"Oeuvre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... figure; and he seems to have the decorative art at his fingers' ends as a natural gift. Such work as "King Luckieboy's Party" was a revelation in the way of toy books, while the "Baby's Opera" and "Baby's Bouquet" are petits chefs d'oeuvre, of which the sagacious collector will do well to secure copies, not for his nursery, but his library. Nor can his "Mrs. Mundi at Home" be neglected by the curious in quaint and graceful invention. {14} Another book—the "Under the Window" ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... are half a dozen painters at the Champ de Mars who lack nothing but the golden wall to make them the equals of the master. M. Detaille is absent, but we have M. Worms, with seven little chefs d'oeuvre; M. Vibert, with his Departure of the Spanish Bride and Bridegroom, the Serenade, and the Toilette of the Madonna; M. Firmin Girard, with his Flower-Girl; M. Berne-Bellecour, in his famous Coup de Canon; MM. Fichel, Lesrel, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... much himself. In his "Illusions Perdues" Carlos Herrera, who was Vautrin, says to Lucien, whom he meets on the point of suicide: "Dieu nous a donne le tabac pour endormir nos passions et nos douleurs." M.A. Le Breton, however, in his book on Balzac—"L'Homme et L'OEuvre"—says: "Il ne se soutient qu'a force de cafe," though he would sit working at his ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... autumn; then the vegetable sexes began to exist in separate plants, as in the classes monoecia and dioecia, or both of them in the same plant also, as in the class polygamia; but the larger and more perfect animals are now propagated by sexual reproduction only, which seems to have been the chef-d'oeuvre, or capital work of nature; as appears by the wonderful transformations of leaf-eating caterpillars into honey-eating moths and butterflies, apparently for the sole purpose of the formation of sexual organs, as in the silk-worm, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... l'exposition de ces merveilles; ils s'extasient sur la sagesse qui se montre dans l'ordre d'un phenomene et on decouvre que ce phenomene est tout different de ce qu'ils ont suppose; alors c'est ce nouvel ordre qui leur parait un chef d'oeuvre de sagesse.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... Croyez, Monsieur le Ministre, que si tant de personnages eminents, tant de pouvoirs publics se sont montres accessibles a mes sollicitations, c'est qu'il y a une sorte de conscience universelle qui s'attache a l'accomplissement de mon oeuvre comme a une esperance de grandeur et ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... docilely submitted his work to the great Flaubert, the childhood friend of his mother and his uncle Alfred Le Poittevin. The master had consented to assist the young man, to reveal to him the secrets that make chefs-d'oeuvre immortal. It was he who compelled him to make copious research and to use direct observation and who inculcated in him a horror of vulgarity and a contempt ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... the chef d'oeuvre in him. It was Maine that taught him the force of the southern aspect. Romancer among the realistic facts of nature, he might be called, for he did not merely copy nature. He did invest things with their own suggestive reality, and he surmounted his earlier gifts for exact illustration by this ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... place in a programme of a social gathering with musical accompaniments and even of a non-classical concert, it will disappoint those who come to it with their expectations raised by Chopin's chefs-d'oeuvre, where all is ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... windows, taking a zakuska in the Russian fashion in lieu of hors d'oeuvre, and nibbling at smoked fish, caviar and other pickled mysteries. The Count's ability to drink three or four glasses of liquor with this prefatory repast astonished Alban not a little—which the young ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... bit of special pleading deserves notice. In the instructions of the king to the Archbishop of Lyons, to be read at the council in that city, Francis thus expressed himself: "Et combien que pour ung tel et si bon oeuvre que celluy qui se offre de present, le dict sire fut conseille, que juridiquement et par tous droicts divins et humains, il pouvoit et debvoit raisonnablement mettre, subimposer et faire contribuer toutes manieres de gens, de quelque qualite, auctorite, condition ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... whom a lady asks to write a little "chef d'oeuvre" on the beneficent "Method" refuses absolutely, emphasizing the simple words which, used according to the Method, help to make all suffering disappear: "IT IS GOING AWAY—that ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... quite sincere, you know, when I wrote you them!—They must be very artless! Yours, that I have burned, were too clever. I remember that one day you wrote me from Holland: 'I pass my life among chefs-d'oeuvre, but my mind is far away from them. I have Rembrandt and Ruysdael; but the smallest millet seed would be more to my liking: millet is fair!' Well, that was very pretty, but much too refined. True love has no wit.