"Feat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with her narrative, and thought Mrs. Tester a very affectionate, motherly sort of woman; more especially, when (Robert having placed his tea-things on the table) she showed him how to make the tea; an apparently simple feat that the freshman found himself perfectly unable to accomplish. And then Mrs. Tester made a final dab, and her exit, and our hero sat over his tea as long as he could, because it gave an idea of cheerfulness; and then, after directing Robert to be sure not to forget to call ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... nothing but the ominous silence which has been maintained concerning him in almost all quarters of our Church. For what can he say or do against the other miracles if he be powerless against the Resurrection? He can make sentences which sound plausible, but that is no great feat. Can he show that there is any a priori improbability whatever, in the fact of miracles having been wrought by one who died and rose from the dead? If a man did this it is a small thing that he should also walk upon the waves and ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... good horsemanship. On one occasion he was attending the Earl, mounted on one of his best horses, at a "border foray" on the unfortunate Irish, with whom he kept up constant warfare. In the pursuit his horse took fright, and ran away into the midst of the enemy, one of whom, by a wonderful feat of agility, sprang up behind him, and bore him off to his own house. He calls the gentleman who effected the capture "Brian Costeree," and says he was a very handsome man, and that he lived in a strong house in ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... The feat had excited much uncheerful comment among Squat's confreres, bets being freely offered that he would be disfigured for life, even if he survived; and what was the sense of monkeying with a thing like that when you could pull your hat down over it? Of ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... long wooden bridge. What a feat of engineering that bridge once seemed to our untraveled souls! Behold it now, as it was then, lying in the level rays of the rising moon, a brilliant causeway leading over into a land of mystery, to glory, perhaps; ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... engrossed when there came a terrific crash. It seemed almost under our feet ... Rp-p-p-p-p-p bang, BANG! The next thing I remembered was landing at the foot of those narrow stairs, the other five boys on top of me. That is a feat impossible of repetition. When we disentangled ourselves, got to our feet and gathered our scattered wits, we found the men who had remained below tremendously excited. Their hair was on end; their eyes were like saucers. "Who's killed, ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... a people will make itself felt strongly; but whenever a nation has found it expedient or desirable to accomplish a feat which was in opposition to its religion, it has invariably modified the religion to fit the case, or waived it in ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... these [models] Lucilius entirely depends, having imitated them, changing only their feet and numbers: a man of wit, of great keenness, inelegant in the composition of verse: for in this respect he was faulty; he would often, as a great feat, dictate two hundred verses in an hour, standing in the same position. As he flowed muddily, there was [always] something that one would wish to remove; he was verbose, and too lazy to endure the fatigue ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... such barons long desolate she'll be. Ah! King and friend, wherefore are you not here? How, Oliver, brother, can we achieve? And by what means our news to him repeat?" Says Oliver: "I know not how to seek; Rather I'ld die than shame come of this feat." AOI. ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... Paris was magnificent, and it appeared as if the metropolis of the world wished to show by the way in which she honoured a feat of navigation that it is not without reason that she bears on her shield a vessel surrounded by swelling billows. It is a pleasant duty for me here to offer my thanks for all the goodwill we, during those memorable days, enjoyed on the part of the President of the Republic, ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... country now in the valley of the Po. In Europe the land has, of course, risen also, but so slowly that the rivers have been able to keep their channels cut down; proof of their ability to perform which feat we see when an ancient river passes through a ridge of hills or mountains. The river had doubtless been there long before the mountains began to rise, but their elevation was so gradual that the rate of the river's cutting down equalled ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... beyond, and then, sailing, soaring, over the right-field fence. For a moment the stands, even the bleachers, were stone quiet. No player had ever hit a ball over that fence. It had been deemed impossible, as was attested to by the many painted "ads" offering prizes for such a feat. Suddenly the far end of the bleachers exploded and the swelling roar rolled up to engulf the grand stand in thunder. Billie ran round the bases to applause never before vented on that field. But he gave no sign that it affected him; he did not even doff his cap. White-faced and stern, he ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... Tessie felt instinctively. Nevertheless, when that night Jacqueline was placed in her dining chair, and while chatting with her brother she proudly displayed the clover leaf pin in a new little velvet case, Tessie wondered what could have been the original feat of heroism for which this badge ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... they arranged their plans together. They could not speak, for a word would have aroused the other inmates of the convent. They could make signs only when Sister Maddelena was alone. Michele could throw notes to her from the cliff,—a feat demanding a strong arm, as you will see, if you measure the distance with your eye,—and she could drop replies from the window over the cliff, which he picked up at the bottom. Finally he succeeded in casting into the cloister a coil of ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... This feat was not so easy to do at first, for I was much afraid of you. Your mind seemed alien to me in the anti-humanitarian attitude which you assumed to life. Yet it was this very power in you to surpass in ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... admitted that Nelly was the prettiest girl in Riverbend, and the gayest—oh, the gayest! When she was not singing, she was laughing. When she was not laid up with a broken arm, the outcome of a foolhardy coasting feat, or suspended from school because she ran away at recess to go buggy-riding with Guy Franklin, she was sure to be up to mischief of some sort. Twice she broke through the ice and got soused in the river because she never looked where she skated or cared ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... felled; and, when it was trimmed, he took up the large trunk on one of his shoulders and carried it off, seemingly with ease. He did not look like a particularly robust man; but I have never seen such an herculean feat attempted by an Englishman or American. It has frequently struck me that the Italians are able to put forth a great deal of strength in such insulated efforts as this; but I have been told that they are less capable of continued endurance and hardship ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... telephonic connections with a phonograph that explains the features of the Canal Zone as the appropriate points are passed. Next to seeing the Canal itself, a sight of this miniature is the most interesting and instructive view possible of the great engineering feat. In one way it is even better than a trip through the Canal. It gives the broad general view impossible from any point on ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... the bars to the spikes, tottering, and communicating a convulsion to me as I assisted him in the leap down: no common feat for one ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was writing letters into Illinois to secure the reelection of Douglas. Now, that all these conflicting elements should be brought, while at daggers' points with one another, to support him, is a feat that is worthy for you to note and consider. It is quite probable that each of these classes of men thought, by the re-election of Douglas, their peculiar views would gain something: it is probable that the anti-slavery men thought their views would gain something; that ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Knowing that such a feat would be impossible for them to perform, the parents fervently prayed to Odin to help them, and in answer to their entreaties the god came down to earth, and changed the boy into a tiny grain of wheat, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... moved by it; and the reason for that lay in her imagination being absorbed. Henrietta had posted her a journal telling of a deed of Chillon's: no great feat, but precious for its 'likeness to him,' as they phrased it; that is, for the light it cast on their conception of the man. Heading a squadron in a riotous Midland town, he stopped a charge, after fire of a shot from the mob, and galloped up the street to catch a staggering ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Maxse's companion calling out to him, "Go-along, Maxse," that gentleman fulfilled his threat or promise, whichever it might be, and put his horse full at the gate, which the gallant creature cleared, bringing the carriage and its live freight safe to the ground on the other side; a feat which I very unintentionally imitated, in a humble degree, many years after, with an impunity my carelessness certainly did ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... My feat then was as marvelous upon Mars as it would have been upon Earth, and from desiring to annihilate me they suddenly looked upon me as a wonderful discovery to be captured and ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the one hand and Cape Flora on the other, and extending rearward toward the mountain to about a quarter of its height. The magnitude of such an enterprise as this, and its exhausting nature, can only be appreciated by those who have attempted a similar feat in ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... of the British Army could boast a finer feat of arms than the holding of the Enghien Redoubt by Captain Rowbotham, 2nd Lieutenant Cunningham, Regimental Sergeant-Major Douglas and some 150 men of D Company and Battalion Headquarters. From 10.30 a.m. till 4.30 p.m. on March 21, 1918, these brave soldiers, enormously outnumbered and completely ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... letters here offered belong to the beginning of his Edinburgh life, and relate to a feat of mental exertion equal to his bodily performances. He was at the time living in lodgings, for the purpose of passing his legal examinations preparatory to coming to the Bar; but he may be allowed to give ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... impossible of accomplishment. Pearson had stated that while in the vault he had removed the screws from the lock upon the door with the aid of a ten-cent piece. This idea seemed to be utterly incredible, and prompted by his doubts, William attempted the same feat upon the lock on his office door. After several efforts, in which he exerted his strength to the utmost, he was obliged to desist. The screws utterly defied the efforts to move them, while the coin ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... silence of the beholders of this feat the merry laughter of Prince Marvel rang loud and clear; for the sight of the puzzled and terrified faces about him was very comical. Plucking a dart from the sack he ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... Worlds," has a sagacious essay upon this subject. She calls the essay "Our Incestuous Marriage," and argues accurately that, once the adventurous descends to the habitual, it takes on an offensive and degrading character. The intimate approach, to give genuine joy, must be a concession, a feat of persuasion, a victory; once it loses that character it loses everything. Such a destructive conversion is effected by the average monogamous marriage. It breaks down all mystery and reserve, for how can mystery and reserve ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... fourteen-year-old boy descended upon the pair in a fall of earth, his sandaled feet planted one ahead of the other, his bare arms thrown above his head as he balanced himself, his long, stiff, crinkled black locks blowing backward, his face bright with the eager enjoyment of his simple feat. ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... expansive and passionate on all other subjects, so that to keep a secret was an impossible feat to them, wore another character when danger to their religion or its ministers required of them to set a seal on their lips. For years frequently, large numbers of priests and religious could not only exist, but move and work among them, without their place of abode becoming ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... not been found so suitable, as it corrodes more rapidly in the presence of salt water and gun metal than iron, and unless protected by a solid liner for the most part of its length, a mechanical feat which has not yet been achieved in ordinary construction, as this liner would require to be 20 ft. long. I find it exceedingly difficult to get a liner of only 7 ft. long in one piece, and the majority of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... spoke the god of love. What feat of Mars, or Hercules, Or bright Apollo, lies above Wit, wing'd by a desire ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... turbulent and not quite aimless chaos of the soul, in which man seemed to be divorced alike from his brother-men in the present, and from all the long succession and endeavour of men in the past. It was no small feat to rise to a height that should command so much, and to exhibit with all the force of life a world that had broken loose from ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... going upstairs to bed, she came upon Mrs Budd laboriously dragging her husband, a big, heavy man, up to bed by means of a cord slung about her shoulders and fastened to his waist. Mavis subsequently learned that Mrs Budd had performed this feat every night for the last four years, her husband having lost the use of ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... gargoyle of the chute. Lloyd, who had been lying back, fast asleep, with the moon on his face, got down, with the remark that it was pleasant "to be home." The waggon turned and drove away, the noise gently dying in the woods, and we clambered up the rough path, Caliban's great feat of engineering, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I had sat on my previous visit to the Home Farm. The influence of tradition and habit would not let me alone. I cared nothing for the Jervaises' opinion, but I resented the unfairness of it and had all the innocent man's longing to prove his innocence—a feat that was now become for ever impossible. By accepting Banks's invitation, I had confirmed the worst suspicions the Jervaises could possibly have harboured ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... devotion and delight that vigorous Mr. Kingsley must shriek, "Windrush!" "Intellectual Epicurism!" and disturb himself in a somewhat diverting manner. Pollok declaimed against the attempt to lay hold of the earth with one hand and heaven with the other. But that is the peculiar feat for which the American is born,—to bring together seeing and doing, principle and practice, eternity and to-day. The American is given, they say, to extremes. True, but to both extremes; he belongs to the two antipodes. To the one he appertains by intellectual ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... what a bold fellow Major Monkey was. He entirely forgot the Major's flight from the picnic grove. Riding a dog was such a feat as Jolly Robin himself would never, never attempt. And he was sure that if Major Monkey really undertook it there could be no doubt ...
— The Tale of Major Monkey • Arthur Scott Bailey
... effect was heightened by the fact that they were novelists and painters, poets and critics, sculptors and musicians. One man, with a refined and delicate face—a dramatic critic on a great San Francisco daily, she was told—introduced a feat which all the men tried and failed at most ludicrously. On the beach, at regular intervals, planks were placed as obstacles. Then the dramatic critic, on all fours, galloped along the sand for all the world like a horse, and for all the world like a horse taking hurdles he jumped the ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... were at any time perfectly willing to risk their lives for the opportunity of gratifying these passions. They were also greatly influenced by a love for the praise and glory which they acquired by the performance of any great or brilliant feat of arms. ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... she no member had, Save fingers fine and feat[4] to see; Her head with hair Apollo clad, That gods had thought it gold to be: So glist'ring was the tress in sight Of this new form'd ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... exclamation and fairly jumped from his chair, a feat which in his bruised condition really hurt him very much. Beatrice too started violently; she ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... independently solved the problem of Uranus, and ascribed to each equal glory. The new planet, at first called Leverrier by F. Arago, received by general consent the neutral name of Neptune. Its mathematical prediction was not only an unsurpassed intellectual feat; it showed also that Newton's law of gravitation, which Airy had almost called in question, prevailed even to the utmost bounds of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... then, as Jules, less bulky than Stuart, yet of formidable size when it came to free movement in this narrow tunnel, contrived by some acrobatic feat to turn himself about and face the pit from which they had started this adventure. Then he crawled back towards the hut on all fours, listening to the suspicious sounds which he had heard, wondering who caused them, fearing that the German guards had come to make a nearer investigation of the pit ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... there had been one subject which came up for discussion night after night round the camp-fire. It resolved itself, briefly, into this: Should we or should we not get out in time to go over to the State of Washington and there perform the thrilling feat which Bob, the Optimist, had ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the question. Any one who has the slightest knowledge of motoring would know it to be impossible, even if the Pirate had devised a storage battery which would knock Edison's latest invention into a cocked hat. But supposing he had achieved the feat, remember that, according to the newspaper reports, he was at Plymouth yesterday at dusk, near Salisbury at eleven the same evening, and holding us up on the confines of St. Albans to night. He would be bound to get his batteries recharged somewhere and, with a car of ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... dust. Every now and then a hog has stuffed itself so full as to be unable to stir from the spot; and there it lies on the road without moving, whilst the whole caravan is obliged to wait for half a day or longer, until the glutted animal can get on his legs again; and when at length this feat is accomplished, frequently his neighbor begins the same trick. There is truly not a more toilsome business in the wide world than that of a Kanasz.... The fokos is a hatchet, with a long handle, which the Kanasz hurls with great ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... twofold memory, that of names and of persons; and to estimate the immensity of the effort, we must recollect that the number of voters often far exceeded one quarter of a million. The very same trial of memory he undertook with respect to his own army, in this instance recalling the well known feat of Mithridates. And throughout his life he did not once forget the face or name of any veteran soldier whom he ever had occasion to notice, no matter under what remote climate, or under what difference of circumstances. ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Crawford (and his friends), we can 'have no reason for refusing credit to the historical evidence of the demoniacal elevation of Simon Magus'. Let us point out that we have no contemporary evidence at all about Simon's feat, while for Home's, we have the evidence of three living and honourable men, whom Dr. Carpenter might have cross-examined. The doings of Home and of Simon were parallel, but nothing can be more different than the nature of the evidence for what they are said ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... Highlanders, who stood to receive him, and who, ere he gained his legs, stripped him not only of the whole contents of his pockets, but of periwig, hat, coat, doublet, stockings, and shoes, performing the feat with such admirable celerity, that, although he fell on his back a well-clothed and decent burgher-seeming serving-man, he arose a forked, uncased, bald-pated, beggarly-looking scarecrow. Without respect ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... They had been busy filling certain shelves, which they had fixed up above the cat-hutches, with the best apples the more peaceful and sparsely populated parts of the countryside afforded. But what spare time he had the Terror devoted to a great feat of painting. He painted in white letters on a ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... a leading Liberal member of parliament that the "old man" had thought out a wonderful stroke of tactics by which he was going to strengthen himself in Quebec and at the same time do no harm in Ontario—a feat beside which squaring the circle would be child's play. Very brief enquiry revealed the situation. Sir Wilfrid was determined to have a resolution and a vote. The western Liberals were in revolt; the Ontario Liberals were reluctant but were prepared to be coerced; most of the maritime province ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... terror, the adoration of Lambeth. If she chose she could control the Parliamentary vote of the borough. Her great, direct, large-hearted personality carries all before it. And with it there is something of the uncanny. A feat of hers in the early days is by ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... which the night's frost had made on the snow. For even when the open fields were bare, the snow still lingered in the hollows of the wood, and to carry full pails safely, when one's feet were sinking into the mass made soft by the sunshine, was a feat ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... through Ireland we heard another echo of Aunt Nancy. She had ridden on horseback through the Gap of Dunloe, no difficult feat in itself, and one achieved daily during Kallarney's tourist season by old ladies of various countries and creeds. In Aunt Nancy's case, however, it appeared that she had been able to enjoy that variety which is so gratifying a feature of ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... for the boy, but another got to him ahead of her. A young mountaineer picked up the colored boy and tossed him out through a window. It was not so roughly done that the Overlanders could make a protest, and the young fellow who had performed the feat turned from the window laughing over the neat way he had ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... Bridge, young hero?" cried the amazed king. "How may that be? Have we a Duke Samson among us to do so great a feat?" ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the lines themselves the worst of his playful effusions." The piece suggests that Lamb, in a wild mood, was turning his own "Angel Help" (see page 51) into ridicule—possibly to satisfy some one who dared him to do it, or vowed that such a feat ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... There are no more in the fort, officers, Indians, and all; and Boisrondet says scarcely a dozen rounds of powder and ball to a man. If the Iroquois know this—and why should they not?—'twill be no great feat of arms to batter their way in. I would do that which is right, Adele, ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... daring feat of Pulgar, the emperor Charles V. in after years conferred on that cavalier and on his descendants, the marqueses of Salar, the privilege of sitting in the choir during high mass, and assigned as the place of sepulture of Pulgar himself the identical spot where he kneeled to affix the sacred ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... remarking that in many places the trees grew so thickly together, and the undergrowth between them was so dense, that to accomplish a march through it of three miles between sunrise and sunset of a single day was regarded as a feat worthy of especial note. Not, however, it must be understood, that these conditions uniformly prevailed; very far from it indeed; for there were days when, from circumstances difficult to account for, the going was so comparatively easy that a distance of ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... for a car is the safest mark for a gamin's snowball, so Calumet K, through being a rush job as well as a rich one, offered a particularly advantageous field for Grady's endeavors. Men who were trying to accomplish the impossible feat of completing, at any cost, the great hulk on the river front before the first of January, would not be likely to stop to quibble at paying the five thousand dollars or so that Grady, who, as the business agent of his union was simply in masquerade, would ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... glance for Bud to understand how this seemingly marvelous feat had been accomplished. The quick eyes of Thure had seen the tree, with its sturdy limb thrust out some fifteen feet above the ground, almost directly in the line of his flight; and, swerving a little to one side, so as to pass close to it, and slowing up his ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... a big deed. The Injuns call a great feat a 'coup,' an' an extra big one a 'grand coup.' Sounds like French, an' maybe 'tis, but the Injuns says it. They had a regular way of counting their coup, and for each they had the right to an Eagle feather in their bonnet, with a red tuft of hair on the end for ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... school of Bow-heads had entered. The wind blowing on shore had obliterated the entrance, so the whales were entrapped with apparently no means of escape, yet they all crossed the beach and regained the ocean, a feat they probably could not accomplish to-day. The people watched them as they worked their way over the beach, the large ones making rapid progress while the small ones were ...
— Short Sketches from Oldest America • John Driggs
... Spanish America a brilliant feat of arms brought to the fore its most distinguished soldier. This was Jose de San Martin of La Plata. Like Miranda, he had been an officer in the Spanish army and had returned to his native land an ardent apostle of independence. Quick to realize the fact that, so long as Chile remained under ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... and let her continue it for fifteen minutes, without any variation in the attitude of her arms, or any sign of fatigue,—and then she may go in for a twirling dervish. It is absurd to suppose that any male creature in England could perform the feat. During this twirling, a little black boy marked the time, by beating with two sticks on a ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... folly to be otherwise," finished Rob. "Well, Diogenes and I left here with a boat load of supplies in the way of provender and things for the boys. I had to tie Diogenes in the boat, of course, so he would not try some aquatic feat. He objected and yelled like a fiend all the way. I was glad there was no one at the hotel to come out and arrest me for cruelty to children. Of course before we landed, his cries were heard by his brothers and they were all at the water's ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... on," said Hugh. "I believe I can get up." He braced his feet against one side of the well, and his shoulders against the other, and so, working them alternately, he raised himself inch by inch. It is a feat that requires a good man to perform, and the strain was very great. Grimly he kept at it, and drew nearer and nearer to the top. Then, at last, a hand seized him; half-sick with over-exertion, he struggled out and fell gasping to the ground. ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... and a monsoon rain-storm—it was the month of July, 326 B.C.—Alexander succeeded in crossing some miles higher up into the Karri plain under the low hills of Gujrat. Here, somewhere near the line now occupied by the upper Jhelam Canal, the Greek soldiers gave the first example of a feat often repeated since, the rout of a large and unwieldy Indian army by a small, but mobile and well-led, European force. Having defeated Poros, Alexander crossed the Chenab (Akesines), stormed Sangala, a fort of the Kathaioi on the upper Ravi (Hydraotes) and advanced as far as the Bias (Hyphasis). ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... in Holland and giving out that he had reached the age of seventy-four, though appearing to be only fifty; if this were so, he must have been ninety-seven at the time of his death in 1784 at Schleswig. But this feat of longevity is far from satisfying his modern admirers, who declare that Saint-Germain did not die in 1784, but is still alive to-day in some corner of Eastern Europe. This is in accordance with the theory, said to have been ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... to the station and telegraph would mean quite a feat for Nella-Rose at any time, and winter was in all likelihood already gripping the hills. To write and send a letter might be even more difficult. So Truedale reasoned; so he feverishly waited, but he was not idle. He rented a charming little suite of rooms, ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... in contradistinction to the derivative (as Sarah Clarice once divided people). He seemed never at a loss on any subject soever; and when the passengers were trying feats of skill and physical prowess to pass the time, I saw Mr. Talfourd exhibit marvelous power as a gymnast in performing a feat which no one else would even attempt. His education was all-sided, body and mind, apparently; and, with all, this charm of gentlemanliness,—not very often met with in America. It seems to require more leisure and a deeper culture than ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... with a mist of perplexity in his deep eyes. He realized vaguely that Ham had accomplished a feat somehow savoring of business acumen, which was a matter he could not hope to comprehend. Yet some comment seemed expected of him, so out of a slack interest he inquired, "Were they good lambs, ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... Ceret; and soon afterwards a third, of still greater importance, over the principal Spanish army posted in the vicinity of Collioure. On the western side, moreover, the towns of Fontarabia and Saint Sebastian fell into the hands of the republicans: the latter, partly by feat of arms, and partly by the treachery of some of the notabilities of that place. By these successes the French had obtained a good basis of operations; but they still had to fight desperately for every foot of ground. During the month of October the French general Moncey received the orders ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... will see that this must be hidden! Another monster like The Leader, or Napoleon—perhaps even lesser monsters—could attempt the same feat. But they might be less unstable! They might be able to invade the mind of any human being, anywhere, and drain it of any secret or impress upon it any desire or command, however revolting. You see, Karl, why this must never become known! It must be ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... beach bean beast beat beneath breathe cease cheap cheat clean clear congeal cream crease creature dear deal dream defeat each ear eager easy east eaves feast fear feat grease heap hear heat increase knead lead leaf leak lean least leave meat meal mean neat near peas (pease) peal peace peach please preach reach read reap rear reason repeat scream seam seat season seal speak steam streak stream tea team tear tease teach veal weave weak ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... Scotty observed the latest feat, unconscious as its predecessor, with augmented admiration. "I certainly did," he said, ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... afterward that this was a daring feat, and fraught with awful peril, for in that painful groping in the darkness I might have lost my balance and fallen back into ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... feigned astonishment, pretending humbly to renounce such honour, while increasing his wiles and fascinations; he even went so far as to shed tears, his most difficult feat ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the Gauls, on seeing an attack made on themselves, and that those who came in the way were slaughtered without distinction, had retired within the city. Did that seem to the Romans worthy of a triumph? They should not consider it an extraordinary and wondrous feat to raise a tumult at the enemy's gates, as they should soon see greater confusion before ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... Caroline—and they had "gone together" ever since the time when he first perceived that a "girl" was as necessary to man's estate as a dressy lounge suit and a Homburg hat. He did not like to behave badly to her. And now he had been rewarded. He had achieved the difficult feat mentioned in those articles he so casually read in the train, of keeping one eye on the main chance and the other on the example of Sir Galahad. Now he was still engaged to somebody who took tickets ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... for French depredations on British commerce, and to him Jefferson pleaded entire willingness to discharge in good faith the obligations of a neutral Power. It may seem as if Jefferson was attempting the impossible feat of trying to ride at one time two horses going in opposite directions, but such was his dexterity that in appearance he was largely successful. Meanwhile he contrived to throw on Hamilton and his adherents the blame for the feebleness and inconsistency of national policy. In letters to his Congressional ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... forlorn hope under the icy walls of Quebec, where he was taken prisoner, and at Saratoga with his shrill whistle and stentorian voice called his dauntless braves where the fight was thickest! But Cowpens was Morgan's crowning feat. Inspiring militia and veterans alike with a courage they had never felt before, he routs Tarleton's trained band of horse, and then, skilful in retreat as he had been bold in fight, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... muslins and flower-wreathed hats mingled in a tender rainbow. All were young and pretty, and bathed in summer bloom; but not one had the nymph-like ease of his wife, when, with tense muscles and happy frown, she bent her soul upon some feat of strength. ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... the river, encouraging the others as they swam. When they had got safe across they went to Poplicola, but he was displeased with them because it made him seem more faithless than Porsena, and he feared lest this daring feat of the maidens might be suspected of being a preconcerted plot of the Romans. For these reasons he sent them back to Porsena. Now Tarquin and his party, foreseeing that this would be done, laid an ambush on ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... had been for some time reflecting on the evils of being priest-ridden, has not transpired; enough that he suddenly threw up his heels, pitching the reverend man over his head, and, having accomplished this feat, coolly dropped on his knees and tumbled after ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... into the harbour without warning and without fear, in the very eye of the French artillery, landed his men, and began a siege which resulted, after six weeks, in the reduction of Louisburg. It was a gallant feat of arms, marred only by the fact that a foolish Government declined to take advantage of a colonial victory. Three years later Louisburg was wickedly restored to France in exchange for certain advantages in India, ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... thereabouts) at Cana in Galilee. If I should live so long, I shall take great interest in the announcement of the performance of this operation, say, nine years hence; and, if there is no objection raised by chemical experts, I shall accept the fact that the feat has been performed, without hesitation. But I shall have no more ground for believing the Cana story than I had before; simply because the evidence in its favour will remain, for me, exactly where it is. Possible or impossible, that evidence is worth nothing. To leave ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... examinations by "cramming"; that is, in three or four days and nights he could get into his head enough of a selected fragment of some scientific or philosophical or literary or linguistic subject to reply plausibly to six questions out of ten. He could retain the information necessary for such a feat just long enough to give a successful performance; then it would evaporate utterly from his brain, and leave him undisturbed. George, like his "crowd," not only preferred "being things" to "doing things," but had contented himself with four years of "being things" as a ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... of broom handles. This one, in his hands, caught the lid of a kettle Norah had on the stove and sent it spinning across the room to land with a noisy clatter in the sink. Twaddles privately considered this a distinct feat, but ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... had never missed so much as a barley scon! The cream had always brought her the right quantity of butter! Not even a bannock, so far as she knew, was ever gone from the press, or an egg from the bossie where they lay heaped! There was more in it than she could understand! Her nephew's mighty feat, so far from explaining anything, had only sealed up the mystery. She could not help cherishing a shadowy hope that, when things had grown quiet, he would again reveal his presence by his work, if not by his visible person. It was mortifying to think that he had gone as he came, and she had ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... legs in the ditch on the other side, or to "chance" a post and rails. Many young horses are so reluctant in going at a fence, and in "spreading themselves out," that they are no good except when ridden by a man who can use his legs, which is a feat that a woman ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... or river with a bank of earth or clay to stop the bullets. Big game hunting is done so frequently from canoes that it is well to get practice from a boat, both moving and stationary. To shoot successfully from a sitting position in a canoe is a very difficult feat. Just as with a shot-gun the universal tendency is to shoot too quickly, with a rifle it is to shoot too high. The reason is that we hold our head so high up in looking at our game that we fail to see the rear sight at all. Be sure your head is low ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... glanced across the meadows at the green turrets glistening in the mellow moonlight, and then at the flickering flames around the castle walls, and he resolved that on the morrow he would at all hazards perform the perilous feat. ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... Commodore said, "I haven't had the opportunity to congratulate you on your Kraden. That was quite a feat, Captain." ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... bow has been my comrade, I have trained myself to archery; oft Have I took the bull's-eye, many a prize Brought home from merry shooting; but today I will perform my master-feat, and win me The best prize in the ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... on him!" quoth false Sextus, "Will not the villain drown? But for this stay, ere close of day We should have sacked the town!" "Heaven help him!" quoth Lars Porsena, 530 "And bring him safe to shore; For such a gallant feat of arms Was never ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... should live her illusions and dreams. Her mind was a storehouse of folklore, romance, poetry and religion; her rationalistic readings had not in any way become part of her, though facts and ratiocinations, by mere feat of memory, were stored in her mind as irrelevances and unrealities that came elbowing their way through her dreams just as fantastic thoughts come as ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... character of Millbank, made the authorities not over anxious to visit with penalties a breach of observance which, in the case of the only proved offender, had been attended with such impressive consequences. The feat of Coningsby was extolled by all as an act of high gallantry and skill. It confirmed and increased the great ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... owl—every body roars laughing, the idea is so exquisitely comical. Another pulls his comrades by the hair, and every body shouts with uproarious merriment. One sly chap shoves another off his seat and takes possession of it—a feat so humorous that the whole crowd is convulsed. A bad orange, pitched across the deck, strikes an elderly gentleman on the bald pate—well, I had to laugh at that myself. By-and-by, a stout, florid young gentleman turns pale and groans; three or four officious friends, with twinkling eyes, seize him ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... awkward manipulators. Thomas, in Sex and Society, answers this well: "The awkwardness in manual manipulation shown by these girls was surely due to lack of practice. The fastest type-writer in the world is to-day a woman; the record for roping steers (a feat depending on manual dexterity rather than physical force) is held by a woman." I may add to this an example of my own observation. In a recent International Fly and Bait Casting Tournament, held at the Crystal Palace, a woman was among the competitors, and gave an admirable exhibition of skill ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... at a pace which gave the captain every opportunity of overtaking them. The feat would not have been beyond the powers of an athletic tortoise, but the most careful scrutiny failed to reveal any ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... were the defensive capacities of the city of New Bern. It was immediately foreseen that this important place would be next assailed, and with enough troops it would have been an easy feat to have held it indefinitely, but whether its value as a strategic point would have justified such a defence may be doubted. The Confederate authorities entrusted its defence to General L. O'B. Branch, who had no experience in military affairs, ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... doing so Mr. Fogo performed the common feat of leaping out of the frying-pan into the fire. For it happened that on the other side a tramp was engaged in his legitimate occupation of sleeping under a hedge, and on his extended body our ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... there are two others to be noticed. One is the pleasure in an action very difficult and perilous and, therefore, intensely exciting. This action sets all his powers on the strain. He feels the delight of one who executes successfully a feat thoroughly congenial to his special aptitude, and only just within his compass; and, as he is fearless by nature, the fact that a single slip will cost him his life only increases his pleasure. His exhilaration breaks out in the ghastly words with which he greets the sunrise after ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... side-saddle. A female cousin of my father's several times made journeys of from one to two hundred miles on horseback, and on one occasion she carried her infant son for a hundred and fifty miles, a feat the women of to-day ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... This feat of skillful archery on the part of the page called forth no shout, nor even a word of applause, from the partial group of flatterers, who had so loudly commended the Atheling's less successful shots. Their silence, however, was best pleasing to the modest Wilfrid, who, without so much ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... blows were delivered with great force. Frequently one of the combatants was knocked down with a single blow; and one gigantic fellow hit his adversary so severely that he drove the skin entirely off his forehead. This feat was hailed with immense ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... enormous masses of stone from their quarry, which is several miles distant, with a deep valley and river intervening, would trouble the modern engineer; but to poise and place them on the top of the columns, seventy feet from the ground, with our mechanical means, were indeed a great feat. The columns were not of single pieces, but composed of several, and they now lie, to use an unpoetical phrase, like rows of enormous cheeses. The great temple was three hundred and thirty-four feet long, one hundred and fifty-four wide; its porticoes at each end were ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... amount of that familiar and intermittent hospitality which a few weeks spent in the French provinces teaches you to regard as the highest attainable form of accommodation. Such an economy I was unable to practise. I could only go to Blois (from Tours) to spend the day; but this feat I accomplished twice over. It is a very sympathetic little town, as we say nowadays, and a week there would be sociable even without company. Seated on the north bank of the Loire, it presents a bright, clean face to the sun and has that aspect of ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... finally venture, and both come through without noteworthy misadventure. The khan's wild hilarity and ribaldish jeers at the expense of his two subordinates, as he stands on the solid foundation of a feat happily already accomplished and surveys their trepidation, and hears their prayers as they are pulled like human dinghies through the water, is in such ludicrous contrast to his own prayerful utterances under the same circumstances a minute before that my own risibilities ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... herself, a dangerous feat in a canoe at any time, but doubly so in those dark, swirling, ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... though he managed to procure a share of enjoyment, which is the privilege of youth and high spirits. There are many anecdotes told of him at this time. On one occasion he swam across the harbour at Halifax, a feat which, in the circumstances, I have heard described with great admiration. On another, a lady giving a ball and wishing to prolong the pleasures of the evening, consulted Lieutenant Yorke as to the best ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... do the feat of valour, will not bring disgrace and stain, Nor is task in all this wide earth which ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... through her wit *Couth all the feat* of wifely homeliness, *knew all the duties* But eke, when that the case required it, The common profit coulde she redress: There n'as discord, rancour, nor heaviness In all the land, that she could not appease, And wisely bring them ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... was not bound by the rules of Induction, but by those of Hypothesis. And these last have seldom been more completely fulfilled. He has opened a path of inquiry full of promise, the results of which none can foresee. And is it not a wonderful feat of scientific knowledge and ingenuity to have rendered so bold a suggestion, which the first impulse of every one was to reject at once, admissible and ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... requested to remember that it is a common custom in America to name a horse according to the time in which he can trot a mile. The boy evidently had a visionary idea in his mind that the little hack he was asking permission to ride, had accomplished the feat of trotting a mile in ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... presence of Cosmo III., Grand Duke of Florence, in so short a space of time as caused him to exclaim in wonder, "You are fit to be the painter of a sovereign prince." The same eulogium, under similar circumstances, was passed upon him by Charles II. A similar feat at Naples, had previously won the admiration and approbation of the Viceroy, the Marquess de Heliche, and laid the foundation of his fortune. It became the fashion, to admire everything that came from his prolific pencil, at Madrid, as well as at Naples. Everywhere, his works, good or bad, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... that even the arms and legs are called into requisition when a tenor sings his highest tone as forcibly as possible, though this is often overdone in a way to be condemned. Art should not be reduced to a gymnastic feat. ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... startled her companion more than once by wild threats of swimming the Gouliot, which is a foolhardy feat even for a man, for the dark passage is rarely free from coiling undercurrents, which play with a man as though he were no more than a piece of seaweed, and try even a strong swimmer's nerve and strength. And when ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... at liberty, she induced the frankly unwilling proprietor of the Cliff Hotel—the only hotel of any pretension to which Monkshaven could lay claim—to take him into his employment as an odd-job man. How she accomplished this feat it is impossible to say, but the fact remains that she did accomplish it, and perhaps Jane Crab delved to the root of the matter in the terse comment which the circumstances elicited from her: "Miss Tennant has a way with her that 'ud make they stone sphinxes gallop round the desert if so be she'd ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... execution of Herr VON POPOFF and myself, when my talented assistant gently placed his hand upon the head of the swarthy and irate Sovereign, and by a clever pass produced an egg. This amused and amazed the Sultan immensely, and his Sheriffian Majesty desired that the feat should be repeated. This request received immediate practical acquiescence as the wonderworker deliberately extracted eggs from the Sultan's arms, legs, and whiskers. Having obtained some dozen eggs by this means, Herr ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... as to form a hole through which an arrow could pass. (See Tsountas and Manatt, The Mycenaean Age.) Axes of this type were not known to Cowper, and hence the hypothesis in his text. He realised correctly the essential conditions of the feat proposed: the axes must have been set up, one behind the other, in the way he suggested for ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... being an actor, and why, after the end, should she have added an end, in which she returned to own that she had been fibbing? For that was what it came to; and though Verrian tasted a delicious pleasure in the womanish feat by which she overcame her womanishness, he could not puzzle out her motive. He was not sure that he wished to puzzle it out. To remain with illimitable guesses at his choice was more agreeable, for the present at least, and he was not aware of having lapsed from ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... doing this feat well is increased by seeing how watchfully those who are already berthed will eye the stranger, often speaking by their looks, and always feeling "hope he won't come too near me;" while the penalty on failure in the proceeding is heavy and sharp, a smash of your spars, a ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... no wonderful feat for Frank to make straight for the spot where the loud voice came from. He had located it; and even when Joe ceased calling for a minute or two, Frank was able ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... who achieved for French poetry what I am told the so-called decadent philosopher Nietzsche has done for German prose. Unfortunately I do not know German, and it seems almost impossible to add to the German language. But Nietzsche, I am assured by competent authorities, has performed a similar feat to that of Luther on ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... can see poor little Pepper now, as he stood without flinching, waiting for me to perform my great feat. I raised the crossbow amid the breathless silence of the crowded audience—consisting of seven boys and three girls, exclusive of Kitty Collins, who insisted on paying her way in with a clothespin. I ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... I guessed the distance and my shot fell just below the mark. Then I raised the hind sight of my Winchester a notch and the next shot shattered the stone to pieces. At this the Indians went wild. They had thought it impossible for any man to perform this feat of marksmanship, and were most enthusiastic in the profession of their admiration. Gladly would they have adopted me into their tribe as a great chief or medicine man had I wished to ally myself to them. There was the opportunity of a lifetime, but ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... and taken to Windsor. The inn where the king partook of refreshments that day had its sign changed to the White Hart. It was at Bisterne, below Ringwood, that Madonie of Berkeley Castle slew the dragon, for which feat King Edward IV. knighted him—a tale that the incredulous will find confirmed by the deed still preserved in Berkeley Castle which records the event, confers the knighthood, and gives him permission to wear the ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... emergency, but to do so she must remove her hand from the steering wheel, where it was very fully occupied. She did start to put this impulse into effect, but an unusually violent deflection caused her to reconsider that intention. She determined to use the foot brake, a feat which was accomplished, under normal conditions, by pressing one foot firmly against a contraption somewhere beneath the steering post. She shot a quick glance downward, and to her alarm discovered not one, but three contraptions, all apparently designed to receive the pressure of a foot—if ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... he became more agitated "I make no question but your villains will receive you with open arms. What guarantee have we, Mister Gascoyne, or Mister Durward, that we shall not be seized and made to walk the plank, or perform some similarly fantastic feat—in which, mayhap, our feet will have less to do with the performance than our necks—when you get ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... performed, by breaking a hole in the ice and immersing a cross with certain religious rites, he should plunge into the hole as soon as possible after the ceremony. I remember once at Yaroslavl, on the Volga, two young peasants successfully accomplished this feat—though the police have orders to prevent it—and escaped, apparently without evil consequences, though the Fahrenheit thermometer was below zero. How far the custom has really a purifying influence, is a question which must be left to theologians; ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... still lived! And they all exhibited their astonishment, and slapped their thighs. There was a fellow who lasted! Madame Lorilleux reckoned up the hours; thirty-six hours and twenty-four hours, sixty hours. Sacre Dieu! already sixty hours that he had been doing the jig and screaming! Such a feat of strength had never been seen before. But Boche, who was upset that he had lost the bet, questioned Gervaise with an air of doubt, asking her if she was quite sure he had not filed off behind her back. Oh! no, he had no desire ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... not. The institution of which I am about to speak is not easily described or executed; and would be like the legislator 'combing wool into the fire,' as people say, or performing any other impossible and useless feat. ...
— Laws • Plato
... imagination, or, as he pronounced it, im-madge-i-na-shun, with a volume of sound which filled a large building and made the quality he named seem the biggest thing in the universe. That in my experience was his loftiest oratorical feat; but I think the old shepherd rose to a greater height when, after a long pause during which he filled his lungs with air, he brought forth the tremendous word, dragging it out gratingly, so as to illustrate the sense in ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... to that gymnastic feat He no closer might compete Than to strike a BALANCE-sheet In a book; Yet thenceforward from that day He his figure would display In some wild ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... talk" came wholly, astonishingly, from one side of his mouth—the left side. As a muscular feat it was a triumph. A deaf person on his right side would not have known he was speaking. The effect was secretive, extraordinarily confidential; enabling him to sell sprinklers, it ought to have ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... house ever built with hands was strong enough to hold, was better skilled at breaking out than at breaking in, and it is remarkable that his last feat in the cracking of cribs was also his greatest. Its very conception was a masterpiece of effrontery. Drury Lane was the thief-catcher's chosen territory; yet it was the Four Balls that Jack designed for ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... this monstrous request, "I do not think it would be expedient," was highly commendable as a feat of Ministerial restraint. But the gloom that has settled on him is only too solidly grounded. These afflicted Members are out to raise a sentimental public opinion in support of their silly demand. Then, of course, the Government ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... training, physical, intellectual, and moral, which made their bodies and their minds able to dare and suffer like those old heroes of whom their tragedy had taught them, and whose spirits they still believed would help the valiant Greek. And yet that feat, which looks to us so splendid, attracted, as far as I am aware, no special admiration at the time. So was the cultivated Greek expected to behave whenever he came in ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... time just then to marvel at the strange feat which had been performed by the giant. He was lost in amazement at the ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... and yet will not depart!— Is with me still, yet I from him exiled! 35 For still there lives within my secret heart The magic image of the magic Child, Which there he made up-grow by his strong art, As in that crystal[458:1] orb—wise Merlin's feat,— The wondrous 'World of Glass,' wherein inisled 40 All long'd-for things their beings did repeat;— And there he left it, like a Sylph beguiled, To live and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the cessation of the absolute necessity for exertion the power for exertion ceased also. Worn out, silent, exhausted, and almost despairing, the army of Hannibal presented the appearance of one which had suffered a terrible defeat, rather than that of a body of men who had accomplished a feat of arms unrivalled in the ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... Elmsdale had effected this feat; entries there were in his books, intelligible enough, perhaps, to the man who made them, but as so much ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... dangerous passage, even for a skilled oarsman, through the Gorge of the Grey River. In times of flood no man who laid claims to sanity would attempt the feat; but, even when the river is low and flows quietly if swiftly, there are rocks and snags that obstruct the passage. To strike one of these would mean a ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... wilt, enchantment fleet, I leave thy covert haunt untrod, And envy Science not her feat To make a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell |
