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Apt   Listen
adjective
Apt  adj.  
1.
Fit or fitted; suited; suitable; appropriate. "They have always apt instruments." "A river... apt to be forded by a lamb."
2.
Having an habitual tendency; habitually liable or likely; used of things. "My vines and peaches... were apt to have a soot or smuttiness upon their leaves and fruit." "This tree, if unprotected, is apt to be stripped of the leaves by a leaf-cutting ant."
3.
Inclined; disposed customarily; given; ready; used of persons. "Apter to give than thou wit be to ask." "That lofty pity with which prosperous folk are apt to remember their grandfathers."
4.
Ready; especially fitted or qualified (to do something); quick to learn; prompt; expert; as, a pupil apt to learn; an apt scholar. "An apt wit." "Live a thousand years, I shall not find myself so apt to die." "I find thee apt... Now, Hamlet, hear."
Synonyms: Fit; meet; suitable; qualified; inclined; disposed; liable; ready; quick; prompt.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Apt" Quotes from Famous Books



... single seaport whence it may send forth its flag, nor has it any means of communication with foreign powers except through the military lines of its adversaries. No apprehension of any of those sudden and difficult complications which a war upon the ocean is apt to precipitate upon the vessels, both commercial and national, and upon the consular officers of other powers calls for the definition of their relations to the parties to the contest. Considered as a question of expediency, I regard the accordance of belligerent rights still to be ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... sweeten a multitude of things that don't taste pleasant, but there's not so much sugar in a thousand to help them down. The sting of some little word or action that wouldn't get under your skin at all, is apt to swell up one of these fellows' bump of self-esteem as big as an egg-plant, and make ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... Older Man. "If you are really craving the interesting why don't you go out and rummage around for it? Rummage around was what I said! Yes! The real hundred-cent-to-the-dollar treasures of Life, you know, aren't apt to be found labeled as such and lying round very loose on the smugly paved general highway! And astonishingly good looks and astonishingly good clothes are pretty nearly always equivalent to a sign saying, 'I've already been discovered, thank you!' But the really big sport of existence, young man, ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... able to give you one, quite conscientiously," Stane retorted laughingly. "You certainly are a very apt pupil." ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... Leicesters is famed throughout Britain, and whose knowledge on the subject of breeding is great, says that 'In sheep we always consider that if a ewe breeds to a Shrop ram, she is never safe to breed pure Leicesters from, as dun or colored legs are apt to come even when the sire is a pure Leicester. This has been proved in various instances, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... find out what fault there is in it, and as quietly substitute a better statement than the first, guarded from the error into which we were likely to fall. But when the family which deliberates is distributed around such a space as the Mediterranean Sea, the voices are apt to become loud and harsh: instead of tentative suggestions, diffidently put forward, we are likely to hear dogmatic assertions, made with {119} all the energy of the human lungs. The voices which arose from the members of that ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson

... was, in the production of rich interior effect, of a somewhat lavish expenditure upon the surface they trod on. The pavement of the hall had lost something of its evenness; but, though a little rough to the foot, polished and cared for like a piece of silver, looked, as mosaic-work is apt to do, its best in old age. Most noticeable among the ancestral masks, each in its little cedarn chest below the cornice, was that of the wasteful but elegant Marcellus, with the quaint resemblance in its yellow ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... he shared the belief that to rid Egypt of the French was an end for which considerable sacrifices should be made, and his correspondence with Smith expressed this conviction. When prepossessions such as this exist among a number of men associated with one another, they are apt, as in the case of Admiral Man consulting with his captains, to result in some ill-advised step, bearing commonly the stamp of concern for local interests, and forgetfulness of general considerations. The upshot in this particular ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... his youth he was not regular nor happily balanced; he allowed himself to follow mere natural character, which, without the control of reason and instruction, is apt to hurry, upon either side, into sudden and violent courses, and very often to break away and determine upon the worst; as he afterwards owned himself, saying that the wildest colts make the best horses, if they only get properly trained and ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... so false as to say I am glad you are pleased with your situation. You are so apt to take root, that it requires ten years to dig you out again when you once begin to settle. As you go pitching your tent up and down, I wish you were still more a Tartar, and shifted your quarters perpetually. Yes, I will come and see you, but tell me first, when ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... harm is frequently done by over than by under culture in the moral training of youth. Judicious letting alone is a precious element in real education, and there are certain chords which, often touched and made to vibrate too early, are apt to lose instead of gaining power; to grow first weakly and morbidly sensitive, and then hard and dull; and finally, when the full harmony of the character depends upon their truth and depth of tone, to have lost some measure of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... to care about guarding from the rain. As to their persons, they generally looked better developed and healthier than the men; but there was a woful lack of beauty and grace, not a pretty girl among them, all coarse and vulgar. Their bodies, it seems to me, are apt to be very long in proportion to their limbs,—in truth, this kind of make is rather characteristic of both sexes in England. The speech of these folks, in some instances, was so broad Lancashire that I ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... makes the issue. If that faithful quiet inner voice has spoken and I know what the Master would prefer and I fail to keep in line, that to me is sin. Then prayer is useless; sheer waste of breath. Aye, worse, it is deceptive. For I am apt to say or think, "Well, I am not as good as you, or you, but then I am not so bad; I pray." And the truth is because I have broken with God the praying—saying words in that form—is ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon

... follow the younger, but the numbering is continuous as if welding the two codes into one. Thorpe follows the manuscripts in this arrangement, though not in the numbering of the sections, and the student who consults his edition is apt to be confused with this chronological inversion, unless he has taken note of the cause. Ine reigned over a mixed population of Saxons and Britons, and his code is of a more comprehensive character ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... and tamped and relighted the tobacco in his pipe. He refrained from putting his thoughts into words, however. He knew, of old, that Denny was apt to explode if his beloved work were interrupted by a careless layman. Besides, Dennis had brought him here rather under protest, simply feeling that it was up to a host to do a little something or other by way of trying to amuse an old college mate who had come for a week's visit. Since he ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst

... lengthening days, and its rich variety of fruits and flowers, lay fully before us. There is something within us that connects the spring of the year with the childhood of our existence, and it is more especially at that season, that the thrilling remembrances of long departed pleasures are apt to steal into the thoughts; the re-awakening of nature calling us, by a fearful contrast, to the contemplation of joys that never can return, while all the time the heart is rendered more susceptible by the beauteous renovation in the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... and practice of office routine. She could have had no better instructor than Mr. Simcox, she could have had no better training than the handling, the sorting and the filing of his curious and various correspondence. She had become an efficient and a singularly apt and keen office clerk when, more leisured because she had mastered her duties, she might first have had time for realisation that Lombard Street was not here nor all the romance and mystery with which she had invested the power of countinghouses within a thousand miles ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... boys—was not apt to call in question Whistler's judgment. But on this occasion it seemed to him as though Morgan was ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson

... ago I put a male stickleback in a basin of water in charge of his nest. When the young ones were hatched it was most curious to notice his anxiety for their welfare. Of course young sticklebacks, like young children, are of an inquisitive turn of mind, and apt to play truant too occasionally; but should some little fellow wander too far from the nest, Father Stickles hurries after him, takes the little truant in his mouth, and spits him out right over the nest. This I repeatedly witnessed myself, and I have ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton

... demand for further explanation only by the above general reference to my other books, by the addition of a few notes, and by appending to each chapter some suggestions for more extended reading. These might of course have been indefinitely enlarged, but a long list of books is apt to defeat its own purpose: people with a limited time at their disposal want to know which book to make ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall

... in the pauses of the storm Went angling down the Saco, and, returning, Recounted his adventures and mishaps; Gave us the history of his scaly clients, Mingling with ludicrous yet apt citations Of barbarous law Latin, passages From Izaak Walton's Angler, sweet and fresh As the flower-skirted streams of Staffordshire, Where, under aged trees, the southwest wind Of soft June mornings fanned the thin, white hair Of the sage fisher. And, if truth be told, Our youthful ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... business part of the town, was an illustration of what seems a curious peculiarity of the African character, namely, that while docile and amenable to discipline in the highest degree in common, the negroes are apt in critical moments to break out into uncontrollable license. On this occasion, the black men, soldiers and all, instead of assisting to put out the fire, broke into the liquor shops, and having maddened themselves by drinking, fell ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... a blue sash. Five and twenty years and superstition have transformed Lourdes from a little village into a fair-sized town, overloaded with hotels, of which the traveller is advised to be wary, especially during the pilgrim season, when the beds are apt to have other occupants than the "weary traveller's form." The Hotel des Pyrenees ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... opened the door to admit her mistress the two children and the one pair of skates had whisked away to the foot of the block; this time, however, keeping well to the asphalt in the centre of the Avenue, where they would not be apt to collide with anything smaller than a horse and wagon, which would be better able to resist their onslaught ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond

... quite angry! Again, that girl Lin and Miss Pao are both deserving enough, but as they also happen to be our connexions, they couldn't very well be put in charge of our family affairs. What's more, the one resembles a lantern, decorated with nice girls, apt to spoil so soon as it is blown by a puff of wind. The other has made up her mind not to open her month in anything that doesn't concern her. When she's questioned about anything, she simply shakes her ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... is a true saying, If any one desires an episcopate he desires a good work. [3:2]It is necessary therefore that a bishop should be blameless, a husband of one wife, circumspect, sober, well-behaved, hospitable, apt to teach, [3:3]not a wine-drinker, not a quarrelsome man, but gentle, not contentious, not avaricious, [3:4]ruling well his own house, having his children in subjection with all dignity,— [3:5]but if any one knows not how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church ...
— The New Testament • Various

... was one, it is a revelation of mistake, a destruction of such attraction as there was. There is nothing more tragic in a woman's life than such a revelation, growing daily, nightly clearer. Coarse-grained and unthinking people are apt to laugh at such a mistake, and say, 'What a fuss about nothing!' Narrow and self-righteous people, only capable of judging the lives of others by their own, are apt to condemn those who make this tragic error, to condemn ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... him, when he appeared to be hale and hearty. There were some ugly, black spots on his face, and I thought that it was very queer. I did not see any marks of violence on his person and nothing unusual about the premises. I looked around carefully, as a boy is apt to do when something puzzles him. Then I thought I would go up-town and tell ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... daughter. And I am sure she is too gentle, too tender-hearted, to allow you to suffer when she can relieve you. You must get us a good round sum from her or you will be detained here long. The dungeons are dark and unwholesome, and my band are apt to be harsh in their treatment of captives. They have found in the vaults some instruments of torture belonging to old Blackburn, the freebooter, the efficacy of which in an obstinate case I fear they might be inclined to try. You now ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Mystic and 'Columbus.' Art Mystic, I would briefly endeavor to define, as aiming at the illustration of fact on the highest imaginative principles. It takes a scene, for instance, from history, and represents that scene as exactly and naturally as possible. And here the ordinary thinker might be apt to say, Art Mystic has done enough." ("So it has," muttered Mr. Hemlock.) "On the contrary, Art Mystic has only begun. Besides the representation of the scene itself, the spirit of the age"—("Ah! quite right," said Lady ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... Fiacc were Christian Bards, trained by St. Patrick, who is said to have also brought a bard with him from Italy. The beautiful legend in which the Saint loosened the tongue of the dumb child was an apt emblem of Christianity imparting to the Irish race the highest use of its natural faculties. The Christian clergy turned to account the Irish traditions, as they had made use of the Pagan temples, purifying them first. The Christian religion looked ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere

... Would Mr. Tibbets have a cup of coffee sent up to him? Mr. Tibbets had breakfasted, and, therefore, declined the courtesy. Would Mr. Tibbets have a cigar? Mr. Tibbets would, and, on the assurance that they were nicer than he would be apt to find elsewhere, Mr. Tibbets consented to put a handful of cigars into his pocket. Mr. Tibbets then drew up to the table, whittled his pencil, straightened out his paper, and proceeded to business, looking much, as he faced the proprietor, like a Sunday-school teacher ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... with them. Everybody knew it;—no one better than General Crook himself, and if he approved why should a junior disapprove? Indeed, as she asked her friends, what junior who had ever known Mr. Hay and her, or the Indians either, would be apt to disapprove so long as the Indians, when on the warpath, received no aid or comfort from either her husband or herself? "And if they had," said she, further, waxing eloquent over her theme, "could we have begun to give them half the aid or comfort—or a thousandth ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... took the whole annuity. No inducements, however, were sufficient to overcome the popular distrust. The national debt had already begun to accumulate. Exchequer bills sold on the street at forty per cent. discount; while, at the same time, a wild spirit of speculation and adventure, such as is too apt to be produced by the unnatural excitements of a state of war, had seized upon the popular mind, and threatened, in its reaction, to bring the whole ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... property—it shrinks endwise, so that where it is used for weather-boarding a house, one is apt to see the butts shrunk apart. I am told that across the grain it ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... make a great fuss about a trifle, they are apt to hear the remark, "'Tis the crumpled rose leaf!" and when they spend too much thought upon their bodily comfort, and indulge in too much ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber

... look of pain and bitterness knitting those wonderfully pencilled brows above the big eyes. "Fer my part, I'm sick o' livin' this-a-way. When you're gone, an' I'm here agin by my lonesome, I'm as apt as not to put the muzzle o' my gun in my mouth an' blow the top o' my head off—that's how I feel most o' the time. I tell you what you do, Dan: you jest put these here on me an' take me down to Garyville—er plumb on to Asheville—an' draw your money. That'll ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... foreign travel, our British youths generally carry with them too ample a share of national prepossession and presumption. Accustomed at home to bear down all before them by the weight of their purse, they are too apt to imagine that, by means of a plentiful provision of gold, they may lord it over the continent, from Naples to Petersburg; and that a profuse expenditure of money supersedes the necessity of a compliance with established forms ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... by a sound, or even a motion. The first thing Lill did was to fix her eyes on the fire, and rock backward and forward quite hard for a little while, and then she said, "Now I am going to tell you about my thought travels, and they are apt to be a little queerer, but O! ever so much nicer, ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman

... pleasant word, and it is one which we are apt to think applies chiefly to the manners of girls, vain of their personal appearance, and wanting in sense or education. Beatrice would have thought herself infinitely above it; but what else was her love of attention, her ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the first word as the one most apt to occur to the mind of any one wishing to repeat the names of the Presidents. Dentist President and dentist. Draw What does a dentist do? To give up When something is drawn from one it is given up. This is a date phrase ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... in the sense of a mosaic or a tapestry, and it is in the case of Giotto and one or two of his greatest contemporaries, particularly the Sienese, so well-balanced and satisfying as a result of its elementary nature that we are apt to overlook the fact that everything in the way of realisation as opposed to indication, everything distinguishing the painting of a story from the mere telling thereof, remained to be done. And such realisation could be attained only through a series of laborious failures. ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... you were scared to death to come here and tell me, after the fuss I made yesterday, hey? But you mustn't mind me, I'm a terrible outspoken old fellow, that's all . . . awful apt to tell the truth, no matter if it ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... and had witnessed more strange sights than he could remember. He was tough, and sturdy, and grizzled, and broad, and square, and massive—a first-rate specimen of a John Bull, and according to himself, "always kept his weather-eye open." This remark of his was apt to create confusion in the minds of his hearers; for John meant the expression to be understood figuratively, while, in point of fact, he almost always kept one of his literal eyes open and the other partially closed, but as he reversed the order of arrangement frequently, ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... a serious humour, I very often walk by myself in Westminster Abbey; where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the church-yard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing myself with the tomb-stones and inscriptions that I met with in those several regions of ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... patient must be constantly watched by a trained attendant or other competent person, lest he get out of bed and do harm to himself or others. Mechanical restraint is often necessary, but must be avoided if possible, as it is apt to increase the excitement and exhaust the patient. On account of the extreme restlessness, there is often great difficulty in carrying out the proper treatment of the primary surgical condition, and considerable ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... submitted to them peculiar mischiefs which exist neither under a despotic regime nor an unnatural Legislative Union, fruitful of evil as both those systems are. The damage is not evanescent, but is apt to bite deep into national character and to survive the abolition of the institutions which caused it. The Anglo-Irish Union was created and has ever since been justified by a systematic defamation of Irish character. If it is at length resolved to bury the slander and trust Ireland, in the name ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... moments are not (as we are apt to think them) mere blurs and delusions of the senses, but divine revelations; that in a lovely face we see imaged, as in a mirror, the Absolute Beauty—; it is Reality, flashing on us in the cave where we dwell amid shadows and darkness. ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... had gone entirely through the alphabet of names and now called again the apt Anton for a more brilliant demonstration of his system of teaching. "Since we have with us a chemist who has achieved powers of original thought, I will permit you, Anton, to demonstrate that even at the tender age of twelve you are capable of ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... occasionally appear, defying all precedent of forebears and environment, apparently without cause or explanation. She was a beauty in color, the blood spraying her white skin so deliciously as to earn for her the apt description, "peaches and cream." She was a beauty in the regularity of her features; and, if for no other reason, she was a beauty in the mere delicacy of the lines on which she was moulded. Quiet, low-voiced, stately, and dignified, she somehow had the knack of ...
— The Game • Jack London

... Doc Macnooder in earnest conclave with Appleby, to whom he was offering to sell the Lawrenceville rights of his latest invention, the Folding Toothbrush. Given Bill Appleby's natural canniness, and Macnooder's hypnotic eloquence, the discussion was apt to be long and difficult, so Skippy hovered at a respectable distance ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... for Embankments.—Engineers often have considerable trouble with the loose soil of newly-made embankments, so apt to slip or be washed away before they are covered with vegetation. According to a French railway engineer, the best plan is to sow the banks with the double poppy. Several months elapse before grasses and clovers develop their feeble roots, but the ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... and dreaded the people I would meet, and more on account of what I felt toward them, but most of it was because I did not want to leave you. I have been spoiled dreadfully! You have taught me so to depend on you——and for once I feel that I really can claim to have been an apt pupil——that it was like having the heart torn out of me to come. I want you to know this, because it will teach you that I have a little bit of appreciation of how good you are to me, and to all the world as well. I am glad that I almost cried myself ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... desirable to reply to first—for when a hearer sees the man whom the opposite party believe to be thrown into perplexity by their speech prepared with unshaken firmness to reply to it, he is generally apt to think that he has assented to what has been said without sufficient consideration, rather than that the present speaker is confident without due grounds. But if fatigue has alienated the mind of the hearer from your cause, then it is advantageous to promise to speak more ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... opinions, minds made up, men not so easily beguiled to the pure good, you say? Woman quite as apt to make mistakes out of Paradise as in? That only returns us to the primal need and opportunity. Get the man to listen to you before his mind is made up—before his manhood is made up; while it is in the making. That is just the power and place that belong to you, ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.

... some purpose. His varied and solid knowledge makes his style lustrous with points and shooting spicula of thought, and resembling one of those winter mornings when the air sparkles with crystals. The grandeur of the topics makes the grandeur of the style. He was apt for cosmology, because of that native perception of identity which made mere size of no account to him. In the atom of magnetic iron, he saw the quality which would generate the spiral motion of ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Captain Colburne; and if Colonel Carter must not stand as type of the officers of the old army, he mast be acknowledged as true to the semi-civilization of the South. On the whole he is more entertaining than Colburne, as immoral people are apt to be to those who suffer nothing from them. "His contrasts of slanginess and gentility, his mingled audacity and insouciance of character, and all the picturesque ins and outs of his moral architecture, so different from the severe plainness of the spiritual temples common ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... a preface to this little book might have been very well omitted, if it were not to gratify the curiosity of some inquisitive people, who, I foresee, will be apt to make objections against the reality ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe

... similarity in those characteristics and habits of thought that pertain to the material things of life. We are all imitative, and therefore we tend to imitate each other; but the inferior is more apt to imitate the superior than vice versa. Particularly are we prone to imitate those actions and qualities by which others have attained material success. So it is to be expected, it is already a fact, that the methods whereby a few great nations attained success are already ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... slight, to be of practical value. Cities situated in plains and remote from mountains are obliged to utilize the water of such streams as flow through the land, forcing it to the necessary height by means of pumps. Streams which flow through populated regions are apt to be contaminated, and hence water from them requires public filtration. Cities using such a water supply thus have the double expense of pumping ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... a good trick, for occasions. The animals all fear twig snapping. Only never try it at night, with a bull, in the calling season, as I did once unintentionally. Then he is apt to mistake you for his tantalizing mate and come down on you like a tempest, giving you a big scare and a monkey scramble into the nearest tree before ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... shall next make the further complaint that, even when making every effort to do the civil, the result is apt to kill with kindness; and—as King CHARLES THE FIRST, when they were shuffling off his mortal coil, politely apologised for the unconscionable long time that his head took to decapitate—so I, too, ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... soldiers, gave to the stranger a rapid sketch of his own most adventurous life. As the evening wore on, he told too how he was waiting there for a friend, a certain N. F., who was no other than himself, the nephew of Lord Palmerston being represented by his son, an apt youth, who has already given bright promise of what his later ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... and reality is, therefore, according to Plato, a REMINISCENCE (anamnesis)—a recovery of partially forgotten ideas which the soul possessed in another state of existence; and the dialectic of Plato is simply the effort, by apt interrogation, to lead the mind to "recollect"[558] the truth which has been formerly perceived by it, and is even now in the memory though not in consciousness. An illustration of this method is attempted in the "Meno" where Plato introduces Socrates as making ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... conscience slept a day or two, As it is very apt to do When we with pain suppress it; And though at times a slight remorse Would raise a pang, it had not force To make ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... dancing-master than to the drill sergeant. [Footnote: Montbarey, ii. 272.] Such criticisms as these have often been made on the French soldier by his own countrymen and by foreigners. But those who think he can be trifled with on this account, are apt ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... are Bohemians and Near-Bohemians, and if you are like the young woman mentioned you are apt to miss the real and take the ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords

... history shows that the brilliant soldier of a republic is apt to have the advantage, in a struggle for popular affection and popular applause, over the statesman, however consummate. . . . The great battles and sieges of the prince had been on a world's theatre, had enchained the attention of Christendom, and on their ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... paralysed, and with the well-known excitability of humanity in groups men begin to confound the importance of the thing wanted with the importance of getting what they want. The clash of contending factions is apt to suggest the clash of arms. The first necessity, therefore, is the formation of large and coherent parties, not merely for the purpose of accomplishing what is desired by the majority of the people, but also ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth

... moustache, which gave his face an unusually youthful appearance for a man of his age, went with a fine stalwart physique and a general bodily conformation apparently in keeping with the ideas of early rising, cold ablutions and breakfasts of oatmeal porridge that the ingenuous mind is apt to associate with Scotch descent and bringing-up. His daughter was a very beautiful girl. Born in the shadow of the pines, she had been educated successively in Edinburgh, Brussels and Munich, had been presented at Court, been through two ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... chills, dry cough, influenza, 384:18 congestive symptoms in the lungs, or hints of inflammatory rheumatism, your Mind-remedy is safe and sure. If you are a Christian Scientist, such 384:21 symptoms are not apt to follow exposure; but if you believe in laws of matter and their fatal effects when transgressed, you are not fit to conduct your own case or 384:24 to destroy the bad effects of your belief. When ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... Philosophy deals not with individuals but with species, not with Bucephalus or Alexander, but with horse, man. It is nothing to philosophy that of a thousand seeds there germinate perhaps not ten. Enough that one seed ever germinates, and that all normal specimens are apt to do the like, meeting with proper environment. That alone shows that seed is not an idle product in this or that ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... note of colour, sat on the Archduchess's right, touching scarcely any of the dishes which were continually presented to him, and sipping occasionally from the glass of water at his side. The other men and women were all distinguished, and their conversation, mostly carried on in French, was apt, and at times brilliant. Isobel and I perhaps, the former particularly, contributed least to the general fund. Isobel met the advances of her right-hand neighbour with the barest of monosyllables. Lady Delahaye, who sat on my left, left me ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and old smiles a thousand times repeated. And things that must be done after one fashion or the sky would fall; and others that must be done after another fashion or the world would end. When the house was empty of boarders, or nearly empty—though at such times the cupboard also was apt to be bare—there were long hours spent upstairs and surveys of household gear, carried up with difficulty, and reviews of linen and much talk of it, and small meals, taken at the open windows that looked over the Rhone valley and commanded ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... and less at ease, reproaching herself for having gone away, wondering how she had brought herself to do such a crazy thing, for it seemed to her that the members of her family were almost helpless without her guidance; they were apt to do anything—anything at all—or to catch anything. The more she thought about her having left these irresponsible harebrains unprotected and undirected for three days, the less she was able ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... It sounded remarkably apt. Dr. O'Connor went slightly purple, but controlled himself magnificently. "I'll be ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett

... analogous descriptions by Mr. Basil Thomson, and other living witnesses, the present writer is unable to imagine. The better, the more closely contemporary the evidence, the more a witness of the abnormal is ready to submit to cross-examination, the more his testimony is apt to be neglected by Folklorists. Of course, the writer is not maintaining that there is anything 'psychical' in fire-walking, or in fire-handling. Put it down as a trick. Then as a trick it is so old, so world-wide, ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... whereby clannishness in some measure replaces the sense of solidarity, and a sense of invidious distinction supplants the impulse to equitable, everyday serviceability. As an outcome of the cumulative action of these factors, the generation which follows a season of war is apt to witness a rehabilitation of the element of status, both in its social life and in its scheme of devout observances and other symbolic or ceremonial forms. Throughout the eighties, and less plainly traceable through the seventies also, there was perceptible a gradually advancing ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... freezing varies according to the quality of cream or milk or water; water ices require a longer time than ice creams. It is not well to freeze the mixtures too rapidly; they are apt to be coarse, not smooth, and if they are churned before the mixture is icy cold they will be ...
— Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with - Refreshments for all Social Affairs • Mrs. S. T. Rorer

... a certain monotony, perhaps, about these stories. To some extent this is inevitable. The interest and passions of South Sea Island life are neither numerous nor complex, and action is apt to be rapid and direct. A novelist of that modern school that fills its volumes, often fascinatingly enough, by refining upon the shadowy refinements of civilised thought and feeling, would find it hard to ply his trade in South Sea Island society. ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke

... before, Sybilla, not to whistle in a fellow's ear like that. It goes through a chap like cold steel. As to your hating them, I believe in my soul you hate most people; and women like you, with big, flashing black eyes, are apt to be uncommon good haters, too. But what have they done to you? I always took 'em to be good ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... neglect to shut the door the current of air is changed. I have been told that these boys are subject to accidents no less than the workers, for, sitting in the dark, and often alone for hours, they are very apt to go to sleep. To ensure being awoke at the proper time, they frequently lie down on the line of rails under the rope, so that when the rope is started it may awake them by its motion, but at times so sound is their sleep, that it has failed to rouse them in time, and a train of coal waggons ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness

... upon what ground, the gates of the City ordered to be all shut, and double guards everywhere. Indeed I do find everybody's spirit very full of trouble: and the things of the Court and Council very ill taken; so as to be apt to appear in bad colours, if there should ever be a beginning ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... assemble at Plataea! The exaggeration is evident; but it still attests the belief of a populousness and power which must have rested upon no fabulous foundation. The state of Sybaris had prospered for a time by the adoption of a principle which is ever apt to force civilization to premature development, and not unfrequently to end in the destruction of national character and internal stability—viz., it opened its arms to strangers of every tribe and class. Thronged by mercantile adventurers, its ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... stool a millionth of an inch. Why, oh, why had she quarreled with Professor Trask? If some one had only told her that her own rebellion would mean the substitution of Cecilia for herself as his pupil, and another opportunity for that apt young perfectionist to outrank ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... substantial splendour, makes our great governors naturally proud. They are transfigured by necessity; and, losing none of their justice or integrity, they lose a good deal of their civic humility. In such a state they become capable of flattery, apt for the stratagems of foreign adulation. We know not certainly that Mr. Bennett's injuries originated in that source; though we suspect as much from the significant stories which he tells of interloping foreigners on the pension list in Ceylon. But this we do know, that, from ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... [Waldeinsamkeit], says Boyesen,[23] "churchyards at midnight, ruins of convents and baronial castles; in fact, all the things which we are now apt to call romantic, are the favourite haunts of Tieck's muse. . . . Tieck was excessively fond of moonlight and literally flooded his tales with its soft, dim splendour; therefore moonlight is now romantic. . . . He never allows a hero to make ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... and as his hair was not tied more than once in the two months, it was often disgusting to behold. With such a picture, it is easy to believe that he never married. A good teacher, gentle in act, although violent and abusive in speech, his lessons were apt to go over the heads of his scholars and to leave them gaping, or more often laughing. Such was his passion for study that he even grudged himself natural repose; and when he grew drowsy over his books he would, if it was summer, put mosquitoes up his sleeve; and, if it was winter, take off ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a good man, but apt opportunity led him farther astray than, in the depths of his heart, he ever intended to go. His feet were treading the paths of his own domains. His ancestral home, Dean Tower, raised its dark red walls before ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... laughed rather shamefacedly. "I'm afraid I did lose my temper," he said; "but I am an impulsive old fellow, Doctor, and when I'm put out I'm apt to speak my mind—a little too ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... carrying out our own ideas. Gradually this wholesome caution is being disregarded. The Government has become more and more centralized, and the departmental spirit very strong. Each department, in its laudable wish for progress and advancement, is apt to push on measures which are obnoxious to the Natives, either from their not being properly understood, or from their being opposed to their traditions and habits of life, thus entailing the sacrifice of many cherished ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... the fame, intelligence, and bravery that appertained to the enemy they have slain is transferred to them, and thenceforward becomes their intellectual property. Hence, they are excited with the most earnest appetite to kill warriors of distinguished fame. This article of Indian faith affords an apt illustration of the ordinary influence of envy, which seems to inspire the person whom it torments with the persuasion, that all the merit it can contract from the envied becomes its own, and that the laurels shorn from another's brow will sprout on ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... in Nannie affectionately; 'we'd rather your head weren't lifted just yet. 'Tis apt to rear itself a little too high, and 'tis the bowed head that gets the ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre

... "Those things are apt to be precipitated. I have no doubt that the mutineers burned the city last night. If so, the main body will hurry to Delhi, which, being the ancient capital of the Mogul Empire, will become the new one. Some of the rebels may take it into their ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... book,—a learned disquisition on government,—and read on the title-page, "Affectionately dedicated to all who despise politics." That was not common sense. To win the battle with the slum, we must not begin by despising politics. We have been doing that too long. The politics of the slum are apt to be like the slum itself, dirty. Then they must be cleaned. It is what the fight is about. Politics are the weapon. We must learn to use it so as to cut straight and sure. That is common sense, and the golden ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... marked by a row of large cilia. The peristome begins upon the right side of the anterior end and passes backward and to the left, narrowing at this point. The mouth is very small and difficult to see. It is apt to stay in one locality under zoogloea, switching back and forth with great vivacity, or hanging on by the posterior cilia while the anterior end stretches out in the surrounding medium. Nucleus and contractile vacuole were ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins

... He was an apt pupil, and when they had resumed their homeward stroll she neglected to make him take his arm away. Encouraged, he tried to kiss her when they reached the gate. She cuffed him again, but this time her buffet was ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... Ebben Owens might at first refuse assistance, he would generally end by opening his heart and his pockets, and lending the sum required, sometimes on good security, sometimes on bad, sometimes on none at all but his creditors' word of honour, whose value, alas! was apt to rise or fall with the tide of circumstances. He had many times given his own word of honour to his anxious daughter, that he would never again lend his money or "go security" for his neighbours without consulting his family; but over the first blue of beer, at the ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... like many an old man that is reported so by his heirs, I have lived long enough to bury my successor [the Tatler having been discontinued]. In short, I am returned to Being after you have left it; and since you were once pleased to call yourself my brother-astrologer, the world may be apt to compare our story to that of the twin-stars CASTOR and POLLUX, and say it was our destiny, not to appear together, but according to the fable, to ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... the downfall of the French king, and observe, that the farthingale appeared in England a little before the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. Others are of opinion that it foretells battle and bloodshed, and believe it of the same prognostication as the toil of a blazing star. For my part, I am apt to think that it is a sign that multitudes are coming into the world rather than going out of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... is fortunate in finding friends in town, Mrs. Martindale," said Buckingham; "for a collegian coming here freshly, especially one in a special course, is apt to be slow in breaking through the hedge which divides the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... restoration of Canada to the French by Charles I., he had returned in 1634 to the scene of his earlier labors. His associate had only come from France the year before. Brebeuf was distinguished for his mastery of the native tongues, and Chaumonot had been recognized as an apt student of languages. The plan of the Jesuits was to establish in the new mission a fixed and permanent residence, which should be the "retreat" of the missionaries of the surrounding country, as Ste. Marie was of those of ...
— The Country of the Neutrals - (As Far As Comprised in the County of Elgin), From Champlain to Talbot • James H. Coyne

... was, as an intelligent member of the Secretariat pointed out, who stood to benefit by the disappearance of Svensen from the scenes? Find the motive for a deed, and very shortly you will find the doer. Had Svensen a private enemy? No one knew. Many persons disapproved of the line he was apt to take in public affairs: he wanted to waste money on feeding hungry Russians ("No one is sorrier than my tender-hearted nation for starving persons," the other delegates would say, "but we have no money to send them, and are not Russians always hungry?") and was ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... what grammar!" sighed Allie. For Jim, when excited or specially interested, was apt to lapse into the vernacular against which he and his friends were striving; Allie in particular setting her face against it, and constituting herself his instructress and monitress in grammar ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... to mention what we consider the highest charm of this charming book, and that is the combination which we find in it of healthiness of tone and earnestness of purpose. A healthier book we have never read. Earnestness of purpose is apt to be attended with something of excess or extravagance; but in "Ravenshoe" there is nothing morbid, nothing cynical, nothing querulous, nothing ascetic. The doctrine of the book is a reasonable enjoyment of all that is good in the world, with a firm purpose of improving ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... could eat except black beans and boiled cucumbers. The room was dark, dirty, vile, noisy, and poisoned by sewage odours, as rooms unfortunately are very apt to be. At the end of the rice planting there is a holiday for two days, when many offerings are made to Inari, the god of rice farmers; and the holiday-makers kept up their revel all night, and drums, stationary and peripatetic, were constantly beaten ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... determined by the falling of the red bone, he who cast this colored bone closer to the line upon the ground being declared the winner. The game was simple, and depended much upon chance. If the red die fell flat upon its face at a point near to the line, it was apt to lie close to the spot where it dropped. On the other hand, did it alight upon either end, it might bound back and fall at some little distance upon one side ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... in its eye. He rode back to Newcastle that night, and went about the canteen there abusing me, and getting drunker and drunker, till at last the canteen keeper sent for his boys to turn him out. Well, the boys were rough, as Kafirs are apt to be with a drunken white man, and he struggled and fought, and in the middle of it the blood began to run from his mouth, and he dropped down dead of a broken blood-vessel, and there was an end of him. That is the story of the two girls, Captain Niel, and now I am off to bed. To-morrow ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... upon me that the reason why Philosophers who are well acquainted with Physical or Dynamical Science are apt to fall into the error of supposing that mental and vital interference with the material world is impossible, in spite of their clamorous experience to the contrary (or else, on the strength of that experience, ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge

... masses of color, great sweeping lines of beauty. One value of this largeness was its ability to hold at a distance upon wall or altar. Hence, when seen to-day, close at hand, in museums, people are apt to think Rubens's art ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke

... proposition will save us an immense amount of boredom which is the usual concomitant of engagements and honeymoons. That sort of thing, you know," he added, his lip curling just perceptibly, "is apt to get a little ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... verses, then, there are visible the links, as it were, of the connected series which we unite in the conclusion. But if we choose to speak in a succession of short clauses, we stop, and when it is necessary, we easily and frequently separate ourselves from that sort of march which is apt to excite dislike; but nothing ought to be so rhythmical as this, which is the least visible and the most efficacious. Of this kind is that sentence which was ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... cherished and advanced, and all impietie and mocking of Religious Exercises suppressed; And upon the other part, that under the name and pretext of Religious Exercises; no such meetings or practices be allowed, as are apt to breed Error, Scandall, Schisme, contempt or mis-regard of the publike Ordinances and Ministers, or neglect of the duties of particular Callings, or such other evils as are the works not of the Spirit but of the Flesh, and are contrary to ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... farther on. But, the way opened, the Doctor's horse switched his tail and was off, the stranger was left behind, and the next moment the Doctor stepped across the sidewalk and went up the stairs of Number 3-1/2 to his office. Something told him—we are apt to fall into thought on a stair-way—that the stranger was looking ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... pleased at praise of his sister, whom he knew Boase as a rule was apt to criticise silently rather than admire. "I don't think my life here would be possible without Vassie. There are times when I feel I want to take mother's head and knock it against the wall. It sounds awful, but it's true. I want to ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... there are some persons in Britain who do not know precisely what a typhoon is. If they saw or felt one, they would not be apt to forget it. Roughly speaking, a typhoon is a terrific storm. Cyclopaedias, which are supposed to tell us about everything, say that the Chinese name such a storm "Tei-fun," or "hot-wind." No-fun would seem to be a more appropriate term, if one were to name ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... fuses into a solid liquid color, giving us a smoothly laid band of red, blue, green, or what you will; or perhaps a dish of solid tone if that has been the intent. We do not use this method for every type of flat color work, however, because when the powdered color blows about the workers are apt to inhale it, and it is very bad for their health. Therefore when it is possible we tint the china by hand, which can be done if the color is a delicate one and spreads smoothly; or ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett

... price of a cow for the bottle of water, but the priest had declared that it was an effectual soul-saver, and they never doubted its efficacy. Around the corpse was a throng of women, and they all chattered as women are apt to do. The men, standing around the door, talked of their horse-races, fights or anything else. For some hours I heard no allusion to the dead, but as the night wore on the prophetess ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... jolly kind of girl I like," she explained. "I think we might have some topping times together, and wake up the school. Things are apt to get ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... as a whole, as these stand before the world at the beginning of the twentieth century, are discussed by Mr. Holland in a vein of modest conviction, and withal of illuminating criticism, supported by apt quotation and example, which is ...
— Mr. Edward Arnold's New and Popular Books, December, 1901 • Edward Arnold

... thin horn pushed up through the furze brake on the hill's summit and she mounted into the free heaven. With upturned eye the young minister followed her course for twenty minutes, not consciously observant; for he was thinking over his ambitions, and at his time of life these are apt to soar with the moon. Though possessed with zeal for good work in this small seaside town, he intended that Troy should be but a stepping-stone in his journey. He meant to go far. And while he meditated his future, ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... culture. Much remained to learn—much still remains. We have some five thousand species in cultivation, of which an alarming number demand some difference of treatment if one would grow them to perfection. The amateur does not easily collect nor remember all this, and he is apt to be daunted if he inquire too deeply before "letting himself go." Such in especial I would encourage. Perfection is always a noble aim; but orchids do not exact it—far from that! The dear creatures ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle

... quite simple. Last Sunday he told them a little, old-fashioned children's fairy story with a moral. Now he takes each child in turn, and questions him or her on the teaching he then conveyed. But in this direction they are not very apt, these little heathens. ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... born in the state of Rhode Island, in 1794; his parents and connexions were of the first respectability. When at school, he was very apt to learn, but so refractory and sulky, that neither the birch nor good counsel made any impression on him, and he was ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... We are apt to think that all things continue as they were from the beginning of the world: but in reality the earth is never at rest; it has passed through many changes, and still the old story goes on; on the one hand there is change and decay, and on the other that constant building up and repair by ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... in the preceding article that the dependence of the nations goes back a good deal further than we are apt to think; that long before the period of fully developed intercommunication, all nations owed their civilization to foreigners. It was to their traffic with Gaul and the visits of the Phoenician traders ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... to seventeen, are fond of aping the woman in their dress, and are partial to long shawls, which give the young things a matronly appearance. When they become women in reality, they are rather too apt to go upon the opposite tack, and to assume the dress and airs ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various

... good deal at my house lately. Augustus never comes without him. He is 'Fidus Achates,' I take it, to Augustus. Augustus has never asked whether he can be received. Of course it does not matter. When a man is the eldest son, and, so to say, the only one, he is apt to take liberties with his father's house. I am so sorry that in my position I cannot do the honors and receive him properly. He is a very estimable and modest young man, I believe?" As Mr. Grey had not come down to Tretton either to be a ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... of which Clara Morris had become a member was what was called by the profession, a "family theater," in which the best parts are apt to be absorbed by the manager and his family, while all the poor ones are placed with strict justice where they belong. At that time, outside of the star who was being supported, men and women were ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... Now may I suggest that we find some slumber rooms slightly more modern? Rupert is apt to become annoyed at undue delay ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... considered him a mere school-boy, and treated him as such; or his own shyness may have been in his way, and his "rules for behavior and conversation" may as yet have sat awkwardly on him, and rendered him formal and ungainly when he most sought to please. Even in later years he was apt to be silent and embarrassed in female society. "He was a very bashful young man," said an old lady, whom he used to visit when they were both in their nonage. "I used often to wish that he would ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... was one of the best we ever published. In those two long nights, shut off from all the world, we talked and planned. We dared not take the risk of going to bed. If we should sleep and let the fire go out, we were apt to freeze, so we huddled around the stove, punching fence posts down into the fire, ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... the first countries to receive Christianity. Simon, a Cyrenian, from Africa, bore the cross of Jesus for him to Calvary. There was more in that singular incident than we are apt to recognize, for the time soon came when Africa did indeed take up ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... a letter the captain was very apt to pay a flying visit to the Academy, in case there were no special reasons for remaining closely at home, sometimes going alone, at others taking one or more members of the family with him; his wife, if she could make it convenient to go, or one or more of his daughters, ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley

... poor Savoyard. If that be your intention, I declare I will have nothing to say to it" "Poor devil!" said the Chevalier, "the matter is this; it is very likely that we shall win his money. The Piedmontese, though otherwise good fellows, are apt to be suspicious and distrustful. He commands the horse; you know you cannot hold your tongue, and are very likely to let slip some jest or other that may vex him. Should he take it into his head ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... wilderness, Owen Dugdale had probably never heard of the kindred terrors that used to lie in wait for the bold mariners of ancient Greece—the rock and the whirlpool known as Scylla and Charybdis—if they missed being impaled upon the one they were apt to be engulfed in the other—and yet here in the rapids of this furious Saskatchewan feeder he was brought face to face with a proposition exactly ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... whom he had trained to consider him as the greatest man upon earth, and whom he used to boast of as the only women he had ever seen who were well broke in and bitted to obedience; though, it must be owned, Miss Grizzy Oldbuck was sometimes apt to jibb when he pulled the reins too tight. The rest of his character must be gathered from the story, and we dismiss with pleasure ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... an age of hurry and worry. Anything slower than steam is apt to "get left." Fortunes are quickly made and freely spent. Nearly all busy, hard-worked Americans have an intuitive sense of the need that exists for at least one period of rest and relaxation during each year and all—or nearly all—are willing to pay liberally, ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears

... where the subsoil is not underlaid with sheet water, alfalfa will not usually succeed, notwithstanding that it may grow well on these soils where the rainfall is normal. On such soils it is not easy to get a stand of the plants, as they are much apt to perish in the dry weather of the first season, but if once established on such soils the plants have much power to grow even where the rainfall is considerably ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw

... acquiring a knowledge of French and various other subjects, under the tuition of the learned but prejudiced Monsieur Leblanc. Indeed, there is "none to tell, sir." When Monsieur Leblanc was sober, he was a most excellent and well-informed tutor, although one apt to digress into many side issues, which in themselves were not uninstructive. When tipsy, he grew excited and harangued us, generally upon politics and religion, or rather its reverse, for he was an advanced freethinker, ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... of inverse sublimity, exalting into our affections what is below us as the other draws down into our affections what is above us. But it has a danger which Dickens also hints at, and into which he often fell. All humour has in it, is indeed identical with, what ordinary people are apt to call exaggeration; but there is an excess beyond the allowable even here, and to "pet" or magnify out of proper bounds its sense of what is droll, is to put the merely grotesque in its place. What might have been overlooked ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... that if I persisted in working my charm on many more people he would have me—investigated! Just fancy! investigating me! He used to laugh at me; it's got past the laughing stage now. When professional people step on each other's toes the atmosphere is apt to be electric. The Forge doctor has at last concluded that I am not a joke. A woman, to that sort of man, is either ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... does—dispense with the former requisite. His quiet undercurrent of humor subserves the same purpose in the role of Bob Acres that it does in other characters. It is full of points, so judiciously chosen, so thoroughly apt, so naturally made and so characteristically preserved, that the part with Jefferson is a great one. The man of the 'oath referential, or sentimental swearing,' makes the entire scope of the part an 'echo to the sense.' Even in so poor a farce as that of 'A Regular Fix,' Mr. Jefferson ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... and buzzing insects. From a verbena hard by came the liquid song of a blackcap. It gave him pleasure; he encouraged the blackcaps, delighting in their music and because they destroyed the spiders whose troublesome webs were apt to come in contact with his spectacles. The gardeners had severest instructions not to approach their nests. It was one of the minor griefs of his life that, being so short-sighted, he could never discover a bird's nest; no, not even as a child. Memories of boyhood ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... brute strength and a blood-thirsty disposition; as witness Dunn there. I was positively horrified last International. There he was, our own quiet, domestic, gentle Dunn, raging through that howling mob of savages like a bloody Bengal tiger.—Rather apt, that!—A truly awful ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... of the art of poetry teach us that, if we would write what may be worth reading, we ought always, before we begin, to form a regular plan and design of our piece, otherwise we shall be in danger of incongruity. I am apt to think it is the same as to life. I have never fixed a regular design of life, by which means it has been a confused variety of different scenes. I am now entering upon a new one; let me, therefore, make some resolutions, ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... the express, Shorely bought a copy of the Sponge, and once more he read Gibberts' story on the way down. The third reading appalled him. He was amazed he had not noticed before the deadly earnestness of its tone. We are apt to underrate or overrate the work of a man with ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... an impregnable prejudice—had felt her feminine charm ineffectual against a stern masculine resistance. She was at the age when the artificial often outweighs the real—when the superficial manner with a woman is apt to be misunderstood, and so to her Christopher Blake now appeared stripped even of his physical comeliness; the interview had left her with an impression of mere vulgar incivility. As she entered the house she met Fletcher passing through the hall with the mail-bag in his hand, ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... italics opens our eyes to one of the difficulties of the Duchess to which we might not otherwise have given much consideration. We are apt to take it for granted that, though there is no royal road to mathematics, the power of speaking foreign languages comes to royal personages, if not by nature, at least by inheritance and by force of circumstances. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... old-fashioned goods; that forced innovations on the customs of a nation are never successful.'—'Oh, that is always the way with Bourrienne; he is never pleased with anything.'— 'Certainly, Sire, he is apt to grumble; but he says what he thinks.'— 'Do you know, Duroc, he served me very well at Hamburg. He raised a good deal of money for me. He is a man who understands business. I will not leave him unemployed. Time must hang heavily on his ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... that man in this world is a twofold being, leading a twofold life, physical and spiritual, the one temporal, the other eternal, the one apt unduly to absorb his affections, the other really deserving his profoundest care. This separation of the body and the soul, and survival of the latter, is brought to light in various striking forms and with various piercing applications. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... written, may have been destroyed in the fire of Kilcolman.] In each book a knight or a lady representing a single virtue goes forth into the world to conquer evil. In all the books Arthur, or Magnificence (the sum of all virtue), is apt to appear in any crisis; Lady Una represents religion; Archimago is another name for heresy, and Duessa for falsehood; and in order to give point to Spenser's allegory the courtiers and statesmen of the age are all flattered as glorious virtues or ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... towards them. Tho Adam involves the whole Species in Misery, his Crime proceeds from a Weakness which every Man is inclined to pardon and commiserate, as it seems rather the Frailty of Human Nature, than of the Person who offended. Every one is apt to excuse a Fault which he himself might have fallen into. It was the Excess of Love for Eve, that ruin'd Adam, and his Posterity. I need not add, that the Author is justify'd in this Particular by many of the Fathers, and the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele



Words linked to "Apt" :   pertinent, intelligent, tending, apropos, likely, liable, disposed, given, inclined



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