"Perfect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I, waking, be allowed "To gaze upon those perfect charms, "And clasp thee once without a cloud, "A chill of earth, within ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... in the middle, may generally be seen. This, I believe, is the bottom of a most delicate, colourless sac, composed of a pulpy substance, which lines the exterior case, but does not extend within the extreme conical points. In some specimens, small but perfect spheres of brownish granular matter supplied the places of the septa; and I observed the curious process by which they were produced. The pulpy matter of the internal coating suddenly grouped itself into lines, some of which assumed a form ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... was probably the best recommendation of there complimentary toasts to the two Highlanders, who drank them without appearing anxious to comprehend their purport. They commenced a conversation with Mr. Galbraith in Gaelic, which he talked with perfect fluency, being, as I afterwards learned, a near neighbour to ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... be aware that when Hawkins is left alone he doesn't bother with that sort of demon; he links arms with the old, original Satan, and together they stroll into Hawkins' workshop—to perfect an invention. ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... Holy Child instructed by Joseph in the use of tools, and the Mother sitting with her book, "pondering these things in her heart." All around were blocks of wood and carvings in varying states of progress—some scarcely shaped out, and others in perfect completion. And the subjects were equally various. Here was an adoring angel with folded wings, clasped hands, and rapt face; here a majestic head of an apostle or prophet; here a lovely virgin saint, seeming to play smilingly with the instrument of her martyrdom; here a grotesque miserere ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... It was "deuced stupid," to use Marston's elegant phrase, but there was little to do for it. To be sure, there was Desmond, "old Dives," Fred called him. He seldom went out of sight of the house, but he had a perfect mail-bag of newspapers and letters every morning, and spent the forenoon indoors, holding sweet communion with them and answering his correspondents. In the afternoon he sat on the piazza by the hour, contemplating the mountain-top that had such a fascination for him. ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... the figures of a young man and two females—probably Telemachus and two hand-maidens. The three male figures in the background may represent the suitors. Size, 23 inches high; diameter, 11 inches. Perfect, except for a restoration in ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... you know it is a shame. After all your hopes, all your expectations to get back to your old house, to see it given away in this way to a perfect stranger!" ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... set Christ before us and live before Him with unveiled face. "We all with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror." Throw a napkin over a mirror, and it reflects nothing. Perfect beauty may stand before it, but the mirror gives no sign. And this is why in a dispensation like ours, the Christian dispensation, with everything contrived to reflect Christ, to exhibit Christ, the whole thing set a-going for this purpose of exhibiting Christ, ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... in the winter. She's a perfect little electric motor. I don't believe any Yankee girl ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... summer the plant is loaded with a profusion of bloom; these flowers for the most part go off without being followed by any seed, and when any seed is produced, of which we have seen a few instances, there is generally one perfect and four abortive, frequently all of them fail; the blossoms vary in the number of their stamina, four are most usually apparent, three superior, and that very constantly, one inferior and often two, we have never observed ...
— The Botanical Magazine Vol. 7 - or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... submissive patience, but not the hands by which it had been imposed; and accordingly, catching with eagerness at the present occasion offered to their vengeance, they sent an assurance to the Czarina of their perfect obedience to her commands, and at the same time 15 a message significantly declaring in what spirit they meant to execute them—viz. "that they would not trouble ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... in the perfect confidence that Englishmen were the best and most honest workers in the world, that free trade was established. Should we ever become a shoddy manufacturing people, free trade will probably be abolished; and we shall then impose prohibitory duties upon foreign manufactures. ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... then shook her head positively. "Please let me come to see you to-morrow morning instead." She wished to give Miss Duncan perfect freedom to ask Mabel any questions she might ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... and often with dropping tears, the tale of the "Praying Weaver," on the very scene of his brief tragedy and long repose. And now there was a companion piece; and he beheld, and he should behold for ever, Christina perched on the same tomb, in the grey colours of the evening, gracious, dainty, perfect as a flower, and she ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... given us before, both out of regard to our king's disposition towards you, and your disposition towards him. And further, we have been informed by those Jews that were there with what kindness thou camest into our country, and how thou offeredst the most perfect sacrifices to God, and honoredst him with remarkable vows, and how thou gavest the people a feast, and acceptedst of their own hospitable presents to thee. We ought to esteem all these kind entertainments made both by our nation and to our city, to a man ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... said, "Erect a statue of him, for he was a great warrior." He could not, or he would not, we know not. So she said, "I will," she said, "I will do it in seven days." She does constantly amuse him, everybody at de Court. Immense excitement! For suppose it!—a statue of a warrior on horseback, in perfect likeness, chapeau tricorne, perruque, all of bronze, and his marshal's baton. Eh bien, well, a bronze horse is come at a gallop from Berlin; sthat we know. By fortune a most exalted sculptor in Berlin has him ready,—and many horses pulled him to here, to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with the manner in which the last word, bueno, was spoken. I had heard something like it before, but where or when I could by no means remember. A pause now ensued; the figure stalking on as before with the most perfect indifference, and seemingly with no disposition either to seek or ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... certain that my mode of biography, which gives not only a History of Johnson's visible progress through the world, and of his publications, but a view of his mind in his letters and conversations, is the most perfect that can be conceived, and will be more of a Life than any work that has ever yet appeared.' Letters ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... extraordinary beauty and talent, possessed of the rarest qualities of mind and soul, was one day asked by a friend, to whom she seemed the most perfect creature on earth: "What are your plans? Can any man be worthy of your love? Your future puzzles me. I cannot conceive a destiny that shall be lofty enough for a soul such as yours." He knew but little of destiny. To him, as to most men, it meant thrones, triumphs, dazzling adventures: these ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... to be beautiful, my child," observed old Mr. Lispenard. "There is nothing about you of this new generation, which I hate. Indeed, if you would wear crinolines and a curl of that dark hair on your shoulder, you would be quite perfect." ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... darkness of his room, he could yet see the dim outlines of objects in his narrow line of vision, and grope his way about without being dependent upon his cousins for his every need; and after a month of perfect helplessness, even this was a relief, ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... the table—the result, in every case, being at once determined by the total number of days that the year may happen to contain. An ordinary year may comprise 353, 354 or 355 days; and an embolismic year 383, 384 or 385 days. In these cases respectively the year is said to be imperfect, common or perfect. The intercalary month, Veadar, is introduced in embolismic years in order that Passover, the 15th day of Nisan, may be kept at its proper season, which is the full moon of the vernal equinox, or that which takes place after the sun has entered the sign Aries. It always precedes ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... smiled faintly. He was not very fond of Sir Dugald, and the perfect gravity and naivete with which this pretty, unsophisticated young sultana had made her comment had amounted to ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... perfect summer's day, and I commented upon the beauty of the old garden, which in places was bordered by a ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... life at Palstrey Manor, which was ancient and most beautiful. Nothing Walderhurst owned was as perfect an example of olden time beauty, and as wonderful for that reason. Emily almost wept before the loveliness of it, though it would not have been possible for her to explain or particularise the ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... are closed until the high edge of the cone rests upon the inside edges of the tracks and the high end spread sufficiently to take the full width of the cone and to allow the shaft to fall into the notches. When the cone and tracks are viewed from the broadside the deception will be more perfect, and will not be discovered until the construction of the model is seen from all sides. Should it be difficult to make the cone from wood, a good substitute can be made from two funnels. —Contributed by I. G. Bayley, ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... man, and he had the nice soul of a courageous, honourable, punctilious gentleman. He thought it singular that society should call upon him, as a gentleman, to shoot his best friend, if that friend affronted him with a rude word; and yet that, as an author, every fool and liar might, with perfect impunity, cover reams of paper with the most ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... divine. Strewn on the breezy continents I see The veined shells and glistening scales which once Enwrapt my being,—husks that had their use; I brood on all the shapes I must attain Before I reach the Perfect, which is God, And dream my dream, and let the rabble go: For I am of the mountains and the sea, The deserts, and the caverns in the earth, The catacombs and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... perfect in its resemblance that no chemist living can tell it from pure virgin silver. It was obtained from a German chemist now dead; he used it for unlawful purposes to the amount of thousands, and yet the metal is so perfect that he ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... subject of France, honoured with a commission in the service of his most christian majesty. The identity of his person being proved, a rule was made for his execution; and on the eighth day of December he suffered decapitation, with the most perfect composure and serenity. Lord Lovat, now turned of four-score, was impeached by the commons, and tried in Westminster-hall before the lord high-steward. John Murray, secretary to the prince-pretender, and some of his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... country with an index of 25. The more unequal a country's income distribution, the farther its Lorenz curve from the 45 degree line and the higher its Gini index, e.g., a Sub- Saharan country with an index of 50. If income were distributed with perfect equality, the Lorenz curve would coincide with the 45 degree line and the index would be zero; if income were distributed with perfect inequality, the Lorenz curve would coincide with the horizontal axis and the right vertical axis and ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the countenance, so indicative of conscious power and well-regulated strength, why did memory travel swiftly back among the "Stones of Venice," repeating the description of the hawthorn on Bourges Cathedral? "A perfect Niobe of May." Had this man petrified in his youth before the steady stylus of time left on his features that subtle tracery which passing years engrave on human faces? The motto of his magazine, Veritas sine clementia, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... citizens. It commences running Monday next at 12 o'clock. The Mayor and City Council are to be present and no doubt hundreds of our citizens will fill the train which will accommodate between three and four hundred people. This locomotive is said to be the most perfect and elegant in the Union and that there are only two in England equal to it. The display will be at once beautiful and imposing and will no ...
— A Pioneer Railway of the West • Maude Ward Lafferty
... dangerous position for the Norseman, for could the bear get one blow at him with its great hook-armed paw, his chances of being extricated alive were doubtful. But he stood firm, for he had perfect confidence in the captain, and knew that he would seize this opportunity to fire. He was quite right. The captain drew trigger, there was the sharp, loud crack of the rifle, and almost simultaneously the ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... the angels, the families of the earth were subjected to rulers, at first set over them by God. 'For there is no power, but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.' The first father was the first king... Hence it is, that our church, in perfect conformity with the doctrine here inculcated, in her explication of the fifth commandment, from the obedience due to parents, wisely derives the congenial duty of 'honouring the king, and all that are put ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... falling off in royalty with as much warmth and indignation as the grandees of the court; and I could enjoy a laugh on the subject of their angry displeasure as soon as my presentation was decided upon. The intrigues carried on by those about the princesses, and the necessity of awaiting the perfect recovery of madame de Bearn, delayed this (to me) important day till the end of the month of April, 1770. On the evening of the 21st the king, according to custom, announced a presentation for the following day; but he durst not explain himself more frankly; he hesitated, ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... what she desired, served himself, and took a chair by her side. They talked of the successful launching, of the beauty of the ship, sitting as gracefully as a swan upon the water, of the almost perfect likeness ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... instructions he formed some of the first singers in Italy. His language was a Milanese patois; but he found means to make himself excellently understood by the kings and emperors, with whom he carried on negotiations upon a footing of perfect equality. It was a great treat to see him seated in his box at San Carlo, opposite that of the King of Naples, on the evening of a new opera; with grave and impartial aspect, now turning his face to the actors, then to the audience. If a singer went wrong, Barbaja was the first ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... MR. F. CHOPIN,—Wishing you perfect health I have the honour to write to you through Mr. Eduard Wolf. [FOOTNOTE: The language of the first sentence is neither logical nor otherwise precise. I shall keep throughout as close as possible ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the hour would have been perfect. Kitty, ordinarily brave and cheerful, was very lonesome and homesick. Tears sparkled in her eyes and threatened to fall at any moment. It was all very well to dream of old Venice; but when home and friends kept intruding ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... She more than once opened her lips without the power of giving utterance to her thoughts. I could, however, catch some expressions that dropped from her, of admiration and wonder at my excessive love—of doubt that she could have been fortunate enough to inspire me with a passion so perfect—of earnest entreaty that I would abandon my intention of following her, and seek elsewhere a lot more worthy of me, and which, she said, I could never hope to ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... considerable trouble for the same. The virulence with which the author and printer of this lampoon were persecuted in Mary's reign is sufficiently attested by the care which was taken to suppress every copy that could be secured. The only perfect known copy of this rare tract was purchased at the sale of Mr. R. Forster's books, for the Marquis of Bute; and Mr. Stace, the bookseller, had privilege to make a fac-simile reprint of it; of which there were six copies struck off UPON VELLUM. It being now rather common with book-collectors, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... didn't notice afterwards, when great sorrows came. I know I was queer, and spiteful, and jealous, and no great wonder that for I always was a man with a nastyish temper, and soon put out; but even Mrs Bantem used to shew that she wasn't quite perfect, for she quite upset me, one day, when Measles got talking at dinner about Lizzy Green, Miss Ross's maid, and, what was a wonderful thing for him, not finding fault. He got saying that she was a nice girl, and would make a soldier as wanted ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... question arises in respect of the distribution of many plants and animals; the reason of the limits which some of them cannot pass, being, indeed, perfectly clear, but as regards perhaps the greater number of them, undiscoverable. The upshot of it is that things do not in practice find their perfect level any more than water does so, but are liable to disturbance by way of tides and local currents, or storms. It is in his power to perceive and profit by these irregularities that the strength or weakness of a commercial ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... company. The exchange reports said so—which made Alexander a different breed of cat entirely. Still, his surface was perfect—polished and impenetrable as a duralloy turret on one of the latest Brotherhood battleships. Kennon regretted he wasn't a sensitive. It would be nice to know what Alexander ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... towns, and though, to some who had been cured, their pains and sickness returned, there were a few who bore perfect evidence to his teaching and healing, and followed him, "converted and consecrated," as though he were a new Messiah. In this corner of the West was such a revival as none could remember—not even those who had been to camp meetings ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 254). Not to speak of latitude,—though the omission is not without importance,—he ought to have known that longitude is found by the difference between what o'clock it is at Greenwich and at the ship's place, at {167} one absolute moment of time. Now if a chronometer were quite perfect—which no chronometer is, be it said—and would truly tell Greenwich mean time all over the world, it ought to have been clear that just as good a watch is wanted for the time at the place of observation, before ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... was sown in irregular rows; the vallus and the lorica, and all the varied contrivances of Roman engineering genius. Military students will read the particulars for themselves in Caesar's own language. Enough that the work was done within the time, with the legions in perfect good humor, and giving jesting names to the new instruments of torture as Caesar invented them. Vercingetorix now and then burst out on the working parties, but produced no effect. They knew what they were to expect when the thirty days were out; but they knew their commander, and ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... a lovely little girl, swinging a skipping-rope, and dancing over and under it in perfect time with the song which ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... thought the study a very noble room until she had seen the dining-room, but now she wished for another look at the pictures there and the queer clock, and the strange, grand things on the sideboard. The old-fashioned comfort of the house was perfect splendor to the child, and she went about on tiptoe up stairs and down, looking in at the open doors, while she lingered wistfully before the closed ones. She wondered at the great bedsteads with their high posts and dimity hangings, and at the carpets, and ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... and there is a simultaneous order. In successive order things pure and perfect appear above, and those less pure and perfect appear below. The three heavens are in successive order, one above another; and in the higher heavens all things are pure and perfect, while in the lower they are less pure and ...
— Spiritual Life and the Word of God • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Hamilton MSS., published in the Ulster Archaeological Journal, it would appear that it was usual, or, at least not uncommon, for young men of rank to go abroad for some time, attended by a tutor, to perfect themselves in continental languages. It need scarcely be said that travelling was equally tedious and expensive. A journey from Dublin to Cork occupied several days; postchaises are a comparatively modern invention; and Sir William Petty astonished the ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... inspiration of childhood, and Stevenson is not the only genius who has retained from childhood something more than its inspiration. Other examples readily occur to the memory—in one way Byron, in another Tennyson. None of us is perfect: I do not want to erect an immaculate clay-cold image of a man, in marble or in sugar-candy. But I will say that I do not remember ever to have heard Mr Stevenson utter a word against any mortal, friend or foe. Even in a case where he had, or believed himself to have, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... the ballrooms of the woods, the floors on which the little people dance in the moonlight at their great celebrations. Then he added a piece of woolly dog moss, and showed her how each separate spine was like a perfect ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... to happen." Since then, whenever I hear that phrase I invariably associate it with a person who has nothing to do and who is too lazy to do anything even if he had ever so many duties. At that time I did not know enough about disease symptoms to enable me to acquire a perfect ailment of any sort, but later, when I had formed a speaking acquaintance with diseases, I began to get them rapidly and in the most typical form. For the present I took life as easy as I could and had no boyish ambition to be a cowboy ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... the destruction of the ruling influence of the clergy inculcated by men dogmatic as Spanish Inquisitors. We are taught that the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures is a mere figment, by those who are firmly convinced that their own inspiration is perfect and unfailing. The result of all this is the development of characters as deformed as are the bodies of victims to hydrocephalus or goitre; while, in painful contrast to such victims, these morally distorted patients bear about their deformities in ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... withdrawal of the Prince of Hohenzollern: he cannot do more." He refused to see the ambassador further on this subject; but on setting out to return to Berlin—a step necessitated by the growing excitement throughout Germany—he took leave of Benedetti with perfect cordiality (July 14). The ambassador thereupon returned ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... their Majesties entered their box, it would have been difficult to imagine that the Emperor had already enemies among his subjects. It is true that the mothers and widows in mourning were not there; but I can affirm that I have never seen more perfect enthusiasm. The Emperor enjoyed this from the depths of his heart, even more, perhaps, than after his victories. The conviction that he was beloved by the French people impressed him deeply, and in the evening he condescended to speak to me of it—shall ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... forces grew daily in Rome, and his time was consumed in organizing, equipping, and drilling these, to bring about that perfect unity for which his army was to be conspicuous in spite of the variety of French, Italian, Spanish, and Swiss elements of which it was composed. So effectively were his troops armed and so excellent was the discipline prevailing among ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... killed; whom God raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses[3:15]. (16)And his name, upon the faith in his name, made this man strong, whom ye see and know; and the faith, which is through Him, gave him this perfect soundness in the ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... perfect gallery of amorous conceptions—Josephine and her mother were in the habit of consummating those intrigues which they wished to invest with extraordinary eclat and voluptuousness. Here they loved to feed their impure tastes by contemplating ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... enemy was compelled to advance, were placed under cover of some of the out-buildings. Thus prepared, he waited the approach of the British, though not without sundry misgivings. It must be confessed that, at this juncture, he had not the most perfect confidence in the force under his command. They consisted, in great proportion, of those who, in that day, were known as new-made Whigs—men who had deserted the enemy and been cleansed of their previous treasons by the proclamation of Governor Rutledge, which, not long before, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... which shall be sudden and surprizing in a few days upon you; and I, as a sent servant of Jesus Christ, whose commission I bear, and whose badge I wear upon my breast, give you warning, and leave you to the justice of God." Accordingly, in a few days after, the said Andrew, being in perfect health, took his breakfast plentifully, and before he rose fell a-vomiting, and vomited his heart's blood in the very vessel out of which he had taken his breakfast; and died in a most frightful manner. This admonishing ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... only events directly under consideration, every duration is part of other durations; and every duration has other durations which are parts of it. Accordingly there are no maximum durations and no minimum durations. Thus there is no atomic structure of durations, and the perfect definition of a duration, so as to mark out its individuality and distinguish it from highly analogous durations over which it is passing, or which are passing over it, is an arbitrary postulate of ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... he discovered Cornaro's little book on the quays of the Seine, has been seeking to make his existence conform to the "art of living long in perfect health." This credulous Chinaman of the Chinese had become thoroughly absorbed in the study of the precepts so magisterially laid down by the noble Venetian. And Pan Chao is always chaffing him thereupon, though the good man takes ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... stands for law,— As law for Will eternal,—perfect, clear, And uncompassionate shines: to her appear Vast sequences close-linked without a flaw. All past despairs of ocean unforgot, All raptures past, serene her light she gives, The moon too high for pity, since she lives Aware ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... and degree of human thought, feeling, and emotion, and clothed them all, from the lowest to the loftiest, from the slightest to the most intense and concentrated, in the dress of exactly appropriate style and language. His metre also is a perfect vehicle of the language. If we think the range of his knowledge limited, yet it was all that his country and his age possessed, and it was very greatly more than has been supposed by readers that dwelt only on the surface. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... far, has had a liberal, though perhaps not a full, education. But it seems to me that such training as that to which I have referred may be termed liberal, in both the senses in which that word is employed, with perfect accuracy. In the first place, it is liberal in breadth. It extends over the whole ground of things to be known and of faculties to be trained, and it gives equal importance to the two great sides of human activity—art and science. In the second place, it is liberal ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... day awaited him at Malesherbes, and returned with him. Further, that Henry had been in the habit of wearing, when riding back in the evening, a purple cloak over his hunting-suit; a fact well known, I felt sure, to the assassins, who, unseen and in perfect safety, could fire at the exact moment when the cloak obscured the feather, and could then make their escape, secured by the stout wall of box, ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... purpose, the love of gossip, the petty interests, the feeble talk, the ignorance, the vanity, the love of personal display, the white hand dangled over the pulpit, the becoming vestment and the embroidered stole, which we are learning gradually to look upon as attributes of the British curate. So perfect, indeed, is the imitation that the excellence of her work may perhaps defeat its own purpose; and the lacquered imitation of woman, "dilettante, delicate-handed," as Tennyson saw and sang of him, may satisfy the world, and for long ages prevent any ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... it). It was all laid before her as it had been; all its immortal splendour, and all its mortal suffering and its shame. Not a line (if she could have stayed to think of that), not a word that could offend her taste or hurt her pride. The thing was perfect. She understood why it had been shown to her. She understood that he wanted to tell her that he had loved her. She understood that he never would have told her if it had not been all over. It was because it was all ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... vegetables were raised, but families subsisted, for the most part, on game with which the forests abound, and the lakes and rivers were alive with fish. Wild geese, ducks, turkeys, quail and pigeons swept through the air with perfect freedom. Deer, antelope, moose, beaver, wolves, catamount and even grizzly bear often visited the scene of the settler's home, among whom ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... head. Her father's suspicions as to Dudley's perfect sanity had, of course, reached her ears, and she felt so much pity for the poor fellow whose confession she was then hearing that she dared not even raise her eyes to his face again. He went on, hurrying his words, as if anxious ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... great while the old folks used to have a kind of short spree, particularly when there was any special occasion of a great feast going on. But all the young folks did not drink intoxicating liquors as a beverage in those days. And we always rested in perfect safety at night in our dwellings, and the doorways of our lodges had no fastenings to them, but simply a frail mat or a blanket was hung over our doorways which might be easily pushed or thrown one side without ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... worship, their purely religious affairs. Between 1594 and 1609, under the sway of Henry IV., Catholic king, seven national synods of the Protestant church in France held their sessions in seven different towns, and discussed with perfect freedom such questions of religious doctrine and discipline as were interesting to them. At the same epoch, between 1593 and 1608, the French Protestants met at eleven assemblies, specially summoned to deliberate, not in these cases upon questions ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... into a man's house, and when I commenced to talk about religion he turned to his daughter and said: "You had better go out of the room; I want to say a few words to Mr. Moody." When she had gone he opened a perfect torrent of infidelity upon me. "Why," said I, "did you send your daughter out of the room before you said this?" "Well," he replied, "did not think it would do her any good to hear what I said." My friends, his "rock is not as our rock" Why did he send his daughter ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... whose work in turn took permanent shape in the Gemara ( doctrine). The Palestinian Gemara was reduced to writing in perhaps the 4th or 5th century; unfortunately it has been preserved to us only in part, but appears to have reached the Middle Ages in a perfect state (compare Schiller-Szinessy in the Academy, 1878, p. 170 seq.). Even thus the process which issued in the production of the Talmud was not yet completed; the Babylonian Amoraim carried it forward for some time longer, until at last at the ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... dragged into the wretched squabble. Father and son both agreed that the case should be laid before Zachariah; but when Mr. Allen came back from London he merely said, in answer to George's inquiries, that Zachariah and himself were in perfect accord, and that at the meeting George ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... the Dawn, sometime to broaden into the full and perfect day. At its close now, a still golden glow, like a great Peace, filled the earth and heaven, touching the dead Lot there, and the old man kneeling beside her. He fancied that it broke from behind the dark bars of cloud in the West, thinking of the old appeal, "Lift ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and gentle God—Should stand before Thee with a tyrant's rod O'er creatures like himself, with souls from Thee, Yet dare to boast of perfect liberty! Away! away! I 'd rather hold my neck In doubtful tenure from a sultan's beck, In climes where Liberty has scarce been named, Nor any right but that of ruling claimed, Than thus to live where bastard Freedom waves Her fustian flag in mockery ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... a charm about the bush—the perfect peace in the "free air of God"—that so takes hold of some men that they can never be happy anywhere else. Civilisation is a fine thing in its way, but the petty worries and annoyances, the bustle and excitement, the crowds of people, the "you can't ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... treatise, none will refuse to confess the superiority of such persons to all others; for, in fact, what can be more admirable than the study and practice of the grand affairs of state, united to a literary taste and a familiarity with the liberal arts? or what can we imagine more perfect than a Scipio, a Laelius, or a Philus, who, not to omit anything which belonged to the most perfect excellence of the greatest men, joined to the examples of our ancestors and the traditions of our countrymen the foreign ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... almost meet and terminate by a semicircular clasp; others are a combination of straight or twisted wires ingeniously joined to one another. "Some of these ornaments remain even up to the present day in a perfect state of preservation. In an urn from one of the lake settlements six specimens were discovered, the designs of which appeared quite as clearly as if they ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... Ruscelli brought out a similar work based on the Platonic Philosophy. In 1599, Anthony Gibson wrote a book which in the prolix phraseology of the times was called, "A Woman's Worth defended against all the Men in the World, proving to be more Perfect, Excellent, and Absolute, in all Virtuous Actions, than any man of What Quality Soever." While these sturdy male defenders of the rights of woman met with many opponents, some going so far as to assert that women were beings not endowed ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... tasteful and picturesque, that you will have an unquestioning faith in the possibility and the desirableness of love in a cottage, the moment you behold it. On the other hand, by making the best of your resources, it is possible to build a large, plain, square house, a perfect cube if you please, that shall not only be homelike in appearance, but truly impressive and elegant. How? I've been trying to illustrate and explain. By being honest; by despising and rejecting all fashions ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... or precious to be given in a work for which such men have lived, and labored, and suffered. No great good is ever wrought out for the human race without the suffering of great hearts. They who would serve their fellow-men are ever reminded that the Captain of their salvation was made perfect through suffering. I gratefully accept the offering confided to my care, and trust it may be so employed that the blessing of many "who are ready to perish" will return upon your heads. Let me ask those—those fathers and mothers in Israel—who have lived and ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... complete political superiority, the whites also recognized a large responsibility for the race they controlled. A degree of civil rights was secured to them, short of a perfect equality with the whites, but far beyond the status intended by the "black codes" of 1865-6. The fundamental rights, of liberty to dispose of their labor and earnings in their own way, and protection of person and property by the law and the courts, ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... some time with the Molyneuxs during the autumn and winter, and had conducted himself so far with perfect propriety, certainly keeping Harry straighter than he would have gone alone; for he was, unluckily, of a convivial turn of mind wholly incompatible with delicate health and a frail constitution. Being ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... That terrible avenger, a perfect archangel of hatred, was still looking. When all was over, he turned to his room, opened the door, and entered. I followed him with my eyes. On the end wall beneath his heroes, I saw the portrait of a woman, still young, and two little children. Captain Nemo looked at them for some ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... For why, the ghostly feeling of this second thought, when it is thus truly joined to the first, shall be to thee a sure staff of hope to hold thee by in all thy good doings. And by this staff thou mayst sikerly climb in to the high mount of perfection, that is to say, to the perfect love of God; though all this beginning be imperfect, as thou shalt hear after. For, what for the general sight that thou hast of the mercy and of the goodness of God, and this special experience that thou feelest of His mercy ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... scale would be followed by numerous accidents unless copper and its alloys were rigidly excluded from contact with the gas. These fears have, however, fortunately proved to be unfounded, and ordinary gas fittings can be used with perfect safety with ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... tramway in the centre, it is laid with hexagonal wooden blocks, well spiked together and tarred, resting upon tarred beams and planks, and forming a pavement which is both elastic and fairly resistant to the volcanic action of the frost. The snow is maintained at such a level that, while sledging is perfect, the closed carriages which are used for evening entertainments, calls, and shopping are never incommoded. Street sweepers, in red cotton blouses and clean white linen aprons, sweep on calmly in the icy chill. The police, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... at the counter, I usually went back, and found on every interview new cause for esteeming the family. The treatment I met with was always cordial and frank; and, though our meetings were thus merely casual, we seemed, in a short time, to have grown into a perfect ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... young days—beautiful and wicked—days of clear, rich tints, and sanguine throbbings, and gloria mundi—when we fancy the spirit perfect, and the body needs no redemption—when, fresh from the fountains of life, death is but a dream, and we walk the earth like heathen gods and goddesses, in celestial egotism and beauty. Oh, fair youth!—gone for ever. The parting ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... still, and tried to collect his thoughts. His head throbbed, and his memory was neither clear nor perfect. He remembered that two boys had laughed at him when he jumped lightly over the doorstep outside the Brothers Egeland's store, and that he had felt much inclined to complain of them to the police. He had also a vision of a decanter which moved ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... which this saint led, is a proof of the fervor with which he sought to live in the most perfect sequestration from creatures, and union with God and heaven. The most perfect accomplishment of the Divine Will was his only view, and the sole object of his desires; whence upon the least intimation of an order from a superior, he was ready ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... referred to. It is not what someone else tells you, or what another claims. It is what you discern and recognize, and the teaching and the life are in perfect harmony, like chords in music; and they strike a harmonic chord in you, that may be first a surprise, and soon a great ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... feat to be proud of; but unluckily his father watched him with all the vigilance of a Spanish duenna. But there was a young girl who had long since secretly formed a design of her own, and this bold-hearted beauty was Diana de Laurebourg. It was with perfect justice that she had received the name of the "Belle of Poitiers." She was tall and very fair, with a dazzling complexion and masses of lustrous hair; but her eyes gleamed with a suppressed fire, which plainly ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... dying, begged to live a little longer, that he might repent; and when they wondered, he told them that he had not yet even begun repentance. Whereby they saw that he was perfect in ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... writing for newspapers, so that he had no time to become the great poet that nature intended him to be. However, he did find time to produce one volume of highly finished poetry, which is probably the most perfect verse of the nineteenth century, if not the most perfect verse ever made by a French poet; I mean the "Emaux et Camees." But the little poem which I am going to read to you is not from the ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... Fanny, endeavouring to cool her forehead by pressing a little hand-glass against it. "The only thing that does me any good is fresh air and perfect quiet. Oh, the noise here from the street is dreadful! To think that I have to spend the whole evening in a hot room! I can't bear it; it will be ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... full and perfect construction whether of an adjective or a genitive case, the possessive pronouns present the phenomenon of being, singly, incomplete, but, nevertheless, complementary to each other when taken ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... small and large. But they too were left behind, and the main line gave off other experiments—indications of which we know in Java, at Heidelberg, in the Neanderthal, and at Piltdown. None of these lasted or was made perfect. They represent tentative men who had their day and ceased to be, our predecessors rather than our ancestors. Still, the main stem goes on evolving, and who will be bold enough to say what fruit it has ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... p.m., twenty-eight days after the new milks made their first appearance, Major Quartermain blasted off in a perfect launching. ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... Fourteen years ago you were learning to walk, and in the process you got many a tumble. But now you can not only walk yourself, but teach others. So, spiritually, if you will only let God lead you, He will perfect that which ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... searched the discourses and writings of the most respectable veterans; and that after an interval of thirty years, forgotten by, and forgetful of the world, her mournful solitude was inaccessible to hope and fear: that truth, the naked perfect truth, was more dear than the memory of her parent. Yet instead of the simplicity of style and narrative which wins our belief, an elaborate affectation of rhetoric and science betrays in every page the vanity of a female author. The genuine character of Alexius ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Shakespeare and the musical glasses. She is extremely clever and a very curious type; not at all coarse or wanting to be coarse; determined not to be. She means to take very good care of herself. She is extremely perfect; she is as hard and clear-cut as some little figure of a sea-nymph in an antique intaglio, and I will warrant that she has not a grain more of sentiment or heart than if she was scooped out of a big amethyst. You can't scratch her even ...
— The American • Henry James
... testify abundantly to the affectionate regard in which Roman rule was held. The rule may have been far from perfect, judged from a modern point of view, but it was so much better and so much more orderly than anything that had gone before that it ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... there was progress making; and spoke of one establishment in particular, which had recently been erected in London, and was admirably arranged with regard to ventilation, being conducted in the most perfect manner. ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... who knew all those colours, but yet had never seen that phenomenon, would, by enumerating the figure, largeness, position, and order of the colours, so well define that word that it might be perfectly understood. But yet that definition, how exact and perfect soever, would never make a blind man understand it; because several of the simple ideas that make that complex one, being such as he never received by sensation and experience, no words are able to excite them in ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... richer classes, with whom we chiefly came in contact, merely abused the Land League, while the Land Leaguers declared that the accounts of outrages were grossly exaggerated. The most prominent, Mr. Michael Davitt, assured me, and I believe with perfect truth, that he had exerted himself to discountenance outrage, and that if, as he expected, he was locked up by the Government, outrages would increase. When one reached the disturbed districts, where, of course, one talked to members as well of the landlord class as of the peasantry, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... that in his breast which would free Haman, so he had said. A fury had its birth in her at that moment. Something seemed to seize her brain and master it, something so big that it held all her faculties in perfect control, and she felt herself in an atmosphere where all life moved round her mechanically, she herself the only sentient thing, so much greater than all she saw, or all that she realized by her subconscious self. Everything in ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... derived great enjoyment from having been made the recipient of the confidences of many women, and by learning therefrom to respect the moral greatness that is so often coupled with delicate physical structure, and almost perfect social helplessness. Pioneer life brings to light striking characteristics in a remarkable manner; because, in the absence of conventionalities and in the presence of absolute and imminent necessities, all real qualities come to the surface as they ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... that," said the footman. "My master only goes into your parts about once a year, and then in his own carriage. He prefers the valley d'Orge, where he has the most beautiful park in the neighborhood of Paris, a perfect Versailles, a family estate of which he bears the name. ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... out exactly what mean pressure of the arterial and venous system best conforms with the patient's general welfare, and I am bitterly opposed, and I think with right, to the sudden reduction of tensions, except in emergencies, without a perfect understanding of the facts I have ventured to indicate. This does not for a moment mean that prior, for example, to operative work it is not necessary to get rid by means of drugs of an over plus tension, ...
— Glaucoma - A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago - Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 • Various
... Governor-General celebrated his success, amid peals of cannon and shouts of triumph from his army, they bitterly bewailed their own folly. Yet even then they could hardly believe that the work had been accomplished by human agency, but they loudly protested that invisible demons had been summoned to plan and perfect this fatal and preter-human work. They were wrong. There had been but one demon—one clear, lofty intelligence, inspiring a steady and untiring hand. The demon was the intellect of Alexander Farnese; but it had been assisted in its labour by the hundred devils ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... that young Northcote's eloquence, reported in next day's papers, was quite enough to quash for ever all hopes of his son's acceptance of the chaplaincy. So he walked home as fast as his legs would carry him, and burst into his house, as we have seen, with a semblance of passion so perfect as to deceive his entire family and fill the place with anger and tears. Upon which, withdrawing from the scene of conflict, he threw himself down in his easy-chair and chuckled, recovering his composure ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... coiled, more tightly, sounded its warning and sprung straight towards her. This was what she had hoped for; and leaping nimbly aside, before he could coil for another spring, she struck him squarely on the head, following that blow up with a perfect rain of rocks, carefully keeping out of range lest he should coil again, and hurling each missile with all her fierce strength, losing her fear of her opponent as ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... deserved the veneration and confidence of his fellow-citizens. The good of his country was the sole end of his exertions, never personal glory. In war and in peace, Washington is in my eyes the most perfect model that can be offered to those who would devote themselves to the service of their country and assert the cause ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... to pass. Nevertheless, I hope it will not be long before royal or national libraries will be founded in every considerable city, with a royal series of books in them; the same series in every one of them, chosen books, the best in every kind, prepared for that national series in the most perfect way possible; their text printed all on leaves of equal size, broad of margin, and divided into pleasant volumes, light in the hand, beautiful, and strong, and thorough as examples of binders' work; and that these great libraries will be accessible ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... out from them which seemed to create a palpitant atmosphere of delight in which they stood. It was as if the spiritual essence of them, mingling, had formed the perfect fluid of the soul, in which it was a privilege to live and breathe ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... a hot photo when he gets about two finger-lengths in him! No, it's not our business who buys. We're here to sell. That's one thing I don't believe in, is refusin' liquor to any man. Every man has a perfect right to as much ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... a leather couch in his sitting-room, levelled eyebrows of suspicion at Lanyard, who countered with a guilelessness so perfect as to make it appear that he did ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... investigation into the properties of given commodities, the list will be indefinitely increased. What I have stated will suffice to give the reader an idea of the surprising variety of sources from which we receive the raw materials which enable us to perfect some of the most elegant processes of manufacturing skill and ingenuity, and will further afford some criterion—though, of course, not a perfect one—for estimating the relative importance of the tanning ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... work; or he to whom all activities belong.— 'To whom all wishes belong'; i.e. he to whom all pure objects and means of desire and enjoyment belong. 'He to whom all odours and tastes belong'; i.e. he to whom there belong, as objects of enjoyment, all kinds of uncommon, special, perfect, supremely excellent odours and tastes; ordinary smells and tastes being negatived by another text, viz. 'That which is without sound, without touch, without taste,' &c. (Ka. Up. I, 3, 15).—'He who embraces ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... to Messrs. Brett and Grattan's office was accomplished in perfect silence. The office was just closing, but Mr. Brett—the partner with whom Percival happened to be acquainted—was there, and ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... mind had, when it began to exert influence on Rome, already left the epoch of productive speculation far behind it, and had arrived at the stage at which there is not only no origination of truly new systems, but even the power of apprehending the more perfect of the older systems begins to wane and men restrict themselves to the repetition, soon passing into the scholastic tradition, of the less complete dogmas of their predecessors; at that stage, accordingly, when philosophy, instead of giving greater depth and freedom to ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... sometimes they would be lame on one side of their bodies, sometimes on the other: sometimes a soreness over their whole bodies, so as they could endure none to touch them: at other times they would be restored to the perfect use of their limbs, and deprived of their hearing; at other times of their sight, at other times of their speech; sometimes by the space of one day, sometimes for two; and once they were wholly deprived of their speech for eight days together ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... impulse moved their hearts, the same earnest feeling inspired their words. Miss Garth waited until the first outburst of emotion had passed away; then rose, and, taking Norah and Magdalen each by the hand, addressed herself to Mr. Pendril and Mr. Clare. She spoke with perfect self-possession; strong in her artless unconsciousness ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... you here for reform," muses the vote-cribber; "but he must be a perfect fleshhook on the ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... were quick to see and interpret Charley's action, and their guns were quickly turned upon his frail craft. As he drew nearer the drifting dugout and came within range, a perfect hail of bullets splashed the water into foam around him. He did not falter or hesitate, but with long clean strokes of the paddle, sent his light little craft flying towards his goal. Perhaps it ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... grand head, laid it on his bosom. Her finely-rounded, supple, muscular figure trembled, as if she had been the most fragile woman living. "Dear Amelius!" she murmured inaudibly. He tried to speak to her—his voice failed him. She had, in perfect innocence, fired his young blood. He drew her closer and closer to him: he lifted her head, with a masterful resolution which she was not able to resist, and pressed his kisses in hot and breathless succession on her lips. His vehemence frightened her. She tore herself ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... of the flashlight and the automatic sagging the pockets. He'd need both, the gun as much as the light—New York had more than its share of vicious criminals, to whom this power-failure would be a perfect devilsend. Handing Doris the light, he let her take his left arm. Together, they left the room and went down the hallway to the stairs and the long walk to the darkened street below, into a city that had suddenly been cut off from its ...
— Day of the Moron • Henry Beam Piper
... for the rest give yourselves to works of piety and prayers of devotion." Such counsel was somewhat embarrassing to a captain like the Sire de Gaucourt and even to a man of worth like my Lord of Treves. It appears that the clerks left the King perfect liberty of judgment and of action, and that in the end they advised him not to believe in the Maid, but to let the people and the men-at-arms believe ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... Britain is to be found. Though not amounting, upon the whole, to more than a tenth part of the nation, they are incomparably the most alarming from their close proximity to each other, the fierce passions which the revolutionary press has long nourished among them, and the perfect organization which, under the direction Of the leaders of their trades' unions, they have long attained. The insurrection in the manufacturing districts of England, and violent strikes in Scotland in 1842, may ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... they changed the meaning by substituting "proportionate to" for "equals"? He felt a flash of exasperation. Well sure, without tools he could not draw a perfect circle, nor two of them entirely equal. It was pedantic of them to split hairs over that? He must practice, without tools, to ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... perfect restoration to health, I was surprised on ascending the stairs, for the purpose of visiting this man, to find him busily employed in nailing down some planks upon the landing-place, through which, at the commencement ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... a perfect fever of curiosity to know what he meant. His loving me, of course, was easy enough to understand. But what did he mean by saying he had been warned? Why was he never to live under the same roof, never to breathe the same air again, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... to its corolla, so that the hive-bee could visit its flowers. Thus I can understand how a flower and a bee might slowly become, either simultaneously or one after the other, modified and adapted in the most perfect manner to each other, by the continued preservation of individuals presenting mutual and ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... Empire, so much so that there was attributed to Marcus Aurelius a letter, in which, by reason, no doubt, of this incident, he forbade persecution of the Christians. Tertullian, a contemporary witness, speaks of this letter in perfect confidence; and the Christian writers of the following century did not hesitate to regard it as authentic. Nowadays a strict examination of its existing text does not allow such a character to be attributed to it. At any rate the persecutions of the Christians ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... when, one hot July morning, he was knocked down by a thunderbolt, a ball of fire, which entered his side, ran all through his body, and came out at his arm. At the place where the ball made its exit, a large ulcer was formed, and when it dispersed he found himself in perfect health, in which he has continued ever since! In such cases the "bottled lightning," demanded by Mrs. Nickleby's admirer, might be a ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... comedy. Nor would Italy be raised higher by valor and feats of arms, than by its language, did not the fatigue and tediousness of using the file disgust every one of our poets. Do you, the decendants of Pompilius, reject that poem, which many days and many a blot have not ten times subdued to the most perfect accuracy. Because Democritus believes that genius is more successful than wretched art, and excludes from Helicon all poets who are in their senses, a great number do not care to part with their nails or beard, frequent places ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Then, lifting the lighted candle, he bent over the two prostrate bodies, holding the illumination close to the lineaments first of one and then of the other. He looked at them very carefully for a long while, with the closest and most intent scrutiny, and in perfect silence. "They are both as dead," says he, "as Davy Jones, and, whoever you be, I protest that you have done your business the most completest that I ever saw in all ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... seen her before in her false, crippled state, prostrate and helpless, and could have seen her then,—those eyes, if haggard still, now full of life and vigour; that frame, if spare, towering aloft in commanding stature, perfect in its proportions as a Grecian image of Nemesis,—your amaze would have merged into terror, so preternatural did the transformation appear, so did aspect and bearing contradict the very character of her sex, uniting the two elements most formidable in man ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and a radiant form apparently glided through the chamber. But the spectre vanished as the eyelid passed over, and swept away the illusion. She leaned her glowing cheek upon a hand white and exquisitely formed as the purest statuary: an image of more perfect loveliness never glanced through a lady's lattice. She carelessly took up her cithern. A few wild chords flew from her touch. She bent her head towards the instrument, as if wooing its melody—the vibrations that crept to her heart. She hummed a low and plaintive descant, mournful ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... makes perfect, and Ned had so accustomed himself to fastening the prominent features of the landscape upon his memory that once he saw a place he ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Plutarch, sit uneasily on Shakespeare's Brutus; it is apparent that the poet had no conception of what we call a fanatic. His difficulties arise from this limitation of insight. He begins to write the play by making Brutus an idealized portrait of himself; he, therefore, dwells on Brutus' perfect nobility, sincerity, and unselfishness, but does not realize that the more perfect he makes Brutus, the more clear and cogent Brutus' motive must ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... introduction of such a practice on that occasion would have been construed as a precedent for the treatment of future public emergencies. Thus, it would have tended to disturb the now perfect adjustment of the balance of powers between the co-ordinate branches. That quality of absolute supremacy of the several departments in their respective spheres, or functions, and of co-ordination or equality in their relations to each other, established by the Constitution ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... gratitude, was banished from the mind of Wilder, by the mountings of powerful professional pride, and that love of glory which becomes inherent in the warrior, as he gazed on the untouched and beautiful symmetry of the "Dolphin's" spars, and all the perfect, and still underanged, order of her tackle. It seemed as if she bore a charmed fate, or that some supernatural agency had been instrumental in preserving her unharmed, amid the violence of a second hurricane. ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... four years private secretary to a cabinet minister, and live in Paris and observe the carrying on of many intrigues, with perfect impunity; in fact, the purest soul is more or less intoxicated by the heady atmosphere of the imperial city. Happy in the thought that he was not Canalis, our young secretary engaged a place in the mail-coach for Havre, after writing a letter ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... entered into her very soul, and brought her to regard a state of inactivity as the only earthly good. In manner and appearance she was exceedingly prepossessing. She had been a beauty, and even now, at fifty-five, she was a handsome woman. Her dress was always perfect: she never dressed but once in the day, and never appeared till between three and four; but when she did appear, she appeared at her best. Whether the toil rested partly with her, or wholly with her handmaid, it is not for such a one as the author even to imagine. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... still superb by reason of imperishable style! How much in Italy of the Renaissance was, like this plank-built plastered theatre, a glorious sham! The sham was seen through then; and now it stands unmasked: and yet, strange to say, so perfect is its form that we respect the sham and yield our spirits to the incantation ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... superiour to fear, hope, and expectation, who has no private purposes to promote, and whose prosperity is involved in the prosperity of his country. As my recovery from a very severe distemper is not yet perfect, I have declined to attend the Hall, and hope an omission so necessary ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill |
