|
|
|
More "Talent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... freely, the delegates had withdrawn first to Princeton and then to Annapolis. Thither Washington repaired to resign his commission; but even so notable an occasion as this brought together delegates from only seven of the States. The best talent in America was drafted into the service of the several States. Men had ceased to think continentally. "A selfish habitude of thinking and reasoning," wrote one who styled himself Yorick, in the New York Packet, "leads us into a fatal error the moment we ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... the same time; and will accept with outstretched hand any one who can perform this astounding feat. Do not underestimate the ability that can achieve it: a scintillating wit, an arresting originality, a talent for entertaining that amounts to genius, and gold poured literally like rain, are ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... have been to have not even the kindness to say 'No' plain and flat; they listen to all you have to say, and as soon as your back is turned they forget your existence. The coin that passes around in this infernal town is indeed nothing but idle words, and that is all that poverty-stricken talent ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... such conversations, in which he seemed to consider me as endowed with reason and talent, even when I was not of his opinion, Yusuf Ali surprised me greatly one ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... historic novel of our day strives principally after exact reproduction, as may be seen even in a book of such incontestable talent as Marius the Epicurean, and very notably in Archdeacon Farrar's book, Darkness and Dawn, or Scenes in the Days of Nero (1891), which may stand as the type and complete specimen of Erudite Fiction. In his preface he tells ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... speak, its own fons et origo. Thus Diderot says: "Genius is the higher activity of the soul." "Genius," remarks Rousseau in a letter, "makes knowledge unnecessary." And Kant defines genius as "the talent to discover that which cannot be taught or learned."[8] This appears to be more of an evasion than a definition! But the intent here is to refer all that seems to transcend mundane categories, man's highest, his widest, his sublimest intuitions and achievements, back to himself; ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... difficult subject. Whether he was too grateful to Mrs. Krill to speak out, or whether he really did not understand what was asked of him, he certainly showed a talent for holding his tongue. However, Hurd saw well enough that the man was afraid of the Sahib's law, and when matters came to a crisis would try and prove his innocence even at the cost of implicating others. Therefore, with an easy mind the detective ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... jewels, and precious stones," beside that most precious jewel of all, the arm of St. Augustine, which not Lady Godiva, but her friend, Archbishop Ethelnoth, presented to Coventry, "having bought it at Pavia for a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold." [Footnote: William ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... brother, oddly enough, of the brilliant but infidel Lord Herbert of Cherbury; which lord was a versatile man of talent, but not a man of genius like the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... this to be the one moment. Many people can recognize their moment when it has gone. Betty's talent lay in seeing it ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... easy to perceive, must have cost the Author of it a great deal of Labour. It is a very full Specimen of that Talent of entirely exhausting a Subject, for which Dr. Barrow was remarkable; and if the Point was, to exhibit all the various Forms and Appearances, not of WIT only, but of Raillery, Satire, Sarcasms, and of every Kind of Poignancy and Pleasantry of Sentiment, ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... take possession of self. Somewhere within is his inheritance, and he must not be hindered of it. Other men have other gifts,—gifts bestowed under different conditions, and subject in a great degree to choice. Talent is not fastidious. It is an instrumentality, and its aim is optional with him who possesses it. Genius is exquisitely fastidious, and the man whom it possesses must live its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... tribes contest singly or in groups for supremacy. The costumes worn are remarkably fine and the acting very realistic. This is essentially a southern festival for it gives an opportunity to the Eskimo living near the rivers to display their ingenious talent for mimicry and for the arrangement ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... Varvara Pavlovna, and she did not adopt it. On the contrary, she looked him in the face with light-hearted attention and talked easily, while her delicate nostrils were quivering as though with suppressed laughter. Marya Dmitrievna began to enlarge on her talent; Panshin courteously inclined his head, so far as his collar would permit him, declared that, "he felt sure of it beforehand," and almost turned the conversation to the diplomatic topic of Metternich himself. Varvara Pavlovna, with an expressive ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... to discover feigned defects and diseases; but my learned brother refused and was encouraged in his resistance by M. Galpin: I do not know upon what ground. Then I asked that the Countess Claudieuse should be sent for, as she has a talent of making him talk. M. Galpin would not ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... his speech, a speech sure to be received with genuine applause, for it was to be in praise of Miss Willmot The Major did that kind of thing well. He had the proper touch, could catch the note appropriate for votes of thanks. He knew his talent, and that Christmas Day he ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... the violin and his substitution of the flute therefor, we have already learned. According to competent critics he was possibly the greatest flute-player*1* in the world, a fact all the more interesting when we remember that, as he himself tells us,*2* he never had a teacher. With such a talent for music the poet has naturally strewn his pages with fine tributes thereto. In 'Tiger-lilies', for instance, he tells us that, while explorers say that they have found some nations that had no god, he knows of none ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... and banking conditions, facilitated and encouraged vast schemes of railroad construction. This and a wild speculation resulted in the panic of 1873. Nearly the whole country went bankrupt. The recovery was rapid, and the constructive talent of the Republic saw that the restoration of credit and prosperity must be led by railway solvency. In August, 1874, Commodore Vanderbilt invited the representatives of the other and competitive lines to a conference at Saratoga. ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... out of the bank, or wherever you have placed it—it will be the finest deed you ever did in your life—and buy back the Towers and give it to Squire Lorrimer and to Guy for their own place again. Yours is the talent buried in the ground. Take it out and save the Squire, and you'll be so happy you won't know yourself. Why, you'll be all on fire and alive with gladness. There, that's what I telegraphed to you for; you know now. You'll do it ... of course ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... being as described, the spring that was to set the various wheels in motion was in the hands of Louis XIV. The weakness of his immediate neighbors, the great resources of his kingdom, only waiting for development, the unity of direction resulting from his absolute power, his own practical talent and untiring industry, aided during the first half of his reign by a combination of ministers of singular ability, all united to make every government in Europe hang more or less upon his action, and be determined by, if not follow, his lead. The greatness of France ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... "Epsom Wells,"[141] was acted for the benefit of Mr. Bullock,[142] who, though he is a person of much wit and ingenuity, has a peculiar talent of looking like a fool, and therefore excellently well qualified for the part of Biskett in this play. I cannot indeed sufficiently admire his way of bearing a beating, as he does in this drama, and that with such a natural air and propriety of folly, that one cannot help wishing the ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... people as desirable acquaintances, and saw more or less of them—Kitty Brooks and her husband; Vesta Lorimer, a keen-witted young woman upon whom nature had bestowed a double portion of physical attractiveness and a talent akin to genius for the painting of miniatures; her Brother Paul, who was the silent partner in a brokerage firm; Doctor Hart, a silent, grim-visaged physician, whose vivacious wife was one of Hazel's new intimates. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the none, vespers, and the compline, at nine in the morning, at noon, at three in the afternoon, at six in the evening and before eight. These services broke in on his favourite studies; and, possessing more talent than devotion, while engaged in them he thought more of his studies than of them. Patrick, therefore, refused to take the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... select company established, and owed its origin to Sir Walter Raleigh, who had here instituted a meeting of men of wit and genius, previously to his engagement with the unfortunate Cobham. This society comprised all that the age held most distinguished for learning and talent, numbering amongst its members Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Selden, Sir Walter Raleigh, Donne, Cotton, Carew, Martin, and many others. There it was that the "wit-combats" took place between Shakspeare and Ben Johson, to which, probably, Beaumont alludes with so much affection ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... being made according to form, seem not only to be exact as to fashion, but also as to work. For that in Exodus, with its furniture, was made precisely of one talent of gold, perhaps to show, that Christ's true spouse is not to be a grain more, nor a dram less, but just the number of God's elect. This is Christ's completeness, his fulness; one more, one less, would make his body ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... chronologer.—In the boundless and aerial regions of romance, and in that fashionable species of composition which succeeded it, and which carries a nearer approximation to the manners of the world, the women cannot be excelled: this imaginary soil they have a peculiar talent for cultivating, because here, ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... authors, they would be quickly supplied with many copies of them: at present, though they have no more than those I have mentioned, yet, by several impressions, they have multiplied them into many thousands. If any man was to go among them that had some extraordinary talent, or that by much travelling had observed the customs of many nations (which made us to be so well received), he would receive a hearty welcome, for they are very desirous to know the state of the whole world. Very few ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... went by. Fanny worked hard in the store, and bought little. February came, and with the spring her months of private thinking bore fruit. There came to Fanny Brandeis a great resolve. She would put herself in a high place. Every talent she possessed, every advantage, every scrap of knowledge, every bit of experience, would be used toward that end. She would make something of herself. It was a worldly, selfish resolve, born of a bitter sorrow, and ambition, and resentment. She made up her mind that she would ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... methods of manufacture in a large way was beyond the power or ability of any concern as then constituted. It could only be done, we reasoned, by increasing our capital and availing ourselves of the best talent and experience. ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller
... the Helmund. It was well known that the rivalry between him and his cousin Abdurrahman did not admit of being patched up, and that it could only be settled by the sword. At the moment there was more reason to believe in the military talent of Ayoob than of the present Ameer, and it was certain that the instant we left Candahar the two opponents would engage in a struggle for its possession. The policy of precipitate evacuation left everything to the chapter of accidents, and if Ayoob had proved the victor, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... commonly regarded as interesting behaviour. Agnes had not been drawn to Rennes at first sight, but rather by degrees and against her better judgment. She had found him unstable and affected; on the other hand, she admired his fine figure, his talent, his conversation, and the fire in his brilliant eyes. She told herself that she was deeply anxious about his soul, but, in a crowd, she watched for his broad shoulders and his handsome face. Such was her friendship, and she had known him for two years. Her first season had been a ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... blood of Jesus, with his time and all he has, to be used for the Lord. If we sleep more than is needful for the refreshment of the body, it is wasting the time with which the Lord has intrusted us as a talent, to be used for his glory, for our own benefit, and the benefit of the saints and the unbelievers around us. 2. To remain too long in bed injures the body. Just as when we take too much food, we are injured thereby, so as it regards sleep. Medical ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... sixteen to twenty pages; he usually acknowledged the receipt of each; hence many of his letters came into my possession: these were always interesting, on account of the richness of the expressions they contained. Mirabeau even in his ordinary discourse was eloquent; it was his peculiar talent to use such words, that they who heard them were almost led to believe that he had taken great pains to cull them for the occasion. But this his ordinary language was the language also of his letters; and as they show a power of expression, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... to in the text. It is a sort of satire on the vices and customs of the times; and in places reminds one of Pilgrim's Progress. It was published in three parts, the first in 1650 at Madrid, and the other two at Huesca, in 1653. Most of his works were published under his brother Lorenzo's name. His talent in writing is vitiated by his affectation and other faults. See Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature (New York, 1854); Sommervogel's Bibliotheque; Moreri's Dictionaire, iv, p. 174; and Hoefer's Nouvelle biographie ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... lives of these two painters ran in parallel lines. They were born in the same year, 1599; and beginning their art studies when still very young, with great opportunities for the development of their talent, both had won an enviable reputation by the time they had reached early manhood. Both held appointments as the court painters of kings who were unusually liberal and appreciative in their patronage,—Van Dyck under Charles ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... smaller newspapers, saying that the writers of personalities lowered themselves in the end. Lousteau, Merlin, and Finot took up the cudgels for the system known by the name of blague; puffery, gossip, and humbug, said they, was the test of talent, and set the hall-mark, as it were, upon it. "Any man who can stand that test has ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... historian. American heiresses had already found suitors among the British nobility. The kinship of Eastern social life with that of Europe was recognized, and the relations of the well-to-do at the North with the wealthy of the South were many and intimate. Thus in America as elsewhere talent, birth, and money produced social strata, and before 1860 the distinctions of class were only less sharply drawn here than in the ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... respect parallel to restrictions of class. There are, doubtless, occupations for which women are unfit. But, if so, the test of fitness is sufficient to exclude them. The "open road for women" is one application, and a very big one, of the "open road for talent," and to secure them both is of the essence ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... official of medical rank, who had lived always with older people. He lied from early childhood. He was a chronic sufferer from severe headaches. Between the ages of 15 and 17 this boy showed evidences of literary talent, but was poor in mathematics. From a tender age he had an overmastering desire to become great; he said he wished to become a jurist because only jurists get the high offices. He entered a South German university, rented a fine apartment, ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... elegant. The impression one gets of her from all the records, even the most prejudiced against her, is that she was a very cuddlesome morsel indeed. She was, in addition, demonstrably clever. Such a man of talent as Inigo Jones supported the decoration of many of the masques he set on the stage with costumes of Anne's design and confection. Rachel ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... over their parcels Jean wrote her letter, and Jean could write delightful letters. She had a decided talent in that respect, and her correspondents all declared her letters to be things of beauty and joy forever. She put her best into Miss Allen's Christmas letter. Since then she has written many bright and clever ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... his knowledge and great skill and success in defensive warfare, as shown in his Peninsular campaign, after our defeat at Gaines's Mill, is wanting in the rapidity of comprehension and audacity which are necessary components of the highest military talent. He waits for too many chances, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... should be restricted. If this class is composed of men of ability, they will obey this natural law, and compel the country to obey. If you collect a crowd of mediocrities together, sooner or later they will fall under the dominion of a stronger head. A deputy of talent understands the reasons for which a government exists; the mediocre deputy simply comes to terms with force. An assembly either obeys an idea, like the Convention in the time of the Terror; a powerful personality, like the Corps Legislatif under the rule of Napoleon; or falls ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... accomplish, they will more easily develop the means. The storm of objection now rising against the study of the Classics indicates clearly that there is a general dissatisfaction with the result of this study. There is a striking unanimity on this subject among persons of widely different talent and experience, of whom some are still students, while others are looking back upon their training in school and college after years of mature life. Their adverse criticism is all the more significant because often expressed with obvious regret. Some, who have had unusual opportunities for observation, ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... it; some of the talent—men as doesn't make no mistake, is takin' twelve to one in my book fast as I open ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... be looked upon as in an experimental stage—which has for its aim the permanent establishment of opera in the United States? Experimental in its nature the movement must remain until the vernacular becomes the language of the performances and native talent provides both works and interpreters. The day is still far distant, but it will come. The opera of Germany was still Italian more than a century and a half after the invention of the art form, though in the meanwhile the country had produced a Bach and a Handel. The Palmo venture (at the bottom ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... night, I found Among my papers certain lines composed By—whom d'you think?—My lord of Halifax (Or so dear Mrs. Porterhouse assured me) Expressing, sir, the uttermost satisfaction In Mr. Newton's talent. Sir, he wrote Answering the charge that science would put out The light of ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... stone there lies from France an emigrant. Of high descent was he, and also of talent. A wife and kindred murdered he bewailed, And left his land by tyrants cruel assailed; The friendly shores of Russia he attained, And hospitable shelter here he gained; Children he taught; their parents' cares allayed: ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... light blue, and, contrary to the custom of the time, when wigs were almost universally worn, he allowed his hair to fall in long ringlets on his neck. His manner was graceful, and although he always bore himself with a sort of royal dignity he had the peculiar talent of pleasing and attracting all with whom he came in contact, and had the art of adapting his conversation to the taste or station of those ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... by it they discover that a secret coalition has taken place between their son and the governess—they are man and wife! Good heavens! the heir of all the Norwolds marry a teacher, who has nothing to recommend her but virtue, talent, and beauty! Monstrous!—"What will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... so incredible that I cannot but suspect an error in the MS. The sum named is two hundred Attic talents. The Attic talent, according to Smith's dictionary, was worth L243 13s. It may be that this large amount had been collected over ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... ghastly "Deluge," and Gericault's dismal "Medusa." Gericault died, they say, for want of fame. He was a man who possessed a considerable fortune of his own; but pined because no one in his day would purchase his pictures, and so acknowledge his talent. At present, a scrawl from his pencil brings an enormous price. All his works have a grand cachet: he never did anything mean. When he painted the "Raft of the Medusa," it is said he lived for a long time among the corpses which he painted, and that his studio was ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... foreseen exactly what the portrait would be, for to predict it would have been to produce it before it was produced—an absurd hypothesis which is its own refutation. Even so with regard to the moments of our life, of which we are the artisans. Each of them is a kind of creation. And just as the talent of the painter is formed or deformed—in any case, is modified—under the very influence of the works he produces, so each of our states, at the moment of its issue, modifies our personality, being indeed the new ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... all that waste of time and labor, when it would have been so easy and so rational to move straight from Rheims and occupy the strong positions in the valley of the Marne? Was there no guiding mind, no military talent, no common sense? But there should be no more questioning; all should be forgiven, in the universal joy at the adoption of that eminently wise counsel, which was the only means at their command of extricating themselves from the hornets' nest into which they had rushed so imprudently. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... Mr. Budgell had a 1000 l. given him by the late Sarah, duchess dowager of Marlborough, to whose husband (the famous duke of Marlborough) he was a relation by his mother's side, with a view to his getting into parliament. She knew he had a talent for speaking in public, and that he was acquainted with business, and would probably run any lengths against the ministry. However this scheme failed, for he ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... submit to, if I were to gain twice what I do. I find it impossible, so must leave it to those who can do nothing but play the piano. I am a composer, and born to become a Kapellmeister, and I neither can nor ought thus to bury the talent for composition with which God has so richly endowed me (I may say this without arrogance, for I feel it now more than ever); and this I should do were I to take many pupils, for it is a most unsettled metier; and I would rather, SO ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... impatient to taste the felicity you announce; but, to say the truth, I fear that I shall always remain ignorant of it, and that all you have promised me will vanish in words. It is easier to promise a great happiness than to give it. Everyone has a talent of some sort. I fancy that yours is to make long speeches. You speak of an unknown love. It is so long since kisses were first exchanged that it would be very extraordinary if there still remained secrets in love. On this subject lovers know more ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... his wife discovered a talent in their visitant to which they had been before entirely strangers, and for which they both greatly admired her, and this was, that the lady was a good scholar, in which, indeed, she had the advantage of poor Amelia, whose reading was confined to English plays and poetry; ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... Janice," he told the girl once, when she spoke of this. "I could not play another instrument. I am no musician. I was never trained. It was just a natural talent that I developed, because I found in my heart a love for the old violin my father ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... little of a captain of horse's spirit within him—I mean of that sort of spirit which I have been obliged to when I happened, in a mail coach or diligence, to meet some military man who has kindly taken upon him the disciplining of the waiters and the taxing of reckonings. Some of this useful talent our hero had, however, acquired during his military service, and on this gross provocation it began seriously to arise. 'Look ye, sir; I came here for my own accommodation, and not to answer impertinent questions. Either say you can, or cannot, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... swellin' up. "All right, I'll show you. I've made half a million, my boy, by just such batty moves as that. It's because I know people, know 'em through and through, from what they'll pay to hear, to the ones who can give 'em what they want. I'm a discoverer of talent, Shorty. Where do I get my stars from? Pick 'em up anywhere. I don't go to London and Paris and pay fancy salaries. I find my attractions first hand, sign' em up on long contracts, and take the velvet that comes in myself. That's my way, and I ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... kind of a pianist I might have made, but I do know I've made a good bookkeeper and that a little talent took a chance on stepping ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... career. Employed by Berthier de Sauvigny to translate a statistical paper on Paris, he lost his patron and the payment for his labours in the first outburst of the Revolution. Wishing to employ his talent for natural history away from Paris, he was nominated, by the minister Roland, to a mission to the distant and little-known portions of the Ottoman Empire. A naturalist, named Bruguere, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... about town a man of good family, of some reading, and of some small literary talent, named Charles Blount. [383] In politics he belonged to the extreme section of the Whig party. In the days of the Exclusion Bill he had been one of Shaftesbury's brisk boys, and had, under the signature ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the land of song, they have little or no musical talent, as a class, and the majority of them are furnished with harps and violins from which not even Orpheus himself could bring harmony. Not a few of the little ones endeavor to make up in dancing what they lack in musical ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... in his way. He possessed a considerable amount of literary culture. He took a prominent part in the current theological controversies,—and yet, if we are to believe Hippolytus, he could accommodate himself to the views of different schools of doctrine. He had great versatility of talent, restless activity, deep cunning, and much force of character. Hippolytus tells us that he was sadly given to intrigue, and so slippery in his movements that it was no easy matter to entangle him in a dilemma. It may have occurred to him that, in ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... the poorest monastery in the kingdom was found at Mafra, where a few Franciscans lived in some miserable buildings. Having found his site, King Joao had next to find an architect able to carry out his great scheme, and so low had native talent fallen, that the architect chosen was a foreigner, Frederic ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... argue with local talent, specially if they wear their Colts low and loose. Doin' that is apt to make a man wolf meat. Wheah ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... figure largely on the stage. If he does appear as an actor he may have a small speaking part, but he is not a star. He owns the show, and if it does not pay he loses, or if he wins he gets a proportion of the profits. Consequently he hires the best talent he can afford. The star performer is the lawyer, but as the producer the client has not only the choice in picking the theme, but the play is about him and his troubles. Great drama consists in a conflict of emotions. The emotions of the two opposing clients make a court drama. The ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He, returning, chide; 'Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?' I fondly ask: but patience, to prevent ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... vocalisation was cultivated to such a pitch of perfection that composers were tempted, and even compelled, to consult the tastes of singers rather than dramatic truth. Handel's successors, such as Porpora and Hasse, without a tithe of his genius, used such talent as they possessed merely to exhibit the vocal dexterity of popular singers in the most agreeable light. The favourite form of entertainment in these degraded times was the pasticcio, a hybrid production ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... tearful, clinging, forlorn child. Having followed his father's profession, more from a desire to gratify that father than from direct inclination, he found, when too late, that he neither liked it nor did it like him. He had, as he believed, a talent for farming; so that when, on the death of a distant relation, he found himself, when all was told, the possessor of seven hundred pounds a year, he bought Brooklyn, a modest place in one of the English shires, married his first love, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... bring him speedily upon a field of battle. He was, in a word, the type and exemplar of that large class of able men who waste their lives in a succession of efforts, which, though they evince great talent in those who perform them, being still without plan or aim, end without producing any result. Such men often, like Pyrrhus, attain to a certain species of greatness. They are famed among men for what they seem to ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... ordered them under arms; and desiring to expose the groundless nature of the alarm, caused the herald[7] to proclaim, that whoever would denounce the person who had let the ass[8] into the camp on the preceding night, should be rewarded with a talent[9] of silver. ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... environment of her family, she simply can't endure the stifling atmosphere of home. She has been to St. P. to see the actor for whom she has such an admiration, he heard her recite something and said she had real dramatic talent; he would be willing to train her for the stage, but only with her parents' consent. But of course they will never give it. She writes that this has made her so nervous she feels like crying or raving all day long, in fact she ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... all such! But were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires, Blest with each talent, and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... bank of shellfish, where pearl oysters reproduce by the millions. These valuable mollusks stick to rocks, where they're strongly attached by a mass of brown filaments that forbids their moving about. In this respect oysters are inferior even to mussels, to whom nature has not denied all talent for locomotion. ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... whole of life seemed thrown open for us. All my distrust vanished. And when the agent added, kindly, 'Be sure and bring us all the designs which your brother makes. I think we shall want to buy as many as he will draw; he certainly has rare talent,'—I could have fallen on the floor at his feet to thank him, so grateful did I feel for this new source of income for us, and still more for the inexpressible pleasure ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... one of the most commonplace girls at Heath Hall. She had neither good looks nor talent; she had no refinement of nature nor had she those rugged but sterling qualities of honesty and integrity of purpose which go far to cover a ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... Peace have been victorious, where war would have meant defeat, and no talent is more to be desired than ability to always say the right word ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... Washington were those appointed to represent Virginia. Accordingly, about the middle of September, 1774, these three Congress-men set out together on horseback for Philadelphia, the place of meeting. Arrived here, Washington found assembled the first talent, wisdom, and virtue of the land. It was to him a sublime spectacle indeed,—that of the people of many widely separated provinces thus met together to give voice and expression to what they felt to be their sacred rights as freemen and ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... machine" (to use another of their vulgar expressions) with them, until we get a chance to knock off the useless wheels and thingumbobs, and scour the whole concern, inside and out. Perhaps the men themselves would like to do this, if they only knew how: men have so little talent for cleaning-up. But when it comes to making a litter, they're at home, let ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... to be presented and make his cour. "Which one?" we naturally asked, but the answer was vague. It sounded so curiously impersonal that we could hardly take it seriously. However, we suggested that the young man should come and each one of the four would show off her particular talent. One would play and one would sing (rather like the song in the children's book, "one could dance and one could sing, and one could play the violin"), and the third, the polyglot of the family, could speak several languages. We were rather puzzled as to what my ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... glory, and must needs be admired and obeyed by his fellow-men, he can have his wish, if he will go the right way to get what he longs for; especially in a free country like this, he will get most probably just as much of them as he deserves—that is, as much as he has talent and knowledge enough to earn. So did the Pharisees in our Lord's time. They wanted power, fame, and money as religious leaders, and they knew how to get them as well as any men who ever lived; and they got them. Our Lord did not deny that. They had their reward, He said. ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... and the logic, which ultimately will govern the case, and the very circumstances of the case itself in its details, as the basis on which this knowledge and logic are to operate, happen not to have been sufficiently developed. A code of law is not a spasmodic effort of gigantic talent in any one man or any one generation; it is a slow growth of accidents and occasions expanding with civilization; dependent upon time as a multiform element in its development; and presupposing often a concurrent growth of analogous cases towards the completion of its system. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... by itself. The country is said by travellers to be the most beautiful in the world. The branch of the Aryans which settled in it may have brought scanty acquirements with them, but they brought great capacities. The Greeks had an unrivalled talent for doing what they saw others do, in a much better way, and so making it their own. They had an inborn disposition to what is reasonable. That they had a deep-seated inclination to what is harmonious and ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... pristine glory, to the position it had occupied before it was tied to mirth and ridicule, when Atterbury could thus define it: "Wit, indeed, as it implies, a certain uncommon Reach and Vivacity of Thought, is an Excellent Talent; very fit to be employ'd in the Search of Truth...." So the anonymous author of A Satyr upon a Late Pamphlet Entitled, A Satyr ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... bethought himself that, even as he had created beautiful memorials of himself as Cardinal, so as Pope he should surpass all others in restoring and adorning buildings. That election, then, brought consolation to many men of talent, and infused a potent and heaven-sent breath of life in those ingenious but timid spirits who had sunk into abasement; and they, thus revived, afterwards executed the beautiful works that we see ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... illustrious house of de Rubempre, of which his mother, Madame Chardon, is the last survivor, and it is added that Mme. la Comtesse du Chatelet was the first to think of this eminently politic idea. The revival of an ancient and almost extinct family by young talent and newly won fame is another proof that the immortal author of the Charter still cherishes the desire expressed by the words ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... mathematiques et le latin que mes nouveaux maitres; mais ils vivaient dans des catacombes sans lumiere et sans air. Ici, l'atmosphere du siecle circulait librement.... Au bout de quelque temps une chose tout a fait inconnue m'etait revelee. Les mots, talent, eclat, reputation eurent un sens pour moi. J'etais perdu pour l'ideal modeste que mes ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... a cloak of pride, With talent, too, that I did not hide; I started out on Life's stony road, Ambition's weight was my only load, And the way seemed fair in the dawn's first glow, And I ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... withered up in poor mamma's society. She was never happy except in my room, the dear child! She's all gentleness and affection. She doesn't seem to show it: but she has the most wonderful appreciation of wit, of genius, and talent of all kinds. She always hides her feelings, except from her fond old mother. I went up into our room yesterday, and found her in tears. I can't bear to see her eyes red or to think of her suffering. I ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wheedling, good-natured, cunning, light-fingered and light-hearted old devil of a Capuchin that ever hid in St. Francis' wound. Hey! but I'm snug in my snuff-coloured suit. My poor old father—God have him after all his pains!—put me there, to lie quiet and nurse my talent, and so I do when times are hard. But the waxing moon sees me skipping, and you will no more keep me long off the road than your cur upon it. I must be out and about—in the kitchen to tease the wenches, into the ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... reader feel, and understand justly at the same time. To call three powers of the mind into action at once, in a manner that neither shall interrupt, and that each shall aid and vigorate the other, is a talent very ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... would make for or against its best success. Capital for M. Carlisle. All this brought him into constant close intercourse with her, and gave him opportunities of recommending himself. And not in vain. Eleanor saw and appreciated the cool, clear business head; the calm executive talent, which seeing its ends in the distance, made no hurry but took the steps and the measures surest to attain them, with patient foresight. She admired it, and sometimes also could almost have trembled when ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... is so pleasant to have a friend who possesses the power of setting a difficult question in a clear light; whose judgment can tell what is best to be done; and who is so convinced of what is "wisest, best," that in consideration of the end, all difficulties in the way diminish. People admire talent, and talk about their admiration. But they value common sense without talking about it, and ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and selfish policy of the Administration, as he hated every other policy it had executed; and the knowledge that he had sacrificed his personal feelings to save his country from discord, made him feel a far better man than the Secretary of the Treasury, who had a diabolical talent for getting his own way. He had some reason to be pleased with his conduct, and with his share in contributing to a series of measures which later on won for the Cabinet at that crucial period the encomiums of history; and when time had abated the fevers, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... notice by his personal beauty and by the rather turgid eloquence which was his chief talent. In 1342 he took the most prominent part in an embassy from the citizens to Clement VI; and though he failed to induce the Pope to return to Rome, which at that time he seems to have regarded as the panacea for the evils ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... and an Englishman in appearance,—perhaps you might say he is more like a Scotchman. He is fair, with blue eyes, a brown mustache, and a prominent nose. He is angular in his movements and rather tall. He has a remarkable talent for languages, and is regarded as a very promising diplomatist. His temper is violent and changeable, but he has excellent manners and is full of tact. I should call him an extremely clever fellow in a general way, and he has done wisely in the ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... Conquest brought in a vast body of romantic literature. Heroic or entertaining tales in a ballad form were at that time highly popular; and a peculiar talent for this sort of narrative was developed in France and among the Normans. The oldest French romances were those of which the central figure was Charles the Great. It was one of these, the "Song of Roland," that animated the conquering Normans at Senlac. According to high authorities, it was in the ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... desirous of learning. But I had no sooner taken the violin in my hand than the lazy rascal lighted a cigarette and strolled away, absenting himself for nearly an hour. But I was familiar with the simple dance music of the country, and played everything that was called for. My talent was quite a revelation to the boys of our ranch, and especially to the owner and mistress of Las Palomas. The latter had me play several old Colorado River favorites of hers, and I noticed that when she had the dashing Captain Byler for her partner, ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... therefore all attention, and listened with sympathy to Tyrrel's glowing account of his friend's engineering energy and talent. When he'd finished his eulogy, however, the practical railway magnate crossed his fat hands and put in, with very common-sense dryness, "If he's so clever as all that, why doesn't he have a shot at this ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... upon my nature; but, valuing myself at as little as I am worth, have been afraid to render even the common duties of respect to those who are in power. The ceremonious visits, which are generally paid on such occasions, are not my talent. They may be real even in courtiers, but they appear with such a face of interest, that a modest man would think himself in danger of having his sincerity mistaken for his design. My congratulations keep their distance, and pass no farther than my heart. There it is that I have all the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... a great musician, but he had a talent, a rare gift of pathos, and an imagination untrammelled by rigorous rules of harmony and construction. Whatever there was in his sentimental bosom he poured into this one achievement of his life. It brought tears to the eyes of Narcisse Dauphin. It opened a gate ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... games, and the men who speak several languages. I begin with the latter, and declare that, after a somewhat varied experience of life, I never met a linguist that was above a third-rate man; and I go farther, and aver, that I never chanced upon a really able man who had the talent for languages. ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... was a plain man, with a talent for the practical, and knew nothing of the vision that the young monk beside him was seeing—of the air about the gallows crowded with the angels of the Agony and Passion, waiting to bear off the straggling souls in their tender ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... cried Karnis clasping his hands. "That brightens up the dull grey of existence. Fifty, then, are certain. If we sing six times that makes a talent—[estimated in 1880 at $1100]—and that will buy back our old vineyard at Leontium. I will repair the old Odeum—they have made a cowhouse of it—and when we sing there the monks may come and listen! You laugh? But you are simpletons—I should like ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... it worthy the bestower, when The talent is not hidden in the dust Of pampered negligence and venial sin, But put to studious use, that it may work The end and aim for which it was bestowed. All Good is God's; all Love and Truth are His; We are His workers; and we dare not plead ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... his protege, as well before his face as behind his back. In his presence he dwelt upon the holy importance of his calling; to others he dilated upon the importance of securing for the church a young man of so much talent, yet of so much devotion: qualities not always united, it would seem, among ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... we're all aware of your considerable talent for digging, Pederson. ECAIAC, too," he added pointedly, "for we already have it ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... Townsend terrorized nobody. He had gotten his little competence from his store by honest methods—the exchanging of sterling goods and true weights for country produce and country shillings. He was sober and reliable, with intense self-respect and a decided talent for the management of money. It was principally for this reason that he took great delight in his sudden wealth by legacy. He had thereby greater opportunities for the exercise of his native shrewdness in a bargain. ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... about the Strand, ready to take on any sort of job you offer them. I have a special staff flushing the Bodegas. These fellows love it. It's meat and drink to them to be right in the public eye like that. Makes them feel ten years younger. It's wonderful the talent knocking about. Those Zulus used to have a steady job as the Six Brothers Biff, Society Contortionists. The Revue craze killed them professionally. They cried like children when we ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... dear charming Pamela, did you only excel me in words, I could forgive you: for there may be a knack, and a volubility, as to words, that a natural talent may supply; but to be thus out-done in thought and in deed, who can bear it? And in ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... were invited to pass an evening in a family remarkable for its musical talent, and I remember distinctly the evident pleasure with which Percival listened to the chorus of organ tones and rich cultivated voices. In general, however, his appreciation of music was subordinate to his study of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... spok[en] of in y^e name of Crates. They report it after thys fashion. Alow to thy coke .x. po[un]d, to thy physicion a grote, to thy flatterer .v. tal[en]ts, to thy co[un]seller smoke, to thy harlot a talent, to thy philosospher .iii. halfp[en]s. What lacketh to this preposterous count, but to put to it y^t the teacher haue .iii. farthings: Howbeit I thinke y^t the master is meant vnder y^e name of philosopher. Wh[en] one that was riche in money, but nedy of wit axed Aristippus what wages he wold axe ...
— The Education of Children • Desiderius Erasmus
... gay chatter floated back to them. "Caruso and Sembrich in Lucia di Lammermoor! Fancy! It is the most wonderful combination of extraordinary talent—genius. I shall certainly go if I have to stand up every minute of the ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... professional artists may contain a few words expressive of the pleasure conferred by the talent or ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... doctor, though full of talent, felt, I saw, a diffidence under the circumstances; but, mustering courage, he undertook to lead us in prayer; and with expressions which came, I am sure, from his heart, he returned thanks to the God of mercy for our preservation from the great dangers we had passed, and ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... an artist of great but peculiar talent—a fine draughtsman, an admirable colorist, but his imagination was of a Gothic cast, and he delighted in strange, fantastical, and supernatural subjects. He had travelled much in Germany, and his mind was imbued ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... without the risk of tearing out her bows," said Lord Reginald, "it will be safer to hoist her up, though to do so we must first unship her outriggers. Her builder is on board, and as soon as he has completed his task I should wish to introduce him to you, as he is a young man of talent to whom I ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... you turn his crank," replied the King. "I do not know if it is life, or what it is, or how it happens that the Little Pink Bear can answer correctly every question put to him. We discovered his talent a long time ago and whenever we wish to know anything—which is not very often—we ask the Pink Bear. There is no doubt whatever, madam, that Ugu the Magician has your dishpan, and if you dare go to him you may be able to recover it. But of that ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... his program and glanced over the items. The Concert-Direction of Ernest Weiss was famous for the fare which it put before its patrons, and here was certainly enough variety of talent to please the most critical—a famous tenor, a popular violinist, a contralto much in favour for her singing of tender and sentimental songs, a notable performer on the violincello, a local vocalist whose speciality was the singing of ancient ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... . you see . . . I . . . I . . ." the lady went on, sitting down and becoming still more agitated. "You don't remember me. . . . I'm Mme. Murashkin. . . . You see I'm a great admirer of your talent and always read your articles with great enjoyment. . . . Don't imagine I'm flattering you—God forbid!—I'm only giving honour where honour is due. . . . I am always reading you . . . always! To some extent I am myself not a stranger to literature— that ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... department, with Stevens as foreman and Richard as designer. Very shortly Richard had as much as he could do to furnish the patterns required. These consisted mostly of scrolls, wreaths, and mortuary dove-wings for head-stones. Fortunately for Richard he had no genius, but plenty of a kind of talent just abreast with Mr. Slocum's purpose. As the carvers became interested in their work, they began to show Richard the respect and good-will which at first had been withheld, for they had not quite liked being under the supervision ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... a little troubled by his pertinacity. I had never liked Morton Harland. His reputation, both as a man of wealth and a man of letters, was to me unenviable. He did no particular good with his money,—and such literary talent as he possessed he squandered in attacking nobler ideals than he had ever been able to attain. He was not agreeable to look at either; his pale, close-shaven face was deeply marked by lines of avarice and cunning,—his tall, lean figure had an aggressive air in its very attitude, and ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... and its Natural Bases" ("Die naturliche Auslese beim Menschen", Jena, 1893; "Die Gesellschaftsordnung und ihre naturlichen Grundlagen". "Entwurf einer Sozialanthropologie", Jena, 1896.), defended analogous doctrines in Germany; setting the curve representing frequency of talent over against that of income, he attempted to show that all democratic measures which aim at promoting the rise in the social scale of the talented are useless, if not dangerous; that they only increase the panmixia, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... a different talent writes, One praises, one instructs, another bites. Horace could ne'er aspire to epic bays, Nor lofty Maro stoop ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... the Mustard-pot. What more natural than that my father should offer my services? I had a shock of pale yellow hair, I was small enough to be put into the property mustard-pot, and the Glasgow stage manager would easily assume that I had inherited talent. My father had acted with Macready in the stock seasons both at Edinburgh and Glasgow, and bore a very high reputation with Scottish audiences. But the stage manager and father alike reckoned without their actress! When they tried to put me into the mustard-pot, I yelled lustily ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... dignified and pious example to the men and women who adorn the profession, coming as they do from all climes, and your pa will be the guide, philosopher and friend of all who belong to the grandest aggregation of talent ever gathered under one canvas, at one price of admission, and do not fail to witness the concert which will be given under this canvas after the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... the Great and Good to be the Refuge of the Distress'd; their Virtues create 'em troubles; and he that has the God like Talent to oblige, is never free from Impunity, you, Philaster, have a Thousand ways merited my Esteem and Veneration; and I beg you wou'd now permit the effects of it, which cou'd not forbear, though unpermitted, to dedicate this youthful sally of my Pen, this first Essay of my Infant-Poetry to your ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... enough. However, if we cannot enlarge them we can build new ones for special purposes. For one, we must have a children's workroom. If Jack is going to be an artist, and you know he shows decided talent, and Bessie an architect, there's no doubt of her having real genius in that direction, they should have one room immediately, and two by and by, for their own exclusive use. A room where they could keep all their books, and tools and toys, and where they could ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... Fort Boykin he decided the question of his vocation, writing to his father so eloquent a letter upon the desirability of pursuing his tastes, rather than trying to follow the paternal footsteps in a profession for which he had no talent, that his father relinquished all hope of making a ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... cannot be wholly dispensed with. It is far better that Mrs. Bogus should give an annual party, when she takes down all her bedsteads and throws open her whole house, than that she should never see her friends and neighbors inside her doors at all. She may feel that she has neither the taste nor the talent for constant small reunions. Such things, she may feel, require a social tact which she has not. She would be utterly at a loss how to conduct them. Each one would cost her as much anxiety and thought as her annual gathering, and prove a failure after ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... it is." And now Mr Lupex had grasped the gin-bottle. "It's too late now. The game's over, and the match is lost. The talent is here. I'm as sure of that now as ever I was. I've never doubted my own ability,—never for a moment. There are men this very day making a thousand a year off their easels who haven't so good and true an eye in drawing as I have, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... go out of himself to appreciate. The accidents of my life have often afforded me this advantage, but never with more fulness and variety than during my continuance in office. There was one man, especially, the observation of whose character gave me a new idea of talent. His gifts were emphatically those of a man of business; prompt, acute, clear-minded; with an eye that saw through all perplexities, and a faculty of arrangement that made them vanish, as by the waving ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a good thing that I don't. If I did, Jimmie would never write. He says that I keep his nose to the grindstone. It isn't that, but I love him too much to let him squander his talent. If he had no talent, I should love him without it. But, having it, I must hold ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... over twenty-one years of age, Heathcoat went to Nottingham, where he readily found employment, for which he soon received the highest remuneration, as a setter-up of hosiery and warp-frames, and was much respected for his talent for invention, general intelligence, and the sound and sober principles that governed his conduct. He also continued to pursue the subject on which his mind had before been occupied, and laboured to compass the contrivance of a twist traverse-net machine. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... they should be. The paper used is of superior quality. The type is bold and clear. The illustrations are superb. The departments are varied and carefully arranged. The editorial force is large and capable. The list of contributors is greatly increased, and embraces a stronger array of talent than is employed on any similar paper in this country. We challenge comparison with any agricultural journal ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Liberia offered her services! He flouted the idea of Negro expertness in handling weapons of modern warfare. He ridiculed the idea of Negro discretion in ideas of likely foreign origin. He questioned the potency of the Negro's native talent to meet the European situation. It was the black man's patriotic fervor, ardent in response to the call of Old Glory, zealous with passionate love of fireside and homeland, poignant with the throbbing and thrilling reaction of public-spirited ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... and there was not a cabinet against a wall, not a rug on a floor, not a cushion on a chair, not a knicknack on a mantelpiece, not a plate in a rack, but had come there by the design of her brain. Without possessing much artistic taste, Leonora had an extraordinary talent for domestic equipment, organisation, and management. She was so interested in her home, so exacting in her ideals, that she could never reach finality; the place went through a constant succession of improvements; ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... Every man that is willing to put forth the necessary effort can be a success. The man that is best prepared to do things. How to make your services always in demand. How to reach the top. The man selected to manage is not usually a genius. He does not possess any more talent than others. What he does possess that others do not. Why a few succeed and so ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... while happiness decayed because desires grew faster than possessions or the sense of achievement. The only really scientific basis for a national system of education would be a full knowledge of the family history of each child. With more perfect classification of family talent the need of scholarships of transplantation would become less, for each of them was the confession of an initial error in placing the child. Then there would be more money to be spared for industrial research, travelling and art studentships, and other aids to those who had ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... even of his enemies, he took with him to the tomb an incommunicable method. Like all men of genius, he had no heirs; he carried everything in him, and carried it away with him. The glory of a surgeon is like that of an actor: they live only so long as they are alive, and their talent leaves no trace when they are gone. Actors and surgeons, like great singers too, like the executants who by their performance increase the power of music tenfold, are all the heroes of ...
— The Atheist's Mass • Honore de Balzac
... continue the warfare and to burlesque Philips' performances in a series of realistic representations of country life."[3] Gay entered into the sport with joy—it was a game after his own heart, and one for which his talent was particularly fitted. He begins his "Proeme to the Gentle Reader" with a most palpable hit: "Great marvel hath it been (and that not unworthily) to diverse worthy wits, that in this our island of Britain, in all ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... reached the second station in the first class, a point of elevation which "flattered his pride not a little." At this time he appeared in the eye of the world most amiable and commendable, outwardly moral, unwearied in application, and exhibited marks of no ordinary talent. One exception to this statement is to be found in an irritability of temper arising perhaps from the treatment he had received at school. On one occasion in sudden anger, he threw a knife at the head of another boy, which providentially missed him and ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... is never perceived;' but whatever charges may be brought against the balance of its powers, or against its legislative efficiency, few men will question its eminent success as an organ of public opinion. In England an even disproportionate amount of the national talent takes the direction of politics. The pulse of an energetic national life is felt in every quarter of the land. The debates of Parliament are followed with a warm, constant, and intelligent interest ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... has actuated both parties, has led to the search among neglected archives for documents almost innumerable, and their force and bearing upon the question have been exhibited in arguments of great ability. Such has been the talent shown in this task of illustration and so copious have been the materials employed for the purpose that the great and only important question, although never lost sight of by the writers themselves, has to the eye of the casual observer ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... Harry, for I did not mean to say anything about it until you had left school; still, if you go to France I do not know why you should not keep that before you. I don't think the army is a very good profession, but you do not seem to have any marked talent for anything else. You don't like the idea of medicine or the church, and you were almost heart-broken when I wanted you to accept the offer of your uncle John of a seat in his counting-house. It seems ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... dear! don't be absurd. Suppose Mr. EMMET has been a minstrel, is that any proof that he can't be an actor? The young fellow has his faults, but they will wear off in time, and he is brimful of real talent. The play isn't a model of excellence, but it was made to show EMMET'S strong points, and it answers its purpose. Shall we cry down a talented and promising young actor simply because he has been a minstrel, and now has the audacity to play at WALLACK'S? And besides, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... was a success! The House was gained, was attentive. A case long familiar to it in portions and fragments, which had been spoilt by violence and discredited by ignorance, was being presented to it with all the resources of a great talent—with brilliancy, moderation, practical detail—moderation above all! From the slight historical sketch, with which the speech opened, of the English "working day," the causes and the results of the Factory Acts—through the general ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thought and brain were there, some kind Of faculty that men mistake For talent, when their wits are blind,— An aptitude to mar and break What others ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... the representations, these three plays were written for men only. Ayala persuaded his sister to appear as the heroine of his comedy, La primera Dama, and the innovation, if it scandalized some of his townsmen, permitted him to develop his talent more freely. In his twentieth year he matriculated at the university of Seville, but his career as a student was undistinguished. In Seville he made acquaintance with Garcia Gutierrez, who is reported to have encouraged his dramatic ambitions and to have given him the benefit of his own experience ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... a fine smile. He was a man of immense talent; since he had won the Prix de Rome he had made great progress, and was already half famous with that young celebrity which young men easily mistake for fame itself. A new comet visible only through a good glass causes a deal of talk and speculation in the world; ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... He is said to have been impetuous as well as vindictive;[121] he had the dangerous gift of pulpit eloquence[122] and may have acquired the trick of saying rather more than he meant. His evidence against Luis de Leon, though fluent and clear, is not what we should expect from a man of talent, who recognized the gravity of the charges against the prisoner. His testimony, such as it is, has less intellectual substance than the testimony of Castro and Medina; it turns mainly on petty personal questions or on points of morbid scrupulousness. ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... dead," he said. "It is very strange. So many rare felicities of curve and color, so much of purity and kindliness and valor and mirth, extinguished as one snuffs a candle! Well! I am sorry she is dead, for the child had a talent for living and got such joy out of it. . . . Hers was a lovely happy life, but it was sterile. Already nothing remains of her but dead flesh which must be huddled out of sight. I shall not perish thus entirely, I believe. Men will remember ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... no reference to the temple or palace, the art began to decline: freak, extravagance, and exhibition, took the place of the old temperance. This balance-wheel, which the sculptor found in architecture, the perilous irritability of poetic talent found in the accumulated dramatic materials to which the people were already wonted, and which had a certain excellence which no single genius,[542] however extraordinary, could hope ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... The Irish talent for repartee has an amusing illustration in Lord Rossmore's recent book "Things I Can Tell." While acting as magistrate at an Irish village, Lord Rossmore said to an old offender brought before him: "You ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... see it," Kitty exclaimed; "and I don't want to show it to you. I tell you I have no talent. I suppose, though, patience must tell in the end," she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... palace-architecture. The Riccardi palace in Florence (1430) marks the first step of the Renaissance in this direction. It was built for the great Cosimo di Medici by Michelozzi (1397-1473), acontemporary of Brunelleschi and Alberti, and a man of great talent. Its imposing rectangular faade, with widely spaced mullioned windows in two stories over a massive basement, is crowned with a classic cornice of unusual and perhaps excessive size. In spite of the bold and fortress-like character ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... brown Mouse were both talented, though in different ways. The Rabbit's talent showed itself in the precision and vigor with which he could beat a drum as he sat on his hind-legs; the Mouse in the swiftness and grace with which he could speed to and ...
— Adventures in Toyland - What the Marionette Told Molly • Edith King Hall
... acquainted with a man named Offut, a trader and speculator, who pretended to great business shrewdness, but whose chief talent lay in boasting of the magnificent things he meant to do. Offut engaged Abraham, with his stepmother's son, John D. Johnston, and John Hanks, to take a flatboat from Beardstown, on the Illinois River, to New Orleans; and all four arranged to meet at Springfield as soon ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... high things, and in making their lives at once rich and austere. Such a part in literature is indeed high. We feel no emotion of revolt when Mackintosh speaks of Shakespeare and Burke in the same breath as being both of them above mere talent. And we do not dissent when Macaulay, after reading Burke's works over, again, exclaims, "How admirable! ...
— Burke • John Morley
... me that he has great talent for music; but up to the present time he has not cultivated it ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... us clerical positions, and other higher types of labor we shall be forced into enterprises of our own to furnish labor for our own talent. Let us accept the lesson so plainly taught and provide enterprises to supply our own needs ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... fact that the power of the actor's talent lies, as well as that of poetry and of fanaticism; for the former is the eloquence of words, as the latter is the eloquence of actions; and in this lies the foundation of a science, so far in ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... formidable, and he could not hope to succeed as his ambition prompted, without patient application for years. Louisiana had just been ceded to the United States, Mississippi was filling with population: both these Territories would soon be States. Already they were inviting fields for enterprise and talent, and soon to be more so. Pondering these facts in his ardent mind, and riding alone on one occasion to a justice's court in the country to attend to some trifling matter, he chanced to overtake General Jackson. He had been frequently ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... position and playing the part which, in the interests of all, should belong to them. Otto Ammon, in his Natural Selection in Man, and in The Social Order and its Natural Bases,[251] defended analogous doctrines in Germany; setting the curve representing frequency of talent over against that of income, he attempted to show that all democratic measures which aim at promoting the rise in the social scale of the talented are useless, if not dangerous; that they only increase the panmixia, ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... just because he did not surrender to her. He was the only man but one that ever had anything to do with her, so far as I know, who was not, in one degree or another, in love with her. He admitted her beauty and charm, he admired her talent, he respected her frankness—but he never was the least little bit in love with her, and except for J—n S——t, who failed to make a great picture of her, for the same reason, I believe, he is the only man I know who ever had the opportunity, ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... needed to seek in the woman those qualities demanded of a traveling companion; good disposition, identical tastes, the same likes and dislikes in eating and drinking. Love! Every one believed he had a right to it, while love was like talent, like beauty, like fortune, a special gift which only rare and privileged persons might enjoy. By good luck, deception came to conceal this cruel inequality, and all human beings ended their days, thinking of their youth with melancholy longing, believing ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... (Witchcraft), who were men of great and distinguished talent, maintained that there was no fact in all history more fully attested, and that to reject it would be to strike at the root of all historical evidence of the ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... light; and this the more, as I still had fresh in my memory the remarkable manner in which Father Cotton, the Jesuit, had given me a warning by a word about a boxwood fire. After a moment's thought, therefore, I summoned Boisrueil, one of my gentlemen, who had an acknowledged talent for collecting gossip; and I told him in a casual way that M. de ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... was a mulatto. He had a negro mother and a white father. He had a mechanical talent. He seemed to be somewhat of a genius. He had a productive mind. He could do blacksmithing, carpenter work, brick ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... the subject of barriers. Karara had been able to meet the aliens, if not mind-to-mind, then in a closer way even than Ashe. The talent which tied her to the dolphins had in turn been a bond with the Foanna. Ashe and Karara could enter that circle, but not Ross Murdock. Along with his new separation from Ashe came that feeling of inferiority to bite on, and ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... "to measure" denoted that the payment was in grain. The ingots for exchange were, therefore, designated by the name of the weights to which they corresponded. The lowest unit was a shekel, weighing on an average nearly half an ounce, sixty shekels making a mina, and sixty minas a talent. It is a question whether the Chaldaeanns possessed in early times, as did the Assyrians of a later period, two kinds of shekels and minas, one heavy and the other light. Whether the loan were in metal, grain, or ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the people a government without legal sanction and demand their obedience to and support thereof, said government meanwhile determining the character of its successors and thus perpetuating its talent, and yet are powerless to admit ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... gathered new strength. You, too, would have spared yourself much pain had you striven to attain success in different fields—not where I had garnered the harvest of a lifetime. It is only a portion of his talent that I take from him. The rest I cannot harm. Why should he bury ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... years, I can't stand the sight of such weedy weaklings, who don't do anything themselves and exploit their daughters. They have the effect of an emetic on me. For all that, he plays the great man. He has no talent, so he is going to boil soup from his daughter's bones. Yet he goes about nose up in the air. If he sees a dollar in the dirt and somebody of distinction is looking, he will let it lie. He won't pick it up. There is no denying he has an attractive appearance. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... persecution, and suppression of free speech and freedom of the press, as much war, as much of the vilest excess of mutilation, rapine, and delirious indiscriminate slaughter of helpless non-combatants, old and young, as much prostitution of professional talent, literary and political, in defence of manifest wrong, as much cowardly sycophancy giving fine names to all this villainy or pretending that it is "greatly exaggerated," as we can find any record of from the days when the advocacy ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... true critics are known by their talent of swarming about the noblest writers, to which they are carried merely by instinct, as a rat to the best cheese, or a wasp to the fairest fruit. So when the king is a horseback he is sure to be the dirtiest person of the ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... all her life fond of what she called inventing chances, a fine phrase, of which she was proud. In fact, this sturdy old spinster liked to interfere authoritatively in the affairs of men and women, and believed that for this she had a special talent, which in fact she discovered no inclination to bury; but what now she had in hand to do ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... reveries became concentrated for divers hallucinating hours on a very pretty book, with a very pretty title. And here let me remark episodically, that I pride myself on titles; what compositors call "monkeyfying the title-page" is known to be a talent of itself, and one moreover to which in these days of advertisements and superficialities many a meagre book has owed its popular acceptance. The titles of generations back seemed not to have been regarded honest, if they did not exhibit on their face a true ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... she had always commanded willing homage. As Greyson had once told her, it was herself—her personality that was her greatest asset. Was it to be utterly wasted? There were hundreds of impersonal, sexless women, equipped for nothing else, with pens as keen if not keener than hers. That was not the talent with which she had been entrusted—for which she would have to account. It was her beauty, her power to charm, to draw after her—to compel by the mere exercise of her will. Hitherto Beauty had been content to barter itself for mere coin of the realm—for ease and luxury ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... scoundrels! Do not then, I pray you, permit the fulfilment of this evil deed. Stay the blood, give back the life—give back the life to my noble son! You took everything away from me, but did I ever ask you like a beggar: "Give me back my wealth, give me back my friends, give me back my talent"? No, never. I did not even ask you for my talent, and you know what his talent means to a man. It is more than life. I thought perhaps that's the way it ought to be, and I bore everything, bore everything with pride. But now I ask you on my knees, in the dust, kissing the earth: "Give ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... to act, and proved to have a natural talent, while Bobby, professing a great love for things theatrical, was hopeless on the stage. Her efforts either moved her coaches to helpless laughter or caused them to retire in ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... loved. And how well and fairly he played it! Surely no one deserved success more than Dick. And it is a consolation to know he had more than fifty years of just what he wanted. He had health, a great talent, and personal charm. There never was a more loyal or unselfish friend. There wasn't an atom of envy in him. He had unbounded mental and physical courage, and with it all he was sensitive and sometimes shy. He often tried to conceal these last two qualities, ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various
... a sheriff; would court the acquaintance of great men of distinction; would win their favor by my gentle, humble conduct; I would be ready to serve; any work intrusted to me I would punctually perform; would not mix in evil company; would make my talent shine; would write odes of encomium, panegyrics, on occasions of note; till finally, I should myself, like my uncle, become "secretarius," "assessor," ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... cause, but my concern is much greater when I find officers coming from France, officers of some character in my country, to whom any fault of that kind may be imputed. The reason of my fondness for Conway was his being by all means a very brave and very good officer. However, that talent for manoeuvres, and which seems so extraordinary to congress, is not so very difficult a matter for any man of common sense who applies himself to it. I must pay to General Portail, and some French officers, who came to speak me, the justice to ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... no reason to doubt that she did. The curiosity of the artist and of the man would have induced Michael Angelo to endeavor to gain a glimpse of the most charming woman in Rome. Although only a beginner, he was already recognized as an artist of great talent. As he had just been taken up by Gallo the Roman and Cardinal La Grolaye, it is altogether probable that he would have been the ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... largest near-by city meant that any dancing indulged in by its citizens was at home, minus car fare. Also, the music for dancing at the Falls was not favorably commented upon. So sometimes there were six couples at the dance, once in a great while twenty. The youths present were home talent, short on thrills ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... plunge taken that morning. I don't think I should ever have been deluded, even if my curiosity had not led me to question the steward; but never, by word or look, did I impugn the reality of that Barmecide bath. To his other accomplishments, M. —— added a very pretty talent for piquet; the match was even enough, though, to be interesting, at almost nominal stakes, and so we got pleasantly through ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... marked and palpable, to a degree very difficult for us now to conceive. They were in contact, on the one side, with the great thinkers, moralists, poets, and wits, but very slightly in communication with the generality of the people on the other. They received the emanations from the assemblage of talent and knowledge, but did not serve as conductors to convey them down indefinitely into the community. The national body, regarded in its intellectual character, had an inspirited and vigorous superior part, as constituted of these ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... eremitic business need not be harshly judged; for we must bear in mind that this honest Servitor of Christ is strong enough not to have his will in the matter. And remember, too, that the abbey's bills of expenses run high. If one of the monks, therefore, is blessed with a talent for solitude and seclusion, his brother monks shall profit by it. Indeed, we were told, that the income of the Hermitage, that is, the sum total in gold of the occult and the agricultural endeavours of Abd'ul-Messiah, is enough to defray the yearly expenditures of the monkery. Further, we ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... and soul, without casting the least thought of regret to London, or even to Paris.... I live still, and must for a twelvemonth, in my old house in James's Court, which is very cheerful and even elegant, but too small to display my great talent for cookery, the science to which I intend to addict the remaining years of my life. I have just now lying on the table before me a receipt for making soupe a la reine, copied with my own hand; for beef and cabbage (a charming dish) and old mutton and old claret ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... there—! Say boy, little old unsuspectin' Timber City is goin' to stage an orgy. We don't aim to pull off no common sordid drunk—not us. What we'll precipitate is goin' to be a classic—a jamboree of sorts, a bacchanalian cataclysm, aided an' abetted by what local talent an' trimmin's the scenery affords. Shake a leg, there! An' we'll forget the bones, an' the poison, an' the dust, an' with the discriminatin' perception of a beltful of rollickin' ferments, we'll enjoy the pink, an' the purple, an' the red. Tomorrow, ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... but brief explanation. Osborne, possessing as he did, ambition, talent, and enthusiasm in a high degree, was yet deficient in that firmness of purpose which is essential to distinction in public or private life. His wife was undoubtedly both beautiful and accomplished, and it is undeniable that his marriage with her opened to ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... emotions of delight—whether we consider him as an eminent physician, a friend to literature, or a collector of books, pictures, and coins. Benevolence, magnanimity, and erudition were the striking features of his character: his house was the general receptacle of men of genius and talent, and of every thing beautiful, precious, or rare. His curiosities, whether books, or coins, or pictures, were freely laid open to the public; and the enterprising student, and experienced antiquary, alike found amusement ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... personal ambition. The love of adventure was deep in him; he adored sport for its own sake; he had had a long range of experiences—some discreditable—and now he had determined on a new field for his talent. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ministry, found within, where it was they wanted what they sought for, viz. the right way to peace with God. For they were directed to the light of Jesus Christ within them, as the seed and leaven of the kingdom of God; near all, because in all, and God's talent to all: a faithful and true witness, and just monitor in every bosom. The gift and grace of God to life and salvation, that appears to all, though few regard it. This the traditional Christian, conceited of himself, and strong in his own will and righteousness, ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... handsome, easy and quick, has talent, and has seen a good deal of various kinds of life. It might be difficult to give an unselfish reason for being prepossessed ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... appeared, were having all their children taught an art or profession of some kind. One of the daughters, having a talent for drawing, was learning the art of engraving on wood. The youngest, being passionately fond of flowers, and possessed of great artistic genius, was a regular apprentice in an artificial-flower manufactory. Miss Effie, the eldest, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... upon myself as belonging to that class of decidedly unfortunate beings who have no marked talent for any particular pursuit. The words talent, genius, have for me no application whatever. I stand on the confines of both worlds, not feeling the necessity nor having the true valor to decide for ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... of the events which had happened, accompanying his petition with a great sum of money, and offerings of all the rarities the countries of Hind and Sind afforded; among which were ten beautiful slaves, highly accomplished in singing, dancing, and a talent for poetry. They recited extempore verses before the caliph, but the subject of each was so expressive of their wish to return to their beloved sovereign, and delivered in so affecting a manner, that Mamoon, though delighted ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... Cat flourished, and Jude made no attempt to curb his growing desire for popularity there. He was developing a talent for instructing his elders, and laying down the law. He was endeavoring to fill Birkdale's place. Jared had always been the tavern orator. Some one has to occupy that pedestal in all such places, while the others enjoy their pipes and mugs ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... is that of Education; and while she strives to make acquisitions in the various branches of knowledge, let her not forget that better education of the mind and heart. Talent, without virtue to guide, is like a ship without sails or rudder, exposed to the wild winds of the storm on the broad expanse of the ocean. What sadder spectacle can there be, than to behold a mind employing its talents and its learning in endeavoring to lead its fellow-beings away ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... be no doubt that you will do that, with your talent," Lord Cameron replied; then drawing an envelope from his pocket, he quietly passed it to him. "Do not open it until you reach New York," he ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... been told that, in art and literature, they will atone for deficiency of natural talent. It may be so; some persons, at least, have been able to cajole their brains into believing this. However that may be, I do not think the rule can be extended into the domain of cookery. Good intentions—no. Nobody need ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... of high moral worth without talent, and the tortures endured by the consciousness of this defect.—Etienne Pivert de ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... perfect Noah's Ark. Most of the lodgers are respectable, educated, and even bookish people. In particular they include a tchinovnik (one of the literary staff in some government department), who is so well-read that he can expound Homer or any other author—in fact, ANYTHING, such a man of talent is he! Also, there are a couple of officers (for ever playing cards), a midshipman, and an English tutor. But, to amuse you, dearest, let me describe these people more categorically in my next letter, and tell you in detail about their lives. As for our ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... different circle of ideas. "Nature" still means something antithetical to existing social organization; Plato exercised a great influence upon Rousseau. But the voice of nature now speaks for the diversity of individual talent and for the need of free development of individuality in all its variety. Education in accord with nature furnishes the goal and the method of instruction and discipline. Moreover, the native or original endowment was conceived, in extreme cases, as nonsocial or even as antisocial. Social arrangements ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... All sense of honour disappears when conduct is regulated by the shifting motives of party politics. The dissensions of the Fronde accordingly produced no champion to whom either side could look with unmingled respect. The great Conde and the famous Turenne showed military talent of the highest order, but a want of principle and a flighty frivolity of character counterbalanced all their virtues. The scenes of those five or six years are like a series of dissolving views, or the changing combinations of a kaleidoscope; Conde and Turenne ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... wants to be an expert he must keep his eyes and ears wide open, and pay strict attention to little things which almost anybody else would consider to be beneath his notice. It is wonderful what proficiency a person who has a talent for such things can acquire by practice. For example, this scout of ours could learn more about a trail in two minutes than I could in an hour. But he is fearfully jealous," added George with a laugh, "and you ought to have seen how mad I made him while ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... sufficient cask of wine or of honey, a hook of iron, or a measure of salt; from every tavern a vessel of mead or of ale; and from every shop a gift of shoes, or gloves, or knives, or combs, with many gifts of such kind. And on that day the king and his nobles each offered unto him a talent of gold; but the people offered even as they could, the which did Patrick, the poor in Christ, give unto the poor, having retained a part unto the building of churches. Then blessed he them with the blessings of Jacob the patriarch, and of Moses the servant of God, like unto ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... points of interest. By them originality, talent and mental capacity are displayed, as well as any deficiency or want of education. There are two styles of capital letters at present in use. The high-class style employed by persons of education is plain and often eccentric, but without ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... I have just cited, leads me at once to say that if the direction of an orchestra appears to be very difficult for a blind man, it is indisputably impossible for a deaf one, whatever may have been his technical talent before losing ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... so imperfectly that any statement of them is a travesty. I may cite, as an example, a book published within the past two years, and much praised in America by the indiscriminating as a truthful picture of life. The whole story hung upon the great musical talent of the youthful hero. The hero skated to church through the streets, gazed down the long aisle where the worshipers were assembled (presumably in pews), ascended to the organ gallery, sang an impromptu solo with trills and embellishments, was taken in hand ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... peculiar talent for making cakes, which no Nor'-Wester could imitate, but which any Nor'-Wester in the land could eat. There were other trifles which it would take too long to mention, and large pots of tea which it would not take very long to drink. That was all the drink they had, happily, for strong young ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... also depends upon the changing needs of a society. Needs and circumstances vary more than do degrees of talent. Thus when need and knowledge merge, inventors quickly appear. Indeed, several men in several places are likely to work on the same problems at the same time, and they often solve it in almost identical fashion. Nearly simultaneous inventions or discoveries occur ...
— Agricultural Implements and Machines in the Collection of the National Museum of History and Technology • John T. Schlebecker
... the world appreciates your learning and talent, and that it uses you more gently than that horse of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... psychotherapist," said the dark-skinned young man. He looked too young to be practicing a profession, barely nineteen, but that could be merely a sign of talent, Donahue reflected. The new teaching and testing methods ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... That a great talent for depicting character is attributed to Shakespeare arises from his actually possessing a peculiarity which, for superficial observers and in the play of good actors, may appear to be the capacity of depicting ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... restore wit to its pristine glory, to the position it had occupied before it was tied to mirth and ridicule, when Atterbury could thus define it: "Wit, indeed, as it implies, a certain uncommon Reach and Vivacity of Thought, is an Excellent Talent; very fit to be employ'd in the Search of Truth...." So the anonymous author of A Satyr upon a Late Pamphlet Entitled, A Satyr against Wit (1700) ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... expression, may be more certainly conveyed through the medium of the best translations, which we now possess, and the performance of which has occupied a large portion of the time of accomplished scholars. This conversion of talent to that which is useful, and productive of emolument, has given a more energetic impulse to the mind, and accelerated that march of which we now so justly boast: but it cannot be denied, that in the rapidity of our advancement, ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... piqued because she did not receive the compliments she expected, and which she felt she deserved. Four or five times she asked impatiently, "Isn't that good?" and as the only reply was a scarcely enthusiastic "Very good," she vowed she would never again waste so much care and talent upon ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... essentially feminine pursuits which have no place in the life of a man, but these are rapidly being cared for by books, gratuitously distributed, issued by the manufacturers of distinctly feminine and domestic wares; for such publications the best talent is being employed, and the results are placed within easy access of women, by means of newspaper advertisement, the store-counter, or the mails. These will sooner or later—and much sooner than later—supplant the practical portions of the woman's magazine, leaving only the general contents, which ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... formidable than we now consider it, and might in its effects be compared to those violent storms of thunder and lightning that purify the atmosphere and dispense salutary refreshment; and it is not improbable, that some, gifted by nature with mediocrity of talent, but of a philosophical turn and aspiring pretensions, might regard the occurrence of such paroxysm as a desideratum, rather than an evil, on account of the extreme soundness they would experience afterwards: it is moreover evident, that however degraded the lunatic may be in the ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam
... said Byron, "was much more disgusted with any human production than with the eternal nonsense, and tracasseries, and emptiness, and ill-humour, and vanity of this young person; but he has some talent, and is a man of honour, and has dispositions of amendment. Therefore use your interest for him, for he is improved and improvable;" and, in a letter to Murray, Aug. 21, 1817, "You want a 'civil and delicate declension' for the medical tragedy? Take it."—For J.W. Polidori ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... hangings. The plain goods in dull, soft greens, blues, and browns, with conventional designs in applique or outlining, are not only inexpensive but artistic to a high degree, and are easily fashioned by home talent. Plain strips, too, are used for trimming, and stencil work, but the latter requires rather more artistic ability than most of us possess. Whatever the material, it must be soft enough to draw all the way back and leave a full opening, but not so thin ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... the way in which he should go to work. This assistance Charlie received, upon condition that he should also, at the same time, continue his other studies; and in case any two artists that his friend might consult, should declare, on seeing his work, that he did not show talent enough to promise reasonable success, he was, from that time, to devote himself to business. For a while, Charlie was a great deal happier than a king. He immediately began a view of his beloved little mill-pond, and then attempted one of a small sheet of water in the neighbourhood, called Chewattan ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... misanthropy more really misanthropic, because less passionate and tragical, than Swift's, and, in fact, as his patron, persecutor, and counterpart, Frederick the Jonathan-Wildly Great, most justly observed of him, to "play monkey-tricks," albeit monkey-tricks of immense talent, if not actually of genius. If the recent attempts to interpret monkey-speech were to come to something, and if, as a consequence, monkeys were taught to write, one may be sure that prose fiction would be their ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... seventeenth century more than a thousand vessels were registered as built in the New England colonies, and Salem already displayed the peculiar talent for maritime adventure which was to make her the most illustrious port of the New World. The first of her line of shipping merchants was Philip English, who was sailing his own ketch Speedwell in 1676 and so rapidly advanced his fortunes that in a few years he was the richest man on the coast, ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... expert in the finer art of actual crime detection, until he discovered that the boy possessed natural gifts of intuition and observation, combined with penetration. Crewe grew interested in developing the boy's talent for detective work. When the lad's mother died Crewe decided to take him into his Holborn offices as messenger-boy. Crewe soon discovered that Joe had a useful gift for "shadowing" work, and his street training as a newspaper runner enabled him not only to follow a person ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... "The talent you approve of is an amiable one, and might prove a 'national service,' but unfortunately I must be angry with a man before I draw his real portrait; and I can't deal in 'generals,' so that I trust never to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... progress hindered by the very talent that he had displayed. He was so anxious to draw the letters that he would not learn them, and Abel was at last obliged to make one thing a ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... often he "made Israel to sin." And yet what a chance he had to have led the people, over whom God had made him king, in the path of righteousness? Instead of teaching evil, he might have led his people into the ways of the Lord. Influence is a talent which brings with it enormous responsibility. Perhaps to none is this more applicable than to parents. Let those of us to whom God has given children, use our ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... time of this history, Philip had gone to New York for a career. With his talent he thought he should have little difficulty in getting an editorial position upon a metropolitan newspaper; not that he knew anything about news paper work, or had the least idea of journalism; he knew he was not fitted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... done for himself, not for her. As he had said, he did not paint for the pleasure of others, but only for reasons of his own. Apparently he would never gratify her vanity. But he gratified something else in her, her genuine love of talent and the ruthlessness of talent. There was really something of the great man in Garstin, and she appreciated it. She admired him more than she liked him. Even in her frequent irritation against him she knew what he genuinely was. At this moment something in her was sharply disappointed. But something ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... should leave, and they knew I came there on my own account; so they gave me a bedroom without the companionship of one of those things that were having their brains slowly diluted and squeezed out of them. I did not learn music, because I had no talent; and when the drove made cushions, and hideous flowers that the roses laugh at, and a footstool in six weeks that a machine would have made better in five minutes, I went to my room. With the money saved from such work ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... that I wished to have a council with them. The Indians all met me in council, as I had desired, and I then told them that the men who had taken part in shooting the woman would have to be delivered up for punishment. They were very stiff with me at the interview, and with all that talent for circumlocution and diplomacy with which the Indian is lifted, endeavored to evade my demands and delay any conclusion. But I was very positive, would hear of no compromise whatever, and demanded that my terms be at once complied with. ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... furnish the money for the employment of such legal talent as may be necessary. That's as far as I wish to go in the case. It must not be known—I cannot allow it to be known that ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... was without the means of making any commanding figure in the house of commons. With the exception of Mr. Peel, who filled the post of leader in that house, there was no man who could fight their battles of debate with any degree of talent and vigour, no one that held any high place in public opinion, either for oratory or information. Finally, the ministry increased their unpopularity by prosecutions for libel arising out of the Catholic relief bill. While that bill was pending, the press had given birth ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... girls were going to Paris. Lucy Cobden had developed an extraordinary talent for music during her short stay in Trenton with her friend Maria Collins, and Miss Jane, with her customary unselfishness and devotion to her younger sister, had decided to go with her. They might be gone two ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... living who had entered it with him. With all these qualities, Ensign de Haldimar promised to make an excellent soldier; and, as such, was encouraged by the field-officers of the corps, who unhesitatingly pronounced him a lad of discernment and talent, who would one day rival them in all the glorious privileges of martinetism. It was even remarked, as an evidence of his worth, that, when promoted to a lieutenancy, he looked down upon the ensigns with that becoming condescension which befitted his new rank; and ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... any rate, is the impression left by a little book made up—apparently against the writer's will—of certain of the master's letters and mots.... It is useful and pleasant reading; for not only does it prove the painter to have a certain literary talent—of aptness, unexpectedness, above all impertinence—but also it proves him never to have feared the face of art-critical man.... To him the art-critic is nothing if not a person to be educated, with or against the ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... stories for younger children who are unable to comprehend the Starry Flag Series or the Army and Navy Series. But they all display the author's talent for pleasing and interesting the little folks. They are all fresh and original, preaching no sermons, but inculcating ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... Sicily, and Arion longed to compete for the prize. He told his wish to Periander, who besought him like a brother to give up the thought. "Pray stay with me," he said, "and be contented. He who strives to win may lose." Arion answered, "A wandering life best suits the free heart of a poet. The talent which a god bestowed on me, I would fain make a source of pleasure to others. And if I win the prize, how will the enjoyment of it be increased by the consciousness of my wide- spread fame!" He went, won the prize, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... it unto whom he pleaseth; God is bounteous and wise: he will confer peculiar mercy on whom he pleaseth; for God is endued with great beneficence. There is of those who have received the scriptures, unto whom if thou trust a talent, he will restore it unto thee; and there is also of them, unto whom if thou trust a dinar,[55] he will not restore it unto thee, unless thou stand over him continually with great urgency. This they do because ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... wanted to be begged off, was the schoolmistress to be their advocate? Because Grace Harvey exercised, without intending anything of the kind, an almost mesmeric influence on every one in the little town. Goodness rather than talent had given her wisdom, and goodness rather than courage a power of using that wisdom, which, to those simple, superstitious folk, seemed altogether an inspiration. There was a mystery about her, too, which worked strongly on the hearts of the West-country people. She was ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... early age her father, himself a skilled violinist, had taught her to handle the bow, and had early discovered the wonderful talent for music ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... agreement, and when Thirlwell had read Agatha's account of her meeting with the burglar and Stormont, he remarked: "It's a nice frank letter, and Miss Strange has some talent ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... you a God-fearing man? So you think that you will really be doing a good turn to Thaddeus if you make a sower of buckwheat out of the young man! You will close the world to him! Believe me, some time he will curse you! To think of burying such talent in the woods and the garden! Believe me, judging from my knowledge of him, he is a capable boy, worthy of acquiring polish in the great world. You will do well, brother, if you send him to the capital, for instance, to Warsaw; ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... often been blamed, but quite unjustly, for failure to attract men of talent into his ranks. Parnell had that power. He had, and used, the right of suggesting names. But under the constitution of the United Irish League (originally the work of Mr. William O'Brien when reunion was accomplished in 1900) the machinery ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... when the Doctor went to London, an: 1710, on his errand of obtaining the First Fruits for the Irish Church from the Crown—and he chosen all others to this, for his commanding talent and presence, though then but forty-two years of age, and many dignitaries older, yet not ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... great attractions for me. A cousin of mine, who secured his chess blue at Oxford, would, they tell me, have represented his University in the dominoes match also, had he not unfortunately dislocated the radius bone of his bazooka while training for it. Except for him, there has been little dominoes talent in the Psmith family. Let us merely talk. What of this slight brass-rag-parting to which I alluded just now? ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... resided almost entirely with the Squire, to whom he had become a factotum, and whom he particularly delighted by jumping with his humour in respect to old times, and by having a scrap of an old song to suit every occasion. We had presently a specimen of his last-mentioned talent; for no sooner was supper removed, and spiced wines and other beverages peculiar to the season introduced, than Master Simon was called on for a good old Christmas song. He bethought himself for a moment, and then, with a sparkle of the eye, and a voice ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... one day he deliberately called other patients in, leaving her unnoticed in the waiting-room. Bad times again, then other new doctors, other periods of immunity from attacks, with exaggerated devotion to each new helper until she had made the rounds of the desirable, professional talent of Houston. ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... chapters of Exodus without being impressed with the fact that the man who wrote them had in him the spirit of the Master Workman—a King's Craftsman. His carving the ten commandments on tablets of stone also shows his skill with mallet and chisel, a talent he had acquired in Egypt, where Rameses the Second had thousands of men engaged in sculpture and ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... forced to take refuge in the woods. Then for the first time Father Murphy became a rebel. More than that, he became all at once an insurgent general. He put himself at the head of the despairing peasantry, and he suddenly developed a decided talent for the work of an insurgent chief. His people were armed for the most part only with pitchforks and with spades. Their pikes had nearly all been surrendered; only some few of the farming class had guns; and there was, of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... was the honorary appellation of the great sage and ruler, whose praise is in the "Shi-King" as one of the founders of the Chow dynasty, and the term represented civic talent and virtues, as distinct from Wu, the martial talent—the latter being the honorary title of his son and successor. "Wan" also often stands for literature and polite accomplishments. Here Confucius simply means, "If you kill me, ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... long in coming, though the opportunity it afforded Escovedo was scarcely such as, in his greedy, insatiable ambition, he had hoped for. Yet the opportunity, such as it was, was afforded him by me, and had he used it properly it should have carried him far, certainly much farther than his talent and condition warranted. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... forefinger and lowering his voice, 'Now your friend wants "talent," eh? Real, genuine "talent"! I could put ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... reproach was again followed by deep silence. Tyope was indeed a fascinating speaker. The maseua and the Hishtanyi Chayan were the only ones whom his oratorical talent could not lead astray. He ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... the conversation. He was of too happy a spirit to mind riding alone, while he relieved himself by cracking jokes with the passers-by. I have spoken of his warm affection for me. He also—notwithstanding his rough outside—possessed a talent for music, and could not only sing a capital song, but had learned to play the violin from an old fiddler, Peter McLeary, who had presented him with an instrument, which he valued like the apple of his eye. He now carried it in its case, strapped ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... visiting cards are affectations in any persons but those who are personally remarkable for talent and whose autographs, or facsimiles of them, would be prized as curiosities. A card bearing the autographic signature of Charles Dickens or George Cruikshank, though only a lithographic facsimile, would ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... grace, was the labour of the saintly Vicar carried on and confirmed. The sweetness of his spirit lingered in fragrant influence upon the hearts of those whom he had blessed in life, and though eulogies abound of his remarkable talent, his gentle courtesy, his unfailing kindness, his beauty of holiness, none who spoke of him could ever forget that for himself he had only claimed the position which almost every morning and evening of his later life he ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... you? You have a chance now to be great. Isn't that worth ten chances to be rich? What would you have thought of Galileo if he hadn't had time to use the telescope after inventing it, but had devoted his time and talent to the maccaroni market? You are one man in ten million; you have an opportunity Columbus would have been proud of! Will you neglect it for mere gold-grubbing? Leave that to the rest of your race and to this money-mad Chicago. You come along with me. Let's make this work-a-day world ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... from the archives of Mantua by their keeper at the request of Mr. Vander Straeten. These papers contained the names of a few other singers, players and directors, but their inadequacy was demonstrated by the fact that they contained no mention of Jacques de Wert, a composer of great activity and talent, to whom Vander Straeten devotes some fifteen ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... attracting notice by his personal beauty and by the rather turgid eloquence which was his chief talent. In 1342 he took the most prominent part in an embassy from the citizens to Clement VI; and though he failed to induce the Pope to return to Rome, which at that time he seems to have regarded as the panacea for the evils of the time, he gained sufficient favor ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... compositions for the newly introduced ritual, which, by their intrinsic merit and comparative superiority, aided also by a constant demand for new music of the same character, gave a permanent direction to the exercise of musical talent; and the services of Tallis and Byrd became the classic objects of emulation and imitation, and sacred music became, in a peculiar manner, the national music of England. The compositions of these "fathers of our genuine and national sacred music," are still preserved, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... seen of you and what we have read of yours; and you must try to extenuate them too, as you give them, lest we should think you above that nature, which, in the best cases, is your undoubted talent. ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... MELEAGER.—To these numerous men of great talent must be added the epigrammatists—that is, those who wrote very short, very concise, very limpid poems wherein they sought absolute perfection. They were almost innumerable. The most illustrious was Meleager, in whom we can yet appreciate delicate ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... sensitive nature, was so hurt by this indignity that she hung herself in despair, and was changed by Athene into a spider. This goddess is said to have invented the flute,[21] upon {46} which she played with considerable talent, until one day, being laughed at by the assembled gods and goddesses for the contortions which her countenance assumed during these musical efforts, she hastily ran to a fountain in order to convince herself whether she deserved their ridicule. Finding to her intense disgust that such ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... unvisited. Let us think of the good of our race: if we are not generous enough, at least let us forgive nature for being wiser than ourselves. If you throw cold water on Greuze's head, very likely you will extinguish his talent along with his vanity. If you make Voltaire less sensitive to criticism, he will lose the art that took him to the inmost depths of the soul of Merope, and will never stir a single ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... mere resources of wit and language, Mrs. Francis Armour must have been at a disadvantage. For Lady Haldwell had a good gift of speech, a pretty talent for epithet, and no unnecessary tenderness. She bore Lali no malice. She was too decorous and high for that. In her mind the wife of the man she had discarded was a mere commonplace catastrophe, to be viewed without horror, maybe with pity. She had heard the alien spoken well ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... thinking its way with the aid of genius into "Pre-Raphaelitism," or now again, with the aid of extreme cleverness and talent, into certain cruder forms of "impressionism," is sure of its effect. But an art like Leighton's, whose aim is beauty and not eccentricity, is apt to be slighted by both French and English critics, with some notable exceptions. Not all its grace, its ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... which had prompted her to acquire a smattering of education—and with the quick, adaptive faculty of a monkey she had been able to use this to its utmost limits, as well as her histrionic talent—no mean one—to gain her ends. She was now playing the role of a lady, and playing it brilliantly she knew—and here was Hans back again, and suggesting that when she had secured all the information that he required from Stanislass ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com
|
|
|
