"Calibre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that he could not maintain his position where he was; he had not brought out with him the whole force of the garrison, though in all he had not above seventy or eighty men; but he had behind the barrack a gun of very large calibre, properly mounted, with all the necessary equipments and ready for service. Such a piece of artillery accompanied every detachment, and was kept in preparation for immediate use at every military station; ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... politely intimating our inability to carry Mr. Dunkelsbaum any further. But his reception of such an open declaration of war was certain to be unsuitable for Adele's eyes and ears, and the subsequent action which a man of his calibre would undoubtedly take ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... he continued slowly, "I had a very clear presentiment of all that as soon as I looked at the murderer. Do you remember the man's amazing impudence as long as he thought he could not be convicted of the crime? And then, when he found that the calibre of his gun betrayed him, how abject, how painfully humble, he became! Evidently such a man ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... confidence and a fair degree of eagerness. It fell flat. There was an awkward pause. The two rows of men sat like statues. There was no movement, no sound. He had to go on; there was no other way, at least none that an animal of his calibre could think of. At the close of each day's diary, the same dismal silence followed. When at last he finished his tale and sprung the indelicate surprise which is wont to fetch a crash of laughter, not a ripple of sound resulted. It was as if the tale had been told to dead ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... brilliance of genius or the adroitness of corruption one must enter the mass of men like a cannon-ball, or slip into it like the plague. Honesty is of no use." Having a tempter about him of Vautrin's calibre, strong, undauntable, as humorous as Dickens' Jingle, but infinitely more unscrupulous and dangerous, Rastignac is gained over, in spite of his first repulsion. The nursing and burying of Pere Goriot are ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... them. I am not aware of there being anything in particular against Lord Cantilever,—that is against his character. But, of course, I should not dream of comparing a man of his calibre, with one of real ability, like Paul Lessingham. It would be to treat his lordship ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... Here he burrowed for a moment, presently emerging with a box. This he carried gingerly to a convenient rock and opened. First he lifted out some soft padding. A small tin box honey-combed inside came to light. With infinite precaution Barnett picked out an object that looked like a 22- calibre short cartridge, wadded some cotton batten in his hand, set the thing in the wadding, laid it on the rock, carefully returned the small box to the large box and the large box to the boat, took ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... when such questions might have been safely laid to rest between her and her grown-up daughters. Mrs. Challoner's oneness of sympathy with her girls, her lax discipline, her perfect equality, would have shocked a woman of Mrs. Drummond's calibre. She would not have tolerated or ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... the unexpected calibre of his voice. He himself spoke of it as "the mouse that came ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... wife had no disagreements on their life interests. They were both poets, though of a different calibre. What they really did not see eye to eye upon was something which the human race is still much divided about. This great point of difference was with regard to spiritualism. Browning did not dislike spiritualism; he disliked spiritualists. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... yet done with its joke. When fall came on and the heroes returned to Forty Mile and to Circle City, they listened calmly to the up-river tales of Siwash discoveries and loafers' prospects, and shook their heads. They judged by the calibre of the men interested, and branded it a bunco game. But glowing reports continued to trickle down the Yukon, and a few of the old-timers went up to see. They looked over the ground—the unlikeliest place for gold in all their experience—and they went down the river ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... counted their slain elephants by many hundreds, but there were no rifles. Ordinary smooth-bore shot-guns were the favourite weapons, loaded invariably with a double charge of powder and a hardened ball. In those days the usual calibre of a gun was No. 14 or 16. A No. 12 was extremely rare. The charge for No. 16 was 2 3/4 drams of fine grain powder, and drams for No. 12. Accordingly, the light guns, or "fowling-pieces," as they were termed, were severely ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... in the line were not all of this calibre. Some were poor, wretched beasts, inarticulate and callous, but for all of that, in many ways very human. I remember a carter, evidently returning home after the day's work, stopping his cart before ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... an artist of a high calibre,' said Leander. 'I know only one man who realises my idea, and he is at St. Petersburg. You do not know Anastase? There is a man! But the Emperor has him secure. He can scarcely complain, however, since he is decorated, and has the rank ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... of our ancestors could not be abandoned at a moment's notice; the feelings of the aged would be outraged, and the minds of respectable men would be shocked. There were many, he was aware, of not sufficient calibre of thought to perceive, of not sufficient education to know, that a mode of service, which was effective when outward ceremonies were of more moment than inward feelings, had become all but barbarous at a time when inward conviction was everything, when each ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... shells are from eight to nine inches in calibre, and on impact they send up columns of greasy black smoke. On account of this they are irreverently dubbed 'coal boxes,' 'Black Marias,' or ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... comrades, Day and Lamb, fall dead, concluded to raise the siege, and both disappeared into an adjoining house, where they blew out their lights so that their cowardly carcasses could be safe from Charles's deadly aim. The calibre of their courage is well shown by the fact that they concluded to save themselves from any harm by remaining prisoners in that dark room until daybreak, out of reach of Charles's deadly rifle. Sergeant Aucoin, who had been so brave ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... is a footless proposition, it is infinitely more so if your argument is with those of less mental calibre than your own, for by the law of compensation, in proportion as a man is ignorant, he makes up in perversity and lack of ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... heed General Cass, the head of his cabinet. He will not heed General Scott, the head of the army. He has transferred to southern states more than one hundred thousand arms, of the newest pattern and most effective calibre, to be ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... been to Hebblethwaite, and I have been to Scotland Yard," Norgate told him firmly, "and all that I have got for my pains has been a snub. They won't believe in German spies. Mr. Wyatt, you are a man of a little different temperament and calibre from those others. I tell you that all of them in the Cabinet have their heads thrust deep down into the sand. They won't listen to me. They wouldn't believe a word of what I am saying to ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a nice little thing, sweet tempered, and pretty, although of course her mental calibre is limited. She may make a good wife, though. A man doesn't expect his wife always to set the river on fire ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... him one must stand near, like Rawlins, and practice more or less sympathetic habits. Simple-minded beyond the experience of Wall Street or State Street, he resorted, like most men of the same intellectual calibre, to commonplaces when at a loss for expression: "Let us have peace!" or, "The best way to treat a bad law is to execute it"; or a score of such reversible sentences generally to be gauged by their sententiousness; but sometimes he made one doubt his good faith; ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... to raise the dead." I stayed till the ghostly hour, but the rumour was unfounded, for neither count nor plebeian came up to the spiritual scratch. It is really inexplicable to me that a man of his calibre can be run away ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... himself to the governing powers, and the Radical who stood aloof. Mr. Kennedy barely said a word now and then, and Phineas was almost as silent as Mr. Kennedy. He had come there to hear some such discussion, and was quite willing to listen while guns of such great calibre were being fired off for ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... he was not to shoot it. In fifteen minutes a lame buck would come out. But he was not to shoot that one either. In ten more minutes another buck would come out, and this third deer he was to kill. My informant told me this was all very seriously meant. The gun given him was large enough in calibre to kill an elephant. He walked up the steps to the comfortable divan and settled himself to await events. The doe trotted out exactly on schedule time. So did the lame buck. They came from the woods and were not ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... he drew from the pocket of his trousers a revolver of old style, but of aspect fully as vicious as its owner. It was of large calibre, and from the way in which the mate handled it he was evidently ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... that crisis, Mike could not help feeling that if a row of this calibre did not draw Mr. Outwood from his bed, he must be an unusual ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... of French at the meeting of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are persons of very different calibre from the translators of Alexander and the other English-French romances, even from those who with far more native talent Englished Havelok and Horn. If I have spoken harshly of German admiration of Kudrun, I am glad to make ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... about it to do anything," Dawn said pointedly, looking at Uncle Jake, who was calmly sitting in his big chair in the corner. He was not disconcerted. A man who could live for years on a widowed sister without making himself worth his salt is not of the calibre to be upset by ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... commission, which you will oblige me much by executing. It is to send him three Pistoia barrels for guns: two of them, of two feet and a half in the barrel in length; the smallest of the inclosed buttons to be the size of the bore, hole, or calibre, of the two guns. The third barrel to be three feet and an inch in length; the largest of these buttons to be the bore of it; these feet are English measure. You will be so good to let me ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... there would be an end of him. But it became palpable to his senses generally that the man's fortunes had not been such as this. And then there came home to him a feeling that were they so, it would be his duty to make up for Mary's sake what was wanting,—since he had discovered of what calibre was the man himself. ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... Hochon's advice in everything; for your excellent mother will have many scruples in dealing with persons who have no scruple at all, and whose behavior to her is a master-stroke of policy. That Maxence, you are right enough, is dangerous. He is another Philippe, but of a different calibre. The scoundrel makes his vices serve his fortunes, and gets his amusement gratis; whereas your brother's follies are never useful to him. All that you say alarms me, but I could do no good by going to Issoudun. Monsieur Hochon, acting behind your mother, will be more useful to you ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the assistant to compress the vein at the root of the ear. This will cause its peripheral portion to swell up and increase in calibre. ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... anonymous billet, into the fire. There was something about the handwriting of the former that was vaguely familiar to him even through its disguise, but Willett's scrawling superscription he had never seen. Something told him, however, that anything of which a man of Langston's calibre chose to be the bearer was entitled to consideration. He made no reply to Langston's closing words. He had fully made up his mind as to what his course should be, and what was the extent of Mira's misdoing. Just as he said ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the most powerful navy by far in the world. It numbered one thousand and thirty-six vessels, of which two hundred and fifty-four were ships-of-the-line, not one of which carried less than seventy guns of large calibre. This prodigious navy was manned by one hundred and forty-four thousand sailors, and eighty-five of her war vessels were on the American coast, equipped ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... Harvey Trueman. They had been schoolmates, and would undoubtedly have wed had not the wreck of Densmore's fortune been accomplished just as Trueman was leaving college. Gorman Purdy had been quick to perceive the calibre of the young man and had brought him into the Paradise Company. With father and mother dead, and with her heart's longing unappeased, Martha determined to join a sisterhood, and devote her entire time to ministering to the poor and ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... its grace and repel gratitude. Mill has some admirable observations bearing on this subject, and I venture to quote the following passage: "The greatest imperfection of popular local institutions, and the chief cause of the failure which so often attends them, is the low calibre of the men by whom they are almost always carried on. That these should be of a very miscellaneous character is, indeed, part of the usefulness of the institution; it is that circumstance chiefly which renders it a school of political ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... building up his fortune by slow degrees. A man of good breeding, too, he had become sensible, as he approached middle age, of the many advantages of a luxurious home. He had accordingly decided that a wealthy marriage would most easily unlock the gate to prosperity. A girl of a somewhat lighter calibre than Gertrude would have been the woman—we cannot say of his heart; but, as he very generously argued, beggars can't be choosers. Gertrude was a woman with a mind of her own; but, on the whole, he was not afraid ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... acquainted with the expression "ejusdem farinae," and the derogatory sense in which it is employed to describe things or characters of the same calibre. It was in common use among clerical disputants after the Reformation; and Leland has it in the following remarks respecting certain fabulous interpolations in the Black Book ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... happened thus. The two men of the name were standing near each other, and both shot at the same time at the same she-bear. To be sure, immediately after their shots it did fall lifeless, but before that it had been carrying a dozen bullets in its belly. Many persons had guns of the same calibre. Who killed the bear? Try to find ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... scrupulously; the song "Come, thou Monarch of the Vine," was sung to music in the drinking scene on board Pompey's galley, and there were the appointed flourishes of trumpets and drums. The acting was competent, though not of the highest calibre, but a satisfactory level was evenly maintained throughout the cast. There were no conspicuous deflections from the adequate standard. The character of whom I have the most distinct recollection was Enobarbus, the level-headed and straight-hitting critic of the action—a ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... miss you," said van Heerden frankly, "you were necessary to me, Milsom. You're the driving force I wanted, and the only man of my class and calibre I can ever expect to meet, one who would go into this ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... who fell at Portsmouth and Devonport. They were not perfectly disciplined men, in the professional sense, or one must suppose they would have paid some heed to General Sir Robert Calder's repeated orders to retire. But they were British citizens of as fine a calibre as any Nelson or Wellington knew, and they carried the Sword of Duty that day into the camp of an enemy who, with all his skill, had not learned, till it was written in his blood for survivors to ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... 18-pounders kept up a ceaseless and effective fire. They were clearly of a heavier calibre than any the Russians owned, and soon the weight of their metal and our gunners' unerring aim began to tell upon ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... above and another below, which, however, vary much in development, and the flesh tooth is most marked in those in which the tuberculate is least developed, and vice versa. The great and small intestines differ little in calibre, and many of them (i.e. the family) can diffuse at will a disgusting stench." This last peculiarity is a specialty of the American members of the family, notably the skunk, of the power of which almost incredible stories are told. I remember reading not long ago an account of a train passing over ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... know more than that he was a distinguished lawyer, and had a fine library, which having described, Dibdin passes on thus to matters of more immediate importance: "Nor is the hospitality of the owner of these treasures of a less quality and calibre than his taste; for Hortensius regaleth liberally—and as the 'night and day champagnes' (so he is pleased humorously to call them) sparkle upon his Gottingen-manufactured table-cloth, 'the master ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... to be true to their word, and effective in their work—who are given to hammering, as it were, upon one note—of inferior calibre indeed, but fit enough, I ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... English has a much less dignified use in French. We can speak of the calibre of a person, meaning the quality of his character or intellect; but in French the word calibre is only in ordinary speech applied to things. To speak of a "person of a certain calibre" in French is ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... court opened that day, it found Terry and his wife already seated within the bar, and immediately in front of the judges. As it afterward appeared, they were both on a war-footing, he being armed with a concealed bowie-knife, and she with a 41-calibre revolver, which she carried in a small hand-bag, five of its chambers being loaded. The judges took their seats on the bench, and very shortly afterward Justice Field, who presided, began reading the opinion of the court in which both of his associates concurred. A printed pamphlet ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... inevitably brings ridicule upon the object of his attention; cannot Page find some kindly way of calling him off? Mr. Wilson asks Page's advice about a campaign manager, and incidentally expresses his own aversion to a man of "large calibre" for this engagement. There were occasional conferences with Mr. Wilson on his Presidential prospects, one of which took place at Page's New York apartment. Page was also the man who brought Mr. Wilson and Colonel House together; ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... of one's duty, dear Miss Patricia H," he said, "the calibre of the gun that lays a fellow low, an' plunges his relations an' creditors into mournin', is beside the point. The only consideration, as ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... was not perceived when he entered it, and the door of the parlour as well as the front door being open to admit the air, for the widow and the corporal found that making love in the dog days was rather warm work for people of their calibre—to his mortification and rage the lieutenant beheld the corporal seated in his berth, on the little fubsy sofa, with one arm round the widow's waist, his other hand joined in hers, and, proh pudor! sucking at her dewy lips like some huge carp under the ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... irregularity of his life; on the 15th of April, 1764, Madame de Pompadour had died, at the age of forty-two, of heart disease. As frivolous as she was deeply depraved and baseminded in her calculating easiness of virtue, she had more ambition than comported with her mental calibre or her force of character; she had taken it into her head to govern, by turns promoting and overthrowing the ministers, herself proffering advice to the king, sometimes to good purpose, but more often still with a levity as fatal as her obstinacy. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... would have been ours, as he could have chosen his distance, and the fire of the American vessels would have been comparatively harmless; but he ran down close to McDonough's fleet, and engaged them broadside to broadside, and then the carronades of the Americans, being of heavy calibre, threw the advantage on their side. Downie was killed by the wind of a shot a few minutes after the commencement of the action. Still it was the hardest contested action of the war; Pring being well worthy to ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... to continue in his crooked business he thinks of London, Paris, Berlin, and maybe Vienna. We guess at his calibre and whether he wants more money, and know where he probably will go to get it, for the professional crook has an international acquaintance, and he only goes among friends. So ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... it became apparent that Fritz had neither the heart nor the troops for launching a counter-attack on a scale large enough to make a definite impression on the newly-won area. His "strafing" was fitful, poorly sighted, and of small calibre. Here and there he still had the use of a machine gun or two and had concentrated a number of men at Noyelles. This village was attacked by a company of the Royal Fusiliers; fought for desperately in one brief, mad melee, during which blood ran freely, but remaining in the hands of the British, ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... to men of the Doctor's calibre, found himself wanting in his usual equanimity. His familiar role did not serve, he could see that, and for once his resources ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Why had that not warned him of the woman's calibre? Nay, why had he forgotten—and here he had a vivid vision of a little girl bringing in Passover cakes—her training in a double life? Not that woman needed that—Dom Diego was right. False, frail creatures! No ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... interest apart from bread-and-butter subjects, not only in view of demands that may be made on one, but because the intellectual woman will best qualify by developing her own powers as far as possible. If of the right calibre, she can afterwards readily take up even a new subject and make it her own. A good secondary school needs that some of its mistresses should have the habits and tastes of the scholar who loves work for its own sake, or rather for ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... to my way of thinking, he did more. He proved that B Company cannot afford to be without a sergeant of his proved calibre." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... this and smiled inwardly. He wandered about the bomb-proof case-mates hewn out of the solid rock, caring nothing for the number and calibre of the guns, their armoured protection, or the chart-like diagrams upon the walls, ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... along by a breastwork pierced with embrasures to the important battery on Day Point, at the extreme south-east. Here five thirty-two pounders—and, three hundred yards away to the west, in the great Windlass Battery, no fewer than eleven guns of the same calibre—had grinned defiance at the ships of France. To-day the grass grew on their empty platforms, the nettles sprouted from their angles ... and the Commandant—what was he ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... accomplishment with a grace not to be surpassed, and only to be equalled by Miss KATE VAUGHAN. Mr. ASHLEY, now happily returned to the melodious paths from which he strayed to play in pieces of the calibre of Pink Dominoes, seems quite at home in the character of Sir Simon—not "the Cellarer," but rather, "the sold one." Mr. MONKHOUSE, whose name and personality go to prove that a cowl does not preclude its occasional occupation by a wag, is most amusing as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... first represented to us, is not an engaging figure. Narrow and sectarian, full of many uncharities, to a great extent vain and self- conscious, glad to be flattered and idolised by men and women by no means of large calibre or lofty standard—it might well seem impossible to invest such a figure with one heroic element. Yet it is before this man we are constrained to bow down in reverence, as before one truer, greater, nobler than ourselves; and as ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... accomplishing any wonderful feat in the attainment of speed, she had a considerable amount of that commodity somewhat vulgarly termed "spunk." As she passed the mouth of the Yazoo river, another steamer, apparently of her own calibre, rounded gracefully into the channel, from a wood-yard. This boat—the Flatfoot, No. 3—seemed, by her straining and puffing, to throw the gauntlet to the Chalmetta; a challenge, real or imaginary, which the latter made haste to accept,—or, ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... subjected to the more severe ordeal of Trafalgar Square. The idea was good, and flourished apace; so much so, that you not unfrequently find in the British Institution no small proportion of works of a calibre hardly below the average of the Great Exhibition; while the A. R. A.'s, and even the aristocratic R. A.'s[1] themselves, do not by any means disdain to grace the humble walls of the three rooms in Pall-Mall. This year, the only picture of Sir Edwin Landseer's exhibited—a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... reason to doubt its average power, mademoiselle, but really I scarcely know her, and have not had time to study the calibre of her capacity. I wish you a very ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... foremanship, however, will not have been realized until almost all of the machines in the shop are run by men who are of smaller calibre and attainments, and who are therefore cheaper than those required under the old system. The adoption of standard tools, appliances, and methods throughout the shop, the planning done in the planning room and the detailed instructions sent them ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... which were lying off Cape Helles occasionally carried out minor bombardments. It was very interesting to watch the effect of their shells bursting when they got a direct hit on the Turkish lines, as of course we had no land guns of such heavy calibre. The ships were perfectly safe from any reply the Turkish artillery cared to make and we in the front line had to suffer for the navy's demonstration. No one really objected to this, although there was a lot of "grousing," because we were glad to feel that we had the support of these ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... the great room and closed the door behind me, I was again impressed by the beauty and luxury of the appointments. Surely Joseph Crawford must have been a man of fine calibre and refined tastes to enjoy working in such an atmosphere. But I had only two short hours before the inquest, and I had many things to do, so for the moment I set myself assiduously to work examining ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... not able to tell you exactly what brand of gun he may be. It is evident from his conservative use of black powder, and the old-gentlemanly staidness of his movements, that he is an elderly gun. His calibre appears to be six inches. From the plunging nature of his fire, some have conjectured him a sort of howitzer, but it is next to certain he is one of the sixteen 15-cm. Creusot guns bought for the forts of Pretoria and Johannesburg. Anyhow, ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... Gresonowsky warns me against Florence in the winter. I must be warm, they say. Well, never mind! Now I am well again, and I don't know why I should have whined so to you. I am well, and living on asses' milk by way of sustaining the mental calibre; yes, and able to have tete-a-tetes with Theodore Parker, who believes nothing, you know, and has been writing a little Christmas book for the young just now, to prove how they should keep Christmas without a Christ, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... both in design and execution, and that a column thus duped deserves to meet with ill success. The guide's action was undoubtedly clumsy, but it must be remembered that he had had long experience of the British: he knew as well as every other man of similar calibre in South Africa how far he could afford to play with their forbearance. As far as the staff of the New Cavalry Brigade was concerned, once the guide was admitted to the confidence of the general the possibility of checking his further machinations was beyond their reach. The fault ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... high quality and calibre is seldom obscure. The great popular writers of the nineteenth century—Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Tolstoy—wrote so that all could understand. A really big artist has something important to say, something vast to show, something ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... for me." She got off a long-range torpedo at one transport, and ducked before she could judge results. She apologises for this on the grounds that one of her periscopes had been damaged—not, as one would expect, by the gentleman leaning out of the little steamboat, but by some casual shot—calibre not specified—the day before. "And so," says E14, "I could not risk my remaining one being bent." However, she heard a thud, and the depth-gauges—those great clock-hands on the white-faced circles—"flicked," which is another sign of dreadful certainty down under. When ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... In shape, they recall antique instruments, and the brilliancy of their tone is due partly to the calibre of their straight tubes and partly to the fact that nearly all the tones used are open—that is, natural harmonics of the fundamental tones of the tubes. There is an anachronism in the circumstance that they ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... matter, perhaps more than it warranted, I turned to the dresser. The only detail here worth a passing notice was a small pasteboard box containing a number of .38 calibre cartridges. Originally there had been fifty in the box. I counted them. Six were missing; just the number required to charge the cylinder of most revolvers of the same calibre. However, there was no revolver; nor did my entire examination of ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... suffrage, in its wide extent, that does actually exist; as I suppose quite three-fourths of the whole population are opposed to it, in their hearts, though no political man of influence, now existing, has the moral calibre necessary to take the lead in putting it down. Dunning deferred to principles, and not to men. He well knew that an infallible whole was not to be composed of fallible parts; and while he thought majorities ought to determine many things, that there are rights and principles that are superior ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... for traders upon these seas to go so thoroughly armed, Captain Ratlin?" asked the daughter, one day, after she had been shown about the decks, at her own request, where she had marked the heavy calibre of the gun amidship, its well as the neat and serviceable array of small arms within ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... only sell his life dearly, but even repel the attack. It would be a proud thing if he might do so. He was sorry he had not thought of it before. He remembered the Spencer carbine which he had given a few days before to Berry Lawson to clean and repair, and to obtain cartridges of the proper calibre, in order that it might be used by some one in the defense of Red Wing. Berry had not yet returned. He had never thought of using it himself, until that moment when he saw his enemies advancing upon him with wild cries, and heard the roar of the flaming church. He was not a hero. On the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... cannon of any people in Europe. In our ships, and I believe in our batteries, we seldom use a heavier gun than a 32-pounder. No man-of-war carries a gun of a larger calibre; but the Turks make use of 800-pounders. Mahommed II. is stated to have used at the siege of Constantinople, in 1453, cannon of an immense calibre, and stone shot. When Sir J. Duckworth passed the Dardanelles to attack ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... Celebes has not been satisfactorily accounted for. The records of savage tribes depend on oral tradition, but the outlines of an oft-told tale become blurred and dim during the lapse of ages, when the mental calibre of the racial type lacks normal acumen. The graces of life are ignored by the Alfoer woman, her mouth invariably distorted by the red lump of betel-nut, accommodated with difficulty, and rendering ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... said slowly, a far-away, thoughtful look on his face—"come to think of it I don't need two guns of this calibre, and I am quite willing to let this one go, if it will oblige your friend." Here Todd breathed a sigh of relief so loud and deep that his master turned his head in inquiry. "As to the price—I'll look that up. Come and see me again in a day or two. ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... withal in an interesting manner concerning the course of Jewish thought during the past two or three millenia, prefer to devote their time and energy to the more technical aspects of the subject, which are not designed for the uninitiated reader. And the men of journalistic calibre and inclination, even if we had them, are not the most desirable purveyors of Jewish knowledge. The truth of the matter is, in the words of Nietzsche, that ears are still growing for the intelligent American Jewish people so far as Jewish ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... strange, unconnected discourses which he held. Many of his prophecies are believed to have been lost in this manner. But they were not always destined to be wasted upon dull and inattentive ears. An incident occurred which brought him into notice, and established his fame as a prophet of the first calibre. He was ploughing in a field when he suddenly stopped from his labour, and, with a wild look and strange gestures, exclaimed, "Now, Dick! now, Harry! O, ill done, Dick! O, well done, Harry! Harry has gained the day!" His fellow labourers in the field did not ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... between Rockhampton and London, who had risen to the rank of serang on the British India boats, but wearying of routine musters and clean clothes, had thrown up the service and gone inland, where men of his calibre were sure of employment. For his knowledge of tackle and the handling of heavy weights, Peroo was worth almost any price he might have chosen to put upon his services; but custom decreed the wage of the overhead-men, and Peroo was not within many silver pieces of his proper value. Neither running ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... intellectual calibre, I am not surprised to learn that he is treated throughout with the most contemptuous playfulness. He is horror-struck at learning that, in fact, he is nothing better "than a mediator between Christ and Beelzebub." He is joked about ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... Reason err, And, if they both err, which the more? The man of the smallest calibre Is sure to be the ...
— Frank Merriwell's Nobility - The Tragedy of the Ocean Tramp • Burt L. Standish (AKA Gilbert Patten)
... friendship, and his letters to her are as striking an illustration as any in literature of the peculiar devotion and admiration which a clever and sympathetic woman may arouse in philosophic minds of a certain calibre—in a Condillac, a Joubert, a D'Alembert, a Mill. Though Hemsterhuys himself never advanced from a philosophy of religion to the active region of dogmatic professions, his disciple could not find contentment on his austere heights. In the very year of Diderot's death (1784) ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... the enemy invariably harassed all roads of communication, and dropped innumerable shells of large calibre into the stricken (p. 029) city; and we made a habit of sitting at the entrance to the little shack, used as the officers' mess, smoking our evening pipes, interested spectators, while the shells screamed overhead, and alighted somewhere in ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... overlooking at a giddy height the lower town. From this we strolled through the hanging-garden of the Chateau, which is laid out on terraces cut from the face of the precipice, and hedged in by a range of cannon of the largest calibre. ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... The knitters round her ware talking loudly. Even Charlotte was almost forgotten whilst Deroulede talked. He had a fine voice, of strong calibre, which echoed powerfully ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... more recently (1912) Dr. Albert Moll, with characteristic scientific thoroughness, has edited, and largely himself written, a truly encyclopaedic Handbuch der Sexualwissenschaften. The eminence of the writers of these books and the mental calibre needed to read them suffice to show that we are not concerned, as a careless observer might suppose, with a matter of supply and demand in prurient literature, but with the serious and widespread appreciation of serious investigations. This same appreciation is shown not only by several bio-sociological ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... French ones with so much ease. The finest men-of-war in your service are French; a French ship is heavier in every respect than one of yours; she carries more guns, and those guns are of a larger calibre, and she has a great many more men.'" His inquiries, which were minute, proved that he had directed much attention to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... red and bleeding in the Solomons. Captain Malu agreed that the intention was ambitious and honorable. It was not until several days later that he became interested in Bertie, when that young adventurer insisted on showing him an automatic 44-calibre pistol. Bertie explained the mechanism and demonstrated by slipping a loaded magazine up ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... the conspirators drew together in a knot; it was just an opera, the drums coming in at proper intervals, the tenor, baritone, and bass all where they should be—except that the voices were all of the same calibre. A woman once sang from the back row with a very fine contralto voice spoilt by being made artificially nasal; I notice all the women affect that unpleasantness. At one time a boy of angelic beauty was the soloist; and at another, a child of six or eight, doubtless an infant ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... specialization has become a feature and a necessity. There must be men of as varied talents and special lines of training as there are departments of missionary work. But every missionary should be preeminently, a man. He should be a man of large calibre. There is much danger lest the church become indifferent to this matter, and send to the mission field inferior men—men who would be unable to stem the tide of competition and attain success at home. ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... been discovered and seized that morning at Bonn. Herr Max wrote currente calamo, and as he turned off page after page he lost all thought of his charge. Among Cary's treasured possessions was a calibre 32 Smith & Wesson, and with this pellet-propeller in his hip-pocket the boy fancied himself as dangerous as an anarchist. Twice had it been captured by paterfamilias and twice recovered, the last ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... of able adversaries, the principles of what he had penned in his closet and without an opponent before him. They could not but be convinced that declamations of this kind would rouse him,—that he must think, coming from men of their calibre, they were highly mischievous,—that they gave countenance to bad men and bad designs; and though he was aware that the handling such matters in Parliament was delicate, yet he was a man very likely, whenever, much against his will, they were brought there, to resolve ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Hardcastle, when he had drained his glass. "Didn't he wing one of you down in Victoria the other day? Your bushranger is bound to come to it sooner or later. He may much prefer not to shoot; but he has only to get up against a man of his own calibre, as resolute and as well armed as himself, to have no choice in the matter. Poor old Duncan was the very type; he would never have given way. In fact, we found him with his own revolver fast in his hand, and a finger frozen to the trigger, but not a ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... where my mistake lay. One mustn't threaten a man of Matheson's calibre. Please understand this, Miss Verney, all question of divorce ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... mind has developed itself boldly, and acquired a vigour at which, perhaps, it might never have arrived, had he been compelled to live in a crowded city, chafed by the contact with minds of an inferior calibre. ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... vain endeavoured to place the subject in a different view; this was the point in which Angus was determined to regard it, and he was a man of that calibre of understanding, who is incapable of being convinced when he has once adopted a prejudice. Montrose now assumed a higher tone, and called upon Angus to take care how he nourished any sentiments which might be prejudicial to his Majesty's ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... subject of jurisprudence to scientific treatment has never been entirely lost sight of in modern times, and the essays which the consciousness of this necessity has produced have proceeded from minds of very various calibre, but there is not much presumption, I think, in asserting that what has hitherto stood in the place of a science has for the most part been a set of guesses, those very guesses of the Roman lawyers which were examined in the two preceding chapters. A series of explicit statements, ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... an author of a very different calibre, the venerable Beda; concerning whom we must remember that he stands in contrast to Gildas from being Anglo-Saxon rather than British. Now, his history is Ecclesiastical and not Civil; so that ethnological questions make no part of his inquiries, and, as far as ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... grew too dark to watch the landscape we were wholly converted to Grim's argument that Syria was no place for a man of Feisul's calibre. The Arab owners of the land are plundered to the bone; the men with money are foreigners, whose only care is for a government that will favour this religion and that breed. To set up a kingdom there would be ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... on the clock: they talk as if mere passage through time brought some superiority; so that even a man of the first mental calibre carelessly uses the phrase that human morality is never up to date. How can anything be up to date?— a date has no character. How can one say that Christmas celebrations are not suitable to the twenty-fifth of a month? ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... writes to Avaux, Dec 26/Jan 5 1689/90. "Comme le Roy a veu par vos lettres que le Roy d'Angleterre craignoit de manquer de cuivre pour faire de la monnoye, Sa Majeste a donne ordre, que l'on mist sur le bastiment qui portera cette lettre une piece de canon du calibre de deux qui est eventee, de laquelle ceux qui travaillent a la monnoye du Roy d'Angleterre pourront se servir pour continuer a faire de ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... suppose that Lyall was an idealist, if by that term is meant one who, after a platonic fashion, indulges in ideas which are wholly visionary and unpractical. He had, indeed, ideals. No man of his imagination and mental calibre could be without them. But they were ideals based on a solid foundation of facts. It was here that, in spite of some sympathy based on common literary tastes, he altogether parted company from a brother poet, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, who ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... shall carry with it all its artillery, of French calibre, with the horses belonging to it, and the tumbrils supplied with sixty rounds per gun. All other artillery, arms, and ammunition, as also the military and naval arsenals, shall be given up to the British army and navy in ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Yet a thirty-eight calibre revolver, even with a long cartridge and a long barrel, is not a sure defence against an animal as heavy as myself, which in facing me would present for a mark only a round head and a chest with muscles so thick and knotty that they would probably stop ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... of a calibre of nine millimetres, and several hundred cartridges, were my armament, and for weeks this pistol became my only means of providing a scant ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... Miss ADA REHAN, a talented lady, who (so I was told) has made her mark in Rosalind, in As You Like It, and Katharina, in the Taming of the Shrew. I can quite believe that Miss REHAN is a great success in parts of the calibre of the Shakspearian heroines I have mentioned; nay, more, I fancy she would do something with Lady Macbeth, and be quite in her element as Emilia, in Othello. But, as she had to play an ingenue, aged eighteen, in The Great Unknown, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various
... experiments to ascertain the best model of ships-of-war, to be driven by steam or any other motive power; the best models of the engines to be employed in them; to inquire whether a large complement of guns, or a few guns of great calibre, is the better plan. We may well, upon such questions, take a lesson from England. At a recent period she has been making experiments of this nature, in order to give increased efficiency to her naval establishment. How did she set about it? Her Admiralty Board ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... purpose. There was, and may be now, a corps of the army which is called the camel artillery. It consisted of a number of camels, each fitted with a peculiar saddle, which not only accommodated the rider, but carried a swivel-gun of about one pound calibre. These weapons had a greater range than the ordinary Persian matchlocks, and, owing to the rapidity with which they could be transferred from spot to spot, formed a valuable branch of ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... a few choice friends, the calibre of whose genius was in unison with his own, with a bottle of his choice old claret before him, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... the calibre of MM. Pichon and Clemenceau pushed into the foreground of international politics this question of Japan's military intervention in Europe. An organized Press campaign was carried on in several of the most prominent daily papers and reviews of Paris.[81] Striking arguments were put forward ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... have spoken to an equal—an unconscious tribute to the refinement which stamped this man as of a higher calibre than his fellows. ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... experiences and adventures of Jean Kostka in the psychic world, and they are of precisely the same calibre as his critical method. I may say, in conclusion, that, if spared, he will do better in his next book, for he promises another, which is to exhibit in a convincing manner how Lucifer has been vanquished by Joan of Arc. In the meantime we may part from ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... only provisions left. An hour later the embrasures are opened, the black guns run out, and Sumter hurls back her answer to the voice of rebellion. The bombs making it unsafe to use the barbette cannons of the open rampart, Anderson was confined to his twenty-one casemate pieces, mostly of light calibre. The fire was kept up briskly all the morning. Sumter stood it well, but did little damage to the opposing batteries. At sunset the guns of both sides became silent, but the mortars maintained a ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... redeeming them from what seemed a horrid profanation. In accordance with one of his characteristics, the more difficult the project seemed, the more obstinately fixed became his purpose to discover whether she had a mind of sufficient calibre to transform her into what she might be, in contrast with what she was. The more he saw of her the more his interest as an artist, and, indirectly, as a student of character, was deepened. If she had no mind worth naming he would give the problem up to the solution of time, ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... the service of Professor James Ward's not wholly dissimilar attack on Physics is of heavy calibre, and his criticism cannot in general be ignored as based upon inadequate acquaintance with the principles under discussion; but still his Gifford lectures raise an antithesis or antagonism between the fundamental laws of mechanics ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... the sliding-doors, which go into the sleeping-apartment, is a lady's small writing-desk, with a drawer on the right-hand side, in which is a pearl-handled 32-calibre revolver. The front of the desk is open at rise. On top of the desk is a desk lamp and a large box of candy; inside the desk is writing material, &c. In pigeon-hole left there is a small photo and frame, which ANNIE places on the table when she removes the breakfast ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... is another writer who has taken the world by storm, but in quite a different fashion. The ex-lieutenant of marine does not obtrude his personality upon public notice, and relies more upon the powerful calibre of his guns than upon their number. Two books, lengthy ones certainly, established his reputation. He had been many years a cultivator of literature, and had produced sundry romances of little more than average merit, when he suddenly burst upon the public, in the widely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... fact-world, above all that endlessly various plane of fruition which Nature and her infinite processes amount to, are all splendid tissue-builders; and of this tissue is formed the calibre of the individual by which his service is made effective to the world. As I have already written, one cannot shoot a forty-five consciousness through a twenty-two brain. The stirring concept cannot get through to the world except through ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... Somerset's progress in his suit had been, though incomplete, so uninterrupted, that he almost feared the good chance he enjoyed. How should it be in a mortal of his calibre to command success with such a sweet woman for long? He might, indeed, turn out to be one of the singular exceptions which are said to prove rules; but when fortune means to men most good, observes the bard, she looks upon them with a threatening eye. Somerset would even have been content that ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... reservists. After the surrender of the garrison a number of German soldiers are said to have escaped in native boats, but were recaptured. The defences were under naval control. Tsing-tau was strongly fortified and had about 600 Krupp guns of various calibre. The photographs show men of the Third Sea Battalion. (1) On the march in Tsing-tau; (2) and (3) Entrenched with a machine-gun. Our correspondent states that the photographs were taken since the siege ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 15, Nov. 18, 1914 • Various
... last of them. After such a setback as that in the Temple of Mut, he thought they would not only be discouraged but frightened. They had run away from us, in the temple; and despite the proverb concerning those who fight and run, to fight another day, it was probable that men of their calibre would see the wisdom of abandoning the chase. They had shown themselves cowards, Anthony thought, whatever their object had been in attacking Miss O'Brien and Miss Gilder: and though we must be on the watch during the rest ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... time when I could teach, and teach with pleasure.' He paused. Rose could have scourged herself for the tremor she felt creeping over her. Why should it be to her so new and strange a thing that a man, especially a man of these years and this calibre, should confide in her, should speak to her intimately of himself? After all, she said to herself angrily, with a terrified sense of importance, she was a child no longer, though her mother and sisters would treat her as one. 'When we were chatting the other night,' he went on, turning ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... except six thirty-two pounders, and there were none at the West to draw from. Admiral Porter, however, supplied us with a battery of navy-guns of large calibre, and with these, and the field artillery used in the campaign, the siege began. The first thing to do was to get the artillery in batteries where they would occupy commanding positions; then establish the camps, ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... can fire those forty per minute, each one takes a lot out of the big fellow's life. Unlike the guns of smaller calibre, they cannot be used over and over again. They are too powerful to be used in actual trench warfare, but let a fortress, or a mountain that has perversely got in the way of operations, loom up ahead, and down ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... have already told you, the Education Department of the Freeland government possesses a large number of cannon of different calibre in all parts of the country for the exercise of the young men. The largest of these can pierce the strongest of the armour-plates now in use like a piece of card. As soon as the first news of the attack had been ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... First Connecticut Battery, under Lieutenant Clinton, aided by a squad from my own regiment, under Captain James. The John Adams carried, I if I remember rightly, two Parrott guns (of twenty and ten | pounds calibre) and a howitzer or two. The whole force of men did not exceed two ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... hysterical temperaments operate against mental development, progress and happiness. In the human species among individuals of equal mental calibre, the sanguine individual is due to rise higher and go farther than his nervous or lymphatic rivals. A characteristic temperament may embrace the majority of a whole species, or be limited to a few individuals. Many species are permanently ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... decorated, and a certain cannon, which had been captured in Montecristo by the Spaniards, is wheeled on a cart through the streets, followed by a procession of soldiers and a band of music. This cannon—which is a heavy-looking, unserviceable weapon of the old-fashioned calibre—is made much of by everybody, and finally a niche is built in a wall of the cathedral, and the 'canon de Montecristo,' as it is henceforth derisively termed by the Cubans, is deposited in this niche with a railing before it, ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... day, should both be considered as vital questions, decisive of the existence of the Administration. The case on the former is very strong. Londonderry will state that at the Congress of Vienna it had been decided that each of the great Powers should keep Ministers of calibre (quere, great bores) there. The reason of this was principally with the design of preventing the Cantons from falling back into their former dependence on France, in compliance with which it will be seen that each of them has Ministers there of the same rank with Henry. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... of Hillyard to use his first months of real freedom in a great wandering amongst wide spaces. The journey had been long since planned, even details of camp outfit and equipment and the calibre of rifles considered. ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... and it was opposed by a power under absolute rule with numerous and veteran armies inspired by a long tradition of victory under brilliant leaders. In 1702, however, the successors of Turenne and Luxemburg were by no means of the same calibre as those great generals. On the other hand, the allies were doubly fortunate in being led by a man of exceptional gifts. John Churchill, Earl (and shortly afterwards Duke) of Marlborough, was placed in supreme command of the Anglo-Dutch armies. Through the ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... now discovered that it was a strong tidal current that was carrying the ice-floes with it, and there could be no doubt that it was a strait we were lying in. I rowed out in the evening to shoot some seals, taking for the purpose my most precious weapon, a double-barrelled Express rifle, calibre 577. As we were in the act of taking a sealskin on board the boat heeled over, I slipped, and my rifle fell into the sea—a sad accident. Peter Henriksen and Bentzen, who were rowing me, took it so to heart ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... without a sign of a living blade of flower, though a few little songbirds did their best bravely to make it up to us. Already we are being driven almost crazy with the mosquitoes and black flies, songsters of no mean calibre, especially at night. In desperation our little ones yesterday succeeded in killing an unusually large specimen, and after burying it with great solemnity were heard singing around the grave in no uncheerful tones, "Nearer, my God, ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... troops about Washington was good, but it was manifest they were far from being soldiers. Their uniforms were as various as the States and cities from which they came; their arms were also of every pattern and calibre; and they were so loaded down with overcoats, haversacks, knapsacks, tents, and baggage, that it took from twenty-five to fifty wagons to move the camp of a regiment from one place to another, and some of ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... believe that in his opinion she was too young and had seen too little of life to settle down as a married woman. He might be in love with her—to me it was beginning to seem impossible that a man could know her and not be in love—but with a strong, self-controlled man of Somerled's calibre, falling in love and marrying need not ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... three of his men laughed gruffly at these remarks, and threw leer-eyed looks at me. I asked one who seemed bad, what calibre his gun was. 'Forty-five ha'r trigger,' he answered. I nosed around over their plunder purpose. They had things drying around like Bannock squaws ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... pair of most business-like large-calibre, blued revolvers, carrying the heavy .450 cartridge—serviceable weapons indeed, capable of dropping a man in his tracks at a distance of a hundred yards. In addition to the weapons themselves, there was a cavity beneath the tray in which ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... the main thing she was right. I am a miserable good-for-nothing, a hothouse plant, a poor stick, and if I were a woman myself, I don't think I should waste my affections on a man of that calibre." ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... that hat for evidence," said the constable. "Shows the calibre of the bullet, and all that. Bring it down to the office in the morning, Mr. Thane. Better put it on now. You'll ketch ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... mind opened to every passing remark, could avoid becoming a thinker, a reasoner, a tory, and a patriot. Sometimes a tough disputant crossed our threshold; one of these was Dr. Parr, and brilliant were the flashes resulting from such occasional collision with antagonists of that calibre. I am often charged with the offence of being too political in my writings: the fact is, I write as I think and feel; and what else can you expect from a child ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... Powder every eight dayes, to see if it hath not receiv'd wet, although they be well stopped a top with Cork and Tallow; to see that the Powder-Room be kept neat and clean, and the Cartridges ranged in good order, each nature or Calibre by itself, and marked above in great Letters the weight of the Powder and nature of the Peece to which it belongs, and to put the same mark over the Port-hole of the Peece; that the Linstocks [or forked staves of wood, about two and a half feet long, on which the ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... bombardment of books that is now so violently raging upon all fronts, any contribution by a writer as eminent as Lord HALDANE naturally commands the respect due to weapons of the heaviest calibre. Unfortunately "heavy" is here an epithet unkindly apt, since it has to be admitted that the noble lord wields a pen rather philosophic than popular, with the result that Before the War (CASSELL) tells a story of the highest interest in a manner that can only be called ponderous. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... Soapey was now in good feather; he had got a large price for his good-for-nothing horse, with a very handsome bonus for not getting him back, making him better off than he had been for some time. Gentlemen of his calibre are generally extremely affluent in everything except cash. They have bills without end—bills that nobody will touch, and book debts in abundance—book debts entered with metallic pencils in curious little clasped pocket-books, with such utter ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... she did not acquaint her parents with this determination on her part, preferring to carry out her plans without any aid or advice. Mademoiselle Diana was shrewd and practical, and not likely to err from want of judgment. The frank and open expression of her features concealed a mind of superior calibre, and one which well knew how to weigh the advantages of social rank and position. She affected a sudden sympathy with the poor, and visited them constantly, and might be frequently met in the lanes carrying soup and other comforts to them. ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... practice. But give me leave to stick to facts; then I know where I am." The fallacy of this reasoning is obvious to us, because it happens to deal with facts about which we have long made up our minds. But let an argument of precisely the same calibre be applied to matters which are still under debate, and it may be questioned whether a British audience would not applaud it as sound, and esteem the speaker who used it a safe man—not brilliant or showy, perhaps, but thoroughly sensible and ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer |
