"Acumen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... liberal human sympathy, the keen critical acumen of this essay, make one wish that the author had spared us a "Sludge the Medium" or a "Pacchiarotto," or even a "Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau," and given us more of such honourable work ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... proportions of the "frail" ladies that amused Killigrew, found himself waiting for that moment every evening, and his satisfaction when he caught it was rather that of a person who is pleased at verifying something he has had the acumen to discover than any more poignant emotion. He went far oftener to see this than he did to watch Blanche in her small part as one of the innocuous and well-bred company performing at the little old Strand Theatre, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... this public recantation had cost a proud man, jealous of his reputation for professional tact and skill, as well as for individual acumen, Beryl began to realize the depth and fervor of the love that prompted it; and the merciless ordeal to which he would subject her. Inflicting upon himself the smarting sting of the keenest possible humiliation, could she hope that in the attainment ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... loved best were the product of the silver age of Rome, the characteristics of which are beautifully described by the author of Marius the Epicurean in his chapter significantly called Euphuism. Few of the Renaissance students had the critical acumen of Cheke, and they fell therefore an easy prey to the stylism of the later Latin writers, with its antithesis and extravagance. But, with all this, men could not quite shake off the middle ages. There ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... one of the first to make an exhaustive study of the pulse, and he must have been a man of considerable clinical acumen, as well as boldness, to recommend in obstruction of the bowels the opening of the abdomen, removal of the obstructed portion and uniting the ends ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... been quite unsuspected. It appeared indeed that certain teeth and skeleton bones previously discovered by Professor Cope were related to this new type of dinosaur, but the fragments known to the Philadelphia professor gave him no idea of what the animal was like, although with his usual acumen he had discerned that they differed from any animal known to science and registered them as new under the names of Agathaumas 1873 and Monoclonius 1876. Professor Marsh re-named his supposed bison "Ceratops" (i.e. "horned face") and gave to the ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... of these remarkable and subtle properties of a delicate contact had indeed confronted Edison; he had held them in his grasp, they had stared him in the face, but not-withstanding all his matchless ingenuity and acumen, he, blinded perhaps by a false hypothesis, entirely failed to discern them. The significant proof of it lies in the fact that after the researches of Professor Hughes were published the carbon transmitter was promptly ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... mission at that port. They had figured upon a week at least there before the second officer of the Halfmoon could ingratiate himself sufficiently into the goodwill of the Hardings to learn their plans, and now they were congratulating themselves upon their acumen in selecting so fit an agent as the Frenchman for the work he had handled ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was much impressed by her political acumen, and employed her on "secret service" for the Government, entrusting her as a preliminary with a "mission to St. Petersburg." The story is an obvious concoction, if merely because Dujarier, being little ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... those famous and lucky wits of the auspicious reign of Queen Anne, whose name it behoves us not to pass over. Mat was a world-philosopher of no small genius, good nature, and acumen.(108) He loved, he drank, he sang. He describes himself, in one of his lyrics, "in a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday night; on his left hand his Horace, and a friend on his right," going out of town from the Hague to pass that evening and the ensuing Sunday, boozing at a Spielhaus ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... take my friend Maraton somewhere. As we sit here, Mr. Foley, we have spoken of politics. You are a great man. If any one can lift your country from the rut along which she is travelling, you will do it. A Unionist Prime Minister and you hold out the hand to Maraton! But what foresight! What acumen! You see beyond the thunder-clouds the things that we have seen. Not only do you see them, but you have the courage to follow your convictions. What a mess ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Augustan is, undoubtedly, the most intellectual and refined age, in point of literary and artistic taste, that the world has ever seen. A few centuries before, Greece had reached the summit of science and art. No country, in ancient or modern times, has surpassed the acumen of her philosophical writers and the aesthetic perfection of her poets and artists. Rome made use of her to embellish her cities, and inherited her taste for science and ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... headed up in this one man—the Man of Sin—all that men through the by-gone ages had worshipped. The captivating power of ancient Babylon. The mighty prowess of the Medo-Persian, the power that held all the world in subjection and awe. The Grecian polish. The Roman legal acumen, and martial perfection. All these things seemed combined in this one notable man. And added to all this, there was his resistless attractiveness, his beauty of face, his grace of form, his wondrous voice, his regal air—"all the ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... career of this excellent magistrate was distinguished by an example of legal acumen that gave flattering presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after he had been installed in office, and at the moment that he was making his breakfast from a prodigious earthen dish filled with milk and Indian pudding, he was interrupted ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... written not in monkish Latin, but in a good vigorous vernacular, were a mine of information from which all subsequent Icelandic historians were accustomed to draw such treasures as they needed. To his diligence and acumen they were all, from Snorro Sturlason down, very much indebted. He may be said to have given the tone to history-writing in Iceland, and it was a ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... revolutions were continually taking place, attended, often, by the strangest and most romantic incidents, which evinced, on the part of the actors in them, that extraordinary combination of mental sagacity and acumen with childish and senseless superstition so ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the readers of more than two centuries, but further, it surely struck a new note in English literature and one which was re-echoed far and wide. It has been said that 'Oroonoko is the first emancipation novel', and there is no little acumen in this remark. Certainly we may absolve Mrs. Behn from having directly written with a purpose such as animated Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin; but none the less her sympathy with the oppressed blacks, her deep ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... sun escaped the keen comprehending eye of Vanessa Vollenberg. The mother and the two daughters with whom she found her present lot cast, gave her food enough for meditation and secret comment; but while their acumen and penetration were hardly inferior to her own, she felt an adult among people not completely grown up. It was as if they still retained more of the ingenuousness of primitive womanhood than she, and thus she "circumnavigated" ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... generations of Oxford men, defects which persons of equal or even inferior power in later generations would not display. In some of these, and particularly in Cardinal Newman, the contrast between dialectical acumen, coupled with surpassing rhetorical skill, and the vitiation of the argument by a want of the critical faculty, is even more striking than in Mr. Gladstone's case; and the example of that illustrious man suggests that the dominance of the theological view of literary and historical problems, ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... combined. Mr. Newton, in his "Essays on Art and Archaeology," p. 37, says that "the archaeologist should combine with the aesthetic culture of the artist, and the trained judgment of the historian and the philologist, that critical acumen, required for classification and interpretation; nor should that habitual suspicion which must ever attend the scrutiny and precede the warranty of evidence, give too sceptical a bias to his mind." Such authorities have been interrogated on each ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... with the results that have been seen; and her respect for the acumen of her elder child became somewhat akin ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... doctor's daughters like herself. The matron was the widow of a doctor, who had been eminent alike for professional talent and philanthropy. She was like-minded. If she had not her late husband's knowledge and acumen as a medical man, she had much of his experience, and was full of energy and determination to better the world, the sick, and the poor, almost whether they would or not. Very few people could look Mrs. Hull in the face and contradict ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... to Silesia had been doubtful, all the acumen of his officials was now needed to make a show of some uncertain right to portions of the new acquisition. About this the King himself was little concerned. He had defended before the world with almost superhuman heroism the occupation of Silesia. This province was united ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... a man of great integrity and considerable acumen, but he passed an innocent and exemplary life in studious seclusion; he mixed little with the world at large, resided remote "from courts, and camps, and strife of war or peace;" and there appears occasionally in his writings a kind of nervous apprehension ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... number of kiddies occupied in the national sport of Halifax—bathing. He and his friends spotted the Prince and his party before that party saw them. Being a person of acumen the wise kid immediately "placed" His Royal Highness, and saw the opportunity for ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... because a street has a secret. A street is going somewhere, and a meadow nowhere. But, in the case of the book called "Hymns on the Hill," there was another peculiarity, which the King pointed out with great acumen in his review. He was naturally interested in the matter, for he had himself published a volume of lyrics about London under his pseudonym ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Wood (Athen. Brit., vol. ii., col. 980, ed. 1721), all which authorities are referred to by Mr. Nichols, are sufficiently founded upon truth. He was a violent and wrong-headed writer in many respects; but he had acumen, strength, and fancy. The Bibliotheca Literaria of WASSE (although his name does not appear as the professed editor) is a truly solid and valuable publication; worthy of the reputation of the learned editor of Sallust. The work was published in numbers, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... pr. 4 and 5, especially in pr. 5 the passage "quare in illius summae intellegentiae acumen si ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... ordered that the manors held by the Taira in the Tokai-do and Tosan-do should all be restored to their original owners, the duty of adjudicating in each case being delegated to Yoritomo. How much of this admirably conceived document was inspired by political acumen we may not venture to judge, but it is proper to note that the principles enunciated in the memorial found expression in the practice of Yoritomo himself. He always extended clemency to a defeated enemy if he deemed ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Illegitimate Work in Politics. These speeches took the place of the customary committee hearing. The evening before the bill was voted on Miss Anthony addressed the Legislature with her customary acumen and force. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... himself by his own acumen. The late Mrs. W. had not been in the least that sort of lady, and he had never been engaged to anybody else; yet here he was laying down the law with the serenest confidence. Some divine instinct must be inspiring him. His son seemed less favorably ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... on the science of music, and for nearly twenty-five years editor of the Leipzig "Allgemeine Musikzeitung," a man who, notwithstanding his entire lack of historical acumen and his limited acquaintance with the technicalities of music, did very much towards liberating the art from its mechanical condition, and promoting its intellectual appreciation by the public. He was in Vienna in the year 1822, where he ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... it was his official duty to sketch the writings in attack and defence, that they display great tact and acuteness, and furnish a new proof that critical acumen may be combined ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... Universally that person's acumen is esteemed very little perceptive concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitably by mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... mean, sir,' the Earl said with sudden acumen, a note of keen surprise in his voice, 'that you are here—to abandon ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... Peters was the puzzle. Peters was not the father of either of Winthrop's two wives; and there was nothing in any family records or memorials to justify the notion. On the contrary, they absolutely precluded it. By the labors and acumen of the Hon. James Savage and Mr. Charles Deane, of Cambridge, who have no superiors in grappling with such a difficulty, its solution seems, at last, to be reached. "After long fruitless search," Mr. Savage has expressed a conviction ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... breast and his hair hung in silver locks over his temples. His pale and finely-cut features stamped him as a man of education and refinement. The venerable patriarch had for more than thirty years filled the position of Chief Rabbi of Kief, and his reputation as a Talmudist and a man of great mental acumen was not confined to his ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... woven into a moderately grammatical sentence, Mrs. Merillia, Lady Enid and the Prophet experienced a sense of extraordinary relief, and no longer felt the stern necessity of laughing. But this was not the miracle worked by Mrs. Fancy. Had she, even then, rested satisfied with her acumen, maintained silence and awaited the immediate fulfilment of her prediction, what must have happened can hardly be in doubt. But she was seized by that excess of bravery which is called foolhardiness, and driven by it to that peculiar and thoughtless vehemence of action which sometimes ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... for the Enterprise, to which we have such title and vocation, it were perhaps uninteresting to say more. Let the British reader study and enjoy, in simplicity of heart, what is here presented him, and with whatever metaphysical acumen and talent for meditation he is possessed of. Let him strive to keep a free, open sense; cleared from the mists of prejudice, above all from the paralysis of cant; and directed rather to the Book itself than to the Editor of the Book. Who or what such Editor ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... had been the reverse of pleasant. The fact was, and it is necessary to insist on it, that Mr Racksole, owner of the Grand Babylon Hotel, was by no means in a state of self-satisfaction. A mystery had attached itself to his hotel, and with all his acumen and knowledge of things in general he was unable to solve that mystery. He laughed at the fruitless efforts of the police, but he could not honestly say that his own efforts had been less barren. The public was talking, for, after all, ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... ordinary life, and its unaffected devotional accent. But Cowper is now appreciated more for his incomparably delightful epistles to his friends than for his poetry. Few letters in our language can compare with these for incisive but kindly and gentle irony; innocent but genuine fun; keen and striking acumen, and tender melancholy. Cowper ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... nations have sent the ablest men they possess as their Ambassadors to Sturatzberg. Your British Minister is a case in point. The result is that to the present time no monarch has risen with courage enough, allied to sufficient political acumen, to take his own course, carry it to success. Have you ever realized, monsieur, that Sturatzberg might play with the nations of Europe as a gambler plays ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... with a little dubious popular science!" Then he turned to the other critics of Indian administration—his quondam supporters. He analysed the character of these "members for India" with a vigour and acumen which deprived them of speech. The East, he said, had had its revenge upon the West by making certain Englishmen babus. His honourable friends had the same slipshod minds, and they talked the same pigeon-English, as the patriots of ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... laughed dryly. 'The selection of Alloa shows their acumen. Which of us was likely to speak to him about tonight? Or was he likely ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... obtain some notion of the difficulties alluded to, and the best mode of grappling with them, by consulting the recent Cambridge edition, published with English notes (Iph. in Aulide, 1840, in Tauris, 1846), performances of great critical acumen, attributed to the ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... vain and audacious betrayal by an Oriental woman of the narrowness, the shallowness, the dishonesty which ages of false education have fastened upon her race. The lady in question is—and evidently knows herself to be—an exception among her countrywomen for ability and acumen: an extreme self-satisfaction and vanity are revealed in the recital of her most disreputable tricks. She passes for a white blackbird, a woman of intellect caught in the harem; and it needs but little ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... much affected by the learned Aristarchus in common conversation, to signify genius or natural acumen. But this passage has a further view: [Greek: Nous] was the Platonic term for mind, or the first cause, and that system of divinity is here hinted at which terminates in blind nature without a ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... was it simple "abuse." The satirist was too intelligent to rely upon that. It was his scorching wit which made opponents shrink. His scalpel divided the arteries, and touched the vitals of the living subject. Personal peculiarities were satirized with unfailing acumen. The readers of the Examiner, in those days, will still recall the tremendous flaying which he administered to his adversaries. It may almost be said, that when the remorseless editor had finished with these gentlemen, there was "nothing of them ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... delivery from the Hotel Strathmore just as she was leaving the office, so she had not stopped to answer it. He had made several trips from Bartlesville since their first meeting, under the pretext of business, but it did not require any great acumen to discover that he came chiefly ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... opened the wilderness to railroads, filled the American desert with roses, constructed telephone, telegraph, and steamship lines. They have stood in classroom and in the pulpit by the thousand; they have honored our courts with their legal acumen; they have covered the plains with cities, and compelled the homage of Europe to secure our scholars, our wheat and our iron. The soldier has controlled the finances of banking systems and revolutionized ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... also the privileged friend of an unsuspecting, honorable, upright officer—Colonel Macleod. Even his hardened conscience pricked as he thought how he had deceived one who, with somewhat more of acumen, and somewhat less of belief in men, would have been most severe ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... felt a glow of possession come over me whenever I approached it. Often in those first two months I used to lean against the Mansion House in a familiar sort of way; once I struck a match against the Royal Exchange. And what an impression of financial acumen I could make in a drawing-room by a careless reference to my "block of Jaguars!" Even those who misunderstood me and thought I spoke of my "flock of Jaguars" were startled. Indeed life was ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... sometimes, with filial indirection, by celebrating the benevolence, the intellectual acumen, the idealism of the few men, exceptional in their day, who saw eye to eye with Mary Lyon and her kind; the men who welcomed women to Oberlin and Michigan, who founded Vassar and Wellesley and Bryn ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... you do, which means the ultimate attainment of your maximum efficiency. In other words, if you give your best to your employer, the best possible comes back to you in skill, training, shrewdness, acumen, and power. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... in the second chapter. "Every nation, every age," he says, "has its own doll as a plaything for its children, and sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit) is ours." Then with lightness and grace, coupled with unquestionable critical acumen, he traces briefly the growth of "Empfindsamkeit" in Germany. "Kaum war der liebenswrdige Sterne auf sein Steckenpferd gestiegen, und hatte es uns vorgeritten; so versammelten sich wie gewhnlich in Teutschland alle Jungen ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... the author vindicates himself with great spirit against his literary adversaries; makes his usual strong and forcible remarks on the genius of the authors whom he had imitated; and, in this his last critical work, shows all the acumen which had so long distinguished his powers. The Fables were dedicated to the last Duke of Ormond, the grandson of the Barzillai of "Absalom and Achitophel," and the son of the heroic Earl of Ossory; friends both, and patrons of Dryden's earlier essays. There is something ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... occasions, and would be adopted only by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of concealment, a disposal of the article concealed, a disposal of it in this recherce manner, is, in the very first instance, presumable and presumed; and thus its discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen, but altogether upon the mere care, patience, and determination of the seekers; and where the case is of importance, or, what amounts to the same thing in the policial eyes, when the reward is of magnitude, the qualities ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... historical scenes with such bold imagery and such glowing language. We remember the opinion of a writer in the Edinburgh Review, soon after the publication of Anastasius. With a degree of pleasantry and acumen peculiar to northern criticism, he asks, "Where has Mr. Hope hidden all his eloquence and poetry up to this hour? How is it that he has, all of a sudden, burst out into descriptions which would not disgrace the pen of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... During this interval, he was thinking of the improbability of any but a bona-fide Englishman's dreaming of giving a vessel an appellation so thoroughly idiomatic, and was fast mystifying himself, as so often happens by tyros in any particular branch of knowledge, by his own critical acumen. Then he half whispered a conjecture on the subject to Vito Viti, influenced quite as much by a desire to show his neighbor his own readiness in such matters, as by any other feeling. The podesta was less struck by the distinction than his superior; but, as became ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... nobility, and a cumbrous oligarchical government with a minimum participation of popular representatives. The grandiloquent feudalism of the scheme appealed so strongly to the aristocratic Lords Proprietors that in spite of their usual acumen in politics they were blinded to its conflicts with their charter and to its utter top-heaviness. They rewarded Locke with the first patent of Carolina nobility, which carried with it a grant of forty-eight ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... confronted with the fresh, damp greens, showed the most profound contempt for them. Unquestionably she preferred melons. Mr. Feathercock applauded his own acumen. "She was eating too much; that was the whole trouble," he said to himself. "And that was what made her grow so remarkably. If she eats less she will probably not grow so much. And if she should happen to die, I ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... everywhere meet us? They, in fact, tell their own tale, and almost, as it were, proclaim of themselves that they are allegorical. Wiseman, Newman (two of them, be it observed), Masterman, Philpotts, Wilde. Who, that has been gifted with even a moderate share of critical acumen, can fail to see that these are all fictitious names, invented by the allegorist either to set forth certain qualities or attributes of certain persons whose true names are concealed, or, as I rather think, to embody certain ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... country but also to the mental vigour of the people. The statesmen who met in council in the ancient city of Quebec during the October of 1864 gave a memorable illustration of their constitutional knowledge and their practical acumen in the famous Resolutions which form the basis of the ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... may fancy, will be broader, our critical acumen shrewder, if we at once accept the thing as a part of us and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... trust for the child, and of the writer's desire that it might be used, when turned into money, for her education. There were two pages of rambling references to stocks and investments, the very vagueness of these references proving the weakening shrewdness and lack of business acumen of Captain Hall in his ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of Carhaga, and be there in residence as much as possible, all three religious concurring in that great work and aiding one another mutually for the attainment of so well conceived desires. Finally he arranged matters with so much acumen that if the lack of religious had not rendered it impossible after such ideas had been put into practice, it is probable that they would have subdued all the heathens ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... of these ignoble tastes and pursuits, the King was by no means deficient in natural abilities. He was much superior to even Louis XIV. in logical acumen and sprightly wit. He was an agreeable companion, and could appreciate every variety of talents. No man in his court perceived more clearly than he the tendency of the writings of philosophers which were then fermenting the germs of revolution. "His sagacity ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... never once had it occurred to me that Van Blarcom might be a German. He himself, I began to realize, had taken care of that. With considerable acumen he had filled every one of our brief interviews with vigorous denunciations of somebody else, dark hints as to intrigues that surrounded me and might enmesh me, and solemn warnings and prudent counsels, which had brilliantly served his turn. He had kept ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... reflected, that Huang Chow never checked—indeed, openly countenanced—her friendship with the many chance acquaintances she had made, even when her own instincts told her that the men were crooked; so that, knowing the acumen of her father, she was well aware that he ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... skill to any of its wordy leaders. The butcher's colleague must be a patrician, but he must be such a patrician as would cast reproach upon his class, while he supplied the one quality requisite to the plebeian situation. To whose political acumen first occurred the name of Lucius Aemilius Paullus, no one seemed to know; but, once suggested, there was none to deny its entire appropriateness. Paullus was a veteran of several wars, an experienced ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... reflected her business acumen. One was chastely, severely elegant, holding a single hat poised ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... he left her quite unanalyzed. Instead, he turned the whole force of his analytic power upon the needs of his profession, without in the least realizing that, in the case of a married man, professional acumen and efficiency depend a good deal upon the quality of his domestic atmosphere. Later on, he was destined to find out that a family jar at breakfast, a discussion born of a muddy cup of coffee or a sticky muffin, can wreck the fervour ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... unusually strong mind was regarded as deficiency in powers of comprehension, and the father himself, a man of no mean ingenuity and ability, reports that the child, although capable of reducing him to exhaustion by endless inquiries, was often spoken of as rather wanting in ordinary acumen. This apparent dulness is, however, a quite common incident ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... anecdotes. Told that it was DICK FIBBINS, a Barrister, "and rather a rising one." DICK (why not RICHARD?) talked about County Courts with condescending tolerance; even the High Court Judges seemed (according to his own account) to habitually quail before his forensic acumen. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... Chinese materia medica? PUNCHINELLO is gravely told that a Celestial doctor is about to come to New York, whose favorite prescriptions, in accordance with Chinese practice, "will be baked clay-dust, similar to brick-dust and dog-soup." In one of these remedies the medical acumen of PUNCHINELLO recognizes a homoeopathic principle. Man having been made out of the dust of the earth, nothing is so well adapted to cure him as baked clay. Every man's house is now not only his castle, but his apothecary shop. A brick may be considered a panacea, and may be carried in the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... Wisdom — N. intelligence, capacity, comprehension, understanding; cuteness, sabe [U.S.], savvy [U.S.]; intellect &c 450; nous [Fr.], parts, sagacity, mother wit, wit, esprit, gumption, quick parts, grasp of intellect; acuteness &c adj.; acumen, subtlety, penetration, perspicacy^, perspicacity; discernment, due sense of, good judgment; discrimination &c 465; cunning &c 702; refinement &c (taste) 850. head, brains, headpiece, upper story, long head; eagle eye, eagle- glance; eye of a lynx, eye of a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... anxieties, or to participate in his dreams. Yet Mrs. Scott was not devoid of spirit and self-control. For instance, when Mr. Jeffrey, having reviewed Marmion in the Edinburgh in that depreciating and omniscient tone which was then considered the evidence of critical acumen, dined with Scott on the very day on which the review had appeared, Mrs. Scott behaved to him through the whole evening with the greatest politeness, but fired this parting shot in her broken English, as he took his leave,—"Well, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... no more. In these days the smallest banker, like the greatest, exercises his acumen in the smallest transactions; he bargains over art, beneficence, and love; he would bargain with the Pope for a dispensation. Thus, as he listened to Louchard, Nucingen had hastily concluded that Contenson, Louchard's right-hand man, must ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... for that was his name, had an extraordinary faculty for so identifying himself with any complicated case he might take up as to absolutely live and breathe in it. Any attempt at sophistry or chicanery made him downright venomous, and he only recovered himself when, by dint of superior acumen, he had enabled the righteous cause to triumph. He was also far-famed for his incorruptibility. Whoever approached him with ducats was incontinently kicked out-of-doors, and if any pretty woman visited him ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... ever set up on this continent. The proceedings of this backwoods legislature—the democratic leader ship of the principal proprietor; the prudence exhibited in the laws for protecting game, breeding horses, etc.; the tolerance shown in the granting of full religious liberty—all display the acumen and practical wisdom of these pioneer law-givers. As the result of Henderson's tactfulness, the proprietary form of government, thoroughly democratized in tone, was complacently accepted by the backwoods men. From one who, though still under royal rule, vehemently asserted that the source ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... acumen in giving Jim the corner room on the first floor. It looked over country of unparalleled beauty. Patchwork farmlands stretched away, on the one hand, extending to the estuary of the Teign; whilst from the windows on the western ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... Stites, the learned Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals; of Jackson, who fell while gallantly leading his command at the battle of Perryville; of Morehead, an early and distinguished Governor of the Commonwealth; of Sharp, whose legal acumen would have secured him distinction at any bar; of McKenzie, whose wit and eloquence made him the long-time idol and the Representative in Congress, of the famed "Pennyrile" district; of Bristow, the accomplished ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... subsistence; second, Ancient semi-civilization of New Mexico, Rio Gila and its vicinity; third, Philology; fourth, Addenda and miscellaneous. In these are brought together much valuable information, and many important deductions are made which illustrate Mr. Gallatin's great acumen. The classification given is an amplification of that adopted in 1836, and contains changes and additions. The latter mainly result from a consideration of the material supplied by Mr. Hale, or are simply ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... very eminent for their skill in that noble language, has assured me, that Johnson could give a Greek word for almost every English one; and that although not sufficiently conversant in the niceties of the language, he upon some occasions discovered, even in these, a considerable degree of critical acumen. Mr. Dalzel, Professor of Greek at Edinburgh, whose skill in it is unquestionable, mentioned to me, in very liberal terms, the impression which was made upon him by Johnson, in a conversation which they had in London concerning that language. As Johnson, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... enquiry, and perhaps even minute examination." Still less have we scattered in the writings of Cicero, who, "though he seems to have had little native taste for painting and sculpture, and even less than he had taste for poetry, had a conception of nature; and with his usual acumen, comparing the principles of one art with those of another, frequently scattered useful hints, or made pertinent observations. For many of these he might probably be indebted to Hortensius, with whom, though ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... should have missed what now appears so obvious an idea. But most remarkable of all is the fact that Dr. Whewell, with all his stores of information on the history of the inductive sciences, and with all his acumen on the matter of scientific method, should not only have conceived the idea of natural selection, but expressly stated it as a logically possible explanation of the origin of species, and yet have so stated it merely for the purpose of dismissing it with contempt[26]. ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... innocence (see Hamlet, iv. 5. 158: "I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died"). Prof. Hales, however, thinks that some particular vale is here alluded to, and argues, with much acumen, that the poet referred to the woodlands close by Athens to the north-west, through which the Cephissus flowed, and where stood the birthplace of Sophocles, who sings of his native Colonus as frequented by nightingales. The same ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... that I might easily have displayed more acumen, and that there would have been nothing wonderful in my discerning or guessing the truth about Marie Delhasse's movements. Yet the truth never occurred to me, never so much as suggested itself in the ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... reflecting, not without sadness, upon the drama which was opening up before him, that most common of dramas in these days of depression,—the break up of an ancient family through causes beyond control. It required far less acumen and knowledge of the world than he possessed to make it clear to him that the old race of de la Molle was doomed. This story of farms thrown up and money not forthcoming pointed its own moral, and a sad one it was. Even Ida's almost childish excitement about the legend of the buried treasure ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... was a ready volunteer. Soon all hands were at work, and it was due to the girl's forethought that strips of linen were procured from Luisa Gomez, and healing herbs applied to the cuts and bruises of the injured men. Sylva was all for leaving the two soldiers on the island, but Coke's sailor-like acumen prevented the ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... critical acumen of the editor! But you should be indulgent, Mr. Dodge, to us laymen, who pick up our phrases by merely wandering about the world; or in the nursery perhaps, while you, of the favoured few, by living in the condensation of a province, obtain a precision ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... comprehended I, in all their diabolical significance, those wild weird words: "The wolf has slept in the lair of the forest deer—the yellow fawn will be his victim!" Now knew I the wolf—a wolf disguised in the clothing of the lamb? It needed no remarkable acumen to tell to whom the figure referred. The writing itself revealed him—all but the name; and that was manifest by implication. The man with whom "Marian went away"—he whom I had seen in clerical garb and guise, was the wolf of the metaphor; ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Government because of the alleged badness of the treaty they have made, the criticism is sure to be of the most undesirable character, and to say what is most offensive to foreign nations. All the practised acumen of anti-Government writers and speakers is sure to be engaged in proving that England has been imposed upon—that, as was said in one case, "The moral and the intellectual qualities have been divided; that our negotiation had the moral, and the negotiation on the other side the intellectual," and ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... the safe, but he had overheard the teasing reference to his withholding, from his wife, the combination—and it vexed his anxiety. He treasured these trophies of his acumen and victory, but palpably the time had arrived for ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... lead us out of ancient Egypt into the Graeco-Roman period, were deciphered with the acumen of genius more than half a century ago by Heinrich Brugsch, but to-day these also appear to us in a new light as being full of unexpected difficulties and in apparent disagreement with both the older and the later forms of the language. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... forthcoming critique on Mr. Thackeray's writings in the Edinburgh Review written by Mr. Lewes? I hope it is. Mr. Lewes, with his penetrating sagacity and fine acumen, ought to be able to do the author of Vanity Fair justice. Only he must not bring him down to the level of Fielding—he is far, far above Fielding. It appears to me that Fielding's style is arid, and his views of life and human nature coarse, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... spite of the Reformation, to what is affecting in religious ceremony. Only, in religion as in politics, Browne had no turn for disputes; was suspicious of them, indeed; knowing, as he says with true acumen, that "a man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender," even in controversies not [132] necessarily maladroit—an image in which we may ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... season in London since her second marriage with Mr. Doll Loftus. After a very brief sojourn in that city of frivolity she had the acumen to discover that London society was hopelessly worldly and mercenary; that people only met to eat and to abuse each other; that the law of cutlet for cutlet was universal; that young men, especially those in the Guards, were garrisoned by ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... yielded to the extraordinary arguments of the young woman, Portia. The judgment rendered, and the argument or decision of the Lady Advocate, on that occasion, have been regarded as models of judicial acumen, have received the approbation of many worthy and enlightened students, and, when theatrically represented, have been greeted with the plaudits of nearly every theatre. It may be arrogant to impugn a judicial decision of such antiquity and acknowledged ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... failure. The Quarterly Review, in the course of a savage diatribe, declared that it was "as dull as ditch-water and as flat as a flounder," and in a graver mood reproved it as a mere "bid for the bigoted voices of Exeter Hall." Some of the criticisms were not wanting in acumen. It was perceived at once that, as Theodora Campion is the heroine of the book, it was an error in art to kill her off in the middle of it. Moreover, it is only fair to admit that if the stormy Parliamentarian life Disraeli had led so long had ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... of Bill Carmody, Stromberg had no part. Moncrossen could not fathom the big Swede, upon whose judgment and acumen he had come to rely in the matter of handling and disposing of the ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... ——- "Here Cumberland lies". According to Boaden's 'Life of Kemble', 1825, i. 438, Mrs. Piozzi rightly regarded this portrait as wholly ironical; and Bolton Corney, without much expenditure of acumen, discovers it to have been written in a spirit of 'persiflage'. Nevertheless, Cumberland himself ('Memoirs', 1807, i. 369) seems to have accepted it in good faith. Speaking of Goldsmith he says — I conclude my account of him with gratitude for the epitaph he bestowed on me in his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... English, and has had a large circulation. It received searching and severe criticism from Dom Baumer, the author of Geschichte des Breviers. Baumer's work (translated into French by Biron) is a work showing wonderful industry, learning and critical acumen. The great German Benedictine was aided in several parts of his work by Mr. E. Bishop, the English liturgiologist, who intended to translate the work into English. Dom Baudot's book gives in concise form the results of the labours of Battifol and Baumer. The book is readable, ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... his place rather than learn these "business ways," he had the good sense to let him alone, finding in his quickness, fidelity, and attention to his work sufficient compensation for this deficiency in bargaining acumen. ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... way of congenial neighborhoods. But the risk involved, the liability to error of judgment, as well as the large outlay of capital, at once prevents the adoption of this means of satisfactory housing for the business and professional class to any great extent, at least in the city. The acumen needed to discover the profitable in real estate, the skill to acquire large contiguous tracts of land, both belong to the capitalist. Only when he is a philanthropist besides, is the housing question safe in his hands. Such an example we find in the Morris houses, Willoughby Ave., Brooklyn, ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... a style that was like the trickling of sawdust, would succeed in rousing emotions which the glorious rhetoric of the Orient had failed to awaken; but Page Wood had been a Sunday School teacher for thirty years, and my Father was always unduly impressed by the acumen of ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... light. It is remarkable that efforts at interpolation occur most copiously amongst the books of those who are least fitted to make them. We naturally look amongst the representatives of the Western school where Greek was less understood than in the East where Greek acumen was imperfectly represented by Latin activity, and where translation into Latin and retranslation into Greek was a prolific cause of corruption. Take then the following passage from the Codex D (St. Luke ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... which is a gift of grace, inclines man to believe, by giving him a certain affection for the good, even when that faith is lifeless. Consequently the faith which the demons have, is not a gift of grace. Rather are they compelled to believe through their natural intellectual acumen. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... contribution, threatening instantly to inform the police if he did not get it—and the rogues, in order to "keep him quiet," had to give him whatever share of their plunder he graciously deigned to indicate. Acting with extraordinary skill and acumen in all his undertakings he always managed so that not a shadow of suspicion could fall on himself and so he got a double share of the plunder: robbing the honest folk and the rogues at the same time. Kovroff escaped the contempt of the crooks because ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... Professor,—The report of the amazing results of your scientific researches has reached me, and I congratulate you most heartily on the originality and acumen which you have displayed in your investigations. A new light has dawned upon our country. Instead of groping in the darkness of political warfare, ensnared by party ties and jealousies, the statesmen of the future will ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... duck can be reared in captivity in numbers limited only by the extent of breeder's facilities. The amount of net profit that can be realized depends wholly upon the business acumen and judgment displayed in the management of the flock. The total amount of knowledge necessary to success is not so very great, but at the same time, the exercise of a fair amount of intelligence, and ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... run out of doors, to close her ears to this maddening discussion. She felt that it was either that or deliberately slap Sanchia Murray's face. Now, however, she sat down again, deciding with a degree of acumen that Sanchia would prefer nothing to a ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... best to undo the folly of Grenville's Government. After long debates in both Houses, after examination of Franklin at the bar of the Commons, after the strength and acumen of Mansfield had been employed to sustain the prerogative against the colonies and the voice of Burke had championed the colonies against the prerogative, after Grenville had defended himself with shrewdness and Pitt had added ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... versus Medes and Hyrcanians, it postulates the Persian superiority, moral, as against the accidental inferiority of the moment caused by want of cavalry and the dependence on others which that involves. I suppose it's no reflection on Cyrus' military acumen not to foreseen this need. It would have been premature then, now it organically grows; and there's no great crisis to ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... was witness to an exhibition of the same spirit. A kinsman of his was a zealous Abolitionist, although not particularly gifted with controversial acumen. He and his minister, as often happened, were discussing the slavery question. The minister, like many of his cloth at that time, was a staunch supporter of "the institution," which, according to his contention, ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... unimportant matter now, she yet looked upon it as a link in the long chain of circumstantial evidence which she alone and unaided had forged against Miss Carson. Really, she thought, she had a right to be proud of herself, for had she not shown more intelligence and acumen in the detection of the Seabourne burglaries than every police official in the town. How every one would admire her skill! Her portraits might possibly appear in the illustrated papers, and as for the local papers, they would, of course, print long accounts of the marvellous way in ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no notice of my abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He seemed to think it too good for ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... purpose of settling the controversy precipitated by the teaching of Arius, who denied the true divinity of Christ. The council was attended by 318 bishops and their assistants, among whom the young deacon Athanasius of Alexandria gained special prominence as a theologian of great eloquence, acumen, and learning. "The most valiant champion against the Arians," as he was called, Athanasius turned the tide of victory in favor of the Homoousians, who believed that the essence of the Father and of the Son is identical. The discussions were based upon the ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... own life, to be himself in fulfilling his desires and aspirations. The Statue and the Bust is the famous exposition of this doctrine. It is a teaching that neither the poet's optimism nor his acumen has justified in the minds of men. It is a return to the unbridled freedom of nature advocated by Whitman and Rousseau; an extreme assertion of the value of the individual man, and of unregulated ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... very obediently, came. He and his ex-head-clerk seemed, indeed, to have changed places, so that, before the end of the interview, Iglesias began to measure himself as never before, to realise his own business acumen, his quickness of apprehension, his grasp of the issues presented to him and his own fearlessness of judgment. Whatever the upshot as to the eventual saving of the credit of Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking, Iglesias became increasingly confident of his own power, and quietly satisfied ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... Ob Ingenii acumen, Literarum Scientiam, Morum Suavitatem, Rerum Usum, Virorum Amplissimorum Consuetudinem, Linguae, Styli ac Vitae Elegantiam, Praeclara Officia cum Britanniae; tum Europae Praestita, Sua aetate multum celebratus, Apud Posteros semper celebrandus; Plurimas Legationes ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber |
