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Masterly   /mˈæstərli/   Listen
Masterly

adjective
1.
Having or revealing supreme mastery or skill.  Synonyms: consummate, masterful, virtuoso.  "Consummate skill" , "A masterful speaker" , "Masterful technique" , "A masterly performance of the sonata" , "A virtuoso performance"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Masterly" Quotes from Famous Books



... this, it seems to me that the capacity and the inclination to conceive situations and to represent them in a masterly manner corresponds to an abnormal predisposition of the nervous system, just as does sexual inversion; so that both phenomena are ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... to be found in Chesterton's masterly study of Charles Dickens it lies in the fact that in parts of the book the meaning is not always clear, or, rather, it is not always so at a first reading. Whether this may be justly termed a fault depends largely upon what the reader of a ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... gathered until a policeman in red fez and khaki knickerbockers came and started trouble. He had a three-cornered fight on his hands, and no sympathy from any one, within two minutes. Then the man with the stomach and swagger—he whom Fred called Haroun-al-Raschid—took a hand in masterly style. He seized the police-man from behind, flung him out of the crowd, and nobody was troubled ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... ceased to sing. The Nuns were delighted with the sweetness of his voice and masterly manner of touching the Instrument: But however acceptable this applause would have been at any other time, at present it was insipid to Theodore. His artifice had not succeeded. He paused in vain between the Stanzas: No voice replied to his, and He abandoned ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... continuance or suppression of that slave-trade, to the foreign branch of which alone more than one thousand victims are daily sacrificed; and in reference to which it has justly been said, 'that all that has been borne to Africa of the boasted improvements of civilized life, is a masterly skill in the contrivance, and an unhesitating daring in the commission of crimes, which the mind of the savage was too simple to devise, and his heart too gentle to execute.' There are no doubtful indications that it is the will of Him, who has the hearts of all at His disposal, that, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... an unpleasant word to say, ladies," he said, at last, still controlling his feelings with a masterly effort. Then offerings a hand to the mother, he bowed respectfully and said "Good-by;" and to her, who now turned with evident feeling evinced in her lovely face at the idea of a long parting, he offered his hand, which was ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray

... the events of the evening, but I could make nothing of them. What result he had achieved I could not imagine. And yet he had seemed satisfied. As to his theory, I could not but admit that it was an adroit one; even a masterly one—a better one, certainly, than ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson

... cavalry charges were occurring on the right of the village, her majesty's 53rd carried the village itself by storm, and the 30th native infantry, wheeling round by the left of the houses, took the fugitives in rear. The same masterly skill and heroic valour which was shown in taking Aliwal conquered Bhoardee, the last hope of the defeated; for although about 1000 Khalsa infantry rallied under a high bank to check the destructive advance of the English, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... joke at the expense of his associate whose handling of the State Committee's saving aid had been masterly, Shelby went to his evening meal in a humor which even a second note from Mrs. Hilliard could not damp. In scent, brevity, and chirography it was the counterpart of the first, telling him that the nameless writer was wretched, and begging him to come to her. The appeal ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... entirely self-taught, he was master of fourteen languages. [432] His Arabic Dictionary (1884) and his Persian English Dictionary (1892) are well known, the latter being the best extant, but he will, after all, be chiefly remembered by his masterly rendering of Hariri. Dr. Steingass presently became acquainted with Burton, for whom he wrote the article "On the Prose Rhyme and the Poetry of the Nights." [433] He also assisted Burton with the Notes, [434] ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... and ornate declaimer; Philip was a close, cogent reasoner, without any attempt at elegance or display. He labored to convince the mind; James, to control and direct the feelings. A wag wrote upon the wall of the House, at the conclusion of a masterly argument ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... Whistler was a master of all his resources: he was not only witty, but he had new views on art and original ideas. As a great artist he knew that "there never was an artistic period. There never was an Art-loving nation." Again and again he reached pure beauty of expression. The masterly persiflage, too, filled me with admiration and I declared that the lecture ranked with the best ever heard in London with Coleridge's on Shakespeare and Carlyle's on Heroes. To my astonishment Oscar would not admit the superlative quality ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... nearly dark, and Kitty felt not a little nervous as she guided Prue through the gate leading into the Manor grounds; for the turning was an awkward one, and the gate not wide. She managed it, however, and drove along the drive and drew up before the door in quite a masterly fashion. ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... was too far below him and then again he would be exposed to their volleys of stones, and if he was hurt he might not get back on his craft. Tod, who had resigned command in favor of his henchman after Archie's masterly defence in the last fight, stood behind him. Thermopylae was a narrow place, and so was the famous Bridge of Horatius. He and his faithful Tod would now make the fight of their lives. Both of these close shaves ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... next I saw, through the iron gate, John Mayrant in the street, walking with his intimate aunt and her more severe sister, and Miss La Heu. I somewhat superfluously hastened to the gate and greeted them, to which they responded with polite, masterly discouragement. He, however, after taking off his hat to them, turned back, and I watched them pursuing their leisurely, reticent course toward the South Place. Why should the old ladies strike me as looking like a tremendously proper pair of conspirators? ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... common mind; and the experiment on the expansibility of the air is at least plausible and highly ingenious. But the merit, which will secure both to the book and to the writer a high and honourable name with posterity, consists in the masterly force of reasoning, and the copiousness of induction, with which he has assailed, and (in my opinion) subverted the tyranny of the mechanic system in physiology; established not only the existence of final causes, but their necessity and efficiency to every system that merits ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... "His skill is masterly," said Leon, "and he knows his art, but Fourierism has killed him. You have just seen, cousin, one of the effects of ambition upon artists. Too often, in Paris, from a desire to reach more rapidly than by natural ways the celebrity ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac

... and yet he had lived for nearly thirty years as a rich man! What was his secret?—he had lived upon others. At all games of science, he played with a masterly skill; and in those wherein luck preponderates, there are always chances for a cool and systematic calculation. He had been, indeed, suspected of unfair play; but the charge had never cooled the eagerness with which he had been courted. ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... mean that he discussed his cases with me, but I used to ask him how to deal with some intellectual or moral problem, and his insight seemed to me wonderfully shrewd, sensible, and clear. He had a masterly analysis, and a power of seeing alternatives and contingencies which always aroused my admiration. He was less interested in the personal element than in the psychological; and I used to feel that his strength lay in dealing with ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson

... all a-blaze, A masterly hand on the rein, In those rollicking, railway-less days, Which never shall greet us again. That tootling tin-horn one can hear; The old buffers, with breeches and fobs, One can picture; they doubtless were dear To the ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 13, 1892 • Various

... pianists is Miss Teresa Malderton, who nearly fell a prey to that gay deceiver Mr. Horatio Sparkins (S.B.T. 5). Her contribution to a musical evening was 'The Fall of Paris,' played, as Mr. Sparkins declared, in a masterly manner. ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood

... character is a masterly grouping together of the arguments used by men of this world against religion, in ridicule and contempt of it. Faithful's account of him, and of his arguments, is a piece of vigorous satire, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... of postcards. This worthy lad was one of several dozen aspirants to the hand of the tobacconist's daughter, whose dowry was reputed to be considerable. He witnessed the insult and, desirous of standing well in the graces of a prospective father-in-law, dealt the offending alien so masterly a punch in the region of the solar plexus that he not only doubled up, but forgot to straighten himself out again. Two or three lusty Apostles came to the rescue without delay. They threw the youth down, stamped on his face, pounded his abdomen, pulled his ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... also been said that Sir Philip Francis was not equal to the composition of those masterly letters; and it must be acknowledged that, though he made some very powerful and pointed speeches in the House of Commons, they wanted the penetration and the polish of Junius. But there are several letters by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... cauzi upon this replied that he played on the same instrument as herself, and had, besides, some curious accomplishments that would highly please the roy's son. The dancing-girl, thinking him in jest, out of contempt gave him her mundal,[87] and desired him to play, which he did in so masterly a manner that she was delighted, saying that his company would give her superiority over her fellows and do her honour with the roy's son. Accordingly he with his companions attended the girl to the tents ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... best advantage, that it should be wielded by one whose judgment is sober and careful. Now, St. Antonino was known in his own day as Antonino the Counsellor; and his justly-balanced decision, his delicately-poised advice, the straightness of his insight, are noticeable in the masterly way in which he sums up all the best that earlier and contemporary writers had devised in ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett

... William Gillette's masterly dramatization of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective stories, is melodramatic even when the action ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... quit the state. You have been instrumental in preserving the life of the Marquis of Salerno, who is my son-in-law, and as matters now stand, I am indebted to you. Your dismissal of the bravos, by means of the count's ring, was a masterly stroke. You shall have the pleasure of taking my forgiveness to my daughter and her husband; but as for the child, it may as well remain here. Tell Viola I retain it as a hostage for the quick return of ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... a pensive mood, my vanity got the better of my pity. I could not but highly plume myself on my masterly management in getting rid of Bartleby. Masterly I call it, and such it must appear to any dispassionate thinker. The beauty of my procedure seemed to consist in its perfect quietness. There was no vulgar bullying, no bravado ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville

... masterly placidity changed before her sister Caroline's announcement and her sister Rebecca Ann's gasp of ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... more occupied with the sins of his own age, and the heavy judgments of God that impend over his countrymen. His mission is emphatically to unfold the connection between national profligacy and national ruin. This he does with a masterly hand, holding up to the world, in the character and fate, of his countrymen, a mirror for all time, in which wicked nations may see themselves and the ruin which awaits them. The whole compass of profane history does not contain so much clear instruction on this point as is crowded into the few ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... (now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford) is the work of an Abbot of Birr who died A.D. 820. It is a volume of unusually large size, copiously ornamented with masterly designs and containing illuminated portraits of Saints Mark, Luke, and John. The first part of the book with the portrait of St. Matthew is missing. The Book of Kells (in the Library of T.C.D.) is the all-surpassing masterpiece of Celtic illuminative art and is acknowledged to be the most beautiful ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... and down the floor with a masterly stride. "If that woman is caught hanging around here again, she'll get a little surprise. My boys are safe now, God bless them!" Then reminded of the fact that he had not seen them since his return, he started quickly ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo

... December, 1897, Dr. Sims Woodhead, president of the British Medical Temperance Association, gave a masterly address in London upon "Recent Researches on the Action of Alcohol." The lecture was illustrated by lantern slides. From the report given in The Medical Temperance Review of Jan., ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... of men—perhaps because man is more necessary to woman than woman is to man. This hostility towards woman is particularly noticeable in the pages of the press. Scarcely a week passes but some journalist of the nobler sex pours out his scorn for the inferior one of his mother in columns of masterly abuse on one score or another. Each article is followed by a passionate correspondence in which 'Disgusted Dad,' 'Hopeless Hubby,' 'Browbeaten Brother,' and the inevitable 'Cynicus' express high approval of the writer, whilst ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

... lying under the postern arch behind the garden wall. He told her, too, that the boy was by this time asleep beside the mule on the path beyond. Then he told her of his plan, which was short, desperate, and masterly. ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... worthy of remark is the masterly manner in which the author paints the good part of those equivocal characters that he brings upon his stage: James has his generosity, and his silly wife her good nature; Matthews her starts of kindness; and Old Bath, in his sister's dressing-gown, cooking possets for her, is really an ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... origin and revolutions of the civil laws in France. You will read it in three hours; but I do assure you that it cost me so much labour that it has whitened my hair." Mr. Hallam, stopping to admire the genius of GIBBON, exclaims, "In this, as in many other places, the masterly boldness and precision of his outline, which astonish those who have trodden parts of the same field, is apt to escape an uninformed reader." Thrice has my learned friend, SHARON TURNER, recomposed, with renewed ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... in believing that they are in some degree their brothers' keepers,—a doctrine questioned ever since the story of time began. Obstacles of every nature are placed in the way of legalized inspection, and evasion and subterfuge, masterly enough to furnish a congress of diplomatists with ideas, are in daily practice. Years of experience make the inspector no less astute, and ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell

... delightful to him, of course, to have the tailor's son messing at the same table, and claiming him when he pleased with a familiar 'Ah, brother!' and prating of their relationship everywhere. Strike had been a fool: in revenge for it he laid out for himself a masterly career of consequent wisdom. The brewer—uxorious Andrew Cogglesby—might and would have bought the commission. Strike laughed at the idea of giving money for what could be got for nothing. He told ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... also—to the good man a commendation of his careful farming, to the good-wife a deserved compliment on her butter; the eldest daughter was praised for the way in which she was sustaining the ancient reputation of Hillocks' dairy; there was a word to Hillocks' son on his masterly ploughing; and some good word of Dominie Jamieson's about the little lassie was not forgotten. After which the Doctor sat down—there was some difficulty in getting the family to sit in his presence—and held a thorough review of the family history for the last year, dwelling upon ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... little comparative projection is given,—nay, the masterly group of Agamemnon, Nestor, and Ulysses, and, still more in advance, that of Achilles, Ajax, and Thersites, so manifestly occupying the fore-ground, that the subservience and vassalage of strength and animal courage to intellect ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... was never exposed. Occasionally, during this performance, the war cry was given by the surrounding warriors, but the combatants held their peace; in fact they could not afford to open their mouths, lest an opening should be made. It was a most masterly performance, and ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... a very successful and influential business man in Boston and was President of the Boston & Providence Railroad, which under his masterly administration, attained a very high degree of prosperity. I think he corresponded with every member of the class, and did more to preserve and create a kindly class feeling than any other member. It seemed when he ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... her individual nature —Judy, with a sense of Romance called deathless; Tim, with a taste for Poetic Drama, a dash of the supernatural in it; and Maria, with a magnificent inactivity that ruled the world by waiting for things to happen, then claiming them as her own. Her masterly instinct for repose ran no risk of failure from misdirected energy. And to all three secrecy, of course, was essential: "Don't never tell the others, Uncle! ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... Florence Shepphird, is a masterly defense of those inactive amateurs whom we are all too prone to consider as delinquent. It is indeed true that authors would be useless were it not for some sort of ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... book on a political subject that I had ever read. My mind stirred with the stirring times, and the characters round which the life of two contending nations centred seemed to move right before me. I wondered more and more, while Burke's masterly speech rolled on in mighty surges of eloquence, how it was that King George and his ministers could have turned a deaf ear to his warning prophecy of our victory and their humiliation. Then I entered into the melancholy details of the relation in which the great statesman stood to his party ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... ever in search of the right solution of the question of proper legislation for the masses. William Pitt, with enemies on every side, publicly acknowledged the extraordinary genius which impelled the American revolution, and admired the constitution of this country, as well as the masterly character of the "Declaration of Independence." In unstinted praise does he speak of the learning and remarkable public spirit of the signers. With equal praise, I am confident, everyone must eulogize the "Declaration of Rights," compiled by Shelley, which he put before his countrymen sixty-three ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran

... vigour, life, and colour which raised it above the level of mere rhymed prose. All the best poems and histories in Latin, French, and Italian were well known to Chaucer; and he borrows from them with the greatest freedom. He handles, with masterly power, all the characters and events in his Tales; and he is hence, beyond doubt, the greatest narrative poet that England ever produced. In the Prologue, his masterpiece, Dryden says, "we have our forefathers and great-grand-dames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days." His dramatic power, ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... I had a little capital!" he cried aloud in despair. "Enough to support me until my Academy picture is finished." His Academy picture was a masterly study entitled, "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll," and he had been compelled to stop half-way across the Channel through sheer lack ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne

... it may amuse me to make him really in love with me." Then, watching carefully, she saw that some cloud of jar and disillusion had settled upon her fiance's face. So with her masterly skill she tried to banish it, talking intelligently upon the political situation and his prospects. It looked certain that the Government would not last beyond the session—and then ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... Your prophetic vision, with the vastness and the brilliancy of its sweeping scope, fairly takes my breath! Yet, I must confess, that judging from the masterly system of road-building inaugurated by Solaris and Fenwick, the evolutionary results which you so confidently predict, are both reasonable and logical. What additional results, do you claim ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... feet, and the title on the cross are closely preserved. The group of women at the foot of the cross, the lifeless form, drooping hand, anxious eye, and gushing tear, the terrified and afflicted populace, and the unperturbed devotional gaze of a few by-standers are too among the masterly beauties of this composition. The lights are well kept, and the entire effect of the Window is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various

... up of this book is so masterly that we make no apology for presenting it to our readers. "Bunyan conceals nothing, assumes nothing, and exaggerates nothing. He makes his bad man sharp and shrewd. He allows sharpness and shrewdness to bring him the reward which such qualities in fact command. Badman is successful; is powerful; ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... concluded his masterly statement, the Prime Minister rose and complimented him on his zealous desire to benefit the people of Ireland, but at the same time declared that the Government did not think employment on the construction of railways ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... anywhere distinctly stated it. Chemistry, Biology, and Sociology, leaving Astronomy and Physics aside for the present, are not yet Positive Sciences, in any such sense as Mathematics. The lack of exact analysis is apparent in all of Comte's generalizations, otherwise magnificent and masterly as they undoubtedly are. In respect to the matter under consideration, it renders his Classification unavailing for determining with sufficient precision and exactitude the character of any intellectual domain. History, while it is the source whence the proof of his fundamental positions is drawn, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... man. As a man of letters, as a lawyer, a man of the world, and a statesman, he is beyond any criticism of mine. I speak only of the purely scientific aspect of the Novum Organon. The Essays and The Advancement of Learning are masterly productions; and as a literary man he ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... The masterly debater never rose to heights of eloquence. His thorough and practical mind enabled him to study, sift, and give form and substance to the broad political and economic conceptions of more idealistic men. Inheriting the narrow political creed of his father, he can scarcely be blamed if his ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... the line of that masterly retreat of Soult's before the superior forces of Wellington, to which Napier has done such ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... munificence of one Scottish gentleman, Mr. A. Henry Rhind of Sibster. The same fact is attested also by the highly valuable character of the systematic works on Scottish Archaeology which have been published of late years by some of our colleagues, such as the masterly Pre-historic Annals of Scotland, by Professor Daniel Wilson; the admirable volume on Scotland in the Middle Ages, by Professor Cosmo Innes; and the delightful Domestic Annals of Scotland, by Mr. Robert Chambers. The essays also, and monographs on individual subjects in Scottish Archaeology, ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... been, in fact, subsequently depicted by. the masterly pencil of J.M.W.TURNER, Esq. R. A: and the picture, in which almost all the powers of that surprising Artist are concentrated, was lately offered for sale by public auction. How it was suffered to be bought ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... sensibility" caused him to describe his loyal, generous, high-bred friend Lord Houghton as a "nice little robin-redbreast of a man;" while Mrs. Basil Montagu, who cheered him and spared no pains to aid him in the darkest times, is now immortalized by one masterly venomous paragraph. Carlyle was great—very great—but really the cultivation of loyal friendships seems hardly to have been in his line. Men who know his works by heart, and who derived their noblest inspiration from him, cannot bear to read his memoirs twice over, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... of facts that came into his hands in chaotic masses. Eminently concise, exact, and clear, it is the first complete account by one other than an actor in the great drama. Mignet was elected to the French Academy in 1836, and afterwards published a series of masterly studies dealing with the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, among which are "Antonio Perez and Philip II.," and "The History of Mary, Queen of Scots," and also biographies of Franklin and Charles V. He ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... is one of the major works of Icelandic literature—containing a fascinating world of fancy, invention, and reality. It is the story of the development of a writer who leaves home in order to seek the world. One of the best known stories in all Icelandic literature is his masterly short novel Advent or The good Shepherd (Aventa).—Father and Sam Fegarnir) was first published in the periodical Eimreiin in 1916. The present version, with slight changes, is that found in the author's collected works, ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... there exists a pen bold enough to denounce the evil complained of in so masterly a manner and in such vigorous English. If we mistake not, it will work great good in the social world."—Los ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner

... fact, the disputed territory, the land drained by the Gulf rivers, was not England's to grant, for it had been conquered and was then held by Spain. Nor was it given up to us until we acquired it by Pinckney's masterly diplomacy. The treaty represented a mere promise which in part was not and in part could not be fulfilled. All that it really did was to guarantee us what we already possessed—that is, the Ohio valley ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... not only in the authors of the Latin hymns, but also in Luther, who in our time has had the chief part both in writing the German choral hymns, and in setting them to tunes; as may be seen, among others in the German Sanctus (Jesaia dem Propheten das geschah) how masterly and well he has fitted all the notes to the text, according to the just accent and concent. At the time, I was moved by His Grace to put the question how or where he had got this composition, or this instruction; whereupon the dear man laughed at my simplicity, and said: I learned this of the ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... no other allusion to food, but talked amusingly and made her visitor talk amusingly too. At the same time she cut the bread-and-butter with a masterly skill and produced red pepper and sliced lemon, where so many women would merely have produced reasons and regrets for not having any. Cushat-Prinkly found that he was enjoying an excellent tea without having to answer as many questions about it as a Minister ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... boat's new guests, who were, doubtless, on a scenery-viewing expedition. He stepped forward, with that translucent, child-candid smile upon his fresh, pink countenance, with that air of unaffected sincerity that was redeemed from bluffness only by its exquisite calculation, with that promptitude and masterly decision of manner that so well suited his calling—with all his stock in trade well to the front; he stepped forward to receive Colonel and Mrs. Peyton Blaylock. With the grace of a grand marshal or a wedding usher, he escorted the two passengers to a side of the upper ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry

... the conquering hosts left fewer traces of war wreckage than were to be expected in their victorious march, it was due not to any anxiety of our foes to avoid conflict about, and damage to, places with hallowed associations, but to the masterly strategy of the British Commander-in-Chief who manoeuvred the Turkish Armies out of positions defending ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... with a lively narrative like that of Fa-hien than by reading didactic descriptions and argumentative books. Such has been my own experience. The books which I have consulted for these notes have been many, besides Chinese works. My principal help has been the full and masterly handbook of Eitel, mentioned already, and often referred to as E.H. Spence Hardy's "Eastern Monachism" (E.M.) and "Manual of Buddhism" (M.B.) have been constantly in hand, as well as Rhys Davids' Buddhism, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, his Hibbert Lectures, ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... the plan of masterly inactivity, by simply holding on tight and doing nothing. He did not shout for help, because, being bull-doggish in his nature, he preferred to fight in silent ferocity. Exasperated as well as worn by this method, Bill ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne

... kidnap his neighbor, so as to share my commerce. As the village was too small to supply the entire gang of fifty, I had recourse to the neighboring settlements, where my "barkers," or agents, did their work in a masterly manner. Traps were adroitly baited with goods to lead the unwary into temptation, when the unconscious pilferer was caught by his ambushed foe, and an hour served to hurry him to the beach as a slave for ever. ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... more, the bebadged and beribboned bosoms of his illustrious compatriots heaved with emotion; their faces—or such parts of their faces as were visible above the whiskerline—flushed with enthusiasm, and most vociferously they applauded his masterly phrasing and his tracing-out of the evolution of the tango, all the way from its Genesis, as it were, to its Revelation. I judge the revelation particularly appealed to them—that part of ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... of his face he might be a famous whist-player for a large stake—say a hundred guineas certain—with the game in his hand, but with a high reputation involved in his playing his hand out to the last card in a masterly way. Not in the least anxious or disturbed is Mr. Bucket when Sir Leicester appears, but he eyes the baronet aside as he comes slowly to his easy-chair with that observant gravity of yesterday in which there might ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... scores (excepting the overture to "Faust") I sent to Zurich last week. The separation from your "Lohengrin" was difficult to me. The more I enter into its conception and masterly execution, the higher rises my enthusiasm for this extraordinary work. Forgive my wretched pusillanimity if I still have some doubt as to the wholly satisfactory result of ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... the privilege of displaying it is the perquisite of a rusty old colleague. That is to say, one custodian extols the work in order that another may reap a second harvest by turning its leaves. This delightful book dates from the early sixteenth century and is the work of some ingenious and masterly Flemish miniaturist with a fine sense of the open air and the movement of the seasons. But it is hard to be put off with an ordinary bookseller's traveller's specimen instead of the real thing. If one may be so near Titian's autograph and the illuminated Divine Comedy, ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... made haste to attach him to his own staff and to recommend him for promotion to the grade of major-general to take rank from the date of his original appointment, declaring in support of his recommendation that he felt "under more than ordinary obligations for the masterly manner in which he discharged the duties of his position." Later he recommended that Smith be put first of all the army on the list for promotion, adding: "He is possessed of one of the clearest military heads in the army, is very practical and industrious," and emphasized it all with the ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson

... elevation of the freed people, and occasionally by lectures, contributing to form a true public sentiment in that new State. Consequently, she speaks from absolute knowledge of the present state of the freedmen. Her criticism of the theories of reconstruction was masterly, showing that the fundamental principles of this Government are set aside and really endanger all that we have seemed to gain by the war, and that nothing but the admission of the black man to the franchise ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... propriety in thought and writing, which escaped him in the tumult and hurry of representing. And I dare boldly promise for this play, that in the roughness of the numbers and cadences, (which I assure was not casual, but so designed) you will see somewhat more masterly arising to your view, than in most, if not any, of my former tragedies. There is a more noble daring in the figures, and more suitable to the loftiness of the subject; and, besides this, some newnesses of English, translated from the beauties of modern tongues, as well as from ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... parlor, Victor sought Richard's presence, and by a few masterly strokes of policy and well-worded arguments, obtained his consent for Arthur to see Edith just ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... he brought up subjects, and discussed them, that he thought would interest her. He told of distant countries and scenes—he detailed at length foreign experiences—he described people—he gave her pictures of manners and customs,—all new to her ears, strange and delightful; and so easily yet so masterly given, that she took it all in an easy full flow of pleasure. So it happened that Faith did not very well know how they turned and wound in and out through the walks; she was in Switzerland and at Paris and at Rome, all ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... E. Tennessee, promoted brigadier general and assigned to command 2nd division 23d army corps; at Johnsonville, Tennessee; ordered to Beard's Ferry; masterly ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... and the special faculty of workmanship of which this turn of thought and trick of style were the product, must of course have been potentially present from the beginning. Men do not blossom forth as wits, humourists, masterly delineators of character, and skilful performers on a highly-strung and carefully-tuned sentimental instrument all at once, after entering their "forties;" and the only wonder is that a possessor of these powers—some of them of the kind which, ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... in his goodness and favour to me, knew no bounds, was pleased to bequeath to me all the family pictures at his late house, some of which are very masterly performances; with command, that if I died unmarried, or if married and had no descendants, they should then go to that son of his (if more than one should be then living) whom I should think would set most value by them. Now, ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... were exuberant in their enthusiastic applause and in their vociferous demands for a vote. The opposition were paralysed by the desertion of one whom they had regarded and trusted as a leader against the radical element and were left without answer to the masterly array of facts and arguments which ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... lad: she bids him adieu in heartrending accents. She steps out of the room in a stately despair—no more chocolate, thank you. If she had made a mauvais pas no one could retire from it with more dignity. 'Twas a masterly retreat after a defeat. We were starved out of our position, but we retired with all the honours ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Jimmie Dale stood there hesitant, the long, slim, tapering fingers curled into the palms of his hands, his fists clenched tightly, a dull red suffusing his cheeks and burning through the masterly created pallor of his make-up; and then slowly as though his mind were in dismay, he walked across the room, turned off the gas, and going to the cot ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... the history of the Company of the Staple is to be found in Mr Malden's aforesaid introduction to The Cely Papers, which also contains a masterly account of the political relations of England, France and Burgundy during the period. I have constantly relied upon Mr Malden's account of the working of the Staple system. Other useful short accounts of the wool trade and the Stapler's Company may be found in the following works: Sir C.P. Lucas, ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... though the traveller is still present; for instance, in the Essay, "Amalfi, Paestum, Capri," and in the "Lombard Vignettes." In the Essay on the "Orfeo" of Poliziano, and that on the "Popular Italian Poetry of the Renaissance," we are again glad to recognize the author's masterly power in certain kinds of translation; and those the kinds in which the labourers are few, though the harvest is so large. In about seventy pages, close pages it is true, Mr. Symonds presents us with a sketch of Florentine ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... and restraint. As a study of American womanhood of modern times, the character of Bettina Vanderpoel stands alone in literature. As a love story, the account of her experience is magnificent. The masterly handling, the glowing style of the book, give it a literary rank to which very few modern novels ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green

... brother of Altea, is selected as the "softest fool in Spain," and the marriage takes place. After marriage, Leon shows himself firm, courageous, high-minded, but most affectionate. He "rules his wife" and her household with a masterly hand, wins the respect of every one, and the wife, wholly reclaimed, "loves, honors, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... conclusion of a peace, and that the Minister should command the army, does not love our sovereign and desires the ruin of us all. So I write you frankly: call out the militia. For the Minister is leading these visitors after him to Moscow in a most masterly way. The whole army feels great suspicion of the Imperial aide-de-camp Wolzogen. He is said to be more Napoleon's man than ours, and he is always advising the Minister. I am not merely civil to him ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... admirably well, but neither in youth nor riper yeares made any practise of it, he had skill in fencing such as became a gentleman, he had a greate love of musick, and often diverted himselfe with a violl, on which he play'd masterly, he had an exact eare and judgement in other musick, he shott excellently in bowes and gunns, and much us'd them for his exercise, he had greate judgment in paintings, graving, sculpture, and all liberal arts, and had ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... some years previously as a player of surpassing brilliance by defeating Turgieff, when the great Russian master had visited London and had played twelve simultaneous boards at the London Chess Club. Crewe was the only player of the twelve to win his game, and he did so by a masterly concealed ending in which he handled his pawns with consummate skill, proffering the sacrifice of a bishop with such art that Turgieff fell into the trap, and was mated in five subsequent moves. Crewe proved this was not merely a lucky win by defeating the young South American ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... the best of KEENE's life-work is to be found in the innumerable cuts which he contributed to Punch during a period of nearly forty years; and still more in the originals of these, the masterly pen-and-ink drawings which are now for the first time shown in a collected form ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various

... were seen and felt only by Self-denial himself. And not Self-denial only, but even Paul, in our flesh, and with like passions with us, had the same experience and has left us the same record. 'I keep my body under': so our emasculated English version makes us read it. But the visual image in the masterly original Greek is not so mealy-mouthed. I box and buffet myself day and night, says Paul. I play the truculent tyrant over a lewd and lazy slave. I hit myself blinding blows on my tenderest part. I am ashamed to look at myself in the glass, for all ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... displayed less alacrity than usual in offering good advice to his father. His policy was rather that of masterly inactivity. Indeed, as the discussion waxed hot—his sisters' voices rising slightly in tone, while Lord Fallowfeild's replies disclosed a vein of dogged obstinacy—he withdrew from the field of battle ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... took the field and hurried to attack Greene, who, too weak to fight him, began a masterly retreat of 200 miles across Carolina to Guilford Courthouse, where he turned about and fought. He was defeated, but Cornwallis was unable to go further, and retreated to Wilmington, N.C., with Greene ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... philosophy were partly constructive, partly (and perhaps mainly) critical and destructive. On the critical side, his greatest effort was his attack upon the philosophy of Hume in two masterly Introductions to an edition of Hume's 'Works,' published in 1874-5. English philosophical thinking, so Green held, had stuck fast in the scepticism of Hume. Such forward movement in thought as there had been since the 18th Century, had come mainly through the writings ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green

... FOWLER, author of Social Life at Rome, etc. "A masterly sketch of Roman character and what it ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... character of the periodical redistribution of land in the Russian village community. It now seems highly probable that these views will have to undergo serious modification in consequence of the valuable evidence lately brought forward by my friend Mr. Denman Ross, in his learned and masterly treatise on "The Early History of Landholding among the Germans;" but as I am not yet quite clear as to how far this modification will go, and as it can in nowise affect the general drift of my argument, I have made ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske

... carriage stopped at the white gate, and Andrew getting down to open it, David drove in a masterly manner up to the front door, where Ambrose, Pennie, and Dickie were assembled to welcome the return. Amidst the bustle which followed, while Miss Unity's belongings were being unpacked and carried indoors under the watchful eye of ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton

... portraits by the great English masters. There is much wonderful needlework—an eighteenth-century lady of the Savile family was as devoted to her embroidery frame as Mary Stuart herself. On screens and quaint chairs are seen her masterly copies of ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist

... manufactured with extreme care, and its uprights, formed of the twisted fibers of a species of cane, had the strength of a thick cable. As to the rounds, they were made of a sort of red cedar, with light, strong branches; and this apparatus was wrought by the masterly ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... to perceive, at this early period, the singular heroism of Captain Nelson's character; as well in the slight but forcible delineation, sketched on the instant by Colonel Polson, as in the more leisurely and finished picture of Dr. Moseley's masterly composition. ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... you wish, without books, without rules, to fish successfully, to the left or to the right, up or down stream, in the masterly manner that halts at no difficulty, then fish before, during and after a storm, when the clouds break and the sky is streaked with lightning, when the earth shakes with the grumbling thunder; it is then that, either through hunger or terror, all the fish forget their habits in ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... account of the environs of Constantinople, the peninsula of Cyzicum, formerly an island in the Propontis, to which it was united by Alexander the Great; and the districts of Brusa and Nice. The antiquities of the peninsula, but especially the botany of the countries he visited, are treated of in a masterly manner. ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... man's clothes, the mutual begging pardon of Albert and Polydore, the natural astonishment of Lucile, accused in the presence of her father, and the stratagem of Eraste to get the truth from his servants, are all described in a masterly manner, whilst the tiff between Eraste and Lucile, which gives the title to the piece, as well as their reconciliation, are considered among the best ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere

... two dissentient Liberals, and then Sefborough himself closed the debate. His speech was masterly and fluent; but though any disquietude he may have felt was well disguised under a tone of reassuring ease, the attempt to rehabilitate his position—already weakened in more than one direction—was a task ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... making of the genuine humorist the faculty of observation is the first necessity. Consider the great pictorial humorists, whether dead or living, whose names are familiar in the mouth as household words. That they gained acknowledgment by masterly handling of the medium in which they chose to work is not to be denied. It is by the peculiar distinction of his technique, indeed, that the work of each, in a general way, is called to mind. But ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson

... side of the street two figures which all France knew and will know for all time. Whatever vicissitudes of politics, whatever campaigns ensue, whatever changes come in the world after the war, Joffre's victory at the Marne and Castelnau's victory in Lorraine, which was its complement in masterly tactics, make their niches ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... I don't know what is!" exclaimed Cadbury, when it was read through. "If ink was a shilling a drop, you couldn't have been more chary of it. There's not an 'a', 'an', or 'the' throughout, nor a comma, nor an adjective, and the contractions are masterly. We're all born commercial clerks, that's ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe

... him well in Vienna. I was there at the time, attached to our Legation. He was a charming man; you read his masterly paper on the Central Problem of the ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... concealed that while the Grand Army stationed about the capital panted for action and longed for the glory of the battle-field, a gloom possessed the spirits of the men, and a feeling, that all this splendid material was destined to a "masterly inactivity," prevailed. Our hopes were newly kindled when the affairs of the War Department passed into the hands of a live man, and when Mr. Stanton's practical energy began to be manifested both in the department and in the field. We heard from Burnside; first ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... shade on the colour would help him out. Here part of the red is toned down by a beautiful soft tint, which makes the whole figure blend harmoniously with the greyish-green of the others. This man in red, too, has been treated in the same masterly manner of which I spoke above. If one looks at him attentively, it seems as if the man, who apparently might step out of the canvas at any rate, had been painted with one powerful sweep of the brush. How firm is the treatment ...
— Rembrandt • Josef Israels

... the lack of it? I think that they must begin by acknowledging that the ancient art, the art of unconscious intelligence, as one should call it, which began without a date, at least so long ago as those strange and masterly scratchings on mammoth-bones and the like found but the other day in the drift— that this art of unconscious intelligence is all but dead; that what little of it is left lingers among half-civilised nations, and is growing coarser, ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris

... parental passion touches the infinite, and so proves the essential kinship of his creator with the creator of Lear. This touch of the infinite, as in 'Eugenie Grandet,' lifts the book up from the level of a merely masterly study of characters or a merely powerful novel to that of the supreme masterpieces of human genius. The marvelously lifelike description of the vulgar Parisian boarding-house, the fascinating delineation of the character of that king ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... to recross the Rhine. Moreau advanced as far as Munich, for Bonaparte intended, after the fall of Mantua, which he believed would not be delayed, to effect a junction with him in Bavaria. Jourdan's overthrow left Moreau in a critical position, and he only saved his army by a masterly retreat through the Black Forest. Bonaparte's hope that he would soon bring the war to an end by marching into Bavaria, and on Vienna, was disappointed. His army was kept on the Mincio, for Mantua remained ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... utilitarian bunglers say, and thereby deem themselves wise—"from submission to arbitrary laws," as the anarchists say, and thereby fancy themselves "free," even free-spirited. The singular fact remains, however, that everything of the nature of freedom, elegance, boldness, dance, and masterly certainty, which exists or has existed, whether it be in thought itself, or in administration, or in speaking and persuading, in art just as in conduct, has only developed by means of the tyranny of such arbitrary law, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... the tension in the air. One by one the company became masters of themselves once more. Miss Trimble, that masterly woman, was the first to recover. She raised herself from the floor—for with a confused idea that she would be safer there she had flung herself down—and, having dusted her skirt with a few decisive dabs of her strong left hand, addressed herself ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... masterly, My life vpon't, yong though thou art, thine eye Hath staid vpon some fauour that it loues: Hath it not boy? Vio. A little, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... and Gauvain, but he does so in consequence of yielding to a heroic and self-devoting impulse of humanity. Cimourdain, true to his temperament, insists on his instant execution. Gauvain, true also to his temperament, is seized with a thousand misgivings, and there is no more ample, original, and masterly presentation of a case of conscience, that in civil war is always common enough, than the struggle through which Gauvain passes before he can resolve to deliver Lantenac. This pathetic debate—"the stone of Sisyphus, which is only the quarrel of man ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... the arms of his troopers and they carried him to a litter, thence to the palace. His back was covered with bruises, and but for the thickness of his cummerbund he must have died under the beating, which had been thorough and masterly. "What a certain dungeon holds!" In his chamber Umballa called for his peg of brandy and champagne, which for some reason did not take hold as usual. For the first time in his life Durga Ram, so-called Umballa, knew what agony was. But did it cause him to think with pity of the ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath

... monologue—a power largely due to the artistic treatment. The jealousy of Leontes, in 'The Winter's Tale', of Shakespeare, is nobility itself, in comparison with the Duke's. How distinctly, while indirectly, the sweet Duchess is, with a few masterly touches, placed before us! The poet shows his artistic skill especially in ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... brain refused to take in the explanation. That he should have been so deceived seemed incredible, yet deceived he had been. All this time he had been following a phantom, while the real person was tricking him with masterly ingenuity. "But Anne told me herself that she had an uncle called ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume

... deplorably wretched, since he could consent to pick up stale arguments against Christianity, and leave a piece of patchwork, made up of the shreds of other men's scepticism, as his especial legacy to posterity, in proof of the masterly independence of ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... with Death for the body of Alcestis has been painted as well as sung. Lord Leighton's large and masterly picture brings the whole scene before us. In the centre you see the body of Alcestis, which has been brought out of doors, and laid on a bier under the shadow of some ancient trees. Beyond it, in the background, is the dark blue ...
— Evangelists of Art - Picture-Sermons for Children • James Patrick

... and hopeless assault upon Quebec in which he lost his life; Charles Lee for disobeying Washington's orders at the battle of Monmouth and provoking the great Virginian to an historic outburst of rage; Nathanael Greene for his masterly conduct of the war in the South; Horatio Gates, first for a victory over Burgoyne which he did very little to bring about, and second for his ill-starred attempt ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... CASTELAR, the talented Spanish orator and statesman, in the fourth of a series of most erudite and interesting articles upon Christopher Columbus, in the Century Magazine for August, 1892, thus masterly refers ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... things that I have seen in this line of production were silk dresses for baby girls,—figured stuffs which, when looked at from a little distance, appeared incomparably pretty, owing to the masterly juxtaposition of tints and colors. On closer inspection the charming design proved to be composed entirely of war pictures,—or, rather, fragments of pictures, blended into one astonishing combination: naval battles; burning warships; ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... by Napoleon during his stay of about three months in Spain were certainly very great, and mainly resulted from his own masterly genius and lightning-like rapidity. The Spanish armies, as yet unsupported by British troops, were defeated at Gomenal, Espinosa, Reynosa, Tudela, and at the pass of the Somo sierra Mountains, and at an early hour of the morning of the 4th December Madrid surrendered. On the 20th of December Bonaparte ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... as Racine says in bad French. Sometimes they left the spine straight and remade the face. They unmarked a child as one might unmark a pocket-handkerchief. Products, destined for tumblers, had their joints dislocated in a masterly manner—you would have said they had been boned. Thus gymnasts ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... subject of the date and place of composition has been treated by Cornill, "Einleitung in das Alte Testament," 235 fol., by Prof. Duhm, "The Book of Job" (cf. "The New World," June, 1894), and others. But the most lucid, masterly, and dispassionate discussion of the subject is to be found in Prof. Cheyne's "Job and Solomon," ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... repeated and splendid triumphs in court. Till within even the last eighteen months, or two years, if you had gone down one morning at half-past nine to Westminster, you might have heard him opening with masterly ease, clearness, and skill, a patent case, or some other important matter, before a special jury; and immediately after resuming his seat, you would see him go perhaps into an adjoining court of Nisi Prius, in which also he was engaged as leading counsel, and where he would quickly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... confusion and hesitation which formerly reigned. Philosophers, of course, have not yet discovered this fact, and continue to write on such subjects in the old way. But mathematicians, at least in Italy, have now the power of treating the principles of mathematics in an exact and masterly manner, by means of which the certainty of mathematics extends also to mathematical philosophy. Hence many of the topics which used to be placed among the great mysteries—for example, the natures of infinity, of continuity, of space, time and motion—are now no longer in ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell

... the change of plan. When the girl was gay, he was gay likewise. When she lapsed listlessly into the slough of silence and despond, he went on precisely as though unconscious of a change. His acting, for acting it was, even the girl could not but realise at that time, was masterly. What he was thinking no human being ever knew, no human being could ever know; for he never gave the semblance of a hint. Probably not since man and woman began under the sanction of law and of clergy to mate, had there been such a honeymoon. Probably never will there be ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... were screwed down so tightly as to jam the plunger. He tried all kinds of expedients without success; and his invention, excellent though it was in principle, seemed doomed to failure, when his foreman, Henry Maudslay,[35] solved the problem in a simple but most masterly manner. He had a recess turned in the neck of the cylinder at the point formerly occupied by the stuffing-box, and into this a leather collar of U-section (marked solid black in Fig. 180) was placed with its open side downwards. When water reached it, ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... hence, would inform the reader of the trend of thought and feeling in this present day. But in reality to do this kind of thing well is to do a very difficult thing. It needs a full knowledge, a full imagination and a masterly execution. Yet when we read the poem, it seems as natural as the breaking out of blossoms. This is that divine ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... Artaxerxes was about to march against the Greek cities in Ionia, to punish them for upholding his brother Cyrus, and for sending him the ten thousand soldiers who had beat such a masterly retreat, Agesilaus made up his mind ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber

... imprimatur for a Manchu version of that suspicious novelty, the Bible. He carried this scheme into execution to the general satisfaction, and he returns to London in 1837; then to the south of Europe, whence he reappears, larger than life and twice as natural, in his masterly autobiographical romance of The Bible in Spain, the work which made his name, which was sold by thousands, which was eagerly acclaimed as an invaluable addition to "Sunday" literature, and pirated in a generous spirit of ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... "the American Maupassant" were not good enough for the "leading" magazines but fit only for the sensation-loving public of the Sunday papers! His first published story that showed distinct strength was perhaps A Blackjack Bargainer (August, 1901, Munsey's). He followed this with such masterly stories as: The Duplicity of Hargraves (February, 1902, Junior Munsey), The Marionettes (April, 1902, Black Cat), A Retrieved Reformation (April, 1903, Cosmopolitan), The Guardian of the Accolade (May, 1903, Cosmopolitan), The Enchanted Kiss (February, ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various



Words linked to "Masterly" :   skilled, consummate, virtuoso, master



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