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More "Masterpiece" Quotes from Famous Books
... what courage!" continued the young detective. "Ah! there's no denying it, his system of defense—of absolute denial—is a masterpiece. It is perfect. How well he played that difficult part of buffoon! At times I could scarcely restrain my admiration. What is a famous comedian beside that fellow? The greatest actors need the adjunct of stage scenery to support the illusion, whereas ... — Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... of the human heart, and perpetual raillery that yet is not devoid of delicacy and compassion. Moliere is a most charming man in every respect; I gave him a few hints for his 'Tartuffe,' and such is his gratitude that he wants to make out that, without me, he would never have written that masterpiece." ... — Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... something—that the world would follow where I had led!"—The old force, fire, joyous enthusiasm had bounded into his voice. But it died away, and it was with a settling to sadness he said, "You see, little girl, if there was a wonderful picture you had conceived—your masterpiece, something you had reason to feel would stand as one of the world's great pictures, if you had begun on it, were in the heat of it, and then had to give it up, it would not quite satisfy you, would it, dear, to settle down and write some textbooks ... — The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... stirred by an emotion that must thrill the hearts of all great artists when, in the pride of their youth and their first love of art, they come into the presence of a master or stand before a masterpiece. For all human sentiments there is a time of early blossoming, a day of generous enthusiasm that gradually fades until nothing is left of happiness but a memory, and glory is known for a delusion. Of all these delicate and short-lived emotions, none so resemble love as the passion of a young ... — The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... "Dunciad," Swift published his "Gulliver's Travels," and Gay set the town wild with his "Beggar's Opera." We are far from any thought of classifying the "Beggar's Opera" as a work of art on a level with the "Dunciad" or "Gulliver's Travels," but in its way it is a masterpiece. It is thoroughly original, fresh, and vivid. It added one or two distinctly new figures to the humorous drama. It is clever as a satire and charming as a story. One cannot be surprised that when it had the attraction of novelty the public raved about it. To say anything about ... — A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... of violence. Never had so much stinging bitterness, so many falsehoods, such bigoted abuse flowed from pen before. Vuillet commenced by narrating the entry of the insurgents into Plassans. The description was a perfect masterpiece. He spoke of "those bandits, those villainous-looking countenances, that scum of the galleys," invading the town, "intoxicated with brandy, lust, and pillage." Then he exhibited them "parading their cynicism in the streets, terrifying the inhabitants with their savage cries and seeking ... — The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... remarkable skill. The former is divided into a nave and four aisles, transepts, and a shallow chancel, by four rows of Corinthian columns, with a small dome over the intersection. The interior is very beautiful, and this church is generally considered to be Wren's masterpiece. S. Mary Abchurch, is nearly square in plan, has no columns and is covered with a domical ceiling, but so skilfully treated that the effect ... — Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... entirety, is an honest, frank, and convincing enunciation of republican truths. It is an unselfish and sober appeal for justice to another member of the Negro race. Bereft of all rhetorical embellishments, as the speech is, it may well pass for a masterpiece of logical thought and dynamic expression. It is the forerunner of even ... — The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... great masterpiece, an Elephant; The only harmless great thing: Yet Nature hath given him no knee to bend: Himself he up-props, on himself ... — Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... without study from nature—a sketch rather than a completed work of art, but a sketch to be slowly developed into the reliefs of the Farragut pedestal, the angels of the Morgan tomb, the caryatids of the Vanderbilt mantelpiece, and, at length, into such a masterpiece as the "Amor-Caritas." In each of these developments the work becomes less picturesque and more formal, the taste is purified, the exuberance of decorative feeling is more restrained. The final term is reached in the caryatids for the Albright Gallery at Buffalo—works of his last ... — Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... For Poirot, uttering a hoarse and inarticulate cry, again annihilated his masterpiece of cards, and putting his hands over his eyes swayed backwards and forwards, apparently ... — The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... calculate on anything. Least of all with George Tanqueray. Except that he'll never achieve anything that isn't a masterpiece. If ... — The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... him into tolerable English verse. And I have no hesitation in asserting, that any competent judge, who is such by virtue of understanding the original, would pronounce her translations of Giusti to be a masterpiece, which very few indeed of contemporary men or women could have produced. I have more than once surprised her in tears occasioned by her obstinate struggles with some passage of the intensely idiomatic satirist, which ... — What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... neat, myself." He had some reputation in the under-world for his manner of dressing, and he regarded this latest achievement as his masterpiece. ... — Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... translation. If his object was to overthrow the great Greek poet, it must have been a bitter disappointment to Marivaux to see that his burlesque passed almost unnoticed by his contemporaries and was soon forgotten. The same year he wrote a Telemaque travesti, a parody on the masterpiece of Fenelon. This work was not published until 1736, when it was received with such disapprobation that he ... — A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... his great wonder, there stood the shoes all ready made, upon the table. The good man knew not what to say or think at such an odd thing happening. He looked at the workmanship; there was not one false stitch in the whole job; all was so neat and true, that it was quite a masterpiece. ... — Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... of its rain. The day was a masterpiece of good weather. A brilliant throng mounted to the platform, an admiral, sea-captains and lieutenants, officers of the army, a Senator, Congressmen, judges, capitalists, the jubilant officers of the ship-building corporation. And ... — The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... does not completely realise. She may be likened to a child playing with symbols which, in the hand of the enchanter, would be of tremendous import. Her treatment of Isoude, for example, in "The Lay of the Honeysuckle," is quite perfect in tone, and, indeed, is a little masterpiece in its own fashion. But her sketch of Guenevere in "The Lay of Sir Launfal" is of a character that one does not recall with pleasure. To see how Arthur's Queen might be treated, we have but to turn to the ... — French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... potter having produced a masterpiece as a present to his lady destroyed the design, so that the service he gave her might be unique. After gazing at these curious old pieces, with dates of 1754, 1728, and so forth, the mind becomes attuned to such times, ... — Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... The vestibule contains a superb mosaic, brought home from Venice, in 1798, by one of the Boiscorans, who had degenerated, and followed the fortunes of Napoleon. The balusters of the great staircase are a masterpiece of iron work; and the wainscoting in the dining-room has no rival ... — Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... original here follows Villon's masterpiece, the matchless Ballad of the Ladies of Old Time, so incomparably rendered in the marvellous version of D. G. Rossetti; followed in its turn by the succeeding poem, as inferior to its companion as is my attempt at translation of it to his triumph in ... — Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... only a study in unisons? There is the C-sharp minor Prelude. In it Brahms is anticipated by a quarter of a century. The Polonaise in F-sharp minor was damned years ago by Liszt, who found that it contained pathologic states. What of it? It is Chopin's masterpiece in this form and for that reason is seldom played in public. Why? My children, do you not know by this time that the garden variety of pianoforte virtuoso will play difficult music if the difficulties be technical not emotional, or emotional and ... — Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... action. But first he had to fulminate. Much irritation had been caused by mock proclamations mysteriously appearing on the walls of the residences of the new generals, and Gage now determined to issue one in earnest. He called Burgoyne to his aid, and the literary general drafted a masterpiece. It was published on the ... — The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... enjoyment, and not only instrumentally and vocally. In other words we realise that good listeners and appreciative understanders of music are, in their way, as essential as executants. "Shocking as it may seem, hundreds of children 'learn music' for the length of their school life and never hear a masterpiece, and indeed, hear no music at all except such as their own untrained musical sense and half-trained fingers can compass."[21] In increasing measure the teaching of music appreciation is coming into vogue, and as an aid to this the piano-player and gramophone are ... — Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... transatlantic democracy never sufficiently explained her apathy on social questions. She had a mental image of that son of the Crusaders who was to suffer her to adore him, but like many an artist who has produced a masterpiece of idealisation she shrank from exposing it to public criticism. It was the portrait of a gentleman rather ugly than handsome and rather poor than rich. But his ugliness was to be nobly expressive and his poverty delicately proud. She had a fortune of her own which, at the ... — Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... walked to the front, and made my best bow. Then I said: 'I waited until yesterday because I knew absolutely nothing about my subject'—the audience laughed—'and I could find nothing either here or in the library at home, so last night I reviewed Saintine's masterpiece, "Picciola."' ... — At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... A lovely woman is a work of art, but like any other masterpiece, she is a luxury I can't afford. Anyway, this mug of mine rather put me out of the running in the only leagues I've wanted to play in. Incidentally, you introduced yourself as Miss ... — The Deadly Daughters • Winston K. Marks
... of the cutest, wittiest and most amusing of childish sayings, whims and pranks, all at the expense of a bachelor uncle. The book is elaborately illustrated, which greatly assists the reader in appreciating page by page, Habberton's masterpiece. ... — How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... had happened; and England had found its worship once more—the necessary culmination of unimpeded subjectivity. From the provinces had come the like news. In cathedral after cathedral had been the same scenes. Markenheim's masterpiece, executed in four days after the passing of the bill, had been reproduced by the ordinary machinery, and four thousand replicas had been despatched to every important centre. Telegraphic reports had streamed into the London papers ... — Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... artists together, under pain of death by newspaper articles. Ninon the second would have been magnificently impertinent, overwhelming in luxury. She would have set up opinions. Some prohibited dramatic masterpiece should have been read in her drawing-room; it should have been written on purpose if necessary. She would not have been liberal; a courtesan is essentially monarchical. Oh, what a loss! She ought to have embraced her whole century, and she makes ... — Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... the like, are, when great work is concerned, questions for the study and the lecture-room, for the literary historian and the professional critic, rather than for the reader, however intelligent and alert, who wishes to enjoy a masterpiece, and is content simply to enjoy it. It does not really matter how close to anything else something which possesses independent goodness is; the very utmost technical originality, the most spotless purity from the faintest taint ... — Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... It's not quite right about the chair legs, they get so mixed up. Perspective never was my strong point," said Pixie, holding out a sheet and pointing to the masterpiece in question with the end of ... — The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... free from Spain. Hitherto, William of Orange had ruled as King Philip's "stadtholder," and even the war against the monarch had been carried on in his name. Nay, the document establishing the University, a paper, which with all the earnestness that dictated it, deserves to be called an unsurpassed masterpiece of the subtlest political irony, purported to issue from King Philip's mouth, and it sounds amusing enough to read in this paper, that the gloomy dunce in the Escurial, after mature deliberation with his dear and faithful cousin, William of Orange, has ... — Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hath made his masterpiece. Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope the Lord's anointed temple and stole thence the life ... — ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... who had been watching him furtively, wondering why a student should sit in front of the "Sacrifice of Lystra" and gnaw lips and nails and moustache, and scowl and glare at that masterpiece, saw him rise suddenly to his feet with an air of resolution, spin on his heel, and set off with a quick step out of the gallery. He looked neither to the right nor the left. He passed out of ... — Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... years to find materials for and to perfect; the white men were in ivory, the black in walnut, and were two opposing squadrons of French troops and of mounted Arabs. Beautifully carved, with every detail of costume rigid to truth, they were his masterpiece, though they had only been taken up at any odd ten minutes that had happened to be unoccupied during the last three or four years. The chessmen had been about with him in so many places and under canvas so long, ... — Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... which they spring and in which they are swallowed up. We shall then be armed, on the one hand, against the solemn bore who requires us to admire his imitation of an old master because it is in the tradition; on the other, against the portentous "Ist," whose parthenogenetic masterpiece we are not in a state to relish till we have sucked down the pseudo-philosophic bolus that embodies his eponymous "Ism." To each we shall make the same reply: "Be so good as to remove your irrelevant label and we will endeavour to judge your ... — Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... certain area of the camp, and this was to be erected, together with the necessary gates and other details within fourteen days. If we could complete it within a shorter time no complaint would be raised. But he would not allow another day beyond his limit. Major Bach must have been a masterpiece in this particular phase of human endeavour, inasmuch as his anticipated period, as we learned, could not have been reduced ... — Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... exquisite enjoyment. To furnish it he had sacked towns she never heard of, and had rifled two cathedrals, because the notion that the wife of Demetrios should own a Christian chapel appeared to him amusing. The Virgin, a masterpiece of Pietro di Vicenza, Demetrios had purchased by the interception of a free city's navy. It was a ... — Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... I. If we could represent the buck in the act of upsetting us, it would be our 'masterpiece,' wouldn't it? But I am afraid that is further than our ... — Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... cathedral. The lights and sunshine of the out-of-doors made the contrast more impressive and in the wonder of the moment the girls drew closer together. Gone was all their levity now, buried deep beneath an overwhelming reverence for this great architectural masterpiece—exalted resting place of England's ... — Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... town, and they had arranged to read it aloud together. By now, thought Peter, it must be lying on his friend's table. The thought saddened him. And James, guessing what was in Peter's mind, was saddened too. But he did not waver. He was in no mood to read MacBean's masterpiece that night. In the twenty minutes of silence after leaving Miss Forrester he had realized that "Grace" rhymes with "face", and he wanted to sit alone in his study and write poetry. The two men parted with a distant nod. I beg your pardon? Yes, you are right. Two distant ... — The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... this title had long since disappeared, in the destruction of Jerusalem; and tradition, prone to assign to well-known authors of illustrious deeds many good feats accomplished by those who remain nameless, had ascribed the compilation of this early masterpiece of judicial wisdom to Godfrey de Bouillon. It had been sacredly kept in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and guarded by a decree ordaining that it should not be opened except in the presence ... — The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... politics and in literature. After the loss of Icelandic freedom there is no more left of Germania, and the Sturlunga Saga which tells the story of the last days of freedom is the last word of the Teutonic heroic age. It is not a decrepit or imitative or secondary thing; it is a masterpiece; and with this true history, this adaptation of an heroic style to contemporary realities, the sequence of German heroic ... — Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... preceded by short stories, "Lillian Morris," "Yanko the Musician," "After Bread," "Hania," "Let Us Follow Him," followed by two problem novels, "Without Dogma," and "Children of the Soil," and crowned by a masterpiece of an incomparable artistic beauty, "Quo Vadis." Eleven good books adopted from the Polish language and set into circulation are of great importance for the English-reading people—just now I am emphasizing only ... — So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... passion" in a petty environment such as they were in, a tiny world of gossip-mongers and evil tongues! Imagine having to hide like a criminal to express a noble emotion! No, when she loved, she loved in the open, with the sublime immodesty of the masterpiece that scandalizes bumpkins with its naked beauty! How impossible it would be, finding herself nibbled at constantly by gossiping fools, quite beneath her contempt. She would feel the scorn and the indignation ... — The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Doctor Butler's happiness was secure. That new berry was so much richer and sweeter and more generous than the familiar FRAGRARIA VESCA of Europe, that it attracted the sincere interest of all persons of good taste. It inaugurated a new era in the history of the strawberry. The long lost masterpiece of Paradise was restored to its true place in the ... — Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... "the surrendering of an ancient dependency like Heligoland, and which has since been strongly fortified, to satiate a shadowy claim of the GERMAN EMPEROR to the Island of Zanzibar." To satiate a shadowy claim is good. Space forbids quotation of more than one additional sentence from this masterpiece. "Let me conclude by saying, that I trust whoever may succeed me in North-West Wilts will wear ELIJAH's mantle with the same pleasure as I have already done." What that ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 26, 1891 • Various
... starlit rill, I took a turn, and told him of the commonplaces of my world so far away, whereat he laughed gloriously again. The greater the commonplace the larger his joy. The humblest story, hardly calculated to impress a griffin between watches on the main-deck, was a masterpiece of wit to that gentle savage; and when I "took off" the tricks and foibles of some of my superiors—Heaven forgive me for such treason!—he listened with the exquisite open-mouthed delight of one who wanders in ... — Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... mine Audacity," said the knight, resuming the affected manner which was become a second nature to him; "nevertheless this fosse is curiously well shaped, and might be the masterpiece of Nature's last bed-maker, I would say the sexton—Wherefore, let us be thankful to chance or some unknown friend, who hath thus provided for one of us the decencies of sepulture, and let us proceed to determine which shall have the advantage ... — The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... lost him; at Blois, where she married her second, the "good" Louis XII., who divorced an impeccable spouse to make room for her, and where she herself died. Transferred to the cathedral from a demolished convent, this monument, the masterpiece of Michel Colomb, author of the charming tomb of the children of Charles VIII. and the aforesaid Anne, which we admired at Saint Gatien of Tours, is one of the most brilliant works of the French Renaissance. It has a splendid ... — A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... way unique. In the first place it is remarkable for its literary excellence. Compared with the barbarous macaronic jargon of the contemporary official language it shines forth as a masterpiece of pure, pithy and original Danish. Still more remarkable are the tone and tenor of this royal law. The Kongelov has the highly dubious honour of being the one written law in the civilized world ... — Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... is, I consider, due to the public, but whether I have been justified by results or whether, under the sacred mask of Drama, I have erred unpardonably, are points which, so long as this revival draws attention to a forgotten masterpiece, can be of no very ... — The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... which hung from the roof of St. Lorenz? With such an example before him, what might not the boy hope to achieve through talent and persevering labor? And Gabriel felt his own heart burn as he looked with wistful eyes upon that masterpiece of ... — In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... these lines (July, 1918) the station at Chateau-Thierry is all of that city that remains in our hands. The bridge head has become the most disputed spot on the map of Europe; "The Elephant" a heap of waste in No Man's Land, while doubtless from the very place where Corot painted his masterpiece, a German machine gun dominating the city is belching forth its ghastly ... — With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... in reply to the same inevitable imputation, and would not be brought to admit that the two cases were other than parallel. But, except for this single instance of oversight or perversity, her defence was throughout a masterpiece of indomitable ingenuity, of delicate and steadfast courage, of womanly dignity and genius. Finally, she demanded, as she had demanded before, a trial either before the states of the realm lawfully assembled, or else before the ... — The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... This masterpiece of Defoe is before its time by a hundred years; nothing can be found in the realm of the English prose short-story to approach it in symmetry until the Ettrick Shepherd ... — The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... But the masterpiece of the costume, and one that did great credit to the ingenuity of Fraeulein, was a pair of wings that were fastened to Patty's shoulders. They were made of fine net, covered with fringed tissue paper, which had the ... — Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... miscellaneous pieces are among the very best humourous poetry of this generation. We have laughed at nothing lately more than at 'Ars Postera,' at 'A New Blue Book,' at 'To a Boy-Poet of the Decadence,' and at 'To Julia in Shooting Togs.' But, after all, Mr. Seaman's masterpiece up to date is certainly 'To the Lord of Potsdam.' ... This will live, or we are greatly mistaken, among the most effective examples of ... — The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... earth the cashier would behave when they loosed him out for the Bank Holiday. Then he set to and wrote hard at the Quarterly Catalogue. In all London there was not a more prolific or versatile writer than Savage Keith Rickman. But if in ninety-two you had asked him for his masterpiece, his magnum opus, his life-work, he would mention nothing that he had written, but refer you, soberly and benignly, to that ... — The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... from the sense of being made ridiculous. The prisoners were dressed in uniform,—'jacket, waistcoat, and trousers of a sulphur or mustard yellow, and a shirt of blue-and-white striped cotton.' St. Ives thought that 'some malignant genius had found his masterpiece of irony in that dress.' So much is made of this point that one reads with unusual interest the letter in which Stevenson bewails his 'miserable luck' with St. Ives; for he was halfway through it when a book, which he had ordered six months before, arrived, upsetting all his previous ... — The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... that enveloped his throat gleamed a turquoise, of such value as a jeweller might have kept for fifty years before he could find a customer rich and frivolous enough to buy it. The very head of his cane was a masterpiece of art, and the man himself, so elegant despite his strength, and so fresh despite his years!—it is astonishing how well men wear when they think of ... — My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and entrapping her into a marriage, are admirably drawn, as is its companion or counterpart, when Badman, in his widower-hood, suffers an infamous strumpet to inveigle him into a miserable marriage, as he so richly deserved. The death-bed scene of the pious broken-hearted Mrs. Badman, is a masterpiece. In fact the whole is a series of pictures drawn by a most admirable artist, and calculated to warn and attract the ... — The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... by east wind or west wind, north wind or south wind, according as each blew last and hardest; the other thirty-six—the rose: in its midsummer splendour with fold upon fold of delicate symmetric structures, making a masterpiece. ... — The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... concentration accomplishes this without the necessity of any artificial methods of development, or the production of abnormal psychic states. You easily concentrate your full attention when you witness an interesting play, or listen to a beautiful rendition of some great masterpiece of musical composition, or gaze at some miracle of pictured or sculptured art. In these cases your attention is completely occupied with the interesting thing before you, so that you have almost completely shut out the outer world of sound, sight, and thought—but ... — Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... the east end of this church is considered by Herr Luebke to be 'the masterpiece of the epoch.' 'It is to be found,' he says, 'at one extremity of a building, the other end of which is occupied by the loveliest steeple ... — Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... idea that our eyes have followed attains its supreme expression in our domestic bees, it must not be inferred therefrom that the hive reveals no faults. There is one masterpiece, the hexagonal cell, that touches absolute perfection,—a perfection that all the geniuses in the world, were they to meet in conclave, could in no way enhance. No living creature, not even man, has achieved, in the centre of his sphere, what the bee has achieved in her ... — The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... The importance of Lessing's masterpiece in comedy, "Minna von Barnhelm," is difficult to exaggerate. It was the beginning of German national drama; and by the patriotic interest of its historical background, by its sympathetic treatment of the German ... — Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... the elements of poetic beauty join to make The Passing of Arthur a masterpiece. Sublime sentiment thrills through the stanzas. A stately meter gives a solemn, rhythmic swing to the noble lines. Sonorous words add to the grandeur. Apt phrases and beautiful figures of speech seize the imagination and enchain the fancy. Rare and choice ... — Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... that some valuable books are partially insane; some, mostly religious, partially inhuman; and very many tainted with morbidity and impotence. We do not loathe a masterpiece although we gird against its blemishes. We are not, above all, to look for faults, but merits. There is no book perfect, even in design; but there are many that will delight, improve, or encourage the reader. On the one hand, the ... — The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that," said Beale, radiant with delight; "you're a fair masterpiece, you are; you earned it honest if ever a kid done. Pats you on the napper, she does, and out with 'arf a dollar! A bit of all right, I ... — Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... gentleman; and having established Clarissa with her lamp and books, sank lazily back into his corner, and gave himself up to a continued contemplation of the fair young face, almost as calmly as if it had been some masterpiece of the painter's art in a ... — The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... consistency. The whole civilized world has read the "Reflections on the French Revolution," whose sale, in one year, achieved the enormous number of 30,000 copies, in connection with medals or marks of honour from almost every Court in Europe. Now, of all the replies made to this masterpiece of reasoning and reflection, Mackintosh's "Vindiciae Gallicae" was incontestably the ablest and profoundest. And yet, the greatest of all his intellectual opponents thus addresses Burke, as appears from "Memoirs" of Mackintosh, volume i. page 87:—"The enthusiasm ... — Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... restored by the Dean of Faculty, who succeeded in soothing the prisoner, and who then addressed the Judges, pleading for indulgence to his unhappy client in most touching and eloquent language. The speech, a masterpiece of impromptu oratory, concluded with a temperate yet strongly urged protest against the reading of ... — The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... a commonplace—a rather modest volume with most of us, summed up on a tombstone generally, easily enough, but we are bound to believe after all is said and done that the great masterpiece among reference books, for every man,—the one originally intended by the Creator for every man to use,—is the reference book of his own life. We believe that the one direct and necessary thing for a man to do, if he is going to be a good reader, is to make, this reference book—his ... — The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the ship tack about. I deemed it better, however, to keep off from the shore till daylight, when they could see where they were; but the captain relying more upon Jan's opinion, and wishing to accomplish half a masterpiece, by going into Falmouth in the dark, and surprising the people there to whom the ship was consigned, and so to pass hereafter as a good and skillful captain, insisted upon sailing in, and so they went ... — Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... attained to. So he painted all round these newly born a company of ancients, who were in those days called prophets and sybils, whose majesty was that of the mind alone at its intensest. And this painting was acknowledged through ages and ages to be the summit and masterpiece of art. Of course we cannot believe such a tale literally. It is only a legend. We do not believe in archangels; and the notion that thirty thousand years ago sculpture and painting existed, and had even reached the glorious perfection they have reached ... — Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... sky. At top of the sign, now nearly finished, was traced, in large characters, 'Break of Day;' a precaution as indispensable to point out the artist's design, as the inscription, 'Dutch and Flemish Beer,' was to announce the articles dealt in by the owner of the house upon which this masterpiece ... — Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... no one had ever heard before. The penalty for failure was the threshing-machine. Nobody failed. And I want to say right here that never in my life have I sat at so marvellous a story-telling debauch. Here were eighty-four men from all the world—I made eighty-five; and each man told a masterpiece. It had to be, for it was ... — The Road • Jack London
... Wylo's masterpiece in portraiture—the one revelation of the human form divine which he permitted himself to accomplish in other than transient sand, was a fancy picture of one of his many sweethearts—a lady in a very old hat and nothing more, with a few boomerangs thrown in ... — My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... in few of his other pictures, in the masterpiece that is offered to the admiration of all in the great collection ... — The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... in this partnership message adds a simple bold touch of colouring that makes the picture a masterpiece, the masterpiece. This King who serves, and is nearest of kin to us, is also nearest of kin to God. He is not only of the blood royal, and the blood human, but of the blood divine. He was with God before calendars came into use. He was the ... — Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... sympathetic listener, to whom he could pour out his plans and his innermost longings. Otherwise his life was as solitary as it was cloistered. He confined himself to his room for days at a time, working fiercely at the manuscript of the play, Cromwell, which he felt to be a masterpiece. ... — Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... of Aklis, Zaragal, beholding this masterpiece of Dob, which was served to the guests in the Great Hall on the fortieth evening, was fair to exclaim ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "This world is a pretty good old place if you don't regard the 'shalt nots,' but isn't it long enough to live the allotted time? What do we want to do it all over again for, that is, provided we do all the pleasant things while we have the chance? I don't want to see any play twice, even a masterpiece. I wouldn't want to live again unless I had been a Christian in this life and felt that I wanted to come back and do a lot of the things I had just heard about and ... — The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... one of the writers most philosophically delightful and most delightfully philosophic, complained of the carelessness with which human beings were procreated; 'Shame!' he cried 'that he who copies the divine physiognomy of man receives crowns and applause, but he who achieves the masterpiece, the prototype of mimic art, feels that like virtue he must ... — The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... them and their enterprise I felt a hearty respect. When we had surveyed everything within doors I was asked to look at the mostra—the sign that hung over the entrance; a sort of griffin in wrought iron, this, too, copied from an old masterpiece, and reminding one of the fine ironwork which adorns the streets of Siena. Don Pasquale could not be satisfied until I had privately assured him of my genuine admiration. Was it, he asked, at all like a chemist's shop in London? My reply certainly gratified him, but I am afraid ... — By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... prince. For this reason, they had given him the surname of King Bizarre, the only title by which he is known in history, as is seen in the Great Chronicles of the Kingdoms and Principalities of the World Which Have Never Existed, a learned masterpiece which has immortalized the erudition and criticism of the reverend father, Dr. ... — Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... we have already spoken in a general way. "Absalom and Achitophel" is of course the masterpiece, and cannot be too highly praised as a gallery of portraits, and for the daring force and felicity of its style. Why enlarge on a poem, almost every line of which has become a proverb? "The Medal" is inferior only in condensation—in spirit and energy it is quite equal. ... — The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... have all the charm of a romance. No novel indeed is half so delightful as that picture, at once affectionate and satirical, tender and humorous, extravagant and delicately shaded, of the student life enjoyed together for a few short months by the inseparable friends. To make extracts from a masterpiece of such consummate workmanship is almost painful. Future biographers of Shelley, writing on a scale adequate to the greatness of their subject, will be content to lay their pens down for a season at this point, and let Hogg ... — Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... deny that the polity of the Church of Rome is the very masterpiece of human wisdom. In truth, nothing but such a polity could, against such assaults, have borne up such doctrines. The experience of twelve hundred eventful years, the ingenuity and patient care of forty generations of statesmen, ... — Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... painted before he had left his forest home; others were of more recent date. All the people and all the painters praised them. But there was one that they liked better than the others; and when he heard them call it his masterpiece, he went and sat down opposite to it, that he might think over again some of the thoughts that he had had ... — Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... it; going from newspaper office to newspaper office Prince and Morrison saw to that, using their influence as big buyers of advertising space and even insisting upon reading proof on their own masterpiece. ... — Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... most ardent purist must now despair of getting at the spelling of Chaucer himself — has been discarded for that of the reader's own day. It is a poor compliment to the Father of English Poetry, to say that by such treatment the bouquet and individuality of his works must be lost. If his masterpiece is valuable for one thing more than any other, it is the vivid distinctness with which English men and women of the fourteenth century are there painted, for the study of all the centuries to follow. But we wantonly balk the artist's own purpose, and discredit his labour, when we keep before his ... — The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... bent, Raleigh was homo utriusque linguae, and his works in verse, unequal as they are, occasionally touch the loftiest summits of poetry. It is very much the same in his prose. His minor books, mostly written hurriedly, and for a purpose, have hardly any share of the graces of style; and his masterpiece, the famous History of the World, is made up of short passages of the most extraordinary beauty, and long stretches of monotonous narration and digression, showing not much grace of style, and absolutely no sense of proportion or ... — A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... flings wide the doors for us and, passing reverently inside, we are confronted by the magnificent equestrian statue of Mr. Bookham Pryce, the founder of the firm. This masterpiece of the Post-Cubist School was originally entitled, "Niobe Weeping for her Children," but the gifted artist, in recognition of Mr. Pryce's princely offer of one thousand guineas for the group, waived his right ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... phrases it, he descended into hell; that is, he began those weary wanderings in exile which ended only with his life, and which stirred in him the deeps that found expression in his mighty poem, the Divina Commedia.[1] Throughout his masterpiece he speaks with eager respect of the old Roman writers, and of such Greeks as he knew—so we have admiration of the ancient intellect. He also speaks bitterly of certain popes, as well as of other more earthly tyrants—so we have the dawnings of democracy and of ... — The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... however, the fierce desire to place his children well. The Ophelia he carried to Balakirev and Nicholas Rubinstein, who sat over it one whole night examining, discussing, rejoicing at its splendor, its delicacy, the perfection of the reconceived masterpiece. Next morning Nicholas sent its composer word that he would play it at the fifth concert of his regular series, on the afternoon of March 4th. And Ivan was satisfied; for these concerts were the musical events of Moscow; and the new work was assured of a performance as perfect as he ... — The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... the masterpiece of Ferguson's genius, was not a grave manifesto such as ought to be put forth by a leader drawing the sword for a great public cause, but a libel of the lowest class, both in sentiment and language. [361] It contained undoubtedly many just charges against the ... — The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he will wait for her, disguised as a monk in white, accompanied by a Capuchin, his pupil Ascanio.—Unhappily the rival Fieramosca has entered unseen, and overheard all. The ensuing terzetto is a masterpiece. While the lovers are bidding each-other farewell Balducci returns; and Cellini has scarcely time to hide behind the window-curtain before he enters. The father is surprised to find his daughter still up and Teresa, seeking for an excuse to send him away, feigns to be ... — The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... Another masterpiece in the Hague Gallery is a small painting by Gerard Dou, the painter of the celebrated "Dropsical Woman," which hangs in the Louvre between pictures by Raphael and Murillo. He is one of the greatest painters ... — Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... are far wrong when they prefer the chink of gold to the strumming and piping which, until now, the world, turning up the whites of its eyes, has called music. I, who had been piping and strumming with the rest, suddenly rushed out of the throng, and thrusting my masterpiece in their faces, told them that it was music. Was it their fault if they turned their backs and would not believe ... — Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... word, Mr. Francis Osbaldistone," she said, seating herself in one of the great chairs in the library, like a judge upon the bench, "your character improves upon us. Last night's performance was a masterpiece. You contrived to exhibit in the course of one evening all the various qualifications of your several cousins—the gentle and generous temper of Rashleigh, the temperance of Percie, the cool courage of Thorncliff, John's skill in dog-breaking, Dickon's aptitude for betting—all ... — Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... ever hope to be, now that the first glow of his prime was past, might fashion an image of our decadence, or our arrest, so grandly, so perfectly dull and uninteresting, that it would fix all the after-ages with the sovereign authority of a masterpiece? Here, he tremblingly glowed to realize, was opportunity, not for him, indeed, but for some more modern, more divinely inspired lover of the mediocre, to eternize our typelessness and establish himself among the many-millioned ... — Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... refuses, however, to connect this industry with a desire for ethical instruction. Their efforts are said to have been limited to the tracing of ideographs and the composition of verselets. A perfectly formed ideograph possesses in Japanese eyes many of the qualities that commend a pictorial masterpiece to Western appreciation. Saga achieved the distinction of being reckoned among the "Three Penmen" of his era,* and he carried his enthusiasm so far as to require that all the scions of the aristocracy should be instructed in the Chinese classics. Junna had less ability, but his admiration was not ... — A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... comedy pleased long ago, Is not enough to make it pass you now. Yet, gentlemen, your ancestors had wit; When few men censured, and when fewer writ. And Jonson, of those few the best, chose this As the best model of his masterpiece. Subtle was got by our Albumazar, That Alchymist by this Astrologer; Here he was fashion'd, and we may suppose He liked the fashion well, who wore the clothes. 10 But Ben made nobly his what he did mould; What was another's lead becomes his gold: Like an unrighteous ... — The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... to inquire what new beauties you have discovered in Vondel's 'Lucifer.' You have not had time, I take it for granted, to begin the comparison between this masterpiece of our native tongue and ... — The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... ever claim the chief interest; details should not distract attention from it. In art, subordination of the parts to the whole is an art of itself. Everything must be fitted to the larger lineaments that should characterize a masterpiece. ... — How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... ever so resolutely bounded from the summit of spiritual altitude to the rapt orb of heaven. He had gone to the two extremes. From the rankest weeds of the pit he had extracted the finest essence of charity, the mordant liquor of tears. In this canvas was revealed the masterpiece of an art obeying the unopposable urge to render the tangible and the invisible, to make manifest the crying impurity of the flesh and to make sublime the infinite distress of ... — La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... South Seas was granted, and the company, being incorporated by act of parliament, assumed the title by which it has ever since been known. The minister took great credit to himself for his share in this transaction, and the scheme was always called by his flatterers "the Earl of Oxford's masterpiece." ... — Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... clerks was the one he played off upon Godard, presenting him with a butterfly just brought from China, which the worthy man keeps in his collection and exhibits to this day, blissfully unconscious that it is only painted paper. Bixiou had the patience to work up the little masterpiece for the sole purpose ... — Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... the money, under the rose, in two or three different payments, and permitted the Duc de Bouillon to lend him his house at Pontoise, completely furnished, and the garden of which, on the banks of the river, is admirable and immense, a masterpiece of its kind, and had been the delight of Cardinal Bouillon, being perhaps the only thing in France he regretted. With such fine assistance the Chief- President—on bad terms with his companions, who had openly despised him for some time—perfectly made it up with them. He kept at Pontoise open ... — The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... etc., and ending "Un reste de chaleur tout pret a s'exhaler," that I think in it Racine has not only united the excellencies of Euripides, Sappho and Theocritus in describing the passion of love, but has far surpassed them all; that speech is certainly the masterpiece of French versification and scarcely inferior to it is that beautiful and ingenuous confession of love by Hippolyte to Aricie. What an admirable pendant to the love of Phedre! In Hippolyte you behold the innocence, ... — After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... obviously impossible that a masterpiece should be executed under the rules laid down by convention. It would never be finished. Mr. Chiltern was coming to lunch, and it was not the first time. On her appearance in the doorway he halted abruptly in his pacing of the drawing-room, ... — The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... iron. And your bomb-proof Headquarter Bureau, the iron skull that's to hold the working brain of the place ... with underground telegraphic and telephonic communications with all the forts and outposts. It's colossal! A masterpiece of cool, deadly, lethal forethought.... I thought I was incapable of the delicious shiver of expectation that the schoolboy enjoys, sitting in the stalls of dear Old Drury, waiting for the curtain to rise on ... — The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... and when Sam Clemens wrote abroad burlesque of the old man's contributions, relating a perfectly impossible trip, supposed to have been made in 1763 with a Chinese captain and a Choctaw crew, it was regarded as a masterpiece of wit. ... — The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Chancellorship, in 1827. For the spirited interest of its style, the clear and precise detail of fact, and the simple yet elegant course of its manner, it is surpassed by no work of the present century. It is regarded by eminent critics as a masterpiece of biography, and may justly rank with the first books of that character in the English tongue. It has probably been as serviceable to perpetuate the name of the author, if not more so, than the numerous profound and equitable ... — Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... have struck the writer as the best he has come across are Master Briar, Clonmel Monarch, Clonmel Marvel, Dumbarton Lass, Tone Masterpiece, Mistress Royal, Master Royal, Tone Chief, Huckleberry Lass, Fielden Fashion, York Sceptre and Clonmel Floriform. Nearly everyone of these is now, either in the flesh or spirit, in the United States ... — Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... now appeared to be four mouths to feed in the family instead of the customary three. He hoped she would heed his words and exercise greater prudence in the management of her household—and the courteous inflection of his tones as he voiced his hope was a masterpiece of sarcasm. It left his wife pale and resigned, his ... — The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... otherwise than admire him for the ingenuity of the means by which he sought to attain his end. It was in its way a masterpiece of imagination, for one that throve upon banking, to conceive that scheme of the Company of Death, with its trumpet-call to youth and courage and the noble heart. It was excellently clever, too, of Messer Simone so to engineer his contrivance that while he seemingly included in its ranks the young ... — The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... declareth the work of his hands" (Ps. xvlii). Yet not only the heavens, but also the earth shows us, at every step, the omnipotence of God, His wisdom and love. Mountain and valley, forest and field, river and ocean, they all remind us of God, their creator. Every flower of field and meadow is a great masterpiece, which ... — The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... it, being familiar with man's floating prisons from the frequent descriptions given to them by John Adams, and especially from a drawing made by him, years ago, on the back of an old letter, representing a full-rigged man-of-war. This masterpiece of fine art had been nailed up on the walls of John Adams's hut, and had been fully expounded to each child in succession, as soon after its birth as was ... — The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... cares of the world strepitumque Romae,—["And the roar of Rome."]—to the sweet shades of Pentonville or the remoter plains of Clapham—conducts some delighted visitor over the intricacies of that Daedalian masterpiece which he is pleased to call his labyrinth or maze,—now smiling furtively at his guest's perplexity, now listening with calm superiority to his futile and erring conjectures, now maliciously accompanying ... — Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... out of whose path to life and freedom we had stepped glanced from the line of lowered steel to the open gates and the forest beyond, and understood. For a full minute he waited, moving not a muscle, still and stately as some noble masterpiece in bronze. Then he stepped from the shadow of the wall and moved past us through the sunshine that turned the eagle feather in his scalp lock to gold. His eyes were fixed upon the forest; there was no change in the superb calm of his face. He went by the huddled dead and the long line ... — To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... the issue of religious differences and alluded specially to the recent Papal decrees over which so much controversy had raged. The Bishop of Raphoe rose to reply and expounded, as an ex-professor of Canon Law, the true bearing of these documents. His speech was a masterpiece; its candour and its lucidity commended itself to all hearers, but most of all to the Ulstermen, who applauded at once Lord Oranmore's comment that the odium theologicum had been replaced by divina caritas; and at a very late stage in our proceedings, Mr. ... — John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... am astonished," said Mrs Western; "this is, indeed, a masterpiece of assurance. With your leave I may possibly make some use of this letter." "You have my full liberty," cries Lady Bellaston, "to apply it to what purpose you please. However, I would not have it ... — The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... all the government clauses were carried. There were many amendments on the paper which took precedence of Mr. Woodall's, but these were hastily gone through or withdrawn, and in the middle of the morning sitting of June 9, he rose and moved the introduction of his clause. Mr. Woodall's speech was a masterpiece of earnest but temperate reasoning. He was fortunate enough to present an old and well-worn subject in new lights. He said that Mr. Gladstone had affirmed the principle of the measure to be to give every householder a vote, and it would now be his endeavor to ... — History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Italy and Sicily; in 1831 visited the United States under a commission to study the penitentiary system; returning published a book on the subject which was crowned by the French Academy; from private notes taken in America then wrote his masterpiece, "Democracy in America," which secured his election to the Academy in 1841; spent some years in public life and then retired in order to ... — The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... after his arrival here. He introduced himself as the author of "Don Giovanni," and Garcia, clipping the old man in his arm, danced around the room like a child in glee, singing "Fin ch'han dal vino" the while. After that the inclusion of Mozart's masterpiece in Garcia's repertory was a matter of course, with only this embarrassment that there was no singer in the company capable of singing the music of Don Ottavio. This was overcome by Da Ponte going to his pupils ... — Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Academy Exhibition of Oil Paintings. The Municipality of Barcelona purchased this chef d'oeuvre for the City Hall. Other famous productions of his are "The Battle of Lepanto," "The Death of Cleopatra," and "The Blood Compact" (q.v). This last masterpiece was acquired by the Municipality of Manila for the City Hall, but was removed when the Tagalog Rebellion broke out, for reasons which will be understood after reading Chapter xxii. This artist, the son of poor parents, was a second mate on board a sailing ... — The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... the beverage—the masterpiece—of every meal, even if it be nothing but boiled rice. Every artisan and laborer, going to work, carries with him his rice-box of lacquered wood, a kettle, a tea-caddy, a tea-pot, a cup, and his chop-sticks. Milk and sugar are generally eschewed. ... — The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... turning of nations to God must therefore take place. It will be during the time when God deals with this earth in mighty judgments, when the earth and the heavens are shaken, when Antichrist, Satan's masterpiece, is on the earth and produces the Great Tribulation. It will be one of the startling events of the end of the age, after the Church has been removed from the earth. During these years of trouble, judgment, and great tribulation, ... — Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... as nearly as circumstances permitted, the plan of Solomon's Temple, and the arrangement corresponds exactly.[90] The beauty of the lower church is much obscured by the dark stained glass in the windows, and it is matter for regret that this masterpiece of design and wonderful variety of effect[91] are ... — Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... out of the filmy and amethyst haze that closed each forest vista, came a milk-white horse, stepping high over the fallen leaves. The rider, not tall, black-bearded, with a pale, handsome face, sat like a study for some great sculptor's equestrian masterpiece. In a land where all rode well, his was superb horsemanship. The cape of his grey coat was lined with scarlet, his soft wide hat had a black plume; he wore long boots and white gauntlets. The three beneath the beech saluted. He spoke in a pensive and musical voice. "A prisoner, ... — The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... darkness, a peculiar odour, and the sound of rapid breathing. Sophy groped with her hand along the wall, found the switch, and the room and its contents were instantly revealed. A richly-carved bedstead, a masterpiece of Burmese work, stood in the middle of the floor; at either side were small tables, one heaped with an untidy pile of books and magazines; on the other were bottles, glasses and little boxes. In turning the switch Sophy ... — The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... a fellow artist's work into the autumn salon. He succeeded, and the picture was hung. But the painter, going to see his masterpiece with Whistler on varnishing day, uttered an exclamation ... — More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... the service of Elizabeth as are recorded in the Faerie Queene, the first three books of that great poem were finished." Spenser had spent the first three years of his residence at Kilcolman at work on this masterpiece, which had been begun in England, under the encouragement of Sidney, probably before 1580. The knightly Sidney died heroically at the battle of Zutphen, in 1586, and Spenser voiced the lament of all England in the beautiful ... — Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... voice without metallic ring is like teeth without enamel; they may be sound and healthy, but they are not brilliant.... In speech there are several colours—a bright, ringing quality; one soft and veiled. The bright, strident hues of purple and gold in a picture may produce a masterpiece of gorgeous colouring; so, in a different manner, may the harmonious juxtaposition of greys, lilacs and browns on a canvas by Veronese, Rubens, ... — Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... busy with his masterpiece "The Dream Journey," his cushion seat placed in the south verandah, a low desk before him. Cousin Gunendra would come and sit there for a time every morning. His immense capacity for enjoyment, like the breezes of spring, helped ... — My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... a chaos of pictures, suggested by the scenery of Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald, half animated by vague personifications and sensational narrative. Like Harold, and Scott's Marmion, it just misses being a great poem. The Coliseum is its masterpiece of description, the appeal, "Astarte, my beloved, speak to me," its nearest approach to pathos. The lonely death of the hero makes an effective close to the moral tumult of the preceding scenes. But the reflections, often striking, are ... — Byron • John Nichol
... will consent to be blind-folded for a part of the journey—a necessary precaution which I am sure you will appreciate,' he remarked a moment or so later,—'I will show you the priceless masterpiece in its hiding-place. Then you will understand. Also I should like the world to know how Germany reveres and ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... Mark you: It is not to be expected that you should see eye to eye with the Inca. That would be presumption. It is for you to accept without question or demur the assurance of your Inca that the brooch is a masterpiece. ... — The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... Disraely do? Why, they was all frightened of him. He was a masterpiece, I tell you. What was that there heppigram as he made?—'Inebriated with the hexuberance of his own verbosity.' There's langwidge for you! And he kep' it up, too, he did. He was the brightest diadem in England's crown, he was. But this Gladstone!—wot's he? Show me any trade as he's benefited! ... — The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... to summit with a dense cloud of words, out of which his voice is heard asking us to believe him on the other side. Yet of all men professional students of the Bible should be freest from such a fault, seeing what a magnificent masterpiece it is of terse and vigorous simplicity. Mr. Brown and his "advanced" friends would do well to ponder that quaint and pregnant aphorism of old Bishop Andrewes—"Waste words addle questions." When I first read it I was thrown into convulsions ... — Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... The reputed masterpiece of Moliere shows us Alceste and Celimene in the end still at odds. But light-heartedness and sincerity are not to common sense incompatible, and thus we are rightly led up to the impasse by paths of laughter. ... — The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... the doorway like an old masterpiece, the sunlight bronzing her heavy brown curls, the olive-tinted skin of her bare arms and legs flushing with health, and her cheap calico gown held tightly about her, showing the contour of her full and shapely figure, the girl appeared to Jose like a vision from the realm of enchantment. And ... — Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... himself that he will be able to construct by pure reasoning the history of nature and that of the human race. A geometrician, who no longer saw in the world anything but theorems and demonstrations, asked, after the representation of a dramatic masterpiece, "And what does that prove?" A physiologist absorbed in the study of sensible phenomena says: "Where is that soul they talk of? I have never seen it." These are phenomena of the same order. This infirmity of the mind, which ... — The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... the blow's a bit too sudden to think very clear. I've a great respect for you, Miss Maggie. You're a shapely body, and you're a masterpiece at selling in the shop, but when it comes to marrying, I'm bound to tell you that I'm ... — Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse
... Beleaguered City, a little book which, in its curious way, is a masterpiece, Mrs. Oliphant shows us the dead of a provincial town suddenly waxing indignant over the conduct and the morals of those inhabiting the town which they had founded. They rise up in rebellion, invest the houses, the streets, the market-places and, by the pressure ... — The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... not sorry to escape with his dignity and so cheap a masterpiece. Kloot was left, with swinging legs, dominating the situation. In idle curiosity and with the simplicity of perfectly bad manners, he took up the poet's papers and letters and perused them. As there were scraps of verse amid the mass, Pinchas let ... — Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... said Arvasita. "Leola's great night at the church fair and bazar, El Paso, in Shakespeare's acknowledged masterpiece. Leola's repetwar likewise includes 'Catherine the Queen before her Judges,' 'Quality of Mercy is not Strained,' 'Death of Little Nell,' 'Death of Paul Dombey,' 'Death of the Old Year,' 'Burial of Sir John Moore,' and other standard ... — The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... responded the robber, taking the proffered glass. "I came without knocking for admittance. But I performed a masterpiece to-day; the Herr Count will find it out soon enough! I do not drink to your welfare Herr Count, for my good wishes don't go ... — The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... Apollo, the god of the sun, Selene, the goddess of the moon, and Aurora, the goddess of the dawn. When Aurora appears her sister, Selene (the moon), fades and night rolls back like a curtain. Now let us look at this masterpiece by Guido Reni carefully that we may know how wonderful is the coming ... — The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant
... head of the new force. The very man! Finds out everything that happens, from the fall of a pin to an attempt at revolution, and if Donna Roma will only say a word for him.... Thanks!... What a beautiful bust! Yours, of course? A masterpiece! Fit to put beside the masterpieces ... — The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... distilled and fermented liquors, the laws for their import and export, the monopoly of their manufacture, etc. It is remarkable how the budget is balanced by the aid of the alcoholic intoxication of the people, and how people are made to believe that a masterpiece of political economy is thereby achieved. In reality, the health and strength of the nation are sacrificed. This kind of political economy can only be qualified as false and deceitful. We cannot too often ... — The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... always divergent from us on many important points. But indeed there was by no means complete unanimity among any portion of us, nor had any of us adopted implicitly all my father's opinions. For example, although his Essay on Government was regarded probably by all of us as a masterpiece of political wisdom, our adhesion by no means extended to the paragraph of it in which he maintains that women may, consistently with good government, be excluded from the suffrage, because their interest is the same with that of men. From this doctrine, I, and all those who formed ... — Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... out, not sorry to escape with his dignity and so cheap a masterpiece. Kloot was left, with swinging legs, dominating the situation. In idle curiosity and with the simplicity of perfectly bad manners, he took up the poet's papers and letters and perused them. As there were scraps of verse amid the mass, Pinchas ... — Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... the pith of their doctrine. It was, as Professor Bain[80] thinks, an 'impelling and a guiding force' in the movement which culminated in the Reform Bill. The younger Utilitarians regarded it, says J. S. Mill, as 'a masterpiece of political wisdom';[81] while Macaulay[82] taunts them for holding it to be 'perfect and unanswerable.' This famous article is a terse and energetic summary of the doctrine implied in Bentham's Works, but there obscured under elaboration ... — The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... its emaciated strength, and the serpent with its vital writhe and deadly reverted bite, are both characteristic of the finest Lombard work. The dog's head is 14th century Gothic—a masterpiece of broad, subtle, easy sculpture, getting expression with every touch, and never losing the least undulation of surface, while it utterly disdains the mere imitation of hair, or attainment of effect ... — On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... without metallic ring is like teeth without enamel; they may be sound and healthy, but they are not brilliant.... In speech there are several colours—a bright, ringing quality; one soft and veiled. The bright, strident hues of purple and gold in a picture may produce a masterpiece of gorgeous colouring; so, in a different manner, may the harmonious juxtaposition of greys, lilacs and browns on a canvas by Veronese, Rubens, ... — Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... inspiration for his art. The Aran Islands from which Synge gained his inspiration are rapidly losing that sense of isolation and self-dependence, which has hitherto been their rare distinction, and which furnished the motivation for Synge's masterpiece. Whether or not Synge finds a successor, it is none the less true that in English dramatic literature "Riders to the Sea" has an historic value which it would be difficult to over-estimate in its accomplishment and its possibilities. A writer in The Manchester Guardian ... — Riders to the Sea • J. M. Synge
... navel or 'meditate while at stool' or cut my finger I will get new material with much less hardship. The last thing a composer or writer or painter needs is material; it is from excess of material he is the besotted creature he is. He may lack leisure or energy or ability or an active colon, but no masterpiece ever was or conceivably could be thwarted ... — Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... That Idalian Ganymede was therefore fetched by Jupiter into heaven, Hephaestion dear to Alexander, Antinous to Adrian. Plato calls beauty for that cause a privilege of nature, Naturae gaudentis opus, nature's masterpiece, a dumb comment; Theophrastus, a silent fraud; still rhetoric Carneades, that persuades without speech, a kingdom without a guard, because beautiful persons command as so many captains; Socrates, a tyranny, "which tyranniseth ... — The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... a year after the review in the Hamburgischer unpartheyischer Correspondent, which has been cited, the Jenaische Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen in the number dated March 1, 1765, treats Sterne's masterpiece in its German disguise. This is the first mention of Sterne's book in the distinctively literary journals. The tone of this review is further that of an introducer of the new, and the critique is manifestly inserted in the paper ... — Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... granted, and the company, being incorporated by Act of Parliament, assumed the title by which it has ever since been known. The minister took great credit to himself for his share in this transaction, and the scheme was always called by his flatterers "the Earl of Oxford's masterpiece." ... — Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... and composing for other courts. In the winter of 1780-1, he made use of his leave of absence by writing and bringing out at Munich, with triumphant success, the splendid serious opera of Idomeneo, always so great a favourite with himself, and which is still regarded as a masterpiece. ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... sensible of the beauty of Tintoretto's great picture of the Assembly of the Blessed in the same place, can discern in Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, in the Sistine chapel, any general idea, or one pervading thought, in harmony with the stupendous subject. He who will contemplate Raphael's masterpiece, the Transfiguration, and will go away into another chamber of that same Vatican, and contemplate another design of Raphael, representing (in incredible caricature) the miraculous stopping of a ... — Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... this, despite its beauty, there is still a soupcon of formalism, a lingering trace of powder from the eighteenth century periwig, dimming the bright locks of poetry. Only the literary student reads that little masterpiece, the Ode to Evening, which sometimes heralds the Shelleian strain, while other passages are the sole things in the language comparable to the miniatures of Il Penseroso. Crashaw, Collins, Shelley—three ricochets of the one pebble, three ... — Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... to that," said Beale, radiant with delight; "you're a fair masterpiece, you are; you earned it honest if ever a kid done. Pats you on the napper, she does, and out with 'arf a dollar! A bit of all ... — Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... remarkable country Portugal is! Born dumb, she spoke twice: once when she gave Asia to Europe, again when she presented the Lusiades to the world. Her history is resumed in two miracles, a discovery and a masterpiece. But when the Cape of Good Hope was succeeded by Camoens, once more she relapsed into a silence that was broken only when she shouted ... — The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... it might delight future generations," he said, taking the newly filled cup from Flamby. "Besides, it really is a compliment, kid, to ask you to pose for a big thing like The Dreaming Keats. It's going to be my masterpiece." ... — The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... were added to the already superfoliated wreath of Lord Justice Pimblekin by this fresh masterpiece of judicial wisdom. ... — The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... doubt that many competent critics would argue that they belong to the first rank. Form, after all, is the important thing. It is design that counts, not decoration—design and organization. The pillars of a musical masterpiece are like the pillars of the Parthenon; they are almost as beautiful bleached white as they were in all their ... — Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... Jaloux' are models of lightness and brilliancy, whatever may be thought of their musicianship. 'Richard Coeur de Lion' is the one instance of Gretry having successfully attempted a loftier theme, and it remains his masterpiece. The scene is laid at the castle of Duerrenstein in Austria, where Richard lies imprisoned, and deals with the efforts of his faithful minstrel Blondel to rescue him. In this work Gretry adapted his style to his ... — The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... looking for mules to carry our baggage to Teniet. At the hotel, there was a very celebrated picture by Horace Vernet, for which one of the Dutchmen offered a thousand francs, but the offer was declined by Madame Gerard. In my opinion, the picture was far from being a masterpiece. ... — Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... School, the president of the Court, and so forth. The poet, poor fellow, was feted so magnificently, and so belauded, that anybody but a young man of two-and-twenty would have shrewdly suspected a hoax. After dinner, Chatelet drew his rival on to recite The Dying Sardanapalus, the masterpiece of the hour; and the headmaster of the school, a man of a phlegmatic temperament, applauded with both hands, and vowed that Jean-Baptiste Rousseau had done nothing finer. Sixte, Baron du Chatelet, thought in his heart ... — Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... crude frankness that amounts to lasciviousness. On the side of feminism there is hope in the widespread disgust with Cristabel Pankhurst's "Plain Facts on a Great Evil" as compared with the very general approval of Louise Creighton's polished masterpiece, "The Social Evil and How to Fight It." This represents exactly the present attitude of numerous men and women who calmly discuss together the great problems of life fearlessly and without any elements of lasciviousness such as some people seem to think is necessarily associated with ... — Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... of one and the same woman. The following novel, His Royal Highness (1909), shows how a prince, educated in aloofness from life, is saved from a living death through love for an American heiress. Finally, there appeared only last year a masterpiece in the most exquisite style, the narrative Death in Venice (1913). It is a heart-felt confession, taking as its theme the chilling apprehension of approaching old age and death. In the late-awakening impulse of love for a young boy there is here a generally misunderstood ... — The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... that great impostor, has been a great masterpiece of the devil: she has confessed unnatural lust, which is known to some of your number; she sat near the door where the charm of hair was found, which the girl declared did keep up her tongue; and upon burning thereof, it was loosed. The girl fell in fits upon ... — The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... especially his cough, become unendurable. People who cough in clubs are generally amateurs of the art. They are huskier, more wheezing, more pertinacious in working away at a cough till they have made it a masterpiece than any other mortals. We believe that club Asthmats (it is quite as good a word as "AEsthetes") practise in the Reading Room of the British Museum, where they acquire their extraordinary compass and mastery of various notes. Be this as it may, the cough which drives every one but its owner out ... — Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... severe discipline and architectonic design. Instead of one presiding, all-determining idea, we must be prepared to welcome a wealth of separate beauties, wrought out by men of independent genius, whereby each part is made a masterpiece, and many diverse elements become a whole of picturesque rather ... — Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... this year, as he himself phrases it, he descended into hell; that is, he began those weary wanderings in exile which ended only with his life, and which stirred in him the deeps that found expression in his mighty poem, the Divina Commedia.[1] Throughout his masterpiece he speaks with eager respect of the old Roman writers, and of such Greeks as he knew—so we have admiration of the ancient intellect. He also speaks bitterly of certain popes, as well as of other ... — The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... occasion fair and happy, Upon this page to thus record My gratitude to Patty. Within my album she hath wrought A picture of red roses, All painted with most cunning skill, The prettiest of posies. Had I but talent, in return A masterpiece I'd draw her, But failing that, I pen these lines Which now ... — The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... there is, He must be above His highest creature, but—is there such a being? "The ground," says the Rev. Charles Voysey, "on which our belief in God rests is man. Man, parent of Bibles and Churches, inspirer of all good thoughts and good deeds. Man, the masterpiece of God's thought on earth. Man, the text-book of all spiritual knowledge. Neither miraculous nor infallible, man is nevertheless the only trustworthy record of the Divine mind in things pertaining to God. Man's reason, conscience, and affections are the only true ... — Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... interest and selfishness. Somewhere, in that beautiful apartment of his there must be clues which will send him to the electric chair on former crimes: Warren is an artist who has handled other brushes than the ones he used on this masterpiece. He is not a beginner. So, I must ransack ... — The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... Thackeray brought out his "History of Henry Esmond," a masterpiece of English historical fiction. In the dedication to Lord Ashburton, Thackeray thus announced his departure for America. "My volume will reach you when the author is on his voyage to a country where your name is as ... — A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... was the question they were both every moment intently asking themselves. It was not a very important piece of literary workmanship, to be sure; only a social leader for a newspaper, to be carelessly skimmed to-day and used to light the fire to-morrow, if even that; and yet had it been the greatest masterpiece ever produced by the human intellect Ernest could not have worked at it with more conscientious care, or Edie watched him with profounder admiration. When Shakespeare sat down to write 'Hamlet,' it may be confidently asserted that neither Mistress Anne Shakespeare nor anybody else awaited the result ... — Philistia • Grant Allen
... had misjudged the police in the matter of caution. It almost seemed that my labors had been useless; for surely these portentous preparations indicated some masterpiece of strategy. What an anticlimax it would be when the defenders of the fort were found to be dead! But what a still greater anticlimax if they were ... — The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... which is considered the masterpiece of the firm of Becquet, is six feet in height and four and a half in width, made entirely of wrought iron, with triple sides, and divided into isolated compartments in ... — File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... himself by building, Villiers had a monomania for bricks and mortar, yet he found time to write 'The Rehearsal,' a play on which Mr. Reed in his 'Dramatic Biography' makes the following observation: 'It is so perfect a masterpiece in its way, and so truly original, that notwithstanding its prodigious success, even the task of imitation, which most kinds of excellence have invited inferior geniuses to undertake, has appeared as too arduous to be attempted with regard ... — The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... to study. The citadel stood on ground but little, if at all, higher than that upon which the town was situated. It was pentagonal in form, and was built in 1565, and was the earliest fortification in Europe in this style, and was considered a masterpiece. It was separated from the town by its glacis. A deep fosse ran along the foot of the wall. The town itself was walled, and extended to the foot of the citadel, and was capable of offering a sturdy resistance ... — Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... his work; when, to his great wonder, there stood the shoes all ready made, upon the table. The good man knew not what to say or think at such an odd thing happening. He looked at the workmanship; there was not one false stitch in the whole job; all was so neat and true, that it was quite a masterpiece. ... — Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... communicate to that sentence the stamp of infallibility, if I could regard it as anything but a mere encouragement of my Muse. More than this a deep feeling of my weakness will not let me think it; but if my strength shall ever climb to the height of a masterpiece, I certainly shall have this warm approval of your Excellency alone to thank for it, and so will the world. For several years I have had the happiness to know you from the public papers: long ago the splendour of the Mannheim theatre attracted ... — The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... in Europe there hang, side by side, Rembrandt's first picture, a simple sketch, imperfect and faulty, and his great masterpiece, which all men admire. So in the two names, Simon and Peter, we have, first the rude fisherman who came to Jesus that day, the man as he was before Jesus began his work on him; and second, the man as he became during the years when the friendship of Jesus had warmed his heart and enriched ... — Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... man's floating prisons from the frequent descriptions given to them by John Adams, and especially from a drawing made by him, years ago, on the back of an old letter, representing a full-rigged man-of-war. This masterpiece of fine art had been nailed up on the walls of John Adams's hut, and had been fully expounded to each child in succession, as soon after its birth as was ... — The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... in 1842, is the great prose classic of Russia. That amazing institution, "the Russian novel," not only began its career with this unfinished masterpiece by Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol, but practically all the Russian masterpieces that have come since have grown out of it, like the limbs of a single tree. Dostoieffsky goes so far as to bestow this tribute upon an earlier work by the same author, a short story entitled The ... — Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... he has produced a masterpiece, if you please! I suppose it was not meant to amuse us at all, but that he arranged the performance and fumigated us with sulphur to demonstrate to us how plays should be written, and what is worth acting. I am tired of him. ... — The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov
... marvellous sense of justice, produced that noble masterpiece, the negotiorum gestio. When the property of an oppressed person is in danger, any man may step forward to save it. This man is the gestor, the director of affairs not strictly his own. He has received no warrant—that is, ... — The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... "La Nouvelle Heloise," resumed his book, saying: "Then, I shall not have time to finish M. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's masterpiece, and upon my word I don't regret it, for it is the most utterly false and wearisome book I ever read in ... — The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... stage, and victory seemed to rest with the shot, when the war came to an end on the very day when Nicholl had completed a new armor-plate of wrought steel. It was a masterpiece of its kind, and bid defiance to all the projectiles of the world. The captain had it conveyed to the Polygon at Washington, challenging the president of the Gun Club to break it. Barbicane, peace having been declared, ... — Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... with explaining in a few words who Isis was, which interested him but moderately. His masterpiece, as a faithful reproduction of nature, is his marsh ranunculus, which I had introduced to him under the Latin name of ranuncula scelerata. He has so exquisitely represented these insignificant little yellow flowers that it is impossible not to ... — Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... little masterpiece in its vividness and condensation. The passions of hate and jealousy have seldom been so well portrayed. The time and place are probably France and the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Berdoe has called attention in his Browning Cyclopaedia, ... — Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... from a filthy heart. What and who in it are immoral? Not Valjean! Not Fantine even, nor Cosette! Not Marius! Not Javert, the detective! Is the chapter on Cambronne's surrender the offending fragment of the great literary masterpiece? That chapter is the sublimity of disgust! There never was anyone hurt spiritually or morally by the great French masterpiece of fiction. The man who can say the book is defiling, would draw defilement from the fount of Castaly. The Philadelphia school board ... — Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... a company of ancients, who were in those days called prophets and sybils, whose majesty was that of the mind alone at its intensest. And this painting was acknowledged through ages and ages to be the summit and masterpiece of art. Of course we cannot believe such a tale literally. It is only a legend. We do not believe in archangels; and the notion that thirty thousand years ago sculpture and painting existed, and had even reached ... — Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... Exhibition opened, and the portrait, showing Sir Jee in his robe and chain and in a chair, was instantly hailed as possibly the most glorious masterpiece of modern times. All the critics were of one accord. The committee and Sir Jee were reassured, but only partially, and Sir Jee rather less so than the committee. For there was something in the enthusiastic criticism which gravely disturbed him. An enlightened generation, thoroughly ... — The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... the student must agree with the investigator that the Tarik e Soudan is a masterpiece. Barth, the distinguished German scholar, says that the book forms "one of the most important additions that the present age has made to the history of mankind."[205] Lady Lugard, another writer in this field, believes that it is not merely an authentic narrative but is an unusually ... — The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... Justices dissenting (Black, Douglas, Rutledge, Jackson), Justice Jackson alone filed a written opinion. To him the decision is "an example of the manner in which, in the law of domestic relations, 'confusion now hath made his masterpiece,'" but for the first Williams case and its progeny, the judgment of the Connecticut court might properly have held that the Rice divorce decree was void for every purpose because it was rendered ... — The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... own day! Mistral's name has long been European, and other English writers have charmingly described the Feux Floraux of the olden time and the society of Lou Felibrige with its revival of Provencal literature. But forty years ago, and twenty years before his masterpiece had found a translator here, he was known and highly esteemed by ... — In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... retribution followed him no further. Extracts from one of these "Lives" are, for what they are worth, printed in the Appendix, together with his posthumous Account of the Poisoning of the late Mr. Francis Blandy, a counterblast to Mary's masterpiece. This tract includes the text of three letters, alleged to have been written by her to her lover, and dated respectively 30th June, 16th July, and 1st August, 1751; but as, after his death, all his papers were, by order of Lord Cranstoun, sealed up and sent to his lordship ... — Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... a pity that these cameos of romance should suffer the same fate as Mr. Lang's version of Aucassin et Nicolete, which has been swept off the face of the earth by the Charge of the Six Hundred, who were lucky enough to obtain copies of the only edition of that little masterpiece of translation. Mr. Morris has, therefore, consented to allow his versions of the Romances to be combined into one volume in a form not unworthy of their excellence but more accessible to those lovers of books whose purses have a habit of varying ... — Old French Romances • William Morris
... performed. A little crowd of people gathered about him on the stoop, peeping over each other's heads with huge admiration,—fat Otis Hodge, and the tall stage-driver, and the little boys, all declaring that it was the masterpiece of sights. Some few coppers did the man obtain, as well as much praise. He had come over the high, solitary mountain, where for miles there could hardly be a soul to ... — Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... actual satin let into the picture, after the pre-Raphaelite or realistic tendency commonly found in such juvenile works of art, hung over the narrow painted mantelpiece. The fond mother had had this masterpiece framed and glazed in the days when her son was still a little lad, unspoiled by University life and those splendid aspirations which afterwards made his home hateful to him. There were some tattered books upon a shelf by the bed—school prizes, an old Virgil, ... — Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... colors, says the great naturalist Buffon. The stones and metals polished by our arts are not comparable to this jewel of Nature. She has it least in size of the order of birds, maxime miranda in minimis. Her masterpiece is the Humming bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. It never soils them with the ... — Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... Lastly, one of Claude's setting summer suns would have glorified the whole. Oh, believe me, God's creatures fighting, fin for fin, a thousand miles from land, and with the round horizon for an arena; is no ignoble subject for a masterpiece. ... — Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... London between 1812 and 1816 certainly increased his tendency to cynicism, as did his divorce from his wife. While these experiences distorted his personal character, they supplied him, however, with much of the irony wrought into his masterpiece, "Don Juan." His poetic genius derived its strongest stimulus from his imbittered domestic life and from his travels in Spain, Italy and Greece. This twofold character of the poet it is that is revealed in his best poems, "Childe Harold" ... — A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... life is an end. That is what we must tell ourselves in order really to live in this world. Hence the obligation to perfect life, to make it high and beautiful, to make a masterpiece of it. Hence too our contempt and hatred for those who wish to tarnish life, either by their thoughts or by ... — New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... only too readily to fancifulness and unreality, which were among the most besetting sins of Miss Barrett's genius. The minor poems were incomparably more popular, and the favourite of all was that masterpiece of rhetorical sentimentality, 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship.' It must have been a little mortifying to the authoress to find this piece, a large part of which had been dashed off at a single heat in order ... — The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... my brain, each claiming from my hand Its immortality. But thou, my child, Remind'st me of mine oath, my sacred pride, The eternal hatred lodged within my breast. Philip of Spain shall wait. I will not deign To add to-day the final touch of life Unto this masterpiece. ... — The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... which his instinctive refinement and delicacy of taste enabled him to combine, with all the higher powers of the man, the courtly graces of the gentleman and scholar—still his happiest effort, the masterpiece of his genius, in which his own mind is displayed in the most agreeable light, and his inspiration breathes forth with the greatest brilliancy and beauty, will be found to be dictated by the associations of his early rustic days. When I reflect, therefore, how copious, how graphic, how true ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... sacred head,— Lookest down in mournful majesty On thy brethren's figures Lying scatter'd At thy feet! In the shadow of the bramble Earth and rubbish veil them, Lofty grass is waving o'er them Is it thus thou, Nature, prizest Thy great masterpiece's masterpiece? Carelessly destroyest thou Thine own ... — The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... his elbow, on concluding each of the foregoing short sentences, could be surpassed by nothing but the exultation with which he fell back and eyed him when he had finished this brilliant display of eloquence and sagacity; his great blue waistcoat heaving with the throes of such a masterpiece, and his nose in a state of violent inflammation from ... — Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... grinning at Neal. "It's going to take me a long time, I reckon, but you said I had something like ten hours for sleep, so I guess I can spare two or three for this effort at literary composition. I figure, sheriff, that this'll be my masterpiece." ... — The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... out the transforming thing," said Anne softly. "There'll be love there, Phil—faithful, tender love, such as I'll never find anywhere else in the world—love that's waiting for me. That makes my picture a masterpiece, doesn't it, even if the ... — Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of Pisa, circular, of marble, with dome two hundred feet high, embellished with numerous columns, is a notable work of the twelfth century. The pulpit is a masterpiece of Nicola Pisano. Casa d'Oro at Venice is noted for its elegance. It was built in the fourteenth century. The Cathedral of Lisieux dates chiefly from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and contains many works of art. The Palais de Justice is of the fifteenth century. ... — Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... as the Word that is God, Spirit, and Truth. This Word cor- [25] rects the philosopher, confutes the astronomer, exposes the subtle sophist, and drives diviners mad. The Bible is the learned man's masterpiece, the ignorant man's dictionary, the wise ... — Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... for John Dryden the poet, her second cousin, was reproached with having been an Anabaptist in his youth, and Johnathan Swift, a more distant connection, feared nothing in heaven or earth. It is no wonder, then, that even an enemy wrote of her as "the masterpiece of women's wit," or that her husband followed her lead with a devotion that never swerved. She had married him at Alford in Lincolnshire, and both were members of Mr. Cotton's congregation ... — Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... current education and habits of life? Ceci tuera cela,[28] the last great poet might have said of the first circulating library. An insatiable appetite for new novels makes it as hard to read a masterpiece as it seems to a Parisian boulevardier to live in a quiet country. Until a man can truly enjoy a draft of clear water bubbling from a mountain side, his taste is in an unwholesome state. And so he who finds the Heliconian spring insipid should look ... — English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... irritating of his creditors, George Henry indicted his masterpiece. He admitted his obligation, he expressed his satisfaction at paying an interest which made it a good investment for the creditor, and then he entered into a little disquisition as to the creditor's manner and scale of thought and existence, followed by certain ... — The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... entrapping her into a marriage, are admirably drawn, as is its companion or counterpart, when Badman, in his widower-hood, suffers an infamous strumpet to inveigle him into a miserable marriage, as he so richly deserved. The death-bed scene of the pious broken-hearted Mrs. Badman, is a masterpiece. In fact the whole is a series of pictures drawn by a most admirable artist, and calculated to warn and attract the ... — The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Lychwr in Carmarthenshire being the spot where he first saw the light. He was an excellent poet, and displayed in his compositions such elegance of language, and such a knowledge of prosody, that it was customary, long after his death, when any masterpiece of vocal song or eloquence was produced, to say that it bore the traces of Lawdden's hatchet. At the request of Griffith ap Nicholas, a powerful chieftain of South Wales, and a great patron of the Muse, he drew up a statute relating to poets and poetry, and ... — Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... suggestiveness of the artist's method. But, whether it be reptile or quadruped, the spirit of repletion broods over the canvas with irresistible force. Mr. Thaddeus Tumulty sends some admirable drawings in pise de terre, one of which, called "The Pragmatist at Play," is a masterpiece of osteological bravura.... ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... artist with results as shown; But his ideal was not as yet attained; It needed this, as palace needs a throne, But throne a king—then is perfection gained, When his great masterpiece hangs in its place, And the great artist looks in ... — Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... side, and measured 220 by 100 feet on the top of the stylobate. It was the work of Ictinus and Callicrates, built to enshrine the noble statue of the goddess by Phidias, astanding chryselephantine figure forty feet high. It was the masterpiece of Greek architecture not only by reason of its refinements of detail, but also on account of the beauty of its sculptural adornments. The frieze about the cella wall under the pteroma ceiling, representing in low relief with masterly skill the Panathenaic procession; the sculptured groups in the ... — A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... passages, . . . . till we reached the picture-gallery of the Vatican, into which I had never been before. There are but three rooms, all lined with red velvet, on which hung about fifty pictures, each one of them, no doubt, worthy to be considered a masterpiece. In the first room were three Murillos, all so beautiful that I could have spent the day happily in looking at either of them; for, methinks, of all painters he is the tenderest and truest. I could not enjoy these pictures now, however, because ... — Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ring, which is still more precious from the virtue of the talisman which rendered you the possessor of it. But," continued he, "you ought to have informed yourself at what time, how, and by whom that wonderful masterpiece of art was composed." ... — Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... was our masterpiece! He happened along-street (his jaw tied up where Sebastian had clouted him) when we were trundling the first demi-cannon ... — Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... Thermidor has seemed to men of all parties since a masterpiece of tactical ineptitude. If Robespierre had been a statesman instead of a phrasemonger, he had a clear course. He ought to have taken the line of argument that Danton would have taken. That is to say, he ought ... — Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... the hill, the girl screaming pointlessly meanwhile. There was just time—you'll have to take my word for this; Ferguson explained it all to me in the most meticulous detail, but I can't repeat that masterpiece of exposition—for Ferguson to decide. To decide again, you understand, precisely as he had decided on the Argentina. Rotten luck, wasn't it? He could just have flung tow-head out of the way by getting under the ... — The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... into the Territory again. A lot of them had purchased a site for a town on the Lake shore, and they gave me a lot. When you come out, I'll build you a house on it. The Lake seems more supernaturally beautiful now, than ever. It is the masterpiece of the Creation. ... — Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... married at Milan to a daughter of Count Giovanni Borromeo, and on this occasion, doubtless, he employed the gifted Roman sculptor to design the magnificent doorway which now adorns the Louvre and is a masterpiece of classic elegance. But now a fresh invitation reached Cristoforo ... — Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... towards the world. It is commonly said that the only one of the writer's novels which contains a sufficient amount of charity and sweetness is Humphry Clinker. The statement is not quite true. Greaves is not so strikingly amiable as Smollett's masterpiece only because it is not so striking in any of its excellences; their lines are always a little blurred. Still, it shows that ten years before Clinker, Smollett had learned to combine the contradictory elements of life in something like ... — The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... setting for the final exit of a man whom Life had equipped to conquer, and Fate, in her most ironic mood, had challenged to battle; with the sting of death in victory if he won. He had beaten her at her own game. He had always aimed at consummation, the masterpiece; and here, in his final ... — Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... that as a whole this book is equal to "The Young Visiters." Only once in a decade or so is it vouchsafed the writing craft that one among us shall create a masterpiece, destined in time to become a classic and a thing immortal. Only once in an eon or so is it vouchsafed a writer to write a masterpiece at the age of nine years. Very few among us ever produce a second perfect work on top of a first ... — Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... chest. Amidst the folds of the glossy satin that enveloped his throat gleamed a turquoise, of such value as a jeweller might have kept for fifty years before he could find a customer rich and frivolous enough to buy it. The very head of his cane was a masterpiece of art, and the man himself, so elegant despite his strength, and so fresh despite his years!—it is astonishing how well men wear when they think of no ... — My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... or less extended backward. This is notably apparent in the work of the Van Eycks: in the Eve in the Brussels Gallery; in the wife of Arnolfini in the highly finished portrait group in the National Gallery; even the virgins in the great masterpiece of the Van Eycks in the Cathedral at Ghent assume the ... — Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Aldis Wright's: still, which is the later, which the earlier, it were hard to determine on internal grounds. For, as has befallen many a greater poet, FitzGerald's alterations were by no means always improvements. One sees this in the various editions of his masterpiece, the 'Rubaiyat.' However, by a comparison of the date (1856) on the fly-leaf of my father's notebook with that of a published letter of FitzGerald's to Professor Cowell (May 28, 1868), I am led to conclude that my father's copy is ... — Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... thus they found us; the two girls chatting over the perfection of the tombs of the constable and his wife; the soldier blind to the charms of his sister's companion, and wrapped in reverent contemplation of a wooden masterpiece. ... — The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to see it, and the corporation bought it for the cathedral. The city of Basel bespoke another just like it. This order aroused the jealousy of the authorities, who tried to make the mechanic promise that he would never repeat his masterpiece for another town. "Heaven gave me not my talents to feed your vain ambition," said the man of craft: "the men of Basel were quicker to recognize my skill than you were. I will make no such promise." Upon that the rejected suitor, who was among the magistrates, persuaded his colleagues ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... was to overthrow the great Greek poet, it must have been a bitter disappointment to Marivaux to see that his burlesque passed almost unnoticed by his contemporaries and was soon forgotten. The same year he wrote a Telemaque travesti, a parody on the masterpiece of Fenelon. This work was not published until 1736, when it was received with such disapprobation that he hastened to ... — A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... said, "before a masterpiece of sea and rock, such as only Richards can paint. It was a view of Land's End, Cornwall, and in the artist's very best vein. My admiration made me totally unmindful of my surroundings, so much so, indeed, that, although the gallery was crowded, I caught myself expressing my delight ... — The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... to-day, sir," he ventured. "As we have been bowling along, my mind has unconsciously been dwelling on Jane Austen. Think of it, sir, only one hundred years ago and no railroads. Have we really lost or gained? Marvelous girl, that, sir. Masterpiece of literature when she was twenty-one, and no background but an untidy English village. You've heard ... — Best Short Stories • Various
... glory, in one campaign, of defeating, in pitched battle, the best general and most powerful army possessed by France, and capturing its strongest frontier fortress, the masterpiece of Vauban, under the eyes of one hundred and twenty thousand assembled from all quarters for its relief. He put the keystone at the same time into this arch of glory, by again declining the magnificent ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... house all by our two selves that I want to enjoy myself for a space. For a month, a whole month longer, I am going to play and have the good of life. Then I shall shut myself up and say farewell to the world while I create a masterpiece that will rend your heart and your tear glands. Only," she dropped down on a footstool beside him; "only I do hope that Allyn and Babe will return to their wonted habits, and that this new cook will learn that one doesn't usually ... — Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... and other novels. "Gene" Rhodes had the "right tune." He achieved a style that can be called literary. The Hired Man on Horseback, by May D. Rhodes, is a biography of the writer. Perhaps "Paso Por Aqui" will endure as his masterpiece. Rhodes had an intense loyalty to his land and people; he was as gay, gallant, and witty as he was earnest. More than most Western writers, Rhodes was conscious of art. He had the common touch and also he was a writer for writing men. The elements of simplicity and the ... — Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... a poetic fervor and a lily-like kimono, recited with tremulous intensity this masterpiece of ... — The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
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