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Well-chosen   /wɛl-tʃˈoʊzən/   Listen
Well-chosen

adjective
1.
Well expressed and to the point.  Synonym: happy.  "A few well-chosen words"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Well-chosen" Quotes from Famous Books



... would not say that even this was well-chosen reading for me—here in my bush hermitage—any more than is that masterpiece of Kipling's later concentration, An Habitation Enforced, followed by ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... centre of the land surface of the whole earth. Hence the best zero point on earth for meridianal and latitudinal calculations. Central to clime—here is no rust, moss, nor frosts to destroy, nor earthquake—a well-chosen spot for such a pillar. 2. Its form and size—symbolising the earth quantity in its weight of five millions of tons—the freight of 1,250 of the largest steamers leaving New York. Its shape, or inclination from base to apex, the same ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... authorship and the strong words of commendation in the final sentence, it possesses slight interest as literary criticism. It is, in fact, little more than a brief summary of the poem, enriched by a few well-chosen illustrative extracts. The fact that Johnson contributed nine or ten lines to the poem (see Boswell, ed. Hill, I, p. 441, n. 1, and II, p. 6) may account partly for the character of the review. Johnson's quotations from the poem are not continuous and ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... Saints, a most virtuous homily!" said the Baron; "quaintly conceived and curiously pronounced, and to a well-chosen congregation. Hark ye, Sir Gospeller! trow ye to have a fool in hand? Know I not that your sect rose by bluff Harry Tudor, merely because ye aided him to change his Kate; and wherefore should I not use the same Christian liberty with mine? Tush, man! bless the good food, and meddle ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... Dibdin thus speaks of Archibald Alison: "The beautiful and melodious style of this writer, renders his works deserving of a conspicuous place in every well-chosen library." ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... order. Each feature is brought out, while, at the same time, exaggeration, that common error of the copyist, is avoided. The scrolls are well executed, both in point of finish and style; the sound-hole also is cut with precision. Many of his instruments have whole backs, of well-chosen material; the bellies are of a fine quality of wood. The instruments of Pique have long been esteemed, and ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... versifying—a smooth flow, a prompt fertility, a prodigal splendour of words and images. Old Chaucer, therefore, having passed through the hands of Dryden, is no longer old Chaucer—no longer Chaucer. But the well-chosen, and well-disposed, and well-told tale, full of masculine sense, lively with humour, made present with painting—for all this Chaucer brings to Dryden—becomes, by nothing more than the disantiquating and the different hand, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... which, together with the badness of the Malt of the same Year's growth, spoil'd great quantities of Drink about London; for even where the Water, the Malt, and the Brewer, and Cellars are good, a bad Hop will spoil all: So that every one of these Particulars should be well-chosen before the Brewing is set about, or else we must expect but a bad Account of our Labour. And so likewise the Yeast or Barm that you work your Drink with, must be well consider'd, or a good Brewing may be spoil'd by that alone; and be sure that be always provided before you begin ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley

... 3. Well-chosen books, not only sex-education books, but simple biologies and Nature books as well, open up ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various

... his salary had been raised. Now he could afford to buy another horse and keep a tum-tum; with a heavier purse he was able to send home some well-chosen and handsome presents—a China crepe shawl for Mrs. Malone, ivory carvings to the Tebbs, an Indian chuddah to his aunt and a heavy gold bangle for each of the girls. Unfortunately one gift to "Monte Carlo" had a dire and unexpected result—it brought him a deluge of letters ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... clear ideas are not to be obtained by means of processes the steps of which he is sure to forget before he has reached the conclusion, it is much better that he should turn to another method, and try to understand the subject by means of well-chosen illustrations derived from subjects with which ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell

... 'European History' is the best single-volume text-book in general European history by an American author. In style and illustration it is interesting; its well-chosen references contribute to develop the students' taste for historical reading; and its suggestive questions, etc., are ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... nothing, and Jake laughed. "Well, that's all right; I guess we'll hit it! And now we'll put out when you like. I laid in a pretty good breakfast on the boat; I like smart service and a well-chosen menu, and don't suppose you have either ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... to furnish them with one meal at least. While on their way through the woods, they came in sight of this same camp fire, which they approached and reconnoitered. The first figure they recognized was that of Colonel Butler, and next to him was Captain Bagley, his well-chosen assistant, besides which there were four Iroquois Indians, whose principal business seemed to be that of roasting a plump pig, which they had stolen from some settler ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... said before, was too powerful to be reduced for long to the second rank in a Mesopotamian empire: as soon as fate established the seat of empire in the districts bordering on the Euphrates and the middle course of the Tigris, its well-chosen situation, its size, its riches, the extent of its population, the number of its temples, and the beauty of its palaces, all conspired to make it the capital of the country. In vain Assur, Calah, or Nineveh thrust ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... destined to occupy so great a variety of dwellings in Scotland, was situated in Borrodale, a wild, mountainous tract of country, which forms a tongue of land between two bays. Borrodale, being difficult of access, was well-chosen as the landing-place of Charles; whilst around, in most directions, were ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... winter, he oppressed the imperial provinces by enormous contributions, and exhausted the Austrian territories by his winter quarters, which he purposely avoided taking up in an enemy's country. And in the spring of 1633, instead of being the first to open the campaign, with this well-chosen and well-appointed army, and to make a worthy display of his great abilities, he was the last who appeared in the field; and even then, it was an hereditary province of Austria, which he selected as ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

... not the only means of pleasing within the schoolmaster's reach: for he could flatter as well as if the souls of ten courtiers had transmigrated into his single body. He might not do it quite so gracefully as one of these, nor with phrases so well-chosen, or so correctly pronounced, but what he said was always cunningly adapted to the character of the person whom he desired to move. He had "a deal of candied courtesy," especially for the women; and though his sturdy manhood and the excellent opinion of ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... transpires that he is such a clever man, though nobody knew it, and then the heroine tells him she loves him, and he is so surprised, and oh, so happy! and everybody loves him and asks him to forgive them, which he does in a few well-chosen and sarcastic words, and blesses them; and he seems to have generally such a good time of it that all the young fellows who are not shy long to be shy. But the really shy man knows better. He knows that it is not quite so pleasant in reality. ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... debris heaps surrounding the city made excellent fortifications, and it was not surprising that the Boers put, and kept, on view the better part of their valour only, when from their own well-chosen positions they looked across at our clay Kopjes. To have attacked or taken Kimberley, they would have been obliged to traverse a flat, open country; and they have an intelligent antipathy to rash tactics ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... of unexampled splendour. There was a banquet (of course) and fireworks, and all the guns fired salutes and the soldiers presented arms, and the ladies presented bouquets. And at the end Mr. Noah, with a few well-chosen words which brought tears to all eyes, placed the gold crown of Polistarchia upon the brow of Philip, where its diamonds and rubies ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit

... to leave it all alone," he said after a while. "I don't want you to dissolve your partnership with him, or whatever you call it. I suppose he will guess that you know all about it, so perhaps it would be best if you told him straight out that you do. And then you can, well, make a few well-chosen remarks you know, and drop ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... by asking after you, and how you were, dearest, showing great interest in our domestic life. Then suddenly she said: 'But your book, let us talk about your book. How splendid! You kept me reading all night.' And she showered upon me well-chosen words of praise, quoted two or three lines with great appropriateness, and assured me that my old master was delighted; he had begged her to tell me so, in case he should not be able to tear ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... one of those thoroughly well-chosen dinners of few courses and faultless service suitable for card-players, who neither care to stuff themselves as a preliminary to a battle royal, nor to dawdle through courses, eliminating for themselves what ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... had been terrible dangers of shipwreck, and when on his side also there had been some little fears of a mishap. As regards her it has been told how near she went to throwing herself, with all her vast wealth, into the arms of a young man, whom no father, no guardian could have regarded as a well-chosen husband for any girl;—one who as yet had shown no good qualities, who had been a spendthrift, unprincipled, and debauched. Alas, she had loved him! It is possible that her love and her wealth might have turned ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... public, and of their ideas. This, at least, is how one explains to oneself various remarks in his prefaces, journals, and note-books. This may account for the moral allegories which too weirdly haunt some of his short, early pieces. Edgar Poe, in a passage full of very honest and well-chosen praise, found fault ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... many, painfully conscious of long arrears of unpaid rent—waxing a little bolder at the sound of his own voice and his well-chosen phrases, continues: ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... associated with the production of a dinner, I have had my eyes opened as to the complicated nature of the task, and the numerous strings which have to be pulled in order to ensure success," said the Colonel; "but, seeing that a dinner-party with well-chosen sympathetic guests and distinguished dishes represents one of the consummate triumphs of civilisation, there is no reason to wonder. To achieve a triumph of any sort ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters

... give him his hand over the river which has no bridge; and he was at the same time as troublesome to Samuel Rutherford, his minister and correspondent, as Greatheart's most troublesome pilgrim was to him. In two well-chosen words John Livingstone tells us the deep impression that the laird of Knockbrex made on the men of his day. With a quite Scriptural insight and terseness of expression, Livingstone simply says that Robert Gordon was the most 'single-hearted and painful' of all the ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte

... first authenticated fixed engagement dates from 1759, when, through the influence of Baron Furnberg, he was appointed Capellmeister to the Bohemian Count Morzin. This nobleman, whose country house was at Lukavec, near Pilsen, was a great lover of music, and maintained a small, well-chosen orchestra of some sixteen or eighteen performers. It was for him that Haydn wrote his first ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden

... Anthologies have been multiplied like all other books, and in the main they have done much good and no harm. The man who thinks he is a scholar or highly educated because he is familiar with what is collected in a well-chosen anthology, of course, errs grievously. Such familiarity no more makes one a master of literature than a perusal of a dictionary makes the reader a master of style. But as the latter pursuit can hardly fail to enlarge a man's vocabulary, so the former adds to his knowledge, increases his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... between that and New Orleans, was still held by the South; and command by Northern gunboats of the chief tributaries of the great river was also established. The Confederate armies in the West were left intact, though with some severe losses, and would be able before long to strike northward in a well-chosen direction; for all that these were great and permanent gains. Yet the North was not cheered. The great loss of life at Shiloh, the greatest battle in the war so far, created a horrible impression. Halleck, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... day, it is easy for me, lantern in hand, to watch my neighbour's various operations. She has taken up her abode, at a convenient height for observation, between a row of cypress-trees and a clump of laurels, near the entrance to an alley haunted by Moths. The spot appears well-chosen, for the Epeira does not change it throughout the season, though she renews her net ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... was talking about without the least embarrassment. Taylor was not a conversationalist, but on paper he could put his meaning so plainly that there could be no mistaking it. He knew how to express what he wanted to say in the fewest well-chosen words, but would not sacrifice meaning to the construction of high-sounding sentences. But with their opposite characteristics both were great and successful soldiers; both were true, patriotic and upright in all their dealings. Both were pleasant to serve under—Taylor was ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... head-dresses were set forth. On another lay garlands of French flowers bought for pretty Clara's own adornment. Several dainty ball-dresses, imported for the gay winter she had expected to pass, hung over chairs and couch, also a velvet mantle Mrs. Barlow wished to sell, while some old lace, well-chosen ribbons, and various elegant trifles gave color ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... details of her outfit. Let her conform in a general way to the instructions given above, always remembering that both Srinagar and Gulmarg are gay and festive places, where she will dine and dance, and have ample opportunity for displaying a well-chosen wardrobe. ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... much hospitality, gracious madam, I should be glad to do so," answered Lord Claud with a courtly bow; and in another minute his horse was being led away to the stables, and he was following the ladies into the house, speaking so many words of well-chosen admiration for the quaint old manor and the fine meadowland and timber trees about it, that Tom was prouder of his home than he had ever been before, and even of the mother and sister who dwelt there. For Lord Claud paid them as much attention, and gave them as courtly treatment, ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... ruffles and buckled shoes at dinner, affecting something of the abbe in his appearance. To such as associated the Catholic priest with coarse manners, vulgar expressions, or violent sentiments, Father Luke, with his low voice, his well-chosen words, and his universal moderation, was a standing rebuke; and many an English tourist who met him came away with the impression of the gross calumny that associated this man's order with underbred habits and disloyal ambitions. He spoke little, but he was an admirable listener, and there was ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... His ability as a lawyer and legislator, combined with his wit and keen sense of humor, enabled him to assume quite a commanding position in that body. When feeling ran high in debate, sometimes almost to the point of personal encounter, Senator Carter would appear, and by a few well-chosen words, voiced in his calm, quiet manner, throw oil upon the troubled waters, and peace ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... and though, as it seemed, compressed by thought, there was a pleasant twitch at their corners now and then. He was clothed throughout in a tight-fitting suit of corduroy, excellent in quality, not much worn, and well-chosen for its purpose, but deprived of its original colour by his trade. It showed to advantage the good shape of his figure. A certain well-to-do air about the man suggested that he was not poor for his degree. The natural query of an observer ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... of December 5 the British strengthened their line by abandoning certain untenable positions near Cambrai, falling back deliberately and successfully, unknown to the enemy, upon a well-chosen line which ruled out the dangerous salient made by Bourlon Wood. Here they prepared to maintain their hold upon the captured length of the Hindenburg line ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... followed seemed very long and uneventful. After Sister Madeline went away, my days settled themselves into the routine in which they continued to revolve for many months. I was as lonely as formerly, save for the companionship of well-chosen books, and for the direction of another mind, which I felt to be the truest support and guidance. I was taught to bend to my uncle's wishes, and to give up constant church-going, and visiting among the poor, which would ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris

... who have limited themselves to one side only—so technical and engrossing are the avocations of an English lawyer. The best, if not the only remedy for this evil, is, in the words of our author, the "study of well-chosen books." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... seat at the next public meeting of the section, applauded vigorously when the President referred to the need of more briskness in France and England and asked for a private interview after the meeting was over. In a few well-chosen words he offered his services to run messages over the frontier. Off his platform the President was quite a practical man and, though he didn't use these words, he indicated to my friend as follows: "If you are a genuine blackguard ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various

... companion so long that to send it from him would be almost as though he thrust forth herself while she held her deep eyes fixed upon him. But he told the story of the garret and the drunken painter, in well-chosen words. ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... style. However powerful, native, sympathetic to his hearers' mood or cogently provable by reference to new things may be a man's idea, he cannot persuade his fellowmen to it if he have not words that express it. And he will persuade them more and more in proportion as his words are well-chosen and in the right order, such order being determined by the genius of the language ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... be provided, where a small library of books bearing on the various phases of the subject may be kept, together with the Government Bulletins and some well-chosen periodicals and magazines. These may be selected from the Catalogue of Books which has been prepared by the ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education

... called forth, been unravelled and smoothed out. She might now form one of their party at the cottage, and by a careful avoidance on their part of all undue excitement, and the engaging her in cheerful and well-chosen subjects of conversation, the restored reason would become settled and strengthened, and she might return in a few weeks to her old home, and be able to bear by degrees the recurrence of old memories which old ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... obeyed. But brother and sister showed no signs of tiring of each other's company, while they displayed unmistakable signs of weariness with his. And three weeks later Mr. Letts, in a few well-chosen words, kindly ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs

... attached myself to M. de Malipiero, to whom I had been presented by the Curate Josello. M. de Malipiero was a senator, who was unwilling at seventy years of age to attend any more to State affairs, and enjoyed a happy, sumptuous life in his mansion, surrounded every evening by a well-chosen party of ladies who had all known how to make the best of their younger days, and of gentlemen who were always acquainted with the news of the town. He was a bachelor and wealthy, but, unfortunately, he had three or four ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... "the Sabbath." It was her half-holiday, however, for works of charity and mercy; and she would often bid him bring her any failing articles of his scanty wardrobe then, and say that she would mend them for him if he would read to her. Her taste was naturally fine, and trained by regular and well-chosen Sunday reading; and she had the tact to select for these occasions books that won the mind of the intellectual though uncultivated youth by their eloquence, until they won his heart by their holiness. Moreover, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... consideration that two are better than one (though this had its proper weight) to which Mr Square owed his success: the absence of Jones during his confinement was an unlucky circumstance; and in that interval some well-chosen presents from the philosopher so softened and unguarded the girl's heart, that a favourable opportunity became irresistible, and Square triumphed over the poor remains of virtue which subsisted in ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... the man of affairs and of the world in his faultless dinner clothes, while the air of power which emanated from him seemed to be something concrete—definite. In the pleasant voice and well-chosen words of one accustomed to thinking on his feet, he thanked the Boosters Club graciously for their hospitality and courtesies extended during his short stay in the town. Then, without further preliminaries, he went direct to the subject ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... not always the most accurate; but from this period the annals of the place are preserved, and at certain epochs it is far from unimportant in French history: as, when Talbot raised in 1442 the fortress called the Bastille, a defence so strong and in so well-chosen a situation, that even Vauban honored its memory by lamenting its destruction; when the inhabitants fought with the Flemings in the channel, in 1555; when Henry IVth, with an army of less than four thousand men, fled hither in 1589, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... were there nothing else but the letters thus written to them, those letters will render their names as known and famous as their own public actions could do. And besides this difference, these are not idle and empty letters, that contain nothing but a fine jingle of well-chosen words and delicate couched phrases, but rather replete and abounding with grand discourses of reason, by which a man may render himself not more eloquent, but more wise, and that instruct us not to speak, but to do well. Away with that eloquence that enchants us with itself, and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... over again they longed to give their sturdy, well-chosen little nags a touch with the heel to send them racing along through the dusty-looking sage-brush; but they had to be contented with plodding steadily along behind the train, save when Chris found that there was something he wanted to ask Griggs, who kept on ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... Commanding General of the Army Air Forces from the chief of ATIC had used the word "phenomena." History has shown that this was not a too well-chosen word. But on September 23, 1947, when the letter was written, ATICs intelligence specialists were confident that within a few months or a year they would have the answer to the question, "What are UFO's?" The question, "Do UFO's exist?" was never mentioned. The ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... Gunsight by storm. He had rewarded his friends and rebuked his enemies and all those who grind down the poor. He had humbled L. W. and driven McBain into hiding; and now this girl, this deaf, friendless typist, had snatched the cup from his lips. The neatly turned speech—the few well-chosen words in which he had intended to express his appreciation for her help—were effaced from his memory and in their place there came a doubt, a dim questioning of his own worth. What had he done, or neglected to do, that had taken that look from her eyes? He sank down in a chair ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... addressed General Gage at some length, somewhat to the surprise of Gage, who admitted in a few well-chosen words that the committee was right, and that if he had his way about it there should be no ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... sive Catalogus Librorum Bibliotheca Caroli Mauritii Le Tellier, Archiepiscopi Ducis Remensis. Parisiis, e Typographia Regia, 1693, fol. A finely engraved portrait of Tellier faces the title-page. This is a handsome volume, containing a numerous and well-chosen collection of books.——THUANUS. [DE THOU] Bibliothecae Thuanae Catalogus, Parisiis, 1679, 8vo. "Three particular reasons," says Baillet, "should induce us to get possession of this catalogue; first, the immortal glory acquired by De Thou in writing his history, and in forming the most perfect ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... this well-chosen plateau, the cable never lies at depths that could cause a break. The Nautilus followed it to its lowest reaches, located 4,431 meters down, and even there it rested without any stress or strain. Then we returned to the locality where ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... Holmes?" said he, speaking well-chosen English with a curious little mincing accent. "Pray take a cigarette. And you, sir? I can recommend them, for I have them especially prepared by Ionides of Alexandria. He sends me a thousand at a time, and I grieve ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... contributions on his friends for a library. A set of books from each would, he calculated, amply accomplish it, and already the intimation of his design had begun to "breathe a soul into the silent walls." [Footnote: Rogers.] The splendid and well-chosen library of Donington was, of course, not slow in furnishing its contingent; and little was it foreseen into what badges of penury these gifts of friendship would be ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... a denizen of this or the other world." But this only lasts a moment. Pim speaks. Brave man that he can. How his voice must have choked, as if he were in a dream. "I am Lieutenant Pim, late of 'Herald.' Captain Kellett is at Melville Island." Well-chosen words, Pim, to be sent in advance over the hundred yards of floe! Nothing about the "Resolute,"—that would have confused them. But "Pim," "Herald," and "Kellett" were among the last signs of England they had seen,—all this was intelligible. An excellent little speech, which ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... all round with a morally impassable wall? True, to others, we should seem to live a poorer life; they would see that our environment was circumscribed, and call us narrow because it was narrow. But, well-chosen, this limited life would be really the fullest life; it would be rich in the highest and worthiest, and poor in the smallest and basest correspondences. The well-defined spiritual life is not only the highest life, but it is also the most easily lived. The whole cross is more easily carried ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond

... sensuous mouth, and gleaming teeth all told of his African origin. His complexion was of a sickly, unhealthy yellow, and as his face was deeply pitted with small-pox, the general impression was so unfavourable as to be almost revolting. When he spoke, however, it was in a soft, melodious voice, and in well-chosen words, and he was evidently ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the nearest town and brought her books. Letters she avoided, and her family agreed to notify her at once of any real occasion for her presence. Even newspapers were shut out, and thus she began her new life. Her men shot birds and deer, and the lake gave her black bass, and with these and well-chosen canned vegetables and other stores she did well enough as to food. The changing seasons brought her strange varieties of flowers, and she and her friend took industriously to botany, and puzzled out their problems unaided save by books. Very soon rowing, fishing, ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... et seq.] Leopold's Mamma and certain of his Brothers,—of which, Colonel Prince Leopold, though not expressly mentioned in the Books, may very possibly have been permitted, for a day or two, to form part, for Mamma's behoof and his own; and may have made his casual observation, at some well-chosen moment, with the effect intended. In which case, Leopold was by no means futile, but proved, after all, to be the saving clause for ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... distance from the kennel precincts were waiting two small, smooth, white dogs, daughters of the adored companions of Christian's childhood, themselves scarcely less adored than were their parents. Seated, as was their practice, in a well-chosen position, that combined seclusion with a commanding view of the detested hounds, they had not ceased (as was also their practice) from loud and desolate barking, an exercise that in the case of Dooley, the younger and more highly-strung of the couple, was accustomed ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... 5 o'clock and seemed rather inclined to take up a high-handed attitude with me, until a few well-chosen words from her master quietened her down a little. She was not slow to show me in other ways that she regarded me as an intruder in the house, and if any one thing about me was more preferable than another ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh

... from a solitary bramble bush. Lessingham had thrown his cap onto the ground, and his wind-tossed hair and the unusual colour in his cheeks were both, in their way, becoming. His loose but well-fitting country clothes, his tie and soft collar, were all well-chosen and suitable. She admired his high forehead and his firm, rather proud mouth. His eyes as well as his tone were ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... I have just come home from the meeting. No one spoke but working men, gentlemen I should call them, in every sense of the term. Even I was perfectly astonished by the courtesy, the reverence to Maurice, who sat there like an Apollo, their eloquence, the brilliant, nervous, well-chosen language, the deep simple earnestness, the rightness and moderation of their thoughts. And these are the Chartists, these are the men who are called fools and knaves—who are refused the rights which are bestowed on every profligate fop.... ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, in Philadelphia, July, 1896, this child appeared, and in a well-chosen and distinct speech told the interesting story of her own progress. Miss Sarah Fuller, principal of the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, Boston, is credited with the history of Helen Keller, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... was a few well-chosen verses about Moses in the mount of vision and somehow seemed to have a strange quieting influence and carried a weight of reality read thus in the beginning of ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

... in the absence of their legitimate owners! How are we to account for the presence of book-plates—quite a pretty collection at times—on the shelves of men who possess no such toys of their own? When I was a girl I had access to a small and well-chosen library (not greatly exceeding Montaigne's fourscore volumes), each book enriched with an appropriate device of scaly dragon guarding the apples of Hesperides. Beneath the dragon was the motto (Johnsonian in form if not in substance), "Honour and Obligation demand the prompt ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... smoked the remains of his cigar, while renewing his apologies and explanations to his partner and soothing the ruffled Nutty with well-chosen condolences, he wondered idly what Claire ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse

... the girl to learn about employment is that when she does well-chosen work in the right spirit, she will find in it happiness and usefulness. Through her work she will learn what an interesting place the world is, and because she is a worker she will be the companion of great workers who are advancing civilization every day. She may feel sure that there ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy

... and spoke with more or less truth and feeling. At last it came to Anana's turn, who, in well-chosen words, praised the purpose-full beauty of animate and inanimate creation, in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... priests were scattered among us, and good company all of them were. We were a very lively party. Prudencia was toasted until her calm important head whirled. Reinaldo made a speech as full of flowers as the occasion demanded. Alvarado made one also, five sentences of plain well-chosen words, to which the bridegroom listened with scorn. Now and again a girl swept the strings of a guitar or a caballero sang. The delighted shrieks of the people came over to us; at regular ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... 'Which I will say, that for turning off a few well-chosen words no parson in the land is the ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay

... way in which I allowed your son to be stolen away from under my nose?' I said. And in well-chosen words, I sketched the outline of what had happened. I did not omit to lay stress on the fact that the Nugget's departure with the enemy ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... is a vigorous negative. More armed figures, appear at the parapet, and, while I pause again, one of them explains his position in a few well-chosen and emphatic phrases, and illustrates his views by a pointed gesture toward his gun. The illustration at least ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... nationality are you?" "Scotch, sir." "What regiment?" "Argyle-Highlanders, sir." "Ah, so!" and we would then hurry along again. We were in the camp an hour and a half, and during that time I succeeded in asking three short well-chosen questions of intelligent-looking British ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... selective power of using books efficiently. The beginnings of knowledge are best learned in any home fairly well furnished with books." Professor William Mathews has added, "It is not the number of books which a young man reads that makes him intelligent and well-informed, but the number of well-chosen ones that he has mastered so that every valuable thought in them ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... short pause, he proceeded to designate some of the most prominent points of excellence in the painting; and being a connoisseur in these matters, the assembly were highly entertained by his well-chosen remarks, and his subject being one to call forth all his admiration, he was unusually eloquent. Indeed, his remarks were so in unison with the appreciation of all who were present there and heard his voice, that he seemed to carry them along with him, and to infuse fresh enthusiasm among ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... all round, and Sir Reginald, in a few well-chosen words, bade the newcomer heartily welcome to the unique shelter afforded by the Flying Fish for as long a time as he chose to avail himself of it. Then the baronet led the way below, saying to ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... father could not be prevented from arranging a great festivity. He had sent invitations to all his friends in town, on beautiful glazed paper with a black edge as wide as your finger. Therein he had given expression to his grief in well-chosen, elegant phrases, and had nowhere forgotten to provide his signature ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann

... engaged with Boozy, The Croak was occupied in effecting a similar arrangement with Mr. Bockerheisen. In a few gloomy but well-chosen words, for The Croak, though a mournful, was yet a vigorous, talker, he explained to Bockerheisen that a wicked conspiracy had been entered into by Boozy and McCafferty to bring about his defeat by fraud, and he urged that Mr. Bockerheisen "get on ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... Your Lordship," said Holmes, "and here is the egregious Dr. Watson, also at your service. You see, he's my old side-kicker, and I couldn't think of entering upon a crook-chase without him tagging along after me to write it up in well-chosen language. Do you get me, Steve? And, say, don't worry about the cuff-buttons. We'll ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry

... speak the truth. But even in his case, the disagreement, as Burke said, "will be only enough to indulge freedom, without violating concord or disturbing arrangement." There is a certain "partiality which becomes a well-chosen friendship." "Men thinking freely will, in particular instances, think differently. But still as the greater part of the measures which arise in the course of public business are related to, or dependent on, some great leading general principles in government, a man must ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... sweets were served after dinner; and after a better supper than usual came strawberry and lemon ice (alias granitta) and limejuice toddy, without alcohol. The health of the hero of the day was first proposed 'in a few well-chosen words'; and then we drank a bumper to the seventy-ninth degree, which we were sure was only the first of many degrees to be conquered ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... and with tact and well-chosen words told his story and summarized his narration with a ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... seems much brighter, And the heart is ever lighter, When the rays of sweet Aurora Gild the radiant morning glory With a splendor, such as heaven To few favorites has given Among the beautiful rare flowers. So plant these seeds with care, In a place well-chosen, where The first rays of the morning May kiss their bright adorning, And teach your heart to see The beauties there may be In the early ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... (worst of all) in public sight Keels with a blazing flambeau while 'tis light." Well, could Pomponius' sire to life return, Think you he'd rate his son in tones less stern? So then 'tis not sufficient to combine Well-chosen words in a well-ordered line, When, take away the rhythm, the self-same words Would suit an angry father off the boards. Strip what I write, or what Lucilius wrote, Of cadence and succession, time and note, Reverse the order, put those ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... few and obvious things alone are vital, and since a half-artistic half-antiquarian affection is not one of these things, and cannot be called obvious, it is largely left out. It is very difficult to say in a few well-chosen words exactly what is now the use of the Pyramids. Therefore Saladin, the great Saracen warrior, simply stripped the Pyramids to build a military fortress on the heights of Cairo. It is a little difficult to define exactly what is a man's duty to the Sphinx; and therefore the Mamelukes ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... separating a large unexhibited portion from the well-chosen and well-shown exhibited portion of works of art, exclusive of pictures, is, I believe, generally admitted. In the case of pictures the opinion has been expressed that there would be great difficulty in managing a reserved unexhibited ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... sentimental and lackadaisical, and was no longer engaged in enchanting young husbands and sowing sorrow for young wives. But why is that compliment to that old gentlewoman intruded there? Is it to make the reader believe she was well-chosen and safe society for a young, sentimental husband? The biographer's device was not well planned. That old person was not present—it was her other self that was there, her young, sentimental, melancholy, warm-blooded self, in those early sweet times before antiquity ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... issue checkered career cool as a cucumber contracting parties crisp dollar bill crying need dark horse dastardly deed delicious refreshments departed this life devouring element doing as well as can be expected dull thud elegantly gowned entertained lavishly fatal noose few well-chosen words first number on the program floral offering foregone conclusion fought like a tiger gala attire goes without saying hard-earned coin head over heels hotly contested hurled into eternity incontrovertible fact ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... of the family were a well-chosen auditory, for their admiration of the army extended from the Life Guards to the Veteran Battalion, the Sappers and Miners included; and as Miss Dashwood was the daughter of a soldier, she of course coincided in many of, if not all, his opinions. I turned towards my neighbor, a Clare gentleman, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... metropolis of that second-class gentility with which watering-places are chiefly populated. Lansdowne Crescent, Lansdowne Circus, Lansdowne Terrace, Regent Street, Warwick Street, Clarendon Street, the Upper and Lower Parade: such are a few of the designations. Parade, indeed, is a well-chosen name for the principal street, along which the population of the idle town draws itself out for daily review and display. I only wish that my descriptive powers would enable me to throw off a picture of the scene at a sunny noontide, individualizing each character with a touch: the great people ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... accidents in nature, and the grosser materialism in man, were foreign to this super-sensuous art, the aim being to reach the hidden meaning and the inner life. Hence the favourite practice of placing and posing in the painting-room some well-chosen figure which was quietly looked at, carefully considered, and taken in; thus the irrelevant elements were eliminated, and only the essential truths assimilated. This was for Overbeck the saving study ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson

... the afternoon he called on Miss Webling and found the house a flurry of undertakers, curious relatives, and thwarted reporters. The relatives and the reporters he satisfied with a few well-chosen lies. Then he sent his name up to Marie Louise. The butler thrust the card-tray through the door as if he were tossing a bit of meat to ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... something further, but changed his mind. Hal, with a little inward chuckle, divined by his manner he must be going somewhere with a lady, and she was pleased, as she liked a man to have woman friends, believing they made him more broad-minded and tolerant and generous-hearted if well-chosen. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... Switzerland, and of all the growth of pleasant homes and chalets amidst the heights that made the opening gorge so different from its earthly parallel, with a fine disrespect. "But they are beautiful," I protested. "They are graciously proportioned, they are placed in well-chosen positions; they give ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... Suits me fine. Say, Bob, I ain't so darned sure that fellow'll be there so big when it comes to a show-down. He looks to me tricky rather than game. Take him by surprise. Then crawl his hump sudden. With which few well-chosen words I close. Yores sincerely, Well-wisher, as these guys sign themselves when ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... also conducted to an appropriately sensuous accompaniment, sufficiently subdued, to keep the emotions susceptible and fluid? Could the villain enter with the same eclat to a stony silence, or the lovemaking thrill in the same way without the moral support of a few well-chosen harmonies? It may be that in heightening the emotional element we correspondingly diminish the appeal to the intelligence, and thus render ourselves less critical both of stage-villainy and ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt

... sharp edge of some far-jutting crag, it shivered into a dozen, startlingly distinct peals of laughter, that seemed to my terrified senses like the shouts of demons, exulting at our temerity in venturing within their own well-chosen realms. ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... have ever seen, and they are not a few, I remember but one or two where there is any variation from one method of treatment of the water. He almost always covers the whole space of it with one monotonous ripple, composed of a coat of well-chosen, but perfectly opaque and smooth sea-green, covered with a certain number, I cannot state the exact average, but it varies from three hundred and fifty to four hundred and upwards, according to the extent of canvas to ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... highly beneficial advantages of very healthy surroundings and a generous, well-chosen dietary, Jan's development during all this time was largely influenced by two factors—the constant companionship of Finn, and the fact that all the human folk with whom he came into contact, barring a largely ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... of to-day is philanthropic. She is connected, not with innumerable charities, but with a few well-chosen ones. She gives freely of her time and money in many ways, where her left hand scarcely knoweth what her right doeth, and the record of her good works is not found in the ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... suggest what he ought to learn; it is for him to want to learn, to seek and to find it. You should put it within his reach, you should skilfully awaken the desire and supply him with means for its satisfaction. So your questions should be few and well-chosen, and as he will always have more questions to put to you than you to him, you will always have the advantage and will be able to ask all the oftener, "What is the use of that question?" Moreover, as it matters little what he learns provided he understands it and knows how to ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... in relatively pacific tones, under the influence of the spell which good music had laid upon the gathering. There was the deepest interest as to what the two visitors would do in this way. Brother Soulsby spoke first, very briefly and in well rounded and well-chosen, if conventional, phrases. His wife, following him, delivered in a melodious monotone some equally hackneyed remarks. The assemblage, listening in rapt attention, felt the suggestion of reserved power in every sentence she uttered, and burst forth, as she dropped into her seat, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... the old farmhouse called now "the Hive"—a pretty and well-chosen name—the driveway led to the other houses. It descended nearly to the level of the meadow, and did not rise again until it neared the "Pilgrim House," the most distant one. From that it turned on itself on the high ground toward the "Cottage" and ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... in brief, well-chosen words which conveyed the thought clearly and concisely, and revealed a fine mind for mechanics and at the same time an absolute ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... parts of the old palace still standing are the two wings, one of which is now the parsonage, and the other a school, which is kept by an Englishman, educated at one of our universities, and living here for his health. This place is both a well-chosen and a favourite locality for schools, being situated upon a high plateau of land, with James River on one side and York River on the other; consequently, the air ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... became a wave, which in its strength, left no doubt on Dick's mind as to their earnestness and interest. Bowing his thanks he began, while both Charlie and Cameron wondered at his ease of manner, and the strange power of his simple, but well-chosen words. ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright

... Philadelphia—the band a small but first-rate one. Never did music more sink into and soothe and fill me—never so prove its soul-rousing power, its impossibility of statement. Especially in the rendering of one of Beethoven's master septettes by the well-chosen and perfectly-combined instruments (violins, viola, clarionet, horn, 'cello and contrabass,) was I carried away, seeing, absorbing many wonders. Dainty abandon, sometimes as if Nature laughing on a hillside in the sunshine; serious and firm monotonies, as of winds; ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... major-generals, or corps commanders, of the armies of the United States. It was not by such subordinates as these that General Santa Anna was assisted in his engineering or other military operations. That day, however, and for a few days more, he felt perfectly sure of his really well-chosen position among the rocks and chasms ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard

... sensible woman with her well-chosen clothes to the woman across the way. This second woman was a sort of dressed-up-and-no-place-to-go type, with a squirt of Cashmere Bouquet in the center of her handkerchief. And nothing on that went with anything else she had on. And a hat which one knew was a hat, because it was on her head, otherwise ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey

... Dr. Elias Weld of Haverhill, Massachusetts, to whose kindness I was much indebted in my boyhood. He was the one cultivated man in the neighborhood. His small but well-chosen library was placed at my disposal. He is the "wise old doctor" of Snow-Bound. Count Francois de Vipart with his cousin Joseph Rochemont de Poyen came to the United States in the early part of the present ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... his way to the nets. The notice concerning the holiday had only been given out that morning, and he was full of it. He expressed his opinion of the headmaster freely and in well-chosen words. He said it was a swindle, that it was all rot, and that it was a beastly shame. He added that something ought to be ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... Orne, France. I do not think that la commission enjoyed me much. It told me, through its sweetish-soap leader, that my friend was a criminal—this immediately upon my entering—and I told it with a great deal of well-chosen politeness that I disagreed. In telling how and why I disagreed I think I managed to shove my shovel-shaped imagination under the refuse of their intellects. ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... something external to quicken thought and fill up the emptiness of their silences. So we have symbols, whose doctrine is here most eloquently expounded. Man is not ruled by logic but by imagination, and a thousand thoughts will rise at the call of some well-chosen symbol. In itself it may be the poorest of things, with no intrinsic value at all—a clouted shoe, an iron crown, a flag whose market value may be almost nothing. Yet such a thing may so work upon men's silences as to fill them with the glimmer of ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... completed story is Our Mutual Friend, which, although unequal to his best novels, has still original characters and striking scenes. The rage for rising in the social scale ruins the Veneerings, and Podsnappery is a well-chosen name far the heartless dogmatism which ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... Battles are ever popular, and this one, with its well-chosen incidents, told in an easy and interesting style by an officer of the British Army, and its inspiring foreword, will take a high rank and be greatly in demand particularly amongst that large section of the public to whom fact appeals so much more strongly than ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg

... fallen judiciously into the haven of a well-chosen apartment, sharing his intimacy only with Arthur Ferris, the brisk-eyed advocate whose curt office missive always enforced the lagging collections of ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... of it! When he thought of the chances against him, Mr. Ledbetter despaired. He was within an ace of thrusting forth his head beside the gentleman's legs, coughing if necessary to attract his attention, and then, smiling, apologising and explaining his unfortunate intrusion by a few well-chosen sentences. But he found these sentences hard to choose. "No doubt, sir, my appearance is peculiar," or, "I trust, sir, you will pardon my somewhat ambiguous appearance from beneath you," was about as much as he ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... same excursion, she supplied some of the men-of-war with libraries. Some of the packets participated in the same boon, so that each ship sailing from that port took out a well-chosen library of about thirty books. These library books were changed on each succeeding voyage, and were highly appreciated by both ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman

... opposite Hone's, "The Percy Anecdotes," that well-chosen and fortunate selection of every sort ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... be little doubt now of the consummate tact of McClellan's retreat. It is the bright page in the northern annals of strategy. Beaten each day and driven from his well-chosen strongholds—clearly chosen with a view to such necessities—he still held his army thoroughly in his grasp and carried it off in such order as no Federal force had yet preserved in the face of ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... lazy, self-indulgent, and effeminate. This is a specimen—perhaps a tolerably fair one—of the natural tendency of such food in all ages and countries. Man every where does best, nationally and individually, other things being equal, on a well-chosen diet of vegetables, fruits, and water. In proportion as individuals or families, or tribes or nations, depart from this—other things being equal—in the same proportion do they degenerate physically, intellectually, ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... "'"Hearing these well-chosen words, fraught with reason and highly acceptable, that the mouse said, the mouse's foe possessed of judgment and forethought, viz., the cat spoke in reply. Endued with great intelligence, and possessed of eloquence, the cat, reflecting ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... poets," "The best writer of eclogues since Theocritus,"—these are some of the tardy tributes paid him. With a sympathy for his fellow-man and a humor akin to that of Burns, with a feeling for nature as keen as Wordsworth's, though less subjective, and with a power of depicting a scene with a few well-chosen epithets which recalls Tennyson, Barnes has fairly earned his ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... all the more the little touch of sympathy which prompted them to add to their labours by undertaking the work they saw we were hardly fit to perform. Before leaving the hospitable deck of the clipper our captain made a well-chosen and appropriate little speech of thanks to our benefactor, by whom it was suitably responded to; and then a cordial shaking of hands took place, and we parted with hearts full of gratitude to those who had so beneficently helped us. When we got aboard three cheers were rung ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... they met, coming from the head of the apartment, the imposing figure of their host. Philippe of Orleans, his powdered wig drawn closely into a half-bag at the nape of the neck, his full eye shining with merriment and good nature, his soft, yet not unmanly figure appearing to good advantage in his well-chosen garments, advances with a certain dignity to meet his guests. He is garbed in a coat made of watered silk, its straight collar faced with dark-green material edged with gold. A green and gold shoulder knot sets off the garment, which is provided with large opal buttons set in brilliants, this ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... they were taken in charge by a squad of Serbian troops. Colonel Anderson, acting as spokesman for the party, explained their presence in a few well-chosen words and asked to be taken to the commanding officer. There was considerable red tape to go through before the friends finally were ushered into the presence of the Serbian commander, and that ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes

... learned that Santa Anna had broken up his army into three divisions and was approaching with only about one thousand six hundred men Houston halted his troops and waited for them to come up. On their approach he stood ready for attack in a well-chosen spot near the San Jacinto River, where he defeated Santa Anna and took ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... You can pack them better, and you can frame them more conveniently, because one frame will always do for many pictures. Perhaps there is no one piece of advice which I can give you which will be of more practical use outside of the principles of painting, than this of keeping to a few well-chosen sizes of canvas, and the keeping of a number of each ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... a bad hour to disturb these little people?" said the caller, smiling, but with something in his manner and in his rather deliberate and well-chosen speech, of the dignity and ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... art. Her discipline was perfect in machinery, and her instructions admirably complete. No one could look at her keen, sensible, self-possessed countenance, her decided mouth, ever busy hands, and unpretending but well-chosen style of dress, without seeing that her energy and intelligence were of a high order; and there was principle likewise, though no one ever quite penetrated to the foundation of it. Certainly she was not an irreligious person; she ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and when Pinky awoke and delivered a few well-chosen words on the subject of bird-song at dawn, Milt ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... as to answer the queries put by the teacher. Short written exercises of about ten minutes' duration can be given to advantage in each of these recitations. In this way the entire class writes upon a well-chosen question or solves a numerical chemical problem and thus a great deal of time is saved. The quiz room should be well provided with blackboards which may be used to great advantage in the writing of equations and the solution of chemical problems ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... time, on this occasion, of the finite character of Bunchie's intellect; hitherto she had been mainly struck with its extent. It seemed to her at last that she would do well to take a book; formerly, when heavy-hearted, she had been able, with the help of some well-chosen volume, to transfer the seat of consciousness to the organ of pure reason. Of late, it was not to be denied, literature had seemed a fading light, and even after she had reminded herself that her uncle's ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... Philosophe sous les Toits would find in this thing of Hoffmann's dying days something to their taste; it is a running commentary on personages seen in the market from the writer's own window, and each little scene brings before us a true and lifelike character in a few weighty and well-chosen words. Die Genesung, a mere sketch, arose out of the dying man's pathetic longing to see the green of the woods and the meadows. Der Feind, a fragment full of promise, is a tale of old Nuremberg of the days of Albrecht Duerer, who figures in it. Before being deprived of the use of his ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... Bemerside, where Mr. Sheridan was cordially received by the steward, and a well-chosen repast ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... chairman do now? The situation was distinctly awkward—seeing his helplessness and the lukewarmness of the Board behind him. And the secretary felt more strongly than ever the absurdity of his being an underling, he who in a few well-chosen words could so easily have twisted the meeting round his thumb. Suddenly he heard the long, rumbling sigh ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... wore a dress of tartan, a very small hat trimmed also with tartan and with a red feather, a tippet of brown fur about her shoulders, and a muff of the same material on one of her hands. Her figure was admirable; from the crest of her gracefully poised head to the tip of her well-chosen boot she was, in line and structure, the type of mature woman. Her face, if it did not indicate a mind to match her frame, was at the least sweet-featured and provoking; characterless somewhat, but void of danger-signals; doubtless too good to be merely played ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... the Protestants before him, is certainly justified in contrasting a certain essence or true life of religion with the formulas and practices, not all equally well-chosen, which have crystallised round it. In the routine of Catholic teaching and worship there is notoriously a deal of mummery: phrases and ceremonies abound that have lost their meaning, and that people run through without ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... felt as if he were standing on the verge of some frightful revelation; a vague reminiscence, no doubt, from the scene of his life's tragedy, all distinct memory of which had been blurred away by his illness. Now he piled and crumbled his sods with practised skill, and set them alight in well-chosen places. But he stayed only for a minute or so, till the little fluttering flames had fairly taken a hold, and were sending golden threads running along the netted fibres. Then he groped his way out again, and returned ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... that I have been able to set aside in various parts of the country small, well-chosen tracts of ground to serve as sanctuaries and nurseries for ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... did not betray any signs of the untiring energy that possessed him. His countenance was usually serene and tranquil, as that of a thinker rather than a man of action; his demeanour was cool and collected; his words few and well-chosen. In his manner, as well as in his works, there was ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... abundance of well-chosen and most accurate illustrations, with a concise text, and in such a manner as to make it both atlas and text-book. The great majority of the illustrations were made from sections prepared from human tissues, and always from fresh and in every respect normal specimens. The ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... breeding up our maids: but to think that one of them should bring this like of a misfortune on us! For Blanche is gone to be undone, of that am I sure. Truth to tell, yonder Sir Francis Everett so took me with his fine ways and goodly looks and comely apparel and well-chosen words,—ay, and my master too—that we never thought to caution the maids against him. Now, it turns out that Alice had some glint of what were passing: but she never betrayed Blanche, thinking it should not ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt

... good sense. If we really loved music, or the drama, we should be content to hear well-managed voices, and see finished acting, without paying five or six thousand pounds to dress the songsters or decorate the stage. Simple but well-chosen dresses, and quiet landscape exquisitely painted, would have far more effect on the feelings of any sensible audience than the tinsel and extravagance of our common scenery; and our actors and actresses must have ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... for a walk," said Stalky in a well-chosen pause. "It's all very disgustin', and I do hope the Lazar-house ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... not be provoked into a loss of temper, and he would not say a word while in the chair except as connected with his duties as presiding officer, when he spoke in gentle but persuasive tones, singularly effective from the clearness of his enunciation and his well-chosen emphasis. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... like my own. He replied to my remarks with readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had he much to do there? Yes; that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness and watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual work—manual labor—he had next to none. To change that signal, to trim those lights, and to turn this ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... came in, Mr. Cameron, a handsome man with white hair and clean-cut features. He called out the long list of names. Then he made a little speech. He spoke in a pleasant voice, with well-chosen words, and he seemed to take a discreet pleasure in their careful arrangement. He suggested one or two books which they might buy and advised the purchase of a skeleton. He spoke of anatomy with enthusiasm: ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... El-Muwaylah. The broken, untidy environs, strewed with bones and rubbish, show low mounds that mean ovens; stone rings, where tents are pitched; and the usual graves, amongst which a reverend man, Shaykh Slih, rests in a manner of round tower. The site is, in one point at least, admirably well-chosen, a kind of carrefour where four valleys and as many roads meet; and thus it commands the mouths of all the gorges ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... wore gorgeous. I expect William will spend a great part of his married life in slicing fish. It will be a great change from golf-balls. But I think you really ought to have said a few hearty and well-chosen words ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various

... from long evenings spent in murmuring ardent protestations of love and indulging in embraces and endearments than in a frank, serious conversation on the realities and responsibilities of marriage, an exchange of earnest thoughts, voiced in chaste, well-chosen language—a conversation which by its very solemnity is lifted out of the realm of sense-pleasure into the dignified ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... was established in well-chosen positions in France, which might be impregnable against even forces as superior as three to one; the Austrian army was safely established in front of the Russians. Both the French and the Russians were short of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... so agreeably as in the conversation of a well-chosen friend. There is indeed no blessing of life that is any way comparable to the enjoyment of a discreet and virtuous friend. It eases and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward



Words linked to "Well-chosen" :   felicitous



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