"Excellence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... divine honor. We honor persons for their worth and excellence, and since God is the most excellent, we give Him the highest honors, differing from others not merely in degrees but in kind—divine honors that belong to Him alone. And justly so, for the vilest animal upon the earth is a thousand times more nearly our equal than the most perfect creature, ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... ev'ry deed we do, And love gives everything a deeper sense. Love is the teaching of all genuine worth. So base is no man's heart on this wide earth, Love could not guide it to great excellence. ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... Britain that it is in this country, or so prominent a feature in the landscape. The native apples are inferior in size and quality, and are sold by the pound. Pears were more abundant at the fruit stands, and were of superior excellence and very cheap. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... wisdom and civilization. It is not, therefore, surprising that the Greeks should have admitted into their early art some of the forms then most in vogue, and though the wonderful taste of that gifted people speedily raised them to a point of excellence never attained by the Egyptians or any others, the rise and first germs of art and architecture must be sought in the Valley of the Nile. In the oldest monuments of Greece, the sloping or pyramidal ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... reading of literature ordinarily has a threefold purpose,—knowledge, pleasure, and culture. This purpose shows us both the character of the literature which should be read and the manner in which it should be read. As a rule we should read only books of recognized excellence, and read them with sympathetic intelligence. Trashy books, whatever pleasure they may give, add but little to knowledge or culture; and immoral books often leave an ineradicable stain upon the soul. Fortunately ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... mention the coolness of Lieut. C. G. Calkins, the navigator of the Olympia, who came under my personal observation, being on the bridge with me throughout the entire action, and giving the ranges to the guns with an accuracy that was proved by the excellence of the firing. ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... that of protecting insured property only. It was the interest of the companies to incur as little expense as would, on the whole, fairly effect this purpose, and it was not their interest to effectually protect the whole of the metropolis from fire. Thus it was that, with all the excellence of the organization and discipline of the Fire-engine Establishment, it was greatly inferior in extent to what was requisite for the proper security of the first city in the world. Mr. Braidwood had long felt this truth, ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... aid to that scholarly command of subject-matter which is the first essential for expertness in teaching. Only when we view the American fairy tale of to-day in the light of its past history can we obtain a correct standard by which to judge of its excellence or of its worth. ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... lovely spot, a picture of complete isolation and repose. Here a good hotel, almost American in its excellence and comfort, is to be found, replete with cleanliness, and surrounded by ornamental grounds after the Japanese style. There were rockeries, over which tumbled mountain rivulets; ponds with gigantic gold and silver fish, which seemed to be always hungry and inclined to breed a famine ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... appearance, the eagerness with which they were read will testify. How rapid was their increase, may be seen by referring to the counters of every book-store. America, ready and willing as she ever is to acknowledge the excellence, and imitate the example of the parent country in every good thing, has imitated and improved upon the plan. We can now boast of a species of literature, which is conducted almost wholly by young men, and which has merited the affection, because it has developed the power ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... period during which eloquence most flourished among her citizens was by no means that of her greatest power and glory. It commenced at the close of the Peloponnesian war. In fact, the steps by which Athenian oratory approached to its finished excellence seem to have been almost contemporaneous with those by which the Athenian character and the Athenian empire sunk to degradation. At the time when the little commonwealth achieved those victories which twenty-five eventful centuries have left unequalled, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dependence on the well known ability of his broad-beamed boat to stand up before heavy seas, and always get there safely in the end; while with Jack there was a combination of these several points of excellence. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... assimilation, and his varied interests, made his ambitions many and diverse. The man who could enter with the masterly familiarity of an expert into affairs of Church, State, Society, and Finance, who would talk of medicine like a doctor, or of science like a savant, naturally aspired to excellence in many directions. ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... earls' daughters; but this was a matter rather of courtesy than of right. Beyond the general epithet of "my Lord," there was no definite title of address even for the monarch. The appropriation of such terms as Grace, Highness, Excellence, Majesty, or Serenity, belongs to a much later date. Sir, however, was always restricted to knights; and Dame was the most respectful form of address that could be offered to any woman, however exalted might be her rank. The knight was above the peer, even kings receiving additional honour from knighthood; ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... "So much the more the carver's excellence, who has made the statue as Hermione would have looked had she been living now. But let me draw the curtain, sire, lest presently you think ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... my own observation, the latest of the human powers in maturing, as it is the most consummate, is the Judgment. Next in the order of maturity, and next also in majesty and excellence, is the Reasoning power. Reason is minister to the judgment, furnishing to the latter materials for its action, as all the other powers, memory, fancy, imagination, and so forth, are ministers to reason, and supply it with its materials. ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... Aubrey, the young lady whom I spoke to you about, as having recently come to reside with me. Fanny, this is an old and much esteemed friend of mine, who has expressed a great desire to see you, and whom, I am sure, you will love and respect for his piety and moral excellence!" ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... for such revellers as desired rest or refreshment was being converted into seats to be sold to any who cared to witness a pageant of unwonted brilliancy. The fact that no one of us had attended a function of this sort for more than five years, and the excellence of the cause on behalf of which it was being promoted, were responsible for our inclination to take the tickets, for, with the exception of Jill, we were not eager to subscribe to an entertainment which it was not at all certain ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... where tobacco is grown by the undertaking of its manufacture as an employment for winter, or by the raising of honey or of poultry, or by the establishment of some valuable breed of live stock with a reputation for excellence that will cause it to be sought for from abroad, or by some other combination, they would secure ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... the general principle of government by representation, the excellence of the French Constitution consists in providing means to prevent that abuse of power that might arise by letting it remain too long in the same hands. This wise precaution pervades every part of the Constitution. Not only the legislature is renewable by a third every year, but the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... 1 of the "Natural History Review," and must congratulate you, as chiefly concerned, on its excellence. The whole seems to me admirable,—so admirable that it is impossible that other numbers should be so good, but it would be foolish to expect it. I am rather a croaker, and I do rather fear that the merit of the articles will be above the run of common readers and subscribers. I have been ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Rutherford had a grievance which he took pains to air. He was on duty at Hastings Park, having been sent there a year earlier to instruct recruits, after recovering from a wound. He was the military man par excellence. War was his game. He had been anxious to go to Siberia with the Canadian contingent which had just departed. And the High Command had retained him here to assist in the inglorious routine of demobilization. ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... we furnish are of the highest degree of excellence and are made for us by several of the most reliable firms ...
— Astronomical Instruments and Accessories • Wm. Gaertner & Co.
... discovered, again with glad emotion, that bees had stirred the fancy of each, stimulated their conceptions of service and communistic blessedness; furnished their symbols for laws of beauty and cleanliness, brotherhood, race-spirit, the excellence of sacrifice—a thousand perfect analogies to show the way of human ethics and ideal performance.... But beyond all their service to literature, he perceived that these masters among men had loved the bees. This was ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... pleasure in the announcement that the general excellence of BIRDS will be maintained in subsequent volumes. The subjects selected for the third and fourth volumes—many of them—will be of the rare beauty in which the great Audubon, the limner par excellence of birds, would have found "the joy ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... authentic historic indication, is interesting only for the care with which the author has noted the places where repose the Brothers who died in odor of sanctity, and relates a mass of visions all tending to prove the excellence of the Order.[89] ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... fasting these forty days I find chiefly to be two: The first, to witness to the world the dignity and excellence of His vocation, which Christ, after His baptism, was to take upon Him openly; the other, to declare that he entered into battle willingly for our cause, and does, as it were, provoke his adversary to assault Him: ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... indeed, from what he condescended to say of the man, it would be difficult to conjecture that a greater than Gilfillan was there. And, will the reader believe it? in Professor Craik's "English Literature"—a work of great excellence—the name of De Quincey is not mentioned! "Sam Johnson," says Craik, "was the last king that sat upon the throne of English prose literature." Let it be that Sam was a proper king; yet it is just as true that De Quincey was legitimately his successor. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... tenderly, commending them to the care of Heaven, and charged them to call, on their way, at the celebrated monastery of Cluny, to visit the Abbot, the brother of their father. This Abbot, worthy of his high dignity, had never lost an opportunity of doing good, setting an example of every excellence, and making ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... himself master of the sleeper's fate. At the same time that he scanned the vast proportions and athletic limbs of the youth, in that sort of admiration which physical excellence seldom fails to excite in the breast of a savage, he coolly prepared to extinguish the principle of vitality which could alone render them formidable. After making himself sure of the seat of life, by gently removing the folds of the intervening cloth, he raised his keen weapon, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... those sacraments which have a corporeal matter, this matter needs to be applied by a minister of the Church, who stands in the place of Christ, which denotes that the excellence of the power which operates in the sacraments is from Christ. But in the sacrament of Penance, as stated above (ad 1), human actions take the place of matter, and these actions proceed from internal inspiration, wherefore the matter is not applied by the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... a fifth Criminal and Civil Justice, a sixth Comfort, a seventh Truth, an eighth Kindness, a tenth Gratitude, an eleventh Cheerfulness, a twelfth Exercise, a thirteenth Sobriety, etc. They are elected to duties of that kind, each one to that duty for excellence in which he is known from boyhood to be most suitable. Wherefore among them neither robbery nor clever murders, nor lewdness, incest, adultery, or other crimes of which we accuse one another, can be found. They accuse themselves ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... this became more absolute and more fixed. In every man's nature there lurk possibilities of action which he only recognises under stress, also impossibilities which stretch like an iron barrier between him and the excellence he craves. I had come up against such an impossibility. I could forego pleasure, travel, social intercourse, and even the companionship of the one being in whom all my hopes centred, but I could not, of my own volition, pass from the judge's ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... on one high bank of the river, a residence of the Earl of Wicklow occupying the other bank. My jarvey called my attention to the excellence of the roads, on which he said Lord Carysfort has spent "a deal of money," as well as upon the gardens of the new Castle. The head-gardener, an Englishman, told me he found the native labourers very intelligent ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... with any kind of precision, it was thought for the present at least might be disregarded. Husking quality is important but it was impossible to properly award points for this characteristic in a nut contest, because the nuts are husked before being sent in. The points allowed for excellence in these qualities were added to others, which gave 10 points to Cracking Quality Absolute instead of 5, and 25 points to Quality and Flavor of ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... the Caliphate, where he made her stand without, whilst he himself went in to the Prince of True Believers (with whom was Ja'afar the Barmaki) and kissing the ground before him, said to him, "O Commander of the Faithful, I have brought thee a damsel, never saw eyes of seer her like for excellence in singing and touching the lute; and her name is Tohfah." Al-Rashid asked, "And where be this Tohfah[FN154] who hath not her like in the world?" Answered Ishak, "Yonder she standeth, O Commander of the Faithful ;" and he acquainted ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... his capacity was boundless, as well as his imagination; that he was a perfect master of all styles, and all arguments; and that there was in those times no other writer, in any kind, of any degree of excellence, save he himself. But as this is not our own sentiment, we shall determine on nothing, but leave thee, gentle reader, to steer thy judgment equally between various opinions, and to choose whether thou wilt incline to the testimonies of authors avowed, or of authors concealed—of those who knew ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... most nobly, but since then the drama has had more recruits of power than has poetry, and it is a question as to which of the two is greater as art. There is no doubt, however, but that the drama has made a stronger and wider appeal, whatever its excellence, than has the verse, and it is therefore of greater significance for its time than is the poetry, whatever the ultimate appraisement will be. Of the men I have written of here, Mr. Yeats and Mr. Russell are to me poets before they are dramatists, and Lionel Johnson, whose only direct connection ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... special leave and licence. He taught him to ride, indeed, but would not give him much opportunity for practising it. Once or twice a-week he would take him out, but seldom oftener. Sam, who never dreamt of questioning the wisdom and excellence of any of his father's decisions, rather wondered at this; pondering in his own mind how it was that, while all the lads he knew around, now getting pretty numerous, lived, as it were, on horseback, never walking a quarter of a mile ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... her sweet face to him, and coaxed and charmed him into being satisfied that all was well, dwelling on the loyalty and excellence of the ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... described by Byron, Where "palaces and pris'ns on each hand rise—" —That too's a stone one, this is made of iron— And little donkey-boys your steps environ, Each proffering for your choice his tiny hack, Vaunting its excellence; and, should you hire one, For sixpence, will he urge, with frequent thwack, The much-enduring beast to ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... animal was sensible of his approaching dissolution, and that this was a last forcible effort to express his gratitude for the care taken of him, as I am of my own existence; and had I witnessed this proof of excellence alone, I should think a life devoted to the amelioration of the condition of dogs far too ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... horse curveting and caracoling, but being managed with great grace and dexterity, leaving the grandees and the people at large not more filled with admiration at the strangeness and magnificence of his state than at the excellence of ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... always serene, sane and safe—his lines breathe purity and excellence. He is the poet of religion, of the home and fireside, of established order, of truth, justice and mercy ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... more. He saw it at the distance of six paces, and was delighted with its perfection and gracefulness; he saw it surrounded by young and beautiful girls, who formed, as it were, a guard of honour for this queen of excellence and purity. And yet, the more he ascertained with his own eyes the perfection of the flower, the more wretched and miserable he felt. He looked all around for some one to whom he might address only one question, but his eyes everywhere met strange faces, ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... not help smiling at his simplicity, that all the while he was doing his best to make me one of the vainest and most egregious coxcombs, by his unfeigned wonder at some puny effort of my puny muse, and by his injudicious praises; he would lecture me parentally, by the hour, upon the excellence of humility, and the absolute necessity of modesty, as a principal ingredient to make a ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... into the doors of his less scrupulous neighbor in the same street, while he himself waits for hours idle. My brother, do you think that God is going to reward honor, integrity, high-mindedness, with this world's coin? Do you fancy that He will pay spiritual excellence with plenty of custom? Now consider the price that man has paid for his success. Perhaps mental degradation and inward dishonor. His advertisements are all deceptive, his treatment of his workmen tyrannical, his cheap prices made possible by inferior ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... swum the crawl in all its various details, and will explain the method I have found fastest and easiest for the pupil. The crawl, except for short distances, is not the stroke used for racing. The trudgeon crawl is the stroke par excellence for racing purposes. ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton
... was excellent. More than the excellence, however, went to Dolly's enjoyment. The rare luxury of eating without having to think what it cost, and without careful management to make sure that enough was left for the next day's breakfast ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... bloodthirstiness which characterizes the American people. Mr. Lecky has more than once remarked upon this humane temperament which is so characteristic of our peaceful civilization, and which sometimes, indeed, shows the defects of its excellence and tends to weaken society by making it difficult to inflict due punishment upon the vilest criminals. In respect of this humanity the American of the nineteenth century has without doubt improved very considerably upon his forefathers of the seventeenth. The England of ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... when she has set foot upon a project. Earnest, passionate, and brilliant in conversation, she wields a powerful influence over many minds of a peculiar order; and through the few mediums whom she selects to represent her characteristics, she displays a calmness and coolness of reasoning and an excellence of judgment such as few are able to exhibit thus ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... in excellence demanded of vaudeville material, both by the managers and the public, is gradually making it profitable for only the best-educated, specially-trained writers to undertake this form of work. The old, illiterate, rough-and-ready writer is passing, in a day when the "coon shouter" has ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... sampled none of the others"—he whispered aside—"an' I didn't know there was any better licker in the jug. But the Baptists is a little riper, the Presbyterians is much mellower, an' compared to all of them the 'Piscopalians rises to the excellence of ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... Wealth. Others, following the practices of their ancestors, and observant of their respective duties, and others desirous of heaven, do the same. Believers and unbelievers and those that are rigid practisers of the highest Yoga—all certify to the excellence of Wealth.[483] He is said to be truly possessed of Wealth who cherishes his dependants with objects of enjoyment, and afflicts his foes with punishments. Even this O foremost of intelligent men, is truly my opinion. Listen, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... better. It cannot be done too much; and when I next write to her, I shall charge her not to neglect it on any account. I often tell young ladies that no excellence in music is to be acquired without constant practice. I have told Miss Bennet several times, that she will never play really well unless she practises more; and though Mrs. Collins has no instrument, she ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... allows only the handsomest or the best mousers to propagate. Still more, by methodical selection, in recent times almost marvelous results have been produced in new breeds of cattle, sheep, and poultry, and new varieties of fruit of greater and greater size or excellence. ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... though he had heard wonders related regarding the milky contents of their fruit. Here at any rate was one tree of the kind, under the branches of which he humbly trusted often to repose—and, if he might be so bold as to carry on the Eastern metaphor, he would say, knowing the excellence of the Colonel's claret and the splendour of his hospitality, that he would prefer a cocoa-nut day at the Colonel's to a banyan day anywhere else. Whilst F. B.'s speech went on, I remember J. J. eyeing the trophy, and the queer expression of his shrewd ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gratitude for his services. The public knew his deserts, but they did not know that he had consumed his fortune in their behalf. The business of Mr. Cobden was that of a calico-printer, which he carried on in the neighbourhood of Manchester. By the excellence of his colours, his execution, and the novelty and good taste of his patterns, he created a vast and distinctive trade, which he necessarily neglected while conducting the agitation against the corn laws; and the result was perilous to his business and ruinous to his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... vigor. But what are lands, and seas, and skies, to civilized man, without society, without knowledge, without morals, without religious culture; and how can these be enjoyed, in all their extent and all their excellence, but under the protection of wise institutions and a free government? Fellow-citizens, there is not one of us, there is not one of us here present, who does not, at this moment, and at every moment, experience, in his own condition, and in the condition of those most ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... breezes from mountain and forest, with that rare combination of nerve, moral, mental and physical stamina, courage and patriotism which is necessary to preserve this republic and to keep it, ever and always, a model of progressive excellence for all the nations of the earth. This means the embodiment by them of more and better mind, that they may do better, wiser and more dominant thinking; be able to comprehend the sum of human knowledge to such an extent that they may add to it; ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... his plate with the viands before him while Sing Pete circled the table pouring coffee into the white porcelain cups. The Quarter Circle KT was famous for the excellence of its grub and the ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... of Swinburne, full as they are of splendid poetry, and even of splendid dramatic poetry, suffer from a lack of that 'continual slight novelty' which great drama, more than any other poetical form, requires. There is, in the writing, a monotony of excellence, which becomes an actual burden upon the reader. Here is a poet who touches nothing that he does not transform, who can, as in Mary Stuart, fill scores of pages with talk of lawyers, conspirators, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... errors to correct and suggestions to make. These Harry eagerly welcomed and voluntarily proposed to rewrite the composition. The result was a very much improved draft. He sent a copy home and received in reply a letter from his father, expressing surprise and gratification at the excellence ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... the boastful arbitrariness of the Rococo, in the midst of and in spite of the constraint of the Pigtail, and is closely connected with the mad cult of originality practised by so many individual types. We have strong doubts concerning the excellence of our advanced mental development, while in the days of our great-grandfathers nobody doubted that that age, which we properly stigmatize with the sobriquet of the Pigtail Age, was really the golden age of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... to the work of journalism. For the fact is—and it is a fact for which the current conception of Coleridge's intellectual character does not altogether prepare one—that he was a workman of the very first order of excellence in this curious craft. The faculties which go to the attainment of such excellence are not perhaps among the highest distinctions of the human mind, but, such as they are, they are specific and well marked; they are by no means ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... than sedulity and diligence. A man would wonder at the mighty things which have been done by degrees and gentle augmentations. Diligence and moderation are the best steps whereby to climb to any excellence, nay, it is rare that there is any ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... company so good in Carlingford, even with the drawback of the old shop-people among whom she lived. How strange it was to see her in the dress of which Mrs. Sam Hurst had raved, and of which even the young Nonconformist vaguely divined the excellence, putting her daintily-gloved hand upon old Tozer's greasy sleeve, walking home with the shuffling old man, about whose social position no one could make the least mistake! He turned with them, with a sensation ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Hitherto I had neither been troubled by my own grave shortcomings nor by Chichester's excellence of character. I had always felt myself set far above him by my superior mental faculties and my greater will power over the crowd, though, alas! not always over my own demon. I began to writhe now under the thought of Chichester's crystal purity and of ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... did owe for the excellence of the Expeditionary Force, such as it was in point of size, and much of what we have since owed for the excellence of the great armies that we subsequently raised, was due to the unbroken work of the fine Administrative Staff, developed in those days, to which I have ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... as the poles apart, who had most influence on the black-and-white of the Nineties—it will be seen from this that I refrain from saying what I think of J. and his influence, but it is considered almost as indiscreet, almost as bad form, to admit the excellence or importance of one's husband's work as to pretend to ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... board of examiners will prepare a list of the persons examined in the order of their excellence, as proved by such examination, beginning with the highest, and will then certify to the head of the office the names standing at the head of such list, not exceeding three. When more than one appointment is to be made, the vacancies will be numbered, and the first three names will be certified ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... modern; he has learnt much from Wagner and Liszt and not least from Verdi's "Falstaff"; nevertheless he is always original, fresh and so {358} amusing, so sparkling with wit and genius, that I am tempted to call Donna Diana the modern comic opera par excellence. Sometimes the orchestra is almost too rich for Moreto's playful subject, but this is also quite modern, and besides it offers coloristic surprises very ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... life—to military men, to peace-loving Indians, and to men who achieved success in politics and agriculture. They were given for sea rescues, for heroic deeds by firemen and school-patrol boys, and for outstanding community and civic work. Within our time they have been given as trophies for excellence in athletics, automobile racing, ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... Euryptolemus married, he remained present till the ceremony of the drink-offering, and then immediately rose from table and went his way. For these friendly meetings are very quick to defeat any assumed superiority, and in intimate familiarity an exterior of gravity is hard to maintain. Real excellence, indeed, is most recognized when most openly looked into; and in really good men, nothing which meets the eyes of external observers so truly deserves their admiration, as their daily common life does that of their nearer friends. Pericles, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... reasonably be presumed, that there are varieties in the senses, the organs, and the internal structure of the human species, however delicate, and to the touch of the bystander evanescent, which may give to each individual a predisposition to rise to a supreme degree of excellence in some certain art or attainment, over a ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... book has been prepared with special reference to the needs of the student. It presents a brief course of precepts, and requires on the part of the pupil only perseverance in order that he may achieve excellence. The mechanical principles are few, and have been laid down in a few words; and, as nearly all students have felt, in the earlier period of their art work, the necessity of some general rules to guide them ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt
... art is in its comprehensiveness. It takes in every quality of excellence. It looks at the great whole, and admits the little charms and graces. It includes constructiveness in story, character-drawing, picturesqueness, musicalness, naturalness,—in fine, whatever art may combine with poetry or the soul of poetry admit in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... mysterious, although he became enthusiastic as to its merits before it was nearly finished. No piece of painting that he had ever attempted was so satisfactory to him, he said, both in the way of conception and performance. So confident was he of its excellence, that I began at last to share his excitement, and expressed a wish to see the masterpiece. But he was resolute in his determination that no one should see it until its completion, and least of ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... that we know Mr. Legality and Mr. Worldly Wiseman as if we had met them in the street. It is in this amazing reality of impersonation that Bunyan's imaginative genius specially displays itself. But this is far from being his only excellence. In its range, in its directness, in its simple grace, in the ease with which it changes from lively dialogue to dramatic action, from simple pathos to passionate earnestness, in the subtle and delicate fancy which often suffuses its childlike words, in its playful humour, ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... Christian friend Mr Swan (who has lately departed to his station in Siberia, shielded I trust by the arm of his Master), it met with his perfect approbation and cordial encouragement. I therefore drew up a petition, and presented it with my own hand to His Excellence Mr Bludoff, Minister of the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... furnished in a manner befitting that of a rich and learned clerk, the duke was in the habit of occasionally repairing from Ferrara, and would thence go to the chase, or amuse himself with the pleasant conversation of his host, and with the knowledge and excellence of which the good priest gave evidence in all he did ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... great judges, in this writing age, The sons of wit, and patrons of the stage, With all those humble thoughts, which still have sway'd His pride much doubting, trembling and afraid Of what is to his want of merit due, And aw'd by every excellence in you, The author sends to beg you will be kind, And spare those many faults you needs must find. You, to whom wit a common foe is grown, The thing ye scorn and publicly disown. Though now, perhaps, ye're here for other ends, He swears to me ye ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway
... natural cause That admiration did not whoop at them; But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in Wonder to wait on treason and on murder; And whatsoever cunning fiend it was That wrought upon thee so preposterously Hath got the voice in hell for excellence; And other devils that suggest by treasons Do botch and bungle up damnation With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd From glist'ring semblances of piety. But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up, Gave thee no instance ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... Margaret's discretion, but there was a chance of awkward situations, which papa was not likely to see or guard against. However, all seemed to do very well, and no one ever came into her room without some degree of rapture about Mr. Ernescliffe. The doctor reiterated praises of his excellence, his principle, his ability and talent, his amusing talk; the girls were always bringing reports of his perfections; Norman retracted his grumbling at having his evenings spoiled; and "the boys" ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... first began to give trouble to the Inner Nation, they relied on the strength of their ships and the excellence of their guns. It was therefore proposed to build large ships and cast heavy cannon in order to oppose them. I represented, however, that vessels are not built in a day, and pointed out the difficulties in the way of naval warfare. I showed that the power of a cannon depends upon ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... so long connected with him, and with whose agreeable talents he was now so familiarized, was, on every account, singled out by him as the person who could best introduce him historically to the public. It is ridiculous to mention Grammont as the author of his own Memoirs: his excellence, as a man of wit, was entirely limited to conversation. Bussy Rabutin, who knew him perfectly, states that he wrote almost worse than any one. If this was said, and very truly, of him in his early days, it can hardly ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Library Manual will not be fully appreciable until the work is completed.—The National Miscellany, Vol. I. The first Volume of this magazine of General Literature is just issued in a handsome form, suitable to the typographical excellence for which this well-directed and well-conducted miscellany is remarkable.—Remains of Pagan Saxondom, principally from Tumuli in England, Part VIII.: containing Bronze Bucket, found at Cuddesden, Oxfordshire; and Fibula, found near Billesdon, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... him, "Do you want anything, Porthos?" he would most certainly have replied, "Yes." After one of those dinners, during which Porthos attempted to recall to his recollection all the details of the royal banquet, gently joyful, thanks to the excellence of the wines; gently melancholy, thanks to his ambitions ideas, Porthos was gradually falling off into a placid doze, when his servant entered to announce that M. de Bragelonne wished to speak to him. Porthos passed into an adjoining room, where he found ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... their rounds of the power deck, control deck, and radar deck, they were amazed by the excellence of the equipment and the care given it. And because they saw nothing to substantiate their suspicions of Vidac, and his hand-picked crew, on Number Twelve, they found themselves confused about their feelings ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... fury when, instead of the expected secrets, he found nothing but dull Latin exercises, wearisome rhetorical commonplaces on such subjects as the charms of spring and summer, the excellence of agriculture, the advantages of knowledge, the danger of the passions, and similar interesting themes. He was just about to tie the bundle up again, when it occurred to him to read one of these tiresome dissertations to the end, just to see what sort of style the young scholar affected. ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... was original and reflective, he had no particular talent. His excellence lay in criticism and observation, often profound, on what came to him every day, and he was valueless in the literary market. A talent of some kind is necessary to genius if it is to be heard. So he died ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... up-to-date facts and opinions on modern agricultural methods. It is safe to say that many years must pass before it can be surpassed in comprehensiveness, accuracy, practical value, and mechanical excellence. It ought to be in every library in the ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... at liberty to improve upon the work of his predecessors if he could, no temple was just like any other, and they form an ascending scale of excellence, culminating in the Acropolis group. Every detail was considered not only with relation to its position and function, but in regard to its intrinsic beauty as well, so that the merest fragment, detached from the building of which it formed a part, is ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... of all beings!'—he would cry, striking his breast with his right hand (in case he had one)—'Thou whose power and goodness can enlarge the faculties of thy creatures to this infinite degree of excellence and perfection,—What have ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... since a very few days is renowned for the cheapness of the Apartments and linen, for the exactness of the service, and for the excellence of the true French cookery. Being situated at proximity of that regeneration, it will be propitious to receive families, whatever, which will desire to reside alternatively into that town to visit the monuments now found and to breathe thither the salubrity of the air. That ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... have said, the mind of Beatrice was susceptible to the best and the worst influences: it could attain excellence, and descend to guilt. She went and told her mother of the fresh outrage she had undergone; this roused in the heart of the other woman the sting of her own wrongs; and, stimulating each other's desire for revenge, they, decided ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... about playing at the party, Dorothea," continued Daniel. "Do you realise that I never heard you play? I will frankly confess to you that heretofore I have been afraid to hear you. I could tolerate only the excellent; or the promise of excellence. You may show both; and yet, what is the cause of my fear? You have not practised in a long while; not once since we have been living together. And yet you wish to play in public? That is strange, Dorothea. Be so good as to get your ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... John XXIII, Hus wrote: "Courage, friends! You can now give answer to those who declare that the Pope is God on earth; that he is the head and heart of the Church; that he is the fountain from which all virtue and excellence issue; that he is the sun, the sure asylum where all Christians ought to find refuge. Behold this earthly ...
— John Hus - A brief story of the life of a martyr • William Dallmann
... among the stars, or, maybe, I had slept too hard. Yet I was not hysterical nor in any way overwrought. My pulse was normal. My heart was an amazement of excellence to the insurance doctors. My lungs threw the said doctors into ecstasies. I wrote a thousand words every day. I was punctiliously exact in dealing with all the affairs of life that fell to my lot. I exercised in joy and gladness. I slept at ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... ain't like a European one. He may not be as good a workman as t'other one, but he can do somethin' else besides makin' wheels and pulleys. One always looks forward to rise in the world, the other to attain excellence in his line. I am, as I have expressed it in some part of this Journal, not ashamed of having been a tradesman—I glory in it; but I should indeed have been ashamed if, with the instruction I received from dear old Minister, I had always remained one. No, don't alter my Journal. I am just what ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... committing myself to print. I have at length, however, yielded to the suggestion of friends, and written down some anecdotes in the best way I could. Soldiers are not generally famous for literary excellence, and when I was young, the military man was, perhaps, much less a scholar than he is at the present day; but I hope that the interest of the matter will make up for ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... too, which, by the force of its own interest and excellence, will do much, when fairly set in competition, to displace the trashy and even harmful literature so ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... novelist of his time,' and that the Monmouth produces an impression which is more moral because more kindly and humane than the impression left by the Steyne, while in its way it is every whit as vivid and as convincing. Yet another excellence, and a great one, is his mastery of apt and forcible dialogue. The talk of Mr. Henry James's personages is charmingly equable and appropriate, but it is also trivial and tame; the talk in Anthony Trollope is surprisingly natural and abundant, but it is also commonplace ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... its duty is to produce, to mold, to fashion, to transform a certain raw material into a useful product. And, like all crafts, education must possess the craft spirit. It must have a certain code of craft ethics; it must have certain standards of craft excellence and efficiency. And in these the normal school must instruct its students, and to these it should secure their pledge of loyalty ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... defended by expediency and in a style that is always clear and logical. The book itself has rather a curious history. At its appearance, it seems to have excited no notice of any kind. Mackintosh knew of its authorship; for he warned its author against the amiable delusion that its excellence would persuade the British government to force a system of peasant proprietorship upon the East India Company. Reprinted in 1838 as the work of John Ogilby, it was intended to instruct the Chartists in the secret of their oppression; and therein it may well have contributed ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... is Mentula deemed rich, who has everything in it of such excellence, game preserves of every kind, fish, meadows, arable land and ferals. In vain: the yield is o'ercome by the expense. Wherefore I admit the wealth, whilst everything is wanting. We may praise the demesne, but its owner is ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... party embarked in the first boat that came up, and as they entered Newburgh bay, the triumph of the river was established. This is a spot, in sooth, that has few equals in any region, though Eve still insisted that the excellence of the view was in its softness rather than in its grandeur. The country-houses, or boxes, for few could claim to be much more, were neat, well placed, and exceedingly numerous. The heights around the town of Newburgh, in particular, were fairly dotted with them, though Mr. Effingham ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... evenly between walls. It is at once distinguished and useful.... Her five-page description (not dramatization) of the grasping Paris landlady is a capital piece of work.... Such well-finished portraits are frequent in Miss Lynch's book, which is small, inexpensive, and of a real excellence."—The ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... have a way of attributing this to breeding, after the analogy of horses and dogs; but while there's something in blood I doubt if it is a very trustworthy guaranty of excellence. So many vigorous parents have children that are morally spindling, and so many surprising samples of superiority come from common stock, that heredity is far ...
— 21 • Frank Crane
... so many and so great discouragements, Luther pressed resolutely forward toward the high standard of moral and intellectual excellence which attracted his soul. He thirsted for knowledge, and the earnest and practical character of his mind led him to desire the solid and useful rather ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... case; though whether the peculiar excellence of the ale arose from anything extraordinarily grateful in its flavour, or from my long march, my thirst, and sharp appetite—added to the joy I felt in the unexpected prospect of returning home in peace and happiness ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... useful Author; if in an Humour gay, I was for Poetry, Virgil, Homer or Tasso. Oh that Love between Renaldo and Armida, Mr. Fancy! Ah the Caresses that fair Corcereis gave, and received from the young Warrior, ah how soft, delicate and tender! Upon my Honour I cannot read them in the Excellence of their Original Language, without I know not ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... him with a nod, and refusing to sit down, the hairdresser, whose tongue was ever itching to talk, continued: "Oh! as for myself, I am always busy, my house is renowned for the cleanliness of the beds and the excellence of the fare. Only the town is not satisfied. Ah, no! I may even say that I have never known so ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... little apprized at that time of the mode nature had intended he should pursue. His apprenticeship was no sooner expired than he entered into the academy in St. Martin's Lane, and studied drawing from the life, in which he never attained to great excellence. It was character, the passions, the soul, that his genius was given him to copy. In coloring he proved no greater a master; his force lay in expression, not in tints and chiaroscuro. At first he worked for booksellers, and designed and engraved plates for several books; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... of the narrative is preserved unbroken and nothing of importance is lost to the reader. The History of the Expedition, edited, with notes by Elliott Coues, was published in 1893 in four volumes by Francis P. Harper, New York. This edition surpasses every other in its excellence: it has passed out of print, but may be found in many public libraries. In 1901 Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, published "Lewis and Clark," by Wm. R. Lighton: within one hundred and fifty-nine small pages the story of the famous expedition ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... continue the interrupted scheme. It is, however, to be borne in mind that the Emperor Napoleon had certain arguments in favor of his opinions for the time being, which his nephew has not employed. On the 13th Vendemiaire, when General Bonaparte believed in the excellence of a Directory, it may be remembered that he aided his opinions by forty pieces of artillery, and by Colonel Murat at the head of his dragoons. There was no resisting such a philosopher; the Directory was established forthwith, and the sacred cause of the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... one may ask, "if the establishment of constitutional government in Japan is due principally to the inherent excellence of the institution itself, and not to the superior intelligence of the Japanese people, nor yet to their peculiar characteristic, how can the non-progressive tendency of China be accounted for?" The vast extent of her dominion,[11] the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... shall these secrets be unfolded in proportion to the cultivation of the mind and talents here: for the unchangeable laws of God have placed all matter in constant and regular mutation; and whether of matter or of mind, all is governed by a certain law of progress, compelling us to attain excellence and strength only by constant endeavors to surmount difficulties: and it is thus alone we can, by severe study and deep meditation, in investigating these laws of mutation and progress in things physical ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... accept what we do for him because of any peculiar excellence in our devotion, but because it is the result of ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... exactness as to the time when sculpture was first practised by the Egyptians; we only know that it was a very long time ago. But we do know that in the time of the twelfth dynasty, which dates from 2466 B.C., sculpture had reached a stage of excellence such as could only have resulted from the experience of many years of training and practice in ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... with the Indians for supplies. He had full authority over the kitchen during his reign, and it was a point of honor with each Grand Master to surpass, if possible, the abundance, variety and gastronomic excellence of the meals of the day before. There was no market to draw upon, but the caterer could have steaks and roasts and pies of moose, bear, venison and caribou; beavers, otters, hares, trapped for their fur, also helped to feed the hunters. Ducks, geese, grouse and ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... Suppose you try one of my boxes now. Trust me, from what I know of Mr. Truman, he is not the gentleman to recommend, even in behalf of a friend, anything of whose excellence he ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... remark to the effect that Diagoras was instrumental in drawing up the laws of Mantinea is probably due to the same source. The context shows that the reference is to the earlier constitution of Mantinea, which was a mixture of aristocracy and democracy, and is praised for its excellence. It is inconceivable that, in a Peloponnesian city during the course of, nay, presumably even before the middle of the fifth century, a notorious atheist should have been invited to advise on the revision of its constitution. It is more probable that Aristoxenus adduced this fact as an additional ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... in red letters in his history. It gave him another revelation of thebeauty and excellence of the female character and intellect; not wholly new to him, yet now renewed and fortified. It was from the lips of Mary Ashburton, that the revelation came. Her form arose, like a tremulous evening star, in the firmament of his ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Essex. Thou sinking excellence! thou matchless woman! Shall fortune rob me of thy dear embrace, Or earth's whole power, or death divide us now? Stay, ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... excellence of this advice which induced Mike to play what was, to date, the best innings of his life. There are moments when the batsman feels an almost super-human fitness. This came to Mike now. The sun had begun to shine ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... best interests of the Church, the former must be sacrificed relentlessly to the latter. Such was the sovereign's stern ideal. No seeming failure of his policies could shake his belief in their fundamental excellence. That whatever he did was done for the greater glory of God, that success or failure depended upon the inscrutable will of the Almighty and not upon himself, were his guiding convictions, which he transmitted ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... beyond beauty. Balsam Impatience. Blue Bell Constancy. Balm Pleasantry. Bay-leaf I change but in death. Bachelor's Button Hope. Begonia Deformed. Bitter Sweet Truth. Buttercup Memories of childhood. Brier, Sweet Envy. Calla Feminine Modesty. Carnation Pride. Clematis Mental Excellence. Cypress Disappointment, Despair Crocus Happiness. Columbine I cannot give thee up. Cresses Always cheerful. Canterbury Bell Constancy. Cereus, Night-blooming Transient beauty. Candytuft Indifference. Chrysanthemum Heart left desolate. Clover, White I promise. Clover, Four-leaved Be ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... the little desk, and innumerable sketches of various excellence, having a family resemblance, with faults in common, were sent to join the ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... cultivate art, be not known to excel in any craft but your own," says many a worldly parent, thereby laying the foundation of a narrow, greedy character, and destroying means of happiness and of improvement which success, or even real excellence, in one profession only cannot give. This is, indeed, a sacrifice of the end ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... genius with Dante and Shakspeare; they stand alone and unapproachable, each on his distinct pinnacle of the temple of Christian song; and yet neither of them can boast such extent and durability of influence, for whatever of highest excellence has been achieved in sculpture and painting, not in Italy only, but throughout Europe, has been in obedience to the impulse he primarily gave, and in following up the principle which he ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... knowledge. It may be proper, in this place, to mention another general rule laid down by Ford for Johnson's future conduct: "You will make your way the more easily in the world, as you are contented to dispute no man's claim to conversation excellence: they will, therefore, more willingly allow your pretensions as a writer." "But," says Mrs. Piozzi, "the features of peculiarity, which mark a character to all succeeding generations, are slow in coming to their growth." That ingenious lady adds, with ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... recovered from her short swoon, and found Wallace at her feet; when she felt that all the devotion her heart had hitherto paid to the simple idea of virtue alone would now be attracted to that glorious mortal, in whom all human excellence appeared summed up, she trembled under an emotion that seemed to rob her of herself, and place a new principle of ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... warrior, like so many of the Roman Senators, but his excellence was higher than that of a conqueror. "He was doomed, by his literary genius, to an immortality," and was confessedly the most prominent figure in the political history of his time, next to Caesar and Pompey. His influence was greater than his power, reaching down to our time; and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... materials for the fifth book, had begun it, and got on some way, there can be no doubt: the excellence of a large number of passages prove it, but—taken as a whole—the fifth book has not the value, the verve, and the variety of the others. The style is quite different, less rich, briefer, less elaborate, drier, in parts even wearisome. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... duty bound, and multiplies, and then casts about for some way of maintaining his growing family; and our Chupprassee system, looked at politically, is a grand escape pipe. Pandurang Huree gives the Mahrattas the palm, as liars, over all the other races of India. He may be right, but where excellence is so universal, comparison becomes doubly odious. Some Mahrattas put rao after their names and treat themselves with much respect, especially if they can grow a little island of whisker on each cheek and run the moustache into it. These men differ from common Mahrattas in the same ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... majestic and pleasing figures of Arithmetic and Geometry, with their emblems. These statues faced each other, and corresponded to Grammar and Rhetoric who were in the first structure—in both their location and altitude, and in the proportions and excellence of their sculpture. It was a glorious blazon for our prince, who, although of so tender years, was able, having cast aside sloth and childish amusements, to give himself up to the exercise of branches of learning so ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... bounded on the west by the Rio Tamatama, and on the east by the Rio Guapo. Between these two tributary streams of the Orinoco, amid the morichales, or clumps of mauritia palm-trees, which surround Esmeralda, the Rio Sodomoni flows, celebrated for the excellence of the pine-apples that grow upon its banks. I measured, on the 22nd of May, in the savannah at the foot of Duida, a base of four hundred and seventy-five metres in length; the angle, under which the summit ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... with its manifest defects, still remains one of the most abiding monuments of human wisdom, and it has received a tribute to its general excellence such as no other political system was ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... wall, and coolly took down his sword and pistols, which he examined with the care of an old soldier who is preparing for battle, and who feels that his life, in a great measure, depends upon the excellence and the good ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... new life, however high may be their excellence in music or any other accomplishment, or how great their effort to make them available, their surroundings are all against them, consequently they lapse into a condition even worse than before their education, because their enlightenment ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... the trouble," said the girl, regarding her companion's beautiful countenance, and its expression of purity and moral excellence, with a glance of envious disdain. "I ask no aid; I need no sympathy; and, least of all, from you, who have robbed me of my lover, and then reproach me with the evil which your selfish love of admiration ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... question the excellence of your judgment in taking the track you did, and I never had any misgivings, but it was natural to desire to go into the place with a strong hand, for, if any one spot in the land was foremost in ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... generations toward the Episcopal Church as being attracted by the distinctive characteristics of that church. Foremost among these we may reckon the study of the dignity and beauty of public worship, and the tradition and use of forms of devotion of singular excellence and value. A tendency to revert to the ancient Calvinist doctrine of the sacraments has prepossessed some in favor of that sect in which the old Calvinism is still cherished. Some have rejoiced to find a door of access to the communion of the church not beset with revivalist exactions of examination ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... to insist and insure that every play shall be perfectly well set, in every particular, and that every part in it shall be competently acted. But his genius and his ability are no more discredited than those of Macready were by his attention to technical detail and his insistence upon total excellence of result. It should be observed, however, that he has carried stage garniture to an extreme limit. His investiture of Faust was so magnificent that possibly it may have tended in the minds of ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... finds himself unable to do that which he wished to have done: so here, in the scanty gain that remains, he who will consider the matter will trace that slight want of humility of which I have spoken; [9] for that virtue has this excellence: there is no good work attended by humility that leaves the soul disgusted. It seems to me that I have made this clear enough; yet, after all, perhaps only for myself. May our Lord open their eyes who read this, by giving them experience; and then ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... particularly relish the flavour it gave to tea, but after awhile I liked it far better than muscovado, and as a sweetmeat it is to my taste delicious. I shall send you a specimen by the first opportunity, that you may judge for yourself of its excellence. ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... which may be said to have formed the keystone of the system, was that relating to the Christian population of the Empire. Once in five years a general conscription was made by means of which all the children of Christian parents who had reached the age of seven and gave promise of excellence in mind or body were taken from their homes and brought to the capital. They were then removed to different quarters and placed in seminaries where they might receive such instruction as would fit them for the duties of life. Those giving greatest promise of strength and endurance were sent to ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... productive, the executive, the contemplative orders, respectively, like their psychological analogues, the senses, the will, and the intelligence, will be susceptible each of its own proper virtue or excellence, temperance, bravery, spiritual illumination. Only, let each work aright in its own order, and a fourth virtue will supervene upon their united perfections, the virtue or perfection of the organic whole as such. The Justice which Plato has been so long in search ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... peoples of what we generally consider low grades of civilization. Tahiti, according to all who have visited it, from the earliest explorers down to that distinguished American surgeon, the late Dr. Nicholas Senn, is an island possessing qualities of natural beauty and climatic excellence, which it is impossible to rate too highly. "I seemed to be transported into the garden of Eden," said Bougainville in 1768. But, mainly under the influence of the early English missionaries who held ideas of theoretical morality totally alien to those of the inhabitants ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and certainly one has only to compare this version of ours with the Rhemish, and the transcendent excellence of our own reveals itself at once. I am not extolling now its superior scholarship; its greater freedom from by-ends; as little would I urge the fact that one translation is from the original Greek, the other from the Latin Vulgate, and thus the translation ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... and in the end all going for each other. The Republic flattered the people: and then turned arms against them. The people on their side broke the heads of a few of their own young men—officers and soldiers.—And so every one proved to everybody else the excellence of his cause and his fists. Looked at from a distance, through the newspapers, it was as though the country had gone back a few centuries, Christophe discovered that France—skeptical France—was a nation of fanatics. But it was impossible for him to find out the meaning of their fanaticism. For ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland |
