crowning stroke

It is pleasant enough, for five or six months of the year, for me to wish immensely that some crowning stroke of fortune may still take the form of driving you over to see me before I fall to pieces.

She had the reputation of being a saint: the quenching of all the splendor of her beauty, wealth, and talent in the solitudes of the cloister, was the unparalleled complement of her fame, the crowning stroke in the process of her popular canonization.

It touched the people to the core; they gave up half a day to flock round the palace, and read the bills; they lost another half-day's work to see the palace sold; they spent a day's wages to get drunk to celebrate this crowning stroke of economy, and in their wild delight at the justice done them, they quite forgot to bank the one-eighth of a farthing which the generous Government had put into their pockets.

As their new and crowning stroke, the Bonuseers proposed to pile unearned interest on unearned interest by directing that any veteran who had not chosen to cash in his certificate for its 1945 value by April 6, 1937 should receive 3% interest on that value each year he kept his certificate until 1945.

The crowning stroke of ingenuity was a tale that received wide credence among quite intelligent Egyptians.