"Workmanship" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Professor," cried Mostyn, his eyes sparkling with an almost boyish interest. "Mr. Cavanagh here holds the keys of the case, under the will of the late Professor Deeping. They are of foreign workmanship and more than a ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... speaking of the Egyptians, he says: "At their convivial banquets, among the wealthy classes, when they have finished supper, a man carries round in a coffin the image of a dead body carved in wood, made as life-like as possible in color and workmanship, and in size generally about one or two cubits in length; and showing this to each of the company, he says: 'Look upon this, then drink and enjoy yourself; for when dead you will be like this.' This is the practice ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... our modern civilization, so generally regard as little less than barbarian, should have long preceded Christian Europe in the systematic employment of great artificial basins for the various purposes they are calculated to subserve. The ancient Peruvians built strong walls, of excellent workmanship, across the channels of the mountain sources of important streams, and the Arabs executed immense works of similar description, both in the great Arabian peninsula and in all the provinces of Spain which had the good fortune to fall under their sway. The Spaniards of the fifteenth and sixteenth ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... fireplaces. Of these things she saw no examples; but on the large desk, littered with a profusion of books and pipes and papers, her glance was arrested by the sight of several candlesticks of various sizes and of beautiful workmanship. She was struck by this as by a psychological singularity, and counted the number—four on the table and three others on the mantel, seven in all, the number freighted with so many religious associations. She wondered whether there were some astronomical association also. Were there seven ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... taken more than a casual interest in the form and feature of women. He had looked on beautiful faces and had admired them in a cool, dispassionate way, judging them—when he judged at all—as he might have judged the more material workmanship of his own hands. But this face that was framed for a few brief moments in the door reached out to him and stirred an interest within him which was as new as it was pleasurable. It was a beautiful face. He knew that in a fraction of the first second. It was not white, as he had first seen it ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... from town to town in his boat. Then note specially "the cunning man who came to my father's house, showing a golden necklace strung with amber beads;" this amber was obtained doubtless through commerce from the Baltic, by the Phoenicians, whose workmanship is also suggested. "The palace servants and my mother took the trinket into their hands, turning it over and over; they kept gazing at it haggling about the price;" the same scene can be witnessed today in our own country towns when the Jewish peddler ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... by Court, of "The Death of Caesar," is remarkable for effect and excellent workmanship: and the head of Brutus (who looks like Armand Carrel) is full of energy. There are some beautiful heads of women, and some very good color in the picture. Jacquand's "Death of Adelaide de Comminges" is neither ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with it that spice of devilry, so delicious to humanity that without it even Christian Examiners cannot be made to sell themselves. He was very busy with his two dozen damp copies before him,—two dozen which had been sent to him, by agreement, as the price of his workmanship. He made them up and directed them with his own hand. To the lion and the lamb he sent two copies, two to each. To Mr Slow he sent a copy, and another to Messrs Slow and Bideawhile, and a third to the other lawyer. He sent a copy to Lady Ball and one to Sir John. Another ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... also of his human nature, the law hath nothing to do with that; for that is the workmanship of God, and is as good, as pure, as holy and undefiled, as is the law itself. All then that the law hath to do with, is to exact complete obedience of him that is made under it, and a due satisfaction for the breach thereof, the which, if it ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Master Nevile. I interrupt thee not when thou talkest of bassinets and hauberks,—every cobbler to his last. But, as thou sayest, to the point: the stout earl, while scanning my workmanship, for in much the chevesail was mine, was pleased to speak graciously of my skill with the bow, of which he had heard; and he then turned to thyself, of whom my Lord Montagu had already made disparaging mention. When I told the earl somewhat ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... footsteps toward the Hat Ranch the memory of that loving lie brought the laggard tears at last, and she wept aloud. In her agony she was conscious of a feeling of gratitude to the Almighty for His perfect workmanship in fashioning a man who was not one of ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... immediately, bore the stamp of the "Vega." On a sort of table formed from the shoulder-blade of some animal and supported by four thigh bones, lay some crumbs of ship's biscuit, a pewter goblet, and a wooden spoon of Swedish workmanship. ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... and with its Saracenic ornament and its "lace work in stone" is beyond all compare. The royal palace of the Alcazar, designed by Moorish architects, rivalled the Alhambra, and was filled with the finest workmanship of Grenada. There were one hundred and forty churches, of which many had been mosques, and were laden with the exquisite ornaments of their original builders. Such a city was sure to stimulate artists and be their ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... latitude. I observed in a former chapter, that the great occupation of the inhabitants of Geneva consists in the manufacture of watches, clocks, &c. and having a desire to see some specimens of their workmanship, I accompanied a friend, who had purchased a musical snuff-box, to the workshop of its fabricator, who although he was of the first celebrity in Geneva, had no warehouse in a more accessible situation ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... had small shields of raw ox-hide, and each man carried two hunting-spears of Lykian workmanship. 74 On their heads they wore helmets of bronze, and to the helmets the ears and horns of an ox were attached, in bronze, and upon them also there were crests; and the lower part of their legs was wrapped round with red-coloured strips of cloth. ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... mistaken," answered Pittacus. "I should be delighted to own so beautiful a piece of workmanship, but I ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... sumptuousnesse, the straunge inuention, the rare performance, and exquisite diligence of the woorkeman. With what art inuented? with what power, humaine force, and incredible meanes, enuying (if I may speake it) the workmanship of the heauens, such and so mightie weights should be transported and carryed into the skyes? with what Cranes, winding beames, Trocles, round pullies, Capres bearing out deuices, and Poliplasies, and drawing frames, and roped tryces, ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... other crosses, including, it was said, portions of those of Coventry and Canterbury; and it must have been of extraordinary beauty, for Elias Ashmole, who was likely to know, declared that it was not inferior in workmanship and design to any other in England. The cross was restored in 1605, but when the army of the Parliament occupied the town in 1644, it was "sawed down" by General Waller as "a superstitious edifice." The Chamberlain's Accounts for that year contained an entry of money paid "to Edward Hucks ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... He set a high value upon Browne, to whose style his own, though far more sententious, bears a resemblance. Browne's saying, for example, "All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God," sounds like Emerson, whose workmanship, for the rest, in his prose essays was exceedingly fine and close. He was not afraid to be homely and racy in expressing thought of the highest spirituality. "Hitch your wagon to a star" is a good instance of his ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... spear, the star or asterisk, and the spoon for the administration of the chalice as the sacrament is received by the laity under both kinds. It may naturally be supposed that such sacred objects would be the subjects of high artistic workmanship. The paten itself is often elaborately enamelled and otherwise decorated, whereas in the western church the rubrics require it ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... you think of the coffin?" Saul said this eyeing it as if he were critically considering it as a piece of workmanship. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... E.F. BENSON. 'A genuinely fine novel; a story marked by powerful workmanship and glowing with ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... to Kabwabwata, and I hope I may find a way to other underground houses. It is probable that they are not the workmanship of the ancestors of the present occupants, for they ascribe their formation invariably to the Deity, Mulungu or Reza: if their forefathers had made them, some tradition would ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... and their massive marble door- and window-frames increased the impression of gloom. But here and there a portal more ornate, with treble-twisted cords deeply carved, or a window of fourteenth century workmanship relieved the severity of the lines; while in this short arcade, where the houses rose but a storey in height above the square pillars which supported the overhanging fronts, these unexpected columns of rosy marble, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... cannot say why they were made, and others which are apparently good and useful, tell me, my friend, whether of the two you rather take to be the work of prudence than of hazard." "It is reasonable," said Aristodemus, "to believe that the things which are good and useful are the workmanship of reason and judgment." "Do not you think then," replied Socrates, "that the first Former of mankind designed their advantage when he gave them the several senses by which objects are apprehended; eyes for things visible, and ears for ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... a sufficient number of modern war ships and of their necessary armament should progress as rapidly as is consistent with care and perfection in plans and workmanship. The spirit, courage, and skill of our naval officers and seamen have many times in our history given to weak ships and inefficient guns a rating greatly beyond that of the naval list. That they will again do so upon occasion I do not doubt; but ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... church is dedicated. He holds the crucifix and the book of rules. He is draped in the ordinary Franciscan habit, which falls round his feet, giving a stiffness to the figure as seen in profile, and making him appear rather short when seen from the front. The workmanship is good, the hands, with lightly shown stigmata, being excellent; but the lack of distinction in the figure makes one look more closely at the head, which is modelled with great power and freedom, showing that Donatello ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... some moments was furnished with a luxury of which he had heretofore had no idea; superb old paintings, magnificent porcelains, curiosities in goldsmith's work, of the most costly nature, incumbered the furniture, as valuable on account of its material as for its workmanship; a lute and a theorbo, whose ornaments of ivory and gold were of a finish most uncommon in carving, attracted the attention of Croustillac, who was delighted to think that his future ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... not gone through the customs. It had not even been opened. But Emma McChesney heeded not trifles like that. Rio de Janeiro had fallen for Featherlooms. Those three samples, Nos. 79, 65, and 48, that boasted style, cut, and workmanship never before seen in Rio, had turned the trick. They were as a taste of blood to a hungry lion. Rio ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... after a warm day. I sat beside the stove mending harness, while Aline criticized the workmanship and waxed the twine for me. The last mail had brought good news from Harry, and I felt in unusual spirits as I passed the awl through the leather, until there was a creak of wagon wheels outside, followed by a pounding ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... his attention was suddenly attracted by an object in one corner of the room which he was unable to distinguish clearly in the dim light. Upon going over to examine it more closely, what was his astonishment to see a large crucifix of exquisite design and workmanship. As he turned towards Mr. Britton the latter smiled to see the ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... medals, but the really striking piece in the room is "Proximus Tuus" (162), the weary peasant, by Achille D'Orsi. Of the few paintings nothing is very remarkable, though Bazzani's "Arch of Septimus Severus" (3) is interesting for its workmanship. ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... hall of the temple is sixty feet square, and is adorned with much curious workmanship of gilding and of silvering, so that no place can be more excellently beautiful. There are two gates in front of it. The first is called the Gate of the Spirits of the Wind and of the Thunder, and is adorned with figures of those two gods. The Wind-god, whose likeness is that of a devil, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... time it must be admitted that this Darracq motor is a marvel of ingenuity and exquisite workmanship. The two cylinders, having a bore of 5 1-10 inches and a stroke of 4 7-10 inches, are machined out of a solid bar of steel until their weight is only 8 4-5 pounds complete. The head is separate, carrying the seatings for the inlet and exhaust ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... what she made fair more fair to view. Now that your learned hand with labour new Of pen and ink a worthier work hath done, What erst you lacked, what still remained her own, The power of giving life, is gained for you. If men in any age with Nature vied In beauteous workmanship, they had to yield When to the fated end years brought their name. You, reilluming memories that died, In spite of Time and Nature have revealed For them ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... himselfe diuers other shapes and proportions, according to the nature and site of the earth, which may appeare more quaint and strange then these which are in our common vse, albeit these are in the truth of workmanship the perfect father and mother ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... own flow of harmony. She is the possessor of some very rare and interesting foreign instruments; among this collection is a Hawaiian guitar, the tiniest of stringed instruments, and also one of curious Portuguese workmanship. ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... hundred feet. Three large rocks loomed up on the ledge opposite; they resembled three upright giants, standing motionless side by side on the extreme edge of the chasm. Corpang and Maskull drew nearer, and then Maskull saw that they were statues. Each was about thirty feet high, and the workmanship was of the rudest. They represented naked men, but the limbs and trunks had been barely chipped into shape—the faces alone had had care bestowed on them, and even these faces were merely generalised. It was obviously ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... suffering, but with all thy innocence, All thy accustomed gaiety of heart, And all thy deep, quick sensibilities! Those gems of virtue, which concentre still In narrow limits, stores of moral wealth Beyond all estimate—whose value known, The dealer sells his other merchandize; His ivory and curious workmanship, The silkworm's product and the cloth of gold, To purchase that imperishable store, More highly prized than all!—Possessing all The properties, most precious of the rest, In a superior measure and degree, Without alloy, ...