—All this is to convey to ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... the chef-d'oeuvre of CIMAROSA, and of its kind, perhaps, the most charming opera extant. Throughout it, the composer has lavished beauties; there is not to be found in it an air of inferior merit, or which, of itself alone, would not sustain the reputation of a piece. What then ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... The hors d'oeuvre came on a circular three-tiered stand; red strips of herrings and silver anchovies, salads where green peas and bits of carrot lurked under golden layers of sauce, sliced tomatoes, potato salad green-specked with parsley, hard-boiled eggs ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... but who in sober truth was servant-of-all-work. Wife he had none: his horoscope, he said, having Saturn in square to the Seventh House, forbade him to venture upon matrimony. All gathered round the picture; all admired, and with justice: it was a chef-d'oeuvre. Vance in his maturest day never painted more charmingly. The three pounds proved to be the best outlay of capital he had ever made. Pleased with his work, he was pleased even with ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... indicating that it had seen service at least two hundred years. Climbing to the attic, we entered a little dining room, perhaps twenty feet long, with room for about sixteen diners. The tables were occupied chiefly by officers, and we took the settee next the wall and ordered the chef d'oeuvre—a steak smothered in ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... This chef-d'oeuvre, which dates from about 1807, represents one of the most celebrated characters who ever sat upon the bench of the Court of Session. Famous in his day for "law, paunch, whist, claret, and worth," the exploits of Charles Hay, "The Mighty," as he was called, have become traditions ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... l'art? C'est le Beau dans le vrai, et, d'apres ce principe, l'art s'est cree des regles absolus, que vous chercheriez en vain dans la nature seule. Si la nature seule pouvait le satisfaire, vous n'auriez qu'a mouler un beau modele de la tete aux pieds, pour faire un chef d'oeuvre. Ou, si vous executiez cette idee, vous ne produiriez qu'un grotesque. Le talent consiste a completer la nature, a recueillir ca et la ses indications merveilleuses, mais partielles, a les resumer dans un ensemble homogene et a donner a cet ensemble une pensee ou un sentiment, puisque nous ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... once more acknowledge the modesty and candour of Italians, when we repeat what has been so often recorded, that Michael Angelo refused adding the arm that was wanting to this chef d'oeuvre; and when Bernini undertook the task, he begged it might remain always a different colour, that he might not be suspected of hoping that his work could ever lie confounded with that of ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... the salle manger, was precisely placed for their happiness. It was so narrow that the heels of Savina's slippers were sharply pressed into his insteps; when her hand fell forward it rested on his. Lee ordered a great deal, of which very little was eaten; the hors d'oeuvre appeared and vanished, followed by the soup and an entre; a casserole spread the savory odor of its contents between them; the salad was crisply, palely green, and ignored; and, before it seemed humanly possible, he had his cigar and ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... foreign, which are the undying worm in the peace of a fallen land, the good Italian was a sufferer amongst many. He lost his all; and after the passing of the storm, he found himself preserved alone, amid the wreck of fortune, friends, family, and home. The convent in which the bells, the chef-d'oeuvre of his skill, were hung, was rased to the earth, and these last carried away to another land. The unfortunate owner, haunted by his memories and deserted by his hopes, became a wanderer over Europe. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... the table, she saw them apparently safely launched in conversation over the hors-d'oeuvre, took a look at them during the soup to see that all was still well, then let herself be beguiled into a conversation with John Williamson, whom she liked as well as Martin did Violet. She never thought of the objects of her matrimonial ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... A.D. 1461, in which every figure is literally "made to order," its attitude bespoke, and its place in the composition distinctly agreed for. One clause, however, contemplates progress, and binds the painter to make the piece his chef-d'oeuvre—"che detta dipentura exceda ogni buona dipintura infino aqui ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... ihnen neue originale Kenntniss beiwohnte, geschweige denn auf die weiter abgeleiteten Bearbeitungen zu grunden haben, sondern aus den Relationen der Augenzeugen and der achten and unmittelbarsten Urkunden aufbauen werden.—RANKE, Reformation, Preface, 1838, Ce qu'on a trouve et mis an oeuvre est considerable en soi: c'est peu de chose au prix de ce qui reste a trouver et a mettre en oeuvre.—AULARD, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... Impressionists are in earnest or if it is only une blague qu'on nous fait?" Then we stood and screamed at Monet, that most exquisite painter of blonde light. We stood before the "Turkeys," and seriously we wondered if "it was serious work,"—that chef d'oeuvre! the high grass that the turkeys are gobbling is flooded with sunlight so swift and intense that for a moment the illusion is complete. "Just look at the house! why, the turkeys couldn't walk in at the door. The perspective is all wrong." Then followed ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... nicknamed the Chamber of Horrors, and the laughter and exclamations of disgust indulged in by visitors recalled the history of Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe and the treatment accorded it by Parisians (an incident utilised by Zola in L'Oeuvre). But nowadays, in company with the Neo-Impressionists, the Lampost Impressionists, Cubists, and Futurists, Munch might seem tame, conventional; nevertheless he was years ahead of the new crowd in painting big blocks of colour, juxtaposed, not as the ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... you see, had its humiliations. But, if Andre-Louis would hope to dine, he must begin by eating his pride as an hors d'oeuvre. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... racy, mischievous role imaginable," said Herode warmly, "and she plays it to perfection—it is her chef d'oeuvre. She is always applauded to the echo ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... pleased Jeanne better than if it had been furnished expressly for her. All the rich antiques disdained by fashionable ladies, the marvelous pieces of carved ebony, the glass lusters, the gothic clocks; chefs-d'oeuvre of carving and enamel, the screens with embroidered Chinese figures, and the immense vases, threw Jeanne into indescribable raptures. Here on a chimney-piece two gilded tritons were bearing branches of coral, upon which were hung ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... I have no idea. In the common way I am a person particularly prone to enjoy the long luxuriance of the club dinner. But on this occasion it seemed a hopeless and endless string of courses. Hors-d'oeuvre sardines seemed as big as herrings, soup seemed a sort of ocean, larks were ducks, ducks were ostriches until that dinner was over. The cheese course was maddening. I had often heard of the moon being made of green cheese. That night I ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... chatted a while on this subject Moisson wished me good-night, and I took up Balzac's chef d'oeuvre and resumed my reading. But I only read a few lines; my imagination was wandering elsewhere. It was a long distance from Balzac's idealism to the realism of Moisson, which awakened in me memories of the stories ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... women, our care in washing ourselves,—excited their admiration far more than any grand or complicated object, such as our ship. Bougainville has well remarked concerning these people, that they treat the "chefs d'oeuvre de l'industrie humaine, comme ils traitent les loix de la nature et ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... church are, to my taste and feelings, more precious than any of which Vienna may boast. I allude to the famous monument erected to the memory of the wife of the present venerable DUKE ALBERT OF SAXE TESCHEN. It is considered to be the chef d'oeuvre of CANOVA; and with justice. The church of the Augustins laying directly in my way to the Imperial Library, I think I may safely say that I used, two mornings out of three, to enter it—on purpose to renew ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... habit of considering this rather an important part of a tomb, and I was especially interested in it here, because Selvatico only echoes the praise of thousands. It is unanimously declared the chef d'oeuvre of Renaissance sepulchral work, and pronounced by Cicognara (also quoted ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... ministers—or a tremendously popular poet. As a rule she saw him unmarried—with a wonderful little mother at his elbow. Sometimes in romantic flashes he was adored by German princesses or eloped with Russian grand-duchesses! But such fancies were HORS D'OEUVRE. The modern biography deals with the career. Every project was bright, every project had GO—tremendous go. And they all demanded a hero, debonnaire and balanced. And Benham, as she began to perceive, wasn't balanced. ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... biogenesis, abiogenesis[obs3], digenesis[obs3], dysmerogenesis[obs3], eumerogenesis[obs3], heterogenesis[obs3], oogenesis, merogenesis[obs3], metogenesis[obs3], monogenesis[obs3], parthenogenesis, homogenesis[obs3], xenogenesis1[obs3]; authorship, publication; works, opus, oeuvre. biogeny[obs3], dissogeny[obs3], xenogeny[obs3]; tocogony[obs3], vacuolization. edifice, building, structure, fabric, erection, pile, tower, flower, fruit. V. produce, perform, operate, do, make, gar, form, construct, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... battle, says: "Cette bataille de Leuthen est propre a immortaliser le caractere moral de Frederic, et met a jour ses grands talents militaires." And somewhat later, he says: "Cette bataille etait un chef d'oeuvre de mouvements, de manoeuvres, et de resolution, seul elle suffirait pour immortaliser Frederic, et lui donne un rang ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... d'Argenson was imitated with a truth which did honor to the caligraphers of the Prince de Cellamare. As to the report, it was a chef-d'oeuvre of clearness; and we insert it word for word, to give an idea of the regent's life, and of the manner in which the Spanish ambassador's police was conducted. It was dated two ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... former un gouvernement modere, il faut combiner les puissances, les regler, les temperer, les faire agir, donner pour ainsi dire un lest a l'une pour la mettre en etat de resister a une autre, c'est un chef-d'oeuvre de legislation que le hasard fait rarement, et que rarement on laisse faire a la prudence. Un gouvernement despotique au contraire saute pour ainsi dire aux yeux; il est uniforme partout: comme il ne faut que des passions pour l'etablir tout le monde est bon pour ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... come to see me about paintings. You are an amateur. It is an immense delight for me to receive amateurs. I am going to show you the chef-d'oeuvre of Monrealese; yes, Excellence, his chef-d'oeuvre! An Adoration of Shepherds! It is the pearl of the whole ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... hours were cried amid the universal silence. Certainly people did not live so long, if existence is measured by the amount of business done; but they lived better. The mind was enriched with the noble sentiments born of the contemplation of chefs-d'oeuvre. They built a church in two centuries, a painter painted but few pictures in the course of his life, a poet only composed one great work; but these were so many masterpieces for after-ages ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... richest harvest of the human mind. In medicine, it represents the full flower of the Renaissance. As a book it is a sumptuous tome a worthy setting of his jewel—paper, type and illustration to match, as you may see for yourselves in this folio—the chef d'oeuvre of any ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... Brunswick's victory is, by all the skillful, thought a 'chef d'oeuvre', worthy of Turenne, Conde, or the most illustrious human butchers. The French behaved better than at Rosbach, especially the Carabiniers Royaux, who could not be 'entames'. I wish the siege of Olmutz well over, and a victory after it; and that, with good news from America, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... good time which has long been coming seems now to have come. The home reader will no longer put up with the careless caricatures of classical chefs d'oeuvre which satisfied his old-fashioned predecessor. Our youngers, in most points our seniors, now expect the translation not only to interpret the sense of the original but also, when the text lends itself to such ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... Venus was the chef-d'oeuvre of Apelles, a native of the island of Cos, in the Archipelago, who flourished in the time of Alexander the Great. If it was the original painting which was now restored, it must have been ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Sarah showed Schulenberg a neat card on which the menu was beautifully typewritten with the viands temptingly marshalled under their right and proper heads from "hors d'oeuvre" to "not responsible for ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... he wrote a poem, 'Hortulus,' descriptive of the garden of the monastery. The garden was all the world to the monks; it furnished them at once with the pleasures and the necessaries of their lives. Walahfrid felt this; he described his feelings, and he produced a chef d'oeuvre." Going over to the bookcase, John took ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... several uncatalogued monuments and a fine example of a tile pavement, which I identified as Delia Robbia work. I then visited Poggibonsi and Volterra and Siena, and satisfied myself that the beautiful coronation of the Virgin at the Osservanza outside Siena is a chef-d'oeuvre of Andrea Delia Robbia. From Asciano I visited Monte San Savino, Lucignano and Foiano and took photographs of some fine, unrecognized works of Andrea Delia Robbia. Another starting point was Montepulciano for a long drive to Radicofani, a weird Etruscan site, whose churches ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... other things. But as he and Fenwick discussed the pictures on the easels, or Fenwick's own projects, as they talked of Manet, and Zola's 'L'Oeuvre,' and the Goncourts, as they compared the state of painting in London and Paris, employing all the latest phrases, both of them astonishingly well informed as to men and tendencies—Watson as an outsider, Fenwick as a passionate partisan, loathing ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... delighted with me, but we all wanted rest, though the piece should not have finished with an interruption. I wanted to get some amusement out of the interval, and proposed an ablution, which made Annette laugh and which Veronique pronounced to be absolutely necessary. I found it a delicious hors d'oeuvre to the banquet I had enjoyed. The two sisters rendered each other various services, standing in the most lascivious postures, and I found my situation as looker-on ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... all his monks assisted the masons, he had spent about five million francs (in modern values), and by 1339 had finished the choir and chapels, the huge pillars beneath the central tower, and part of the transept. Of the first real "Maitre d'oeuvre," as so often happens in the tale of the Cathedrals, nothing is known. But the monks carved the clear keen features of his face upon the funeral stone, 7-1/2 feet high and 4 feet broad, that is in the Chapelle St. Cecile, and beside it is a detailed drawing ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... slight vernacular poem to parody the Bentleyan kind of classical scholarship was to be tried by Addison himself in Spectator 470 (August 29, 1712) and had a French counterpart in the Chef d'oeuvre d'un inconnu, 1714. A later example was executed by Defoe's son-in-law Henry Baker in No. XIX of his Universal Spectator, February 15, 1729.[5] And that year too provided the large-scale demonstration of the Dunciad Variorum. The very "matter" of Tom Thumb reappeared under the same light ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... plus pres de la verite selon que je pen voir a lueil." The description of that of 1485 is written by another eye-witness, the Commandeur de Bourbon, to whom "ma semble bon et condecent a raison declairer premierement les causes qui out incite mon poure et petit entendement a faire cest petit oeuvre." ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... grass is no less than the journey work of the stars And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... twelfth-century architects put into their building; the profiles project little, and, in spite of their extreme finesse, produce much effect; the buttresses are skilfully planted and profiled. The staircase, which, on the east side, deranges the arrangement of the bays, is a chef-d'oeuvre of architecture." This long panegyric, by Viollet-le-Duc, on French taste at the expense of Norman temper, ought to be read, book in hand, before the Cathedral of Rouen, with photographs of Bayeux to compare. Certain ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... heureux, a un gout sur, il joignoit une probite exacte, un coeur droit, un caractere aimable et des moeurs douces. Il etoit naturellement honnete, et il s'etoit encore poli dans le commerce des grands. Parmi ses differentes Poesies Latines, on distingue le Poeme des Jardins. C'est son chef d'oeuvre; il est digne du siecle d'Auguste, dit l'Abbe Des Fontaines, pour l'elegance et la purete du langage, pour l'esprit et les graces qui y regnent." Among the letters of Rabutin de Bussy, are many most interesting ones from this ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... thousand and thirty paintings, which are considered to be the chefs d'oeuvre of the great ancient masters, and is a treasury of human art and genius, unknown to the most renowned of former ages, and far surpassing every other institution of the same nature, in ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... in white" is the chef-d'oeuvre of all comic operas in French, as Mozart's Figaro is in German. The success of this opera, whose composer and whose poet were equally liked and esteemed in Paris was enormous, and since then it has never ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... life? In Goethe, for instance, an overflow of vitality was creative, in Flaubert—hate: Flaubert, a new edition of Pascal, but as an artist with this instinctive belief at heart: "Flaubert est toujours haissable, l'homme n'est rien, l'oeuvre est tout".{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} He tortured himself when he wrote, just as Pascal tortured himself when he thought—the feelings of both were inclined to be "non-egoistic." {HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} "Disinterestedness"—principle of decadence, the ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... donnant une certaine libert ma traduction et en vitant autant que possible d'y mettre les redites et les priphrases de l'original anglo-saxon, je la rendrais meilleure et plus conforme l'esprit vritable de l'oeuvre. Est-ce sacrifier du reste la fidlit d'une traduction que d'pargner au public la lecture de dtails le plus souvent bizarres et inintelligibles? N'est-il pas plus logique d'en finir de suite avec des artifices potiques inconnus ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... live to do those services, it will never be mentioned in history!" I thought this solicitude for his honour charming. But he will be known by history; he has left a small volume of Memoirs, that are a chef-d'oeuvre.(276) He twice showed them to me, but I kept his secret faithfully; now it is for his glory ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... offered and champagne was served with the hors d'oeuvre. Peter raised his glass and looked into the eyes of the woman who was leaning so closely towards him that her soft breath fell upon his cheek. She whispered something in his ear. For a moment, perhaps, he was carried away, but for a moment only. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... convenances de sentiments si importantes pour le commun des hommes? Peut-il considerer les liens du sang, les affections, les puerils menagements de la societe? Et dans la situation ou il se trouve, que d'actions separees de l'ensemble et qu'on blame, quoiqu'elles doivent contribuer au grand oeuvre que tout le monde n'apercoit pas? ... Malheureux que vous etes! vous retiendrez vos eloges parce que vous craindrez que le mouvement de cette grande machine ne fasse sur vous l'effet de Gulliver, qui, lorsqu'il deplacait sa jambe, ecrasait les ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... the beau ideal which united in man's soul the creature with the Creator. Professing to regard youths as the most cleanly and beautiful objects in this phenomenal world, they declared that by loving and extolling the chef-d'oeuvre, corporeal and intellectual, of the Demiurgus, disinterestedly and without any admixture of carnal sensuality, they are paying the most fervent adoration to the Causa causans. They add that such affection, passing as it does the love ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... got an idea! That about the shower of gold—I know—Danae!" he shouted suddenly, throwing down his palette. "That's how I'll paint you. I've been puzzling over it for days. Darling, it will be my chef d'oeuvre!" He seized her hands. "Think of it! You standing under a great shaft of sun, nude, exalted, your hands and eyes lifted. About you gold, pouring down in cataracts, indistinguishable from the sunlight—a background of prismatic fire—and your hair lifting into it like wings!" ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... words, "two of the most perfect masters of the art of letter writing were Cicero and Voltaire,"[5] there is a decided flavor of the nineteenth century in Cicero's words to a good liver whom he is going to visit. "You must not reckon," he wrote, "on my eating your hors d'oeuvre. I have given them up entirely. The time has gone by when I can abuse my stomach with your olives and your ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... down to a tradesman in the same street—twenty-one shillings the price of this door (mock mahogany). While he was working commissions poured in and Robinson's price rose, the demand for him being greater than the supply. The mahogany door was really a chef-d'oeuvre. He came home triumphant with thirty shillings in his pocket, he spread them out on the kitchen table and looked at them with a pride and a thrill of joy money never gave him before. He had often closed the shutters and furtively spread ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... This celebrated chef d'oeuvre was in the Tuileries in 1807, and was included in the inventory found in the cabinet of Napoleon I. It was moved by Napoleon III. to the Palace of St. Cloud, and only saved from capture by the Germans by its removal to its present home in the Louvre, ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... bource: Et pourquoy est ce donc? pource Que j'ay perdu depuis trois jours Mon bien, mon plaisir, mes amours: Et quoy? o Souvenance greve A peu que le cueur ne me creve Quand j'en parle ou quand j'en ecris: C'est Belaud, mon petit chat gris: Belaud qui fust, paraventure Le plus bel oeuvre que nature Feit onc en matiere de chats: C'etoit Belaud, la mort au rats Belaud dont la beaute fut telle Qu'elle est digne ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... the host and hostess were at home they kept the house full, and the day concluded with a large dinner-party, at which seldom less than sixteen sat down to discuss the inspirations of Monsieur Horsd'oeuvre and the priceless wines of Sir Guy. No wonder the servants looked tired and overworked, though I fancy the luxury and good living downstairs was quite equal to that which elicited encomiums from bon-vivants and connoisseurs above. Nevertheless, it was but just that they ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... civil word making use of fifty hard expressions, marching in the diplomatic audience as at the head of his troops, and commanding foreign Ambassadors as his French soldiers. I have heard that the report of Count Markof to his Court, describing this new and rare show, is a chef-d'oeuvre of wit, equally amusing and instructive. He is said to have requested of his Cabinet new and particular orders how to act—whether as the representative of an independent Sovereign, or, as most of the other ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... Judge, rising, and with a ring in each hand. "This ring given me yesterday by the Duke of Palma, and by him received from the Salvatori, is an imitation of Benvenuto Cellini's great work. The real ring of the Monte-Leoni, the chef-d'oeuvre, an heir-loom of the family, has just been brought us by an old servant of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... greater correctness of this piece may be owing to the lapse of nine months (an unusual term of repose for the muse of Moliere) betwixt the appearance of "L'Amour Medecin" and that of the "Misanthrope." Yet this chef-d'oeuvre was at first coldly received by the Parisian audience, and to render it more attractive, Moliere was compelled to attach to its representation the lively farce of "Le Medecin malgre lui." In a short time the merit of the "Misanthrope" ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... thrown Mary Snow in his way, he would not have gone out of his way to seek a subject for his experiment. Mary Snow was the daughter of an engraver,—not of an artist who receives four or five thousand pounds for engraving the chef-d'oeuvre of a modern painter,—but of a man who executed flourishes on ornamental cards for tradespeople, and assisted in the illustration of circus playbills. With this man Graham had become acquainted through certain transactions of his with the press, and had found him to be a widower, drunken, dissolute, ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... showing the slight value he placed on distinctions of this kind. A reply that must have gratified him very much was that received from the King of France. In his letter to him, Beethoven refers to the Mass as "L'oeuvre le plus accompli." Louis XVIII, not only forwarded his acceptance (and the fifty ducats), but had also a gold medal struck off, containing his portrait on one side, and on the other, the following inscription: "Donne par le ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... France, she was hooted in the streets, and her father called together four doctors, learned in the law, to decide whether she was not possessed by demons, to think of educating women,—pour s'assurer qu'instraire des femmes n'etait pas un oeuvre du demon. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... denn auf die weiter abgeleiteten Bearbeitungen zu gruenden haben, sondern aus den Relationen der Augenzeugen und der aechten und unmittelbarsten Urkunden aufbauen werden.—RANKE, Reformation, Preface, 1838. Ce qu'on a trouve et mis en oeuvre est considerable en soi: c'est peu de chose au prix de ce qui reste a trouver et a mettre en oeuvre.—AULARD, ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... que voici est une traduction faite sur la cinquieme edition publiee en Angleterre. Je crois avoir rendu compte, quelques annees. Depuis lors, l'auteur a ameliore, agrandi, complete son oeuvre, et le volume superbe qu'il nous offre aujourd'hui parait devoir ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... Ce que j'en dirai seulement en general, c'est qu'autant les femmes du temps passe, etaient decentes et chastes, et se faisaient gloire d'etre graves et modestes, autant celles de notre siecle mettent tout en oeuvre pour paraitre cyniques et voluptueuses. Nous ne sommes plus au temps ou les plus grandes dames se faisaient honneur de porter la cordeliere.[C] Leurs habillemens etaient aussi larges et fermes, que celui des femmes de nos jours sont ouverts et legers, et d'une finesse que les formes ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... abregeant des historiens latins que nous possedons; mais ca et la il ajoute soit des contes populaires, par exemple sur Richard 1'er, sur Robert 1'er, soit des particularites qu'il savait par tradition (sur ce meme Robert le magnifique, sur l'expedition de Guillaume, &c.) et qui donnent a son oeuvre un reel interet historique. Sa langue est excellente; son style clair, serre, simple, d'ordinaire assez monotone, vous plait par sa saveur archaique et quelquefois par une certaine grace et une ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... never gone farther than Versailles. This journey was at first as delightful as a glimpse into fairy-land. Our carriage was one of those costly whims which some millionaires indulge in. It consisted of a central saloon—a perfect chef-d'oeuvre of taste and luxury—with two compartments at either end, furnished with comfortable sleeping accommodation. And all this, the count seemed never weary of repeating, was mine—mine alone. Leaning back on the velvet cushions, ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... philosophy from Eckhart, and his manner of expounding it shows no abnormal acuteness. But Maeterlinck's essay in Le Tresor des Humbles contains some good things—e.g. "Les verites mystiques ne peuvent ni vieillir ni mourir.... Une oeuvre ne vieillit qu'en proportion ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... of historical information enshrined in its pages, the archaeological value which it must always possess for the student, and the dramatic interest of its stories, the translator has thought that an English edition of Balzac's chef-d'oeuvre would be acceptable to many. It has, of course, been impossible to reproduce in all its vigour and freshness the language of the original. Many of the quips and cranks and puns have been lost in the process of Anglicising. These unavoidable blemishes apart, the writer ventures to ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... the elaborate character of the German entrenchments, and of the British genius for comfort developed in our own lines, but it is doubtful whether anything done by either side in that direction has surpassed the chef-d'oeuvre of an ingenious French engineer shown in our illustration. At one point in the French trenches not seven hundred yards from those of the enemy, and within two miles of the German artillery, he constructed an up-to-date bathing establishment, ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 15, Nov. 18, 1914 • Various
... of whom have left some trace of their sojourn in France; but of an obscure yet very complete genius, Pierre Nepveu, known as Pierre Trinqueau, who is designated in the papers which preserve in some degree the history of the origin of the edifice, as the maistre de l'oeuvre de maconnerie. Behind this modest title, apparently, we must recognise one of the most original talents of the French Renaissance; and it is a proof of the vigour of the artistic life of that period that, brilliant production being everywhere ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... indienne et la resume brillamment. Le drame, l'epopee savante, l'elegie attestent aujourd'hui encore la puissance et la souplesse de ce magnifique genie; seul entre les disciples de Sarasvati [the goddess of eloquence], il a eu le bonheur de produire un chef-d'oeuvre vraiment classique, ou l'Inde s'admire et ou l'humanite se reconnait. Les applaudissements qui saluerent la naissance de Cakuntala a Ujjayini ont apres de longs siecles eclate d'un bout du monde a l'autre, quand William Jones l'eut revelee a l'Occident. Kalidasa a marque sa place ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... benefactor of the race," said I. He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some little use," he remarked. "'L'homme c'est rien—l'oeuvre c'est tout,' as Gustave ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... he was appointed president of the Society of Antiquaries. The Doctor was a strenuous advocate for the authenticity of Rowley's Poems; "thereby proving himself," says the author of the Pursuits of Literature, "a pleasant subject for that chef-d'oeuvre of wit and poetry, the 'Archaeological ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... fact that the rehearsal ought to have begun half an hour before, the committee and Mr. Carrisford's three Hindu servants were holding a solemn conclave at the back of the stage. The chef-d'oeuvre of their scenic effects was refusing to work; the bagdads that were to descend as if by Hindu magic and cover the bare walls of Sara's little attic bedroom when the good fairies, in the guise of the aforesaid servants, effected its transformation ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... novels, "La Joie de Vivre," and instead of inheriting the egotism of her parents, develops a passionate love and devotion for others. In a like way Claude Lantier, Florent's artist friend and son of Gervaise of the "Assommoir," figures more particularly in "L'Oeuvre," which tells how his painful struggle for fame resulted in madness and suicide. With reference to the beautiful Norman and the other fishwives and gossips scattered through the present volume, and those genuine types of Parisian gaminerie, Muche, Marjolin, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... pas forte; j'ai contracte une toux opiniatre, il y a plus de deux ans, qui ne me quitte point. Cependant j'espere mettre la main a l'oeuvre bientot. Je ne peux dire, mademoiselle, combien votre affection—car vous les aimez, votre livre et votre lettre en temoignent assez—pour mes compatriotes et mon pays me touche; et je suis fiere de pouvoir le dire que les heroines de nos ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... not the thing, but the manner; not the fact, but what you can find in it; not the object, but what you can express by it. "Un chef d'oeuvre vaut un chef d'oeuvre" because perfect delight in loveliness found in a small thing is as perfect as perfect delight in loveliness found in a great thing. And still life uninteresting as a fact, may be fascinating if "seen through the medium of ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... France so long because I was never so vitally interested in my life. I could not tear myself away, although I found it impossible to put my material into shape there. Not only was I on the go all day long, seeing this and that oeuvre, having personal interviews with heads of important organizations, taken about by the kind and interested friends my own interest made for me, but when night came I was too tired to do more than enter all the information I had accumulated during ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... associations, the church and all about it has a very gloomy appearance, it is cruciform and of the corinthian order, surmounted by a dome the interior of which is painted by Philippe de Champagne. The tomb of Cardinal de Richelieu, in the southern transept, is the chef-d'oeuvre of Gerardon. The college is a plain building of sombre aspect, but the accommodation for the professors is on a handsome scale; the lectures ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... L'OEuvre et la Vie, speaking with the authority of a practical architect, says: "Michelangelo was not, properly speaking, an architect. He made architecture, which is quite a different thing; and most often it was the architecture ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... the greatest novels ever written, is the sequel to Alexander Dumas' world-renowned chef-d'oeuvre, "The Count of Monte-Cristo," taking up the fascinating narrative where the latter ends and continuing it with marvellous power and absorbing interest. Every word tells, and the number of unusually stirring incidents ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... it the flower of all the beauties, which T. has scattered through his other works. It is a chef-d'oeuvre, which satisfies at once the judgment and the fancy, the imagination and the heart. It is justly proposed as a model of historical eulogy. The praises bestowed have in them nothing vague or far-fetched, they rise from the simple facts of the narrative. Every thing produces attachment, ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... Sir,—La destruction a atteint son terme, l'oeuvre de reconstruction commence. Elle sera tres difficile, mais je n'en desespere pas, et j'y prendrai quelque part sans sortir de ma cellule. Quelle vie que la mienne! Mon plus ancien souvenir politique est d'avoir vu de loin, du haut ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... Presse, and helped with many of his writings. Traces of his workmanship, M. de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul tells us, are specially noticeable in the descriptions of the art of painting and of the studio, in the edition of "Un Chef-d'Oeuvre Inconnu" which appeared in 1837.[*] These descriptions are in Gautier's manner, and do not appear in the edition of 1831; so that in all probability they were written, or at any rate inspired by him. Gautier also wrote for Balzac, who had absolutely no faculty ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... l'homme, l'oeuvre, l'influence/, 1905. Janssens, /La philosophie et l'apologetique de ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... thought so highly of the importance of woman as an educator of character, that he described a good mother as "Nature's CHEF-D'OEUVRE." And he was right: for good mothers, far more than fathers, tend to the perpetual renovation of mankind, creating, as they do, the moral atmosphere of the home, which is the nutriment of man's moral ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... les larmes se cachent comme une faiblesse, communique a l'oeuvre un pathetique si poignant que le mystere de la mort s'etend ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... lost original, and Mr. Berenson's enthusiastic praise ought to be lavished on the actual picture as it must have appeared in all its freshness and purity. "Je n'hesiterais pas," he declares,[103] "a le proclamer le plus important des portraits du maitre, un chef-d'oeuvre ne le cedant a aucun portrait d'aucun pays ou ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... un classique, c'est l'equilibre en lui de toutes les facultes qui concourent a la perfection de l'oeuvre d'art.—Brunetiere, ibid. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... hour, the aspect of the scene changes, and this instability is exhibited by the most essential parts no less than by the accessory parts. One would say that nature feels her way, and only reaches the goal after many times missing the path' (on dirait que la nature tatonne et ne conduit son oeuvre a bon fin, qu'apres ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... and adaptation (A.D. 1704), in no wise represent the eastern original. The best and latest, the Rev. Mr. Foster's, which is diffuse and verbose, and Mr. G. Moir Bussey's, which is a re- correction, abound in gallicisms of style and idiom; and one and all degrade a chef d'oeuvre of the highest anthropological and ethnographical interest and importance to a mere fairy book, a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... catalogued as an 'extremely rare old printing and engraved work,' its author being 'Horae B. V. Mariae and usum Romanum,' whilst it is stated to be bound by 'Chamholfen Duru,' whoever he may be. Equally intelligent is another item from the same source, 'Newcastle (Marguis de Methode, etc.), oeuvre auquel on apprende,' etc. Perhaps it was the cheapness—sixpence each—which prevented two items ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... forget that which it expresses, and put in its place, without chancing anything of its outside, the savage instincts of the tiger, the judgment of the eyesight would remain absolutely the same, and the tiger would be for it the chef-d'oeuvre of the Creator. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller |
