and in the routine of intellectual work generally, a nation with no particular gifts for these will not be so successful. These are what, as I have said, can to a certain degree be learned and appropriated, while the free activity of genius cannot. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... to be a first-rate type of an Americanized Irishman. His wife was a Scotch woman. They had a family of five or six children, two of them grown-up daughters,—modest, comely young women as you would find anywhere. The elder of the two had spent a winter in New York with her ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... with 7s. 6d. or 8s. a day, and give rise abroad to the utterly false impression that there am times when it is hard for an industrious man to get work in Australia. Of course many of our immigrants have become first-rate workmen, but such men soon rise ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... is much too steady and conscientious, besides being too much accustomed to first-rate society, to stoop to anything ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... in this and the next page, in addition to others scattered, though with a sparing hand, through his novels, afford sufficient proof that De Foe was a first-rate master of periodic style; but with sound judgment, and the fine tact of genius, he has avoided it as adverse to, nay, incompatible with, the every-day matter of fact realness, which forms the charm and the character of all his romances. The Robinson Crusoe is ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... detaining around them for that period 300,000 of the enemy. No European power except Russia has soldiers enough to spare so long such a mass of troops standing fast, and simultaneously to prosecute the invasion of a first-rate power with approximately equal numbers. France at the cost of 150,000 men would be holding supine on her frontier double the number ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... afternoon before he had hit on a night-line. But he had persevered, knowing that this was the only safe evidence to start from, and at last had found several, so cunningly set that it was clear that it was a first-rate artist in the poaching line against whom he had pitted himself. These lines must have been laid almost under his nose on that very day, as the freshness of the baits proved. The one which he had selected to watch by was under the bank, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... tapered, I have no where met with any to compare to them. The wood was of a hard substance, and if not too heavy, would have made good masts; the dimensions of some of these trees being equal to a main-mast of a first-rate man of war. The shore was covered with drift wood of a very large size, most of it cedar, which makes a brisk fire; but is so subject to snap and fly, that when we waked in the morning, after a sound sleep, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... a way of telling you that first-rate sugar-cane is grown there. All the population of the Pearl lives for it and by it. Sugar is their daily bread, as it were. And I was coming to them for a cargo of sugar in the hope of the crop having been good and of the ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... In the regiment, S. was considered preeminently the Society officer. He went to all the receptions, all the afternoon teas, all the bridge parties, all the dinners. He was an adept at tennis and golf and a first-rate shot. His elegance was proverbial, and the beautiful cut of his tunics, breeches, jackets, and coats was universally admired. The way his harness was kept and the shape of his high boots were a marvel. To say all this is to give some idea of the change he ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... besides gold have been found. There is iron in many places, copper in others. Coal has been proved to exist, of good if not first-rate quality, on the edge of the Zambesi Valley south of the Victoria Falls, and further east, to the north of Gwelo, and if the gold-reefs turn out well it will certainly be worked. Indeed, railways have now (1899) been decided on to connect ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... papers demanded was supplied by them in cartloads and not at all by law-abiding suffragists, who were an immense majority of the whole. This can be illustrated by an anecdote. The Constitutional suffragists had organized a big meeting in Trafalgar Square and had secured a strong team of first-rate speakers. The square was well filled and on the fringe of the crowd the following conversation was overheard between two press men who had come to report the proceedings. One said he was going away, the second asked why and the first answered: ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... was watching the impression made not only on my face but also on another part of my person, which had now become somewhat prominent. He seemed satisfied with this, and then opened the other packet, which was a series of drawings executed by a first-rate artist in the most admirable style delineating the seduction of a beautiful young boy of about fifteen by another handsome youth a few years older. Every scene in the progress was illustrated by an appropriate and admirably drawn portrait of the two characters, commencing with taking him ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous
... he may as well take the berth offered to him. Privately, I believe Unwin is hugging himself under the idea that he has got a treasure. He spoke of him to me as a highly intelligent fellow and a first-rate Greek scholar, which we know are facts. His hours are pretty light—from ten to six—so he will have his evenings to himself; but I am sorry to say he means to look out for pupils. I have talked myself hoarse on the subject; but he will not listen to reason. Of course his health ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... "Dons." Like Dr. Thomson, the celebrated Master, he is felt to be a characteristic and a real personage, even by those little familiar with his work or writings. He was, moreover, an ardent Pickwickian and thoroughly saturated with the spirit of the immortal book, to appreciate which a first-rate memory, which he possessed, is essential; for the details, allusions, names, suggestions, are so immense that they require to be present together in the mind, and jostle each other out of recollection. In the 'fifties, there were at Cambridge a number of persons interested ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... I ever want a first-rate recommendation I'll come to you. What a lot of friends I've got! Mr. Gilbert offered to get me another place if I'd only resign my situation ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... sweet in the conquering; so many women were not. And she was a little, wild, frail thing. He was sorry for her. He reflected that if he sold the cob he could pay a first-rate doctor to attend her and two nurses. 'I'll sell the cob,' he decided. 'I can easily walk ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... To be sure, in that case he might have got a good office in some of the Departments, or been made a Consul, but why should he complain? He has a first-rate organ, and nobody hinders him from sitting on the corner and grinding it the livelong day, if it pleases him. And then there's the honor! His country may not think about it, nor the people who give him pennies, but if he feels it himself, what more need he want? How ridiculous it ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... that—a'n't it?" quoth Quirk, bustling up to them; "'twas painted for me by a first-rate artist, whose brother I very nearly saved from the gallows! Like such things?" he inquired with a matter-of-fact air, drawing down ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... render larger &c. (increase) 35, (expand) 194. Adj. superior, greater, major, higher; exceeding &c. v.; great &c. 31; distinguished, ultra[Lat]; vaulting; more than a match for. supreme, greatest, utmost, paramount, preeminent, foremost, crowning; first-rate &c. (important) 642, (excellent) 648; unrivaled peerless, matchless; none such, second to none, sans pareil[Fr]; unparagoned[obs3], unparalleled, unequalled, unapproached[obs3], unsurpassed; superlative, inimitable ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... took great pains in forming and preserving a botanical collection, aided by a person embarked solely for that purpose. He placed this collection in the British Museum, and was led to expect that a first-rate botanist would have examined and described it; but he has been disappointed." A reference to Robert Brown's dilatoriness over King's collection occurs in the "Life and Letters," I., page 274, note.), and made him very indignant, but it seems a much harder one would ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... trees do not bear until their third year. At the fifth year they reach maturity, and then continue in their prime for as long as ten or fifteen years. Those grown upon the higher, and therefore cooler, ranges will sometimes remain in first-rate condition for even ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... eighty-six, all told fore and aft, though several of them were fresh from the hospital. The two midshipmen with which the admiral had supplied me were quiet, gentlemanly lads, aged fourteen and thirteen respectively; Woodford, the master's mate, was a man of about twenty-five, and a first-rate navigator; Sanderson was again with me as doctor; my old friends Fidd, Tompion, and Pottle occupied the same position on board the Dolphin that they had held on board the Foam; and I had, in addition, a very respectable young man to perform the duty of purser, and a very handy ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... "Quite so! A first-rate idea, Mr. Barry. They can have the whole day and night to themselves." Then after a pause he began to discuss with his officer the probabilities of the future—the return of the Mahina and the establishment of a permanent pearling station on ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... a most magnetic personality — joined with her husband in his hearty friendship for the newly discovered poet. She was the daughter of the Marquis de la Figaniere, Portuguese minister to this country. In their home were entertained all the first-rate artistic people who came to Philadelphia, such as Salvini, Charlotte Cushman, Bayard Taylor, and others. It was a home in which music and literature were highly honored, and here Lanier met some of the most interesting people then ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... part of it I have not yet got the hang of; but the first - only a few bars! The gavotte is beautiful and pretty hard, I think, and very much of the period; and at the end of it, this musette enters with the most really thrilling effect of simple beauty. O - it's first-rate. I am quite mad over it. If you find other books containing Lully, Rameau, Martini, please let me know; also you might tell me, you who know Bach, where the easiest is to be found. I write all morning, come down, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... could be written in a few weeks, but a solid historical biography of him, with a critical examination of his campaigns, has not yet been written, and perhaps never will be. A literary venture of Lowell and his friends in 1843, to found a first-rate literary magazine, proved a failure; and it is to be feared that he lost money by it. [Footnote: See Scudder's Life of Lowell, ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... build men-of-war, or East India ships, or ships of five hundred ton burden at St. Catherines, or at Battle Bridge in the Thames? when we know that a mile or two lower, viz., at Radcliffe, Limehouse, or Deptford, they build ships of a thousand ton, and might build first-rate men-of-war too, if there was occasion; and the like might be done in this river of Ipswich, within about two or three miles of the town; so that it would not be at all an out-of-the-way speaking to say, such a ship was built at Ipswich, any more than it is to say, as they do, that ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... used to drive a handsome team of four horses, and, of course, attracted a good deal of attention whenever he made his appearance in the streets. On one occasion the late Lord Sefton, who was through life a first-rate whip, drove up to Heywood's bank in his usual dashing style. Dr. Solomon was tooling along behind his lordship, and desirous of emulating his mode of handling the reins and whip, gave the latter such ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... ship rides at her anchor is now made of iron; prior to 1811 only hempen cables were supplied to ships of the British navy, a first-rate's complement on the East Indian station being eleven; the largest was 25 in. (equal to 21/4 in. iron cable) and weighed 6 tons. In 1811, iron cables were supplied to stationary ships; their superiority over hempen ones ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... hope to be and do now, Susan says, if he had but the knowledge that every man may be said to have the right to be possessed of? Yet, the good fellow has raised his family to a point of comfort. A gentleman who heard of his merits, as a first-rate laborer, wrote to the same parish officers, to inquire if there were any brothers. There was Tom; and Tom is now in a happy situation, highly esteemed by his employer, and earning 14s. a week. The employer, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... with my abode at the Weisser Wolf, tho' it is not a first-rate hotel. They are very civil people, and I have an excellent and spacious room for two florins Wiener Whaerung per diem. Lodgings are the only things that are dear in Vienna, every other article is, however, cheaper ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... over an almost impassable road. He is "monarch of all he surveys," a king amongst his farm servants and Indian workmen. Nothing can exceed the independence of his position; but to enjoy this wild country life, he must be born to it. He must be a first-rate horseman, and addicted to all kinds of country sport; and if he can spend the day in riding over his estate, in directing his workmen, watching over his improvements, redressing disputes and grievances, and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... them out to the play-ground, where Napoleon treated them in turn to a very fine dance on his hind-legs, and Old Pudding-head, not to be behindhand in politeness, gave all the little boys a somersault over his nose. They had a first-rate frolic, and did not think once of ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... that you have brushed away more cobwebs that have obscured the subject than any other, besides giving a vast deal that is new, and admirably setting forth what is old, so as to throw new light on the whole subject. It is, in short, a first-rate book. I am making notes for you, but hitherto have seen no defect of importance except in the matter of the Bahamas, whose flora is Floridan, not Cuban, in so far as we know ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... place, immeasurably the best we have come to. There is a quantity of first-rate architecture, and very little or ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... it was a town hand,' said Blathers, continuing his report; 'for the style of work is first-rate.' ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... by storm, but swiftly isolated and forced to surrender. It held out not quite two days. It was the first first-rate fortress taken by our men from the enemy in this engagement. In the ruins, they saw for the first time the work which the enemy puts into his main defences, and the skill and craft with which he provides for his comfort. For some weeks, the underground arrangements ...
— The Old Front Line • John Masefield
... Port Royal in safety, he might reasonably expect to obtain his long waited-for promotion. Although the majority of the men sent with us were the least reliable of the crew, we had an old quartermaster, Ben Nash, and three other seamen, who were first-rate hands, and we took care to put two of them into each watch. Of course there was plenty of work to do in getting the ship to rights. As soon as the men knocked off we heard Larry's riddle going. Stepping forward, I found that he had set all the Frenchmen dancing, and some ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... done?" he said. "You've done something that's really good. Faults? Yes, millions; but there's a first-rate imagination at the bottom of it. How ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... a farmer in Pennsylvania wrote me that he wanted "to raise a first-rate crop of potatoes." I answered him as follows through ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... he's a trump, old fellow," quoth Tom, with ardor. "He's as brave as steel, a first-rate officer, a thorough gentleman, generous, kind, and as jolly as a lark! Give me Fitz Lee to fight with, or march with, or hear laugh! He was shot in the Valley, and I have been with him in Richmond. In spite ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... struck me as characteristic of the principal plenipotentiaries: as a rule, they eschewed first-rate men as fellow-workers, one integer and several zeros being their favorite formula, and they took no account of the flight of time, planning as though an eternity were before them and then suddenly improvising as though afraid of being late for a train ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... occasion to the writer, and we are reminded of it when we step up to the "eight-foot" engine which is to carry us from King's Cross Station to York. To pull the fastest train in Great Britain, or indeed in the world, for one hundred and eighty-eight miles, at more than forty-eight miles an hour, is first-rate running. "Scotchmen" run also from the Midland Station at St. Pancras, and from Euston, but the quickest one is that on the Great Northern, and it is ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... however, is to be observed, in the country of the Loire, in every one who carries a key. It is true that at Langeais there is no great occasion to indulge in the tourist's weak- ness of dawdling; for the apartments, though they contain many curious odds and ends of, antiquity, are not of first-rate interest. They are cold and musty, indeed, with that touching smell of old furniture, as all apartments should be through which the insatiate American wanders in the rear of a bored domestic, pausing to stare at a faded tapestry ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... sound, and retired a step or two farther from the building and looked up at it again. Then he went toward the dock and looked down into its turbid waters, and returned again with a face of hopeless perplexity. "This is Lucas Wharf, and no mistake," he said. "I know the place first-rate, now. But what I can't make out is, What's got ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... deny us even a proximate determination of his inquiry. Even his 1000l., which he may consider a fixed measure of value, or punctum comparationis, is varying in value (power of purchase) daily, even hourly, as regards almost every exchangeable product. Tooke On Prices is a first-rate authority on ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... he acquires a sort of mathematical precision in determining the true bearings and position of objects, and is usually found, when admitted into a rifle club, to equal, without previous practice, its second-rate shots. He only falls short of its first-rate ones, because, uninitiated by the experience of his profession in the mystery of the parabolic curve, he fails, in taking aim, to make the proper allowance for it. The mason is almost always a silent man: the strain on his respiration is too great, when he is actively employed, to leave the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... workman should be called upon to turn out the maximum amount of work which a first-rate man of his ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... only in exceptional cases that nursing need be given up; the natural way is always the best. But where necessary there need be no hesitation in putting an infant on the bottle. The milk of a healthy cow, or condensed milk of first-rate brand, is much to be preferred to that of a wearied, worn-out, and ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... before you go; it is a home manufacture, and so are all the ingredients." Terry poured it out of a veritable big coffeepot—hot, with plenty of sugar and milk. It was pronounced excellent. "See, Harry, you and Charley may supply your family with first-rate coffee," said D'Arcy. "We shall have a thaw before the winter sets in; dig up all the dandelion roots you can find; dry them in the sun or in your oven for keeping; roast them before use; and cut them up and grind them as you would coffee-berries. This is the result. ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... is at its fullest is the time for the really first-rate dancer to turn his talent to the best advantage. Nearly all London ball-givers have such an immense circle of acquaintances that, for some shorter or longer period of the evening, their parties are ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... fools are angry at the truth. I have given orders not to admit him to-day. I love him, but I shall never forgive him for this. Upon my word, a widower! Give me some water. But as for your sending Panshin about his business, I think you're a first-rate girl for that. Only don't you go sitting of nights with any animals of that sort; don't break my old heart, or else you'll see I'm not all fondness—I ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... continued my mother, 'in sober seriousness you have been most fortunate in engaging the affections of a nobleman such as Lord Glenfallen, young and wealthy, with first-rate—yes, acknowledged FIRST-RATE abilities, and of a family whose influence is not exceeded by that of any in Ireland. Of course you see the offer in the same light that I do—indeed I ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... what you may have to go through when you're doing adventures. There might be thorns or snakes or anything. I'm jolly glad to get my boots back too. I say, come on. Let's go to Helen's palace and get a banquet ready. I know there'll have to be a banquet. There always is, here. I know a first-rate ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... plays. What is stranger still, with all this he was something of a valetudinarian. He had come off from school on a foundation fellowship, and had the reputation both at school and in the University of being a first-rate scholar. He was a strict disciplinarian in his way, had the undergraduates under his thumb, and having some bonhomie in his composition, was regarded by them with mingled feelings of fear and good will. They laughed at him, but carefully obeyed him. Besides this ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... Forcythe told his wife that night. "She has a first-rate head on her shoulders for a girl of her age." Mary heard him, and was pleased. She liked—we all like—to be counted useful and valuable. The bit of praise sent her back to her ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... you've got a first-rate horse, and I hear you've got rid of a first-rate lady. You're very lucky, no doubt, in both; but I think fortune has stood to ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... the same, are content with considerably less sums for their services. Cases have been known where as low as five dollars have been received, and very rarely do they get a chance to make more than fifty or sixty dollars, which is considered a first-rate fee. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... men are first-rate. It is impossible to pay too high a tribute to the manner in which they settled down to this job of submarine hunting, and to the intelligence, resource, and courage which they have exhibited. They came on the scene at the opportune moment. Our men had been ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... purpose of preparing for a professional career.[12] It was a wise choice. Vermont may have lost a skilled handworker—there are those who vouch for the excellence of his handiwork[13]—but the Union gained a joiner of first-rate ability. ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... second marriage as a disgraceful mesalliance; but it is not very easy to see in what respect it was so. In social position she had certainly had the advantage over Mr. Thrale, being the daughter of a Carnarvonshire baronet of ancient family. But a first-rate musician was surely the equal of a brewer. After Johnson's death she published a volume of her reminiscences of him, which may be allowed to have been worthy neither of him nor of her, and which was ridiculed by Peter Pindar in "A Town Eclogue," in which the rivals Bozzy and Piozzi, on Virgil's ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... Namur the hinge upon which depended the defence of the northern frontier of France was broken. It was to an almost forlorn hope that the British Army was committed when it took its place on the left of the French northern armies at Mons to encounter for the first time since Waterloo the shock of a first-rate European force. But for its valour and the distraction caused by the Russian invasion of East Prussia, Paris and possibly the French armies ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... and she was chewing gum at a high speed as she stood beside him, looking up at the floating silver cone. "Now watch," she exclaimed suddenly. "She's coming down on the bar. I advised her to cut that out, but you see she does it first-rate. And she got rid of the skirt, too. Those black tights show off her legs very well. She keeps her feet together like I told her, and makes a good line along the back. See the light on those silver slippers,—that was a good idea I had. Come along to meet her. Don't be ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... and he was the Duke of Broadmorlands himself, in whose mind it remained hideously clear. He had been a young man, honestly and much in love when it first revealed itself to him, and for a few months he had even thought it might end by being his death, notwithstanding that he was strong and in first-rate physical condition. He had been a fine, hearty young man of clean and rather dignified life, though he was not understood to be brilliant of mind. Privately he had ideals connected with his rank and name which he was not fluent enough clearly to express. After he had realised that he should ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Madame Desvarennes. "You have made enemies. Without speaking of projects which I had formed, I may say that my daughter has had offers from the best folks in Paris; from first-rate firms! Our circle was ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... service in India; a Mr. Harker, who had been in the church, and had left it in disgust as alike unsuited to his tastes and capacity; Mr. Windus Carr, a prosperous West-end solicitor, who had inherited a first-rate practice from his father, and who devoted his talents to the enjoyment of life, leaving his clients to the care of his partner, a steady-going stout gentleman, with a bald head, and an inexhaustible capacity for business; and last, but by no means least, John Saltram, ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... Sais has always been the royal residence, and the other palaces have in consequence become somewhat neglected. My dwelling was really splendidly situated, and beautifully furnished; it would have been first-rate, if, from the first moment of my entrance, a fearful annoyance had not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and though he expressed some surprise at the proposal, gave it his decided approval. He advised, at the same time, that the estate should not be sold, but be placed in the hands of some trustworthy person, to be managed in Mr. Garie's absence. Under the care of a first-rate overseer, it would not only yield a handsome income, but should they be dissatisfied with their Northern home, they would have the old place still in reserve; and with the knowledge that they had this to fall back upon, they could try their experiment of living in the North with their ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... that with four horses he could have a carriage dragged through the desert to the forest, which would be more comfortable for the ladies; and he made that arrangement in his own and their behalf. Freddy B. is a first-rate horseman, and an Arab steed was ordered for him. Mr. Buckle was determined to go in a thing called a mazetta, a sort of huge bedstead with curtains, borne on the back of a camel, big enough to carry a small family, in which he expected to find room ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... you in future—with whom, and about what you deal. We're told, that 'Whoso is partner with a thief hateth his own soul.' Avoid taverns and bad company, and you may yet do well. You promise to become a first-rate workman. But you want one quality, without which all others are valueless. You want industry—you want steadiness. Idleness is the key of beggary, Jack. If you don't conquer this disgraceful propensity ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the belle jeunesse of Italy; ladies with heads artfully shawled in Spanish-looking lace, but with too little art—or too much nature at least—in the region of the bodice; well- conditioned young abbati with neatly drawn stockings. These indeed are not objects of first-rate interest, and with such Turin is rather meagrely furnished. It has no architecture, no churches, no monuments, no romantic street-scenery. It has the great votive temple of the Superga, which stands on a high hilltop above the city, gazing across at Monte Rosa and lifting ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... bring up against him his array of objections to this or that rendering, and arguments for and against various readings, &c., till Mr Silver found himself fairly out of his depth. At first this puzzled him, and he very nearly committed the mistake of pronouncing John Brown a first-rate scholar in the common-room; but when he found his performance at lecture did not by any means keep pace with the remarkable erudition sometimes displayed by him in private, he began in his turn to suspect the trick. He ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... was head-clerk in Monsieur Roguin's office, in Paris. A first-rate house, which you may have heard mentioned? No! An unfortunate bankruptcy made it famous.—Not having money enough to purchase a practice in Paris at the price to which they were run up in 1816, I came here and bought my predecessor's business. ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac
... humour him in his old age. He once attended the Squire to Oxford, when he was a student there, and enlightened the whole university with his hunting lore. All this is enough to make the old man opinionated, since he finds, on all these matters of first-rate importance, he knows more than the rest of the world. Indeed, Master Simon had been his pupil, and acknowledges that he derived his first knowledge in hunting from the instructions of Christy: and I much question whether the old man does not still ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... almost afraid to inquire how the sufferer fared, for Ned's eyes were fairly swimming with unshed tears; but he smiled brightly, and said, "The ladies and gentlemen in the town, they set up a subscribetion, and bought the poor chap a first-rate pair o' wooden legs, and he could even manage to ride about after a bit; and instead o' wandering about looking for country, or gold, or what not, he settled down as a carrier, and throve and did well. And I was thinking, ma'am, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... "It was a first-rate tale," sighed Angel, contentedly, when I had done, "an' you told it awfully well, John. If you like you may just tell another 'stead o' me. Or The Seraph can tell one. Go ahead, Seraph, and make up the best ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... the skeleton. The eyes are surrounded by a wide space of bright red skin, which, as well as that over the nostrils, is moderately wattled. The breast-bone is remarkably protuberant, being abruptly bowed outwards. The feet and tarsi are of great length, larger than in first-rate English Carriers. The whole bird is of large size, but in proportion to the size of the body the feathers of the wing and tail are short; a wild rock-pigeon, of considerably less size, had tail-feathers 4.6 inches in ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... Steele! Why, this is great! You used to be first-rate to me when I was a little chap. Were those your ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... I found that my first-rate riding ox that had been lamed during the previous year by falling into a pitfall, and had been returned to Shooa, was perfectly recovered; thus I had a good mount for ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... I was going to say," continued James; "I don't know what Soames wants with a young man like that; why doesn't he go to a first-rate man?" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... century, 20% of the island's population emigrated, mostly to Canada and the US. Limited home rule from Denmark was granted in 1874 and complete independence attained in 1944. Literacy, longevity, income, and social cohesion are first-rate by world standards. ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... is in first-rate order," said he to himself. "Father will be sure to find the money when he comes back, and I shall have plenty of time to see how the vulture's nest is to be got at. Mr. Seymour shall have the birds, no matter what trouble and danger it may cost me. He shall ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... appearing to, keeps them under her eye? and, besides, a negro doctor has been to see them. Mr. Rudolph, I said to myself, 'Ah! but this is the coalheaver doctor, this black man; he can feel their pulse without soiling his hands!' But never mind, color is skin deep; he seems to be a first-rate hand, all the same. He ordered a potion for Madame Morel, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... And what is going to happen when it is good enough to cease? I hope"—an uncomfortable thought occurred to me—"I hope Pugh hasn't picked up some pleasant little novelty in the way of an infernal machine. It would be a first-rate joke if he and I had been endeavoring to solve the puzzle of how ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... grand distinctions of the people are these:- (1) The nobility and gentry; (2) the merchants and first-rate tradesmen; (3) the lawyers and physicians; and (4) inferior tradesmen, attorneys, clerks, apprentices, coachmen, carmen, chairmen, watermen, porters, ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... a few years later, had a first-rate school for the education of their daughters in "Edgeworth," a noble seminary established by ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... albizzias. The coffee trees do not bear until their third year. At the fifth year they reach maturity, and then continue in their prime for as long as ten or fifteen years. Those grown upon the higher, and therefore cooler, ranges will sometimes remain in first-rate condition for even ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... They finally sobered up, and we resumed our journey, urging our jaded animals as much as they could stand, until we struck Marysville, on the Big Blue. From this place to Leavenworth we secured first-rate accommodations along the road, as the country had become pretty ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... his feelings. Instead of dissecting the qualities of a character or a work of art, he translates its tone and its spirit as closely as language will permit. That is why his criticism, like Lamb's or that of the master of this form, Longinus, is itself first-rate literature, recreating the impression of a masterpiece and ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... (or governor of Rome.) Him therefore he recommended to the soldiery—that is, to the prtorian cohorts. The soldiery had no particular objection to the old general, if he and they could agree upon terms; his age being doubtless appreciated as a first-rate recommendation, in a case where it insured a speedy renewal of the ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... it; they delight in symbols and correspondences, in seeing a story told as if it were another and a very different story. I frankly confess that I have as a general thing but little enjoyment of it and that it has never seemed to me to be, as it were, a first-rate literary form. It has produced assuredly some first-rate works; and Hawthorne in his younger years had been a great reader and devotee of Bunyan and Spenser, the great masters of allegory. But it is apt ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... are a new invention, but all accounts agree that they are an excellent one. I have obtained leave from Mr. Harcourt, who lives three miles from here, to put up a target at the foot of some bare hills on his property, and we will walk over there twice a week to practice. I used to be considered a first-rate shot with a rifle when I was a young man in America, and I have got down a rifle for my own use. I do not want you to speak about what we are doing to your mamma, or indeed to any one. We shall keep our rifles at a cottage near where we shoot, ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... me to look at her—she couldn't have looked natural. Glad I didn't. Great Scott! but that was a first-rate prayer! Wouldn't have thought after thirty years I could have done so well. And it was all there, everything was in them words! If she knew what I was doing, she couldn't have asked nothing more, for I reckon she wouldn't expect a man like ME to ask no favors for that white-livered ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... table, and set to work at my allegory; it progressed swimmingly, better than it had done for a long time; not very fast, 'tis true, but it seemed to me that what I did was altogether first-rate. I worked, too, for the space of ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... Colonel Zane. Yes, first-rate trip," replied young Bennet. "Say, I've a word for you. Come aside," and drawing Colonel Zane out of earshot of the others, he continued, "I heard this by accident, not that I didn't spy a bit when I got interested, for I did; but the way it ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... is no more than just to the memory of Lord George, and his book affords material for an impartial judgment. At that period the noble lord was a distinguished patron of the turf: all England knew him as a sporting gentleman, a first-rate judge of horses, and an extensive winner on the course. In allusion to his habits in these respects, it became a popular sneer that the Conservatives required "a stable mind," after the versatile performances of Sir Robert Peel, and they had at last found such in Lord George. But although ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the nation from trade and industry. It would hold out a dangerous lure to decoy the unwary to their ruin, by making them part with the earnings of their labour for a prospect of imaginary wealth. The great principle of the project was an evil of first-rate magnitude; it was to raise artificially the value of the stock, by exciting and keeping up a general infatuation, and by promising dividends out of funds which could never be adequate to the purpose." In a prophetic spirit he added, that if the plan ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... the civil and military life of Egypt there was not one element of sound sense; that he had been all along an egregious failure. It did not come home to him with clear, accurate conviction— his brain was not a first-rate medium for illumination; but the facts struck him now with a blind sort of force; and he accepted the blank sensation of failure. Also, he read in the faces of those round him an alien spirit, a chasm of black misunderstanding ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... while since we've seen you here, sir," said the attendant, supporting his foot, and screwing on the heel of the skate. "Except you, there's none of the gentlemen first-rate skaters. Will that be all right?" said he, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... named Hardy has consented to take him. I have not seen the man yet, he was called away suddenly on some important business and could not let me know in time to stop rife coming here to see him. I am told it's a first-rate farm and the man is well off, which is security against Henry suddenly being discharged owing to impecuniosity on the farmer's part, a thing which seems to be of pretty frequent occurrence about here, or, in fact, anywhere ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... lady Whose conduct is shady Or smacking of doubtful propriety; When Virtue would quash her I take and whitewash her And launch her in first-rate society. I recommend acres Of clumsy dressmakers - Their fit and their finishing touches; A sum in addition They pay for permission To say that they ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... first pages of Casuals of the Sea give a pleasant description. Then he went to a well-known grammar school at Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk—what we would call over here a high school. He was a quiet, sturdy boy, and a first-rate cricketer. ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... rather striking, Miss Melville; but I did not expect such an admission from such a quarter. I see you are not strong-minded My aunt, Mrs. Rutherford, and her daughters, have rather been boring me with their theory of the equality of the sexes: this is a first-rate argument. Will you take it very much amiss if I borrow your idea, or rather your sister's, without acknowledgement? I have felt so very small, because they were always bringing up some instance or other out of books which I had never read, that to bring forward ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... flaming rhetoric of the Hebrew prophets until we think of them chiefly as indicters of a social order. They were not chiefly this but something quite different and more valuable, namely, religious geniuses. First-rate preaching would deal with Amos as the pioneer in ethical monotheism, with Hosea as the first poet of the divine grace, with Jeremiah as the herald of the possibility of each man's separate and personal communion with the living God. But, of course, such religious preaching, dealing with ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... commanding their voluble propensities if they would wish to pass for Englishmen. It is certain, more words would have been uttered in this little lugger in one hour, had her crew been indulged to the top of their bent, than would have been uttered in an English first-rate in two; but the danger of using their own language, and the English peculiarity of grumness, had been so thoroughly taught them, that her people rather caricatured, than otherwise, ce grand talent ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... own loss is easily retrieved. I have first-rate news of Ripault-Babin. He can hardly live through the week. One more campaign, dear, one more. Unfortunately the Hotel Padovani will be closed all the winter, owing to the Duchess's deep mourning. So for our scene of operations we shall have the 'at home' ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... present and the perfect, and a joining of the infinitive with those two tenses. In the midst of this damaging criticism Doederlein quotes Walther, who has also commented upon the Annals, but in terms of enthusiastic commendation, for he praises such writing as first-rate workmanship—"adjustments by design," says the ingenious German; not, of course, the unconscious errors, that a modern European might make in a case of forgery: the discovery reminds me of Mr. Ruskin's unqualified ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... grumbling about?" he demanded of his wife. "Shirley's a fine plantation. The water is good, the air superb; there are excellent gardens and first-rate oyster beds. The house is old-fashioned, but it's comfortable, and a little money will make it more so. What's the ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... in this world with a first-rate opinion of himself and the rest of mankind. No man ever started with a larger capital of good nature, human benevolence, and common honesty, than honest John. Few men ever started with better general ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... can only keep him out of the brig," said this low-down friend of mine, "I think they might make a first-rate mess hand out of him," at which remark both of the girls, who up to this moment had been studying me silently, exploded into loud peals of mirth and then I knew where I had met them before—at Kitty Van Tassel's coming out party, and I distinctly ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... different parts of Europe in the prosecution of his scientific theories; he was the first among German scientists to embrace and apply the evolutionary theories of Darwin, and along these lines he has produced several works of first-rate importance in biology; his great works on calcareous sponges, on jelly-fishes, and corals are enriched by elaborate plates of outstanding value; he made important contributions to the Challenger reports, and was among the first to outline the genealogical tree of animal life; his name is associated ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... understood the full force of the complaint which Lady Lufton had made against her daughter; and though she had of course defended her child, and on the whole had defended her successfully, yet she confessed to herself that Griselda's chance of a first-rate establishment would be better if she were a little more impulsive. A man does not wish to marry a statue, let the statue be ever so statuesque. She could not teach her daughter to be impulsive, any more than she could teach her to be six feet high; but might it not ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... time some old farmer, with a good old taste for old roses and pinks, would send me one; I have half a mind to try. But, alas! it is no use, I have nowhere to put it; I rent a house which is built in first-rate modern style, though small, of course, and there is a "garden" to it, but no place to put a damask rose. No place, because it is not "home," and I cannot plant except round "home." The plot or "patch" the landlord calls "the garden"—it is about as wide as the border round a patch, old style—is ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... bring a counter-association which dispelled her mournful memories. She might not fear to trust herself in that vessel which had once almost been her grave, with the man who had saved her from that grave. Windham showed himself a first-rate sailor. Zillah wondered greatly how he could have added this to his other accomplishments, but did not venture to ask him. There was a great gulf between them; and to have asked any personal question, however slight, would have been an attempt to leap that gulf. She dared ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... lesson of high instructiveness to examine the essential qualities which give first-rate poetical rank to lyrics such as "To-morrow" or "Sally in our Alley," when compared with poems written (if the phrase may be allowed) in keys so different as the subtle sweetness of Shelley, the grandeur of Gray and Milton, or the delightful Pastoralism of the Elizabethan ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... the colonel, "but it is just as well to be prepared for all emergencies. You are first-rate sailors," he added, stepping on board. "Cast her off and up with ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... "Well the hay's first-rate!" said Earl, taking off his hat and sitting down in the nearest chair;—"I've been feedin' it out, now, for a good spell, and I know what to think about it. We've been feedin' it out ever since some time this side o' the middle o' November;—I never see nothin' sweeter, and I don't want ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... pretence of health, were there for economy, grew shy of so excellent a player; and though Gawtrey always swore solemnly that he played with the most scrupulous honour (an asseveration which Morton, at least, implicitly believed), and no proof to the contrary was ever detected, yet a first-rate card-player is always a suspicious character, unless the losing parties know exactly who he is. The market fell off, and Gawtrey at length thought it prudent to ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... abounded in bitter invectives; but after a long debate, in which the government were fully vindicated from all blame, all the motions were negatived. On this occasion, however, Sheridan obtained the reputation of a first-rate orator, which probably pleased him more than he would have been had his propositions received the sanction ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... for it has put forth poetry by a young man, and that where we should least expect it—namely, in a prize poem. These productions have often been ingenious and elegant but we have never before seen one of them which indicated really first-rate poetical genius, and which would have done honour to any men that ever wrote. Such, we do not hesitate to affirm, is the little work before us; and the examiners seem to have felt it like ourselves, for they have assigned the prize to the author, though the measure in which he writes ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... or hold forth at a small gathering of friends on the problems of the earliest Italian races, and the causes that met in the founding and growth of Rome, was to understand how no scholar or archeologist can be quite first-rate who is not also something of a poet. The sleepy blue eyes, so suddenly alive; the apparently languid manner which was the natural defense against the outer world of a man all compact of imagination ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... are first-rate!" said the Doctor. "We must find a proper field for them!" And he assured her most respectfully of his regret at having so greatly discomposed her. "It's all for my poor Catherine," he went on. "You must know her, and ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... specimen of such a process; here it will be sufficient to make use of two documents, different in kind, as far as they go, which have come down to us. The first is an alto-relief, which once was coloured, not first-rate in art or execution, and of the date of the Emperor Constantius, about a century later. It was lately discovered in the course of excavations made at El Kaf, the modern Sicca, on the ruins of a church or Roman basilica, for the building in question seems ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... what do I do? Stumble on a family I know, who are constantly assisting of us in all sorts of ways, from that time to this! That won't do, you know; that ain't what I'd a right to expect. If I had stumbled on a serpent and got bit; or stumbled on a first-rate patriot, and got bowie-knifed, or stumbled on a lot of Sympathisers with inverted shirt-collars, and got made a lion of; I might have distinguished myself, and earned some credit. As it is, the great object of my voyage ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... represented, in the eyes of the poor artificer, as ennobling and sanctifying labour and toil; and the quiet domestic duties and affections were here elevated, and hallowed, by religious associations, and adorned by all the graces of Art. Even where the artistic treatment was not first-rate, was not such as the painters—priests and poets as well as painters—of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries would have lent to such themes,—still if the sentiment and significance were but intelligible to those especially addressed, the purpose ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... morning, while I was prowling around the settlement," said Charlie, "who said that there was plenty of vacant land, of first-rate quality, up around Manhattan. Where's that, father—do you know? He didn't, but some other man, one of the New England Society fellows, ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... anyhow, he didn't come to fish for barrels nor yet for cook-stoves; so we went on, and there they be—are yet, I suppose. Bimeby we came to Marks's camp, where we were to stay. It was a bark lean-to, big enough for us all, with a nice fire burning, and all comfortable. Doctor and I liked it first-rate; but the city chaps,—they said they must have their tents up, so we spent a good part of a day getting the ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... "I won't jump in for you again, Joe. The fact is, boys, I oughtn't to have done it without waiting to find out whether there was really anything the matter with Joe. I'll tell you what we'll do. Joe is a first-rate swimmer, and we'll make a rule that whenever anybody is to jump into the river for anything, Joe shall do it. What ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... doubtless, will exploit her in Biskra. You may have her for two years. By that time she may toss her own handkerchief. Then she reverts to me. I shall take her to Cairo, where second-rate Englishmen and first-rate Americans abound. ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind every man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he should ever ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... because he didn't much care what happened he was able to force Mr. Mortimer R. Guilfogle to raise his salary to twenty-three dollars a week. Mr. Guilfogle went out of his way to admit that the letters to the Southern trade had been "a first-rate stunt, son." ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... see Mr. Babbage while he was making his Calculating-machines. He had a transcendant intellect, unconquerable perseverance, and extensive knowledge on many subjects, besides being a first-rate mathematician. I always found him most amiable and patient in explaining the structure and use of the engines. The first he made could only perform arithmetical operations. Not satisfied with that, Mr. Babbage ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... cheerful temper to match." And there above me was my unknown necessitous fellow-creature, crying out in printers' types:—"Wanted, a companion for a lady. Must be an accomplished musician, and have a cheerful temper. Testimonials to capacity, and first-rate references required." Exactly what I had offered! "Apply by letter only, in the first instance." Exactly what I had said! Fie upon me, I had spent three and sixpence for nothing. I threw down the newspaper, in a transport of anger (like a fool)—and then took it up again (like a sensible woman), ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... besides being a great humorist and a great sportsman and a great preacher, William Guthrie was a great writer. A great writer is not a man who fills our dusty shelves with his forgotten volumes. It is not given to any man to fill a whole library with first-rate work. Our greatest authors have all written little books. Job is a small book, so is the Psalms, so is Isaiah, so is the Gospel of John, so is the Epistle to the Romans, so is the Confessions, so is the ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... I've got 'most fifteen hundred dollars in the bank. Laviny keeps the pass book in her bureau, but you could get it from her. I own my house. I'm a man of good character. You're poor, but I don't let that stand in the way. Anyhow, you're a first-rate housekeeper. And I really do think an ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... in thunder on the beach, Wolfe was standing up in the stern-sheets, scanning every inch of the ground to see if there was no place where a few men could get a footing and keep it till the rest had landed. He had first-rate soldiers with him: ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... said to the two friends who had remained at home; "there is a report that Amasis is at the point of death. We had all met on the place of exchange in order to settle our business, and I was on the point of selling all my stored goods at such high prices as to secure me a first-rate profit, with which, when the prospect of an important war had lowered prices again, I could have bought in fresh goods—you see it stands me in good stead to know your royal brother's intentions so early—when suddenly the Toparch appeared ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... jailer said, "Come, boys, it is time to lock up"; and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was introduced to me by the jailer as "a first-rate fellow and clever man." When the door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably neatest apartment in town. He naturally wanted to know ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... in the same Barcelona the first universal Exposition of Spain. It was not possible to choose a more favorable place, for the capital- town of Catalonia is a first-rate city ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... dying by starvation at home." For his worshippers too a most questionable thing! If doing Hero-worship well or badly be the test of vital wellbeing or illbeing to a generation, can we say that these generations are very first-rate?—And yet our heroic Men of Letters do teach, govern, are kings, priests, or what you like to call them; intrinsically there is no preventing it by any means whatever. The world has to obey him who thinks and sees in the world. The world can alter the manner ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... commercialized cads we are, doing everything and anything for money, and selling our souls and bodies by the pound and the inch after wasting half the day haggling over the price. Decidedly, whether you think Jesus was God or not, you must admit that he was a first-rate ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... in illustrated papers as characteristic of "Celebrities at Home". A palm, on its last legs, draped in shabby green silk, was dying by the window. The gloom was mitigated by an air of cosiness. There were books, first-rate and second-hand. Books (their outsides) were a hobby with Mervyn. Smoking in this den seemed as natural as breathing, and rather easier, though its owner never touched tobacco. On the Chesterfield sofa there ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... this first-rate collaborator, I have my seat on the magic carpet. Behold me in the pampas of the Argentine Republic, eager to draw a parallel between the industry of the Serignan[12] Dung-beetles and that of their rivals ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... to disperse my store; Another, not to heed to treasure more! Glad, like a boy, to snatch the first good day, And pleased, if sordid want be far away. What is't to me (a passenger, God wot) Whether my vessel be first-rate or not? The ship itself may make a better figure, But I that sail, am neither less nor bigger, I neither strut with every favouring breath, Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth. In power, wit, figure, virtue, fortune, placed Behind the foremost and before the last. "But why ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... purpose to be good sport, and make a jolly good dish, a pleasant addition to the ceaseless round of mutton and beef to which the dead level of civilisation reduces us. Coursing is capital, the harriers first-rate. Now every man who walks about the fields is more or less at heart a sportsman, and the farmer having got the right of the gun he is not unlikely to become to some extent a game preserver. When they could not ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... was very comfortable where I was, settin' in the hotel room there, smoking my pipe. GREEN the Guide gave us, "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," in first-rate style—he is a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... a first-rate boy, and I'd hate to hear worse of him. But I mustn't take your time over our affairs. I think you mentioned ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... small feet and big eyes, were stabbing each other close by, and a disheveled female was flying away in the background with her mouth wide open. Pausing to turn a page, the lad saw her looking and, with boyish good nature offered half his paper, saying bluntly, "want to read it? That's a first-rate story." ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... 'Why, to a first-rate bonnet, as I think you would prove, I could afford to give from forty to fifty shillings ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... good humor as one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquillity. It is among the most effectual, and its effect is so well imitated and aided, artificially, by politeness, that this also becomes an acquisition of first-rate value. In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue. It is the practice of sacrificing to those whom we meet in society, all the little conveniences and preferences which ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... nothing to compare with stopping a charging lion at twenty yards. I've done it, my boy. You can come back for all this pow-wow afterwards." He gave the diplomatic service as a second choice. "There you are," he said, "first-rate social position, nothing to do, theatres, operas, pretty women, colour, life. The best of good times. Barring Washington, that is. But Washington, they say, isn't as bad as it used to be—since Teddy has ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... "Those will do first-rate, and there are lots in the ma'sh, if I can only get 'em," he said to himself, and turned off from the road on his way home ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... to the rock he had been squatting on. A most remarkable instance of courage on the part of a native occurred when a brother planter of mine was out tiger shooting on the Ghauts to the north of my abode. A tiger flew at a Hindoo peasant—a first-rate plucky sportsman, and as the tiger charged, the man struck at it with his hacking knife (a formidable weapon in the hands of a man who knows how to use it, and used to cut underwood, and thick boughs ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... the season, it was a very full house. Cooper's, in that day, was a name that filled every mouth, and he seldom failed to fill every theatre in which he appeared. With many first-rate qualifications for his art, and a very respectable conception of his characters, he threw everything like competition behind him; though there were a few, as there ever will be among the superlatively intellectual, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... he said presently. "Fortunes of War. I got to pick the proper time with Susan—else she'll get depressed. Not that she isn't a first-rate brick whatever comes along." ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... The dogs, too, had coverings put on their feet, and on every other delicate place, which made them less agile. In ordinary cases, on a smooth surface, it is not very difficult to guide a team of dogs, when the leader is a first-rate animal. But this is an essential point, otherwise it is impossible to get along. Every time the dogs hit on the track of a bear, or fox, or other animal, their hunting instincts are developed: away they dart like mad, leaving the line of march, and in spite of all the efforts ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... The World's Food Resources (Holt), is a larger and more detailed discussion than most of those recommended above, but contains a number of general facts and comment of first-rate importance. ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... of men to be kept on an estate to preserve it in first-rate order after it has come into bearing, must depend of course upon the size of the plantation, but in general one man for every one hundred trees will be found sufficient, provided there be some four or five thousand trees. ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... the near neighborhood of a very nice young man, who listened with well-bred interest while she told of her troubles concerning the sheep pasture, and how she was going to New York to consult a first-rate lawyer. ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... philosophy of In Memoriam may be, indeed is, regarded by robust, first-rate, and far from sensitive minds, as a "damned vacillating state." The poet is not so imbued with the spirit of popular science as to be sure that he knows everything: knows that there is nothing but atoms ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... impossible that all, of such works, though the greatest yet produced, should approach abstract perfection; that there is certainly something left for us to carry farther, or complete; that any given generation has just the same chance of producing some individual mind of first-rate calibre, as any of its predecessors; and that if such a mind should arise, the chances are, that with the assistance of experience and example, it would, in its particular and chosen path, do greater things than had ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... poor heart now," said he, "a good deal of it; it has been wasted; it wants first-rate management to bring it in order and make much of it for two or three years to come. I never see an Irishman's head yet that was worth more than a joke. Their hands are all of ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... don't agree with her, take her up on the platform, and have it out there; the public would like that, first-rate!" Mr. Filer said to Ransom, as if ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... nobody, except perhaps William, listened, near the Martyrs' Memorial. And William wore a flannel shirt, and rode a bicycle—very strange habits in those days, and very horrible. He was said to be (though he was short-sighted and wore glasses) a first-rate 'back' at football; but, as football was a thing frowned on by the rowing men, and coldly ignored by the bloods, his talent for it did not help him: he was one of the principal pariahs of our College; and ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... would not undertake to say that any modern mind has equalled Aristotle in the range of his intellectual powers; but in point of intensity of grasp in any one subject, he has many rivals; so that to obtain his equal, we have only to take two or three first-rate moderns. ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... papers, are watched occasionally in a disagreeable manner by the police. Itinerant philosophers are absolutely not understood in England. Intruders into private premises, even for grand missionary purposes, are constantly served with summary notices to quit. Mrs. Quickly gave a first-rate character to Simple; but for all that, Dr. Caius with too much show of reason demanded, 'Vat shall de honest young man do in my closet?' And we fear that Coleridge's beneficent old man, lecturing gratis upon things in general, would be regarded with illiberal jealousy by ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... the first principles of political economy among European gentlemen of otherwise first-rate education and abilities in India is quite lamentable, for there are really few public officers, even in the army, who are not occasionally liable to be placed in the situations where they may, by false ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... pretty good hand with the file and drill, he got Bill to teach him how to caulk. He shaped first-rate, so one day we thought we'd leave him to it while we went off for a jaunt. Bill had bought an old shot-gun from a farmer, and we'd seen a lot of wild ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... nation appears ever to have erected buildings of first-rate importance. It cannot be denied, however, that the Chinese are possessed of considerable decorative skill and mechanical ingenuity; and these qualities are the most prominent elements in their buildings. Great size and splendor, massiveness and ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... brief smile of friendship. "That would do first-rate," he explained; "only, you see, there's no Kafirs, kiddy. Every nigger that had ever seen a boat was snapped up a week ago, when the big flit was happening. That dead-scared crowd that cleared out then took every single sailorman to ferry 'em down the coast—white, black, and piebald. And the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... in the 'Cornhill') 'in a six hours' sitting, during which I had written thirty-two MS. pages straight off. I don't feel at all the worse for it.' On Nov. 14 following he observes that he is 'in first-rate health.' He wrote all night from six till three, got up at 7.30, and walked thirty-one miles; after which he felt 'perfectly fresh and well.' On Jan. 13, 1863, he has a long drive in steady rain, sits up 'laughing and talking' ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... here notice a few cases of looseness, either of thought or of expression, to be met with in these pages; a point of style to be particularly looked to when the occurrence or the absence of such forms one very sensible difference between the first-rate and the second-rate poets ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... an offer of the Consulship of Italy, by a deputation to him at Paris, I happened to be there. Many Italians, besides the deputies, went on the occasion, and, among them, we had the good fortune to meet the Abbe Fortis, the celebrated naturalist, a gentleman of first-rate abilities, who had travelled three-fourths of the globe in mineralogical research. The Abbe chanced one day to be in company with my husband, who was an old acquaintance of his, where many of the chopfallen ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... impression made not only on my face but also on another part of my person, which had now become somewhat prominent. He seemed satisfied with this, and then opened the other packet, which was a series of drawings executed by a first-rate artist in the most admirable style delineating the seduction of a beautiful young boy of about fifteen by another handsome youth a few years older. Every scene in the progress was illustrated by an appropriate and admirably drawn portrait of the two characters, commencing ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous
... a dog, Miss Terry, that won't be any trouble. He's got a very good head, a first-rate tail, stuck in splendidly, but his legs are too long. He'd follow ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... give a good dinner, and do not know in what manner to set about it, you will do wisely to order it from Birch, Kuehn, or any other first-rate restaurateur. By these means you ensure the best ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... of Wills, first Marquis of Downshire; married, in 1773, to James seventh Earl of Salisbury, advanced, in August 1789, to the title of Marquis. Her ladyship was a warm patroness of the art of archery, and a first-rate equestrian. In November 1835, at the age of eighty-four, she was burnt to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... rage: hundreds are going out. Were there no reasons to urge me away, you would be doing the most unwise thing possible to stand in the light of my going. If I were at something that I liked, that I was not worked to death at; if I did not owe a shilling; if my prospects here, in short, were first-rate, and my life a bower of rose-leaves, I should do well to throw it all up ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... better, on the whole, than any other 'Introduction' known to me, the real requirements of such a book as distinguished from a 'Sketch' or a 'Summary.' It rightly does not attempt to be cyclopaedic, but isolates a number of figures of first-rate importance, and deals with these in a very attractive way. The directions for reading are also ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... an attack in the "Gardeners' Chronicle", by Harvey (a first-rate Botanist, as you probably know). It seems to me rather strange; he assumes the permanence of monsters, whereas, monsters are generally sterile, and not often inheritable. But grant his case, it comes that I have been ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... at the wagon, a teamster came to me and said, in a hasty and abrupt manner, 'Doctor, Mc will kill you to-day or to-night. He is full of rage, and muttering terrible threats. He was out very early this morning and emptied his six-shooter, and came in and reloaded it and put it in first-rate order.' I said, 'Mc, what's up now?' He replied, 'I will kill that d——d old doctor to-day or to-night;' and he will do it. I have known him make threats before, and have never known him fail to execute them. But I must go; he must not know that I have seen you.' Knowing the ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... I am now going to give you my opinion of your works. I have read them all many times, and call them first-rate. Please ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Creditor."—Marsh's Book-Keeping, p. 23. "Declaring the curricle was his, and he should have who he chose in it."—Anna Ross, p. 147. "The fact is, Burke is the only one of all the host of brilliant contemporaries who we can rank as a first-rate orator."—The Knickerbocker, May, 1833. "Thus you see, how naturally the Fribbles and the Daffodils have produced the Messalina's of our time:"—Brown's Estimate, ii, 53. "They would find in the Roman list both the Scipio's."—Ib., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... suffragists, who were an immense majority of the whole. This can be illustrated by an anecdote. The Constitutional suffragists had organized a big meeting in Trafalgar Square and had secured a strong team of first-rate speakers. The square was well filled and on the fringe of the crowd the following conversation was overheard between two press men who had come to report the proceedings. One said he was going away, the second asked why and the first answered: "It's no ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... to all the Engravings except one—Rosalind and Celia—about which, the less said the better. There are, perhaps, too many portraits in the collection, but taken apart, they are among the first-rate productions of their class. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... "sweeter copies"—as the phrase is; and never did the bibliomaniacal barometer rise higher than at this sale! The most marked phrensy characterized it. A copy of the Editio Princeps of Homer (by no means a first-rate one) brought L92:[88] and all the ALDINE CLASSICS produced such an electricity of sensation that buyers stuck at nothing ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... in rising to address the House after having listened for upwards of five hours to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. But the question is one, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, of first-rate importance; and as I happen from a variety of circumstances to have paid some attention to it, and to have formed some strong opinions in regard to it, I am unwilling even that the Bill should be brought in, or that this opportunity should pass, without saying something, ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... Control: Computer vs. Brain," and the current reprint. I am sorry that I didn't get an opportunity to get down to Washington en route to Woods Hole and talk over the whole thing over a bottle of beer, dark beer. From what I hear of the demands on a first-rate mathematician's time these days, you should be grateful that I didn't get to see you, because I would have monopolized all your time. I appreciate your generosity in extending the invitation as a ...
— On Handling the Data • M. I. Mayfield
... is displayed in each part of the establishment, and especially in the management of the springs, so that a single drop of water may not be lost: indeed the whole island may be compared to a huge ship kept in first-rate order. I could not help, when admiring the active industry, which had created such effects out of such means, at the same time regretting that it had been wasted on so poor and trifling an end. M. Lesson has remarked ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... of you to be the first," whispered Dick; "and how nice you look, Nan! You always do, you know, but to-day you are first-rate. Is this a new gown?" casting an approving look over Nan's costume, which was certainly ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... aspirations of rising priests in the Church of England. A lawyer does not sin in seeking to be a judge, or in compassing his wishes by all honest means. A young diplomat entertains a fair ambition when he looks forward to be the lord of a first-rate embassy; and a poor novelist when he attempts to rival Dickens or rise above Fitzjames, commits no fault, though he may ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... early childhood she has been determined to obtain an education, and to attain to a certain standard. Where persons are determined to be anything, they will be. I think, for this reason, she will make a first-rate character. Such are my companions. We spend our time in school during the day, and in studying in the evening. My plan of study is to read rhetoric and prepare exercises for my class the first half ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... placed in the fire-place of "'tother room," which means, what in Scotland is termed "ben" the house, and in England "the parlour." This was the first evening of its being put in operation. I observed the old gentleman (a first-rate specimen of a blue nose) looked very uncomfortable and fidgetty. For a time he sat twirling his thumbs in silence, when suddenly a thought seemed to strike him: he left the room, and shortly after the ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... ought to tell you, ma'am—it is hardly a fit story for a young lady; but this Ruth Hilton was an apprentice to my sister-in-law, who had a first-rate business in Fordham, which brought her a good deal of patronage from the county families; and this young creature was very artful and bold, and thought sadly too much of her beauty; and, somehow, she beguiled ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... are scientific articles of faith, and therefore very different from ecclesiastical articles of faith or religious dogmas, which are either pure fictions (resting on no empirical evidence), or simply irrational (contradicting the law of causality). As instances of rational hypotheses of first-rate importance may be mentioned our belief in the oneness of matter (the building up of the elements from primary atoms), our belief in equivocal generation, our belief in the essential unity of all natural phenomena, as maintained by monism (on which compare my General Morphology, ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... asseveration on their part could have done, but he was still astounded at the news that this boy friend of his, who had never even mentioned that he could fence, could by any possibility be not only a first-rate swordsman, but actually a fair match ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... not too soon 1800 years ago to stand in daily expectation of it, it is not too soon now: to say that it is too late, is not merely to impute error to the apostles, on a matter which they made of first-rate moral importance, but is to say, that those whom Peter calls "ungodly scoffers, walking after their own lusts"—were right, and he was wrong, on the very point for which he ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... to get some clues out of the little chap," continued Hugh, "but without much success. All he's said so far is that they've come ever so far, and that he liked riding on the cars first-rate, only mommy cried so much and wouldn't eat every time he did. From the way he talked they suspect that the young woman may have come from the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... the grateful avidity with which they took the money, and the warmth with which they pledged themselves to serve me faithfully through all dangers and difficulties, would, had he had no dealings with such men before, have thought that I had a first-rate set of followers. I lastly gave Sheikh Said a double-barrelled rifle by Blissett, and distributed fifty carbines among the seniors of the expedition, with the condition that they would forfeit them to others more worthy if they did ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... came to anchor in the basin, called by the French, with much propriety, Beau-bassin, where a hundred ships of the line may ride in safety without crowding, and from the time we entered this bay we found water enough every where for a first-rate ship of war. It is about five miles from Beau-sejour, now Fort Cumberland."—Knox's Historical Journal, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... in remodelling his seventh Leipsic edition, chiefly in conformity with the readings of his lately discovered MS.(129) And yet the Codex in question abounds with "errors of the the eye and pen, to an extent not unparalleled, but happily rather unusual in documents of first-rate importance." On many occasions, 10, 20, 30, 40 words are dropped through very carelessness.(130) "Letters and words, even whole sentences, are frequently written twice over, or begun and immediately cancelled: while ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... Sheridan?" I assured him with thanks that I was "first-rate," when, pointing toward the village, he asked, "Is General Lee up there?" and I replied: "There is his army down in that valley, and he himself is over in that house (designating McLean's house) waiting to surrender to you." The General then said, "Come, let us go over," this last remark ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... rollers and the enemy's cannon roared and the waves broke in thunder on the beach, Wolfe was standing up in the stern-sheets, scanning every inch of the ground to see if there was no place where a few men could get a footing and keep it till the rest had landed. He had first-rate soldiers with him: grenadiers, Highlanders, ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... to advertise the same, are content with considerably less sums for their services. Cases have been known where as low as five dollars have been received, and very rarely do they get a chance to make more than fifty or sixty dollars, which is considered a first-rate fee. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... one; it cannot be limited either in space or time; it cannot be other than at least as self-consistent as its manifestations in nature are invariable. Now, from the latter deduction there arises a point of first-rate importance in the present connexion. For if the so-called First Cause be intelligent, and therefore all secondary causes but the expression of a supreme Will, in as far as such a Will is self-consistent, the operation of all natural causes must be uniform,—with ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... which was so overgrown with moss and creepers that I did not pull it down. Never in my life has anything given me such delight as the anticipation of this hermit-like existence. At the same time, I have engaged a first-rate cook, called Torp, who seems to have the cookery of every country as pat as the Lord's Prayer. I have no intention of living upon bread and ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... The Town and Country Magazine, and to it from time to time he sent these poems. A keen controversy arose as to their genuineness. Horace Walpole shewed some of them, which Chatterton had sent him, to Gray and Mason, who were deemed, justly, first-rate authorities on antiquarian matters, and who at once pronounced them forgeries. It is deeply to be regretted that these men, perceiving, as they must have done, the great merit of these productions, had not made more particular inquiries about them, and tried ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... he said, lamely, "except Mrs. Papineau and Mrs. Carew. They're first-rate women, both of 'em. And of course Mrs. Papineau is your only resource till to-morrow, unless Stefan is coming ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... most stunning place, immeasurably the best we have come to. There is a quantity of first-rate architecture, and very little or ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... in quality as first, or second, or third. If it rates first, it may be called a first-rate article. The word is properly used as an adjective, but should not be employed as an adverb, as in ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... being a great humorist and a great sportsman and a great preacher, William Guthrie was a great writer. A great writer is not a man who fills our dusty shelves with his forgotten volumes. It is not given to any man to fill a whole library with first-rate work. Our greatest authors have all written little books. Job is a small book, so is the Psalms, so is Isaiah, so is the Gospel of John, so is the Epistle to the Romans, so is the Confessions, so is the Comedy, so is the Imitation, so are the Pilgrim and the Grace ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... a very potent piece of imbecility. In him the pretensions of the worthy Gloucestershire family are well kept up, and immortalized. He and his friend Sackerson and his book of songs and his love of Anne Page and his having nothing to say to her can never be forgotten. It is the only first-rate character in the play, but it is in that class. Shakespeare is the only writer who was as great in describing weakness ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... a family event which occurred in the March of the later year. The tone of her letters through the remainder of 1816, and at the beginning of the next year, was almost invariably cheerful, and she showed by the completion of Persuasion that she was capable of first-rate literary work during the summer of 1816. The fact is that, as to health, she was an incurable optimist; her natural good spirits made her see the best side, and her unselfishness prompted the suppression ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... headdress began to come down. A pair of side curls dropped—a first-rate shot, a sportsman would say—the effect of a double shake and a sudden fetch-up. Next a profusion of hair from the back of the head tumbled off. Teeth began to chatter, and various portions of the structure in which she was ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the mock doctor. "Webber is a man of first-rate capacity; and were he only to apply, I am not certain to what eminence his abilities might raise him. Come, Collisson, any three angles of a triangle are equal to—are equal to—what are they equal to?" Here he yawned as though he ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... delicious fragrance and exquisite beauty the Jonquil has long been considered one of the most valuable of the Narciss family for cultivation in pots, and it is also a first-rate border and woodland flower. When forced, the treatment should agree as nearly as possible with that prescribed for the Narcissus. Four or five bulbs may ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... Brooke. He hesitated as if at a loss, and then went on in a way that was peculiarly his own. "Look? Oh, first-rate—very well—very well indeed. In fact, I had no idea that you could transform yourself so completely. I believe I was on the point of saying something about a vision of angels, but I'll be commonplace. All I can say is, that ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... me all out!" cried Grandpa, taking refuge in loud and desperate reproach; "I was gettin' along first-rate; why couldn't ye a kept still and let me ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... every day, please! I think you're a first-rate story-teller. You're almost as good as old Mary O'Grady. I've often sat by her peat fire and heard about the banshee and the leprechaun; only, she believes in them. I'm so glad I've moved into this bedroom! I like you far better than ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Hardy has consented to take him. I have not seen the man yet, he was called away suddenly on some important business and could not let me know in time to stop rife coming here to see him. I am told it's a first-rate farm and the man is well off, which is security against Henry suddenly being discharged owing to impecuniosity on the farmer's part, a thing which seems to be of pretty frequent occurrence about here, or, in fact, anywhere else. We went out to the farm this morning, and saw ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... live with as much right as the Duke of Bedford, or the Duke of Northumberland, has to his estates, are now paid into the public exchequer. All this, upon the present occasion, I am not going to insist upon. What I now say is this: that there is no sovereignty of any first-rate State which costs so little to the people as the sovereignty of England. I will not compare our civil list with those of European empires, because it is known that in amount they treble and quadruple it; but I will ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... me for a week the same way?" asked Jonathan, eagerly. "I'd like to stay a week first-rate if it didn't ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... spry he could climb in at the window after he'd prised it open and the things could be handed out. Besides we've got all the morning's milk and there'll be the night's milk and to-morrow's milk, so I don't see that we shan't get along first-rate. There is more than one way out of that trouble, ain't ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... commercial and economical reform, against which both had all their life protested and straggled. It can hardly be urged in excuse for the duke's long opposition to commercial reform, that questions of finance and political economy were out of the proper range of his subjects, for he was a first-rate financier, and a successful student of political economy. He is represented to have said of himself that his true genius was the Exchequer rather than the War Office. "At one of the most critical conjunctures of the Peninsular ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... character, and the happiness of his whole life, will depend upon the impression that is now made upon his mind by realities. He will see society as it is. He has abilities and generosity of mind which will make him a first-rate character, if his friends do not spoil him out ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... he gets an education. They teach him how to be a good burglar and not get caught. Patiently the State boards him, and educates him to be a first-rate criminal. ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... him for the moment. He found fault with the champagne—and then apologised to the waiter. "I'm sorry I was a little hard on you just now. The fact is, I'm out of sorts—you have felt in that way yourself, haven't you? The wine's first-rate; and, really the weather is so discouraging, I think I'll try ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... want of education." What might he not hope to be and do now, Susan says, if he had but the knowledge that every man may be said to have the right to be possessed of? Yet, the good fellow has raised his family to a point of comfort. A gentleman who heard of his merits, as a first-rate laborer, wrote to the same parish officers, to inquire if there were any brothers. There was Tom; and Tom is now in a happy situation, highly esteemed by his employer, and earning 14s. a week. The employer, finding that Tom sadly missed intercourse ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... is confined To novel sweets: that shows a narrow mind; As if you wished your wines to be first-rate, But cared not with what oil your fish you ate. Put Massic wine to stand 'neath a clear sky All night, away the heady fumes will fly, Purged by cool air: if 'tis through linen strained, You spoil the flavour, and there's nothing gained. ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... He's a first-rate boy, and I'd hate to hear worse of him. But I mustn't take your time over our affairs. I think ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... The answer is, "It depends upon the quality of the audience." An audience composed largely of trained concert-goers, many of whom are themselves musicians, can listen to a program composed of interesting works and presented by a first-rate artist even though it extends through a period of two and a half hours, although on general principles a two-hour program is probably long enough. But one made up mostly of people who have had very little musical training, who read little except ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... said to the one, pointing to his portly figure; 'and you'—to the other—'are going to be married; besides, I am a first-rate hand with the sword. However, I will not take advantage of my youth and strength, but will choose the pistol, unless the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... took, from the first, a very special interest in the young American architect. Soon they were on excellent terms with one another—indeed, it was with Gerald Burton that he found he had most to do. The young man naturally accompanied him to all those places where the presence of a first-rate interpreter was likely to be useful, and Gerald Burton also pursued a number of independent enquiries on his ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... very successful literary speculations, because Renan is a first-rate artist. Mackay would have been a better artist in literature if he had not been so much overpowered by the immense masses ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... to make champagne from gooseberries, equal to that yielded by the grape. Exampli gratia: Lord Haddington, who is a first-rate judge of wines, had a bottle of mock and one of real champagne set before him, and was requested to say which was which. He mistook the product of the gooseberry for the genuine article; and many persons, reputed good judges, have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... frequently, after service, to join him in the organ-loft and to discuss various matters of interest connected with our own church and the outside world. He was a most charming companion; a first-rate organist and master of theory, and a man of large experience and great ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... school-like, the dialogues being illustrative of scenes in common life, including some first-rate conversations pertinent to school-room duties and trials. The speeches are brief and energetic. It will ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... steps through all the pitiful struggle of his middle life, of the conscience that made his weakness hell to him—of these, too, we may be sure that the beginnings were to be seen in the boy at Ottery St. Mary, as indeed they were before his eyes in the person of his father, who, if not a first-rate genius, was, says his son, ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the Delhi will run away from us, Louis," said the captain as the millionaire joined him, curious to know what he was doing. "She isn't loaded for her best sailing, but she is doing first-rate ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... course," John said, as he lifted his glass to his lips. "You showed yourself a first-rate pilot in that last job, and I am content to sail under you this time without asking any questions as to the ship's course, and to steer ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... in the prosecution of his scientific theories; he was the first among German scientists to embrace and apply the evolutionary theories of Darwin, and along these lines he has produced several works of first-rate importance in biology; his great works on calcareous sponges, on jelly-fishes, and corals are enriched by elaborate plates of outstanding value; he made important contributions to the Challenger reports, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... proved to be a first-rate type of an Americanized Irishman. His wife was a Scotch woman. They had a family of five or six children, two of them grown-up daughters,—modest, comely young women as you would find anywhere. The elder of the two ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... fine chance for any one that's got the necessary money, and that's what you have, Tulliver. But if any one wanted his boy to be placed under a first-rate fellow, I know his man. He's an Oxford man, and a parson. He's willing to take one or two boys as pupils to fill up his time. The boys would be quite of the family—the finest thing in the world for them—under Stelling's ...
— Tom and Maggie Tulliver • Anonymous
... I sent him to a first-rate school, where he distinguished himself in a way of his own by an ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... heat, fever districts, and flooded rivers, added to many a brush with the enemy. These trusty friends were only too anxious to come to our assistance, but a river rolled between—a river composed of deep fortified trenches, of modern artillery, and of first-rate marksmen with many Mausers. One day Colonel Plumer sent in an intrepid scout to consult with Colonel Baden-Powell. This gentleman had a supreme contempt for bullets, and certainly did not know the meaning of the ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... whom such a genius could be fashioned, I have not ceased to regret the death of the author of this volume. For Zola is the supreme type in our day of the novelist-journalist, the man who begins by getting up his facts at first-hand with the care and the exhaustiveness of a first-rate journalist, and who then works them up with the dramatic and literary skill of a great novelist. Charles Reade was something of the kind in his day; but he has left ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... and strange. What with her crazes for Christian Science, and Uric Acid and Gurus and Mediums, one wonders if she is quite sane. So sad! I should be dreadfully sorry if she had some mental collapse; that sort of thing is always so painful. But I know of a first-rate place for rest-cures; I think it would be wise if I just casually dropped the name of it to Mr Robert, in case. And this last craze seems so terribly infectious. Fancy Mrs Weston dabbling in palmistry! It ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... to say, people of a coarse and vulgar turn of mind might have called it a barber's; for they not only cut and curled ladies elegantly, and children carefully, but shaved gentlemen easily. Still, it was a highly genteel establishment—quite first-rate in fact—and there were displayed in the window, besides other elegancies, waxen busts of a light lady and a dark gentleman which were the admiration of the whole neighbourhood. Indeed, some ladies had gone ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... decision. Early in his experience as a lawyer he had to be content with fees that seem absurdly small; once, he rode from Springfield to Bloomington to argue a case, and got but five dollars for his services. But he was a first-rate man of business, and soon had a good income from ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... was a cricket ball. He cannot bowl for nuts, and it was a first-rate ball. So some days after the birthday Oswald offered him to exchange it for a coconut he had won at the fair, and two pencils (new), and a brand-new note-book. Oswald thought, and he still thinks, that this was a fair exchange, ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... Taylor is probably the most encyclopaedic all-round scholar now living. His new volume on the Origin of the Aryans is a first-rate example of the excellent account to which he can turn his exceptionally wide and varied information.... Masterly and ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... bay formed by Point Tahou—a coast better known fifty years ago than it is now. The only white resident is Mr. Julio, who has led a rather accidented life. A native of St. Helena, he fought for the Northerners in the American war, and proved himself a first-rate rifle-shot. He traded on the Congo, and travelled like a native far in the interior. Now he has married a wife from Cape Palmas, and is the leading man ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... 1839, and although we found the climate of England exceedingly cold and unpleasant after the brilliant sunshine and warmth of South Africa, we managed to enjoy ourselves thoroughly during the ensuing two months. Then, with Nell's cordial approval, I put her to a first-rate school at Bath, where she remained until her eighteenth birthday, emerging therefrom a very beautiful, accomplished, and ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... a military appearance about it. It is short and to the point. Friend Augusta was well known in Norristown as a first-rate hair-dresser and a prompt and trustworthy Underground Rail Road agent. Of course a speedy answer was returned to his note, and he was instructed to bring the eleven passengers on to the Committee ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... distinguished painter, celebrated sculptor, favorite architect and engineer, excellent builder of fortifications, musician and improvisator. Benvenuto Cellini was a celebrated goldsmith, excellent molder, good sculptor, leading builder of fortifications, first-rate soldier and thorough musician. Abraham Lincoln was a splitter of rails, agriculturist, boatman, shop-assistant and lawyer, until he was placed in the Presidential chair of the United States. It may be said without exaggerating, most people are engaged in occupations that do not correspond ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... you're comin' on first-rate. I was a leetle opposed to th' Old Man sendin' you East to study, for fear it would knock out your natural instincts. But when you picked up that man as soon as you did," and he waved his hand toward the distant specks, ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... Ross survey the poll, make wigs, and puff away even when powder was exploded? What caused him to seek the applause of the 'nobs' among the cockneys, and struggle to obtain the paradoxical triplicate dictum that he was a werry first-rate cutter!' What made him a practical Tory? (for he boasts of turning out the ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... cried Silver. "Well now, if you want to know, I'll tell you when. The last moment I can manage; and that's when. Here's a first-rate seaman, Cap'n Smollett, sails the blessed ship for us. Here's this squire and doctor with a map and such—I don't know where it is, do I? No more do you, says you. Well, then, I mean this squire and doctor shall find the stuff, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his hospitable entertainers with a box at the play. No doubt it was a great delight to Chrissy; for it was in the days when actors were respectable artists and play-going was still universal. Chrissy in her freshness enjoyed the provincials as well as if they had been first-rate—took the good and left the bad, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... the necessity of commanding their voluble propensities if they would wish to pass for Englishmen. It is certain, more words would have been uttered in this little lugger in one hour, had her crew been indulged to the top of their bent, than would have been uttered in an English first-rate in two; but the danger of using their own language, and the English peculiarity of grumness, had been so thoroughly taught them, that her people rather caricatured, than otherwise, ce grand talent pour le silence ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of the windows, Norbert saw a man, stout, robust, bald and red-faced, wearing a mustache and slight beard. His clothes were evidently made by a first-rate tailor, but his appearance ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... the widow's home, which, as near as I can remember, was about four blocks from the hotel. Mr. Carson being able to speak French first-rate, had a talk with Mrs. Becket concerning me. The story she told him, corresponding with that which I had told him, he concluded that I had given him nothing but truth, and then he asked Mrs. Becket what my bill was. She replied that she had just taken me in because I was a poor boy, until such time ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... meadows, in which I mean to walk a great deal. They are so quiet and so safe, I can go quite alone; and when I have not a first-rate companion, my second best is- -none at all! But I expect, very soon, my poor Miss Port, and I shall have her with me almost ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... to write books! Well, they said I wasn't to tell anybody, and I ain't told anybody but you, and I thought as you was a writer, and pretty busy, I guessed you wouldn't want to waste your time over his book. They say, folks do, that it's first-rate, as far as it goes; but you see it don't never get any farther, and it never will. I thought I'd better tell you about it," said Wilson, his plebeian, kindly face crimson with a delicate pity that would have done honor to an aristocrat, ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... even to the professional robber. On the other hand, in former times, men were transported for very trivial offences: poaching, with its consequences, formed the leading crimes of the English counties; yet many poachers were otherwise first-rate men, both in disposition and physical development. The modern convicts are, more generally, criminals in the popular sense. The abolition of capital punishments, and the erection of penitentiaries at home, left the penalty of transportation chiefly ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... letters and diary the perpetual hiatus, and asterisks, and initials are exceedingly tantalising; but altogether it is very amusing. As to Byron, I have never had but one opinion about his poetry, which I think of first-rate excellence; an enormous heresy, of course, more particularly with those whose political taste rests upon the same foundation that their religious creed does—that of having been taught what to admire in the one case as they have been enjoined ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... he, "this old burg isn't such a bad proposition in the summer-time, after all. Since I've keen knocking around it looks better to me. There are some first-rate musical comedies and light operas on the roofs and in the outdoor gardens. And if you hunt up the right places and stick to soft drinks, you can keep about as cool here as you can in the country. Hang it! when you come to ...
— Options • O. Henry
... the noise of trumpets and drums, and of firing, without starting, tired them out by long rides the evening before every review, and bit his lips to prevent himself from laughing when people declared that General Daumont de Croisailles was a first-rate rider, who was ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... and 'Kunstnovellen,' the mass of the British people cares very little about the matter, and sits contented under the imputation of 'bad taste.' Our stage, long since dead, does not revive; our poetry is dying; our music, like our architecture, only reproduces the past; our painting is only first-rate when it handles landscapes and animals, and seems likely so to remain; but, meanwhile, nobody cares. Some of the deepest and most earnest minds vote the question, in general, a 'sham and a snare,' and whisper to each other confidentially, that Gothic art is beginning to be a 'bore,' and that Sir ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... I'll bring you some more to-morrow," replied Tommy, as he handed her the string of fish. "Stop a minute; here's a first-rate tom-cod; let me put him on;" and he took the string and added the fish ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... had a fancy-dress ball, a recherche affair, a fine dancing-floor having been laid down in Company I's ground. A first-rate cotillion band was engaged, and played up lively airs. Your correspondent had a special invitation to be present, and enjoyed the ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... infinitive with those two tenses. In the midst of this damaging criticism Doederlein quotes Walther, who has also commented upon the Annals, but in terms of enthusiastic commendation, for he praises such writing as first-rate workmanship—"adjustments by design," says the ingenious German; not, of course, the unconscious errors, that a modern European might make in a case of forgery: the discovery reminds me of Mr. Ruskin's unqualified eulogies of everything done by the brush of Turner, which caused the great artist ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... travelling. The servants who attended them contradicted the inferences to be drawn from the garb of their masters, and, according to the custom of the knights of the rainbow, gave many hints that they were not people to serve any but men of first-rate consequence. These gentlemen, who had come thither chiefly for the purpose of meeting with Mr. Redgauntlet, seemed moody and anxious, conversed and walked together apparently in deep conversation, and avoided any communication with the chance ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... replied Dock, after a little reflection. "He'll make a first-rate hand for you. I rather think he'll go off to Australia ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... He is a first-rate business man. He knows as much about the trade of publishing as any publisher. He refuses to employ a literary agent, and personally transacts the business of placing his work—and sometimes that of his friends—in the ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... washes away pretty near all it has deposited. But these warping dikes bring in a new state of affairs. They so hinder the ebb that there is more silt deposited, and at the same time there is less current on the flats to carry the mud away. As the engineers say, there is not so much 'scouring'—a first-rate word to express it. Haven't you noticed how, in some spots, the current seems to scour away all the mud and leave naked ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... his guests found themselves charmed with his discourse, and felt inclined to vote him a man of first-rate intellect. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... premier. I was told that this gentleman was one of the greatest landed proprietors of France, his estates being valued at four millions of dollars. The fact is curious, as showing, not on vulgar rumour, but from a respectable source, what is deemed a first-rate landed property in this country. It is certainly no merit, nor do I believe it is any very great advantage; but I think we might materially beat this, even in America. The company soon separated, and ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... officer, who patronizes practical conclusions, to perform neurotomy. This was carried out on both horses about eighteen months ago. Within a fortnight they were at their duty, absolutely free from lameness, and with first-rate action, and one of them, from being troublesome and unsteady in the ranks—probably from the pain in its feet—had become quite steady and tractable. Instead of being lame, blundering, and unsafe, both were sound, free in movement, and secure, ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... good dinner!" Hallett said, after the meal was over. "I feel, at present, at peace with all men; and I can safely recommend the chiefs, when they arrive at Coomassie, as being first-rate fellows; while I am sure that the chief will be greatly pleased that we have secured the submission of their tribe. It will be a big feather in our caps. When I came in here, I thought I could not go another mile to save my life; ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... seem from the above description, it is in reality a very difficult thing to turn out a thoroughly good damper, and only practice will enable the new-comer to obtain the sleight of hand necessary for the production of a first-rate specimen. In form a damper resembles a flat cheese of two or three inches thick, and from one to two feet in diameter. Great care and much practice are requisite to form this shape so that no cracks shall appear, and when this ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... they had both made Dr. Nesbit Senator, and how ungrateful the Doctor was to turn against the hand that fed him, and many other incidents and tales that pointed to the renown of the unimpeachable Judge, who for seven years had reigned in the humble house of Hogan as a first-rate god. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... good nap, mother dear, I feel first-rate, and Frank can see to me if I want anything. Do, now," he added, with a persuasive nod toward the couch, and a boyish relish in stirring up his ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... however, so that I never really lost sight of him; and when my husband bought this piece of land and we were married, it happened, also, that Andrew bought property, and wished to be settled. He had lost his parents, and was quite by himself, and a first-rate workman. He wanted the little house with the neat, pretty garden down there half-way to the church; but was not able to purchase it, because the owner wished for full payment at once, and Andrew could only pay in instalments, ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... Manufacturers and Varied Industries, and you'd git lost you couldn't help it, amongst the bewilderin' and endless native and foreign displays, only the aisles are divided off into streets and squares, all the same width, so you can git 'round first-rate. And if you had ten or fifteen years you could spend here you might possibly see most of the displays of your own native land and all the foreign countries. These two palaces cover twenty-eight acres, as big as Luman Gowdey's farm that he gits a good livin' on, and the hull twenty-eight acres ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... mouth hard set; and breathing so that you could hear him six forms off. True, the new Head had been goaded by other outrages, the authors of which had not omitted to remove their names; but the want of humor, the amazing want of humor! As if it had not been a sign of first-rate stuff in Tod! And to this day Felix remembered with delight the little bubbling hiss that he himself had started, squelched at once, but rippling out again along the rows like tiny scattered lines of fire when a conflagration ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a letter for you to Strange, the engraver, who is going to visit Italy. He is a very first-rate artist, and by far our best. Pray countenance him, though you will not approve his politics.(61) I believe Albano(62)) ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... time of his death Borrow was practically forgotten, and even first-rate handbooks omitted his name from their obituaries. The case is altered now, and the Borrow Celebration, of which this souvenir will be one memento, bears eloquent testimony ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... enough, I returned to a khan, and crossed over early the following morning. At his offices, close to the river, I found M.M., le Directeur de la Quarantine, and general manager of all the other departments. He accompanied me to the hotel, which, though not exactly first-rate, appeared luxurious after my three months of khans and tents. I was somewhat taken aback at finding that the steamer to Belgrade was not due for two days, and moreover that the fogs had been so dense that it had not yet passed up on its voyage to Sissek; whence it would return to Belgrade, calling ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... lady. But she did not fail to tell herself that labour continued would at last be successful, and she was strong to bear the buffets of the ill-natured. She did not think that she brought first-class materials to her work, but she believed,—a belief as erroneous as, alas, it is common,—that first-rate results might be achieved by second-rate means. "We had such a battle about your Grace last night," Captain Gunner said ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... like the cairns Mr. Stuart draws of those he made on Central Mount Stuart. (Direction omitted, probably about south.) At 4.10 one mile and a quarter to where we made our Number 11 camp, at which place I observed some first-rate grasses, and for the first time on the Gregory River a few tufts of kangaroo-grass. The country we have seen today is fine fattening healthy sheep country; but it will not carry much stock as the grass is thin. The horse drowned had been an unfortunate brute from the time of ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... tired o' pit-work; an' no wonder. She's made up her moind to ha' done wi' it; an' she's a first-rate one to nurse,—strong i' the arms, an' noan sleepy-headed. Happen she'll tak' up wi' it fur a trade. As to it bein' him as she meant when she said theer wur a mon as she meant to save, it wur no such thing. Joan Lowrie's noan th' kind o' wench to be runnin' after gentlefolk,—yo' ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... lord to shoot over his land, and tell him privately to make a great point of shaking the honest yeoman by the hand, and all that kind of thing. By the bye, I was once told by a coachman that he was sure the Bicester hounds were a first-rate pack, for he had seen in the papers that no less than four lords hunted with them. There is little harm in this extraordinarily widespread admiration for titles; it is common to all nations. We can all love a lord, provided that he be a gentleman. The gentlemen of England, whether titled or untitled, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... all system, my lord, and I have reason, I think, to be proud of ours—that and an excellent regimental staff. I have a capital quartermaster and a first-rate adjutant." ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... listen for a moment to the scheme. He spoke of his wife almost with awe, when Mr. Fenwick left him to make this second attack. "She has never had nothing to say to none sich as that," said the farmer, shaking his head, as he alluded both to his wife and to his sister; "and I ain't sure as she'll be first-rate civil to any one as mentions sich ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... series of representations to act out one piece in its entirety. The Japanese are far in advance of the Chinese in their scenery and properties, and their pieces are sometimes capitally got up: a revolving stage enables them to shift from one scene to another with great rapidity. First-rate actors receive as much as a thousand riyos (about L300) as their yearly salary. This, however, is a high rate of pay, and many a man has to strut before the public for little more than his daily rice; to a clever young actor it is ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... at him, and you could see dozens of them stretch their fists above the sea of torch-lighted faces and shake them at him; and it was all a wild picture, and stirring to look at; and the priest was a first-rate part of it, too, for he stood there in the strong glare and looked down on those angry people in the blandest and most indifferent way, so that while you wanted to burn him at the stake, you still admired the aggravating coolness of him. And his winding-up was the ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... And "Drachenfels-upon-the-Rhine," And "Madagascar," too; And "Yokohama" sounds so great, And "Hindustan" is just first-rate; I rather like even "Bering ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... the outlay for the public sacrifices, though we do not know what were his particular directions. We are told that he reckoned a sheep and a medimnus (of wheat or barley?) as equivalent, either of them, to a drachma, and that he also prescribed the prices to be paid for first-rate oxen intended for solemn occasions. But it astonishes us to see the large recompense which he awarded out of the public treasury to a victor at the Olympic or Isthmian games: to the former, five hundred drachmas, equal ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... the leaf of a first-rate cigar Is expressed by the trade as "Flor Fina," But the sight, to a racing-man, finer by far Is the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various
... smile, explained craftily that he "had seen some of their pants." The backsides of them—he had observed—were thinner than paper from constant sitting down in offices, yet otherwise they looked first-rate and would last for years. It was all appearance. "It was," he said, "bloomin' easy to be a gentleman when you had a clean job for life." They disputed endlessly, obstinate and childish; they repeated ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... have said to himself, "I can write witty dialogue and I have a shrewd eye for foibles, and if you are not satisfied with that you can take it or leave it." I for one took it, but always with a feeling that he was offering me a sparkling wine of a quality not first-rate, whereas with a little more trouble and expense he could have offered me an unimpeachable brand. Now that Cairo (CONSTABLE) has provided me with what I have been waiting for, I am more than delighted to present my acknowledgments. Mr. WHITE'S subject is pat to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... admirably laid out in walks and enclosures, so that the animals have plenty of room for exercise and pasture. Since the days of Noah's ark, I suppose there never was such a collection of animals, clean and unclean. The bears, elephants, lions, and tigers are all what are called first-rate specimens. ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... Professor Renwick and other scientific men that Elias Howe "carried the invention of the sewing-machine further on toward its complete and final utility than any other inventor has ever brought a first-rate invention at the first trial." Those who doubt this assertion should examine the curious machine at the corner of Broadway and Fourth Street, and their doubts will be dispelled; for they will find in it all the essentials of the best ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... governs the market. It is one of our leading financial papers. The rumors it alludes to may be untrue, but they will influence the subscriptions made by the public to the share capital. In fact, with so ominous an article coming from so first-rate a source, nothing but a splendid report from Ogilvie ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... particular as to the strict order or economy of the housekeeping, provided only she is at all times willing to be his pleasant playmate and companion. Another delights in something very quiet, very silent, very home-staying. One must have first-rate music in his ideal woman; another unimpeachable taste; a third, strict orders; a fourth, liberal breadth of nature; and each has his own ideal, not only of nature but of person—to the exact shade of the hair, the color of the eyes, and the oval of the face. But all agree ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... I would not trust my family to his care. While we were up the St. Johns, he put the Islander in first-rate condition. He has had her boiler and machinery overhauled, and declares she has the best engine he ever saw in a steamer. I went down to see her as soon as we arrived. He has engaged a steward, waiters, and others, and I think ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... the affair over with White, and asked his opinion as to the best course to pursue. "She may do very well," said he, "but I don't know as I would trust her. You never saw her. She may be a first-rate woman, or she may be the opposite. If I were in your place I should wish to see her before I trusted her. It would be well to have your wife bring her to the jail to see you. Some women are smart, and she may be. As a general thing women are very good ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... he's little, but he's first-rate blood, and a genuine sprig of the chivalry. He's a devil of a secessionist, sir. If ye were to hear that fellow make a stump speech on States' rights, you'd think him a Samson on Government. His father is the head of a good mercantile house here; 'twouldn't be a bad idea to consign ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... singular poverty of his poetry, that in fact he has written but one poem, 'Thyrsis,' and that on an inspiration borrowed from Milton." Few good readers, I think, will agree with Emerson about the poverty of Arnold's poetry. His "Dover Beach" is one of the first-rate poems in English literature. Emerson has words of praise for Lowell—thinks the production of such a man "a certificate of good elements in the soil, climate, and institutions of America," but in 1868 he declares that his new poems show an advance "in talent rather than in poetic tone"; ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... impractical, given over to barren political discussion and utterly unable to make useful things such as ships and linen. He also says that Dublin is dirty, that the rates are exorbitantly high, and that the houses have not got bath-rooms in them. I put it to him that there are two first-rate libraries in Dublin. ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... drove himself in races and out-stripped every one, and he would never get in front at the start, so as not to offend his adversary; he would not cut it short, but would pass him at the finish; and he was so pleasant—he would soothe his adversary, praising his horse. He kept tumbler-pigeons of a first-rate kind. He would come out into the court, sit down in an arm-chair, and order them to let loose the pigeons; and his men would stand all round on the roofs with guns to keep off the hawks. A large silver basin of water used to be placed at the count's feet, and he looked ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... signed their own peace preliminaries, to disgust of Excellency Mitchell, the first-rate ambassador to Frederick during these years. Austria makes proffers, and so at last this war ends with Treaties of Paris and Hubertsburg; issue, as concerns Austria and Prussia, "as ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... only while Leutze finishes a portrait, which I think will be the best ever painted of the same unworthy subject. One charm it must needs have,—an aspect of immortal jollity and well-to-do-ness; for Leutze, when the sitting begins, gives me a first-rate cigar, and when he sees me getting tired, he brings out a bottle of splendid champagne; and we quaffed and smoked yesterday, in a blessed state of mutual good-will, for three hours and a half, during ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... way. I'll tell you: I'm a lone wolf. I trade horses, and saw wood, and work in lumber-camps—I'm a first-rate swamper. Always wished I could go to college. Though I s'pose I'd find it pretty slow, and ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... soon. I count so on getting into my summer-house again, and sitting down to write; I have arranged my book in my mind, and though it will take me a great deal of trouble to write it, I feel that when it is written it will be first-rate. ...
— Letters to his mother, Ann Borrow - and Other Correspondents • George Borrow
... bring you some more to-morrow," replied Tommy, as he handed her the string of fish. "Stop a minute; here's a first-rate tom-cod; let me put him on;" and he took the string and added the fish to ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... wanted to tie himself into knots if that would please the son of his great captain. Fionn went home on the robber's shoulder, and the robber gave great snorts and made great jumps and behaved like a first-rate horse. For this same Fiacuil was the husband of Bovmall, Fionn's aunt. He had taken to the wilds when clann-Baiscne was broken, and he was at war with a world that had dared ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... all right yet, Darsie, you'll see. The tenants like me. I'll settle down and make a first-rate squire when my time comes. And I'll make up to you then for all this worry and bother." For a moment his voice was significantly tender, then the recollection of his present difficulty swept over him once more, and he added hastily: "You'll— you'll break it to the mater, won't you? About that ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a second invitation. She took up the plainest of the guns, but it was a first-rate Manton of ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... feelings, I shall not descend to such degradation. As little could I fill the place of their mutual friend as that of their deadly foe; as little could I stand between them as trample over them. Robert is a first-rate man—in my eyes. I have loved, do love, and must love him. I would be his wife if I could; as I cannot, I must go where I shall never see him. There is but one alternative—to cleave to him as if I were a part of him, or to be sundered from him wide as the two poles of a sphere.—Sunder ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... are much less cumbrously contrived than with us. The other hotel, I have the somewhat unauthorized fancy, is rather more addicted to very elect dinner-parties and suppers. Below these two are an endless variety of first-rate and second-rate houses, both in the newer quarter of the city, where the villa paths have been turned into streets, and in the old town on all the pleasant squares and avenues. There is a tradition of unhealth ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... knows a little French; the French of courtship merely. Her Arabic is that of Medina. You, doubtless, will exploit her in Biskra. You may have her for two years. By that time she may toss her own handkerchief. Then she reverts to me. I shall take her to Cairo, where second-rate Englishmen and first-rate Americans abound. ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... spent a great deal of his money in the public-house, he rarely got drunk and always kept his employment. He was a painter of engines, a first-rate hand, earning good money, from twenty-five to thirty shillings a week. He was a proud man, but so avaricious that he stopped at nothing to get money. He was an ardent politician, yet he would sell his vote to ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... "The members are a picking up produce now, I shan't go empty-handed on my mission. All the members are wide awake about that. Crops have been first-rate." ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... all very odd. Verot is a first-rate inspector, a very sober-minded fellow; and he doesn't get frightened easily. You might go and fetch him. Meanwhile, I'll look ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... there above me was my unknown necessitous fellow-creature, crying out in printers' types:—"Wanted, a companion for a lady. Must be an accomplished musician, and have a cheerful temper. Testimonials to capacity, and first-rate references required." Exactly what I had offered! "Apply by letter only, in the first instance." Exactly what I had said! Fie upon me, I had spent three and sixpence for nothing. I threw down the newspaper, ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... the Speakership in this Congress, which lasted eight weeks, was also a first-rate training school for Republicanism. Helper's famous book, "The Impending Crisis," had made a decided sensation throughout the country, and John Sherman, the principal candidate of the Republicans for Speaker, had endorsed it, though he now denied the fact. Mr. Millson of Virginia, declared ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... the liberty of talking with him about you, and about the great trouble I had helped to bring upon you; and what he said was first-rate, though I cannot tell it again. I felt ever so much better about my own doing wrong, and I could not help wishing you could hear what he ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... movement from the grasp of the two boys who had held him; and then he went on in his usual soft voice and slow way: "I mean this joke's gone quite far enough. You came half an hour or so before I expected you, but I think we've all acted our parts first-rate. Good-evening, Captain Morningstar. Good-evening, desperadoes. Farewell, April-fools." And he turned and walked ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... everywhere, known everyone, looked into all the books that had been talked about, cast at least a glance at all the pictures which had made any stir. And she gathered impressions swiftly, and, moreover, had a natural flair for all that was first-rate, original, or strange. As she was quite independent in mind, and always took her own line, she had become an arbiter, a leader of taste. What she liked soon became liked in London and Paris throughout a large circle. Unfortunately, she was changeable and apt ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... year ago last summer," he said, "and it was first-rate: open-air dancing, summer theatre, rope-walking, fireworks, and supper out under the trees. You'll enjoy yourself, Bella, right enough ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... installed in first-rate style. The officially received pictures were not lodged more sumptuously: lofty hangings of old tapestry at the doors; 'the line' set off with green baize; seats of crimson velvet; white linen screens under the large skylights ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... one beauty in France, hundreds might be counted in England, where gentlemen were, therefore, not so easily satisfied; and that a woman regarded by them only as an ordinary person would pass for a first-rate beauty among French beaux, on account of the great scarcity of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... up you fellows have kind of excited me a little when telling about that thrilling sound you heard," he admitted candidly. "I'd like first-rate to do some prowling around up there to satisfy myself that it wasn't a peacock that screamed, or even ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... things—as heathen conquests always must have been; yet even in it there was a use and meaning. But they are past like a dream, those 10,000 stalwart men, who looked far and wide over the Damnonian moors from a station which would be, even in these days, a first-rate military position. Gone, too, are the old Saxon Franklins who succeeded. Old Wrengils, or some such name, whoever he was, at last found some one's bill too hard for his brain-pan; and there he lies on the hill above, in his 'barrow' of Wrinklebury. And ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... could shingle as well as Mick, and keep the nails in his mouth. I pounded my thumb the first day I tried, and the biggest blood-blister I ever saw grew; so I had to give up hammering. Sam says if he can't be a Congressman, he means to be a first-rate shingler, and get the job of shingling all the spires in the country. I sha'n't be that, anyway. If I can't get on better with my arithmetic, and get to be an Admiral, I shall keep a stable, and let my father ride my horses—regular circus horses, and ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... compositions, "La Vestale," "Le Due Illustre Rivale," the "Elena da Feltre," and others, obtained a very considerable temporary popularity in Italy, but were, I think, little known elsewhere. They were not first-rate musical productions, but had a good deal of agreeable, though not very original, melody, and were favorable to a declamatory, passionate style of singing, having a great deal of dramatic power and pathos. My sister was fond of them, and gave them with great effect, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... I've understood from connoisseurs, in this part of the country; splendid plates, too, in some of these works. I recollect your uncle showing me one with views of foreign towns—most absorbing it was: got up in first-rate style. And another all done by hand, with the ink as fresh as if it had been laid on yesterday, and yet, he told me, it was the work of some old monk hundreds of years back. I've always taken a keen interest in literature myself. Hardly anything to my ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... Drat it, don't look like that! I meant nothing, dearie; only I'm a heap surprised. Chuck is a good fellow, I'll admit; but I've been dreaming of your marrying a prince or an ambassador, and Henderson comes like a jolt. Besides, Chuck will never be anything but a first-rate politician. You'll have to get used to cheap cigars and four-ply whisky. When ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... a day as you may find in a year. And I ken somewhat of the trade myself: I was driving his countryside when I first met him. But we have both done it with the high hand, and I think that yours is like to be the best sport. You are first-rate drovers!" ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... are more than apparent; yet bravely buckling to her work, and encouraged by her success with Fontenelle, she Englished with rare skill his Theory of the System of Several New Inhabited Worlds, prefixing thereto a first-rate 'Essay on Translated Prose.' She shows herself an admirable critic, broad-minded, with a keen eye for niceties of style. The Fair Jilt (licensed 17 April, 1688),[48] Oroonoko, and Agnes de Castro, followed in swift succession. She also published Lycidus, a Voyage from the Island ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... perfectly possible to make champagne from gooseberries, equal to that yielded by the grape. Exampli gratia: Lord Haddington, who is a first-rate judge of wines, had a bottle of mock and one of real champagne set before him, and was requested to say which was which. He mistook the product of the gooseberry for the genuine article; and many persons, reputed good judges, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... mite if he was our deliverer," went on Mrs. Forbes. "I saw it in Mrs. Evringham's eye that he suited her, the first night that she met him here at dinner. I like him first-rate, and I don't mean him any harm; but he's one of these young doctors with plenty of money at his back, bound to have a fashionable practice and succeed. His face is in his favor, and I guess he knows as much as any of 'em, and he can afford the luxury of a wife brought up the way Eloise Evringham ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... so agreeable to the ladies that they desired her to accompany them on shore. The steamer was in first-rate condition, and there was nothing for anybody to do but eat and sleep. Mr. Kirby Cornwood was still sulky because he had not been permitted to pilot the vessel up from the ocean; but I was not disposed to comfort him. About four ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... the Potters' movin' down; but by-and-by it seemed as though I was goin' to get the bitter of it. I'd kept company pretty steady with Russell. I hadn't give much thought to it, neither; I liked his ways, and he seemed to give in to mine very natural, so't we got along together first-rate. It didn't seem as though we'd ever been strangers, and I wasn't one to make believe at stiffness when I didn't feel it. I told Russell pretty much all I had to tell, and he was allers doin' for me and runnin' after me jest as though he'd been my brother. I didn't know how ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... see him. Grim old war sergeants rode up to touch their caps and express the hope that they'd soon have the lieutenant in command of the right section again,—"not but what Loot'n't Ferry's doing first-rate, sir,"—and for a few minutes, as his fair charioteer drove him around the battery, in his weak, languid voice, Waring indulged in a little ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... little shelter from the wind for the vegetables, if ever there are any. Flax shelters the bed on the other side. The digging is rather laborious, as there are large stones which have to be extracted with a crowbar. The soil is first-rate, and so far no mildew has been met with. One of the greatest enemies to the seeds will be the fowls, and because of them probably we shall have to sow first in boxes. Graham has made a needle and mesh so that we can make nets. Repetto has shown ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... on the way. Any one who saw the grateful avidity with which they took the money, and the warmth with which they pledged themselves to serve me faithfully through all dangers and difficulties, would, had he had no dealings with such men before, have thought that I had a first-rate set of followers. I lastly gave Sheikh Said a double-barrelled rifle by Blissett, and distributed fifty carbines among the seniors of the expedition, with the condition that they would forfeit them to others more worthy if they did not behave well, but would retain possession ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... All freemen had the right to vote. Religious toleration was enjoyed first-rate, and, there being no negro slavery, Virginia bade fair to be the republic of the continent. But in 1619 the captain of a Dutch trading-vessel sold to the colonists twenty negroes. The negroes were mostly married people, and in some instances ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... at the end of the world," said he, "and there are hotels at Melun. With a good horse, one is soon at Fontainebleau, at Versailles, even at Paris. Madame de Tremorel might have been jealous; her husband had some first-rate trotters in ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... win distinction. Bainbridge had behaved heroically at Tripoli and was logically in line to take over one of the crack frigates. The sailors of the Constitution grumbled a bit at losing Isaac Hull but soon regained their alert and willing spirit as they comprehended that they had another first-rate "old man" in William Bainbridge. Henry Adams has pointed out that the average age of Bainbridge, Hull, Rodgers, and Decatur was thirty-seven, while that of the four generals most conspicuous in the disappointments of the army, Dearborn, Wilkinson, ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... he became tutor in the family of Mr. John Donaldson, W.S., of whose house, 124 Princes Street, he became an inmate. "What I want," said Mr. Donaldson to the professor, "is a gentleman." "Well," replied Pillans, "I am sending you first-rate raw material; we shall see what you will make of it." He retained this situation till the close of his University course, to the entire satisfaction of his employer and his family, and with great comfort to himself—the ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... filled the windows. A few bas-reliefs in the most finished style; a few alabasters as bright as if they had been brought at the moment from Carrara; a few paintings of the Italian masters, if not original and of the highest value, at least first-rate copies—caught the eye at once: the not too much, the not too little, that exact point which it requires so much skill to touch, showed that the eye of taste had been every where; and I again thought of the dungeon in the city, and asked myself whether it was possible that Mordecai could ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... feel first-rate. I guess that bad spell I had at bedtime is going to do me for to-night; but I am thirsty, so when you get me fixed up you can go to bed. You must be tired to death, my dear girl," he added, as Dexie busied herself about him. "What ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... reported on. In a rapid steamer they smoothly navigated the placid Thames; and in an open boat they fearlessly crossed the turbid Medway. High-roads and by-roads, towns and villages, public conveyances and their passengers, first-rate inns and road-side public houses, races, fairs, regattas elections, meetings, market days—all the scenes that can possibly occur to enliven a country place, and at which different traits of character may be observed and recognized, were alike visited and beheld by the ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... his pictures, and I heard Max Derwent say once that she was beautiful. Max is papa's friend; he is a grown-up man, though he isn't as old as papa. He used to come here a lot, and we children like him first-rate; but now he's in Europe. Well, to come back to Nora: she likes to be called Eleanor, but we don't do it; she is so fussy and so very proper that Felix has nick-named her Miss Prim, and we do call her that. Miss Marston thinks Nora is the best behaved of us all; and sometimes, when Nannie ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... one of these occasions, when, from his account, he must have been in considerable danger of his life. He ended his story by making me admire his boots, which he said he still wore, patched though they were, and all their excellent quality lost by patching, because they were of such a first-rate make for long pedestrian excursions. "Though, indeed," he wound up by saying, "the new fashion of railroads would seem to supersede the necessity for this description ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... "parterre"—as the Germans call the rez-de-chaussee—and could have been as comfortable as he pleased. But no one ever attempted to account for Dr. Claudius at all. He was a credit to the University, where first-rate men are scarce,—for Heidelberg is not a seat of very great learning; and no one troubled to inquire why he did not return to his native country when he had obtained his "Phil.D." Only, if he meant to spend the rest of his life in Heidelberg, it was high time he married and settled ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... about a place in the library. He said there wasn't none, but he'd try to think o' somethin' else that 'ud suit her. He was mighty polite to Mat—give her some roses, and telled her to run in and out when she liked, till he got somethin' fixed. Fact is, Mat is a first-rate scholar, and takes with them high-steppers, like fallin' off a log." Saul had begun to feel a certain pride in his daughter's accomplishments which had so long been an affliction to him. The moment he saw a possibility ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... not my protege, you know; only I knew an uncle of his who sent me a letter about him. However, I think he is likely to be first-rate—has studied in Paris, knew Broussais; has ideas, you know—wants ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... journeys up and down, she declared the hill was a first-rate coaster, and she liked it better than a long one, because it was easier to ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... unpicked it is better to cut the threads rather than do any drawing out, for they are in any case unfit for further use, and this method wears the material less; a beginner must not shirk unpicking if first-rate results are to ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... was ready to stand over any of them. He would do the best he could for our division on the old lines. He would, I am certain, have said that he had done the best thing possible for it in appointing to the command an Irishman who was a first-rate soldier and a first-rate man to supervise the training of troops. So far as my judgment is able to go, the credit for making the Sixteenth Division what it was when we went to France belongs chiefly to the divisional ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... long-standing account, his army tailor's bill, and post obits had long ago forestalled the few hundred a year that, under his mother's settlements, would come to him at the Viscount's death; but Cecil had never known in his life what it was not to have a first-rate stud, not to live as luxuriously as a duke, not to order the costliest dinners at the clubs, and be among the first to lead all the splendid entertainments and extravagances of the Household; he ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... anything fevery about me," said Mrs. Jake, with an air of patient self-denial; and though both her companions were most compassionate at the thought of her real sufferings, they could not resist the least bit of a smile. "I declare you've done one first-rate thing, if you're never going to do any more," said Mrs. Jake, presently. "'Liza here's been talking for some time past, about your straightening up the little boy's back,—the one that lives down where Mis' Meeker used to live you know,—but ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... grace of manner! what a generous and yet ladylike humor! what a merry, musical laugh! what quickness of apprehension! what acuteness of perception! what— words fail. Imagine every thing that is delightful in a first-rate conversationalist, and every thing that is fascinating in a lady, and even then you will fail to have a correct idea of Miss O'Halloran. To have such an idea it would ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... be maintained by its French critics, that our English poetry has been too apt to dispense with those prose qualities, which, though not the indispensable qualities of poetry, go, nevertheless, to the making of all first-rate poetry—the qualities, namely, of orderly structure, and such qualities generally as depend upon second thoughts. A collection of specimens of English poetry, for the purpose of exhibiting the achievement of prose excellences by it (in their legitimate ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... even that reform was of good family in Boston; and literature and reform equally shared the regard of Edmund Quincy, whose race was one of the most aristocratic in New England. I had known him by his novel of 'Wensley' (it came so near being a first-rate novel), and by his Life of Josiah Quincy, then a new book, but still better by his Boston letters to the New York Tribune. These dealt frankly, in the old anti-slavery days between 1850 and 1860, with other persons of distinction in Boston, who did not see the right so clearly as ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... but to the mortal social unit it made life the easier, made the passage of ideas, the intercourse of individualities, the readier, and, in general, facilitated spiritual and intellectual, as well as social, communication. To be first-rate in your instincts, in all your fibres, and third-rate in your opportunities,—that was ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... Berlin edition of the early Greek Fathers (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderie, 1897 ff.), and the Vienna edition of the Latin Fathers (Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 1867 ff.), both of first-rate importance. There is a convenient English translation of most of the writings of the ante-Nicene Fathers by Roberts and Donaldson (Ante-Nicene Christian Library, 25 vols., Edinburgh, 1868 ff., American reprint in nine ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... It's a pity." Grady was shaking his head solemnly. "It's a pity. The men like you first-rate, Mr. Peterson. I'm not saying they don't like anybody else, but they like you. But people in an office a thousand miles away can't know everything, and that's a fact. And so he ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... I don't see that! As a matter of fact, I am sufficiently successful not to care for competition. I believe that I am first-rate in my own walk; and, however the School Board may educate, they will ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... A first-rate swordsman, yet was he "not apt in the least to give offence." His strength was that of a giant. Bristol related that one day at Sherborne he took up "a midling man," chair and all, with one arm. But there was nothing of the ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... strewn with pieces of morocco of all sizes and colours, which were hastily turned over and examined with eager hands and sparkling eyes. Some were mere scraps, to be sure, but others showed a breadth and length of beauty which was declared to be "first-rate" and "fine," and one beautiful large piece of blue morocco in particular was made up in imagination by two or three of the party in as many different ways. Marianne wanted it for a book-cover, Margaret declared ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... to be hard on this unfortunate wretch who was in the cab with him; and yet at the same time he was resolved to prevent any repetition of the scene he had just witnessed. At the last he discovered that the man had picked up in his wanderings a little German. His own German was not first-rate; it was fluent, forcible, and accurate enough, so far as hotels and railway-stations were concerned; elsewhere it had a tendency to halt, blunder, and double back on itself. But, at all events, he managed to convey to his companion the distinct intimation ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... to do; but on this small capital I went to work, and succeeded. At least, Jacobus Kirchelheimer said so—and he ought to know, for he was a first-rate fellow, and sent me over and above the price agreed upon, a dozen bottles of Rudesheimer. A suspicion seemed indeed to haunt his mind that the portrait resembled himself much more than it did the late Herr Kirchelheimer, pere,—but ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... diverse ornaments. And on the back of each of those animals, mounted seven warriors. And in consequence of such accoutrements those animals looked like hills graced with jewels. And amongst the seven, two were armed with hooks, two were excellent bowmen, two were first-rate swords-men, and one, O king, was armed with a lance and trident. And, O king, the army of the illustrious Kuru king, teemed with innumerable infuriate elephants, bearing on their backs loads of weapons and quivers filled with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... neighbourhood of New Zealand, also, we ought not to forget to add, are much frequented by whales, which, besides the value of their blubber, are greatly prized by the natives for the sake of their flesh, which they consider a first-rate delicacy. ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... Achates of our AEneas, or rather the Hephaestion of our Alexander, was Fireblood. He had every qualification to make second-rate GREAT MAN; or, in other words, he was completely equipped for the tool of a real or first-rate GREAT MAN. We shall therefore (which is the properest way of dealing with this kind of GREATNESS) describe him negatively, and content ourselves with telling our reader what qualities he had not; in which number were humanity, modesty, and ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... ugliness and bad taste at the least possible expense, and certainly never included any notion of ornament in the details. Now, large sums are expended on places of worship, without reference to creed. First-rate architects are employed. Fine Gothic structures are produced. The rebuilding of the Greyfriars' Church, the restoration of South Leith Church and of Glasgow Cathedral, the very bold experiment of adopting a style ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... ever observed. I was glad of such an Opportunity of seeing the Behaviour of a Coquet in low Life, and how she received the extraordinary Notice that was taken of her; which I found had affected every Muscle of her Face in the same manner as it does the Feature of a first-rate Toast at a Play, or in an Assembly. This Hint of mine made the Discourse turn upon the Sense of Pleasure; which ended in a general Resolution, that the Milk-Maid enjoys her Vanity as exquisitely as the Woman of Quality. I think it would not be an improper Subject for you to examine ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... had not been particularly friendly to the other boarders, nor made himself obtrusive in the least, not one of them failed to speak of his leaving. Two or three affected to be pleased, but "Butter-and-cheese" said he "was a first-rate chap," and this seemed to gain the assent ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... economy and caused widespread famine. Over the next quarter century, 20% of the island's population emigrated, mostly to Canada and the US. Limited home rule from Denmark was granted in 1874 and complete independence attained in 1944. Literacy, longevity, income, and social cohesion are first-rate by ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... the people are these:- (1) The nobility and gentry; (2) the merchants and first-rate tradesmen; (3) the lawyers and physicians; and (4) inferior tradesmen, attorneys, clerks, apprentices, coachmen, carmen, chairmen, watermen, ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... Praxinoe! That first-rate singer, the Argive woman's daughter, is going to sing the Adonis hymn. She is the same who was chosen to sing the dirge last year. We are sure to have something first rate from her. She is going through her airs and ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... entrance to the gallery. In this empty portion of the tunnel there is ample accommodation for numerous cocoons. The fact that the mother has not made use of it proves that her ovaries were exhausted; for it is exceedingly unlikely that she has abandoned first-rate lodgings to go laboriously digging a new gallery elsewhere and there ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... it, but, look ye, there's Follet, a fine man, a first-rate man, once worth half a million, but now not worth a guinea-pig. The man that sold him good wine in his better days sells him poor whiskey now; and the confounded dealer in fancy poisons has taken the houses of Mr. Follet, brick by brick, and piled them up in his own yard, so to ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... in the same way; and when you are tired of the intense care required for this, you may fall into a little more easy massing of the leaves, as in Fig. 10 (p. 55). This is facsimiled from an engraving after Titian, but an engraving not quite first-rate in manner, the leaves being a little too formal; still, it is a good enough model for your times of rest; and when you cannot carry the thing even so far as this, you may sketch the forms of the masses, as in Fig. 16,[22] taking care always to have thorough command ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... "You must be a first-rate rider," Major Ashley said, "to be able to tame Wildfire. I never saw the horse, for I was away when Peters had her; but from his description ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... potatoes, soft beetroot and mashed horseradish, a bluish eel with French capers and vinegar, a roast joint with jam, and the inevitable 'Mehlspeise,' something of the nature of a pudding with sourish red sauce; but to make up, the beer and wine first-rate! With just such a dinner the tavernkeeper at Soden regaled his customers. The dinner, itself, however, went off satisfactorily. No special liveliness was perceptible, certainly; not even when Herr Klueber proposed the toast 'What we ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... like 'em first-rate," she said, speaking low so as not to wake the baby. "Mamie, Ellen, Jamie, Fred, George—say thank you, ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... much for him, and that he was dead. Then he said: "What a pity! and such a fine fellow he was." The youth heard this, got up, and said: "It's not come to that yet." Then the King was astonished, but very glad, and asked how it had fared with him. "First-rate," he answered; "and now I've survived the one night, I shall get through the other two also." The landlord, when he went to him, opened his eyes wide, and said: "Well, I never thought to see you alive again. Have you learned now what shuddering is?" "No," he replied, "it's ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... of the boasted literary and religious people of Edinburgh have bought and read Father Coleridge's delightful book. A hundred? Ten? Five? I doubt it. Or how many have so much as borrowed from the circulating library Mrs. Cunninghame Graham's first-rate book? Of Teresa's Letters, that greatest living authority on Teresa says—'That long series of epistolary correspondence, so enchanting in the original. It is in her letters that Teresa is at her ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... small vessel, let me be borne uniform and the same. I am not wafted with swelling sail before the north wind blowing fair: yet I do not bear my course of life against the adverse south. In force, genius, figure, virtue, station, estate, the last of the first-rate, [yet] still before those of ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... of partly Danish descent; and no one served more faithfully through the Great War than these men did against the submarines and mines. King George V, whose mother is a Dane, and who is himself a first-rate seaman, must have felt a thrill of ancestral pride in pinning V.C.'s over their undaunted hearts. Fifty years before the Norman conquest Canute the Dane became sole king of England. He had been chosen King of Denmark by the Danish Fleet. But he was true to England as well; and in 1028, when he ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... military life of Egypt there was not one element of sound sense; that he had been all along an egregious failure. It did not come home to him with clear, accurate conviction— his brain was not a first-rate medium for illumination; but the facts struck him now with a blind sort of force; and he accepted the blank sensation of failure. Also, he read in the faces of those round him an alien spirit, a chasm of black misunderstanding which his knowledge of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to the question just now,' he said, a twinkle in the regard bestowed upon the scientist. 'They are two pretty good little old words and fit in first-rate lots of times.' ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... replied the reporter, "but it depends on you. Procure us some iron for the barrels, steel for the hammers, saltpeter. coal and sulphur for powder, mercury and nitric acid for the fulminate, and lead for the shot, and the captain will make us first-rate guns." ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... passenger, God wot!) Whether my vessel be first-rate or not? The ship itself may make a better figure, But I that sail am neither less nor bigger. I neither strut with every favouring breath, 300 Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth. In power, wit, figure, virtue, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... nature—deaths, defections, and then the general state of affairs in which we have suffered, you and I, from the same causes. My time is spent in amusing the children, doing a little botany, long walks in summer—I am still a first-rate pedestrian—and writing novels, when I can secure two hours in the daytime and two in the evening. I write easily and with pleasure. This is my recreation, for my correspondence is numerous, and there lies work indeed! If one had none but one's friends to ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... "I am in first-rate health and spirits, so I don't want you to fuss about me. I am big enough and ugly enough to scratch along somehow, ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... the first time since it was produced! I felt that, however bad it was as a play, it was first-rate journalism. I've told you that I kept thinking how clever of you it was to write it. You mustn't think I didn't enjoy myself. The construction's quite tolerable, and the dialogue's admirable—not a word too much, not ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... slake; and Dr. Clarke mentions that it is used with the fulmar to make a kind of broth, which constitutes the first and principal meal of the inhabitants. It is curious to know that what is eaten at a duchess's table in Piccadilly as a first-rate luxury, is used by the poor people of Scotland twice or thrice a day. It is an expensive dish; but knowledge of this fact may perhaps ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... with uninquiring philanthropy, that in blackening Alexander they were doing humanity good service. But also, without doubt, many of his assailants, like those of other great men, have been mainly instigated by "that strongest of all antipathies, the antipathy of a second-rate mind to a first-rate one," and by the envy which talent too often ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... man with these ideas in his head ought eventually to become a first-rate citizen. What ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... I heard a first-rate story, which, although it did not occur in this division, is too good to lose. A private soldier, named Cupp, who is a German, belonging to the 1st Missouri Cavalry, and now one of the body-guard of General Granger, was out to the front a few days ago, and seeing a "stray rebel," "made for him." ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... of the prettiest houses possible, with nearly a hundred acres of land, that had been purchased, a few months before, for five thousand dollars; and, during my stay here, a first-rate house, with stabling, &c. complete, as well situated as any in Washington, and as well built, sold for the same sum. At present, indeed, I should say land about here is of very little value: though admirably calculated for the residence of an independent class of gentry, here is no ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... observed Uncle Geoffrey, with a smile, as he regarded them. "Deb is in a first-rate humor, then. You have played your cards well, old lady," and ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... ear, and, when referred to answered without thinking, thus assenting to propositions and accepting responsibilities the onus of which dismayed him when he came to realise it. For instance Elias earnestly desired to know if Iskender could have included the services of a first-rate cook in his estimate for the expedition. The best of cooks, he vowed, was necessary for the honour and contentment of their dearest lord. How was it to ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... the thrift, the hesitation, which characterized Elizabeth's government, were well pourtrayed in the habitual language of the Lord Treasurer, chief minister of a third-rate kingdom now called on to play a first-rate part, thoroughly acquainted with the moral and intellectual power of the nation whose policy he directed, and prophetically conscious of the great destinies which were opening upon her horizon. Lord Burghley could hardly be censured—least ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Hosmer," added the boy, triumphantly. "I've been over nearly the whole steamer, and she's fine! And I know our captain quite well, and like him first-rate, already." ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Streatham, set the fashion of condemning this second marriage as a disgraceful mesalliance; but it is not very easy to see in what respect it was so. In social position she had certainly had the advantage over Mr. Thrale, being the daughter of a Carnarvonshire baronet of ancient family. But a first-rate musician was surely the equal of a brewer. After Johnson's death she published a volume of her reminiscences of him, which may be allowed to have been worthy neither of him nor of her, and which was ridiculed by Peter Pindar in ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... intelligence. In this emergency I applied to Captain Bruce, the officer in charge of the Intelligence Department which had been established at Cawnpore for the purpose of tracing the whereabouts of those rebels who had taken a prominent part in the atrocities. I was at once supplied with a first-rate man, Unjur Tiwari by name,[4] who from that moment until I left India for England in April, 1858, rendered me most valuable service. He was a Brahmin by caste, and belonged to the 1st Native Infantry. In a few ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... of the pack-outfit we bought at an auction sale in rather a peculiar manner. About sixty head of Arizona horses of the C. A. Bar outfit were being sold. Toward the close of the afternoon they brought out a well-built stocky buckskin of first-rate appearance except that his left flank was ornamented with five different brands. The ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... other is underground, they will never see one another at all; and I suppose that is just what they wanted to do. Then again: all the other gods practise some useful profession, either here or on earth; for instance, I am a prophet, Asclepius is a doctor, you are a first-rate gymnast and trainer, Artemis ushers children into the world; now what are these two going to do? surely two such great fellows are not to have a lazy time ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... a cheerful optimistic temperament is worth everything. A cheerful man, who always "feels first-rate," who always looks on the bright side, who is ever ready to snatch victory from defeat, is ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... all human aspirations of rising priests in the Church of England. A lawyer does not sin in seeking to be a judge, or in compassing his wishes by all honest means. A young diplomat entertains a fair ambition when he looks forward to be the lord of a first-rate embassy; and a poor novelist when he attempts to rival Dickens or rise above Fitzjames, commits no fault, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... happened when my grandfather was a little boy," said the Prime Minister, "and since then your loyal people have been saving up to buy you a crown—so much a week, you know, according to people's means—sixpence a week from those who have first-rate pocket money, down to a halfpenny a week from those who haven't so much. You know it's the rule that the crown must be paid for by ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... survey the poll, make wigs, and puff away even when powder was exploded? What caused him to seek the applause of the 'nobs' among the cockneys, and struggle to obtain the paradoxical triplicate dictum that he was a werry first-rate cutter!' What made him a practical Tory? (for he boasts of turning out the best wigs ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... girl should return from school a first-rate reader, than a first-rate performer on the pianoforte. The accomplishment, in its perfection, would give more pleasure. The voice of song is not sweeter than the voice of eloquence; and there may ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... she said solemnly. "I expect they'll drink our green tea till they make bladders of themselves, it is so good. Your father is a first-rate man; he is an excellent provider, and any woman ought to be proud of him, for he does buy number ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... in. I seemed to fill every cranny, and to have stretched every part to its utmost distention. My aunt with her great cunt had a power of pressure that seemed almost to nip off your prick, Miss Frankland, too, was great in that way. But this was more like a very well made first-rate kid glove, two sizes too small for your fingers, yet giving way without bursting, and fitting every irregularity of the nail or finger; just so her little cunt fitted my prick exactly like a glove, and it was truly most ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... laid stress on the word "people." "So little is done here for the people," he said, as if he were telling Yourii a great secret, "and if anything is done, it is in a half- hearted, careless way. It is most extraordinary. To amuse a parcel of bored gentlefolk dozens of first-rate actors, singers and lecturers are engaged, but for the people a lecturer like myself is quite good enough." Schafroff smiled at his own bland irony. "Everybody's quite satisfied. What more ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... the horses in a positive lather, tore into the street, just in time to forward some important despatch. Hark! The horn! the horn! The mail-guards are the soloists, and very pleasant music they discourse; not a few of them are first-rate performers. A long train of gaily got-up coaches, remarkable for their light weight, horsed by splendid-looking animals, impatient at the curb, and eager to commence their journey of ten miles (at least) an hour; stout 'gents,' in heavy coats, buttoned ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... any criticism, drunk or sober, and in language too flat for any thing. In Daniel's Sonnets there is scarcely one good line; while his Hymen's Triumph, of which Chalmers says not one word, exhibits a continued series of first-rate beauties in thought, passion, and imagery, and in language and metre is so faultless, that the style of that poem may without extravagance be declared ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... interest. In its three volumes Johnson gives us biographical and critical studies of fifty-two poets. Of these only six—Milton, Dryden, Pope, Thomson, Collins and Gray—would now be considered of first-rate poetic importance. Of the rest it is difficult to make certain of a dozen whose place in the second class would be unquestioned. The thirty or more that remain are mostly poets of whom the ordinary reader of to-day has never read, and if he is wise will never ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... Another first-rate novel by a woman! The plot well conceived and worked out, the characters individualized and clear-cut, and the story so admirably told that you are hurried along for two hours and a half with a smile often breaking out at the humor, a tear ready to start at the ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... houses are here extremely high. Very small houses, in situations not convenient for business, and containing, in the whole, only six rooms, are worth from L.75 to L.80 per annum; and for similar houses, in first-rate situations, the rents as high as from L.160 to L.200 are paid. Houses like those in Oxford-street and the best part of Holborn, are let for L.500 or L.600 ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... Governor of the State,—a wicked, profane man,—said: "It is first-rate news. Pillow is giving the Yankees hell, and rubbing it in!"[6] It is a vile sentence, and I would not quote it, were it not that you might have a ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... mantle the lad carried a first-rate sword and a splendid coat of mail; and when they found me, my brave father told me what had happened, and what the magistrates had said to him. Then he kissed me on the forehead and both eyes, and gave me his hearty blessing, saying: "May the power of goodness of God be your protection;" ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... jiffy. But just then the war came on, and it was a Godsend to me. I went in first thing. I made up my mind to go in and fight like five thousand furies, and I thought maybe that would win her, and it did; it worked first-rate. I went in as a private, and I got a bullet through me in about six months, through my right lung, that laid me off for a year or so; then I went back and the boys made me a lieutenant, and when the captain was made a major, I was made captain. I was offered something ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... ships nearest him immediately slipped their cables and chased. The Rising Sun having lost her masts, ran ashore near Cherbourg, where she was burned by sir Ralph Delaval, together with the Admirable, another first-rate, and the Conquerant of eighty guns. Eighteen other ships of their fleet ran into La Hogue, where they were attacked by sir George Rooke, who destroyed them and a great number of transports laden with ammunition, in the midst of a terrible fire from the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... By Jove, first-rate!" shouted Bob, in an ecstasy of delight. "There's a distillery there, you know, and a fishing-village at the foot—at least, there used to be six years ago, when I was living with the exciseman. There may ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... twenty-five years ago, that establishment was the first of the kind in that town, and then stood alone, and notwithstanding that many large and rich ones in the same business have since been added, the original company have so progressed in fame and fortune, as to be now considered one of the first-rate breweries in Europe; and by the improved quality of their porter have, in a great degree, excluded the English from the West India market, their porter getting the preference there, as well as in Bristol and Liverpool, to which places large quantities are annually ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... attention to a political episode of Queen Elizabeth's reign and have begun to study the trial of Mary Stuart. One or two first-rate tragic motives suggested themselves straightway, and these have given me great faith in the subject, which incontestably has much to recommend it. It seems to be especially adapted to the Euripidean method, which consists in the completest possible development of a situation; ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... of treatment has succeeded in a number of instances, several first-rate writers on education have tried it, and have found it work well; it is one of the most effective methods to operate upon the minds of young children that I have been able to discover: I have tried ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... drive in his ambulance, and introduced me to Major Leon Smith, who captured the Harriet Lane. The latter pressed me most vehemently to wait until General Magruder's arrival, and he promised, if I did so, that I should be sent to San Antonio in a first-rate ambulance. Major Leon Smith is a seafaring man by profession, and was put by General Magruder in command of one of the small steamers which captured the Harriet Lane at Galveston, the crews of the steamers being composed of Texan cavalry soldiers. He told me that the resistance offered after ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... quarreled—for there were such heaps, it would have been ridiculous to squabble over them; and besides, whenever they began to quarrel, Brownie always ran away. Now he was the merriest of the lot; ran up and down the tree like a cat, helped to pick up the cherries, and was first-rate at filling ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... Boadishey a clumsy frigate. What the devil would you have? Arnt her eyes as bright as the morning and evening stars? and isnt her hair as black and glistening as rigging that has just had a lick of tar? doesnt she move as stately as a first-rate in smooth water, on a bowline? Why, woman, the figure-head of the Boadishey was a fool to her, and that, as Ive often heard the captain say, was an image of a great queen; and arnt queens always comely, woman? for who do you think would ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... may still be for anything that I know. This piece of good luck promises to be hereditary; for all "my" compositions have the same amiable home-staying propensity. The truth is, my Father was not a first-rate genius; he was, however, a first-rate Christian, which is much better. I need not detain you with his character. In learning, goodheartedness, absentness of mind, and excessive ignorance of the world, he was ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... conclusion I have come to?" said Peterkin. "I have made up my mind that it's capital—first-rate—the best thing that ever happened to us, and the most splendid prospect that ever lay before three jolly young tars. We've got an island all to ourselves. We'll take possession in the name of the king; we'll go ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... golden faculty there,—you are only oppressing and destroying it. And the artistical gift in average men is not joined with others: your born painter, if you don't make a painter of him, won't be a first-rate merchant, or lawyer; at all events, whatever he turns out, his own special gift is unemployed by you; and in no wise helps him in that other business. So here you have a certain quantity of a particular sort of intelligence, produced for you ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... added, in a slower and more directly communicative tone, as he disengaged his hand from mine and leaned his arm on the back of the lounge behind me, "I have decided to send you to a first-rate school, Amey, where you will have a chance to perfect yourself in every way; do you think you will like to go away to school?" he asked, so timidly that one would have thought my opinion on the matter could have ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
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