— Vignettes in Verse • Matilda Betham
... storm of comment; there were camps that took just the stand Mr. Walter takes in the opening quotation. But the play is included in this collection because its power, as a documentary report of a phase of American stage life, is undeniable; because, as a piece of workmanship, shorn of the usual devices called theatrical, it comes down to the raw bone of the theme, and firmly progresses to its great climax,—great in the sense of overpowering,—at the very fall of ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... occupied with buildings and other public works calculated to adorn and benefit his kingdom. He himself planned the remarkable cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle and showed the greatest interest in its furnishings. He commenced two palaces of beautiful workmanship, one near Mayence and the other at Nimwegen, in Holland, and had a long bridge constructed across the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... period. Torques, or twisted ribbons of gold, of varying size and shape, were worn as diadems, collars, or even belts; crescent bands of finely embossed sheet-gold were worn above the forehead; brooches and pins of most delicate and imaginative workmanship were used to catch together the folds of richly colored cloaks, and rings and bracelets were of not less various ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... thereof 740 Consists in mutual and partak'n bliss, Unsavoury in th'injoyment of it self If you let slip time, like a neglected rose It withers on the stalk with languish't head. Beauty is natures brag, and must be shown In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities Where most may wonder at the workmanship; It is for homely features to keep home, They had their name thence; course complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply 750 The sampler, and to teize the huswifes wooll. What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the Morn? ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... think Blanco White's sonnet difficult to overrate in thought—probably in this respect unsurpassable, but easy to overrate as regards its workmanship. Of course there is the one fatally ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... not sufficiently admire the beauty and fragrance of the flowers and fruit, or the exquisite workmanship of the vases they had brought. What struck us most was the lovely iridescence which they all displayed in different lights. The vases in particular seemed to be carved out of living opals, yet each was large enough to contain several pints of liquor. Miss Carmichael decorated the dinner-table ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... that is a "tale of other years."—In my conscience I believe that my heart has been so oft on fire that it is absolutely vitrified. I look on the sex with something like the admiration with which I regard the starry sky in a frosty December night. I admire the beauty of the Creator's workmanship; I am charmed with the wild but graceful eccentricity of their motions, and—wish them good night. I mean this with respect to a certain passion dont j'ai eu l'honneur d'etre un miserable esclave: as for friendship, you and Charlotte have given me pleasure, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... out upon the unpaved street, then dragged me through an open doorway, across a narrow court filled with blooming plants, and into a lighted room furnished with rich hangings, and chairs, tables, and cabinets of fine workmanship. ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... to the ultimate purpose of national life, is that she should bring up her people to a higher standard of human excellence, to a finer type than others. There are English types well recognised. Fifty years ago the standard of British workmanship was the acknowledged mark of excellence in the industrial world, while it has been pointed out in an earlier chapter that the English standards, of character displayed in conduct, described in one aspect by the word "gentleman," and in another by the expression "fair-play," form the best part ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... fared no better. I was one time extolling the character of a statesman, and expatiating on the skill required to direct the different currents, reconcile the jarring interests, etc. "Thus," replies he, "a mill is a complicated piece of mechanism enough, but the water is no part of the workmanship." On another occasion, when some one lamented the weakness of a then present minister, and complained that he was dull and tardy, and knew little of affairs: "You may as well complain, sir," says Johnson, "that the accounts of time ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... very odd mug to look at. The handle was formed of two wreaths of flowing golden hair, so finely spun that it looked more like silk than metal, and these wreaths descended into, and mixed with, a beard and whiskers of the same exquisite workmanship, which surrounded and decorated a very fierce little face, of the reddest gold imaginable, right in the front of the mug, with a pair of eyes in it which seemed to command its whole circumference. It was impossible to drink out of the mug without being subjected to an intense gaze out of the side ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... five hundred and forty times for the exquisite piece of workmanship which was brought into the room this morning, while we were at breakfast, with some very inferior works of art in the same way, and which I read with high glee, much delighted with everything it told, whether good or bad. It is so rich ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... the coat up to the electric and examined it closely; the workmanship, the trimmings. It was not tailor-made, she decided, and by all the little signs and tokens it was quite new. And the same was true of the other garments. But there was no tag or trade-mark on any of them to show ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... Clad was the king in other goodly mail; Yet not like that first panoply secure: But neither this, nor that, nor harder scale Could Balisarda's deadly dint endure; Against which neither workmanship avail, Enchantment, temper, nor prime steel and pure. So here so there Rogero plied his sword, He more than once the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... the privilege of citizenship, under the special understanding that he was not to quit Florence. His designs being approved of, the republic passed a decree in the spring of 1334, that the Campanile should be built so as to exceed in magnificence, height, and excellence of workmanship whatever in that time had been achieved by the Greeks and Romans in the time of their utmost power and greatness. The first stone was laid, accordingly, with great pomp, on the 18th of July following, and the work prosecuted with vigor, and with ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... gold-leaf, so that it glittered and was an enticing sight; and the dish was of gold, crusted over with devices and patterns, and heads of golden monsters, a ravishment of skill in him that executed it, cumbrous with ornate golden workmanship; likewise there were places round the dish for sticks of perfume and cups carved for the storing of perfumed pellets, and into these Noorna put myrrh and ambergris and rich incenses, aloes, sandalwood, prepared essences, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... it must be recollected, are all north of Mexico, or the region of the more perfect monuments of Mexican and Central America, although often in the same style. There, as in South America, structures are met of the most elaborate workmanship, of cut and carved stones, with hard cement, vaulted arches, fine sculptures and even inscriptions. The materials of our Northern monuments are often ruder, chiefly of earth, clay, gravel, small stones, or even shells near the sea-shores, sometimes of pize ...
— The Ancient Monuments of North and South America, 2nd ed. • C. S. Rafinesque
... Federal Government had been taxed to bring it to the highest possible state of efficiency. The artillery was numerous, and of the most approved description; small-arms of the best patterns and workmanship were profusely supplied; the ammunition was of the finest quality, and almost inexhaustible in quantity; and the rations for the subsistence of the troops, which were equally excellent and abundant, were brought up in an unfailing stream from the White House, in ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... tributes from the jewellers' shops, all of which betokened her admirer's taste and wealth. As for "tickers," as poor Rawdon called watches, her apartments were alive with their clicking. For, happening to mention one night that hers, which Rawdon had given to her, was of English workmanship, and went ill, on the very next morning there came to her a little bijou marked Leroy, with a chain and cover charmingly set with turquoises, and another signed Brequet, which was covered with pearls, and yet scarcely bigger than a ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... $9.50 per dozen, foreign valuation, represents a fair breaking point for customs purposes between lower-grade hats competing on a price basis and hats of superior material and workmanship competing on a ...
— Men's Sewed Straw Hats - Report of the United Stated Tariff Commission to the - President of the United States (1926) • United States Tariff Commission
... no morbid obsession. He seems to be dominated by sympathy in its literal meaning, and it gives his work a surprising richness of texture.... I dare press this book upon all such as need something more than mere yarns, who have an eye for admirably sincere workmanship and are interested in their fellows—fellows of all sorts, soldiers, keepers, travellers, clergymen, colliers, with womenfolk ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... the rest, the prices of all things made of gold and silver. An ounce of manufactured gold will become more valuable than an ounce of gold coin, by more than that customary difference which compensates for the value of the workmanship; and it will be profitable to melt the coin for the purpose of being manufactured, until as much has been taken from the currency by the subtraction of gold as had been added to it by the issue of paper. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... had believed in them, and they had not believed in themselves, but they speedily learned self-respect and gained the respect of others. They did what was asked of them, earned most of their support, showed good workmanship and scholarship, were blameless in morals, caught the spirit of the place, and went out to carry light into the dark places. No holiday task was set them. There was a working day of twelve hours, between ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... of the powerful Goths. He immediately demanded, tho in civil language, all the gold and silver in her possession; and was astonished at the readiness with which she conducted him to a splendid hoard of massy plate of the richest materials and the most curious workmanship. The Barbarian viewed with wonder and delight this valuable acquisition, till he was interrupted by a serious admonition addrest to him in the following words: "These," said she, "are the consecrated vessels belonging to St. Peter; if you presume to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... porphyry, lapis-lazuli, chalcedony, agate, to all the finer and more expensive gems which shone in Aaron's ephod. When one considers that an ear-ring or a brooch, half an inch long, of Florentine mosaic work, costs five or six dollars, and that here is a great church of the same material and workmanship as a breastpin, one may imagine it to have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... live noble and blessed! Keep well thy widespread fame, and be a friend to my sons in time to come, should they ever need a protector." Then she gave him two golden armlets, set with jewels, costly rings, a corslet of chain-mail and a wonderful jewelled collar of exquisite ancient workmanship, and, bidding them continue their feasting, with her maidens she left the hall. The feast went on till Hrothgar also departed to his dwelling, and left the Danes, now secure and careless, to prepare their beds, place each warrior's shield ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... removed the outer wrappings which enclosed what Lycidas had sent, and drew forth a store of goodly gifts, selected with exquisite taste—graceful ornaments, embroidery in gold, the lamp of delicate workmanship, the mirror of polished steel. Anna could not forbear uttering exclamations of admiration; but Hadassah and her grand-daughter looked on in grave silence, until a scroll was handed to the former, which ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... same altar. And as the altar stands out by itself, the sides are decorated with small representations in bas-relief from the life of St Donato, and the work is crowned with a series of niches, full of marble figures in relief, of exquisite workmanship. On the Madonna's breast is an ornament shaped like a gold casket, containing, if report be true, jewels of great value, although it is believed that they, as well as some other small figures on the top and about the ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... of greater imaginative impulse than Emerson or Thoreau. He was not a greater poet possibly than they—but a greater artist. Not only the character of his substance, but the care in his manner throws his workmanship, in contrast to theirs, into a kind of bas-relief. Like Poe he quite naturally and unconsciously reaches out over his subject to his reader. His mesmerism seeks to mesmerize us—beyond Zenobia's sister. But he is too great an artist to ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... c, d, c, d, c, d; (3) c, d, e, d, c, e. All of these rime-schemes alike were intended, by their constant repetition and interlocking of the same rimes, to give the whole poem an air of exquisite workmanship, like that of a finely modeled vase. Here is an English sonnet of Milton's, imitating the form of Petrarch's and ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... all her life, as both the Grecian and Persian women affirm. On a time a neck-lace was sent as a present to Cyrus from Scopas the younger, which had been sent to Scopas out of Sicily. The neck-lace was of extraordinary workmanship, and variety. All therefore to whom Cyrus shewed it admiring it, he was much taken with the jewel, and went immediately to Aspasia, it being about noon, finding her asleep, he lay down gently by her watching quietly while she slept. As soon as she awaked, and saw Cyrus she ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... of workmanship and finish of these infernal machines was interesting. The forty-pounders and twenty-pounders looked like miniature torpedoes, with slightly bulb-shaped bodies and tapering rounded noses, with a tiny three-bladed propeller for a tail and a steel ring to serve ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... but to open on A range or suite of further chambers, which Might lead to Heaven knows where; but in this one The moveables were prodigally rich: Sofas 't was half a sin to sit upon, So costly were they; carpets every stitch Of workmanship so rare, they made you wish You could glide o'er them like a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... older bishop's throne, erected by Dean Lloyd late in the eighteenth century, "in resemblance to ancient Gothic workmanship," was removed from the south-east pier of the tower and placed in the consistory court, and its place taken (1894) by the present erection, designed by Pearson also in the style of ancient Gothic workmanship, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell
... the old palaces of Agra and preserving them for future generations. As a reward for this work, perhaps, there may have been some justification in placing a memorial lamp in the dome of the Taj, especially as the lamp is exquisite in workmanship and adds rather than detracts from the stately beauty of the interior. But just the same the first verdict of the spectator is that Lord Curzon displayed a colossal egotism in ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... have been attempted. The body was occasionally patterned with a chequer-work, which maybe compared with a style common in Assyria, and the spokes of the wheels were sometimes of great elegance, but the general character of the workmanship was massive and plain. The pole was short, and terminated with a simple curve. From the evidence of the monuments it would seem that chariots were drawn by two horses only; but the classical writers assure us that the ordinary practice was to have teams of four. The ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... VII., which we next entered, is one of the most elaborate specimens of Gothic workmanship in the world. If the first idea of the Gothic arch sprung from observing the forms of trees, this chapel must resemble the first conceptions of that order, for the fluted columns rise up like tall trees, branching out at the top into spreading capitals covered with leaves, and supporting ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... indeed that supreme mastery over vice which comes of a complete understanding and dilettante love of virtues. He knew how the innocent hunger for love and pity, and, knowing well what these things were, he could speak as one who came as their messenger. Loathingly and yet giving homage to his workmanship, she recalled that later scence by which he had added a grace note to his melody of wickedness and made so sweet a song of it that ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... sinful man, read with pleasure about the triumphs of the sandy-haired girls, but still kept on dancing with and proposing to the pretty ones. And at last authoresses were driven back on the old standard of beauty. At present, in the productions both of masculine and feminine workmanship, the former view of plain girls has been resumed. They are allowed, if thoroughly excellent in other ways, to pair off with country curates and with devoted missionaries; but the prizes of fiction, as well as the prizes of reality, ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... Hamerton, for one, calls special attention to the technical importance of this print: "I recommend the student to familiarize himself with the workmanship of this plate...." (The Etchings of Rembrandt, London, 1894, ...
— Rembrandt's Etching Technique: An Example • Peter Morse
... which, to do her justice, vanished in the little soliloquy which we have recorded. The good man, besides the natural desire to maintain the exterior of a man of worship, was at present bound to Whitehall in order to exhibit a piece of valuable workmanship to King James, which he deemed his Majesty might be pleased to view, or even to purchase. He himself was therefore mounted upon his caparisoned mule, that he might the better make his way through the narrow, dirty, and ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Throne, Cartouche, Signet, and other relics. The Draught Box and Draughtsmen of Queen Hatasu in the Manchester Exhibition 1887. Date B.C. 1600. The catalogue says: These remarkable relics, the workmanship of royal artists 3,500 years ago, i.e., 200 years before the birth of Moses, are now being exhibited for the first time, by the kind permission of their owner, Jesse Haworth, Esq. Queen Hatasu was the favourite daughter of Thotmes I, and the sister of Thotmes II and III, Egyptian Kings of the ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... ourselves by a reference to the races as little like us as possible, which leads me to observe that in Fiji the men use the most elaborate hair-dressing, and that wherever tattooing is in vogue the male expects to carry off the prize of admiration for pattern and workmanship. Arguing analogically, and looking for this tendency of the Fijian or Hawaian male in the eminent European, we must suppose that it exhibits itself under the forms of civilised apparel; and it would be a great mistake to estimate passionate effort by the ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... what accident, so foreign to my nature, do I find myself laying foundations towards a higher valuation of my own workmanship? O reader, I have been talking idly. I care not for any valuation that depends upon comparison with others. Place me where you will on the scale of comparison: only suffer me, though standing lowest in your catalogue, to rejoice ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... good literary workmanship. It does not weary the reader with vague theories; nor does it give over much expression to the enthusiasm—not to say baseless encomium—for which too many female biographers have accustomed us to look. It is a simple and discriminative sketch of one of the most clever and lovable ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... with plate, its service being of silver, as were also the articles of the toilet, the basins, pitchers, and other utensils of his bed-chamber. With these were articles of pure gold, valuable for their curious workmanship. He had brought with him many jewels of value, and a small but choice collection of paintings, some of them among the noblest masterpieces of art. Among them were eight gems from the hand of Titian. These were hung in rich frames around his rooms. He was no reader, and had brought few ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... there perhaps that grain was first cultivated for exportation. The height of prosperity which these states in an incredibly short time attained is strikingly attested by the only surviving works of art of these Italian Achaeans, their coins of chaste antiquely beautiful workmanship—the earliest monuments of art and writing in Italy which we possess, as it can be shown that they had already begun to be coined in 174. These coins show that the Achaeans of the west did not simply participate in the noble development of plastic art that was at this very time ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... think I have ever seen such perfection of finish of dress, and even form; his complexion was palest coffee-colour, teeth perfectly white and symmetrical, cap and jacket of the most delicate finish, silk shoes and white socks, and baggy trousers, all as if split new and of perfection of workmanship, and he totted up his accounts and did all the business with a polished self-possessed manner! I must say my first impression of the heathen Chinee at Bhamo was tremendously in his favour; in many ways even the coolies, or Chinese porters, struck me favourably, by their ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... trees, but treacherous—smiling on the confiding houses and gardens which one day may be levelled at a few hours' notice. Next come compact masses of Vauban brick, ripe and ruddy, of beautiful, smooth workmanship; stately military gateways and drawbridges, with a patch of red trousering—a soldier on his fat Normandy 'punch' ambling lazily over; and the peaceful cart with its Flemish horses. The brick-work is sliced through, as with a cheese-knife, to admit the railway, giving a complete ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... so foolish as what followed. The queen had a very large, expensive, and remarkable toilet-case, called a necessaire, which contained everything wanted for the toilet, from her rarest essences and perfumes down to soap and combs. It was of fine workmanship, and had much expensive material and ornament about it. In short, it was fit for a splendid royal palace, and no other place. The queen consulted Madame Campan about how she should get this necessaire away. Madame Campan entreated her not to think of taking it, saying that if it ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... Orlando, the workmanship of fairies. So admirable was its temper that it would "cleave the Pyrenees at a blow."—Ariosto, Orlando ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... never mistake it for Walton-on-the-Naze or Walton-on-Thames—is in the church. It is a leaden font, the only leaden font which Surrey possesses, though England has thirty; and of the thirty English fonts, Walton's is of as fine workmanship and design as any. Throned apostles circle the bowl, and bless with the right hand, or hold a book in the left. The church has some interesting old glass in a southern window, and, by an oddly deliberate anachronism, a chained Bible dated 1803. The chain is an old and genuine ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... of the manufacture, and devising in silence the means for improving the instrument and the implements used in its construction. He could afford to wait, to be slower than his fellows. Every moment spent over his task made his workmanship the better, and opened to his mind new sources of improvement. He spent three years as a journeyman, and then went into business for himself. He associated himself with a Mr. Stewart, under the firm ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... second Sanitary Fair in Chicago, a few friends presented her with a beautiful silver cup, bearing a suitable inscription in Latin, and during the same fair, she received as a gift a Roman bell of green bronze, or verd antique, of rare workmanship, and value, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... be any one who prefers a loose style of oratory, let him cultivate it; keeping in view this principle,—if any one were to take to pieces the shield of Phidias, he would destroy the beauty of the collective arrangement, not the exquisite workmanship of each fragment: and as in Thucydides I only miss the roundness of his periods; all the graces of style are there. But these men, when they compose a loose oration, in which there is no matter, and no expression which is not a low one, appear to me to be taking to pieces, not ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... called it, in earnest. Every body of ecclesiastics was there: monks and friars, black, white, and gray; nuns, black, white, and blue; the clergy in their richest robes, with costly crucifixes of gold, silver, and ivory held aloft, and reliquaries of the most exquisite workmanship, sparkling with precious jewels, diamond, ruby, emerald, and sapphire flashing in the sun; the fifty-two guilds in gowns, each headed by their Master and their banner, gorgeous in tint, but with homely devices, such as stockings, saw and compasses, weavers' shuttles, and the like. Master ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it was so poorly endowed that it was difficult to find any one who would take the living. A great avenue of chestnuts, with a grass-grown walk beneath, led up to the porch. He entered by a curious iron-bound door, under a Norman arch of very quaint workmanship. The church was of different dates, and the very neglect which it suffered gave it an extreme picturesqueness. One of its fine features was a brick chapel, built at the east end of one of the aisles, where an old baron lay in state, in black armour, his eyes closed quietly, his pointed ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Ganglere: What is there to be said of Skidbladner, which you say is the best of ships? Is there no ship equally good, or equally great? Made answer Har: Skidbladner is the best of ships, and is made with the finest workmanship; but Naglfare, which is in Muspel, is the largest. Some dwarfs, the sons of Ivalde, made Skidbladner and gave it to Frey. It is so large that all the asas, with their weapons and war-gear, can find room on board it, and as soon as the sails are ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... perpetual fun of lighter and more various kind, and whimsically expressed in his features, as well as in his words.[19] 'Natio comaeda est' was the maxim of his mind and denoted the wide field of his humour. The wit of Mr. Canning was of rarer and more refined workmanship, and drew large ornament from classical sources. The 'Anti-Jacobin' shows Mr. Canning's power in his youthful exuberance. When I knew him it had been sobered, perhaps saddened, by the political contrarities and other incidents of more ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... of why the cotton sail should hold. The firm, somewhere in Connecticut, who made that export calico, should be praised by name, only that the dye they used was much less perfect than the stuff and workmanship; their trademark was all ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Satan would have it. This was what for ages he had been working to secure. His policy is deception from first to last, and his steadfast purpose is to bring woe and wretchedness upon men, to deface and defile the workmanship of God, to mar the divine purposes of benevolence and love, and thus cause grief in heaven. Then by his deceptive arts he blinds the minds of men, and leads them to throw back the blame of his work upon God, as if all this misery were the result of the Creator's plan. ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... familiar about the appearance of the veiled woman to whose rescue he had just come, but as he had not seen her face he could not be sure that he had ever seen her before. The only thing about her that he had particularly noticed was a ring of peculiar workmanship upon a finger of the hand that Rokoff had seized, and he determined to note the fingers of the women passengers he came upon thereafter, that he might discover the identity of her whom Rokoff was persecuting, and learn if the fellow had ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... thou almighty flame, Hephaestos' workmanship, shall this be borne, That he by force must drag ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... and are got hither on the way to a pope. In three hours' time we have seen all the good contents of this city: 'tis old, and very snug, with very few inhabitants. You must not believe Mr. Addison about the wonderful Gothic nicety of the dome: the materials are richer, but the workmanship and taste not near so good as in several I have seen. We saw a college of the Jesuits, where there are taught to draw above fifty boys: they are disposed in long chambers in the manner of Eton, but cleaner. N. B. We were not bolstered; ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... house. Now there came over me a great longing for music. Once, when in the drawing-room on that famous evening of the abortive fete, which was the only time I ever was there, I had noticed a magnificent grand piano of most costly workmanship. The thought of this came to my mind, and an unconquerable desire to try it arose. So I went down and began ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... had not got so far north as Nebraska, but had given up his quest and turned back somewhere in Kansas. But Charley Harling and I had a strong belief that he had been along this very river. A farmer in the county north of ours, when he was breaking sod, had turned up a metal stirrup of fine workmanship, and a sword with a Spanish inscription on the blade. He lent these relics to Mr. Harling, who brought them home with him. Charley and I scoured them, and they were on exhibition in the Harling office all summer. Father Kelly, the priest, had found the name of the Spanish ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... helpless family, would see my good intentions frustrated by the decrepitude which chains me to the spot.—Why should I wish it were otherwise? What have my screech-owl voice, my hideous form, and my mis-shapen features, to do with the fairer workmanship of nature? Do not men receive even my benefits with shrinking horror and ill-suppressed disgust? And why should I interest myself in a race which accounts me a prodigy and an outcast, and which has treated me as such? No; by all the ingratitude ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... order the procession entered the market-place of the village of Kennaquhair, which was then, as now, distinguished by an ancient cross of curious workmanship, the gift of some former monarch of Scotland. Close by the cross, of much greater antiquity, and scarcely less honoured, was an immensely large oak-tree, which perhaps had witnessed the worship of the Druids, ere the stately Monastery to ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... and beauty of workmanship involved in the construction of aeroplanes, Britain is now quite the equal of her foreign rivals; even in engines we are making extremely rapid progress, and the well-known Green Engine Company, profiting by the result of nine years' experience, are ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... me, and I never will forget. But, though in haste thy voyage to pursue, 390 Yet stay, that in the bath refreshing first Thy limbs now weary, thou may'st sprightlier seek Thy gallant bark, charged with some noble gift Of finish'd workmanship, which thou shalt keep As my memorial ever; such a boon As men confer on guests whom much they love. Then Pallas thus, Goddess caerulean-eyed. Retard me not, for go I must; the gift Which liberal thou desirest to bestow, Give me at my return, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... superior. But though a perfect Chesterfield at court, in camp he was certainly but a Paris. 'Tis true, at Saratoga he got his temples stuck round with laurels as thick as a May-day queen with gaudy flowers. And though the greater part of this was certainly the gallant workmanship of Arnold and Morgan, yet did it so hoist general Gates in the opinion of the nation, that many of his dear friends, with a prudent regard, no doubt, to their own dearer selves, had the courage to bring him forward on the military turf and run ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... discovered several compartments, each stored with neatly wrapped and labeled packages of varying shapes and sizes. The writing upon the tags was almost illegible, but the first article which O'Reilly unwrapped proved to be a goblet of most beautiful workmanship. Time had long since blackened it to the appearance of pewter or some base metal, but he saw that it was of solid silver. Evidently he had uncovered a store of old ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... man who has done so much has a right to gratitude and goodwill. Possibly there never was a writer who gave the world all the essentials personal to his art so early, and yet so long survived in the race for popularity. Bret Harte's first book was something like a revelation. In workmanship he reminds the reader of Dickens, but his surroundings were wholly novel, and as delightful as they were strange. He bewitched the whole reading world with 'The Luck of Roaring Camp,' and 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat,' and ever since those days he has gone on with a ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... the child's wraps. Shaver's cheeks were rosy from his drive through the cold; he was a plump, healthy little shaver and The Hopper viewed him with intense pride. Mary held the hood and coat to the light and inspected them with a sophisticated eye. They were of excellent quality and workmanship, and she shook her head and sighed deeply as she placed ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... tells of "a picture of St. Paul, richly painted, and placed in a beautiful tabernacle of wood on the right hand of the high altar in anno 1398, the price of its workmanship amounting to 12l. 16s." ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... profound philosophical reflections interspersed through his writings, which would do honor to a Father of the Church. He was also a poet, inferior only to Caedmon. Nor was his knowledge confined to literature alone; it was extended to the arts, especially architecture, ship-building, and silver-workmanship. He built more beautiful edifices than any of his predecessors. He also had a knowledge of geography beyond his contemporaries, and sent a Norwegian ship-master to explore the White Sea. He enriched his translation of Orosius by a sketch of the new geographical discoveries in the North. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... requested to play for him some favorite piece on the piano, and in extricating her music from the drawer, she accidentally brought forth a piece of embroidery with it. 'Washington,' said Mr. Hoffman, picking up the faded relic, 'this is a piece of poor Matilda's workmanship.' The effect was electric. He had been conversing in the sprightliest mood before, but he sunk at once into utter silence, and in a few moments got up and left the house. It is evidence with what romantic tenderness Irving cherished the memory of this early love, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... metal novelties long before his partnership with Watt was formed, had recognized at once the need for care in the building of Watt's steam engine. On February 7, 1769, he had written Watt:[2] "I presumed that your engine would require money, very accurate workmanship and extensive correspondence to make it turn out to the best advantage and that the best means of keeping up the reputation and doing the invention justice would be to keep the executive part of it out of the hands of the multitude of empirical engineers, who from ignorance, want ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson
... back. To look at the "tooling," too, is a pleasure, for careful thought, combined with artistic skill, is everywhere apparent. You open the cover and find the same loving attention inside that has been given to the outside, all the workmanship being true and thorough. Indeed, so conservative is a good binding, that many a worthless book has had an honoured old age, simply out of respect to its outward aspect; and many a real treasure has ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... was young. It was furnished with a large porphyry circular vessel for immersing adults. Louis XIV. saw it, coveted it for some water-works, and got the Arelois to give it him. Among the ruins of the theatre was found a Venus of Greek workmanship and of Parian marble. They sent it away also; it is ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... should be particularly dear, I am, however, unable to find. We pay no rent; we inherit many of our instruments and materials; lodging and victuals are cheaper than at London; and, therefore, workmanship ought, at least, not to be dearer. Our expences are naturally less than those of booksellers; and, in most cases, communities are content with ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... dreadful struggle I had made to obtain my freedom. I advanced and examined it closely. It was a frail shell enough—unlined, unornamented—a wretched sample of the undertaker's art, though God knows I had no fault to find with its workmanship, nor with the haste of him who fashioned it. Something shone at the bottom of it—it was a crucifix of ebony and silver. That good monk again! His conscience had not allowed him to see me buried without this sacred symbol; he had perhaps laid it on my breast as the last service he could render ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... afraid? There are no maneaters about here, as I understand. As for men, I am prepared to encounter at least six of them. Look!" She drew from the bosom of her dress a small revolver of exquisite workmanship, and held it out to him. "It has all ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... wish that it be consecrated before we come thither on a future occasion." This is all that Adam has to tell us. Giraldus Cambrensis says, "Item, he restored the chevet of his own church with Parian stones and marble columns in wonderful workmanship, and reared the whole anew from the foundation with most costly work. Similarly, too, he began to construct the remarkable bishop's houses, and, by God's help, proposed, in certain hope, to finish them far larger and nobler than the former ones." Then again ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... Whenever therefore, there is a living thought shaping itself in word or in stone, there is there a creation. And therefore it is, that the simplest effort of what we call genius is prized infinitely more than the most elaborate performances which are done by mere workmanship, and for this reason: that the one is produced by an effort of power which we share with the beaver and the bee, that of making, and the other by a faculty and power which man alone shares ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... is very imperfectly understood, and hardly ever attempted. Later Anglo-Saxon architecture, such as that of Eadward's magnificent abbey church at Westminster (afterwards destroyed by Henry III. to make way for his own building), was not inferior to continental workmanship. All the arts practised in the abbeys were of direct Roman origin, and most of the words relating to them are immediately derived from the Latin. This is the case even with terms relating to such common objects as candle, pen, wine, and oil. ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... she led the way through a low door into a long narrow room with a row of little square windows on each side all covered with little square white curtains. The walls and ceiling were planked and the workmanship of the whole rude and clumsy; but a gay carpet covered the floor, a chandelier adorned with lustres, hung from a hook in the ceiling, large gilded vases and a mirror in a tarnished gilt frame adorned a ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... fighting were the only manly occupations, have left their heavy impress. The predacious instinct and the combative instinct weigh down and disfigure our economic development. What Veblen calls "the instinct of workmanship" grows on, slowly and irresistably; but the malign features of our industrial life are distinctively androcentric: the desire to get, of the hunter; interfering with the desire to give, of the mother; the desire to overcome an antagonist—originally masculine, interfering with the desire ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... The picture of industrial organization and its possibilities is too simple to suggest that he had caught any far reaching glimpse into the future. Industry, for him, is still in the last stage of handicraft; it is a matter of skillful workmanship and not of mechanical appliance. Capital is still the laborious result of parsimony. Credit is spoken of rather in the tones of one who sees it less as a new instrument of finance than a dangerous attempt by the aspiring needy to scale the heights of wealth. Profits are always a justified ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... convenient; and, troth, I know some women whom it would please as much as myself. (Taking up the picture which Celia had let fall). But what a pretty thing has fortune sent me here; the enamel of it is most beautiful, the workmanship ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... be taken to represent exactly the amount of stimulation applied to the sale, for instance, of gold plate. But this is not so. Taking the depreciation of gold at one-half, then upon any gold article, as suppose a salver, each ounce would have sunk from 77s. to 38s. 6d. Next, rate the workmanship at 40s. the ounce, and then the total cost upon each ounce will not be (77s. 40)/2, or in other words 58s. 6d., as a hasty calculation might have fancied, but (77s./2) 40, that is to say, 78s. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... in silence as he stood before him, his looks bent upon the ground, his arms folded on his bosom, with the appearance of a black marble statue of the most exquisite workmanship, waiting life from the touch of a Prometheus. The King of England, who, as it was emphatically said of his successor Henry the Eighth, loved to look upon A MAN, was well pleased with the thews, sinews, and symmetry of him whom he now surveyed, and questioned him in the lingua ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... hear his remark, for he was too intent upon his examination of the carefully built place, which he was ready to pronounce of Greek workmanship; but there was no one but Yussuf to hear. For Lawrence had noted that, where the stones lay baking in the sun, innumerable lizards were glancing about, their grey and sometimes green armoured skins glistening in the brilliant sunshine, and sending off flashes every ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... Griscom Ross was sewed with the tiniest of stitches imaginable; but it is absolutely certain that the flag which made its appearance August 3, 1777, at Fort Schuyler, afterwards Fort Stanwix, was not put together with any such daintiness of workmanship. For twenty days the little fort in the New York wilderness, where Rome now stands, was besieged by British and Indians. Reinforcements brought the news of the adoption of the new flag. The troops within the fort had no flag, ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... Most of our fiction, in its extreme analysis, introspection and self-consciousness, in its devotion to details, in its disregard of the ideal, in its selection as well as in its treatment of nature, is simply of a piece with a good deal else that passes for genuine art. Much of it is admirable in workmanship, and exhibits a cleverness in details and a subtlety in the observation of traits which many great novels lack. But I should be sorry to think that the historian will judge our social life by it, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... proud and paltry Boss, whose office should have been furnished with straw. Yes, with straw; and the souls of those poor artist-weavers will sleep in peace. O, the ignominy of having such precious pieces of workmanship under the feet and spittle of such vulgar specimens of humanity. But if the Boss had purchased these rugs himself, with money earned by his own brow-sweat, I am sure he would appreciate them better. He would then know, if ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... been stated, that a stone implement was found under a buried Scotch fir at a great depth in the peat. By collecting and studying a vast variety of such implements, and other articles of human workmanship preserved in peat and in sand-dunes on the coast, as also in certain shell-mounds of the aborigines presently to be described, the Danish and Swedish antiquaries and naturalists, MM. Nilsson, Steenstrup, Forchhammer, Thomsen, Worsaae, and others, have succeeded in establishing ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... his lesson to learn, his work to do. The century opening before us can no more dispense with us than an orchestra with the piccolo. A pawn on God's chessboard may take a knight, or give check to a king. "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God has before prepared (R.V.), that we should walk in them" ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... in Tress's line. The truth is that when I saw what manner of pipe it was I was amazed. It was contained in a sandalwood box, which was itself illustrated with some remarkable specimens of carving. I use the word "remarkable" advisedly, because, although the workmanship was undoubtedly, in its way, artistic, the result could not be described as beautiful. The carver had thought proper to ornament the box with some of the ugliest figures I remember to have seen. They appeared ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... is called the chasuble of Naintre, the Virgin is seated in majesty, with richly-wrought sandals on her feet, and holding the Infant Jesus on her knees. Others, and still others of marvelous workmanship were alluded to, venerable not only from their great age and the beautiful faith that they expressed, but from a richness unknown in our time, preserving the odour of the incense of tabernacles and the mystic light which seemed to come from the ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... to be made of things of small value; or, if valuable, their worth should be derived from the style of the workmanship, or from some accidental circumstance, rather than from the inherent and solid richness. Especially never offer to a lady a gift of great cost: it is in the highest degree indelicate, and looks as if you were desirous of placing her under an obligation to you, and of buying her good will. The ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... head of a real screw as to deceive the most acute observer. Once I made a box for conjuring tricks, with a side swung on hinges, and fixed the sides of the box with these screw-heads in such a way as to impress the spectator with the idea that it was a piece of workmanship that ...
— Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... her cunning with a needle, so fine that its stab through the cloth was too slight to be seen, and would lose no occasion to show off the many evidences of her delicate workmanship that ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... artisans manufacturing or repairing those brilliant suits of steel for which the cavalry of Zenobia are distinguished. Immense repositories of all the various weapons of our modern warfare, prepared by the Queen against seasons of emergency, furnish forth arms of the most perfect workmanship and metal to all who offer themselves for the expedition. Without the walls in every direction, the eye beholds clouds of dust raised by different bodies of the Queen's forces, as they pour in from their various encampments to one central point. Trains of sumptuary elephants and camels, making ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... of flowers without which her beauty never seemed quite complete. In her hair, which was piled high above her forehead, flashed a huge golden comb, and upon her arm gleamed two bracelets, whose exquisite workmanship was well known to me, for they had been an heirloom in my family for years. She was fair as a dream, proud as a queen, cold as a statue, but she was mine! Was not the minister waiting for us at the church? and were not the ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... reduced to its lowest terms, and who himself was almost an instantaneous extemporizer, recognized the need for careful planning by young speakers and warned them against "the temptation to slovenliness in workmanship, to careless and inaccurate statement, to repetition, to ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... a great part of which still remains; and the doors were concealed every where behind the hangings, so that the tapestry was to be lifted up to pass in or out. The doors being thus concealed, are of ill-fashioned workmanship; and wooden bolts, rude bars, &c. are their only fastenings. Indeed, most of the rooms are dark and uncomfortable; yet this place was for ages the seat of magnificence and hospitality. It was at length quitted by its owners, the Dukes of Rutland, for the more ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... to be conventionally treated in the practice of our art. These we choose, as the mason chooses the acanthus to adorn his capital, because they come naturally to the accustomed hand. The old stock incidents and accessories, tricks of workmanship and schemes of composition (all being admirably good, or they would long have been forgotten) haunt and tempt our fancy; offer us ready-made but not perfectly appropriate solutions for any problem that arises; and wean us from the study of nature and the uncompromising ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as the cover of the case flew back, discovering a set of coral ornaments of exquisite workmanship, outlined against the faded blue satin lining. "Coral's all out of style now, but it's wonderfully pretty, just the same; and what an odd design; ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... the other, having nothing at all[111] between them. And it has four sides which are all equal, each being about a stone's throw in length, while their height exceeds that of the city wall; and above there are statues of the same marble, representing men and horses, of wonderful workmanship.[112] But since this tomb seemed to the men of ancient times a fortress threatening the city, they enclosed it by two walls, which extend to it from the circuit-wall,[113] and thus made it a part of the wall. And, ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... pleasant to hear him discourse of patience—extolling it as the truest wisdom—and to see him during the last seven minutes that his dinner is getting ready. Nature never ran up in her haste a more restless piece of workmanship than when she moulded this impetuous cousin—and Art never turned out a more elaborate orator than he can display himself to be, upon his favourite topic of the advantages of quiet, and contentedness ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... He by no means, however, omitted the proper duties of his office. His longest and most continuous service was in Siena; on leaving which place, the congregation presented to him a paten and chalice of exquisite workmanship, as a testimony of respect for his character, and of appreciation ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Thirst of gain, or perhaps example, induced me to venture two of these, which I immediately lost, and very soon, by venturing again to regain them, the whole two and twenty. Chagrined at my folly, I returned home: I had nothing but a pair of pistols left, for which, because of their workmanship, General Woyekow had offered me twenty ducats. These I took, intending by their aid to attempt to retrieve my loss. Firing of guns and pistols was heard throughout the town, because of the festival, and I, in imitation of the rest, went to the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... sending a gloomy tint all over the pretty drawing room, hung with green, and adorned with bright flowers, worked by skilful fingers. Various beautiful and rare specimens of Foreign workmanship ornament every part of the room, chairs and sofas of ease and luxury pervade the apartment, nothing seems wanting to render this room the beau ideal of an English home at Christmas time, for the bright green holly with its ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... neatness of the manipulation by which the tension is heightened from speech to speech and from incident to incident. If it be objected that this is a pleasure which the critic alone is capable of experiencing, I venture to disagree. The most unsophisticated playgoer feels the effect of neat workmanship, though he may not be able to put his satisfaction into words. It is evident, however, that the mere intellectual recognition of fine workmanship is not sufficient to account for the emotions with which we witness the Screen Scene. A similar, though, of course, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... for we are informed that in the year 1581 living plants of the Melon Cactus were known in London. Fifty years later, Gerard, the Adam of English gardening, wrote: "Who can but marvel at the care and singular workmanship shown in this Thistle, the Melocarduus echinatus, or Hedgehog Thistle? It groweth upon the cliffes and gravelly grounds neere unto the seaside in the islands of the West Indies, called St. Margaret's ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... Miss Virginia Verdant, and the other woman portion of the Green community, they fully occupied their time until the day of separation came, by elaborating articles of feminine workmanship, as souvenirs, by which dear Verdant might, in the land of the strangers, recall visions of home. These were presented to him with all due state on the morning of the day previous to that on which he was to leave ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... discovered to David that he possessed singularly original ideas in designing patterns; and he set himself with enthusiasm to that part of the business. Two years afterwards came the Great Fair of 1851, and Callendar & Leslie took a first prize for their rugs, both design and workmanship being honorably mentioned. ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... he admitted. "What workmanship! You are indeed fortunate, Mr. Waddington. And isn't that Mona Lisa on the walls? What a beautiful reproduction! I am saving up money even now to go to Paris to see the original. Only a few nights ago I was reading Pater's appreciation ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... boys laughed sympathetically. The little merchant said, "Whatever the spelling, El Mouski will fascinate you. Many things are made there especially for tourists. Some of the workmanship is excellent, and ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... others)—"supersubtle analysis," "intimate psychology," "masterly handling," "incomparable artistry"—I found nothing that it didn't seem a sort of impertinence to apply to JOSEPH CONRAD's Chance, which METHUEN has just had the good luck to publish. For the whole thing is much nearer wizardry than workmanship. I put the book down with a gasp, so close had I been to realities as conjured up by one to whom realism is a servant and not a master. I had come to know, in that piecemeal way in which one actually gets to know one's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... magazines Of knowledge, which your predecessors left. What! not a word!—I ask you, once again, How comes it that the wond'rous essence, Which gave such vigour to these strong nerved limbs Has leaped from its enclosure, and compelled This noble workmanship of nature, thus To sink Into a cold inactive clod? Nay sneak not off thus cowardly—poor fools Ye are as destitute of information As is the lifeless subject of ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... inclemency of rigorous climates, the violence of storms, and the turbulence of waves, and who have, therefore, extended their conquests with uncommon success, and been equally adapted to the toils of trade and of war, and have excelled those who endeavoured to rival them either in the praise of workmanship or ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... suggested that the original Saxon tower of Brompton church may have been incorporated into the present structure whose walls are of unusual thickness, the stone work in some places showing characteristics of pre-Norman workmanship. At Ellerburne the curious spiral ornaments of the responds of the chancel arch have also been attributed to pre-Norman times, but in this case and possibly at Middleton also, the Saxon features may have ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... right for slow-growing trees." He took it out of the workman's hand, looked it over more closely with an evident intelligent certainty of what to look for, and handed it back with a nod that signified his appreciation of the wood and of the workmanship which had brought it to ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... child, who was busy polishing the head. He spoke to him at once, noticing in the first place the beauty of the work, and having regard to the lad's youth he marvelled exceedingly, and although he praised the workmanship he none the less joked with him as with a child, saying: "Oh! you have made this Faun very old, and yet have left him all his teeth: do you not know that old men of that age always lack some of them?" It seemed ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... the window to show it to his master, not for the sake of the workmanship but of the colour. The old man's head was bent over his writing; Marietta was standing outside, and her eyes met Zorzi's. He did not blush as he had blushed yesterday, when he looked up from the fire and saw her; he merely inclined his head respectfully, to acknowledge her presence, ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford |
