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More "Excel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cow, nothing can excel the short-horn, in the abundance and richness of her milk, and in the profit she will yield to her owner; and, on every place where she can be supplied with abundance of food, she stands without a rival. From the short-horns, spring those magnificent fat oxen and steers, which ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... you wrote it; and I shall see whether I have reason to praise or reprove you. For surely, Pamela, you must leave one room to blame you for something. Indeed I can hardly bear the thought, that you should so much excel as you do, and have more prudence, by nature, as it were, than the best of us get in a course of the genteelest educations and with fifty advantages, at least, in conversation, that you could not have, by reason of my mother's retired life, while you were with her, and your close ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... for a fresh compliment to be paid to him, but the London Spectator paid it in 1883, the year of his centenary, by saying, "Since the time of Pope more than one hundred essayists have attempted to excel or to equal the Tatler and Spectator. One alone, in a few of his best efforts, may be said to have rivalled them, and he is Washington Irving." The Spectator adds that one has surpassed ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... dream of youth and poetry, fairly embodied in flesh and blood. As her father had justly surmised, could she have been persuaded to have tried her fortune on the stage, she had personal attractions, depth of feeling, and vivacity of mind to have rendered her one of the very first in a profession, to excel in which, perhaps, there is more correct judgment and versatility of talent required than in any other, and would have had a fair prospect of obtaining that coronet which has occasionally been the reward of those fair dames who "stoop ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... pay to her art, her grace, her abandon. Nothing so audacious had ever been seen by certainly half the assemblage. Casting aside the old tricks of the danseuse, the tipping and pirouetting and grimacing for applause, the dancer seemed oblivious of her audience and as though she were trying to excel herself. She swayed and swung and swept from side to ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... erected in the Middle Ages, coeval with the cathedrals of Europe, and therefore do not properly come under the head of ancient art, in which the ancient Hindus, whether of Aryan or Turanian descent, did not particularly excel. It was in matters of religion and philosophy that the Hindus felt most interest, even as the ancient Jews thought more of theology ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... Onaesikritos te kai Nearchos, kai alloi toioutoi;] i.e. All who have wrote of India for the most part, are fabulous, but in the highest degree Daimachus; then Megasthenes, Onesicritus, and Nearchus, and such like. And as if it had been their greatest Ambition to excel herein, Strabo[C] brings in Theopompus, as bragging, [Greek: Hoti kai mythous en tais Historiais erei kreitton, ae hos Haerodotos, kai Ktaesias, kai Hellanikos, kai hoi ta Hindika syngrapsantes;] That he could foist in Fables into History, better than Herodotus and Ctesias and Hellanicus, ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... purely and wholly ideal. Besides, most young Chinese girls, whose parents are well off, are taught to read, though it is true that many content themselves with being able to read and write a few hundred words. They all learn and excel in embroidery; the little knick-knacks which hang at every Chinaman's waist-band being almost always the work of his wife or sister. Visiting between Chinese ladies is of everyday occurrence, and on certain fete-days the temples are crowded to overflowing ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... latter led against the Western batsmen, and also had the best percentage figures, in the aggregate of the season, by .498 to German's .471; Clark being in the last ditch in all three tables. Westervelt was a new man in the field compared to German, but he is very likely to excel his last year's record in 1895. The best individual records in victories pitched in by the two leaders, were Rusie's 6 to 0 against Louisville, and Meekin's 3 to 0 against Baltimore. German's best was 2 to 0 against Washington, ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... Merlin was, which whylome did excel All living wightes in might of magicke spell: Both shield, and sword, and armour all he wrought For this young Prince, when first to armes ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... establishing schools for the propagation of his system, with a view, no doubt, to reimburse themselves for the expenses of their own initiation into the magnetising art. But few of them having understood the terms and mysterious doctrines of their foreign master, every new adept exerted himself to excel his fellow-labourers, in additional explanations and inventions: others, who did not possess, or could not spare the sum of one hundred louis, were industriously employed in attempts to discover the secret, by their own ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... seemed to have served only to make him surer of his evidence. Douglas exhibited throughout his most conspicuous excellencies and his most glaring defects. From first to last he was an attorney, making the best possible defense of his client. Nothing could excel his adroit selection of evidence, and his disposition and massing of telling testimony. Form and presentation were admirably calculated to disarm and convince. It goes without saying that Douglas's mental attitude was the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... and made some frivolous remarks which excited the laughter of his countrymen. Indeed, the chances seemed to be a hundred to one against the lieutenant, who could handle with terrible effect a cutlass or a boarding-pike, but was almost a stranger to a weapon, to excel in the use of which, a man must be as loose in the joints as a posture maker, and as light in the heels as a dancing master. And yet there was something in the cool, resolute, business-like bearing of the Yankee which inspired his friends with some confidence in his success; and they watched the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... a curious fact in the history of progress, that, by a kind of intuitive insight, the earlier observers seem to have had a wider, more comprehensive recognition of natural phenomena as a whole than their successors, who far excel them in their knowledge of special points, but often lose their grasp of broader relations in the more minute investigation of details. When geologists first turned their attention to the physical history ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... nothing of an ingenious plot, or a striking situation, or a creative character—but he did give us inimitable political satires and some delicious social pantomimes; and he presented these with an original wit in which the French excel, which is very rare indeed in England. Ask not of Disraeli more than he professes to give you, judge him by his own standard, and he will still furnish you with delightful reading, with suggestive and original thoughts. He is usually inclined to make game of his reader, his subject, and even of ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... the purpose of his mind. The first is easy, the second is difficult, since he must do it by the gestures and movements of the limbs, and this is to be learnt from the dumb, who more than all other men excel in it. ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... system," show them that Christians are better than heathens. Prove to them that what you are pleased to call the "living God" teaches higher and holier things, a grander and purer code of morals, than can be found upon pagan pages. Excel these wretches in industry, in honesty, in reverence for parents, in cleanliness, in frugality, and above all by advocating the absolute ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... to excel by the help of their own talents, and in following their duty, there would be nothing false in their taste or in their conduct. They would show what they were, they would judge matters by their lights, and they would ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... elder brother of his; and I advise every boy to have an elder brother. Have a brother about four years older than yourself, I should say; and if your temper is hot, and your disposition revengeful, and you are a vain and ridiculous dreamer at the same time that you are eager to excel in feats of strength and games of skill, and to do everything that the other fellows do, and are ashamed to be better than the worst boy in the crowd, your brother can be of the greatest use to you, with his larger experience and wisdom. My boy's brother seemed ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... had got, One named Streak,—the other, Spot; She gave them education, And also taught them to excel In all such arts as fitted well ...
— Surprising Stories about the Mouse and Her Sons, and the Funny Pigs. - With Laughable Colored Engravings • Unknown
... observation of the Stars, and an exact Knowledge of the motions and influences of every one of them, wherein they excel all others, they fortel many things that are to ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... do cry from caprice or stubbornness, a sure way to prevent their continuing is, to turn their attention to some agreeable and striking object, and so make them forget their desire to cry. In this art most nurses excel, and when skilfully employed, it is very effective. But it is highly important that the child should not know of our intention to divert him, and that he should amuse himself without at all thinking we have him in mind. In this all ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... by their brilliant castigations, and inaugurated the discussion of measures of reform which it took thirty years to get through Parliament. The critic of the company was Francis Jeffrey, whose happiness it was to live just when he was needed. Without capacity to excel either in the realm of ideas or of facts, he was unrivalled in the power of discovering the relations between the two. He was neither a statesman, philosopher, nor poet; but while the heavens and the earth threatened to rush in confusion together, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... ceased to draw a distinction between Nature and the forces of education. It is a great problem why Nature sets so many young people in the world who are apparently unfitted for the battle of life, and certainly have no power to excel in any direction. The subjective religion which Caius had been taught had nourished within him great store of noble sentiment and high desire, but it had deprived him of that rounded knowledge of actual life which alone, it would appear, teaches how to guide these forces ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... brands burning yet kindled not the seed of flame, but with fireless rites they made a grove on the hill of the citadel. For them Zeus brought a yellow cloud into the sky and rained much gold upon the land; and Glaukopis herself gave them to excel the dwellers upon earth in every art of handicraft. For on their roads ran the semblances of beasts and creeping things: whereof they have great glory, for to him that hath knowledge the subtlety that is without deceit[2] is the ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... His desire to excel the boys in dancing had aroused much gaiety in the parish, and for some time past there had been dancing in every house where there was a floor fit to dance upon; and if the cottager had no money to pay for a barrel of beer, James Bryden, who had money, sent him a barrel, so that ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... any themselves, and consequently are in no danger of being engaged in making claims, or of having any suits commence against them. Every writer shall be tried by his peers, throughly versed in that point wherein he pretends to excel; for which reason the jury can never consist of above half the ordinary number. I shall in general be very tender how I put any person out of his wits; but as the management of such possessions is of great consequence to the world, I shall hold my self obliged to vest the right ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... cheerful and satisfied as possible, and they put great confidence in me. I often went hunting with them, and frequently gained their applause for my activity, at our shooting matches. I was careful not to excel them when shooting, for no people are more envious than they in their sport. I could observe in their countenances and gestures, the greatest expressions of joy when they exceeded me, and when the reverse happened, ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... Mr. Manhug, as they emerge into the cool air, in accents which only Wieland could excel; "there goes a cat!" Upon the information a volley of hats follow the scared animal, none of which go within ten yards of it, except Mr. Rapp's, who, taking a bold aim, flings his own gossamer down the area, over the railings, as the cat jumps between them on to the water-butt, which is always ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... same kind by about one half. Cabinet work and furniture is handsome, shewy, insufficient, and dear. Jewellery equal, if not superior to ours in neatness, but not so sufficient. Hats and hosiery very indifferent. In glass ware we greatly excel the French, except in the manufacture of mirrors. Musical instruments of all descriptions are made as well, and at half the English price, in France. In every thing else, not here mentioned, as far as my memory serves me, I think I may report the manufactures ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... your daily life, if you wish to excel in any particular game or pursuit, you practise it with diligence. You know that, without such practice or concentration of effort upon it, any expectation of excellence ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... extremity of Britain which is called Bolerion, excel in hospitality, and also, by their intercourse with foreign merchants, they are civilised in their mode of life. These prepare the tin, working very skilfully the ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... Cuba is said to have been more or less of a failure speaking from a Latin standpoint. Miss Roosevelt did not "take" with the Cuban element. She is uncompromisingly Anglo-Saxon and lacks that pliability which would endear her to the children of another race. Cuban women excel in charm of mannerism and in their eyes Miss Roosevelt appears unpolished and uncut. We may like her better as she is, but it is safe to say that had she but a few added years of experience there would have been a more gracious outcome to ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... Sees its transported treasures torn away, To grace a fierce ambitious Tyrant's sway. Long in this isle, where Freedom finds repose, Whilst, raving round her, loud the tempest blows, Oh! long befriended, may the Arts excel, And bless the sacred spot ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... separatist critic. A theory, in such matter as this, is itself an explanatory myth, or the plot of a story which the critic invents to account for the facts in the case. These critical plots, we have shown, do not account for the facts of the case, for the critics do not excel in constructing plots. They wander into unperceived self- contradictions which they would not pardon in the poet. These contradictions are visible to "the analytical reader," who concludes that a very early poet may ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... supported, are as good as all but the best of the heroic Sagas, while they are not out of all comparison even with Njla or Gsla, with Hrafnkels Saga or Bandamanna, in the qualities in which these excel. ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... sewing for her household, it is true, but she is consciously and unconsciously sewing for Wilhelm. When your Fraeulein goes out to her etching lesson, she is aware of being of the magnificent German people, and shares a part of the national ambition to excel. It's this that we haven't got in America and can't well have under our system. But it's this unified, disciplined zeal that enables two or three ordinary Germans to do what it takes four ordinary Yankees to do. Clad in armor and with a glistening ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... with keen sensory discriminations and motor responses, precise and accurate powers of analysis of judgment, a capacity for the quick and effective acquisition and modification of habits, we can safely predict that he will excel in some direction. But whether he will stand out as a lawyer, doctor, philosopher, poet, or executive, it is almost impossible from ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... final home. A running fight ensued, which was continued up the valley for about eight miles, when a majority of the Indians gained the mountains and made good their escape. The chase was a splendid affair to behold, and many feats of horsemanship were performed that would be difficult to excel. Among the foremost in this skirmish was, as the reader might readily imagine, Kit Carson. The pursuit was continued far into the mountains and was only given over when night came on. The soldiers then retired to their reserve-guard, who had established a camp on a small stream which runs ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Greeks learned to excel in many things. They created new forms of government and new forms of literature and new ideals in art which we have never been able to surpass. They performed these miracles in little villages that covered less ground than four or ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... the universe that does suit it. He feels men of opposite temper to be out of key with the world's character, and in his heart considers them incompetent and 'not in it,' in the philosophic business, even tho they may far excel him in ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... several degrees, determined by the judgment of him whom they follow; and there is a great emulation among the companions, which shall possess the highest place in the favor of their chief; and among the chiefs, which shall excel in the number and valor of his companions. It is their dignity, their strength, to be always surrounded with a large body of select youth, an ornament in peace, a bulwark in war. And not in his own country alone, but among ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... Princess Woo learned under her preceptor's guidance. She grew to be even more assertive and self-reliant, and became, also, expert in many sports in which, in that woman-despising country, only boys could hope to excel. One day, when she was about fourteen years old, the Princess Woo was missing from the Nestorian mission-house, by the Yellow River. Her troubled guardian, in much anxiety, set out to find the truant; and, finally, in the course of his ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... themselves thoroughly, and make up in activity what they lack in method, was Colonel of the Harris Light, and the dawning glory of young Bayard's fame excited a spirit of emulation, if not of envy in his heart, which found vent in a very creditable desire to equal or excel that leader in the field. The brilliant night attack on Falmouth Heights was one of the first results of this rivalry, and as it was also the initial battle in Corporal Glazier's experience, we give his own vivid ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... take its place. Men like Mr. Adams were anxious to advance the intellectual reputation of the town, though few people found sufficient leisure to devote to the idea of a national literature. Others said: "What need, when we have the world of brilliant English thinkers that we can never excel, the poets, and novelists! Let us ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... offer a new series of Geographies, in two books, which will as far excel all geographical text-books hitherto published as our Readers are in advance of the old ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... guile then knew) Like a bright diamond circled with pearls, whose radiant eye delt lustre to the hew Of all the dames; whose face so farre aboue though the rest (beautious all) vnwounded made loue, loue for neuer since Spiches was made a star did he see nature excel ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... arm. In one University match, Mr. Butler took all ten wickets in one innings. He was fast, with a high delivery, and wickets were not so good then as they are now. Mr. Francis was also an excellent bowler, not so fast as Mr. Butler; and Mr. Belcher, who bowled with great energy, but did not excel as a bat, was a useful man. For Cambridge, Mr. Cobden bowled fast, Mr. Ward was an excellent medium pace bowler, Mr. Money's slows were sometimes fortunate, and Mr. Bourne bowled slow round. Cambridge went in first, and only got 147. Mr. Yardley fell for 2, being caught ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... the singing was over: A Dotterel first open'd the ball with the Plover; Baron Stork in a waltz was allow'd to excel, With his beautiful partner, the fair Demoiselle;[12] And a newly-fledged Gosling, so fair and genteel, A minuet swam with the spruce Mr. Teal. A London-bred Sparrow—a pert forward Cit! Danced a reel with Miss Wagtail and little Tom Tit. And the Sieur Guillemot[13] next ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... themselves into various trades or guilds, each under the surveillance of a master. To be admitted to a guild it was necessary to pass a severe examination in the particular trade. These guilds were marked by an intense esprit de corps, each striving to excel the others in display of wealth. Some guilds were composed wholly of tradespeople, others wholly of artisans; and there were still others formed for social or religious purposes, comprising members of ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... and wherein they differ: Of their Extent, Action, Unities, Episodes, and the Nature of their Morals. Of Parody: Of the Style, Figures, and Wit proper to this Sort of Poem, and the superior Talents requisite to Excel ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... one could excel him in, this respect. His bow was snakewood, backed with hickory. He carefully rubbed it down every evening with oil and beeswax, and it took its repose in a green baize bag. His arrows were Philip Highfield's best, his strings the finest Flanders hemp. He had shooting-gloves, ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... Life and Conduct of Hiram Meeker, one of the leading men in the mercantile community, and 'a bright and shining light' in the Church, recounting what he did, and how he made his money. This work which will excel the previous brilliant productions of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... these I fill myself with, I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the exquisite meanings, I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving, contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion; I do not think the performers know themselves—but now I think begin ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... institutions occur in his contributions to the Edinburgh, but occasionally their perfunctory manner suggests the editorial pen of Jeffrey. Doubtless Hazlitt's discriminating judgment would have enabled him to excel in this field, had he been equipped with ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... marked and characteristic difference as to their mode of labour and of acquiring knowledge. Both of them loved fame, and wrought for it; but Alfieri did so from a sense of pride and a determination to excel; while Goldoni loved the approbation of his fellows, sought their compliments, and basked in the sunshine of smiles. Alfieri wrote with labour. Each tragedy he composed went through a triple process of composition, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... respect arises from the instant muscular response to volition. Delay, half-hearted response, inattention, preoccupation, whimsicalness, carelessness, and every sluggish performance of the order of the will, disqualifies the player so that when we take into account the adolescent passion to excel, and the fact that 80 per cent of the games of this period are characterized by intense physical activity, we are forced to place the highest valuation on play as a moral educator; for this enthronement of the will over the body, although having to do with ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... mocks our venerable race— On each of his who lacketh brain Bestows our ancient surname, ass! And, with abusive tongue portraying, Describes our laugh and talk as braying! These bipeds of their folly tell us, While thus pretending to excel us." "No, 'tis for you to speak, my friend, And let their orators attend. The braying is their own, but let them be: We understand each other, and agree, And that's enough. As for your song, Such wonders to its notes belong, The nightingale is put to shame, The Sirens lose one half ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... were wanted of that character unstable as water which shall not excel, this duke would at once supply it: if we had to warn genius against self-indulgence—some clever boy against extravagance—some poet against the bottle—this is the 'shocking example' we should select: if we wished to show how the most splendid ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... to Juno that, while the nightingale pleased every ear with his song, he himself no sooner opened his mouth than he became a laughingstock to all who heard him. The Goddess, to console him, said, "But you far excel in beauty and in size. The splendor of the emerald shines in your neck and you unfold a tail gorgeous with painted plumage." "But for what purpose have I," said the bird, "this dumb beauty so long as I am surpassed in ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... "has its peculiarity, but the French Acadians excel all others in their adherence to their own ways; and in this particular, the Chesencookers surpass even their own countrymen. The men all dress alike, and the women all dress alike, as you will presently see, and always have done ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... true; but it is also true that I had some wonder, altogether my own, that so great a city should make so small an appeal to the imagination. In this it outdoes almost any metropolis of our own. Even in journalism, an intensely modern product, it does not excel; Manchester has its able and well- written Guardian, but what has Liverpool? Glasgow has its Glasgow School of Painting, but again what has Liverpool? It is said that not above a million of its people live in it; all the rest, who can, escape to Chester, where they perhaps vainly hope to ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... admirer of the game. While the narrative is predominant in these books, Mr. Fullerton has encompassed a large amount of practical baseball instruction for boys; and, what is of greater value, he has shown the importance of manliness, sportsmanship and clean living to any boy who desires to excel in baseball or any other sport. These books are bound to sell wherever they are seen by boys or parents. Handsomely illustrated and bound. 12mo. Cloth. ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... Romany Rye," not only praised the truth and vividness of the descriptions, but said that "various portions of the history are known to be a faithful narrative of Mr. Borrow's career, while we ourselves can testify, as to many other parts of his volumes, that nothing can excel the fidelity with which he has described both men and things," and "why under these circumstances he should envelop the question in mystery is more than we can divine. There can be no doubt that the larger ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... not hope to equal Pen in the amount of contributions, for he had no wealthy grandfather on whom to depend, but he did intend to excel him in the number of subscribers. And it was desirable that he should be early ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... your captive friends, and bringing your enemies to subjection, you must not only learn of those that are experienced in the art of war, but exercise yourself also in the use of military affairs; and if you would excel in the strength of your body you must keep your body in due subjection to your mind, and exercise ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... carried off most of the honors. They contributed forty-eight pupils to the gymnasia out of every ten thousand, while the Christians contributed only twenty-two. This was regarded an unpardonable sin. "These Jews have the audacity to excel us pure Russians," Pobyedonostsev is reported to have exclaimed, and measures were taken to suppress their dangerous tendency. As early as 1875 a law was passed withholding from Jewish students the stipends they had hitherto received from ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... verses—if they be but good enough for the process. A peer is not necessarily a poet, but a poet is none the worse for being a peer. Nay, there are even certain kinds of verse in which a peer may, other things being equal, be actually expected to excel. There is nothing to prevent his being—as Byron was—a poet of passion; there is every reason why, if he have the requisite literary capacity, he should shine in the poetry of the library, the salon, and the boudoir. He has usually the education for the first, and the leisure ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... of Paris are full of gorgeous splendor—how much vital religion they contain, it is not, perhaps, my province to decide. But in beauty of architecture, in the solemnity and grandeur of interior, no city in the world, except Rome, can excel them. The church of the Madeleine is the most imposing of all; indeed, it seemed to me that in all Paris there was no other building so pretentious. But Notre Dame has that mellow quality which beautifies ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... the people had to be amused—whatever happened. Human life was held too cheaply for a whole festival to be stopped because a little boy was killed, and so the sports went on. Athletes and gymnasts did their best to excel; amidst wild excitement the chariots whirled around and around the course, and then the arena was cleared for the final act—the wild ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... still to hear colored children say, "I can't." The colored mother should put success in the child's thought and teach it to believe in himself and his race. It is the duty of every mother to preach success and one's duty to aim to excel along all lines. ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... comes to think of it, it is rather important to have in our midst a people that cares to boast about its culture. The Englishman is more given to complaining than boasting, and when he does boast it is certainly not about culture. As it seems to me, the Germans excel in two things—simple tenderness of sentiment and the work of patient observation. I am aware that it has for a considerable time been the mode in England to slight German literature. Personally, I ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... nothing of the more dramatic works of Schumann or Schubert. Of course there will be cases where the two sexes will meet on common ground, and the exquisite beauty of a Franz may some day find its equal in the work of the other sex, but whether women will excel naturally in the more virile vein of Bruch's cantatas, for instance, ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... In the present instance it is turned to bad account. The young lady is admirably adapted to the stage, and if she would adopt that profession the very faculty of approbativeness would be her most powerful stimulus in ambition to excel. ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... evince their mutual suspension from each other. And those indeed which are highest, connate with the one, and of a primary nature, are allotted a form of subsistence, characterized by unity, occult and simple; but such as are last are multiplied, are distributed into many parts, and excel in number, but are inferior in power to such as are of a higher order; and such as are middle, according to a convenient proportion, are more composite than their causes, but more simple than their proper progeny. And, in short, all ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... believe this a mental infirmity of the race; for a very large number of the students in college at the present time do as well in mathematics, geometry, trigonometry, mensuration, and conic sections as the white students of the same age; and some of them excel in mathematics. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... zeal of the early colonists in behalf of the cause of higher education. They, out of their poverty, poured their gifts into the treasury of the colleges in order to leave future generations a great and glorious heritage. Gratitude should prompt us to excel them in our love for the education of the present and future generations by cheerfully giving of our abundance for the same ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... that always wins, For wit doth strength excel; Which made our cunning champion Creep down into a well, Where he did think this dragon would drink, And so he did in truth; And as he stoop'd low, he rose up and cried, boh! And kick'd him in ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... do not mind, dear Jane. I must confess, I would sooner be macaroons or oyster-patties, even at the risk of giving my friends occasional indigestion. But then I have never gone in for the role of being helpful, in which you excel. Not that it is a "role" with you, dear Jane. Rather, it is an essential characteristic. You walk in, and find a hopeless tangle; gather up the threads in those firm capable hands; deftly sort and hold them; and, ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... their only talent seeming to lie in their capacity for drinking to excess. From Armenia Minor he went to Turcomania, whose inhabitants, though somewhat of savages, are clever in cultivating pastures and breeding horses and mules; and the townspeople excel in the manufacture of carpets and silk. Armenia Proper, that Marco Polo next visited, affords a good camping-ground to the Tartar armies during the summer. There the traveller saw Mount Ararat, where Noah's Ark rested after the Deluge. He noticed that the lands bordering on ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... Aristophanes and Agathon, remained awake, and that, while he continued to drink with them out of a large goblet, he compelled them, though most reluctantly, to admit that it was the business of one and the same genius to excel in tragic and comic poetry, or that the tragic poet ought, at the same time, to contain within himself the powers of comedy. Now, as this was directly repugnant to the entire theory of the ancient critics, and ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... read plain enough, and are not difficult of apprehension. The uncertainty of the law arises in the doubt and uncertainty of the facts; and hence the doubt about which, of many rules, ought to govern. A man of genius, as you describe him, ought to become a good lawyer; he would excel in the investigation and presentation of facts; but none but a lawyer saturated with the spirit of the law until he comes to have a legal instinct, can with ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... hospitality. The treatment which we experienced at the hands of this generous-hearted people will help more than anything else to make us recollect with pleasure our stay amongst them. In the character of hosts and hostesses they excel. The 'new chum' needs only the acquaintanceship of one of their number, and he becomes at once the happy recipient of numerous complimentary invitations and thoughtful kindnesses. Of the towns it has been our good fortune to visit, none have portrayed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Exaggeration trograndigo. Exalt lauxdegi. Examination ekzameno. Examine ekzameni. Example ekzemplo. Exasperate koleregigi. Excavate kavigi. Excavate kavigi, fosi. Excavator terfosisto. Exceed superi. Excel superi. Excellence boneco. Excellency Ekscelenco, Mosxto. Excellent bonega. Except krom. Except escepti. Exception escepto. Excess malmodereco. Excessive troa. Excessively troe. Exchange intersxangxi. Exchange, The borso. Excise officer oficisto. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... let us all join in asking this question of Tyrtaeus: O most divine poet, we will say to him, the excellent praise which you have bestowed on those who excel in war sufficiently proves that you are wise and good, and I and Megillus and Cleinias of Cnosus do, as I believe, entirely agree with you. But we should like to be quite sure that we are speaking of the same men; tell us, then, do you agree with us in thinking that there ...
— Laws • Plato
... red deer seldom exceed eight inches in length, and have no more than two points upon each antler, formed by a fork-like termination. This kind of deer has no brow antler. They are very fast, and excel especially in going up hill, in which ground they frequently ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... impression of disregard for the feelings of others. What a regard to appearances is not revealed in such common expressions as "Etre de mauvaise tournure" and "Avoir bonne tournure," as applied to either man or woman? And as for the women, who can excel a Frenchwoman in the art of looking if not elegant, yet at any rate spruce, by the aid of even meagre materials, and in the art of "savoir faire," of which our English "tact" hardly preserves the aroma? What dynasty or party shall rule the destinies of France ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... influence of the same cerebral defect that led to so much domestic woe. The narrow-chested, round-shouldered person, whose lungs barely oxydize blood enough to maintain life, is not expected to walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours, or to excel as a performer on wind-instruments. We impute to him no fault for this sort of incompetence. We should rather charge him with consummate folly, if he undertook a line of exercises for which he is so clearly unfitted. We do not wonder, in fact, when this unfortunate pulmonary constitution ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... households! The good housewives of the Netherlands do not excel the Pueblo squaws in cleanliness. Floors are always carefully swept; all along the walls of the spacious rooms seats and couches are covered with finely variegated rugs; the walls are tastefully decorated ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... are but ill prepared," was the reply, "for such desperate measures. I am not certain they do not outnumber us; even so, we probably excel them in discipline and skill, and have every chance of victory tomorrow, which we should lose by ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... crowned; Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. No: men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude,— Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... who as such, strictly speaking, have surpassed him. Minds not devoted to particular doctrines, not absorbed in the advocacy of cherished ideas—in a word, minds that believe little and aim only at the passing success of a day—may easily excel one like him in the preparation of a mere newspaper. Mr. Greeley was the antipodes of all such persons. He was always absolutely in earnest. His convictions were intense; he had that peculiar courage, most precious in a great man, which enables him to adhere to his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... natural and useful factor to women in that by their means new avenues of employment that are constantly being opened to them may be collectively demonstrated, and it can be shown in which of these they may share and excel or be most successful, and statistics may be compiled showing the proportion of wages that women receive for their share of labor performed equivalent to that of men, and other helpful information and facts procured which are not easily ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... for, this implore: That all base dreams thrust out at door, We may in loftier aims excel And, like men waking from a spell, Grow stronger, nobler, than before, When ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... Franks and say, 'While they call other nations blind, that they themselves have two eyes, and that we have but one, because they consider that they excel all others ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... reign? Besides, the education which Bonaparte received was entirely military; and a man (let his innate abilities be ever so surprising or excellent) who, during the first thirty years of his life, has made either military or political tactics or exploits his only study, certainly cannot excel equally in the Cabinet and in the camp. It would be as foolish to believe, as absurd to expect, a perfection almost beyond the reach of any man; and of Bonaparte more than of any one else. A man who, like him, is the continual slave of his own passions, can ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... together combines within its precincts, if you take the word of the inhabitants on the subject, as much of historical interest as of natural beauty. Our claims in behalf of the Canongate are not the slightest. The Castle may excel us in extent of prospect and sublimity of site; the Calton had always the superiority of its unrivalled panorama, and has of late added that of its towers, and triumphal arches, and the pillars of its Parthenon. ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... only excel in the Passions: In the coolness of Reflection and Reasoning he is full as admirable. His Sentiments are not only in general the most pertinent and judicious upon every subject; but by a talent very peculiar, something between Penetration and ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... "Though this opinion of Dr. Ekerman," says Mr. Everett, must be allowed to savour a little of the extravagance of theory, Eichorn adopts it. As the work alluded to, the "Theological Contributions" has become a classical book with one class of the German divines, who are thought to excel in critical learning, there is no doubt that this doctrine is generally received among them. MICHAELIS we all know admits it; and Marsh is the only famous critic of the present day who does not ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... methinks I may say thus much of them. That Demosthenes did wholly employ all his wit and learning (natural or artificial) unto the art of rhetoric, and that in force, and vertue of eloquence, he did excel all the orators in his time: and for gravity and magnificent style, all those also that only write for shew or ostentation: and for sharpness and art, all the sophisters and masters of rhetoric. And that Cicero was a man generally learned in all sciences, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... dutiful references to his father, it came to the main subject. "I am sure it may be said of me," said Richard, "that not for my wisdom, my parts, my experience, my holiness, hath God chosen me before others: there are many here amongst you who excel me in all these things: but God hath done herein as it pleased Him, and the nation, by His providence, hath put things this way. Being then thus trusted, I shall make a conscience, I hope, in the execution of this trust; ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... dogs streaming over the open, and the red-coated huntsman behind them, and only seven or eight horsemen between us, then it was that the strangest thing of all happened, for I, too, went mad—I, Etienne Gerard! In a moment it came upon me, this spirit of sport, this desire to excel, this hatred of the fox. Accursed animal, should he then defy us? Vile robber, his hour was come! Ah, it is a great feeling, this feeling of sport, my friends, this desire to trample the fox under the hoofs ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... may be found throughout the State is hardy and generally a fairly regular cropper. Seedling nuts, while not as large usually as the Northwestern filbert, are found now and then that approach them closely in size and cracking quality. Furthermore, the native seedling nut kernels may excel ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... she was now more restless than ever. She was not distant with Evan, but she had a feverish manner, and seemed to thirst to make him show his qualities, and excel, and shine. Billiards, or jumping, or classical acquirements, it mattered not—Evan must come first. He had crossed the foils with Laxley, and disarmed him; for Mel his father had seen him trained for a military career. Rose made a noise about the encounter, and Laxley ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... history that was!" he exclaimed. "His mother trained him as if with a foreknowledge of that star-like ascendency. He was schooled to shine and dazzle, to excel all compeers in the graces men and women admire. I doubt she never thought of the mind inside him, or cared whether he had a heart or a lump of marble behind his waist-band. He was taught neither ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... struggles for supremacy between nations; it is indifferent which colour comes up, for humanity gains, no matter who is the winner. It is true, that in the contests of peace, the most vital, intelligent, and hard-working people, will always excel. But if the defeated competitors, or those who felt themselves falling behind, were to resort to violence to eliminate their successful rivals, it would be a monstrous thing. It would mean the sacrifice of the welfare of mankind to a commercial interest, and Country is not a ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... with special care and elegance, it has been argued that he copied always the same hand, probably his own, in ignorance, or in defiance of the fact that hands have nearly as much and as varying character as a painter can discover in faces. Though Van Dyck painted many beautiful women, he did not excel in rendering them beautiful on canvas, so that succeeding generations, in gazing on Van Dyck's versions of Venitia, Lady Digby, and Dorothy Sydney—Waller's Sacharissa,—have wondered how Sir Kenelm, Waller, and their contemporaries, ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... the number of his retinue, their presence was scarcely observed in the Castle, so vast was its extent. And the maidens rose up to wait on them, and the service of the maidens appeared to them all to excel any attendance they had ever met with; and even the pages who had charge of the horses were no worse served, that night, than Arthur himself would have been in his ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... a thousand pretty things that charm alike; but superior genius, like superior beauty, has always something particular, something that belongs to itself alone. It is always distinguishable, not only from those who have no claim to excellence, but even from those who excel, when ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... long before I found myself indebted to him for the greatest benefit probably that any man, living or dead, can confer on another. In my school and college days I had been betrayed by an ambition to excel in themes and declamations into the study, admiration, and imitation of the rhetoricians. In the course of my last long vacation—the autumn of 1830—I was inspired with a new ambition, namely, to think justly about everything ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... to say that one of Gen. Garfield's striking characteristics while he was growing up, was, that when he saw a boy in the class excel him in anything, he never gave up till he reached the same standard, and even went beyond it. It got to be known that no scholar could be ahead of him. Our association as men has been almost as close as that of our boyhood, though not as constant. The General never forgot his neighbors or less fortunate ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... in the furnishing of their homes, and give their personal attention to it with the result that as a rule they excel in household decoration, and often produce marvels of beauty and taste with the expenditure of ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... growth of this young parishioner since he first met the lad of twelve and was attracted by the shining face, the pleasant manners. Dutiful and loving; ready to help; patient to bear and forbear; eager to excel; faithful to the smallest task, yet full of high ambitions; and, better still, possessing the childlike piety that can trust and believe, wait and hope. Good and happy—the two things we all long for and so few of us truly are. This he was, and this single fact was the best ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... would reply, with masculine preremptoriness, 'we must not force nature. When the time comes for her womanly instincts to develop, not an English matron or even our own clever Margaret will excel Crystal then.' And still, more strange to say, he rather stimulated than repressed my vanity; and so I grew up quite conscious of my own personal attractions; but without the knowledge having undue ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... separate themselves—all that can only be effected by the mental faculty which we call imagination. If some great poet or painter should feel hurt that we require from his goddess such an office; if he shrugs his shoulders at the notion that a sharp gamekeeper must necessarily excel in imagination, we readily grant that we only speak here of imagination in a limited sense, of its service in a really menial capacity. But, however slight this service, still it must be the work of that natural gift, for if that gift is wanting, it would be difficult to imagine things ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... Moses may be changed by a later prophet even permanently. But the prophet must be greater than Moses, and he must show this by the greatness, number, publicity and permanence of his miracles, which must excel those of Moses. He must likewise show that he was sent by God to change the Law, as clearly as Moses proved that he was sent to give it. But it is unlikely that any such prophet will come, for the Torah says that there never was or will be ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... possessions, a capital city that exhibited a phenomenal growth, and a form of local government which made Nauvoo a little independency of itself; their prophet wielding as much authority and receiving as much submission as ever; a Temple under way which would excel anything that had been designed in Ohio or Missouri, and a stream of immigration pouring in which gave assurance of continued numerical increase. What were the causes of the complete overthrow of this apparent prosperity which so speedily followed? These causes were of a twofold character, political ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... mental powers was perceivable. On the other hand, he allows that the other Greeks could not bear the slightest comparison with them in a knowledge of the Dramatic Art. Even genius in this department strove to excel at Athens, and here, too, the competition was confined within the narrow period of a few festivals, during which the people always expected to see something new, of which there was always a plentiful supply. The prizes (on which all depended, there being no other means of gaining ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... mere mechanical verses, Poe wrote genuine poetry; the boy was a born poet. As a scholar he was ambitious to excel. He was remarkable for self-respect, without haughtiness. He had a sensitive and tender heart and would do anything for a friend. His nature was entirely ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... down you go. It is like the movement in that scene with the pair of short stilts, in which the French clowns are so amusing, and it is almost as difficult to perform. Mr. Verdant Green soon found that though he might be ambitious to excel in the polite accomplishment of skating, yet that his ambition was destined to meet with many a fall. But he persevered, and perseverance will achieve wonders, especially when aided by the tuition of such an ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... quick to strive or feel, Joined with chiefs of rich Brazil; Western freemen, prompt to dare, Side by side with Bourbon's heir; Proving who could then excel, Came with succour long and well; But Jerome, in peril ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... be the last accomplishment of civilization. To be idle gracefully and contentedly and picturesquely is an art. It is one in which the Americans, who do so many things well, do not excel. They have made the excuse that they have not time, or, if they have leisure, that their temperament and nervous organization do not permit it. This excuse will pass for a while, for we are a new people, and probably ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Leslie Stephen in his Hours in a Library, that, if most of the critical articles of even Jeffrey and Mackintosh were submitted to a modern editor, he would reject them as inadequate; but I think that perhaps they excel our modern efforts in a certain reserve and dignity, and ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... the openings of genius in the young branches of his family gave him great delight, and that he had a secret ambition to see them excel in what they undertook. Yet he was greatly cautious over his heart, lest it should be too fondly attached to them; and as he was one of the most eminent proficients I ever knew in the blessed science of resignation ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... more manner, and your clothes were fashionably made, you would far excel the city girls," he said, a compliment which to Maude seemed ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... series of books for young people which Messrs. Scribner excel in producing. The editor has beyond all question succeeded admirably. The present book cannot fail to be read with interest ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... generosity, honesty, devoted friendship, zealous adherence to what they deem the right, unflinching support of those who labor for it, in hospitality and kindliness, the Creator never made a people to excel them. May God bless and prosper them, and may they and their children, only, at the judgment day, "arise from that corner of the earth, to answer for the sins ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... SPORT is a feeling inherent in most Englishmen, and whether in the chase, or with the rod or gun, they far excel all other nations. In fact, the definition of this feeling cannot be understood by many foreigners. We are frequently ridiculed for fox-hunting: 'What for all dis people, dis horses, dis many dog? dis leetle (how you call him?) dis "fox" ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... for the most part, of modern growth.] where we have made a long sojourn. But what is most remarkable in friendship is that it puts a man on an equality with his inferior. For there often are in a circle of friends those who excel the rest, as was the case with Scipio in our flock, if I may use the word. He never assumed superiority over Philus, never over Rupilius, never over Mummius, never over friends of an order lower than his own. Indeed he ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... addressed: "Old man, now indeed, as at other times, dost thou excel the sons of the Greeks in council. For, would, O father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, that I were possessed of ten such fellow-counsellors among the Greeks! So should the city of Priam quickly fall, captured and destroyed by ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... you, whoever you be who are more successful [than me], and now strut proud of my misfortune; though you be rich in flocks and abundance of land, and Pactolus flow for you, nor the mysteries of Pythagoras, born again, escape you, and you excel Nireus in beauty; alas! you shall [hereafter] bewail her love transferred elsewhere; but I shall laugh ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... internal resources, could not cope with her in physical greatness—America with her noble institutions, elements of power, facilities of improvement, promises of greatness and high hopes of immortality, was this day far, very far behind her in natural resources. Nothing can excel the value of her productions—sugar-cane grows rapidly, cotton is a native plant, corn and hemp flourish in great perfection; oranges, coffee, wild honey, lemons, limes, mahogany, cam-wood, satin-wood, rose-wood, &c., abound there; ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... "To excel," Dr. DRAKE continues, "in rural IMAGERY, it is necessary that the Poet should diligently study Nature for himself; and not peruse her as is but too common, 'through the spectacles of Books' [Footnote: The happy illustration of DRYDEN ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... the colleges and halls, which for the beauty of their buildings, their rich endowments, and copious libraries, excel all the academies in the Christian world. We shall add a little of the academies themselves, ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... love of nature, which, through all his busy life, had never left him. It was not until the year 1845 that he took an active interest in horticultural pursuits. Then he began to build new melon-houses, pineries, and vineries, of great extent; and he now seemed as eager to excel all other growers of exotic plants in his neighbourhood, as he had been to surpass the villagers of Killingworth in the production of gigantic cabbages and cauliflowers some thirty years before. He had a pine-house built 68 feet in length ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... Further, cruelty and harshness seem to excel other evils. Now the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 8) that "harshness does not call for pity but drives it away." Therefore evil, as such, is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... certain we are that they are more worthy of credence than Ralph, who may or may not have been circumstantial; who may or may not even have existed, a point unworthy of disputation. As for Miss Reid, we will take an affidavit that neither in miniature nor at large did she excel the celebrated Rosalba; and with regard to Mrs. Lennox, we consider her to be a mere figment, like Narcissa, Miss Tabitha Bramble, or any hero or heroine depicted by the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... (celery), which is nothing else but the sweet smallage; the young shoots whereof, with a little of the head of the root cut off, they eat raw with oil and pepper.' And further he adds 'curled endive blanched is much used beyond seas; and, for a raw sallet, seemed to excel lettuce itself.' Now this journey was undertaken no longer ago than in ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... vessels to be distributed among officers and men at rate calculated at $25 for each person aboard the enemy vessel at beginning of engagement; British spy system has been so perfected that it is said in some respects to excel the German; Embassy in Washington denies that women or children ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... declamacion, That chyldren euen strayt fr their infancie should be well and gent- ly broughte vp in learnynge. Written fyrst in Latin by the most excel- lent and famous Clearke, Erasmus ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... example, the lantern of the cupola of S. Maria del Fiore, and, in point of grandeur, the cupola itself, wherein Filippo was emboldened not only to equal the ancients in the extent of their structures, but also to excel them in the height of the walls; yet we are speaking generically and universally, and we must not deduce the excellence of the whole from the goodness and perfection ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... the finish, as they did the start, altogether to himself. The psalm was accordingly wound up by a kind of understanding or accompaniment between his mouth and nose, which seemed each moved by a zealous but godly struggle to excel the other, if not in melody at least in loudness. They then all knelt down, and Solomon launched, with a sonorous voice, into an extempore prayer, which was accompanied by a solemn commentary of groanings, sighings, moanings, and muffled ejaculations, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... mind on your books; and that you should think of home when not engaged in reading. Whatever you do, don't romp together with them, for were you to meet our master, your father, it will be no joke! Although it's asserted that a scholar must strain every nerve to excel, yet it's preferable that the tasks should be somewhat fewer, as, in the first place, when one eats too much, one cannot digest it; and, in the second place, good health must also be carefully attended to. This is my view on the subject, and you ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... that she is associated in any way with learned people, she will be ambitious and excel in her endeavors to rise ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... Some Gipsies try to excel others in the possession of silver buttons. They will sometimes give as much as fifteen pounds for a set. The females too spend many pounds on weighty gold rings for their fingers. The Author has by him, belonging to a Gipsy, three massy rings soldered together, and with a half sovereign on ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... executive departments in which Moses, by stress of the responsibilities which he had assumed, was called upon, imperatively, to act, there was but one, that of the magician or wise man, in which, by temperament and training, he was fitted to excel, and the functions of this profession drove him into to intolerably irksome and distressing position, yet a position from which throughout his life he found it impossible to escape. No one who ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... deters instead of animating him, if the enthusiasm with which others speak of it damps the flame in his own breast, he had better not enter into a competition where he wants the first principle of success, the daring to aspire and the hope to excel. He may be assured he is not the man. Sir Joshua himself was not struck at first by the sight of the masterpieces of the great style of art, and he seems unconsciously to have adopted this theory to show that he might ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... ambitious to excel in whatever you do. Slighted work and half-done tasks are sins. "I am as good as they are"; "I do my work as well as they"; are cowardly maxims. Not what others have done, but perfection, is the only true aim, whether it be in the ball-field ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... extremely cautious and taking no needless risks; fond of gambling and drinking; seemingly indifferent to pain; kind and hospitable to strangers, yet revengeful and cruel, almost beyond belief, to those who have given offence.... They often excel in horsemanship, and, as a rule, sight and hearing are ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... with whom I have come in contact, Christian as well as Pagan, are addicted to falsehood; but the Takellies excel; they are perfect adepts in the art, telling their stories with such an appearance of truth, that even those who know them well are often deceived. They were the greatest thieves in the world when the whites first settled among them. The utmost vigilance failed to detect ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... ideal. Besides, most young Chinese girls, whose parents are well off, are taught to read, though it is true that many content themselves with being able to read and write a few hundred words. They all learn and excel in embroidery; the little knick-knacks which hang at every Chinaman's waist-band being almost always the work of his wife or sister. Visiting between Chinese ladies is of everyday occurrence, and on certain fete-days the temples are crowded to overflowing with ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... these straight off—immediately. Mr Lurgan will be proud man. You are offeecially subordinate to me, but I shall embody your name in my verbal report. It is a pity we are not allowed written reports. We Bengalis excel in thee exact science.' He tossed back the key and ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... (Belvedere Gal., Vienna), which made me start, with the intense expression: the Mother presses to her the Child, who holds a cross in his baby hand; she looks up to heaven with an appealing look of love and anguish,—almost of reproach. Guido did not excel so much in children, as in the Virgin alone. Poussin, Carlo Dolce, Sasso Ferrato, and, in general, all the painters of the seventeenth century, give us pretty women and pretty children. ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... must hate the perfections in which he is eclipsed by the other;—thus, from hating the quality in his competitor, he loses the respect for it in himself:—a young man by himself better educated than two.—A Roman's emulation was not to excel his countrymen, but to make his country excel: this is the true, the other selfish.—Epaminondas, who reflected on the pleasure his success would give his father, most glorious;—an emulation ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... moment to send its sons into the army. When the news comes of their death, they never whimper. When you come right down to hard facts, the courage and the endurance of the British and the French excel anything ever before seen on this planet. All the old stories of bravery from Homer down are outdone every day by these people. I see these British at close range, full-dress and undress; and I've got to know a lot of 'em as well as we can ever come to know anybody after we get grown. There ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... and Cuviers—propagated by them, until it has become proverbial. Strange to say, it is altogether erroneous. It has been proved that vultures possess the sense of smell in a less degree even than most other creatures. Dogs and wolves far excel ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... Golden-hair'd Rhadamanthus o'er the Deep, To visit earth-born Tityus. To that isle They went; they reach'd it, and they brought him thence Back to Phaeacia, in one day, with ease. Thou also shalt be taught what ships I boast Unmatch'd in swiftness, and how far my crews Excel, upturning with their oars the brine. He ceas'd; Ulysses toil-inur'd his words 410 Exulting heard, and, praying, thus replied. Eternal Father! may the King perform His whole kind promise! grant him in all lands A never-dying name, and grant to me To visit ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... out a strong serviceable cotton cloth; their iron weapons and implements show a taste for design which is not reached by the neighbouring tribes, and in all matters that relate to husbandry they excel: but in dash and courage they are deficient. The Waiyau, on the contrary, have round apple-shaped heads, as distinguished from the long well-shaped heads of the poor Manganja; they are jocular and merry, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... rich perfume Chemic art did ne'er presume Through her quaint alembic strain, None so sov'reign to the brain; Nature, that did in thee excel, Framed again no second smell, Roses, violets, but toys For the smaller sort of boys, Or for greener damsels meant; Thou art the only ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... sounds a martial strain, And Samuel sings, "The King shall have his ain": Two Georges in his loyal zeal are slur'd,[64] A gracious pension only saves the third!— By Nature's gifts ordain'd mankind to rule, He, like a Titian, form'd his brilliant school; And taught congenial spirits to excel, While from his lips impressive wisdom fell. Our boasted GOLDSMITH felt the sovereign sway; From him deriv'd the sweet yet nervous lay. To Fame's proud cliff he bade our Raphael rise; Hence REYNOLDS' pen with REYNOLDS' pencil vyes. With Johnson's flame melodious BURNEY glows,[65] While ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay
... their effective performance, call for special capacities in the workman, or special natural resources in the scene of operation. There would be a manifest waste of special power in compelling to a mere mechanical or routine pursuit a man who is fitted to excel in a professional career; and similarly, if a branch of industry were established on some site which offered greater facilities to an industry of another sort, a waste, analogous in character, would be incurred. In a word, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... brother; I know that when he is angry he is capable of any act of violence, and it is not impossible that at the moment when he felt himself defeated he could have killed me; but I know too, that when his fierce passion has cooled, he will forget my boastful deed, and only try to excel me by others of the same kind. A year ago he was by far the best marksman in Persia, and would be so still, if drink and epilepsy had not undermined his strength. I must confess I feel as if I were ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to be written with the view of surpassing a profound memoir on the same subject by James O. Halliwell,[263] Esq., F.R. and A.S.S., but the tremendous effort which the learned writer then made to excel many titled competitors for honors in the antique line appears to have had a sad effect upon his mental powers—at any rate, his efforts have since yearly become duller and duller; happily, at last, we should suppose, 'the ancient {149} and modern ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... not as the Gaji or Gentiles do, but as brothers and sisters. I confess that I was indeed moved by the simple kindness with which I was treated, and I knew that, with the wonderfully keen perception of character in which gypsies excel, they perfectly understood my liking for them. It is this ready intuition of feelings which, when it is raised from an instinct to an art by practice, enables shrewd old women to tell fortunes with so ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... types of machine pickers have been introduced, but there are few planters who will admit that any of them suits his particular needs. Now, as a hundred years ago, the picking is done by hand. It is a simple operation, so simple that children ten years old can do it, and women excel in it. But the best pickers rarely average more than a hundred pounds a day, and most of them pull much less. Careless work plays its part, too, for cotton is easily dropped from the boll and soiled or lost altogether. Leaves and twigs as ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous
... El Dorado. Since then the influx has steadily continued until now over 200,000 are in America. They persistently avoid agriculture and seek the coal mine and the factory. The one craft in which they excel is tailoring, and they proudly boast of being the best dressed among all the Eastern-European immigrants. The one mercantile ambition which they have nourished is to keep a saloon. Drinking is their national vice; and they ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... have mentioned, however, were but the commencement of a series of disasters to poor Jenkins, which went far to cure him of a desire to excel in the "noo purfession," and to induce a somewhat violent longing for a return to ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... better partner,' observed Audrey, as she and Cyril walked across the lawn. She had been playing with him the greater part of the afternoon, and had been much struck with his quiet and finished style. 'My brother-in-law has always been considered our champion player, but you certainly excel him.' ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... whose great days It was their pride to share—ay, share even to the death! Nay, rather, France, to you they rendered thanks (Seeing they came for honor, not for gain), Who, opening to them your glorious ranks, Gave them that grand occasion to excel, That chance to live the life most free from stain And that rare privilege of ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... now forty years of age, and esteemed a model of those virtues more peculiarly deemed Spartan. He was obedient to the constituted authorities, emulous to excel, courageous, energetic, capable of bearing all sorts of hardship and fatigue, simple and frugal in his mode of life. To these severer qualities he added the popular attractions of an agreeable countenance and pleasing address. His personal defects ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... not the beauty of the body alone that produces pride, but also its strength and force. Strength is a kind of power; and therefore the desire to excel in strength is to be considered as an inferior species of ambition. For this reason the present phaenomenon will be sufficiently accounted for, in ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... every other acquirement, that of apparent insensibility to pain—we start, perhaps cry out, at the twinge of a tooth; in war we become the dupes of the commonest stratagem, while they can never be surprised. They see that they excel us in hunting—in endurance of pain—in the power of encountering the fatigues and perils of savage life—indeed, in every kind of knowledge which is deemed by them of value—by their standard they are our superiors. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... his attitude, and his attire. The angelic life is vigorous, progressive, buoyant, and alien from decay. Immortal youth belongs to them who 'excel in strength' because they 'do his commandments.' That waiting minister shows us what the children of the Resurrection shall be, and so his presence as well as his speech expounds the blessed mystery of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... art thou, Church! when Faith to propagate, And crush all Bars that stop thy growing state, Thou break'st through Natures, Gods, and Humane Laws, Whilst Murder's Merit in a Churches Cause. How much thy Ladder Jacobs does excel: Whose Top's in Heaven like His, but Foot in Hell; Thy Causes bloody Champions to befriend, For Fiends to Mount, as ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... marked by this special sort of susceptibility in one of its least agreeable forms. His sentiment was neither robustly and courageously animal, nor was it an intellectual demand for the bright and vivacious sympathies in which women sometimes excel. It had neither bold virility, nor that sociable energy which makes close emotional companionship an essential condition of freedom of faculty and completeness of work. There is a certain close and sickly air round all his dealings with women and all his feeling for them. We seem to ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... so soon do I overwhelm you with culinary suggestions. I am distressed to remember them. But you must forgive and smile me into peacefulness again. And be not discouraged, little housewife! It may take years of attention to excel in bread-making, some skill even for boiling potatoes, and common-sense for everything; but stand steadily beside your servants, and watch their processes patiently. Take notes, experiment, amend, and if there be failure, discover ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... like the movement in that scene with the pair of short stilts, in which the French clowns are so amusing, and it is almost as difficult to perform. Mr. Verdant Green soon found that though he might be ambitious to excel in the polite accomplishment of skating, yet that his ambition was destined to meet with many a fall. But he persevered, and perseverance will achieve wonders, especially when aided by the tuition of such an ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... themselves—all that can only be effected by the mental faculty which we call imagination. If some great poet or painter should feel hurt that we require from his goddess such an office; if he shrugs his shoulders at the notion that a sharp gamekeeper must necessarily excel in imagination, we readily grant that we only speak here of imagination in a limited sense, of its service in a really menial capacity. But, however slight this service, still it must be the work of that natural gift, for if that gift is wanting, it would ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... Religion a propaganda of his pictorial faith, and wrote his explanatory text for the special benefit of young painters. The document concludes with the following emphatic and affectionate appeal: "And now, my dear young friend and brother artist, so ardently striving to excel in the Fine Arts, I have placed a picture before you in which you may wander as in a garden. Here you see all the great masters: behold how the future lies spread before you, like the bright distance in this picture, so that you may be encouraged thereby ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... private throughout the whole four years. Then, as now, neatness in dress and form, with a strict conformity to the rules, were the qualifications required for office, and I suppose I was found not to excel in any of these. In studies I always held a respectable reputation with the professors, and generally ranked among the best, especially in drawing, chemistry, mathematics, and natural philosophy. My average demerits, per annum, were about one hundred and fifty, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the stupendous profits of war machines the Krupps have built workpeople's houses that, as regards material comfort, would not be easy to excel. These houses are provided with ingenious coal-saving stoves, that might well be copied elsewhere, for though Essen is in the coal centre of Germany, they are just as careful about coal as though it were imported from the ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... the gracious growth of this young parishioner since he first met the lad of twelve and was attracted by the shining face, the pleasant manners. Dutiful and loving; ready to help; patient to bear and forbear; eager to excel; faithful to the smallest task, yet full of high ambitions; and, better still, possessing the childlike piety that can trust and believe, wait and hope. Good and happy—the two things we all long for and so few of us truly are. This he was, and ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... Elizabeth Barrett Brownings or George Eliots. One of the most curious and instructive things in this regard is the use which the modern critic makes of Sir Walter Scott. Sir Walter is set up as a sort of first standard for the aspirant in the art of fiction to excel. Let the question be asked, with as much gravity as is possible: What is the use of a critic who gravely assures us that Mr. S. R. Crockett 'has rivalled, if not surpassed, Sir Walter'? The statement is, of course, most lamentably and ludicrously absurd, but it is made more ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... with him the following day, and I should have thanked him and begged to be excused if Donna Ippolita had not pressed me to come. She assured me that I should find good company there, and that the cook would excel himself. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the rights of women, and which felicitated the present advocates on their great superiority in these respects. She named the pioneers, one by one, paid warm tribute to their beautiful personality and commanding ability and asked where a woman could be found in all the present generation to excel, if, indeed, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... fact in the history of progress, that, by a kind of intuitive insight, the earlier observers seem to have had a wider, more comprehensive recognition of natural phenomena as a whole than their successors, who far excel them in their knowledge of special points, but often lose their grasp of broader relations in the more minute investigation of details. When geologists first turned their attention to the physical history ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... celebrated dinner at the Temple, to which I invited Lyndhurst, Brougham, Campbell, and Charlie Wetherell, when the latter warned Lyndhurst and Brougham of Campbell's design, in terms almost prophetic of what has occurred. 'My biographical friend will excel in exhibiting every little foible; Hunc tu Romane caveto.' I cannot describe the whole scene to you, but ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... would get to know something of it in the forest, along with the grosser qualities of trees and valleys. Were it liable to be seized by the discursive and ratiocinative intellect, the most eminent statesman or lawyer or general would excel too in the capacity to appreciate beauty; the Roman would have shone in arts as in arms; the Spartan would not have been so barren where the Athenian was so prolific. But beauty is felt, not intellectually apprehended or logically deduced. ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... partial fandangueras to bestow their favours upon others better able to bear them. The motions of the Californian females of all classes in the dance are highly graceful. The waltz is their favourite measure, and in this they appear to excel as much as the men do in horsemanship. During the progress of the dance, the males and females improvise doggerel rhymes complimentary of the personal beauties and graces of those whom they admire, or expressive of their love and devotion, ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... mine affected heart, Whose sweetness doth excel All roses else a thousand times, I ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... where art ta waddlin' to? Does ta work at flat-backs yit, as tha's been used to do? Ha! coom, an' tha' s go wi' me, An' a sample I will gie thee, It's one at I've just forged upon Geoffry's bran-new stiddy.(3) Look at it well, it does excel all t' ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... of Jupiter excel in mechanical skill. They build houses, but not by long, tedious days of painstaking labor. Such things as plaster and paint are unknown. A Jupiterite can purchase, from one of the mammoth structural factories, house sides, house ends, house floors or partitions, after any general design he wishes, ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children, and exalt their courage, to accelerate and animate their industry and activity, to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel and ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... they contained, as they said, the sepulchres of the kings who built the labyrinth, and also those of the sacred crocodiles; thus it is from hearsay only that I can speak of the lower chambers. The upper chambers, however, I saw with my own eyes, and found them to excel all other human productions. The passage through the houses, and the various windings of the path across the courts, excited in me infinite admiration, as I passed from the courts into the chambers, and from chambers ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... excel the lark, She comes at dawn, I come at dark, And when the stars are shining bright, I sing ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... Fellenberg prune was grown to some extent in California 40 years and abandoned; it was not so sure in bearing as the French, and it was not the type of prune which we had ambition to excel with. The prune which we grow as the French is the true prune or plum of Agen. We should plant it and let the Oregon people ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... with a high delivery, and wickets were not so good then as they are now. Mr. Francis was also an excellent bowler, not so fast as Mr. Butler; and Mr. Belcher, who bowled with great energy, but did not excel as a bat, was a useful man. For Cambridge, Mr. Cobden bowled fast, Mr. Ward was an excellent medium pace bowler, Mr. Money's slows were sometimes fortunate, and Mr. Bourne bowled slow round. Cambridge went ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... age! Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, And all her various objects of delight Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased. Inferior to the vilest now become Of man or worm: the vilest here excel me, They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong, Within doors, or without, still as a fool, In power of others, never in my own;— O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... or what his position and responsibility, he will be paid according to the time he has served. He is not rewarded according to his works, but paid for length of service. The business offers no incentive to excel. Why work hard and honestly if you are going to get the dead-level wage each year anyway? Good clerks suffer because of the negligence of indifferent ones; but the former bring up the average of work—and that is all the bank cares. The staff of a bank is something ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... Compare him or these tragedies with Goethe, with Schlegel, with Coleridge, with Hazlitt, with Ulrici, and it will be found that he excels them all in completeness. It is needless to add that he is able to excel them only by coming after them; and that it is by diligently digesting all the positive results of Shaksperian criticism that he has been enabled to advance the science. He has grasped the principles which Schlegel and Coleridge established, and applied ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... were extremely eminent in their art, and may be esteemed the founders of that theatrical dancing, or pantomime execution, for which it is not sufficient to be only a good dancer, but there is also required the being a good actor; in both which lights, these two artists were allowed to excel, Pilades in the serious or tragic dance, Bathillus in ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... Alexander the Great, by refusing to pledge him a cup of wine. Let him laugh, play, wench with his prince: nay, I would have him, even in his debauches, too hard for the rest of the company, and to excel his companions in ability and vigour, and that he may not give over doing it, either through defect of power or knowledge how to do it, but for ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... old gentleman stared with both eyes at this illustration of the case; but, though not much of a reasoner, he had the sense in which some logicians on this particular subject do not excel,—that of saying nothing, where nothing could be said. So, as he stood carefully stroking his umbrella, and folding and patting down all the creases in it, he proceeded on with his exhortations in a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Exactness akurateco. Exaggerate trograndigi. Exaggeration trograndigo. Exalt lauxdegi. Examination ekzameno. Examine ekzameni. Example ekzemplo. Exasperate koleregigi. Excavate kavigi. Excavate kavigi, fosi. Excavator terfosisto. Exceed superi. Excel superi. Excellence boneco. Excellency Ekscelenco, Mosxto. Excellent bonega. Except krom. Except escepti. Exception escepto. Excess malmodereco. Excessive troa. Excessively troe. Exchange intersxangxi. Exchange, The borso. Excise officer oficisto. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... among these degenerate professors. Like the Pharisee, they would boast of their riches, the spiritual gifts which they possessed, by which they flattered themselves that "they were not as other men." Possibly they might excel in knowledge, that "knowledge which puffeth up;" in utterance,—"great swelling words of vanity," by which they gained both "filthy lucre" and the admiration of an ignorant and carnal multitude. Such is too often the actual condition of ministers ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... was waning fast, As through a wintry waste there passed A man, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, A banner with the strange device, Excel ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various
... Germans excel all others in literature in their warm tributes to the faithful love and devotion of their wives. Kerner, the Suabian author, said this beautiful word in testimony of his wife after their long years ...
— The Wedding Day - The Service—The Marriage Certificate—Words of Counsel • John Fletcher Hurst
... his unsparing and unscrupulous sarcasm and his invective was as dreadful as the personal ridicule of Voltaire. As a poet he was respectable, and as a writer he was original. He was indifferent to literary fame, and never attempted any higher style of composition than that in which he could excel. His last days were miserable, and he lingered a long while in ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... man of her choice had wondrously improved Mabel Ashbourne. She was less self-sufficient and more conciliating. Her ambition, hitherto confined to the desire to excel all other women in her own person, had assumed a less selfish form. She was now only ambitious for her husband; greedy of parliamentary fame for him; full of large hopes about the future of Ireland. She looked forward complacently to the day when she and Lord Mallow would ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... and pebble-stones for that of backing horses. A couple of years later his atalik might even have presented him with a steed for the practice of those arts of horsemanship wherein the Circassians excel the most expert riders in the world. The Koissu must also have submitted to the triumph of his arms when their bone was still in the gristle, and during the warm season of the year have suffered, both at morning and evening, its torrent to be breasted by the ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... most likely to excel in the lighter arts—to design (for furniture or fabrics), to embroider, to carve, to engrave, to etch, to model, to paint. Here also success depends largely upon that which was inborn, though girls of moderate ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... admirer of the beautiful and perfect in nature is presented a fibre of absolute smoothness, roundness, and finish, the colors of which resemble, and in the sunlight even excel in brilliancy those of the two precious metals, silver and gold; while the moralist who loves to illustrate the workings of God's providence in bringing forth good out of evil, by comparing the disgusting silk-worm with its beautiful and useful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... employed in furnishing her with luxuries or necessities. Never was there so proud a city as this "Epitome of the Universe." London, Paris, Vienna, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, Berlin, are great centres of fashion and power; but they are rivals, and excel only in some great department of human enterprise and genius, as in letters, or fashions, or commerce, or manufactures— centres of influence and power in the countries of which they are capitals, yet they ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... greatest man of antiquity. He was at one and the same time a general, a statesman, a lawgiver, a jurist, an orator, a poet, a historian, a philologer, a mathematician, and an architect. He was equally fitted to excel in every thing, and has given proofs that he would have surpassed almost all other men in any subject to which he devoted the energies of his extraordinary mind. One fact places his genius for war in a most striking light. Till his 40th year, when he went as Propraetor ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... dirty, for he is not very select in his own company; and if he does not keep a groggery, those which are kept in this town have few more attentive customers. I only know of one who can claim to excel him in this respect, and that is he whom you have, by your schemes, almost compelled poor Lou to accept as her affianced husband. I mean that distinguished member of the bloatocracy, Stanley Ginsling. Consistency is a jewel, mother, you know and if you are consistent, you ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... of this literary drawcansir to that oblivion to which they seem to be rapidly hastening, let us examine the merits of Barry in some of those characters in which he was universally allowed to excel; and on this scale we must give the preference to Othello. This was the first character he ever appeared in, the first his inclination prompted him to attempt—and the first without question, that exhibited his genius in the full force and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... with surprise, and asked me where I was going, whereon I said I was in search of rare plants and birds for the Museum of the town at which I had slept the night after my arrival. This satisfied their curiosity, and I ambled on accompanied by the dog. In passing I may say that I found Doctor not to excel at any pace except an amble, but for a long journey, especially for one who is carrying a heavy, awkward load, there is no pace so comfortable; and he ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... especially the comedies, out of disgust at their indecency; yet in judging the period as a whole he seems to discriminate sufficiently between indelicacy and dulness. "The talents of Otway," he says, "in his scenes of passionate affection rival, at least, and sometimes excel those of Shakspeare." Again: "The comedies of Congreve contain probably more wit than was ever before embodied upon the stage; each word was a jest, and yet so characteristic that the repartee of the servant is distinguished from that of the master; ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... of one peculiar phrase of feminine suffering and endurance—that of the outraged and neglected wife; and her favourite roles are 'Katherine' from Henry VIII., 'Hermione,' and 'Medea,' though she is said to excel in 'Deborah.' My brother who saw her last night as 'Medea' pronounced her fully equal to Rachel, and said that in that scene where she attempted to remove her children from the side of the new wife, the despairing fury of her eyes literally raised the few thin hairs that still faithfully ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... not having been known to excel in conversation, Johnson observes, that 'traditional memory retains no sallies of raillery, or[173] sentences of observation; nothing either pointed or solid, wise or merry[174]; and that one apophthegm only is recorded[175].' In this respect, Pope differed widely ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... Thunderbolt, or the Victorious, while some are known as the Eagle or the Hawk, because apparently they prefer strength and lawless violence to justice and goodness. Yet for all this, the gods, to whom they so presumptuously liken themselves, excel mankind chiefly in three attributes, namely in immortality, in power, and in goodness, whereof goodness is by far the most glorious and divine quality. Mere empty space, and all the elements possess immortality, while earthquakes, thunderbolts, violent winds and rushing ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... ascending from the pavement, outside the buildings, all of dark gray granite, cold, hard, and venerable. The University stands in High Street, in a dense part of the town, and a very old and shabby part, too. I think the poorer classes of Glasgow excel even those in Liverpool in the bad eminence of filth, uncombed and unwashed children, drunkenness, disorderly deportment, evil smell, and all that makes city poverty disgusting. In my opinion, however, they are a better-looking people ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... subject of study is familiar; the Indian student is expected to master subjects absolutely unknown to him in his own life. Yet I have heard teachers experienced in public school work declare that these children of nature are as responsive as white children; in writing and drawing they excel; and discipline is easier, at least among the wilder tribes. The result in thirty or forty years has opened the eyes of many who heretofore held the theory that the Indian will always ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... every kind of poetry that existed. Aratus treated the abstruse investigations of Eudoxus in neat verses that at once became popular. While in the great periods of Greek art each writer had been content to excel in a single branch, it now became the fashion for the same poet to be Epicist, Lyrist, and ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... prevents me from taking in all that I am told, and perhaps if I had more to do I might do it better. I shall be able to play my part when it comes to hard blows, and you must remember that no one can excel in all things. A staghound is trusty and sure when on the chase, but he could not be taught to fetch and to carry and to perform all sorts of tricks such as were done by the little mongrel cur that danced to the order of the mountebank the other evening. My father always said I was ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... with the freedom, stability, and long duration of civil government, with denseness of population, great power, and the highest civilization. And in what respect does this modern Europe, which claims to give opinions to the world, so far excel them—notwithstanding the immense advantages of the Christian religion and the discovery of the art of printing? They are not more free, nor have performed more glorious actions, nor displayed more exalted virtue. In the higher departments of intellect—in ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... concentrate the energy of the mind principally on one study. The attention divided among many studies, is weakened by the division; besides, it is not granted to an individual to excel in many things. But, while one study claims your main attention, make occasional excursions into the fields of literature and science, and collect materials for the improvement of your mind, and the advancement of your ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... their time gratuitously. It was a source of much pleasure to me to know the provosts and leaders in council of so many towns in Scotland and England, not forgetting Ireland where my Freedom tour was equally attractive. Nothing could excel the reception accorded me in Cork, Waterford, and Limerick. It was surprising to see the welcome on flags expressed in the same Gaelic words, Cead mille failthe (meaning "a hundred thousand welcomes") as used by ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... the art of cutting, polishing, and setting their diamonds. Gold and silver filagree works they excel in; gunpowder is manufactured at Pontiana; brass cannon is cast at Borneo Proper; iron-shot is run from their mine. They can manufacture and repair krises, and clean their arms. Their carpentry extends to the building and repairing of prows, and the erecting of a hut. Their industry is further exerted ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... unorthodox notions as to the correct method of presenting arms; we may not always present an unbroken front on the parade-ground—but we can dig! Even the fact that we do not want to, cannot altogether eradicate a truly human desire to "show off." "Each man to his art," we say. We are quite content to excel in ours, the oldest in the world. We know enough now about the conditions of the present war to be aware that when we go out on service only three things will really count—to march; to dig; and to fire, upon occasion, fifteen rounds a minute. Our rapid fire is already fair; we can ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... really Scripture history of Christ's time clothed gracefully and delicately in the flowing and loose drapery of modern fiction.... Few late works of fiction excel it in genuine ability and ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... hatred of Belton accomplished the very same result in respect to their acquirements. The teacher soon discovered that both boys were talented far beyond the ordinary, and that both were ambitious. He saw that the way to wound and humiliate Belton was to make Bernard excel him. Thus he bent all of his energies to improve Bernard's mind. Whenever he heard Belton recite he brought all of his talents to bear to point out his failures, hoping thus to exalt Bernard, out of whose work he strove to keep all blemishes. Thus Belton became accustomed ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... valleys, one with the eye of an artist, who can perceive and differentiate varying shades of color, can not but admit that the Bernese Oberland is "par excellence" first. Even south of the Alps the verdure does not excel or even equal that to be seen here. There is something incomparably lovely about the Oberland valleys. It is indescribable, indefinable, for when one has exhausted the most extravagant terms of description, he feels that he has failed to picture the scene as he desired. Yet if one word should ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... next me in our heaven, Lustrous and costly, great renown hath left, And not to perish, ere these hundred years Five times absolve their round. Consider thou, If to excel be worthy man's endeavour, When such life may attend the first. Yet they Care not for this, the crowd that now are girt By Adice and Tagliamento, still Impenitent, tho' scourg'd. The hour is near, When for their stubbornness at Padua's marsh The water shall be chang'd, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... to fill the intervening days with the most girlish devices. The strongest assertion she was able to make of her individual claims was to leave out Alice's lessons (on the principle that Alice was more likely to excel in ignorance), and to employ her with Miss Merry, and the maid who was understood to wait on all the ladies, in helping to arrange various dramatic costumes which Gwendolen pleased herself with having in readiness for some ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... station which they filled. This indeed comes nearest the truth; for it is very common for biographers to pass eulogiums of a very high strain in praise of those whom they affect. But in these panegyrical orations, they oftimes rather exceed than excel.—It was an ancient (but true) saying of the Jews, "That great men (and we may say good men) commonly find stones for their own monuments;" and laudable actions always support themselves: And a thing (as an author[23] observes on the like subject) "if right, it ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... uncultivated and unadorned is for the most part, of modern growth.] where we have made a long sojourn. But what is most remarkable in friendship is that it puts a man on an equality with his inferior. For there often are in a circle of friends those who excel the rest, as was the case with Scipio in our flock, if I may use the word. He never assumed superiority over Philus, never over Rupilius, never over Mummius, never over friends of an order lower than his own. Indeed he always reverenced as a superior, because ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... have grace instead of awkwardness in his motions and gestures, and, in short, may be a very agreeable instead of a very disagreeable speaker if he will take care and pains. And surely it is very well worth while to take a great deal of pains to excel other men in that particular article ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the god Thor." Then addressing himself to Thor, he said, "Perhaps thou mayst be more than thou appearest to be. What are the feats that thou and thy fellows deem yourselves skilled in, for no one is permitted to remain here who does not, in some feat or other, excel all other men?" ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Great bequeathed to Prussia was universally regarded as the model of efficiency. Its methods were copied in other countries, and foreign officers desiring to excel in their profession made pilgrimages to Berlin and Potsdam to drink of the stream of military knowledge at its source. When it came in contact with the tumultuous array of revolutionary France, the performances of the force that preserved the tradition ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... upon as the most honourable testimony of their conduct, and are treasured up as valuable marks of distinction. This encouragement has great influence, and makes them vie with each other in endeavours to excel in sobriety, cleanliness, meekness and industry. She told me also that the young women bred up at the schools these ladies support are so much esteemed for many miles round that it is not uncommon for young farmers, who want sober, good wives, to obtain them from thence, and prefer ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... of character, great perseverance and ambition to excel are shown in the strenuous manner in which he overcame all these obstacles, and at the close of his college career at St. John's, Cambridge, became a wrangler in ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestick privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, where exteriour appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and by virtue. The account of Thuanus is with great propriety said by its authour to have been written, that it might lay open to posterity the private and familiar character of that man, cujus ingenium et candorem ex ipsius scriptis sunt olim semper miraturi, whose ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Red Jacket was fitted by nature to excel in councils of peace, rather than in enterprises of war; to gain victories in a conflict of mind with mind rather than in physical strife, on ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... southern slope of the Sivalik ridge, between two mountain chains. In this valley, raised 1,024 feet above the sea-level, the northern nature of the Himalayas struggles with the tropical growth of the plains; and, in their efforts to excel each other, they have created the most delightful of all the delightful corners of India. The town itself is a quaint collection of castle-like turrets of the most fantastical architecture; of ancient viharas; of wooden fortresses, so gaily painted that they look like toys; of pagodas, ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... support of Matilda. The garrison of Lincoln had no apprehension of a surprise, and were busy in those sports which hardy men enjoy even amid the rougher sport of war. The Countess of Chester and her sister-in-law, with a politeness that the ladies of the court of Louis le Grand could not excel, paid a visit to the wife of the knight who had the defence of the castle. While there, at this pleasant morning call, "talking and joking" with the unsuspecting matron, as Ordericus relates, the Earl ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... immediately entered Annie's name in the list of competitors, and Annie sat down again, not even glancing at her astonished schoolfellows, who could not conceal their amazement, for she had never hitherto shown the slightest desire to excel in ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... recognized in Billings the best kicker in the school. He was up against it for material in the fullback position. Rudolph did not excel in kicking. He was a good line plunger and fairly fast around the ends. Blackwell had been a triple threat player. There was a remote possibility that Blackwell might be able to get in part of the Canton High game. If Billings were not afraid of himself and had had more experience! ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... south; until the Taillkenn [**] should come to Erinn, bringing the light of a pure faith, and until they should hear the voice of a Christian bell. They were allowed to keep their own Gaelic speech, and to sing sweet, plaintive, fairy music, which should excel all the music of the world, and which should lull to sleep all who listened to it. We could hear it, we three, for we loved the story; and love opens the ear as well as the heart to all sorts of sounds not heard by the dull and incredulous. You may hear it, too, any fine soft ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... dukes, hesitates one moment to send its sons into the army. When the news comes of their death, they never whimper. When you come right down to hard facts, the courage and the endurance of the British and the French excel anything ever before seen on this planet. All the old stories of bravery from Homer down are outdone every day by these people. I see these British at close range, full-dress and undress; and I've got to know a lot of 'em ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... art of rice cultivation they are past masters. They are skilled tank-builders, though perhaps hardly equal to the Kohlis of Chanda. But they excel especially in the mending and levelling of their fields, in neat transplantation, and in the choice and adaptation of the different varieties of rice to land of varying qualities. They are by no means specially efficient ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... are most likely to excel in the lighter arts—to design (for furniture or fabrics), to embroider, to carve, to engrave, to etch, to model, to paint. Here also success depends largely upon that which was inborn, though girls of moderate talent in art, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... to come, such as, for example, the lantern of the cupola of S. Maria del Fiore, and, in point of grandeur, the cupola itself, wherein Filippo was emboldened not only to equal the ancients in the extent of their structures, but also to excel them in the height of the walls; yet we are speaking generically and universally, and we must not deduce the excellence of the whole from the goodness and perfection of ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... felt the least shame, however, in not being able to play cricket in a manner to please connoisseurs. I hated the game from the very beginning, and it was pure slavery to me, and I never had the faintest desire to excel in it or even to learn it. This dislike was a misfortune, as not to love cricket is a cause of isolation for an ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... emulation cannot exist in two minds; one must hate the perfections in which he is eclipsed by the other;—thus, from hating the quality in his competitor, he loses the respect for it in himself:—a young man by himself better educated than two.—A Roman's emulation was not to excel his countrymen, but to make his country excel: this is the true, the other selfish.—Epaminondas, who reflected on the pleasure his success would give his father, most glorious;—an emulation for ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... companies predominated and where he could place the Guardian upon the withdrawal of a Conference company. After all, the Osgood office was not the only good agency in Boston. A new vigor fortified him—he would find an agent for the Guardian who should excel the Osgood connection as the sun outshines ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... have been the prevailing sin among these degenerate professors. Like the Pharisee, they would boast of their riches, the spiritual gifts which they possessed, by which they flattered themselves that "they were not as other men." Possibly they might excel in knowledge, that "knowledge which puffeth up;" in utterance,—"great swelling words of vanity," by which they gained both "filthy lucre" and the admiration of an ignorant and carnal multitude. Such is too often the actual condition of ministers and people, when they are all the while under ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... accomplished for the glory of God or the good of mankind. This was a powerful argument, and the countess made the most of it. Then, whether by reason of a tacit understanding, a thinly veiled act of complaisance such as those who wear the ecclesiastical habit excel in, or whether merely as the result of sheer stupidity—a stupidity admirably adapted to further their designs—the old nun rendered formidable aid to the conspirator. They had thought her timid; she proved ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... authentic materials which must be disguised or kept hidden; while its leading features are a delight in elaborate accessories and that very modern sentiment, a horror of anachronism. A few living artists, like Mr. Shorthouse and Mr. Stevenson, can still excel under these difficult conditions, which have driven a crowd of second-rate novelists into the extreme of minute realism. Into this retreat, however, they have been followed by a host of readers; ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... men is idleness. They excel in it. Let us pause for a moment and ask what they do—this jeunesse doree, to whom the sacred mission is committed of regenerating an heroic people? They could teach Ovid "the art of love." It comes to them in the air they breathe. They do not love their neighbor as themselves, ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... The Germans far excel us in this feature of their school work. No class of German children are ever sent to their seats with the simple direction to take so many pages in advance. Teacher and class together go over the next lesson, the teacher calling the attention of the ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... that was evolved under great stress is far too complex for discussion here. Suffice it to say this: Lincoln's clear insight and openness of mind enabled him to see the universal truth, that, other things being equal, the trained and expert professional must excel the untrained and inexpert amateur. But other things are never precisely equal; and a war in which the whole mass-manhood is concerned brings in a host of amateurs. Lincoln was as devoid of prejudice against the regular officers as he was against ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... distributed among officers and men at rate calculated at $25 for each person aboard the enemy vessel at beginning of engagement; British spy system has been so perfected that it is said in some respects to excel the German; Embassy in Washington denies that women or children are interned ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... excellence, lays down the pursuit of Knowledge for its own sake, as the first of them. "This pertains most of all to human nature," he says, "for we are all of us drawn to the pursuit of Knowledge; in which to excel we consider excellent, whereas to mistake, to err, to be ignorant, to be deceived, is both an evil and a disgrace."(14) And he considers Knowledge the very first object to which we are attracted, after the ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... good man will turn examples of all sorts to his own advantage. The good he will make his patterns, and strive to equal or excel them. The bad he will by all means avoid.—THOMAS ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... half-crazed simpleton which he appeared, and was incapable of any constant and steady exertion. He had just so much solidity as kept on the windy side of insanity, so much wild wit as saved him from the imputation of idiocy, some dexterity in field-sports (in which we have known as great fools excel), great kindness and humanity in the treatment of animals entrusted to him, warm affections, a prodigious memory, and an ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... this power was destroyed, by the ridiculous distinctions of rich and poor. Oh, mad world! Monstrous absurdity! Incomprehensible blindness! Look at the rich! In what are they happy? In what do they excel the poor? Not in their greater stores of wealth: which is but a source of vice, disease, and death; but in a little superiority of knowledge; a trifling advance toward truth. How may this advantage be made general? Not ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... a legend, but its lesson is well worthy our serious thought. Too many people in their life as Christians, while they strive to excel in character, in conduct, and in the beautiful graces of disposition, and to do their work among men faithfully, are forgetting meanwhile the law of love which bids every follower of Christ go about doing good as the Master did. To be a Christian ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... a rare and brilliant instance of those natural qualities in which these peculiar people are said to excel," he answered. "I agree with you, Alice, in thinking that such a front and eye were formed rather to intimidate than to deceive; but let us not practice a deception upon ourselves, by expecting any other exhibition of what ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... sea there is earth, nor are they at all worthy to be compared with the beautiful things with us. But, on the other hand, those things in the upper regions of the earth would appear far more to excel the things with us. For, if we may tell a beautiful fable, it is well worth hearing, Simmias, what kind the things are on the earth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... are backward learners. Some there are who excel in embroidery, crocheting, making ties and other fancy articles, but who have no aptitude for shaping and trimming hats. They plod on, and win at last. Then there is the girl whose parents wish her to open a millinery establishment in their town. She tries, but finally agrees with her ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... the day of his interview with Rodolph at Mayence, Gilbert's mind had been wholly engrossed with the bright pictures which a vivid and worldly fancy and a keen ambition to excel can always unfold to the eye of youth. At times he remembered the night passed in the missionary's humble dwelling, when Bertha's knife had confined him there, and he saw again the crucifix and the sacristan. But this was only for a moment. The image of the Lady Margaret was sure to enter and banish ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... education, which was general in Babylonia, was in the northern kingdom confined for the most part to a single class. In Babylonia it was of very old standing. There were libraries in most of the towns and temples; an old Sumerian proverb averred that "he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn." Women as well as men learned to read and write, and in Semitic times this involved a knowledge of the extinct Sumerian as well as of a most complicated and extensive syllabary. A considerable amount of Semitic Babylonian literature ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... order. Their {very} multitude is a hindrance to those that are thrown, and it baffles the blow for which it is designed. Behold! the Arcadian,[66] wielding his battle-axe, rushing madly on to his fate, said, "Learn, O youths, how much the weapons of men excel those of women, and give way for my achievement. Though the daughter of Latona herself should protect him by her own arms, still, in spite of Diana, shall my right hand destroy him." Such words did he boastingly ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... darted at me, across the Elector's table, while the great drinking match that I had proposed was going on. It was right plain to be seen how much vexed you were, that there was anything in which Conrad von Burgsdorf could excel the wise, the learned, and the most ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... caprices of a wife, govern a state of twenty-six millions of men with an arbitrariness, a heedlessness, a prodigality, a lack of skill, an absence of consistency that would scarcely be overlooked in the management of a private domain.—The king and the privileged excel in one direction, in manners, in good taste, in fashion, in the talent for representation and in entertaining and receiving, in the gift of graceful conversation, in finesse and in gaiety, in the art of converting life into a brilliant and ingenious festivity, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... myself are in possession of noble secrets and excel in their art should keep both mind and hand ceaselessly active to carry out their enterprises, so as to win much wealth and leave a long memory behind them. And if I, old and broken down as I am, spare myself no trouble, you are bound to do your utmost to help me ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... savage cannot, as a general rule, endure transplantation,—he cannot thrive in the country of the civilized man; whereas the latter, with time for training, can equal or excel him in strength and endurance on his own ground. As it is known that the human race generally can endure a greater variety of climate than the hardiest of the lower animals, so it is with the man of civilization, when compared with the barbarian. Kane, when he ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... at any rate, the impression of disregard for the feelings of others. What a regard to appearances is not revealed in such common expressions as "Etre de mauvaise tournure" and "Avoir bonne tournure," as applied to either man or woman? And as for the women, who can excel a Frenchwoman in the art of looking if not elegant, yet at any rate spruce, by the aid of even meagre materials, and in the art of "savoir faire," of which our English "tact" hardly preserves the aroma? What dynasty or party shall rule the destinies of France may be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... its own peculiar boast, so that the city together combines within its precincts, if you take the word of the inhabitants on the subject, as much of historical interest as of natural beauty. Our claims in behalf of the Canongate are not the slightest. The Castle may excel us in extent of prospect and sublimity of site; the Calton had always the superiority of its unrivalled panorama, and has of late added that of its towers, and triumphal arches, and the pillars of its Parthenon. The High Street, we acknowledge, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... a declamacion, That chyldren euen strayt fr their infancie should be well and gent- ly broughte vp in learnynge. Written fyrst in Latin by the most excel- lent and famous Clearke, ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... all that went out or came in, all disbursements and all receipts, proceeded as it were by number and measure. His manager in all this was a single servant, Evangelus by name, a man either naturally gifted or instructed by Pericles so as to excel every one in ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... of weapons and courageous in the battle-field. He is not, however, bound to have the special science of a general, nor must he in times of peace profess unique devotion to the art of war: that would argue a coarseness of nature or vainglory. Again, he must excel in all manly sports and exercises, so as, if possible, to beat the actual professors of each game, or feat of skill on their own ground. Yet here also he should avoid mere habits of display, which are unworthy of a man who aspires to be ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... University match, Mr. Butler took all ten wickets in one innings. He was fast, with a high delivery, and wickets were not so good then as they are now. Mr. Francis was also an excellent bowler, not so fast as Mr. Butler; and Mr. Belcher, who bowled with great energy, but did not excel as a bat, was a useful man. For Cambridge, Mr. Cobden bowled fast, Mr. Ward was an excellent medium pace bowler, Mr. Money's slows were sometimes fortunate, and Mr. Bourne bowled slow round. Cambridge went in first, and only got 147. Mr. Yardley fell for 2, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... a State? Not high-raised battlement, or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities fair, with spires and turrets crown'd; No:—Men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude:— Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain; Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... a Roman, and now delight us Britons. Thus every Thing conduces to debase Tragedy among them, as every Thing here contributes to form good Tragick Writers; yet how few have we! And what is very remarkable, each Nation takes Delight in that, which, in the Main, they the least excel in, and are the least fit for. The Audience in England is generally more crowded at a Comedy, and in France at a Tragedy; yet I will venture to affirm, (and I shall be ready upon Occasion to support my Assertion by good Reasons) that ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... I excel in metaphysical discussions, and was about giving further elaboration of my favorite idea when the door burst open. Master Billy came tumbling in with a torn jacket, a bloody nose, the trace of a few tears in his eyes, and the mangiest of ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... anger. Armarse de paciencia: To arm oneself with patience. Arrimarse a la pared: To lean against the wall. Arrostrar (con (or por)) los peligros: To face the dangers. Atender (a) los negocios: To attend to business. Aventajarse a otros: To excel others. ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... insidework of my house myself. Indeed, it is really essential for the well-doing of the emigrant, that he, or some members of his family, should have some knowledge of carpentry—in fact, be a jack-of-all-trades; and, in that excellent profession, educated persons, healthy in mind and body, excel ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... could not have been four years old when he exchanged the amusement of building houses of mud and pebble-stones for that of backing horses. A couple of years later his atalik might even have presented him with a steed for the practice of those arts of horsemanship wherein the Circassians excel the most expert riders in the world. The Koissu must also have submitted to the triumph of his arms when their bone was still in the gristle, and during the warm season of the year have suffered, both at morning and evening, its torrent ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... our readers. Slavishly to copy, or systematically to imitate, are evils scarcely less reprehensible than to neglect them altogether; but frequent study of the great masters in any art is indispensable to those who would excel. It is to the absence of such study that we may trace most of the defects of the British artisan. Unhappily, he seldom either examines, reads, or thinks; generally he is content to work, like a horse in a mill, pursuing the same ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... are points of comparison which may be remarked in the characters of the French and English. The French are great talkers, the English great thinkers; the former excel in vivacity, the latter in solidity of intellect. The French dress with splendour, the English with neatness; the French live almost exclusively on bread, the English on meat. Both are passionate; but it is the blood ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... by allowing them to blacken; yet so soon do I overwhelm you with culinary suggestions. I am distressed to remember them. But you must forgive and smile me into peacefulness again. And be not discouraged, little housewife! It may take years of attention to excel in bread-making, some skill even for boiling potatoes, and common-sense for everything; but stand steadily beside your servants, and watch their processes patiently. Take notes, experiment, amend, and if there be failure, discover ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... suspicion. All his bliss, all his honour, all his liberty he avowed was entirely in your disposal. Was he not of noble birth? And for beauty might he not compare with the rest of his townsfolk? Did he not excel in all the exercises and accomplishments proper to youth? Was he not beloved, held dear, well seen of all men? You will not deny it. How then could you at the behest of a paltry friar, silly, brutish and envious, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... dissertation on the treachery of friends; "never in all the years to come. The driveling fools! What do I pay them for? To let me lie there snoring so loud that I couldn't hear opportunity for the noise I was making? As in everything else I undertake, my dear Barnes, I excel at snoring. My lung capacity is something amazing. It has to have an outlet. They let me lie there like a log while the richest publicity material that ever fell to the lot of an actor went to waste,—utter waste. Why, damme, sir, I could have made ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... allow'd to be polite?" Yes, doubtless; but first set your notions right. Worth, of politeness, is the needful ground; Where that is wanting, this can ne'er be found. Triflers not e'en in trifles can excel; 'Tis solid bodies only polish well. Great, chosen prophet! For these latter days, To turn a willing world from righteous ways! Well, Heydegger, dost thou thy master serve; Well has he seen his servant should not starve. Thou to his name hast splendid temples rais'd; In various ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... the Dunciad, where at a diving-match in the putrid waters of Fleet Ditch, which "rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to the Thames," the heroes are bidden to "prove who best can dash through thick and thin, and who the most in love of dirt excel." ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... apparently plunged in deep and painful thought. Then, suddenly throwing up his head, he continued: "I belong to the genus Prodigal Son. Would you care to hear my story? I think I should rather like to tell it you; for you are a good lad, high-spirited, full of generous impulses, eager to excel, and full of pluck. You are bound to make a success of your life if you will only steadfastly follow the path that your feet are now treading. But— forgive me for saying so—the qualities that you possess, excellent as they are, are precisely those ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... in our family. I never saw a passionate face, never an anger that lasted till the morrow, never a look at all reproachful. My mother, grandmother, father, my brother and I, lived like those who understand each other's thoughts, and only strive to excel one another in the expression ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... ports, in everything which contributes to naval efficiency,—in size, in mechanical appliances, in concentration upon one spot of all the trades and all the resources necessary for the construction and repair of war-ships,—excel all other ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... said of the superiority of South African scouting to that of the British regulars, but it must be confessed that a good many instances might be quoted in which the colonials, though second to none in gallantry, have been defective in that very quality in which they were expected to excel. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... born in New England would not now be such "jacks of all trades and masters of none" as we are. The West deserves great commendation for their lively interest in all that relates to the education of the young. Why, almost any of these States excel those of New England in school matters, outside of two or three of the great universities which they happen to possess. Several years ago, in passing through Indiana and visiting several of the village schools, ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... of their superior acquirements, were enabled to excel others in any pursuit, or who could foresee and avail themselves of events in the natural world, were liable, without any intention to deceive, to be classed under some of these denominations. For instance, a Roman farmer, Furius Cresinus, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... expect to equal, much less to excel, the original. The excellence of a translation can only be judged by noting how far it has succeeded in reproducing the original tone, colors, style, the delicacy of sentiment, the force of inert strength, the peculiar expressions native to the language ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... name. To such, the following facts may be of use. The game is interesting, and its rules can be soon learned, but like everything else we do for pleasure or profit, it takes a good deal of practice before one can pose as an expert. Boys take to golf and soon excel their seniors. ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... has read so far, can think I am unduly prejudiced in favour of America and the Americans. I have tried to write fairly, and point out in what respects their institutions, habits, &c., excel ours; but, on the other hand, I have criticized in no sparing language what I consider are faults or peculiarities distasteful to outsiders, and possibly there is more blame than praise in the foregoing pages. If now, therefore, I write strongly in favour of the great capital ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... much as glory. If he want that, then take it that he lacks all else. For nothing about a king is more on men's lips than his repute. I was credited with the height of understanding and eloquence. But I have been stripped of both the things wherein I was thought to excel, and am all the more miserable because I, the conqueror of kings, am seen conquered by a peasant. Why grant life to him whom thou hast robbed of honour? I have lost sister, realm, treasure, household gear, and, what is greater than them all, renown: I am luckless in all chances, and in all thy ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... of his profession. He had entered it under favourable circumstances. He had joined a crack regiment in a crack garrison. Malta is certainly a delightful station. Its city, Valetta, equals in its noble architecture, if it even do not excel, any capital in Europe; and although it must be confessed that the surrounding region is little better than a rock, the vicinity, nevertheless, of Barbary, of Italy, and of Sicily, presents exhaustless resources ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... good Quakers have all the hail-holes in their windows mended now, and they are as lively as ever. Among other things, they have two rival variety theatres, "Fox's" and the "Chestnut;" and the efforts of each of these to excel the other creates the greatest excitement among the young Broadbrims. Each establishment is continually adding something new and wonderful to its attractions. A week or so ago the weather was very warm, and the vegetable theatre ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... culture, has value as an intellectual stimulus and discipline. Here also the youthful mind is brought into the presence of a great and noble people, who, if they have less genius and a duller sense of beauty than the Greeks, excel them in steadiness of purpose, in dignity of character, in reverence for law and religion, and above all ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... me to dine with him the following day, and I should have thanked him and begged to be excused if Donna Ippolita had not pressed me to come. She assured me that I should find good company there, and that the cook would excel himself. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... late for a fresh compliment to be paid to him, but the London Spectator paid it in 1883, the year of his centenary, by saying, "Since the time of Pope more than one hundred essayists have attempted to excel or to equal the Tatler and Spectator. One alone, in a few of his best efforts, may be said to have rivalled them, and he is Washington Irving." The Spectator adds that one has surpassed ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... succeeded by their swiftness of foot, but by beagles very little superior to those of modern days [12]. Of the stronger and more ferocious dogs there is, however, occasional mention. The bull-dog of modern date does not excel the one (possibly of nearly the same race) that was presented to Alexander the Great, and that boldly seized a ferocious lion, or another that would not quit his hold, although one leg and then ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... from his famous tales, the happy art of narration, and the still greater merit of a depth and fineness in the workings of the passions, in which last excellence, as likewise in the wild and imaginative character of the situations, his almost neglected romances appear to me greatly to excel his far famed 'Decameron'. To him, too, we owe the more doubtful merit of having introduced into the Italian prose, and by the authority of his name and the influence of his example, more or less throughout Europe, the long interwoven ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... there is another name—'saints.' It has suffered perhaps more at the hands both of the world and of the Church than any other. It has been taken by the latter and restricted to the dead, and further restricted to those who excel, according to the fantastic, ascetic standard of mediaeval Christianity. It has suffered from the world in that it has been used with a certain bitter emphasis of resentment at the claim of superior purity supposed to be implied in it, and so has ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... spectator ever came away from one of these houses without having his feelings wrought up by actors of all ages, who far outstrip our Siddonses, Kembles, Bettys, Youngs, or Keans, and whose petit dramas excel those of Shakespeare, Rowe, or Otway, in the degree in which suffering and unsophisticated Nature is superior to the ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... world. The persons who have most feeling of their own, if intellectual culture has given them a language in which to express it, have the highest faculty of poetry; those who best understand the feelings of others, are the most eloquent. The persons, and the nations, who commonly excel in poetry, are those whose character and tastes render them least dependent upon the applause, or sympathy, or concurrence of the world in general. Those to whom that applause, that sympathy, that concurrence are most necessary, generally excel most in eloquence. And hence, perhaps, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... wisely remained faithful to his own first ideas. The restoration of the navy continued, and was accompanied and furthered by a spirit of professional ambition and of desire to excel, among the officers of the navy, which has been before mentioned, and which, in the peculiar condition of the United States navy at the present day, may be commended as a model. The building of ships-of-war continued with ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... compartment containing four seats or berths, divided by partitions from the rest of the parlour car. The ordinary carriage or "day coach" corresponds to the English second-class carriage, or, rather, to the excellent third-class carriages on such railways as the Midland. It does not, I think, excel them in comfort except in the greater size, the greater liberty of motion, and the element of variety afforded by the greater number of fellow-passengers. The seats are disposed on each side of a narrow central aisle, and are so arranged that the occupants can ride forward or backward as they ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... moon much higher, More clear and splendrous, 'bove all light Which the eye receives not, 'tis so bright. I seek a voice beyond degree Of all melodious harmony: The ear conceives it not; a smell Which doth all other scents excel: No flower so sweet, no myrrh, no nard, Or aloes, with it compared; Of which the brain not sensible is. I seek a sweetness—such a bliss As hath all other sweets surpassed, And never palate yet ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... Prodr. 416. Attack Creek. J.M. Stuart. (Victoria River and Sturt Creek, F. Muller; Sweer's Island, Henne; Nickol Bay, Walcot.) Capsula usually beautifully pink, sometimes purple or white. Peduncles occasionally more than 6 inches long; the staminodia sometimes excel the anthers in length. ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... upon the steep just over the boiling spray, add much to its beauty, taken as a picture. As a specimen of the picturesque, the whole scene is perfect. I should think Trenton Falls, in New York, must excel these in wild, startling effect; but there is such a scarcity of waterfalls in this land, that the Germans go into raptures about them, and will hardly believe that ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... her was to go great dominion over the kingdoms of the earth. I could not help remembering that always this has been and still is Satan's favourite bait. To me it did not particularly appeal. I had been ambitious in my time—who is not that is worth his salt? I could have wished to excel in something, literature or art, or whatever it might be, and thus to ensure the memory of my name ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... for sharpening a man's intellect, and the natives of the coast being a class of ichthyophagi, it may be imagined that they excel in all the methods ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... initiation. Governments founded on pure liberty are not necessarily the most active. Free assemblies are better suited to put the drag upon the wheels, to check them when they go too fast, than to accelerate them. Like criticism, which is in fact their province and their strength, they excel in warning and in hindering rather than in undertaking. The eternal problem is to reconcile, to balance, authority and liberty, using sometimes the one, sometimes the other. In this double play theory may be at fault, but practical ability will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... Moritz by name, [Map at page 214.] is the slaughter-house, killing oxen night and day; and the bakehouee, with 160 mealy bakers who never rest: in another village, Strohme, is the playhouse of the region; in another, Glaubitz, the post-office: nothing could excel the arrangements; much superior, I should judge, to those for the Siege of Troy, and other world-great enterprises. Worthy really of admiration, had the business not been zero. Foreign Courts: European Diplomacy at large, wondered much what cunning scheme lay hidden here. No scheme ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... what I had overlooked for ten years. On the contrary I hastened to pay him a heart-felt compliment upon his indisputable sagacity and keenness as a natural historian;—a measure of magnanimity easily enough afforded, since however the shrike might excel me at one point, there could be no question on the whole of my immeasurable superiority. And I cherish the hope that my fellow townsmen, who, as they insist, never themselves see any birds whatever in the Garden and Common (their attention ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... subject William F. Warren, in his book already cited, pages 297 and 298, says: "The Arctic rocks tell of a lost Atlantis more wonderful than Plato's. The fossil ivory beds of Siberia excel everything of the kind in the world. From the days of Pliny, at least, they have constantly been undergoing exploitation, and still they are the chief headquarters of supply. The remains of mammoths are so abundant that, as Gratacap says, 'the ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... came upon me, this spirit of sport, this desire to excel, this hatred of the fox. Accursed animal, should he then defy us? Vile ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... donor really means business I shall be prepared to supply him with one or two rare and special examples myself. I possess tributes to the English effort written by Portuguese, Japanese and Belgians; and paeans by Englishmen which excel, as regards both simplicity of sentiment and illiteracy of construction, any foreign composition. Birmingham is not noted for very many things. It is, we know, the only large city in the country which remains solidly Tory ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... not make many witty speeches, it is not because I do not appreciate the value of trifles well said, and that I do not find great amusement in that manner of raillery in which certain prompt and ready-witted persons excel so well. I write well in prose; I do well in verse; and if I was envious of the glory that springs from that quarter, I think with a little labour I could acquire some reputation. I like reading, in general; ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... plainly appear, that this holy man being faithful unto God, was with Him as one spirit. Yet though in his manifold virtues he equalled or excelled all other saints, in the virtue of lowliness did he excel even himself; for in his epistles he was wont to mention himself as the lowest, the least, and the vilest of all sinners; and little accounting the signs and the miracles which he had wrought, he thought himself to be compared not to any perfect man; and being but of small stature, he used ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... dismissed my debtor cheerful and free. I am your debtor, send me not away sorrowful. May my dispositions, my sentence prevail with you. I have pardoned, pardon: I have showed compassion, imitate your servant's mercy. My offences are indeed far more grievous; but consider how much you excel in all good. It is just that you manifest to sinners a mercy suiting your infinite greatness. I have given proof of mercy in little things, according to the capacity of my nature; but your bounty is not to be confined by the narrowness of my power, &c." ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... consummated for the future, will enable us to improve even upon our present high standard of excellence, and keep us, as ever, far, very far in advance of the most labored efforts of all contemporaries. Our course is onward, and he must bestir himself actively who would excel us. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... than it is to poetry, that, of all the pleasurable arts, music is that which flourishes the most amongst us. Still, even in music the absence of stimulus in praise or fame has served to prevent any great superiority of one individual over another; and we rather excel in choral music, with the aid of our vast mechanical instruments, in which we make great use of the agency of water,* than ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... husbands ne'er amaze me, For in the art of love I do excel, And there's no wife, however chaste she may be Who can resist me if I woo her well. And if her husband hate me I'll not grumble, Because his wife receives me in the night, If mine her kiss, if mine sweet love's delight, ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... resistance to his pretensions. In June 1847 he paid his first visit to England, and enjoyed a triumphal social success; when he left, Charles Dickens saw him off from Ramsgate pier. After this Andersen continued to publish much; he still desired to excel as a novelist and a dramatist, which he could not do, and he still disdained the enchanting Fairy Tales, in the composition of which his unique genius lay. Nevertheless he continued to write them, and in 1847 ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... romantic character; they venture to assert a private ideal in the face of an intractable and omnipotent world. Some moralists begin by feeling the attraction of untasted and ideal perfection. These, like Plato, excel in elevation, and they are apt to despise rather than to reform the world. Other moralists begin by a revolt against the actual, at some point where they find the actual particularly galling. These excel in sincerity; their purblind conscience is urgent, and they are reformers ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... surpass her. But at the moment when she had conspicuously won her triumphs of peace she threw them away, to establish in their stead what the world will no longer permit to be established, military and political domination by arms, by which to oust where she could not excel the rivals she most feared and hated. The peace we make must remedy that wrong. It must deliver the once fair lands and happy peoples of Belgium and northern France from the Prussian conquest and the Prussian menace, but it must also deliver the peoples ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... unreasonable pair at Northlands as long as we could, doing all that lay in our power to restore Adrian's idiotically impaired health. I motored him about the county; I took him to golf, a pastime at which I do not excel; and I initiated him into the invigorating mysteries of playing at robbers with Susan. We gave a carefully selected dinner-party or two, and accepted on his behalf a few discreet invitations. At these entertainments—whether at Northlands or elsewhere—we ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... art is in front of us; that mankind has been advancing, that we did not come from a perfect pair and immediately commence to degenerate. The modern painters and sculptors are far better and grander than the ancient. I think we excel in fine arts as much as we do in agricultural implements. Nothing pleased me more than the painting from Holland, because they idealized and rendered holy the ordinary avocations of life. They paint cottages with sweet mothers and children; they paint homes. They are not much on Ariadnes and ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... whatever schemes were forming here at home, in this juncture, by the enemies to the peace, the Dutch only designed to fall in with it as far as it would answer their own account; and, by a strain of the lower politics, wherein they must be allowed to excel every country in Christendom, lay upon the watch for a good bargain, by taking advantage of the distress they themselves had brought upon their nearest neighbour ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... elsewhere, we found the same motley collection of semi-barbarous bric-a-brac—brilliantly painted Indian paddles spread like a sunburst against the farther wall; heaps of wooden masks and all the fantastical carvings such as the aborigines delight in, and in which they almost excel. Up the main street of the town is another store, where a series of large rooms, crowded with curios bewilders the purchaser ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... inestimable value. They teach us that slavery is compatible with the freedom, stability, and long duration of civil government, with denseness of population, great power, and the highest civilization. And in what respect does this modern Europe, which claims to give opinions to the world, so far excel them—notwithstanding the immense advantages of the Christian religion and the discovery of the art of printing? They are not more free, nor have performed more glorious actions, nor displayed more exalted ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... The uncertainty of the law arises in the doubt and uncertainty of the facts; and hence the doubt about which, of many rules, ought to govern. A man of genius, as you describe him, ought to become a good lawyer; he would excel in the investigation and presentation of facts; but none but a lawyer saturated with the spirit of the law until he comes to have a legal instinct, can ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... booty was hid, he made what reparation lay in his power. Poor wretch! He had not even the posthumous satisfaction of going down to posterity as a bold, bad man, a hero of the road. Not for him was it to emulate Jack Shepherd or Dick Turpin; he was of feebler clay, unfitted to excel in evil-doing. ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... Borneo understand the art of cutting, polishing, and setting their diamonds. Gold and silver filagree works they excel in; gunpowder is manufactured at Pontiana; brass cannon is cast at Borneo Proper; iron-shot is run from their mine. They can manufacture and repair krises, and clean their arms. Their carpentry extends to the building and repairing of prows, and the erecting of a hut. Their ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... of inferiority is as prejudicial as the thing itself, and we verily believe that it still has its effect upon the public taste. Artists have not sufficiently taken to etching. We have had more amateurs excel in it than professional artists. There was a collection of amateur etchings at Strawberry Hill, given to Walpole by the etchers. The greater part of them is excellent, though they are mostly copies from other works, but not all. There are some surprising ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... pride In nobles wont to dwell, Each with his predecessor vied In bounty to excel, And thus it was the festive board With beaver, otter, deer, And fish and fowl was richly stored, ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... him above being commanded, he might in time be a great Man; at present, having all the Fire of a General without the Flegm, his great Misfortune and the only Thing that can ruin him is, That he thinks himself qualifyed to Command, and cannot bear the Lustre of their Merit that excel him. ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... Reuben and Dorcas was a son, now arrived at the age of fifteen years, beautiful in youth, and giving promise of a glorious manhood. He was peculiarly qualified for, and already began to excel in, the wild accomplishments of frontier life. His foot was fleet, his aim true, his apprehension quick, his heart glad and high; and all who anticipated the return of Indian war spoke of Cyrus ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and that they had even found all the countries situated under the torrid zone fully peopled." [Footnote: Mariejol, L'Espagne sous Ferdinand et Isabelle, 96.] In ship-building Henry and his navigators made positive progress. The Venetian Cadamosto testifies that "his caravels did much excel all other sailing ships afloat." Many varieties of vessels are mentioned in the records of Prince Henry's time—the barca, barinel, caravel, nau, fusta; the galley, galiot, galeass, and galleon; the brigantine and carrack. ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... had expelled, and the other had invited, the Barbarians. Julian, whose mind was deeply wounded by the reproach of ingratitude, aspired to maintain, by argument as well as by arms, the superior merits of his cause; and to excel, not only in the arts of war, but in those of composition. His epistle to the senate and people of Athens seems to have been dictated by an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to submit his actions ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Herself should choose, and I applaud her choice Of one more poor than ever Sophos was, Were his deserts but equal unto his. If I might speak without offence, You were to blame to hinder Lelia's choice; As she in nature's graces doth excel, So doth Minerva grace ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... timidity and shyness. Birds naturally so impetuous are restless and uneasy under observation. One must pose in silence until his presence is forgotten or ignored. Then the delicious melody, the approving comments of the songster's companions, and the efforts of ambitious youngsters to imitate and excel, are all part of a ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... task pursued. 700 And now the senior pilots seem'd to wait Arion's voice, to close the dark debate. Not o'er his vernal life the ripening sun Had yet progressive twice ten summers run; Slow to debate, yet eager to excel, In thy sad school, stern Neptune! taught too well: With lasting pain to rend his youthful heart, Dire fate in venom dipp'd her keenest dart; Till his firm spirit, temper'd long to ill, Forgot her persecuting scourge ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... plain that even beasts have a sense of gratitude: in this quality dogs excel all other beasts. Is not the story of the dog of Totoribe Yorodzu written in the Annals of Japan? I[82] have heard that many anecdotes of this nature have been collected and printed in a book, which I have not yet seen; but as the facts which I have recorded relate to a badger, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... pleasure he had watched the gracious growth of this young parishioner since he first met the lad of twelve and was attracted by the shining face, the pleasant manners. Dutiful and loving; ready to help; patient to bear and forbear; eager to excel; faithful to the smallest task, yet full of high ambitions; and, better still, possessing the childlike piety that can trust and believe, wait and hope. Good and happy—the two things we all long for and so few of us ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... or 7. Of 68 7-year-olds who were asked whether they had ever seen a bow-knot ("a knot like that") only two replied in the negative. It cannot be denied, however, that specific instruction and special stimulus to practice do play a certain part. This is suggested by the fact that girls excel the boys somewhat at each age, doubtless because bow-knots play a larger role in feminine apparel. Social status affects the results in only a moderate degree, though it might be supposed that poor ragamuffins, on the one hand, and children of the very rich, on the other, would ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... we have before us so fine a specimen, are naturally attentive and kind, skilful to discern, quick to feel, and prompt to relieve the wants of others. They seem endowed with a generosity, in which it is their honour to excel, while it is their duty to cultivate and indulge it. Are comforts needed? Their ready hands will supply them. Is pain suffered? Their tender hearts will sympathize and aim to alleviate it. They are officious to replenish the cup of joy, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... preeminence; lead; maximum; record; [obs3], climax; culmination &c. (summit) 210; transcendence; ne plus ultra[Lat]; lion's share, Benjamin's mess; excess, surplus &c. (remainder) 40; (redundancy) 641. V. be superior &c. adj.; exceed, excel, transcend; outdo, outbalance[obs3], outweigh, outrank, outrival, out-Herod; pass, surpass, get ahead of; over-top, override, overpass, overbalance, overweigh, overmatch; top, o'ertop, cap, beat, cut out; beat hollow; outstrip &c. 303; eclipse, throw ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... ancient bards were all mistaken. Apollo's lately abdicate and fled, And good king Bacchus reigneth in his stead: He does the chaos of the head refine, And atom thoughts jump into words by wine: The inspiration's of a finer nature, As wine must needs excel Parnassus water. ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... other upon mind. The one attains perfection in his art by a process which in the other would produce an ignoramus, a bungler, a narrow-minded, conceited charlatan. Hence the necessity on the part of those who would excel in the profession of teachers, of endeavoring continually to enlarge the bounds of their knowledge. Hence the error of those who think that to teach anything well it is necessary to know only that one thing. That young woman who undertakes to teach a primary school, or even an infant class, has ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... letter; which we here insert, not only as we take it to be extremely curious, but to be a much better pattern for that epistolary kind of writing which is generally called love-letters than any to be found in the academy of compliments, and which we challenge all the beaus of our time to excel either in matter ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... most perfect things I have ever seen on the stage: the cold, cruel, acrid enjoyment of her rival's humiliation,—the quiet, bitter, unmerciful exercise of the power of torture, was certainly, in its keen incisiveness, quite incomparable. It is singular that so young a woman should so especially excel in delineations and expressions of this order of emotion, while in the utterance of tenderness, whether in love or sorrow, she appears comparatively less successful; I am not, however, perhaps competent to pronounce upon this point, for Hermione and Emilie, in Corneille's ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... all is room in the Promised Land! And, like, when fig-trees their buds are oping You know that summer is near at hand; Thus, when the chill Of your evening broaches, You feel, with thrill, That the friend approaches, To lead you homeward, where joys excel, United ever with Him ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin
... life and sense shall cease, then shalt thou cease also to be subject to either pains or pleasures; and to serve and tend this vile cottage; so much the viler, by how much that which ministers unto it doth excel; the one being a rational substance, and a spirit, the other nothing ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... sentimentality is the chief weapon in the hand of his opponent. It makes him [caroche] the fiction of his enterprise, and even of his daring, in the midst of the most crude and obvious operations against him. It makes him accept as real the bold play-acting that women always excel at, and at no time more than when stalking a man. It makes him, above all, see a glamour of romance in a transaction which, even at its best, contains almost as much gross trafficking, at bottom, as the sale of ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... for a few moments to describe them. However rude and savage a corrobori may appear to those to whom they are new, they are, in truth, plays or rather dramas, which it takes both time and practice to excel in. Distant tribes visiting any other teach them their corrobori, and the natives think as much of them as we should do of the finest play at Covent Garden. Although there is a great sameness in these performances they nevertheless differ. There is always a great bustle when ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... wise conversation." "Ay, ay! Master Martin, my friend," replied Paumgartner smiling, "gladly enough will I stay a while with you; but why do you call your house a humble house? I know very well that there's none of the richest of our citizens who can excel you in jewels and valuable furniture. Did you not a short time ago complete a handsome building which makes your house one of the ornaments of our renowned Imperial Town?[13] In respect of its interior fittings I say nothing, for no patrician ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... donjon keep, And steel-clad knight and peer, Whose forts are girt with a moat cut deep— But none excel in soldiership My ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... answer—"Dear foster-father, the high gods in their wisdom have fashioned us each man to illustrate some virtue. To thee they have given strength, courage, and magnanimity above all others; and to me, in small measure, the vision of justice, and the perception of her beautiful laws. A man can only excel in what he loves, and verily I love well the known laws of ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... naturally fiery and exalted with the vivid poetry of Homer. While yet a boy, and probably about the time when Phrynichus first elevated the Thespian drama, he is said to have been inspired by a dream with the ambition to excel in the dramatic art. But in Homer he found no visionary revelation to assure him of those ends, august and undeveloped, which the actor and the chorus might be made the instruments to effect. For when the idea of scenic representation ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... however stupendous, were not gained at the expense of any pleasure which youth generally indulges, or by the omission of any accomplishment in which it becomes a gentleman to excel: he practised in great perfection the arts of drawing and painting, he was an eminent performer in both vocal and instrumental musick, he danced with uncommon gracefulness, and, on the day after his disputation at Paris, exhibited his skill in horsemanship ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... Major North had for years complete power over these Indians and could do more with them than any man living. That evening after the parade was over the officers and quite a number of ladies visited a grand Indian dance given by the Pawnees, and of all the Indians I have ever seen, their dances excel those of any ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... intellectual requirements of the country. As it is now, the library contains only some 100,000 volumes, many of which have no particular value. The American and Canadian department is confessedly inferior in many respects, although we ought to excel in that particular. Of late years, the annual grant has been extremely small, and chiefly devoted to the purchase of books for the law branch, for the especial benefit of lawyers engaged in the Supreme Court. But we have as yet no Free Libraries like those in the United States, of which the ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... England! Come to England! Our oysters are small, I know; they are said by Americans to be coppery; but our hearts are of the largest size. We are thought to excel in shrimps, to be far from despicable in point of lobsters, and in periwinkles are considered to challenge the universe. Our oysters, small though they be, are not devoid of the refreshing influence which that species of fish is ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... illuminators, or rather calligraphers, while they constantly repudiate the golden splendour and monstrous follies of their rivals, absolutely excel in this same ornamental draughtsmanship. What, for example, could be finer than the pen-drawing of the great Arnstein Bible in the British Museum (Harl. 2800)? The ornament is mostly in a red ink, with flat-coloured blue, green, or yellow backgrounds, but it is not to be surpassed. No, ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... comfort, eye, mirth, &c.; his prayers before and after Sermon, with a few poetical pieces of quaint but touching sweetness. His poetry has been censured for its point and antithesis; but he cultivated the poetical art to convey moral and devotional sentiments; others excel him in smoothness of versification, but not in benevolent purpose. Herbert though himself a pattern of humility, was younger brother of the celebrated Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whom Horace Walpole abuses for his beauty and gallant bearing, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various
... enclosure, to amuse himself in his recess as he best might,—whose continual talk with his comrades was of the bivouac or the battle-field,—and who considered the great object of life to be the development of faculties best fitted to excel in the art of destruction, would not be astonished to find himself sleeping on the bare ground with a levy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... along. Sometimes, as prince of thy harmonious band, Thou wield'st thy papers in thy threshing hand. St. Andre's feet ne'er kept more equal time, Not ev'n the feet of thy own Psyche's rime: Though they in number as in sense excel; So just, so like tautology, they fell, That, pale with envy, Singleton forswore The lute and sword which he in triumph bore, And vow'd he ne'er would act Villerius more." Here stopt the good old sire, and wept for joy, In silent raptures of the hopeful ...
— English Satires • Various
... and good-nature. He was born with a smile on his face, and has never been able to change the expression. They are both masters of their art, and can load a mule with a speed and skill which I would defy any Santa Fe trader to excel. The animals are not less interesting than their masters. Our horses, to be sure, are slow, plodding beasts, with considerable endurance, but little spirit; but the two baggage mules deserve gold medals from the Society for the ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
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