"Excel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I excel in metaphysical discussion, and was about giving further elaboration to my favorite idea, when the door burst open. Master Billy came tumbling in with a torn jacket, a bloody nose, the trace of a few tears in ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... are of the middle size, and for the most part slender. There are few tall or stout men among them. In general, they have good feature and agreeable countenances. Like all the tropical race, they are active and nimble; and seem to excel in the use of arms, but not to be fond of labour. With respect to the management of their weapons, Mr. Wales hath made an observation so honourable to Homer, that were I to omit it, I should not be forgiven by my classical readers. 'I must confess,' says Mr. Wales. 'I have often ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... schools have been established in Calcutta, Lahore, Bombay, Madras and other places, first to train the eyes and the hands of the young artisans, and, second, to elevate their taste and stimulate their ambition to excel in whatever line of work they undertake. There are several thousand young men in these schools who have shown remarkable talent and are beginning to make their influence felt throughout ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... stay in his eyes, "although I do not admit we are all the same human beings, any more than the Derby winner is the same horse as the plow horse or the cob. They can all draw some kind of vehicle, but they cannot all win races—they have to excel, each in his different line. Give everyone a chance, by all means, and then make him come up for examination, and if found fit passed on for higher things, and if unfit, passed out! It is your tendency ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... these. Nay, there are likewise degrees of followers, higher or lower, just as he whom they follow judges fit. Mighty too is the emulation amongst these followers, of each to be first in favour with his Prince; mighty also the emulation of the Princes, to excel in the number and valour of followers. This is their principal state, this their chief force, to be at all times surrounded with a huge band of chosen young men, for ornament and glory in peace, for security and defence in war. Nor is it amongst his own people only, but even from ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... which we have mentioned, however, were but the commencement of a series of disasters to poor Jenkins, which went far to cure him of a desire to excel in the "noo purfession," and to induce a somewhat violent longing for a return to ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... river, the inhabitants of which are expert hunters of the hippopotamus, and are excellent handicraft-men. They manufacture wooden bowls with neat lids, and show much taste in carving stools. Some make neat baskets, and others excel in ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... her white crest o'er the wave, The birthplace of science and the home of the brave. In her cities may peace and prosperity dwell, And her daughters in virtue and beauty excel. May the blessing of God ever hallow the sod, And its valleys and hills by our children ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... for forfeiting the favour of his master Alexander the Great, by refusing to pledge him a cup of wine. Let him laugh, play, wench with his prince: nay, I would have him, even in his debauches, too hard for the rest of the company, and to excel his companions in ability and vigour, and that he may not give over doing it, either through defect of power or knowledge how to do it, but ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... is no harm in it. It is a very wrong way of behaviour; it is mean, it is dishonorable, and it is wicked; and the boy or girl who would ever permit themselves to act in so unjustifiable a manner, however they may excel in their learning, or exterior accomplishments, can never be deserving of esteem, confidence, or regard. What esteem or respect could I ever entertain of a person's sense or learning, who made no better use of it than to practise wickedness with more dexterity and grace than he otherwise ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... one innings. He was fast, with a high delivery, and wickets were not so good then as they are now. Mr. Francis was also an excellent bowler, not so fast as Mr. Butler; and Mr. Belcher, who bowled with great energy, but did not excel as a bat, was a useful man. For Cambridge, Mr. Cobden bowled fast, Mr. Ward was an excellent medium pace bowler, Mr. Money's slows were sometimes fortunate, and Mr. Bourne bowled slow round. Cambridge went ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... she wrote. It was a billet of the kind in which the intellects of the ten thousand Sevignes that Paris now can number particularly excel. And yet only a Duchesse de Langeais, brought up by Mme la Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, could have written that delicious note; no other woman could complain without lowering herself; could spread wings in such a flight without draggling her pinions in humiliation; ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... had a veritable passion, and to have a passion for a thing means that you excel in it—excellence is a matter of intensity. One of the players in the band was a Frenchman, and William made an arrangement to give the "parlez vous" lessons on the violin as ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... successful in a tale of fiction. He loves to take a tale and re-write it for the press by carefully expunging the facts. It is in lyric and romantic writing that he seems to excel. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... succeeding century (the fifteenth) felt that they could not rival their predecessors in invention, but might excel them in execution. Original thoughts belonging to this century are comparatively rare; even Raphael and Michael Angelo themselves borrowed all their principal ideas and plans of pictures from their predecessors; but they executed them with a precision up to that time unseen. You must ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... spoil the pleasure. In these gardens all the choicest and rarest flora, and much of the fauna, of the East Indies, are brought together and acclimatized. The most conspicuous amongst the former, and certainly the most lovely—and that is saying much where all excel—is a species of acacia, a large tree with great flaming scarlet and yellow flowers. Then there is that extremely interesting and singularly funny creeper, the sensitive plant, which, on the approach of anybody, has the power of doubling ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... may or may not have been circumstantial; who may or may not even have existed, a point unworthy of disputation. As for Miss Reid, we will take an affidavit that neither in miniature nor at large did she excel the celebrated Rosalba; and with regard to Mrs. Lennox, we consider her to be a mere figment, like Narcissa, Miss Tabitha Bramble, or any hero or heroine depicted by the historian ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the energy of the mind principally on one study. The attention divided among many studies, is weakened by the division; besides, it is not granted to an individual to excel in many things. But, while one study claims your main attention, make occasional excursions into the fields of literature and science, and collect materials for the improvement of your mind, and the advancement of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... to the average man in the sense of having that character less in quantity or lower in quality;" and that "the female type of character is neither better nor worse than the male, only weaker." Few have maintained that the sexes are equal, still fewer that women excel.[17] The general bias of opinion has always been in favour of men. Woman almost invariably has been accorded a secondary place, the male has been held to be the primary and essential half of life, all things, as it were, centering around him, while the female, though necessary to ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... his recognizing a directing power in the captain. The Indian, on the other hand, will not bend to such controlling influence, but chafes under direction of any kind. He has good facilities for practice at this game, and, I believe, really tries to excel in it, often, indeed, the expense of duties, which imperatively call him elsewhere than ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... lawyer, with fine talent and a steadily increasing practice. For a young man he was said to excel, and all looked forward to a brilliant future for him. How many times we talked over the home we should possess in a few years, planning its surroundings and its adornments with almost satisfaction, hardly thinking that ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... dominion and alienate so vast a property. For if Horatius, Mucius, Curtius, Regulus, the Decii wished to encounter danger and death with the object of seeming to have done a great and noble deed, why should I not even more desire to do this as a result of which I shall while alive excel both them and all the rest of mankind in glory? No one of you should think that whereas the ancient Romans pursued excellence and good repute, all manliness has now become extinct in the city. Again, do not entertain a suspicion that I wish to betray you and confide ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... was spreading, despite old-fashioned prejudice. Football was coming in. Rowing was making some progress, as you may have learned at Henley. It was not the spontaneous sport of Anglo-Saxon countries, but a more concentrated effort to imitate and to excel. ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... that many young women have permanently injured their constitutions while at school by excessive mental taxation during the catamenial period, to which they were prompted by ambition to excel, or were compelled by the "cramming" system too generally pursued in our schools, and particularly in young ladies' seminaries. It is not to be supposed, however, that the moderate amount of sound study required by a correct system of teaching would be injurious to a healthy young woman at any ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... was happily turned to excel in bodily exercises, he took a particular delight in them, such as hunting, tennis, running at the ring, and the like diversions. Madam de Valentinois gave spirit to all entertainments of this sort, and appeared at them with ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... regret it, but I must say that you are talking in a much more light-headed way than usual. All that we had we brought with us, and your young brother officers, who I must say excel you in industry, ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... contend with, but that "all that sort of thing was too much trouble; he really didn't believe there was a single fellow among the whole lot who had the slightest appreciation of the dolce far niente". When, however, they found out that upon an emergency Harry could excel them all—whatever might be the nature of the feat to be performed—and that I could cross a country, pull an oar, or handle a bat with the best of them, they set us down as a pair of eccentric geniuses, and as such admitted us to a kind of honorary membership in their worshipful society; ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... observe the traditional silences nor have you the patience to abide the post mortem publication of their memoirs. Sir Edward Goschen (former British Ambassador to Germany and Austria) or Jules Cambon (former French Ambassador to Germany, the United States and Spain) probably could excel Mr. Gerard in revelations of entertaining diplomatic history and gossip. Count von Bernstorff, former Ambassador to the United States, too, I imagine might startle us with a ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... little while ago I saw Miss Marlowe as Julia, in "The Hunchback." We must remember the limitations of the play. Nothing can excel the simplicity, the joyous content of the first scene. Nothing could be more natural than the excitement produced by the idea of leaving what you feel to be simple and yet good, for what you think is magnificent, brilliant and intoxicating. It is only in youth that we are willing ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... he, who taught you first the use of arms, Let Mars divide eternity in two, And give him half. I will not praise your wisdom, Nestor shall do't; but, pardon, father Nestor,— Were you as green as Ajax, and your brain Tempered like his, you never should excel him, But ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... of music can excel That which within this shade does dwell, To which we nothing pay, or give, They, like all other poets, live Without reward, or thanks for their obliging pains! 'Tis well if they ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... with all their vices, have a future life, assuredly animals, who in character so often equal, nay, excel human beings, have a future ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... any of them wanting in those perfections which attract the heart beyond the pomp of blood or titles; but she who had influenced that of our Horatio, was likewise in the opinion of those, who felt not her charms in the same degree he did, allowed to excel her fair companions in every captivating grace, and to yield in beauty to none but the princess herself, who was esteemed a Prodigy. This amiable lady was called Charlotta de Palfoy, only daughter to the baron of that name; and having from her most early years discovered ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... advantage will make that other man forget now an old alliance and now a deep antipathy! How often the side we take even in the most momentous matters is decided by the most unworthy motives and the most contemptible considerations! Unstable as water, Reuben shall not excel. Double-minded men, we, like Jacob's first-born, are unstable in all our ways. We have no anchor, or, what anchor we sometimes have soon slips. We have no fixed pole-star by which to steer our life. Any will-o'-the-wisp of pleasure, or advantage, or praise will run us on the rocks. ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... the boy strove to excel. Using both hands for the elongation of his eyes, the extension of his mouth, and the depression of his ears, he turned upon the Haddock so horrible a mask that the stricken child burst into a howl, if not ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... meet, where he is, those monsters of conversation, who are grave or gay above their years. He never converses but with followers of nature and good sense, where all that is uttered is only the effect of a communicable temper, and not of emulation to excel their companions; all desire of superiority being a contradiction to that spirit which makes a just conversation, the very essence of which is mutual goodwill. Hence it is, that I take it for a rule, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... disgust. But as for you, whoever you be who are more successful [than me], and now strut proud of my misfortune; though you be rich in flocks and abundance of land, and Pactolus flow for you, nor the mysteries of Pythagoras, born again, escape you, and you excel Nireus in beauty; alas! you shall [hereafter] bewail her love transferred elsewhere; but I ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... the Philadelphia beauties—and none in all this great land or the lands across the seas could excel them—Lisbeth was a peeress. About her shrine could be found as many worshippers as any of the charming queens could boast. Scions of Britain's aristocracy, favoured with a glimpse from under her dark lashes, forgot their other duties and waited upon her whims. And she, Tory though ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... men and women are remarkable. The men, as a rule, attract attention by their height, fullness and symmetry of development, and the regularity and agreeableness of their features. In muscular power and constitutional ability to endure they excel. While these qualities distinguish, with a few exceptions, the men of the whole tribe, they are particularly characteristic of the two most widely spread of the families of which the tribe is composed. These are the Tiger and Otter clans, which, proud of their lines of descent, have been ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... other boys wrote mere mechanical verses, Poe wrote genuine poetry; the boy was a born poet. As a scholar he was ambitious to excel. He was remarkable for self-respect, without haughtiness. He had a sensitive and tender heart and would do anything for a friend. His nature was entirely free ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... them, until it has become proverbial. Strange to say, it is altogether erroneous. It has been proved that vultures possess the sense of smell in a less degree even than most other creatures. Dogs and wolves far excel them ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... others must be neglected, or remain defective? And it would create Jealousy and Uneasiness among themselves. As Men are forc'd to justle in a Crowd. For there would not be sufficient Scope for every one to exert and display himself, nor so much Room for many to excel, when all must do it in one Way. Variety of Inclination and Capacity is an admirable Means of common Benefit. It opens a wide Field for Service to Others, and gives great Advantage to ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... comes nearest the truth; for it is very common for biographers to pass eulogiums of a very high strain in praise of those whom they affect. But in these panegyrical orations, they oftimes rather exceed than excel.—It was an ancient (but true) saying of the Jews, "That great men (and we may say good men) commonly find stones for their own monuments;" and laudable actions always support themselves: And a thing (as an author[23] observes on the like subject) ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... places; but now, that cheap education has endowed the tradesman with Latin and Greek, there is a tendency to feel toward intellectual culture much as the barons did away back in the Dark Ages, and to outdazzle by mere show of costly pleasure the class they can no longer excel in learned polish. After all, the great question in recommending culture is the question of its effect on morals: if the effect of poetry and art is weakening to the moral sense, as many have claimed from Socrates to Augustine, then letters have no ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... cut-and-thrust northerners, whose wits lie in their heels and saddles; and for yon Venetian, I fancy he would feel himself more at ease on the back of a dolphin. We ought to know something of horsemanship, for we excel all Italy in the sports of the Giostra, and the money we spend on them. But you will see a finer show of our chief men by-and-by, Melema; my brother himself will be among the ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... front on the parade-ground—but we can dig! Even the fact that we do not want to, cannot altogether eradicate a truly human desire to "show off." "Each man to his art," we say. We are quite content to excel in ours, the oldest in the world. We know enough now about the conditions of the present war to be aware that when we go out on service only three things will really count—to march; to dig; and to fire, upon occasion, fifteen rounds a minute. Our rapid fire is already fair; we can march more ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... diffident and blank, but he was capable of exposing himself in a way (to speak only of the paths of peace) wholly inconsistent with shyness. He had a passion for instance for open-air speaking, but was not thought on the whole to excel in it unless he could help himself out with a hymn. In conversation he kept his eyes on you with a kind of colourless candour, as if he had not understood what you were saying and, in a fashion that made many people turn red, waited before answering. This was only because he was considering ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... about to buy, I will tell him honestly what I think of it, as a work of art. I will tell him whether it moves me much or little, and I will try to point out those qualities and relations of line and colour in which it seems to me to excel or fall short. I will try to account for the degree of my aesthetic emotion. That, I conceive, is the function of the critic. But all conjectures as to the authenticity of a work based on its formal significance, or even on its technical perfection, are extremely ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... doe, and of having drunk in cowardice with his mother's milk. In short, they lavished upon their unmoved captive a torrent of that vindictive abuse, in which the women of the savages are so well known to excel, but which has been too often described to need a ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... open, and the red-coated huntsman behind them, and only seven or eight horsemen between us, then it was that the strangest thing of all happened, for I, too, went mad—I, Etienne Gerard! In a moment it came upon me, this spirit of sport, this desire to excel, this hatred of the fox. Accursed animal, should he then defy us? Vile robber, his hour was come! Ah, it is a great feeling, this feeling of sport, my friends, this desire to trample the fox under the hoofs of your horse. I have made the fox-chase with the English. ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... smartness in the German court—officer in the Guards, ancient family, rich, darned clever—all the fixings. Kaiser liked him, and it's easy to see why. I guess a man who had as many personalities as the Graf was amusing after-dinner company. Specially among the Germans, who in my experience don't excel in the lighter vein. Anyway, he was William's white-headed boy, and there wasn't a mother with a daughter who wasn't out gunning for Otto von Schwabing. He was about as popular in London and Noo York—and in Paris, too. ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... finish with tolerable ease. It is a bad plan to punish for not finishing tasks; it is subversive of discipline to leave tasks unfinished, and contrary to justice to punish for what cannot be done. In nothing does a good manager so much excel a bad as in being able to discern what a hand is capable of doing, and in never attempting to make him do more." In Hammond's schedule the first horn was blown an hour before daylight as a summons for work-hands to rise and do their cooking and other preparations for ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... an effort to master the rudimentary plays, while Silvey strutted and blustered and administered corrective lectures in a manner that was a ludicrous imitation of a certain high-school coach. Let John excel at baseball if he would; he was the master of the hour now, and he marched the boys back and forth until they panted and sweated and finally broke into vociferous protest. Thus the "Tigers," whose name that season was to spell certain defeat to similar ten-year-old teams, concluded their ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... or feel, Joined with chiefs of rich Brazil; Western freemen, prompt to dare, Side by side with Bourbon's heir; Proving who could then excel, Came with succour long and well; But Jerome, in peril nursed; Shone ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... more than any where else," continued the chaplain. "I think we excel all other mountaineers in the number and variety of our legends and ghost stories. I assure you that there is not a cave, or a church, or, above all, a castle, for miles round about, of which we could not ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... this little grain of sand, obscure, The name of earth that bears, The Authors of that Universe Have, at thy call, descended oft, And pleasant converse with thy children had; And how, these foolish dreams reviving, e'en This age its insults heaps upon the wise, Although it seems all others to excel In learning, and in arts polite; What can I think of thee Thou wretched race of men? What thoughts discordant then my heart assail, In doubt, if ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... his people. Regardless of the fact that we were the first possessors of the regions they now inhabit; regardless equally of the fact that we abandoned that region from the loftiest motives; regardless also of the self-evident fact that we excel them so far in mental ability as they excel us in stature, they look upon us as a degraded race and make a mockery of all our finer feelings. But, the time has almost arrived when—thanks to His Majesty's inventive genius—it will be in our power to take a thorough revenge ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... many a night in a cowhouse, and I find the people inoffensive and kind. I have also passed some time with the principal Greeks in the Morea and Livadia, and, though inferior to the Turks, they are better than the Spaniards, who, in their turn, excel the Portuguese. Of Constantinople you will find many descriptions in different travels; but Lady Mary Wortley errs strangely when she says, "St. Paul's would cut a strange figure by St. Sophia's." [2] ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... light, eternal life, everlasting love, everlasting praise, everlasting glory. Praise to Him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever! Bless the Lord, O my soul, that hath pardoned all my iniquities in the blood of His Son, and healed all my diseases. Bless Him, O all ye His angels that excel in strength, ye ministers of His that do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, O my ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... constantly an eye to the industries and commercial capabilities of the countries he passed through. Social reform was certainly much needed here; for the chief, though not twenty years of age, had already forty-eight wives and twenty children. They heard of another tribe, said to excel all others in manufacturing skill, and having the honorable distinction, "they had never been known to kill any one." This lily among thorns they were unable to visit. Three tribes of Bakhalaka whom they did ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... cleared it easily. At 5 foot 4 inches both missed the first jump, but both cleared it at the second trial. And now for the tug of war. Both had accomplished the utmost he had ever hitherto achieved, and it remained to be seen whether the excitement of the occasion would assist either or each to excel himself. Shute came to grief altogether at 5 foot 41/2 inches, and again, to our dismay, Catherall bounded over the bar at his first effort. Shute's friends were in despair, and if that hero had been a nervous fellow he might have been the same. But he was a very cool fish, ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... knowledge which awakens the contemplation of the statesman and politician, than the New-York Gazette contained during a twelvemonth; and yet it flourished. The traits of Lang's character were unwavering devotion to his pursuits; no one could excel him in the kindness of his demeanor; unconscious of the penury of his intellectual powers, he at times, unwittingly became the pliant agent of designing individuals, and from the blunders into which he was led, his baptismal name, John, seemed easily converted into ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... from each other. And those indeed which are highest, connate with the one, and of a primary nature, are allotted a form of subsistence, characterized by unity, occult and simple; but such as are last are multiplied, are distributed into many parts, and excel in number, but are inferior in power to such as are of a higher order; and such as are middle, according to a convenient proportion, are more composite than their causes, but more simple than their proper progeny. And, in ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... when the singing was over: A Dotterel first open'd the ball with the Plover; Baron Stork in a waltz was allow'd to excel, With his beautiful partner, the fair Demoiselle;[12] And a newly-fledged Gosling, so fair and genteel, A minuet swam with the spruce Mr. Teal. A London-bred Sparrow—a pert forward Cit! Danced a reel with Miss Wagtail ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... help. The atmosphere was much more like that in a small apartment back home than on a space-ship among the stars. This was not in any way such a journey of exploration as the writers of fiction had imagined. Jamison came down presently and offered to prepare some special dish in which he claimed to excel. There was no mention of Johnny Simms. Alicia, elaborately ignoring all that was past, told Jamison that Babs and Cochrane were now an acknowledged romance and actually had plans for marriage immediately the ship ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... athletic field he saw men of much lighter weight excel him in a way that made his face burn with a redness not of physical exertion. It was a wholesome lesson that he was learning—that there are everywhere scores of others, equally or better fitted by Nature for the struggle of life than oneself, and who can only be surpassed by the indomitable application ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... overwhelm you with culinary suggestions. I am distressed to remember them. But you must forgive and smile me into peacefulness again. And be not discouraged, little housewife! It may take years of attention to excel in bread-making, some skill even for boiling potatoes, and common-sense for everything; but stand steadily beside your servants, and watch their processes patiently. Take notes, experiment, amend, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... have wasted your powder and shot. Like a highwayman, it would have sufficed for you merely to tell the weak and cowardly that your pistol would be made to go off when wanted. To speak the truth, Captain Battleax, I do not think that you excel us more in courage than you do in thought and practical wisdom. Therefore, I feel myself quite able, as President of this republic, to receive you with a courtesy due to the ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... to be a soldier. Military glory was his ambition, as it had been Washington's; but not as a mere provincial would he be satisfied to excel. He would have a place as a regular officer, in an army of the first importance, on the fields of Europe. Before the Revolution, Americans were, like all colonials, very loyal to their English King. Therefore would Harry Peyton be content with naught less than a King's ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... institution where very accurate geological maps are compiled of the whole country, and where in particular all the phenomena connected with volcanoes and earthquakes are investigated. In scientific inquiries the Japanese are on a par with Europeans. In the art of war they perhaps excel white peoples. In industrial undertakings they have appropriated all the inventions of our age, and in commerce they threaten to push their Western rivals out of Asia. Not many years ago, for example, some Japanese went to Sweden to study the ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... if a man is born with a "high general intelligence," that is, with keen sensory discriminations and motor responses, precise and accurate powers of analysis of judgment, a capacity for the quick and effective acquisition and modification of habits, we can safely predict that he will excel in some direction. But whether he will stand out as a lawyer, doctor, philosopher, poet, or executive, it is almost impossible ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... good man will turn examples of all sorts to his own advantage. The good he will make his patterns, and strive to equal or excel them. The bad he will by all means avoid.—THOMAS ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... the end of the beginning of many American industries. Ore was plentiful, wood was superabundant, methods were crude. They could easily excel the Virginia colonists in making iron in Persia and India at the same date. The orientals had certain processes, descended to them from remote times, discovered and practiced by the first metal-workers that ever lived. The difference in the ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... in their performances? How came they to make such difficulties of what are now esteemed trifles? And how came they never to make any voyages, by choice at least, that were out of sight of land? Again, with respect to the Chinese, if they excel us so much in knowledge, how came the missionaries to be so much admired for their superior skill in the sciences? But to cut the matter short, we are not disputing now about speculative points of science, but as to the practical application of it; in which, I think, there is no doubt that ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... infancy to this one pursuit and study, Miss Brass could know but little of the world, otherwise than in connection with the law; and that from a lady gifted with such high tastes, proficiency in those gentler and softer arts in which women usually excel, was scarcely to be looked for. Miss Sally's accomplishments were all of a masculine and strictly legal kind. They began with the practice of an attorney and they ended with it. She was in a state of lawful innocence, so to speak. The law had been her nurse. And, as bandy-legs ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... humour pervaded the throng, And each was requested to furnish a song, Which many comply'd with; but such as deny'd, Some whimsical laughable story supply'd. The Lion, "Britannia Rule," sung mighty well: The Tiger, "in English Roast Beef," did excel. While others made all the wide valley to ring, With "Nile's Glorious Battle," and "God Save the King." In such good amusements the evening they past, [p 16] Till Aurora appear'd to the eastward at last: When back to their homes, they return'd one and all, Well pleas'd with ...
— The Elephant's Ball, and Grand Fete Champetre • W. B.
... very hot evening of one of the hottest days of July, and Mrs. Rufus Lynn wore in deference to the climate a gown of white cambric with a little black sprig thereon, but nothing could excel the smoothly boned fit of it. And she did not lean back in her chair, but was as erect as the very old lady on the door-step, who was her grandmother, and who was also stiffly gowned, in a black cashmere as straightly made as if it had been armor. ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... of body, or, if this be denied, surely it must let him and hinder him in running the race for unconsciousness. We do not feel that it increases the glory of a king or great nobleman that he should excel in what is commonly called science. Certainly he should not go further than Prince Rupert's drops. Nor should he excel in music, art, literature, or theology—all which things are more or less parts of science. He should be above them all, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... happy, blessed creatures; they are God's messengers, who "excel in strength and do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... who could scarcely conceive anything so strange and so difficult that he would not be able, by the force of his most divine intellect and by means of his industry, draughtsmanship, art, judgment, and grace, to excel it by a great measure; and that not only in painting and in the use of colour, under which title are comprised all forms, and all bodies upright or not upright, palpable or impalpable, visible or invisible, but also ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... poetical people. Notwithstanding the facility with which their tongue lends itself to the composition of verse, they have never produced among them a poet with the slightest pretensions to reputation; but their voices are singularly sweet, and they are known to excel in musical composition. It is the opinion of a certain author, the Abbe D'Ilharce, who has written about them, that they derived the name Cantabri, by which they were known to the Romans, from Khantor-ber, signifying sweet singers. They possess ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Biographer is often to pass slightly over those Performances and Incidents, which produce vulgar Greatness, to lead the Thoughts into domestick Privacies, and display the minute Details of daily Life, where exterior Appendages are cast aside, and Men excel each other only by Prudence, and by Virtue. The Life of Thuanus is, with great Propriety, said by its Author to have been written, that it might lay open to Posterity the private and familiar Character of that Man, cujus Ingenium et Candorem ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... sentiment and the romance of the Chaussee d'Antin. You English," she continued, shaking her head at Maltravers, "have spoiled and corrupted us; we are not content to imitate you, we must excel you; we out-horror horror, and rush from ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... myself, how far does it excel passion! What pleasure has roots so deep as one which is not personal but creative? Is not the spirit of Sacrifice a power mightier than any of its results? Is it not that mysterious, tireless divinity, who hides beneath innumerable spheres in an unexplored centre, through which all worlds ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... apprehension of a surprise, and were busy in those sports which hardy men enjoy even amid the rougher sport of war. The Countess of Chester and her sister-in-law, with a politeness that the ladies of the court of Louis le Grand could not excel, paid a visit to the wife of the knight who had the defence of the castle. While there, at this pleasant morning call, "talking and joking" with the unsuspecting matron, as Ordericus relates, the Earl of Chester came in, "without his armor or even his mantle," attended ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... more allied to science than it is to poetry, that, of all the pleasurable arts, music is that which flourishes the most amongst us. Still, even in music the absence of stimulus in praise or fame has served to prevent any great superiority of one individual over another; and we rather excel in choral music, with the aid of our vast mechanical instruments, in which we make great use of the agency of water,* ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... lamenting his lost championship, "It was the booze did it"; meaning that he had violated training rules, and used liquor. University teams and crews have proved substantially that drinking men are absolutely no good in sports, or upon the water. Football and baseball teams, anxious to excel, are beginning to have a cast-iron temperance pledge for their members. So practical experience of those competing in tests of strength and endurance teach eloquently that alcohol does not give strength, but rather weakens the body, by ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... his pleasures; and in a reign of thirteen years, the richest of sovereigns was compelled to strip the palace and the churches of their precious furniture. Like Nero, he delighted in the amusements of the theatre, and sighed to be surpassed in the accomplishments in which he should have blushed to excel. Yet the studies of Nero in music and poetry betrayed some symptoms of a liberal taste; the more ignoble arts of the son of Theophilus were confined to the chariot-race of the hippodrome. The four factions which had agitated the peace, still amused the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... father daily witnessed with considerable anxiety my zealous and persevering exertions; and as I proceeded, he encouraged me by the most animating hopes of future prospects; he informed me that he had remarked with no small pleasure my determination to excel in every thing that I undertook; and that I set about every thing with an enthusiasm calculated to surmount all difficulties, which was, as he justly observed, the only way to attain any object, or to arrive at any degree ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... paid for their labour, but something more than cash payment was necessary. There was needed the feeling of emulation, the desire to excel, the sense of honour, the love of glory. Not only pay, but rewards, prizes, distinctions, were given to the more deserving. Peculiar care was taken with the children. They were first paid simply for being present, idle lookers-on, until ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... which He is 'the Lord,' and to whom, as the centurion said, He says to this one, 'Go!' and he goeth; and to another, 'Come!' and he cometh; and to another, 'Do this!' and he doeth it? Who are 'the hosts'? Not only these beings who are dimly revealed to us as rational and intelligent, who 'excel in strength,' because they 'hearken to the voice of His word', but in the ranks of that great army are also embattled all the forces of the universe, and all things living or dead. 'All are Thy servants; they continue this day'—angels, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Without sweat or endurance; treason, felony, Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine Would I not have; but nature would bring forth Of its own kind all foison, all abundance, To feed my innocent people. I would with such perfection govern, sir, To excel the ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... the deputation the following day attended before the Lords (20 Nov.), who returned them a far more gracious and sympathetic answer. After thanking the deputation for their expressions of submission to the resolutions of parliament, their lordships assured them that none should excel them in their endeavours for the maintenance of the covenant, the advancement and settling of God's true religion, and the discharge of the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... magnificent arrangements have been made in every one of the cities that from time to time is honored by the residence of the Emperor, so that Russia boasts of possessing five theaters, two of which excel everything in Europe in respect to size and splendor, but yet possesses no sort of taste for dramatic art. The stage, in the empire of the Muscovites, is like a rose-bush grafted on a wild forest tree. It has not grown up naturally from ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... circumstances that were contemporary with their publication, have passed away, and left no better record of what they were than may be found in these frail leaves. Happy are the editors of newspapers! Their productions excel all others in immediate popularity, and are certain to acquire another sort of value with the lapse of time. They scatter their leaves to the wind, as the sibyl did, and posterity collects them, to be treasured up among the best materials of its ...
— Old News - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... corn for all the inhabitants: on which account there is an old British proverb, "MON MAM CYMBRY," that is, "Mona is the mother of Wales." Merionyth, and the land of Conan, is the rudest and least cultivated region, and the least accessible. The natives of that part of Wales excel in the use of long lances, as those of Monmouthshire are distinguished for their management of the bow. It is to be observed, that the British language is more delicate and richer in North Wales, that country being less intermixed ...
— The Description of Wales • Geraldus Cambrensis
... by thine they were; But Gardiner do thy worst, I fear thee not. My faith, compared with thine, as much shall pass, As doth the Diamond excel the glass. Attached of treason, no accusers by! Indeed, what tongue dares speak so ...
— Cromwell • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... excel in working guipure d'art should practise each of the stitches until they attain perfect regularity and quickness in their execution. Two or three hours devoted to this in the first instance will not be time wasted, as the most elaborate pattern will be ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... was resolved to do, either with his cheerful co-operation, or, if necessary, without it. He had certainly looked at Virginia as if he admired her, and surely a girl like that—lovely, loving, unselfish to a fault, and trained from her infancy to excel in all the feminine virtues—surely, this perfect flower of sex specialization could have been designed by Providence only for the delight and ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... among themselves, and prefer the American to the Italian ways of life. In regard to the same colony, the county school superintendent said that the Italian children attend school fairly regularly, are able pupils, and excel American ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek
... communing with angels, yet each serving as a channel of God's mercies to man, each (we may believe) offering Him service equally acceptable in His sight—even so shall we find it in art and with artists; few in whom the Dramatic power predominates will be found to excel in the expression of religious emotions of the more abstract and enthusiastic cast, even although men of indisputably pure and holy character themselves; and vice versa, few of the more Contemplative but will feel bewildered and at fault, if ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... tell you about Malcom Porter. He is one of that vast horde of people who want to be someone. They want to be respected and looked up to. But they either can't, or won't, take the time to learn the basics of the field they want to excel in. The beautiful girl who wants to be an actress without bothering to learn to act; the young man who wants to be a judge without going through law school, or be a general without studying military tactics; and Malcom Porter, the boy ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett
... embroider'd patriots run, And serve their country—if the dance is done. "Are we not then allow'd to be polite?" Yes, doubtless; but first set your notions right. Worth, of politeness, is the needful ground; Where that is wanting, this can ne'er be found. Triflers not e'en in trifles can excel; 'Tis solid bodies only polish well. Great, chosen prophet! For these latter days, To turn a willing world from righteous ways! Well, Heydegger, dost thou thy master serve; Well has he seen his servant should ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... of BIRDS we presented a picture of the common Bluebird, which has been much admired. The mountain Bluebird, whose beauty is thought to excel that of his cousin, is probably known to few of our readers who live east of the Rocky Mountain region, though he is a common winter sojourner in the western part of Kansas, beginning to arrive there ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... in the revolt of her pride, she would have accepted any honest work which would have enabled her to escape from the insecurity of her position. Of her competence to earn a living, of her ability to excel in any work that she undertook, of the sufficiency and soundness of her resources, she was as absolutely assured as she had been when she entered the millinery department of Brandywine & Plummer. If ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... took up a deal of the girl's thought. Her studies confined her more and more as the end of the term approached. And in addition to the extra work assigned the girl at the Red Mill by Miss Cramp, there was a special study which Ruth wished to excel in. Miss Cramp was old-fashioned enough to believe that spelling was the very best training for the mind and the memory and that it was a positive crime for any child to grow up to be a slovenly speller. Four times a year Miss Cramp held an old-fashioned "spelling-bee" at the schoolhouse, ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... Quarterly were first started. I incline to agree with Leslie Stephen in his Hours in a Library, that, if most of the critical articles of even Jeffrey and Mackintosh were submitted to a modern editor, he would reject them as inadequate; but I think that perhaps they excel our modern efforts in a certain reserve and dignity, and in a more ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... had been at last transported into those famous regions of fairyland which, if they really existed, and we were in very deed to get into them, would, perchance, not equal, and certainly could not excel, our own ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... capture or destroy enemy vessels to be distributed among officers and men at rate calculated at $25 for each person aboard the enemy vessel at beginning of engagement; British spy system has been so perfected that it is said in some respects to excel the German; Embassy in Washington denies that women or children are interned ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... not excel, Such perfection is rare to be had; A good life is, of course, very well, But good living is also-not bad. And when, to feed earth-worms, I go. Let this epitaph stare from my stone, "Here lies the Right Rev. so and so; "Pass, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... triumphs of peace she threw them away, to establish in their stead what the world will no longer permit to be established, military and political domination by arms, by which to oust where she could not excel the rivals she most feared and hated. The peace we make must remedy that wrong. It must deliver the once fair lands and happy peoples of Belgium and Northern France from the Prussian conquest and the Prussian ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... betwene a thyng excel- lente, and a thyng more inferiour: the comparison shall pro- cede ...
— A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike • Richard Rainolde
... their fine linen, of which, indeed, they have great plenty, their furniture, plate, housekeeping, and variety of wines, in which article, it must be owned, they are profuse, if not prodigal — A burgher of Edinburgh, not content to vie with a citizen of London, who has ten times his fortune, must excel him in the expence as well as ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... most ample opportunities of cultivation and improvement. Such lessons and exhibitions, however, might have been thrown away upon many; but James had been born with those natural capacities which fitted him to excel in them. He possessed a fine and correct musical ear; a voice which was rich, flexible, and sufficiently powerful for chamber music; and an enthusiastic delight in the art, which, unless controlled ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... such as have a proper sense of the folly and dissipation of the Fashionable world; such in fact as will make good mothers and good wives. Now if a Quaker looks into his own society, he will generally find the female part of it of this description. Female Quakers excel in these points. But if he looks into the world at large, he will in general find a contrast in the females there. These, in general, are but badly educated. They are taught to place a portion of their happiness in finery and show: utility is abandoned for fashion: The ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... depreciating Dryden's plays, especially the comedies, out of disgust at their indecency; yet in judging the period as a whole he seems to discriminate sufficiently between indelicacy and dulness. "The talents of Otway," he says, "in his scenes of passionate affection rival, at least, and sometimes excel those of Shakspeare." Again: "The comedies of Congreve contain probably more wit than was ever before embodied upon the stage; each word was a jest, and yet so characteristic that the repartee of the servant is distinguished from that of the master; the jest of the cox-comb ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... Earl, "you have not taught your son amiss. He threatens to turn out a most marvellous lad, for not only can he make weapons, but he can excel the best of my men-at-arms in their use. Have you any objection that he be attached ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... can excel the short-horn, in the abundance and richness of her milk, and in the profit she will yield to her owner; and, on every place where she can be supplied with abundance of food, she stands without a rival. From the short-horns, spring those magnificent fat oxen and steers, which attract so much admiration, ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... are known to be a faithful narrative of Mr Borrow's career, while we ourselves can testify, as to many other parts of his volumes, that nothing can excel the fidelity with which he has described both men and things. Far from his showing any tendency to exaggeration, such of his characters as we chance to have known, and they are not a few, are rather within the truth than beyond it. However picturesquely they may be drawn, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... easily and gracefully borne, that we can scarcely find pity for it. The drawings are well lithographed by French artists. Our neighbors are much fonder of lithographic illustrations than we are, and, it must be admitted, excel us in that branch of art. We have noticed especially the lithographs executed by M. Trayer, a young artist, who is also a ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... few cents. Just a dime or two for a whole week's work. Time has no value to them, and the creek banks are covered with the best willows in the world for basket-making. The basket-making art is the only talent these squaws have, while the bucks excel in tanning buckskin and other skins. These they trade to the Navajo Indians for silver and blankets. Then they race their ponies or gamble for the ownership of the coveted blankets. How they do love to gamble! Horses, blankets, squaws—anything and everything changes hands under the ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... facility. A generation of contact with world politics will bring to the fore diplomats capable of meeting Europe's best on their own ground. What Europe has learned, America can learn; what Europe has practiced, America can practice, and in the end she may excel her teachers. ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... been persuaded that this power was destroyed, by the ridiculous distinctions of rich and poor. Oh, mad world! Monstrous absurdity! Incomprehensible blindness! Look at the rich! In what are they happy? In what do they excel the poor? Not in their greater stores of wealth: which is but a source of vice, disease, and death; but in a little superiority of knowledge; a trifling advance toward truth. How may this advantage be made general? Not by the indulgence ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Excellency "lost his head" and got nervous. Suppose a thousand things. But Bob put it all resolutely behind him. He felt his strong young muscles, his vital fingers, his pliant wrists. Yes, it was a great thing to be a boy—a boy whose great pride had always been to excel in typical Canadian sports, to be the "crack" canoeist, and to handle a paddle with the ease of a professional. It was worth everything in the world to recall the time when someone had tauntingly said, "Oh, Bob Stuart's no good at cricket and baseball. Why, ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... at no time, did I feel the impetus that the desire to excel brings with it. To be at the foot of the class always seemed to me the least of the ills that a school-boy is called ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... atheists, that honour not. Nature thought good Fortune shoud ever dwel in Court where wits excel; ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... we had a great dancing-man among us, an art in which the chief in his sagacity must be aware the Dutch did not excel, and he hinted that not only to the dancing-man but to the rest of us some food would be very acceptable. The Rajah in reply told him, if we would sit down, our wants should soon be supplied. By this time the messes over the fire were cooked, and, with more ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... me in mind a little when I die Because I was thy first-born; let thy soul Pity me, pity even me gone hence and dead, Though thou wert wroth, and though thou bear again Much happier sons, and all men later born Exceedingly excel me; yet do thou Forget not, nor think shame; I was thy son. Time was I did not shame thee, and time was I thought to live and make thee honourable With deeds as great as these men's; but they live, These, and I die; and what thing should have been Surely I know ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the feet; a dead silence prevails. Even Pliny's gay spirits and cheerful vanity were not proof against such a reception. The "little grumblings" (indignatiunculae), of which his letters are full, attest how sorely he felt the decline of a fashion in which he was so eminently fitted to excel. And if a wealthy noble patronised by the emperor thus complains, how intolerable must have been the disappointment to the poet whose bread depended on his verses, the poet depicted by Juvenal, to whom the patron ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... the height of his appeal. "Senorita, I worshipped your childhood, I threw my hat in the air many times before your coach, when you drove out all in white, smiling, an angel from paradise. Excellency, help me. Excel..." ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... for your encouragement, permit me to remind you, that when you shall have acquired a thorough knowledge of these five parts of speech, only five more will remain for you to learn. Be ambitious to excel. Be thorough in your investigations. Give your reasoning powers free scope. By studying these lectures with attention, you will acquire more grammatical knowledge in three months, than is commonly obtained ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... the Science Community seemed strange enough in itself. He had the most practical common sense—well-balanced habits of thinking and living, supported by an intellect so clear and so keen that I knew of none to excel it. What the Science Community was, no one knew exactly; but that there was something abnormal, fanatical, about ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... the two since Hayne joined the Riflers early the previous year. He came in from civil life, a city-bred boy, fresh from college, full of spirits, pranks, fun of every kind; a wonderfully keen hand with the billiard-cue; a knowing one at cards and such games of chance as college boys excel at; a musician of no mean pretensions, and an irrepressible leader in all the frolics and frivolities of his comrades. He had leaped to popularity from the start. He was full of courtesy and gentleness to women, and became a pet in social circles. He was frank, free, off-handed with his associates, ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... Pole residing at Berlin, was a curious personage, interesting alike for the variety of his productions and the oddity of his mental make-up. He possessed a surprising capacity for assimilation. It was this that enabled him to excel, whether he imitated the style of the Bible or the style of mediaeval authors. Hebrew and Aramaic he handled with the same ingenious skill. All his works he attributed to some ancient author. His collection of Proverbs, bearing the ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... sunsets, for twilights, for moonshine, for deep silence, for starry nights, and silvery seas—in such things you excel; one feels as if one were there, and one envies you the fairy scenes of ocean. But, I implore you, be not sentimental. That is the feeble part of your poetry, to my thinking, and spoils the rest. By the way, I should like to ask you whose ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... fare thee well, [5] Palliards all thou didst excel, [6] And thy jockum bore the Bell, [7] Glimmer ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... did intentionally make such an attempt. All that we need suppose is that a variation occurred sufficiently marked to catch the discriminating eye of some ancient fancier, and then unconscious selection carried on for many generations, that is, the wish of succeeding fanciers to excel their rivals, would do the rest. In the case of the Fantail we may suppose that the first progenitor of the breed had a tail only slightly erected, as may now be seen in certain Runts (6/45. See Neumeister's ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... shine?" So she hung her head in shame to the ground and repeated the words of Him whose Name be exalted, "Men shall have the pre-eminence above women, because of those advantages wherein Allah hath caused the one of them to excel the other."[FN387] Upon this, Amjad took the hint.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... week's order.) "Ruddock did a really remarkable paper, and scored a hundred out of a hundred. Johnstone and Caruthers both got ninety-nine, and several others were in the nineties. In fact, the only ones in the eighties were those who usually excel. I have taken the form now for over thirty years, and this is quite unparalleled. I shall ask the Headmaster if a special prize cannot be given to Johnstone. He ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... lower-grade with patience and devotion; they may see the competitive element in training, reduced in levels for the accommodation of the slender stock of mentality, producing on that lower level the same good results that normal children gain from trying to imitate and to excel. Small attainments are sources of pride in a class of defectives which if exhibited among the normal would give bitter experience of contrast. By making the standard of behavior and of attainment suited to their little power, the delight ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... be very good, or it would not have taken such long and constant labour. Genius, they say, never toils—all comes by inspiration. It may be that I have no genius; well, then, where is the use of my labouring to excel!—indeed, where is the use ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... come now to the apex of my thought. I have come now to the heart of the whole matter and to the center of my struggle: Why isn't Philadelphia a greater city in its greater wealth? Why does New York excel Philadelphia? People say, "Because of her harbor." Why do many other cities of the United States get ahead of Philadelphia now? There is only one answer, and that is because our own people talk down their own city. If there ever was a community on earth ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... Bishop hath yet a third dart to throw at us: "If the church (saith he)(168) hath power, upon occasional motives, to appoint occasional fasts or festivities, may not she, for constant and eternal blessings, which do infinitely excel all occasional benefits, appoint ordinary times of commemoration or thanksgiving?" Ans. There are two reasons for which the church may and should appoint fasts or festivities upon occasional motives, and neither ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... Lawrence Washington to George, after an examination of the maps, copy-books, and writing-books, which George brought with him from Mr. Williams' school. "It would be difficult for any one to excel them." ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... comparing a good king to a good shepherd—the shepherd must manage his flock by giving them all they need, and the king must satisfy the needs of his cities and his subjects if he is to manage them. We need not wonder, then, that with such opinions his ambition was to excel mankind in courtesy and care. [15] There was a noble illustration of his philosophy in the answer we are told he gave to Croesus, who had taken him to task, saying his lavish gifts would bring him to beggary, although he could lay by more treasures for himself than any man had ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... or German. Compare him or these tragedies with Goethe, with Schlegel, with Coleridge, with Hazlitt, with Ulrici, and it will be found that he excels them all in completeness. It is needless to add that he is able to excel them only by coming after them; and that it is by diligently digesting all the positive results of Shaksperian criticism that he has been enabled to advance the science. He has grasped the principles which ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... then, I venture to submit that such a "Towneries" might readily be arranged to excel in interest, and surpass in usefulness, the excellent "Fisheries," "Healtheries", and other successful exhibitions in the record and recent memory of London. The advantages of such an exhibition are indeed ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... always succumbed before the advance of civilisation. "The Red Indian goes down before the white man, and the New Zealander vanishes in presence of the English settler." Nature, careless in this stage of evolution about the body, selects for survival those varieties of mankind which excel in mental qualities. Hence it has happened that the physical characteristics of the different races, once fixed in very early prehistoric times, have never greatly varied. They have passed out of the range of Natural Selection ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... too. They were given bark shields, and their attackers had bark boomerangs; great was the applause when the boys ably defended themselves. Previously they have been tried with boomerang and boodthul throwing, and other arts of sport and warfare, boys of each tribe trying to excel those of the others. If a boy comes well out of these trials the men say he is worthy to be a yelgidyi, or fully initiated ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... pastor told with how much pride and pleasure he had watched the gracious growth of this young parishioner since he first met the lad of twelve and was attracted by the shining face, the pleasant manners. Dutiful and loving; ready to help; patient to bear and forbear; eager to excel; faithful to the smallest task, yet full of high ambitions; and, better still, possessing the childlike piety that can trust and believe, wait and hope. Good and happy—the two things we all long for and so few of us truly are. This he was, and this single fact was the best eulogy ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... making charts; one of the history of empires, one of the history of inventions and discoveries; the latter, especially, was not worth the labor. I have had a taste of many things, and yet, to speak honestly, excel in hardly any thing: the reason of this is partly a great want of order. I never attempted any thing like a "course of reading:" but, when I began a book, the book was the object more than my own real improvement. I read often D.E.F., before I had read A.B.C., and ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... excel in descriptions, and yet I want to give you some carnal idea of a certain peculiarity and charm this lady possessed; permit me to call a sister art ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... a little stick the size of a common knitting-needle, glass eyes, a solution of corrosive sublimate, and any kind of a common temporary box to hold the specimen. These also may go under the same denomination as the former. But if you wish to excel in the art, if you wish to be in ornithology what Angelo was in sculpture, you must apply to profound study and your own genius to assist you. And these may be called ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton |
