"Admirable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... long before the climax is reached. The end comes rather less wretchedly than could have been expected, but even so surely this is genius partly run to seed. The greatest tragedies are not written in these minor keys. Beat, woman and heroine, is so admirable that one fain would know her apart from all this unredeemed welter of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... Arnold has said, creeps and halts. A true epic, on the other hand, is long, and its tone is grand, noble, and sustained. Ballads are not artistic; while the form of the epic, whether we take the hexameter or the rougher laisse of the French chansons de geste, is full of conscious and admirable art. Lastly, popular ballads deal with vague characters, acting and living in vague places; while the characters of an epic are heroes of definite station, whose descendants are still in the land, whose home is a recognisable place, Ithaca, or Argos. Now, though ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... to him that one of these was ever at her side; and when he looked upon her, and remembered all she had been to him, doubtless he found it easy to believe. Taught by adversity, more than ever influenced by his admirable wife, Lorenzo henceforward adopted a more thoroughly Christian mode of life than he had hitherto followed. Not content with praising her virtues, he sought to imitate them, and practised all the duties of religion with the utmost strictness. On one point alone his conduct ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... the prospects of his father assisting him out of his many scrapes had declined since news had arrived of Harold's unlooked-for marriage. When the scarcely tasted meal was over, Montague sent Lowther upstairs "to give the ladies company," while he smoked an admirable cigar and drank the best part of a bottle of old port wine. The tobacco and the wine brought a philosophical calm to his unquiet mind; he was enabled to look on the marriage from its least unfavourable aspects. He had always liked Mavis and ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... finding their mistake, return at their leisure. This gives the most daring of the field, on the eminence, an opportunity of descending to view the sport more closely; and being assembled in the bottom, each congratulates his neighbour on the excellent condition and stanchness of the hounds, and the admirable view that has been afforded them of their peculiar style of hunting. At this interesting period, a "regular swell" from Melton Mowbray, unknown to everyone except his tailor, to whom he owes a long tick, makes his appearance and affords abundance of merriment for our sportsmen. He ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... tell them frae me, that if we lose the brig we lose the day," growled Andrew Black, who, begrimed with powder, was busily loading and firing his musket from behind a thick bush, which, though an admirable screen from vision, was a poor protection from bullets, as the passage of several leaden messengers had already proved. But our farmer was too much engrossed with present duty ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... anyone who is fully prepared for action. I remember also to have read somewhere that such waste of time in diplomacy and palavering is the favourite resource of feeble and timid minds, who regard the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as an evidence of the most admirable and consummate prudence." ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... sterling worth as I did. For several years after his return to liberty I was in close daily contact with this white-haired mild-looking old gentleman—still tolerably active and supple, though—who could blaze up and fight to the death over what he considered a matter of principle. The most admirable feature in his character was that, in all ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... are short-sighted men, I say, and know not of what they speak. That old rough flint has often cost more to put in the hands of that Dogrib hunter than the best finished central fire of Boss or Purdey. But that is not all that has to be said about the trade of this Company. Free trade may be an admirable institution for some nations-making them, amongst other things, very-much more liable to national destruction; but it by no means follows that it should be adapted equally well to the savage Indian. Unfortunately for the universality of British institutions, free trade has invariably ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... Accordingly, upon solicitation, a valued friend Mr. Ezra Abbot, Jr., a gentleman remarkable for his varied and accurate scholarship undertook that laborious task for me; and he has accomplished it in the most admirable manner. No reader, however learned, but may find much important information in the bibliographical appendix which I am thus enabled to add to this volume. Every student who henceforth wishes to investigate any branch of the historical or philosophical doctrine of the immortality of the soul, or ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... litanies, with their reiterated, persistent, impassioned appeals for heavenly succour. He fancied himself climbing a flight of pious yearnings, which he ascended step by step at each bound of his heart. First he called her 'Holy.' Next he called her 'Mother,' most pure, most chaste, amiable, and admirable. And with fresh ardour he six times proclaimed her maidenhood; his lips cooled and freshened each time that he pronounced that name of 'Virgin,' which he coupled with power, goodness, and fidelity. And as his heart drew him ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... and criticisms as exemplified in these learned treatises. The teacher of history will find that these two volumes have a value as books of reference, which will aid his judgment on many constantly recurring historical problems—a reference made easy by the admirable indexes, which in themselves are a testimony to the immense range ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... is not necessary to dwell on their special descriptive features, which readily assert themselves and give Scott a high and honoured place among Nature-poets. His quick and minute observation, his sense of colour and harmonious effects, and his skill of arrangement are admirable throughout. ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... legions of the emperor. While Napoleon had devoted his whole genius to the organization of the parks and trains which attend the march of an army in the field, the British troops had only the most imperfect resources on which to rely. The engineer corps, though admirable in quality, was so deficient in numbers, that commissions were placed at the free disposal of Cambridge mathematicians. The siege trains were weak and worthless against the solid ramparts of Peninsular strongholds. The intrenching tools were so ill made that they ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... had in no slight degree biassed the servant's opinion of the visitor, was one of Pierre Lenoir's admirable manufacture. ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... admirable and wisest system of well-regulated self-government among men ever devised by human minds has been tested by its successful operation for more than half a century, and if preserved from the usurpations of the Federal Government on the one hand and the exercise by the States ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... to Mr. Hume's assertions with respect to African capacity, we have passed them over in silence, as they have been so admirably refuted by the learned Dr. Beattie, in his Essay on Truth, to which we refer the reader. The whole of this admirable refutation extends ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... side of the way, stood the house of Pilaware, the admirable; she had been addressed by thirty-three suitors of her own nation, but refused them all, and went off at last with an irish pedlar, for the sake of three yards of silver riband, and a new blanket. Yonder stood the dwelling of Scuttawabah, ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... as was Solomon in his words, his life was far from being either admirable or prudent. In conformity with Asiatic custom, he had many wives—seven hundred, we are told—of different nationalities and religions. Through their persuasion the old monarch himself fell into idolatry, which turned from him the affections of his ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... turned by eight or nine water wheels, of about twenty-four feet diameter, and twenty feet in length. The fall is about twenty feet, and the admirable contrivances of revolving balls (adopted in the steam-engine) are affixed, to render the power uniform, by varying the depth of the falling stream. In truth, it is one of the features of the entire establishment, that all, that can be performed by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... impassive, Mr. Wooland entered the room; a side glance suddenly showed him the open trunk and the dead body, but not a muscle of his face moved. Mr. Wooland came of a good stock, and had all that admirable self-possession which is the strength of the powerful Anglo-Saxon race. He looked at the inspector in somewhat haughty silence, waiting for ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... remplissaient les chaires de professeurs dans les universites; les devots, qui se melent de tout, acquirent une part a la direction des universites; ils y persecutaient le bon sens, et surtout la classe des philosophes: Wolff fut exile pour avoir deduit avec un ordre admirable les preuves sur l'existence de Dieu. La jeune noblesse qui se vouait aux armes, crut deroger en etudiant, et comme l'esprit humain donne toujours dans les exces, ils regarderent l'ignorance comme un titre de merite, et le ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... a sweet being, that boy soldier, a plant of early promise, bidding fair to become in after time all that is great, good, and admirable. I have read of a remarkable Welshman, of whom it was said, when the grave closed over him, that he could frame a harp, and play it; build a ship, and sail it; compose an ode, and set it to music. A brave fellow that son of Wales—but I had once a brother who could do more and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Yorick who produced roars of laughter in the Dicky and Hasty Pudding clubs. Another son, called affectionately by the students "Jimmy Mills," was also noted for his wit, and much respected as an admirable instructor. ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... turned to follow the nurse, the surgeon glanced at her once more. He was conscious of her calm tread, her admirable self-control. The sad, passive face with its broad, white brow was the face of a woman who was just waking to terrible facts, who was struggling to comprehend a world that had caught her unawares. She had removed her hat and was carrying it loosely in her hand that had fallen to her side. Her ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Percival was a good swimmer himself, and his interest kindled as he watched the perfect ease with which the young person handled herself in the narrow confines of the tank. While he deplored the wretched taste of the proceeding, he had to admit that she carried it off with admirable lack of self-consciousness. She swam as she did everything else, with impetuous joy, and seemed as unaware of the admiring glances of the spectators as ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... present a more vivid picture of manners than that in which the account of this case of witchcraft is contained. It is perhaps the rarest of the English tracts relating to witchcraft, and is entitled "The most strange and admirable Discoverie of the three Witches of Warboys, arraigned, convicted, and executed at the last Assizes at Huntingdon, for the bewitching of the five daughters of Robert Throckmorton, Esquire, and divers other persons with sundrie Devilish and grievous torments. And also for ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... pass by these considerations, is not accustoming one's self to mildness and a human temper of mind an admirable thing? For who would wrong or injure a man that is so sweetly and humanly disposed with respect to the ills of strangers that are not of his kind? I remember that three days ago, as I was discoursing, I made mention of a saying ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... the letter which inclosed the above admirable account of the proceedings of the Captain, on the memorable 14th of February, the fleet sailed from Lagos Bay, and proceeded to Lisbon, which they reached on ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... flatter myself that I was equally admirable in my own metier. I was assorting a motley collection of guide-books, novels, maps, smelling-salts, and kodaks when he came in, and was dying to look up, but I remained as sweetly ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Georgian damsels possessed they certainly had straight backs and level shoulders. The backboard was admirable training for the carriage of the stately sacque, the graceful flirting of the fan and for the dancing of the grave and ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... and the great hall unroofed and partly demolished, but its west end and six arches of the arcade escaped, the latter probably because, as at Canterbury, the south aisle had been previously cut up into sets of chambers. All these remains are of admirable early thirteenth-century work, and it is much to be regretted that in clearing away the old houses in 1860 it should have been found necessary to also remove a curious vaulted lobby and other remains on the east side ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... with Sir Edward Grey touches the same point: "April 1, 1914. Sir Edward Grey recalled to me to-day that he had waited for the President to take up the Canal tolls controversy at his convenience. 'When he took it up at his own time to suit his own plans, he took it up in the most admirable way possible.' This whole story is too good to be lost. If the repeal of the tolls clause passes the Senate, I propose to make a speech in the House of Commons on 'The Proper Way for Great Governments to Deal with One Another,' and use ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... solemn manifesto, gave expression to the wishes of the Hungarians in the matter of reform. The only act of violence these revolutionary heroes were guilty of was the entering of a printing establishment, whose proprietor, afraid of the Government, had refused to print the admirable poem of Petofi entitled Talpra Magyar ("Up, Magyar"), and doing the printing there themselves. The first stanza of this poem, later the war-song of the national movement, runs, in a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... reading cannot be too special. There is an enormous waste of intelligence through a neglect of this fact, but otherwise reading should "come by nature." When I look through the list of The Best Hundred Books, I cannot help saying to myself, "Here are the most admirable and varied materials for the ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... lies enough to last me my life, and for no other reason than that I am in love. If this is a sufficient reason, lovers must have a different code of morality from the rest of the world, and indeed it would appear that they have. Will you die for me? Yes. Admirable. Will you lie for me? No. Then you don't love me. [Greek: Ball' eis korakas, ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... "Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation," Baeda was at once the founder of mediaeval history and the first English historian. All that we really know of the century and a half that follows the landing of Augustine we know from him. Wherever his own personal observation extended, the story is told with admirable detail and force. He is hardly less full or accurate in the portions which he owed to his Kentish friends, Albinus and Nothelm. What he owed to no informant was his exquisite faculty of story-telling, and yet no story of his ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... authentic cartellino, and not the other? The simple and straightforward explanation appears the best—viz. that the Rovigo picture is actually by Titian, who has taken the Vienna picture (which I attribute to Giorgione) as his model and directly repeated it. The qualities of the work are admirable, and worthy of Titian, and I venture to think this "Madonna" would long ago have taken its rightful place among the pictures of the master had it not hung in a remote provincial gallery little visited by travellers, and in such a dark corner as to escape detection. The ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... a good word for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals founded at Nice some years since, and sadly in need of funds. The Society is backed up by the Government in accordance with the admirable Loi Grammont, but, as is the case with local societies in England, requires extraneous help. Surely rich English valetudinarians will not let this humane work stand still, seeing, as they must do daily, the urgent necessity ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... affections and powers, soul and sense, diligently and thoughtfully directed and trained, with free and concurrent and equal energy, with distinct yet harmonious purposes, seek out their respective and appropriate objects, moral, intellectual, natural, spiritual, in that admirable scene and hard field where man is placed to labor and love, to be exercised, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... individual of such exalted attributes should be treated by poor wandering heathen with filial reverence and veneration. The old Korak, squatting upon his heels on the ground, listened quietly to the enumeration of all our leader's admirable qualities and perfections without moving a muscle of his face; but finally, when the interpreter had finished, he rose slowly, walked up to the Major with imperturbable gravity, and with the most ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... everything through the magnifying glass of her genius. But the person to whom Therese Bentzon was most indebted in the matter of literary advice—she says herself—was the late M. Caro, the famous Sorbonne professor of philosophy, himself an admirable writer, "who put me through a course of literature, acting as my guide through a vast amount of solid reading, and criticizing my work with kindly severity." Success was slow. Strange as it may seem, there is a prejudice against female writers ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... eyes—though ignored by him, his interest being, despite his former championship of them, less in children than in "the child"—and envied him her acquaintance; and they began to ask that very evening how soon the admirable Medora might swim into ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... an admirable meal, while the vessel vibrated gently and through the open portholes came the swish of bubbling water and a flood of sunlight. Then Riggs made a little speech and they all drank Clark's health, promising him continued support and such money as he needed to make steel rails. The threatening ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... front of us was a stretch of specially well farmed land. Our woods swept round it on both sides, crossed a highway, and gradually closed in again so as to terminate the opening about half a mile away. Always the same crops, bottom cause of the war: from us to the road an admirable planting of cotton, and from there to the farther woods as goodly a show of thick corn. The whole acreage swept downward to that terminus, at the same time sinking inward from the two sides. On the highway shone the lighted rear window of ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... commodore, with his alternations of blustering wrath and foolish fondness, giving way to his anger, or indulging his love, without the slightest regard to the effect produced upon his young ward—too often abusing her for something really admirable in her nature—and full as frequently praising her for something proportionately reprehensible in ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... wrapt up in obscurity. Thus Aristotle, who had been called the terror of Christians, in the hands of Thomas became orthodox, and furnished faith with new arms against idolatry and atheism. For this admirable doctor, though he had only a bad Latin translation of the works of that philosopher, has corrected his errors, and shown that his whole system of philosophy, as far as it is grounded in truth, is subservient to divine revelation. This he has ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... very agreeable evening in witnessing "The Little Millionaire." I was perfectly conscious of the blatancy of the methods that achieved it. I saw in it no mark of genius. But I did see in it a very various talent and an all-round efficiency; and, beneath the blatancy, an admirable direct simplicity and winning unpretentiousness. I liked the ingenuity of the device by which, in the words of the programme, the action of Act II was "not interrupted by musical numbers." The dramatic construction of this act was so consistently clever ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... regent's brow, and in a rather sharp and cutting tone she said; "One question, princess! How came you by this admirable lace veil, the like of which I have not seen here in ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... but not less admirable than his eloquence in the Senate, was Grattan's achievement with the pen. His description of the great Lord Chatham lives as one of the most noble panegyrics—it not the most noble—in the world. No writer, before or since, has offered anyone such splendid homage as this—that he ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... off in a manner best suited to serve the purpose of a handle. Without, however, attempting to institute farther comparisons, two views of a real manatee are here subjoined, which are fac-similes of Murie's admirable photo-lithograph in Trans. London Zoological Society, vol. 8, 1872-'74. A very brief comparison of the supposed manatees, with a modern artistic representation of that animal, will show the irreconcilable differences between ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... in their bodily or mental make-up, all my friends, all my relatives; that is, all my blood relatives. It has occurred to me that I might open a new field in the family connection of my father-in-law and mother-in-law. We have been thinking of paying them a visit, and I shall have an admirable opportunity of studying them and their relatives and visitors. I have long wanted a good chance for getting acquainted with the social sphere several grades below that to which I am accustomed, and I have no doubt that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Nanking, Xantung, and Leaotung; those of the inland country are Queichieu, Junnan, Quangsi, Suchuen, Huquang, Xensi, Kiangsi, Honan, and Xansi, in all of which there are 244 cities. Its riches are prodigious, and its government admirable above all others. The natives allege that they alone have two eyes, the Europeans one, and that all the other nations are blind. They certainty had both printing and cannon long before the Europeans. The city of Quantung or Canton, which is the principal sea-port, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... the Principal, the adjuncts—the essence, nor the ornamental incidents the book's self, so what matters it if the portraits are admirable, the descriptions eloquent, (eloquent, there it is—that is her characteristic—what she has to speak, she speaks out, speaks volubly forth, too well, inasmuch as you say, advancing a step or two, 'And now speak as completely here'—and she says nothing)—but all that, another could ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... sounds for the expression of every feeling, and being capable of distinctions as minute, and combinations as intricate as the most complex instrument of music; is thus enabled to furnish materials so admirable for the formation of artificial language. The greatest and most important discovery of human ingenuity is writing; there is no impiety in saying, that it was scarcely in the power of the Deity to confer on man a more glorious present than LANGUAGE, by the medium of which, he ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... admirable all through, and did credit to the generalizing powers of the Hill, which had thus contrived to harmonize the three stages of womanhood and to offend none. Even Frank's fastidious taste was satisfied. So was Mrs. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... they did. Considering they had nine people and two motors, and several suitcases to look after, they displayed admirable expedition in getting started, and just at dusk they came upon the brilliant radiance of the lights of ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... outline, it is redeemed in the actual play by the beautiful character given to the heroine. But this, while it vastly tones down the disgusting side of the story, only increases the bitter pathos which is latent there. The more lovely and admirable Helena is, the more she is unfitted for the unworthy part which she is forced to act and the man with whom she is doomed to end her days. A modern thinker could easily read into this "comedy" the world-old bitterness of ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... country. The staircase paintings of St. Bartholomew's Hospital are not likely, I think, to induce us to revise the above opinion; and Sir Joshua's criticism is here so apposite and so just that I need no excuse for quoting it in some detail. "After this admirable artist had spent the greater part of his life in an active, busy, and, we may add, successful attention to the ridicule of life; after he had invented a new species of dramatic painting in which probably he will never ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... scholars have a peasant-like roughness not unlike the roughness of Scotch tweeds—or character. It is the even balancing of these two elements—the force of the Northerner with the grace of the Southerner—which gives the Castilian his admirable poise and explains the graceful virility of men such as Fray Luis de Leon and the feminine strength of women such as Queen Isabel and Santa Teresa. We are therefore led to expect in so forcible a representative of the Basque race as Unamuno the more substantial and earnest ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... part of the series of feelings filling up the sentient existence of that mind. Again, attributes may be ascribed to a mind as to a body, as grounded on the thoughts or emotions (not the sensations, for only bodies excite them) which it excites in others: e.g. when we call a character admirable, we mean that it causes feelings in us of admiration. Sometimes, under one word really two attributes are predicated, one a state of the mind, the other of other minds affected by thinking of it: e.g. He is generous. Sometimes, even bodies have the attribute of producing an emotion: ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... his only admirable characteristic. He had, also, a dependable sense of humour. It came to his relief now—he thought of his host, a chuckle throttling the beginnings of a second sigh deep ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... Senate without debate and without objection. It went to the House, and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, through Mr. Denby, of Michigan, submitted a most admirable report, which was far more in line with my own ideas than was the report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. I agree with the conclusions arrived at by the Committee on Foreign Affairs so thoroughly that I am going to give most of ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... he said. "In the first place, though you may have some admirable virtues, I've failed to detect one. In the second place, I could not stand your blood-drinking nor your murderous ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... before the reader with such different degrees of illumination and relief that they make a wholly different impression on his mind. In the history of Macaulay this defect may, I think, be especially traced. The characteristic defect of that great and in most respects admirable writer, both as historian and artist, was the singular absence of graduation in his mind. The neutral tints which are essential to the accurate shading of character seemed almost wanting, and a love of strong contrasted ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... "This is admirable—delightful. We shall have a most enjoyable journey. M. Malicorne, M. Bragelonne—ah! M. de Wardes, let me present you." The young men saluted each other in a restrained manner. Their very natures seemed, from the beginning, disposed to take exception to each ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had taken place in the Sailors' Home at Wreckumoft since Billy Gaff last saw it. A new wing had been added to it, and the original building had been altered and repaired, while every convenience in the way of ventilating and heating had been introduced, so that the sailors who frequented this admirable Home found themselves surrounded by comforts and luxuries such as, in former days, they ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... remarks on the subject of animal life in the ocean, are so graphic and curious that we extract the passages verbatim from the admirable memoir of that gentleman, written by ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... climate. They would have you even believe they can ripen fruit; and, to be candid, I must own in remarkably warm summers I have tasted peaches that made most excellent pickles; and it is upon record that at the Siege of Perth, on one occasion the ammunition failing, their nectarines made admirable cannon-balls. Even the enlightened mind of Jeffrey cannot shake off the illusion that myrtles flourish at Craig Crook.[22] In vain I have represented to him that they are of the genus Carduus, and pointed out their prickly peculiarities.... Jeffrey ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... worn down, thus giving the troops therein stationed the advantage of first class breastworks. I do not know that the Fifteenth South Carolina and the other portion of the brigade were thus sheltered—have heard indeed that all were not—but within my vision the position was most admirable, now almost impregnable with good troops to defend it. To leave such a position was suicidal, especially when we were ordered to march through open ground and attack the enemy, sheltered behind trees and rocks. This is my estimate at least, and the result proved most disastrous to the brigade ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... room. The walls were distempered white. The ceiling was old and black with age. There was a deep red-tiled fireplace. One wall had low brown bookshelves. There were two pictures: one an Around reprint of Matsys' "Portrait of Aegidius"—that wise, kind, tender face; the other an admirable photogravure of Durer's "Selbstbildnis." The books were mainly to do with his favourite historical period—the Later Roman Empire. There was some poetry—an edition of Browning, Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, Ernest ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... The depressing passions likewise lessen the frequency of respiration. By the influence of these causes, the blood is but partially purified, and the whole system becomes enfeebled. Here we may see the admirable harmony between the different parts of the body, and the adaptation of all the functions to ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... interfere with beauty, he maintained. He had been thrilled by the discovery in the Siena gallery of an old master with the same predilections as he, an antipathy apparently to the vivid, crying, self-assertive colors, which he accordingly with admirable simplicity left out, and interpreted the world all in blues and greens, grays and violets, whites of many degrees and ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... a year past makes me so weak that I either could not stand the journey, or should fall down into sickness myself in that afflicted house. Alas, I can do nothing for them but help with money; and, God knows, I do that with joy. Consider that our dear Mother, who has held up hitherto with an admirable courage, must at last break down under so many sorrows. I know thy childlike loving heart, I know the perfect fairness and equitable probity of my Brother-in-law. Both these facts will teach you better than I under the circumstances. ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... version of the celebrated work of M. Renan, the translator is aware of the difficulty of adequately rendering a work so admirable for its style and beauty of composition. It is not an easy task to reproduce the terseness and eloquence which characterize the original. Whatever its success in these respects may be, no pains have been spared to give the author's ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... gone to sea! He might do many things for his wife, but nothing comparable to that irascible feat of forcing life's hand and leaping straight from boyhood into manhood by leaving school and becoming a sailor at sixteen so that he should be admirable to his mother. During the holidays, when he formed the intention, she had watched him well from under her lids and had guessed that his pride was disgusted at his adolescent clumsiness and moodiness and that he wanted to hide himself from her until he felt himself uncriticisable in ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... clamorous crew of pirates, as loyal and generous a lot as ever returned a borrowed dress jumper with dirty tapes; to numerous jimmy-legs and P.O.'s whose cantankerous tempers have furnished me with much material for this book; and also to a dog, an admirable dog whom I choose to call Mr. Fogerty, with apologies to this dog if in these pages his slave has unwittingly maligned his character or in any way cast ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... summer spent at home there was a marked change in him, due, so thought Doctor Tollivar, to his association with the rougher class of workmen in the iron mills. It was as if he had suddenly grown older and harder, and the discipline of the school, admirable as the Reverend Silas knew it to be, was not severe ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... poverty and discouragement, and dismayed at this moment by his own presumption, the young neophyte might not have dared to enter the presence of the master to whom we owe our admirable portrait of Henry IV., if chance had not thrown an unexpected assistance in his way. An old man mounted the spiral stairway. The oddity of his dress, the magnificence of his lace ruffles, the solid assurance of his deliberate step, led the youth to assume that this remarkable personage must ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... he was "out of the world." "I shall see you soon above ground, shall I not?" Miss Milbrey had asked, at which her mother shot Percival a parting volley from her rapid-fire lorgnon, while her father turned upon him a back whose sidelines were really admirable, considering his age and feeding habits. The behaviour of these people appeared to intensify the amusement of their child. The two solemn young men who remained continued to chat before Percival as they would have chatted ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... man to control it. All the excuses and palliations of this system must inevitably be swept away, just as other "refuges of lies" have been, by the irresistible torrent of a rectified public opinion. "The supporters of the slave system," says Jonathan Dymond in his admirable work on the Principles of Morality, "will hereafter be regarded with the same public feeling, as he who was an advocate for the slave trade now is." It will be, and that very soon, clearly perceived and fully acknowledged by all the virtuous and the candid, ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... [291] dependents of daimyo,—men or women who gave their children to death in order to save the children of their masters.* [*See, for a good example, the translation of the drama Terakoya, published, with admirable illustrations, by T. Hasegawa (Tokyo).] Nor have we any reason to suppose that the facts have been exaggerated in these dramatic compositions, most of which are based upon feudal history. The incidents, of course, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... admirable place for the hunters. They desired me to lie down, and they crept into the jungle out of view of the river. I presently observed them stealthily descending the dry bed about two hundred paces above the spot where the hippos were ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... 'Que admirable es la naturaleza!' sings a Spanish dramatist. Nature is, indeed, much to be admired, especially when you are viewing her in orange groves, where oranges, for the trouble of picking them, hang invitingly over your very mouth, seeming to say, 'Eat me, stranger.' Some are small and green ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... upon his for a moment and then suddenly drooped. A little tinge of colour stole into her cheeks. For a moment she seemed to have lost her admirable poise. ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her secret heart the unutterable sweetness of being in love with him. Again, she was Nobody and didn't count, while he was precisely all that she had longed for ever since she was of an age to dream of love. He was not only of an admirable person, he wore the habit of distinction like a garment made for him alone. In short, the man was irresistible, and the woman didn't even want to resist but only despaired of opportunity ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... Plato's desire, Jesus Christ drew near to our world, not to chill man's heart, but to strengthen his affection, refine his reason, enlarge his horizon. How admirable Christ's words, how illustrious His work, how divine His character! The philosopher describes man, but Jesus Christ loves man, weeps for man, dies for man. Dante inspires, but Jesus Christ gives life. Shakespeare shines, but Jesus Christ ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... of beings. With their precocity, like the exuberance of their vegetation, and with their quick, impassioned feelings, like their storm-freighted air, always bearing latent lightning in its bosom, they might become a something rich, rare, and admirable; but, never bringing thought up to the point of reflection; never learning self-control, nor the necessity of holding passion in abeyance; never getting beyond the degrading influence of intercourse with a race ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... her was that he had taken the news of his success with admirable self-restraint, that he was growing and shaping as a human being, no less than as an artist, that his manner to her father was excellent, neither tongue-tied nor effusive, and his few words of thanks manly and sincere. She thought to herself that ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the pleasure of witnessing for the first time the admirable celerity and effectiveness with which an order of ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... spite of your very striking illustration, and your doubts as to my having read the papers correctly," I remarked, "I am sure that the Russian peasant does, occasionally, murder with premeditation. He is a fine-tempered, much-enduring, admirable fellow, I admit, but he is human. He cannot be so different in this respect from all other races of men. Moreover, I have the testimony of a celebrated Russian author ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... said I. 'Forget it, man. Look around you and say if there's one of these spinsters you'd rather have for companion. Don't raise your voice. You started in admirable key. . . . Let's keep to it and understand one another. I'm dining with you. If you like, we'll toss up later for who pays: but I'm dining with you. I promise not to hurt you to-night, if ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to more important matters, it must suffice to say that then, as always, his moral standard was the highest, and that no evil thing dared manifest itself in his presence. He had been trained, by an admirable mother, in the best traditions of the Tractarian school, and he was worthy of his training. Among his intimate friends were Dalmeny, afterwards Lord Rosebery; Henry Northcote, now Lord Northcote; Freddy Wood, afterwards Meynell; Alberic Bertie; and Francis ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... man would understand the excellency of his soul, let him turn his eyes inwardly and look unto himself and search diligently his own mind, and there he shall see many admirable gifts and excellent ornaments, that must needs fill him with wonder and amazement; as reason, understanding, freedom of will, memory, etc., that clearly show the soul to be descended from a heavenly original, and that therefore it is of infinite duration ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... her to study. To him she was quite an ordinary girl, rather nice-looking when she was neat, but with a most unfortunate lack of the sedate dignity and discretion that he considered essential to the typically admirable woman. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... contrary, she seemed to bristle with fury, which the mockery of the other women about only served to intensify. She stood there literally snarling and shaking with indignation, and, seeing her, I wished Job's scruples had been at Jericho, forming a shrewd guess that his admirable behaviour had endangered our throats. Nor, as the ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... hold their own in the coming season against the introduction of capsized clowns, drenched old women, and comic police. Keeping the best for the last, the Scribe and the Artist now entered the model of the Victory—a really admirable exhibition. There they saw before them the old battle-ship with its full equipment, as it was in the days of NELSON—when that deathless hero expected every Englishman (not excluding even those passing the Custom House—as the Committee would say) "to do ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... accepted this proposal with calmness and a confidence in the physician that was admirable. Old Will trembled with nervous excitement, and was so "flustered" by the importance of the experiment that Dr. Hoyt decided to give him a ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... my readers will, I hope, grant me their indulgence for here inserting it[590]: 'It is not once or twice going over it (says Sir William,) that will satisfy me; for I find in it a high degree of instruction as well as entertainment; and I derive more benefit from Dr. Johnson's admirable discussions than I should be able to draw from his personal conversation; for, I suppose there is not a man in the world to whom he discloses his sentiments so ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... times as much as that of any other translator;" and I cannot but feel proud that he has honoured me with the dedication of "The Book of The Thousand Nights and One Night." His version is most readable: his English, with a sub-flavour of the Mabinogionic archaicism, is admirable; and his style gives life and light to the nine volumes whose matter is frequently heavy enough. He succeeds admirably in the most difficult passages and he often hits upon choice and special terms and the exact vernacular equivalent of the foreign word, so happily and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... "thou'rt an admirable girl! God's goodness was great to our family, when it gave thee to it. No wonder," continued she, "as my brother says, every body that sees you, and has heard your character, loves you. And this is some excuse for the inconsiderate folly even of this unknown transcriber."—"Ah! ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... birds were given by a comical sort of a character, who had a good deal of wit and foolery about him. A jolly drinking song with admirable humour by a hawker of flower-pots—a stout middle-sized young fellow, in a smock frock, and a low crowned hat, with a round ruddy face, and merry eye—one, too, who was all lark, frolic and fun—a very English John with a pipe ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... a very well ordered mind, furnished with innumerable little pigeon holes, which flew open at the proper vibration from his admirable memory. He concentrated this memory upon a little bureau of purely personal receptacles and before long certain careless phrases of his wife ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... continued, unmindful; "or was it Francois?—no, Amedee. He spilt the coffee upon the table cloth twice, in his anxiety lest he embarrass us. And when you kissed me," with a little ripple of mirth, "he looked the other way, covering his lips with his hand. Oh, admirable Amedee! ... The breeze was stirring that morning, Fool—do you remember?—and the dead leaves of yester-year fell about us— so!" She plucked a great handful of crimson petals from her breast and cast them above her head. They fell about him, and about her. "And I dipped sugar in ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... first time I had ever heard the word at so used at the end of a sentence; but it expresses the meaning with admirable precision. I had a slight qualm at lying; but I remembered that even George Washington could tell a lie if necessary in war. Pacifying my conscience with the fact that we were outside the house at ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... faultlessly groomed, stepped noiselessly to and fro, handing dishes, replenishing glasses, anticipating desires. A tremendous fire glowed in its massive cage; a crimson carpet and curtains of almost barbaric gravity contributed to the admirable temperature and deadened unruly noise. A brace of shaded candles to each small table made up nine several nebulae, whose common radiance provoked an atmosphere of sober mystery, dim and convenient. Light so subdued subdued in turn the tones of the company of hosts and visitors. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... should see some of the best publications which have to do with her own line of work. If the girl is working at home she should read about home questions. Admirable new publications are being issued on all kinds of household matters. If a girl is a saleswoman or stenographer, she should see what is being written on these subjects. It is a mistake for any worker ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... like lightning from Toulon to Civita Vecchia. With admirable precision he appointed some forces to assemble before Malta, and others before Alexandria. He dictated all these orders to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... all right," replied the Sawhorse, "and they are admirable and distinct. Also I can see the flesh. But the blood, I suppose, is tucked ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... was thus devoting herself to the Earl with such tireless patience, and exciting the wonder and gratitude of all in that little household by her admirable self-devotion, there was another who watched the progress of events with perfect calmness, yet with deep anxiety. Gualtier was not able now to give his music lessons, yet, although he no longer could gain admission to the inmates ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... varied flow of talk that showed her equally cognizant and appreciative of social, literary and sterner topics. For the edification of the gayer visitor, she related odd experiences of her public life, with rare power of description and admirable flashes of humor. She discussed the latest book with some of the small litterateurs with whom she was infested; or talked knowingly of the last picture, or the newest opera, faint echoes from which might elude the grim blockaders ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... traveller in foreign countries making himself acquainted with the improvements they have respectively made in the useful or practical arts, they will never qualify for the composition of a great or lasting book of travels. They would make an admirable course of instruction for the overseer of a manufactory, of a canal or railway company, of an hospital or an infirmary, who was to visit foreign countries in order to pick up the latest improvements in practical mechanics, chemistry, or medicine; but have we really become a race ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... of these hard words, Dr. Hammond presents a variety of admirable counsels, with regard to an excess of blood in the head, pointing out its causes, its symptoms, the mode of its medical treatment, and the means of its prevention."—N. ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... authority than Dr. Alexander Bain, who says that the object lesson more than anything else demands a careful handling; there being "great danger lest an admirable device should settle down into a plausible ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... rise in a few moments amid a burst of applause. The Princess herself now appeared for the first time on the little stage. Nothing could have been more admirable than the grouping of this tableau. All the pride of mien, of race, of indomitable purpose was visible on the face of the young girl who acted the part ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... destroying Early's army. The stern-chase continued for about thirteen miles, our infantry often coming within range, yet whenever we began to deploy, the Confederates increased the distance between us by resorting to a double quick, evading battle with admirable tact. While all this was going on, the open country permitted us a rare and brilliant sight, the bright sun gleaming from the arms and trappings of the thousands ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... turns called to that important trust; by attending in courts of law and justice, it is to be presum'd that their minds are there impress'd with a sense of justice; and that they gain that general idea of right or law, which it is necessary that all men in a free country should have. "It is an admirable institution, by which every citizen may be plac'd in a situation, that enables him to contribute to the great end of society, the distributing justice; and it every where diffuses a spirit of true patriotism, ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... looked out on a soft lawn, stretching away into a broad park, through which a stream ran; and beyond was a green hillside. The quiet, the perfect order and discipline, gave a pleasant tingle to Gaston's veins. It was all so easy, and yet so admirable—elegance without weight. He felt at home. He was not certain of some trifles of etiquette; but he and Sir William were alone, and he followed his instincts. Once he frankly asked his grandfather of a matter of form, of which he was uncertain ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... perch, which are not esteemed for eating; the white perch, a beautiful, silvery, round-backed fish, which bites eagerly, runs about with the line while being pulled up, makes good sport for the angler, and an admirable dish; a great chub; and three horned pouts, which swallow the hook into their lowest entrails. Several dozen fish were taken in an hour or two, and then we returned to the shop where we had left our horse and wagon, the pilot very eccentric ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... or to neither. No stranger could tell. Julius Laspara no doubt knew which of his girls it was who, after casually vanishing for a few years, had as casually returned to him possessed of that child; but, with admirable pedantry, he had refrained from asking her for details—no, not so much as the name of the father, because maternity should be an anarchist function. Razumov had been admitted twice to that suite of several small dark rooms on the top floor: dusty window-panes, litter of all sorts ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... only in the breast of the uncommunicative old woman a vague tenderness for plants and animals. It was, perhaps, this tenderness which made her cling so fervently to her view from her window, a view in which the most optimistic eye would at first have failed to discover anything admirable. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton |
