"Past master" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... written. I was heartily disappointed with it, I remember, and thought it—as I still think it—an indifferent piece of work. However, I have tried to write for these thirty-five long years, and if I have not become practised in letters, I am at least a past master in the Lodge of Disappointment. Such as it was, "The Bowmen" appeared in The Evening News of September ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen
... came to a stop before a door made of a number of thin steel bars placed horizontally. As the lift stopped, the steel-barred doorway opened noiselessly. All Poltavo's senses were now alert; he, a past master in the art of treachery, had been at last its victim. He did not leave the tiny lift for a moment, but prepared for eventualities. He took a pencil out of his pocket and wrote rapidly on the wooden panelling of the elevator, ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... to, not invented by, the master. In that inestimable folio of drawings, once in the possession of Vasari, were certain designs by Verrocchio, faces of such impressive beauty that Leonardo in his boyhood copied them [124] many times. It is hard not to connect with these designs of the elder, by-past master, as with its germinal principle, the unfathomable smile, always with a touch of something sinister in it, which plays over all Leonardo's work. Besides, the picture is a portrait. From childhood we see this image defining itself on the fabric of his dreams; ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... surprise could be sprung on him—twenty-five years had he studied this one theme. He had made himself familiar with the political history of every nation so far as such history could be gathered; he was past master of his subject. ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... maiden should have, and in fact he had no regret for the great price of this jewel. Not being able to restrain himself from hurrying over the first mouthfuls of this royal morsel, the lord treated her more as a past master than a young beginner. So the happy man by too much gluttony, managed badly, and in fact knew nothing of the sweet business of love. Finding which, the good wench said, after a minute or two, to her old cavalier, "My lord, if you ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac |
