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Perfect   /pərfˈɛkt/  /pˈərfˌɪkt/   Listen
Perfect

adjective
1.
Being complete of its kind and without defect or blemish.  "A perfect reproduction" , "Perfect happiness" , "Perfect manners" , "A perfect specimen" , "A perfect day"
2.
Without qualification; used informally as (often pejorative) intensifiers.  Synonyms: arrant, complete, consummate, double-dyed, everlasting, gross, pure, sodding, staring, stark, thoroughgoing, unadulterated, utter.  "A complete coward" , "A consummate fool" , "A double-dyed villain" , "Gross negligence" , "A perfect idiot" , "Pure folly" , "What a sodding mess" , "Stark staring mad" , "A thoroughgoing villain" , "Utter nonsense" , "The unadulterated truth"
3.
Precisely accurate or exact.



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"Perfect" Quotes from Famous Books



... for refuge to ale, and others to ink; while not a few fell, or feared to fall, into the 'jaws of famine.'" This singular poem was written in 1727. It was first printed surreptitiously (i.e., with the connivance of the author) in Dublin, and then reprinted in London. The first perfect edition, however, did not appear in London till 1729. On the day of its publication, according to Pope, a crowd of authors besieged the publisher's shop; and by entreaties, threats, nay, cries of treason, tried to hinder its appearance. What a scene it must have been—of teeth gnashing above ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... peoples are only a lap or two ahead of the uncivilized ones. When you think that it takes ten thousand generations to develop a plant and root out some of its early heredities, you can see that human beings have a long way yet to go before they become perfect. We're creatures of environment, just like plants. Environment has made ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... placed together give us a perfect picture of life under Natural Selection, and having studied it we may fairly ask whether such a rule of life is one under which any one of us would like to live. In every respect it is the antipodes of the Christian rule of life, and of that rule ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... without being struck by their indifference to every phase of British art,—except portraiture. "Have you been to the Exhibition? Are there many nice miniatures? are the portraits good? Lady D.'s lace is perfect; Mrs. A.'s velvet is inimitable." Such observations strike the ear with painful discord, when the mind is filled with memories of those who are brave or independent enough to "look forward" with ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... be mounted upon the back of the courser and then would be speeding off toward the west. And then Larry would lose sight of them, just at the very moment when he would have given worlds to see more; for by this time the skies would have grown black, perhaps, and down would come the rain in perfect torrents, sending Larry to his feet and scuttling off into somebody's area-way for shelter. And there he would crouch and think about his vision, fancying to himself his great warrior doing battle with ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann

... to the abandonment of the older States is now probably greater than it has ever been, because their people have ceased to build mills or furnaces, and every thing looks to a yet more perfect exhaustion of the soil. The more they abandon the land the greater is the anxiety to make loans in England for the purpose of building roads; and the more numerous the loans the more rapid is the flight, and the greater the number of ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... lists, left no room to doubt that he was that illustrious exile. Indeed the significant smile which the queen directed to Alonso de Aguilar, when the champion saluted his daughter, and the blush that mantled on the cheek of that lady implied a perfect ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... of their action were diverse, and for the most part unforeseen. In the first place, Japan, far from being discouraged by this rebuff, set to work to perfect her army and navy, and with a thoroughness which Roon and Moltke would have envied. Organisation, weapons, drill, marksmanship (the last a weak point in the war with China) were improved; heavy ironclads were ordered, chiefly in British yards, ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... used the word "they" constantly, and that roused the chivalry of Jean Jacques. That the comely, careful Carmen should be party to an imposture was intolerable. Everything about her gave it the lie. Her body was so perfect and complete, so finely contrived and balanced, so cunningly curved with every line filled in; her eye was so full of lustre and half-melancholy too; her voice had such a melodious monotone; her mouth was so ripe and yet so ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... afraid of Stella; privately she doubted whether the poor thing was altogether in her perfect mind. When the visitor came the mother generally found occupation or amusement elsewhere, conversation with Stella was so extremely difficult. Mr. Westlake was also at Exmouth, but much engaged in literary work. There was, too, an artist and his ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... of the boat club were very highly commended for their efficient labors on the occasion. If Frank had displayed less courage and address, or the discipline of the club had been less perfect, Tim must certainly have been drowned. This fact was rendered the more apparent by the contrast between the conduct of the crew of the Zephyr and that of the Thunderbolt. With all their exertion, on account of their want of discipline, the latter had been unable even to reach the ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic

... dressed all in white, with the most perfect patent-leather boots, much too tight for him, and which must have caused him agonies while he was offering to put himself (of course), his bank, and all his ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... both sides employed against the Turks." The last article explained the whole mystery. "If," he continued, "HE should obtain the crown of Bohemia, all the exiles would have reason to applaud his generosity; perfect toleration of religions should be established within the kingdom, the Palatine family be reinstated in its rights, and he would accept the Margraviate of Moravia as a compensation for Mecklenburg. The allied armies would then, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... officers behaved with superb gallantry, and there was perfect order and discipline among those who were aboard, even after all hope had been abandoned for the ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... raise her arm, to open her mouth, but she was unable to utter the least cry, and, slowly retreating, her gaze still riveted on Raskolnikoff, she sought refuge in a corner. The poor woman drew back in perfect silence, as though she had no breath left in her body. The young man rushed upon her, brandishing the hatchet; the wretched creature's lips assumed the doleful expression peculiar to quite young children when, beginning ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... And said, When you were here I heard you tell Of an old man, your father, how does he? Is he in health, or doth he cease to be? Whereto in humble sort they thus reply'd, Thy servant, ev'n our father, doth abide In perfect health, which having said, They bowed their heads and great obeisance made. And Joseph viewing Benjamin his brother (They being both the children of one mother) He asked if he were the lad of whom They spake, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... Their builders appear to have been people of a peaceful nature, and their dwellings do not generally bear evidence of defensive design. The architectural skill of the Mayas must have been of a very high order. Among the buildings which exist some are nearly perfect units of design, and seem almost to argue the use of "working drawings," as the plan and detail must have been perfected as a whole before the building was begun. This architectural skill of conception, however, has been common in many countries. Some of the ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... any men came now. As I sat there drinking my pale tea I heard these people asking Emma why she didn't do this any more, and why she didn't come to that any more, and Emma just as dignified and nice as you please, telling all sorts of perforated paper fibs to explain and decline. One can't be perfect, and nobody could be as absolutely kind and gracious and universally beloved as Emma if she always ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... by hand: he was a great swimmer, and very handy, and very exact and knowing in all kinds of smithwork, whether he himself or others made the thing. He was distinct and acute in conversation, and was soon perfect in understanding and strength. He was beloved by his friends and acquaintances, eager in his amusements, and one who always liked to be the first, as it was suitable he should be from his birth and dignity. He ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... sketch, less well known, but not unworthy of admiration, the early artist has given us with a few rapid but admirable strokes his own reminiscence of the effect produced upon him by the sudden onslaught of the hairy brute, tusks erect and mouth wide open, a perfect glimpse of elephantine fury. It forms a capital example of early impressionism, respectfully recommended to the favourable ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... this section, and by following a splendid road could have reached Rowsley Station, with its quaint inn, near Chatsworth House and Haddon Hall. No one who makes any pretense of seeing England will miss either of these places. Haddon Hall is said to be the most perfect of the baronial mansion houses now to be found in England. It is situated in a wonderfully picturesque position, on a rocky bluff overlooking the River Wye. The manor was originally given by the Conqueror to Peveril ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... very great injury to myself; as I am bound by natural law and right to choose the least of two evils, I have complete right to break my compact, and act as if my promise had never been uttered. (36) I say that I should have perfect natural right to do so, whether I was actuated by true and evident reason, or whether I was actuated by mere opinion in thinking I had promised rashly; whether my reasons were true or false, I should be in fear of a greater evil, which, ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza

... nine, ten stones, and then I could see just the faintest outlines of a man's face. He went on till he got up to about the twentieth stone, and I could see the impression of a face, but he said it was not very correct yet. Well, he went on till he got up, I think, to the twenty-eighth stone, and a perfect face appeared, and it looked as if all it had to do was to speak and it would be human. If you read a chapter of the Bible and don't see anything in it, read it a second time, and if you cannot see ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody

... minutely, that he had rather passed that particular bridesmaid over with scant attention, amazing as it now seemed. Then he recovered himself, and with that gallant movement of the arm which seems the perfect expression of deference, removed his soft cap and bowed low, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... Captain Cluffe contrived to seat himself beside Aunt Becky, to whom the rogue commended himself by making a corner on his chair, next hers, for that odious greedy little brute 'Fancy,' and by a hundred other adroit and amiable attentions. And having a perfect acquaintance with all her weak points—as everybody had who lived long in Chapelizod—he had no difficulty in finding topics to interest her, and in conversing acceptably thereupon. And, indeed, whenever he was mentioned for some time ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... like. But you must really, though we're having such a decent month, get straight away." In pursuance of which, when she had replied with promptitude that her departure—for the Tyrol and then for Venice—was quite fixed for the fourteenth, he took her up with alacrity. "For Venice? That's perfect, for we shall meet there. I've a dream of it for October, when I'm hoping for three weeks off; three weeks during which, if I can get them clear, my niece, a young person who has quite the whip hand of me, is to take me where she prefers. ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... be given in the seventh column for each misplay which allows the striker or base runner to make one or more bases when perfect play would have insured his being put out, except that "wild pitches," "bases on balls," "bases on the batsman being struck by a pitched ball," or case of illegal pitched ball, balks and passed balls, shall not be included in said column. In scoring ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick

... to them. The fishers whom I saw were fine able fellows; and with their large ships and courageous struggles with the whales they must seem terrible men of the sea to the natives. The neat trim of their boats set up on stanchions on the beach looked well, with oars and in perfect readiness to dash at the moment's notice into the angry surge. Upon the whole, what with the perils they undergo and their incessant labour in boiling the oil, these men do not earn too cheaply the profits derived from that kind ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... had parted with mutual Protestations, I felt the desire that every engaged person of the Femanine Sex always feels, to apear perfect to the one she is engaged to. I therfore considered whether to ask Smith to teach me to drive one of our cars or to purchace one of my own, and be responsable to no one if muddy, or arrested for speeding, or ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... to his character, so that his most luxurious friends found something in the tiny rooms which made them discontented with their own sumptuous mansions. Even the attic, which had been converted into my bedroom, was the most perfect little bijou attic that could possibly be imagined. Beautiful and valuable knick-knacks filled every corner of every apartment, and the house had become a perfect miniature museum which would have delighted a virtuoso. My ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... amicably, without angering any one. They do what they can not to annoy the neighborhood. The combatants of the Bourg-Labbe barricades are ankle-deep in mud on account of the rain. It is a perfect sewer. They hesitate to ask for a truss of straw. They lie down in the water or ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... matter of ceremony, and forced to attend these entertainments, not caring about the blandishments of any of the ladies present, looked on at their ogling and dancing with a countenance as glum as an undertaker's, and was a perfect wet-blanket in the midst of the festivities. His favorite resort and conversation were with a remarkably austere hermit, who lived in the neighborhood of Chalus, and with whom Ivanhoe loved to talk ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... sail, and so much damage had been done to her planks and timbers by worms, that she was good for nothing. The spars, sails, and rigging were sold; but the hull, which soon filled with water, remained for years, admired by every genuine sailor as the most perfect model of a fast-sailing vessel that could be devised by the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... them with credit to carry on their operations. Indeed, many of the great mergers or combinations in business were initiated by magnates in the banking world with millions and billions under their control. Through their connections with one another, the banks formed a perfect network of agencies gathering up the pennies and dollars of the masses as well as the thousands of the rich and pouring them all into the channels of business and manufacturing. In this growth of banking on a national scale, it was inevitable that a few great centers, like Wall Street in ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... process by which the love of friends, children and parents and country may be gradually developed through the association of our pleasures with the fellow-creatures who caused them. J. S. Mill regards his exposition as 'almost perfect,'[607] and says that it shows how the 'acquired sentiments'—the moral sentiments and so forth—may be gradually developed; may become 'more intense and powerful than any of the elements out of which they may have been formed, and ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... perfect Soudan atmosphere to-day. The heavens were surcharged with clouds, and when the sun appeared through them for a few minutes, it was burning, scorching hot. The abundance of herbage and trees in Wady Jeenanee combined ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... known any marvel to compare with the marvel and the beauty of the love between Ralph Kenzie, the castaway, and my sweet daughter, Suzanne. It was of heaven, not of earth; or, rather, like everything that is perfect, it partook both of earth and heaven. Yes, yes, it wandered up the mountain paths of earth to the pure heights of heaven, where ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... of happiness, is full to the brim, as Henry Cabot Lodge's was,—whether because you are compared to a lord or because other people, lesser than Senators, are put into their proper inferior place. Mr. Lodge is the perfect flower of the Senate. It is a flower that does not bloom in a night. It ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... us the most complete and most tragic history of shyness which belongs to "that long rosary on which the blushes of a life are strung," found a woman (the most perfect character, apparently, who ever married and made happy a great genius) who, fortunately for him, was shy naturally, although without that morbid shyness which accompanied him through life. Those who knew Mrs. Hawthorne ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... before God of prolonging this war. There are the Irish Nationalists. Let me read to you words which I heard with the greatest pain in the last session of Parliament from the leader of the Irish Nationalists, a man of consummate eloquence and perfect self-control. What did Mr. John Redmond say? He prayed God that the resistance of the Boers might be strengthened, and that South Africa might take vengeance for its wrongs by separating itself from the Empire which had deluged it with blood, and become a free and independent nation. We in England ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... blood, or both, seems a crude way of saying that he found them employment. Nobody says that Johnson "sweated" the persons who helped him in compiling his Dictionary; or that Mr. Jowett "sweated" the friends and pupils who aided him in his translation of Plato. Authors have a perfect right to procure literary assistance, especially in learned books, if they pay for it, and acknowledge their debt to their allies. On the second point, Smollett was probably not in advance ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... perfect, therefore nothing else existed. The world was a world of servants whom one civilly ignored. Wherever they went, they were the sensuous aristocrats, warm, bright, glancing with pure ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... involving great perplexity, but also from the fraud of an old and trusted clerk. Her husband had several small strokes of paralysis, and for two and a half years before his death probably had not his mind always perfect. He delegated many confidential writings and documents to the clerk, who with his wife was much respected by the whole family. After his death his accounts were inexplicable. Three of his sons worked hard ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... to tell on both sides, though her life had been comparatively uneventful. He related incidents of his wilder experiences far away from civilization that he had grown to enjoy in its perfect freedom that often lapped over into lawlessness. And he ate until squirrel, fish, and the cakes, both of rye and corn, had disappeared. The slave boys ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... face and physique superb. Of what color were the hair and eyes the neutral tints of the picture gave no hint; the brow princely, breaking the perfect oval of the face; eyes piercing and full; the features rounded, yet clearly cut; the mouth with a curious combination of sadness and disdain. The face was not young, yet it was so instinct with magnificent vitality that even the picture impressed one more powerfully ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... it off to the hut, probably with his father as an abettor, in what could only have been meant for a loan; and he had followed the boy in, and possibly with his assistance put on the clothes, which fitted him fairly well; but his appearance was not perfect. ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... moons hence, to use the language of our story-teller, if she continues as elusive as the wind. I have had glimpses of her, or rather of the flutter of her vanishing raiment. A being with a wonderfully perfect face, clothed in heterogeneous and many-coloured garments, and educated on the amazing fictions with which her foster-father's memory seems to be stored, would ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... around listening, you'd change your mind. Bud Birnie, you are the SIMPLEST creature! You think, because a woman doesn't make a fuss over things, she doesn't mind. Your mother told me that it was a perfect nightmare. She taught you music just in the hope that you'd go back to civilization and live there where there are some modern improvements, and she could visit you! And here you are—all rapped up in a bunch of young stock, ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... main question now arises:—In what respect does the Ark of the Covenant here come into consideration? The answer is suggested by ver. 17. The Ark of the Covenant is no more remembered, because Jerusalem has now, in a perfect sense, become the throne of God. The Ark of the Covenant comes into consideration, therefore, as the throne of God, in an imperfect sense. It can easily be proved that it was so, although there have been disputes as to the manner in which it was so. The current view was this, that God, as the Covenant ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... eleven, were rather amateurish. But the three business partners considered the labels admirable works of art, and pasted them on the bottles with undisguised pride. Though pennyroyal was spelled with one n, they didn't notice it, and the finished wares seemed to them a perfect result ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells

... earth of that dear head Alive, which now long since untimely dead The wan grey waters covered for a pall. Their trustless reaches dense with tangling stems Took never life more taintless of rebuke, More pure and perfect, more serene and kind, Than when those clear eyes closed beneath the Thames, And made the now more hallowed name of Luke Memorial to us of morning ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... have a crow to pick with you, madam,' said the lover, made bolder by the perfect freedom of the girl's demeanour. 'I don't like second-hand messages. You might at least have sent me a nice little note by the hand ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... of Beaufort, a very perfect and beautiful haven, if it had a greater depth of water, the schooners hove-to, in waiting for the tide to rise a little; and Roswell Gardiner took that occasion to go on board the sister craft, and express to Daggett a sense of the obligations he felt for the services ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... of Arthur Singleton, whom some one had called an international bore. The young man's dignity was only an expression of self-respect; his appreciation of the exact proprieties resulting from this casual introduction to herself and her brother was perfect. He was already withdrawing. A waiter had followed him with his discarded newspaper—and Armitage took it and idly dropped it on ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... corn, beans, onions and a few other vegetables were raised, but families subsisted, for the most part, on game with which the forests abound, and the lakes and rivers were alive with fish. Wild geese, ducks, turkeys, quail and pigeons swept through the air with perfect freedom. Deer, antelope, moose, beaver, wolves, catamount and even grizzly bear often visited the scene of the settler's home, among whom was ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... equivalents of neutral tartrate of lime. [Footnote: The following is a curious consequence of these numbers and of the nature of the products of this fermentation. The carbonic acid liberated being quite pure, especially when the liquid has been boiled to expel all air from the flask, and capable of perfect solution, it follows that the volume of liquid being sufficient and the weight of tartrate suitably chosen—we may set aside tartrate of lime in an insoluble, crystalline powder, alone with phosphates at the bottom of a closed vessel full of water, and find soon afterwards in their place carbonate ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... of the group of British officers was heard calling, as if to the ground before him, "Up, Guards, and at them!" It was the Duke who gave the order; and at the words, as if by magic, up started before them a line of the British Guards four deep, and in the most compact and perfect order. They poured an instantaneous volley upon the head of the French column, by which no less than three hundred of those chosen veterans are said to have fallen. The French officers rushed forwards; and, conspicuous in front of their men, attempted to deploy them into a more extended line, ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... him lie. Let him sleep it off. If he goes out it will be to a tavern and low company for the rest of the day. [Indulgently.] There! [She takes a pillow from the bed and puts it under his head: then turns to Edstaston: surveys him with perfect dignity: and asks, in her queenliest manner.] Varinka, ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw

... sidelong look at his companion, but the Doctor's air of perfect simplicity dispelled the suspicion his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... a distance saw—and perhaps marveled at the sight—that already, between these small boys, on the one part, and this old man, on the other, a perfect understanding appeared to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... wealth of arguments. With splendid, quiet and yet lively breadth flows the long conversation between Bulephorus, representing Erasmus's opinions, Hypologus, the interested inquirer, and Nosoponus, the zealous Ciceronian, who, to preserve a perfect purity of mind, ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... Brussels afoot. But it was no reconnaissance—it was Germany up and moving. We stayed in Louvain three days, and for three days we watched the streaming past of the biggest army we had ever seen, and the biggest army beleaguered Belgium had ever seen, and one of the biggest, most perfect armies the world has ever seen. We watched the gray-clad columns pass until the mind grew numb at the prospect of computing their number. To think of trying to count them was like trying to count the leaves on a tree or the pebbles on ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... other's tracks moved the ships under Kantos Kan, until at length they formed nearly a perfect circle. By this time they were moving at high speed so that they presented a difficult target for the enemy. Broadside after broadside they delivered as each vessel came in line with the ships of the therns. The latter attempted to rush in and break up the formation, but it was ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... metropolis like Alexandria, Augustus reorganized it in imitation of the capital of the Ptolemies. The fiscal reforms of the Caesars like the taxes on sales and inheritances, the register of land surveys and the direct collection of taxes, were suggested by the very perfect financial system of the Lagides,[5] and it can be maintained that their government was the first source from which those of modern Europe were derived, through the medium {5} of the Romans. The imperial ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... i.e. complete seeing or intuition; the same term which in other places—where it is not requisite to insist on the idea of 'seeing' in contradistinction from 'reflecting' or 'meditating'—is rendered by perfect knowledge.] ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut

... Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... appear to mirror the transition character of his age, when the personal life of the feelings, the subjective tendency, began to assert itself beside the Christian consciousness of the congregation. He may therefore be regarded as the last and the most perfect of those poets who were grounded in the ecclesiastico-confessional faith, and with him the line of the strict ecclesiastical poets closes. He may also be regarded as beginning the line of those in whose songs, praise and adoration of the revealed ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... the nature of God through the attribute of perfection. It owes the form in which it was accepted in the Middle Ages and Renaissance to St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury at the close of the eleventh century. He argued from the idea of a most perfect being to its existence, on the ground that non-existence, or existence only in idea, would contradict its perfection. It is evident that the force of this argument depends upon the necessity of the idea of God. The argument was accepted in Scholastic Philosophy[201:15] ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... perfect, yet it had an individual perfection of its own in Rhoda's eyes. The skin was smooth and white, the legs and hips firm and masculine. The chest was broad and Rhoda wanted to put her hands on it and feel John Dennis' hands ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman

... that Mr. John Rose, who was cast away on Sable Island about 1633, "saw about eight hundred cattle, small and great, all red, and the largest he ever saw: and many foxes, wherof some perfect black."—Whinthrop's Hist. New Eng., Boston, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain

... like here—everything but in my lessons I have perfect freedom to come or go and to join in and be one with the good people or not. I am not hampered. I go to church or not, as I desire, and I can do anything that does not violate the rules of good breeding; but ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... my head to propose this project to the persons in the Bastille, yet nothing but the perfect knowledge I had of their disposition and inclination could have persuaded me that it was practicable. And I confess, upon perusal of the plan prepared by M. de Cremail, a man of great experience and excellent sense, I was astonished to find a few ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... with a little inward sigh over the rigidity of Elizabeth's ideal of a perfect housekeeper; patted her hair hurriedly to make sure that it was neat, confirmed the pat by a glance in the ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards

... The running stream, where you can throw A blade to watch what comes to pass; Blue sky, and all the spring can show; Nature, serenely fair to see; The book of birds and spirits free, God's poem, worth much more than mine, Where flowers for perfect stanzas shine— Flowers that a child may pluck in play, No harsh voice frightening it away. And I'm alone—all pleasure o'er— Alone with pedant called "Ennui," For since the morning at my door Ennui has waited patiently. That docto-r-London born, you mark, One Sunday in December dark, Poor ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... life of them and their subiects to a most barbarous and cruell enemy, as we can no lesse do by the duty of a Christian prince. For now we do foresee, except other princes take this admonition, the Moscuite puffed vp in pride with those things that he brought to the Narue, and made more perfect in warlike affaires with engines of warre and shippes, will make assault this way on Christendome, to slay or make bound all that shall withstand him: which God defend. With which our admonition diuers princes already content themselues, and abstaine from the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt

... three days of the former year there were considerable falls of snow, which lay deep and uniform on the ground without any drifting, wrapping up the more humble vegetation in perfect security. From the first day to the fifth of the new year more snow succeeded; but from that day the air became entirely clear; and the heat of the sun about noon had a considerable influence in ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... gazed at her, quite still. In her informal, bunchy painter's apron, and with her blue eyes looking out at him from beneath her loose red hair, it seemed to him she was the most perfect thing he had ever known. Such a keen, fixed, enthroned mind. She was so capable, so splendid, and, like his own, her eyes were unafraid. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... thousands of volumes not only of books, but of newspapers, periodicals, and pamphlets. In addition, every attempt has been made to obtain material which for various reasons was not obtained at the time of publication. While not by any means perfect, the New Zealand collection of the Library ...
— Report of the Chief Librarian - for the Year Ended 31 March 1958: Special Centennial Issue • J. O. Wilson and General Assembly Library (New Zealand)

... may pay too high a price even for organisation and efficiency; and, though it is natural that we should admire certain qualities which we do not possess, we ought not to overlook the fact that those methods which have produced the most perfect national organisation in the history of the world are also responsible for orgies of brutality without parallel among civilised peoples. That such warnings are needful cannot be doubted; but may it not be urged ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... good enough ontil mebby it's the eighth time I'm thar. I remembers the night all perfect. Me an' the girl sets up awhile, an' then I quits her an' turns in. I gets to sleep a-layin' along the aige of the bed, aimin' to keep 'way from the old man, who's snorln' an' thrashin' 'round an' takin' on over ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... with me. On nearer acquaintance, I was more galled by some portion of continental manners than I had been at first, so difficult is it for an American to correct his manner to our ideas of perfect good-breeding.[390] I did all that was right, however, and asked Miss Ferrier, whom he admires prodigiously, to meet him at dinner. Hither came also a young friend, so I have done the polite thing every way. Thomson ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... rule their comings and goings were discussed with perfect confidence, but on this occasion they both felt that there was intent in her silence as to her destination. Nevertheless Sydney, clumsily, but earnestly, had something to say ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... was the only son of a noted and very wealthy goldsmith at The Hague, who had sent him to study certain mysteries of the metal worker's art under a Leyden jeweller famous for the exquisite beauty of his designs. The dinner and the service were both of them perfect in style, but better than either proved the conversation, which was of a character that Dirk had never heard at the tables of his own class and people. Not that there was anything even broad about it, as might perhaps have been expected. No, it was the talk of highly accomplished and ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... 'Have you forgotten Mr. Austin, papa? It is Nevil's perfect truthfulness that makes him appear worse to you than men who are timeservers. Too many time-servers rot the State, Mr. Austin said. Nevil is not one of them. I am not able to judge or speculate whether he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... rights?—only the obligation to go on, without discharge or furlough, bearing the unbearable? Ich trage unertraegliches, the quotation rose in his mind; he repeated the whole piece, one of the most perfect of the most perfect of poets; and a phrase struck him like a blow: Du, stolzes Herz, du hast es ja gewollt. Where was the pride of his heart? And he raged against himself, as a man bites on a sore tooth, in a heady sensuality ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... for cider making in the Hoosatonic Valley in early November would seem harmless enough, but from it dated our own determination to cease to be city dwellers. It must be admitted that the stage-setting was perfect. A twenty-mile ride on the evening of our arrival through the sharp clear air with a full harvest moon hanging high in the heavens, while along the way lights twinkled hospitably from the farmhouses that dotted the countryside. ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... petition, for secrecy was weighing heavily on her heart and soul. She waited two days before answering that letter. She said to herself that she ought to be very pleased to receive it, and that she was pleased; yet something weighed on her mind and shadowed the perfect happiness ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme

... this or that passage; how to make a greater climax here, or more sympathetic coloring there. For in conceiving how a work should sound, I get—in my study of it—a general idea of the whole, and make it as nearly perfect as I am able. But it has to be tested and tried—an audience must pass its opinion—must set the seal of approval upon it. When the work has been polished by repeated trials in this school, interpretation then becomes crystallized in the mind and the piece can always be given in nearly ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... say to my students, make haste slowly. Do not try to rush development too rapidly. Perfect and develop yourself in one line of psychic power, before seeking another. Take things cooly, and do not lose your head because you happen to achieve some wonderful phenomena. Do not become conceited and vain-glorious. And, finally, do not prostitute your powers to ignoble ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... Achilles would not permit him to be an actor in the field, yet his love of war inclines him to be a spectator. As the poet did not intend to draw the character of a perfect man in Achilles, he makes him delighted with the destruction of the Greeks, because it gratified his revenge. That resentment which is the subject of the poem, still presides over every other feeling, even the love of his country. He begins now to pity his countrymen, yet he seems gratified ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... we are at the Castle Hill—and that idiot Aunt Fulda has forgotten her carriage. Shall I remind her? There is still time to turn back. No, don't trouble yourself. 'Let them alone and they'll come home.' I wish I had no memory. It is a perfect nuisance to have to think in inverted commas all the time. And Shakespeare is the greatest bore of all. The whole of life could be set to his expressions—that cannot be quite right; what I mean is the whole of life could be expressed in his words. Diavolo ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... him the promise?" John Gordon fancied that since he had been at Croker's Hall words had been spoken, or that he had seen signs, indicating that the engagement had not been of a long date. And in every word that she had uttered to him he had heard whispered under her breath an assurance of her perfect love for himself. He had been sure of her love when he had left the house at Norwich, in which he had been told that he had been lingering there to no good purpose; but he had never been more certain than he was at this moment, when she coldly ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... our order, the estimation of it nevertheless should not be abated, nor the honour made cheap; and it may easily happen that more may merit it; for there is no virtue that so easily spreads as that of military valour. There is another virtue, true, perfect, and philosophical, of which I do not speak, and only make use of the word in our common acceptation, much greater than this and more full, which is a force and assurance of the soul, equally despising all sorts of adverse accidents, equable, uniform, and constant, of which ours is no more ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... thing is not proved false by mathematical demonstration, I may still continue to take it for a divine revelation, and to listen respectfully when experienced statesmen and learned professors assure me with perfect gravity that they can believe in Noah's flood or in the swine of Gadara. They have an unquestionable right to believe if they please: and they expect me to accept the facts for the sake of the doctrine. There, unluckily, I have a similar difficulty. It is the orthodox who are the systematic ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen

... wood and we were out the other side, hounds hunting perfectly and the fox still going absolutely straight. It began to dawn on me then that we were in for a great hunt, I took a deep breath when I thought of it; the taste of the air of that perfect Spring afternoon as it came to one galloping, and the thought of a great run, were together like some old rare wine. Our faces now were to another valley, large fields led down to it, with easy hedges, at the bottom of ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany

... effects that he had obtained from water, but he found that the lines of force were no longer the same, and that the phenomena were modified. It is necessary, then, to hold as much as possible to liquids that are perfect. The experimenter is at present endeavoring to use these liquids by employing cylinders having a fluted surface; but it is clear that this, too, is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various

... Soup Face. It was a strained smile which twisted the rather too perfect mouth of The Oskaloosa Kid, an appellation which we must, perforce, accept since the youth ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... in me is creative. Its creations are a pastime, through which it gives expression to an ideal of unity in its endless show of variety. Such are its pictures, poems, music, in which it finds joy only because they reveal the perfect forms of ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... which he had mastered so thoroughly. He demonstrated by copious historical proofs and masterly logic that the fathers who created the Constitution in order to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, and to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity, intended to empower the Federal Government to exclude slavery from the Territories. In the kindliest spirit he protested against the avowed threat of the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... from the most perfect specimens of Phoenician town-walls that are still fairly traceable, as those of Eryx and Lixus,[652] we may lay it down, that such walls were usually flanked, at irregular intervals, by square or rectangular towers, which ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... knew the bliss of a perfect waltz, we would be crowded out, Miss Dexie. I begin to think I never waltzed before; your step is perfect—what, you are not tired?" as Dexie stopped and led the way back to ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... to meals. To this the girl replied that she would trouble her little, she was sure: she was convinced she should prove a wretched sailor and spend the voyage on her back. Her mother scoffed at this picture, prophesying perfect weather and a lovely time, and I interposed to the effect that if I might be trusted, as a tame bachelor fairly sea- seasoned, I should be delighted to give the new member of our party an arm or any other countenance whenever she should require it. Both the ladies thanked me for this—taking ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James

... the moment I expected all my toils to end, was I plunged, as I supposed, in a new slavery; in comparison of which all my service hitherto had been 'perfect freedom;' and whose horrors, always present to my mind, now rushed on it with tenfold aggravation. I wept very bitterly for some time: and began to think that I must have done something to displease the Lord, that he thus punished me so severely. ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano

... dragged down every few seconds by the receding waves, an unbroken silence seemed to prevail. He struck a match and looked at his watch. It was exactly three o'clock. He got out of bed. He was a man in perfect health, ignorant of the meaning of nerves, a man of proved courage. Yet he was conscious that his pulses were beating with absurd rapidity. A new feeling seemed to possess him. He could almost have declared that he was afraid. What sound had awakened him? He had no idea, yet he seemed to have a ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... is that electors should have perfect freedom to vote exactly as they please, and yet Professor Nanson, in condemning Mr. Hare's original scheme, has denied that they are free to vote as faddists; but he still holds that they are free to vote on any ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth

... history falls before his eyes like a painted curtain. All the inner nature of life is revealed to him, and he sees into the heart of things as did Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane—Christ, that most perfect symbol of the denial of the will to live; and, like Christ, he cries that the world ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... his doily, is the mate of the ship, Mr. Stewart. You would hardly suppose him to be a sailor at the first glance; and yet he is a perfect specimen of what an officer in the merchant service should be, notwithstanding his fashionably-cut broadcloth coat, white vest, black gaiter-pants, and jeweled fingers. He is dressed for the theatre. Mr. Stewart is a graduate of Harvard, and at first went to sea to recover ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... to art and artists produces in these people an inexpressible mawkishness; it is distressing to have to do with them and to talk to them; they are perfect logs smeared with honey. They never, for instance, call Raphael, Raphael, or Correggio, Correggio; 'the divine Sanzio, the incomparable di Allegri,' they murmur, and always with the broadest vowels. Every pretentious, conceited, home-bred mediocrity they hail as a genius: 'the ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... his own ransom, his brother's debts, and half the price for his promotion, George calculated that no inconsiderable portion of his private patrimony would be swallowed up: nevertheless he made the sacrifice with a perfect good heart. His good mother always enjoined him in her letters to remember who his grandfather was, and to support the dignity of his family accordingly. She gave him various commissions to purchase goods in England, and though she as yet had sent him very trifling remittances, she alluded ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... should the landlord insist on demanding it. Even should the house be burnt, blown, or fall down, the tenant is still liable for rent; and the tenancy can only be voidable by the proper notice to quit, the same as if the house remained in the most perfect condition. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... by his employers, Hastings remained at the head of the Government of Bengal till the spring of 1785. His administration, so eventful and stormy, closed in almost perfect quiet. In the Council there was no regular opposition to his measures. Peace was restored to India. The Mahratta war had ceased. Hyder was no more. A treaty had been concluded with his son, Tippoo; and the Carnatic had ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the College Mazarin, thoroughly accomplished in the art of teaching, saturated with Greek, Latin, and literature, considered himself a perfect well of science: he had no conception that a man who knew all Persius and Horace by heart could possibly commit an error—above all, an error at table. But it was not long before he discovered his mistake. One day, after dining with the Abbe de Radonvilliers at Versailles, in company ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells

... a few miners resting from toil. One of these, as he stands leaning his folded arms on a jutting rock, upon which he has placed his candle, elicits our spontaneous admiration. His beauty is Apollo-like,—every chiselled feature perfect in its classic regularity; his eyes sad, slumberous, and yet deep and glowing, are quite enough for any susceptible maiden's heart; about a broad expanse of forehead cluster thick masses of dark brown hair; his shirt, open at the throat, reveals glimpses of ivory; altogether ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... then, in perfect German, he whispered a question. Always he received a reply. And stowed it away in his tenacious memory for ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... down again, and agreed with Mrs. Bell that they were having lovely weather, especially when they remembered what a disagreeable fall it had been last year; certainly this October had been just about perfect. The ladies used these superlatives in the tone of mild defiance that almost any statement of fact has upon feminine lips in America. It did not seem to matter that their ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... interest attaching to unfinished poems, interrupted by the jailer's call or by the stern voice of the executioner. Then they will study it in all its details, in order to appreciate its beauties; and that appreciation will be the more perfect in proportion as a man is the more fully penetrated with its dominant idea, and with the attendant circumstances that bring this home to him. It is not against an abstract enemy that the intercession of the celestial powers is here invoked: ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... I am speaking less of this one case, than of the daily course of future action. Is not perfect frankness, as well as perfect truth, best? And if I call for your sympathy in all manner of small and great things, will you ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... thou dost sing, and I am lost in thee As one who drowns In floods of melody. Still in thy art Give me this part, Till perfect love, the love of ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... up at six, and at a quarter to seven was at work in the garage. He spent a large part of the morning in trying to prove to a customer that even a Teal car, best at the test, would not give perfect service if the customer persisted in forgetting to fill the oil-well, ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... that virtue is the great essential of a free people, and doubtless you Leaplowers are perfect models in ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... she was a graceful and pleasing sight. The long, low, black hull exhibited curves as perfect as the flowing sweep of a rainbow. The tall mast, the tapering tracery of spars, the snowy canvas and the general trim and orderly air maintained, were all ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown

... would like that silver shrine! and it is an extremely rare and perfect specimen. But you need not be afraid in handling it; if the little bit of spar does come off it, or out ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin

... sky, the flying cloud-shadows, the Laramie range with its torn outlines softened by distance, which looked so near, yet was so far. Constantly we said, "How like to Arabia or Palestine!" We only asked for camels to make the resemblance perfect. The gray sage-brush tinted the long low solemn hills like the olives of Judaea; the distant bluffs looked like ruined cities; the mirage was our Dead Sea. The cattle-and sheep-farmers follow the same business as Abraham and Isaac, and are as sharp in their dealings as Jacob of old. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... wisdom, Mr. Blyth frowned and shook his head suspiciously, while he listened to the curious narrative now addressed to him. As soon as it was concluded, he expressed the most decided disapprobation of the careless readiness with which Zack had allowed a perfect stranger to become intimate with him—reminding him that he had met his new acquaintance (of whom, by his own confession, he knew next to nothing) in a very disreputable place—and concluded by earnestly recommending him to break off all connection with so ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... of the Piazzetta consists of the quiet and beautiful facade of Sansovino's Old Library. To see it properly one should sit down at ease under the Doge's arcade or mount to the quadriga gallery of S. Mark's. Its proportions seem to me perfect, but Baedeker's description of it as the most magnificent secular edifice in Italy seems odd with the Ducal Palace so near. They do not, however, conflict, for the Ducal Palace is so gay and light, and this so serious and ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... down on the heads of your grenadiers, and near about high enough to wade across Charlestown River, and as strong as a towboat. I guess he was somewhat less than a foot longer than the moral law and catechism too. He was a perfect pictur' of a man; you couldn't falt him in no particular; he was so just a made critter; folks used to run to the winder when he passed, and say 'There goes Washington Banks, bean't he lovely?' I do believe there wasn't a gal in the Lowell factories, that warn't ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... than usual, continuing so for twenty days together: during which time, we were driven a little to the east of the Molucca Islands, and about three degrees northward of the line, as our captain found by an observation he took the 2nd of May, at which time the wind ceased, and it was a perfect calm, whereat I was not a little rejoiced. But he, being a man well experienced in the navigation of those seas, bid us all prepare against a storm, which accordingly happened the day following: for the southern wind, called the southern monsoon, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... Listen. Jose, we have in our power the worst of our country's enemies. Jose, he is a fiend, a perfect devil. He has ruined nearly every plan I tried. Do you know if it had not been for him—yes, for him—I should have stabbed ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair

... way I like to hear a young man talk. It was the modern expression of the perfect gentle knight. In so far as went his heart's intention and his soul's strength to assure it, I had no fear for Betty's happiness. He gave it to her fully into her own hands; whether she would throw it away or otherwise misuse it was ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... granting what is not the fact that the authority of the father is absolute, unlimited, it cannot be the ground of the right of society to govern. Assume the parental right to be perfect and inseparable from the parental relation, it is no right to govern where no such relation exists. Nothing true, real, solid in government can be founded on what Carlyle calls a "sham." The statesman, ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... would any day give up a dinner at Francatelli's for the sake of hearing a rejuvenescent Persiani as Zerlina, or Patti as Dinorah, the one thing presumable is, that all such persons derive more enjoyment from perfect melody than from perfect cookery, and little else remains to be said on the subject. The same ultimate fact need not, however, limit our inquiry as to the preferableness of imaginative or intellectual to ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... those aspirations. The preamble was therefore always the rallying point of those who wished to see America one nation. Its operative clause ran: "We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, ... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." That such language was a strong point in favour of the Federalist interpreters of the Constitution was afterwards implicitly admitted by the extreme exponents of State Sovereignty themselves, for when they ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... created by enchantment. Nothing so beautiful could be real. Take the west coast of Scotland, bathe it in Mediterranean light and sun, and let its waves be those of the Pacific. Take the best of Devonshire, enlarge the hills, extend the plains, and dominate all with the only perfect mountain in the world—a mountain that catches at your breath like a masterpiece of art. Make the copses woods, and the woods forests. For our fields with their hedgerows substitute the vivid green of rice, shining across the gleam of flooded plains. ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... heart throbbed anxiously, as she told herself that she had done little to smooth his rugged pathway. The vague feeling, that he had not been entirely to blame, if she had not found perfect happiness by his side, alarmed her. Did not her former conduct justify him in expecting hindrance rather than support and help in impending days of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the cash-desk, sat in the dining-room, for company's sake, fixing up accounts as though the last day of reckoning had come...as it had. Her hair, with its little curls, was still in perfect order. She had two dabs of color on her cheeks, as usual, but underneath a waxen pallor. She was working out accounts with a young officer, who smoked innumerable cigarettes to steady his nerves. "Von ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... biography grew into the massive History of Friedrich II. (1858-1865), which includes a survey of European history in that dreary century which preceded the French Revolution. "Friedrich is by no means one of the perfect demigods." He is "to the last a questionable hero." However, "in his way he is a Reality," one feels "that he always means what he speaks; grounds his actions, too, on what he recognizes for the truth; and, in short, ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... cheerful heart. Your sad, or morose, or embittered, or preoccupied heart settles heavily into the saddle, and the poor beast, the body, breaks down the first mile. Indeed, the heaviest thing in the world is a heavy heart. Next to that, the most burdensome to the walker is a heart not in perfect sympathy and accord with the body,—a reluctant or unwilling heart. The horse and rider must not only both be willing to go the same way, but the rider must lead the way and infuse his own lightness and eagerness ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... friendship, however deep, does not render a woman wretched. This attachment not only shaped and colored the remainder of Madame Recamier's life, but it threatened at one time to completely subvert all other interests. She who was so equable, such a perfect mistress of herself, so careful to give every one due meed of attention, became fitful and indifferent. Her friends saw the change with alarm, and Montmorency remonstrated bitterly with her. "I was extremely troubled and ashamed," he writes, "at the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... rate, a relation of perfect equality. It cannot well spare any outward sign of equal obligation and advantage. The nobleman can never have a Friend among his retainers, nor the king among his subjects. Not that the parties to it are in all ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... again and found an outlet to the southward, but found the ground rise in that direction; observed a slight hollow to the west, for which we steered, but found it terminate on the sandy plain, and the country became a perfect desert of red sand, with scattered tufts of triodia and a few bushes of eucalypti and acacia. At noon, finding it hopeless to proceed further into the desert, we turned our steps to the north-north-east, and returned to ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... wrote lushy "poetry" for the journal, about his newest conquest. His rhymes for my week were headed, "To MARY IN H—l," meaning to Mary in Hannibal, of course. But while setting up the piece I was suddenly riven from head to heel by what I regarded as a perfect thunderbolt of humor, and I compressed it into a snappy footnote at the bottom—thus: "We will let this thing pass, just this once; but we wish Mr. J. Gordon Runnels to understand distinctly that we have a character to sustain, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... rewards was that which he gave to those who made no mistake in their lessons. He marked a large O with chalk on the hand of the perfect scholar. Fancy what a time the boys and girls must have had, trying to go home without ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston

... situated toward Fra Angelico, enough of whose works have come down to us to reveal not only his quality as an artist, but his character as a man. Perfect certainty of purpose, utter devotion to his task, a sacramental earnestness in performing it, are what the quantity and quality of his work together proclaim. It is true that Giotto's profound feeling for either the materially or the spiritually ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... the Padmini, the perfect woman, the "lotus woman," Hindu writers say that "her sweat has the odor of musk," while the vulgar woman, they say, smells of fish (Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana). Ploss and Bartels (Das Weib, 1901, p. 218) bring forward a passage from the Tamil Kokkogam, minutely describing various kinds of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... obeyed. The doors were opened. The mob rushed in. Nevertheless, contrary to all expectation, they had no sooner reached the royal apartment than their leaders, remembering that their king was sleeping, desired the untimely visitors to proceed in perfect quiet. As the human tide moved onward, their very breathing was suppressed. They trod the floor with softest footsteps. The same tumultuous multitude that had howled, and yelled, and threatened outside the gates, now, in the chamber of the sovereign, ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... moved her head they would fall. I thought it was the best fun in the world, and I wished Uncle Jack to ride the donkey; I was sure he could keep on, because his horse had capered about with him one day on Beacon Street, and I thought him a perfect rider, since nothing had happened ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... nevaire starve heem. He have all he need. You gif heem too much he git ze colic—he git ze cramp. You make heem sick. You know how to feed ze big boys to make zem strong and well, but you know not how to feed ze baby. You leave it to Lizette. She takes ze perfect care ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... chest—thrown forward in proportion as the shoulders and arms are thrown back—is drawn without any exaggeration. The wrestlers of the Beni Hasan tombs, the dancers and servants of the Theban catacombs, attack, struggle, posture, and go about their work with perfect naturalness and ease (fig. 166). These, however, are exceptions. Tradition, as a rule, was stronger than nature, and to the end of the chapter, the Egyptian masters continued to deform the human figure. Their men and women are actual monsters from the point ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... about and behave like an ordinary sage, but yet he is emancipated and can no longer acquire any new karma. As soon as the fruits due to his ripe karmas are enjoyed and exhausted, the sage loses his body and there will never be any other birth for him, for the dawn of perfect knowledge has burnt up for him all budding karmas of beginningless previous lives, and he is no longer subject ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... his back yard to re-enact what had taken place. He described the lights as being the same dull, glowing bluish- green color as those seen by the professors. The formation was different, however. The lights Hart saw were always flying in a perfect V. He traced the path from where they appeared over some trees in the north, through an open patch of sky over the back yard, to a point where they disappeared over the house. From the flight path he pointed out, the lights had crossed about 120 ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... her nerve came back, and as he drew near she saluted him civilly and with perfect calmness, put her horse into the same pace with his, and rode on for ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... The more perfect, therefore, the working of the personal factor, the greater will be the results developed from the Universal Law; and hence our lines of study should be two-fold—on the one hand the theoretical study of the action of Universal Law, and on the other the practical fitting ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... from a couch which at least demanded perfect physical health ere one could find rest on it, and, being fully dressed, went forth at once to drink the steaming hot coffee that filled the ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... readily understand, therefore, how intense must have been the expectation of the young man, as he sat in his solitary canoe, endeavoring to catch the smallest sound that might denote the course of things on shore. His training had been perfect, so far as theory could go, and his self-possession, notwithstanding the high excitement, that was the fruit of novelty, would have done credit to a veteran. The visible evidences of the existence of the camp, or of the fire could not be detected from the spot ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper



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