"Aptness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... crowd, and stand when others fall," he chose for his wife a young provincial actress, whom he had once chided for her inattention or inability, but whose artlessness of manner, purity and sweetness of nature and aptness for improvement so enlisted his sympathies that he constituted himself her friend and guide until the death of her father and brother awakened a still warmer solicitude, bringing with it the discovery that "love had been the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... wholly unforeseen accident brings it to sudden and relentless publicity. The recent case of a Brooklyn lady, who was carried into the city-hospital of that city about the beginning of last June, with both legs broken, illustrates this position with singular force and aptness. To quote from the article of the New York Sun of ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... Mitchell, who understood the voices in which the heavens declare the glory of God, who read with delight the Word of God em bodied in worlds, and who fed upon the written Word of God as his daily bread, declared, "We find an aptness and propriety in all these astronomical illustrations, which are not weakened, but amazingly strengthened, when viewed in the clear light of our present knowledge." Herschel says, "All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more strongly ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... that all who read the September issue of this monthly will unite in paying tribute to the excellent quality of the reading material, the artistic merit of the wood engraving, the aptness of the subjects chosen for presentation, and the earnestness and faithfulness with which Editor and Publisher do ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... Bridget, as she did everything else at Otter. Leslie would have propitiated the mayor of the palace with kind words and attentions, but when she was snapped up in her efforts, she drew back with a girl's aptness to be affronted and repelled. Next Leslie began to angrily resist Bridget's unbecoming interference with her movements, and design of exercising authority and control over the child whom the master had chosen ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... face, and his bent form, told of the cares he bore, and the grief he felt. His only relief was when, tossing aside for a moment the heavy load of responsibility, his face would light up with a humorsome smile, while he narrated some incident whose irresistible wit and aptness to the subject at hand, convulsed his hearers, and rendered "Lincoln's stories" household words throughout ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... and so went away. By and by, hearing that Mr. Turner was much troubled at what I do in the office, and do give ill words to Sir W. Pen and others of me, I am much troubled in my mind, and so went to bed; not that I fear him at all, but the natural aptness I have to be troubled at any thing that ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... brought to college that a scholar was in the hands of the bailiffs. This was an insult in which every gownsman felt himself involved. A number of the scholars flew to arms, and sallied forth to battle, headed by a hare-brained fellow nicknamed Gallows Walsh, noted for his aptness at mischief and fondness for riot. The stronghold of the bailiff was carried by storm, the scholar set at liberty, and the delinquent catchpole borne off captive to the college, where, having no pump to put him under, they satisfied the demands of collegiate law by ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... resources—evolved a carefully detailed method of living upon nothing whatever, of keeping out of the way of duns, and telling lies with aptness and outward gaiety. But a year of giving smart little dinners and going to smart big dinners ended in a condition somewhat akin to the feat of balancing oneself on the edge ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the Old World, and become more and more nationalized in our great struggle for existence as a free people, we shall carry this aptness for the production of beautiful forms more and more into common life, which demands first what is necessary and then what is pleasing. It is but a step from the painter's canvas to the weaver's loom, and the pictures which are leaving the easel to-day will show themselves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... vehement applause. The noises ceased entirely, and the symbols of opposition disappeared. The audience, hushed into attention, gave vent to no sounds but those of admiration for the genius of the actor. When, in the course of his part, he repeated the words, "So! I am in London again !" the aptness of the expression to the circumstances of the night, was felt by all present, and acknowledged by a round of boisterous and thrice repeated cheering. It was a triumphant scene for Mr. Kemble after his long annoyances. He had achieved a double victory. He had, not only as a manager, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Nausicaa offering protection to the shipwrecked Ulysses. It is a striking feature of the easy unconstrained character of life among the Greeks, of its gladsome joyousness of disposition, which knew nothing of a starched and stately dignity, but artist-like admired aptness and gracefulness, even in the most insignificant trifles, that in this drama called Nausicaa, or "The Washerwomen," in which, after Homer, the princess at the end of the washing, amuses herself at a game of ball with her maids, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... Williams College, in Williamstown, Mass., in his sixteenth year, and remained there until 1812, distinguishing himself for aptness and industry in classical learning and polite literature. At the end of two years he withdrew, and commenced the study of law, first with Judge Howe, of Worthington, and afterward with Mr. William Baylies, of Bridgewater. So far he had written nothing but ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... the old man, as he transferred a duck to his plate and proceeded to carve it with the aptness of one who had practical knowledge of its anatomy, "I tell ye, Henry, the birds be gittin' fat; and I sartinly hope the flight this fall will be a good un. Don't be bashful, Lad, in yer eatin'," he continued, ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... corpses, and showed such aptness for these and similar detested callings that in several European countries ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... have refused a salary of fifteen hundred dollars in a bank against five hundred in a counting-room, and for the reason that a bank-clerk has little or no hope beyond his salary all his life, while a counting-house clerk, if he have any aptness for trade, stands a fair chance of getting into business sooner or later, and making his fortune as a merchant. But a debt of four hundred dollars hanging over his head was an argument in favour of a clerkship in the bank, at a salary ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... Majesty, illustrates, as does no other coin, the wisdom and the aptness of the duodecimal system to which the Macedonians have so wisely clung (in common with the people of Scythia and of Thrace, and the dumb animals) while the too brilliant Hellenes ran wild in the ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... beneath his chin; Around his arms and shoulders his sole dress, A cloak, was all bunched up. He leapt, and lighted Upon the boulder just beneath; there swayed, Re-poised, And perked his head like an inquisitive bird, As gravely happy; of all unconscious save His body's aptness for its then employment; His eyes intent on shells in some clear pool Or choosing where he next will plant his feet. Again he leaps, his curls against his hat Bounce up behind. The daintiest thing alive, He rocks awhile, turned from me towards ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... The Indian's grace and aptness of gesture, also, in a measure, bespeak and proclaim commanding oratory. The power, moreover, which with the Indian resides in mere gesture, as a medium for disclosing and laying bare the thoughts of his mind, is truly remarkable. Observe the Indian interpreter in Court, ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... me of your ambition and, I may say, aptness for the forest service. I'm very much pleased. We need a host of bright young fellows. Here, look ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... New Testament are, many of them, such as would have done honour to any book in the world: I do not mean in style and diction, but in the choice of the subjects, in the structure of the narratives, in the aptness, propriety, and force of the circumstances woven into them; and in some, as that of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Pharisee and the Publican, in an union of pathos and simplicity, which in the best productions of human genius is the ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... line is seen threading a large number of round dark spots, which present the appearance of a row of beads upon a string. These circular spots, which some have regarded as lakes, Mr. Lowell believes are rather oases in the great deserts, and granting the correctness of his theory of the canals the aptness ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... events which constituted contemporaneous history,—perhaps because of that very separateness,—the "Chesapeake" affair marks conspicuously the turning-point in the relations of the two countries. In point of time, its aptness as a sign-post is notable; for it occurred just at the moment when the British ministry, under the general exigencies of the situation, and the particular menace of the Tilsit compacts between Napoleon and the Czar, were meditating the new and extraordinary maritime system by which alone they ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... support in walking; he was able, therefore, to oppose the thumb to the other four fingers, to seize hold of objects and to fashion tools; and it is well known that the hands are great promoters of the intelligence. This same position gave to the lungs, trachea, larynx, and mouth an aptness for the production of articulate speech, and speech is intelligence. Moreover, this position, causing the head to weigh vertically upon the trunk, facilitated its development and increase of weight, ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... 'you must be, with the aptness of my scholar. Julia has not studied dialectics in vain. Before I can feel myself able to contend with her, I must study the books she has commended so—from which, I must acknowledge, I have been repelled by a prejudice, I believe, rather than any ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... tact. The unexcelled courtesy and grace of manner with which he dropped the measured and beautiful sentences that made him an orator, undoubtedly aided in obtaining the position to which his genius entitled him. But his political instincts, also, were admirable, and his aptness as an unerring counsellor in the conduct of complicated affairs always turned to the advantage of his party. There came a time, after the assassination of President Lincoln, when he made a mistake so grievous that he was never able to regain his former standing; when he was dropped from the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... afternoon. They cycled assiduously and went for long walks at a trot, and raided and studied (and incidentally explained themselves to) any social "types" that lived in the neighbourhood. One invaded type, resentful under research, described them with a dreadful aptness as Donna Quixote and Sancho Panza—and himself as a harmless windmill, hurting no one and signifying nothing. She did rather tilt at things. This particular summer they were at a pleasant farmhouse in level country ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... and slandered as was Lincoln, and if Lincoln was assassinated by a man, Bolvar escaped the weapon of the assassin only to sink under poisonous treachery and ingratitude. It is true that Bolvar was quick-tempered, at times sharp in his repartee; his intellectual aptness had no patience with stupidity, and occasionally his remarks hurt. But when the storm had passed, he was all benevolence, enduring ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... also several who study nothing but the Defects, and are endow'd with a marvelous Aptness to learn them all, having so happy a Memory as never to forget them. Their Genius is so inclined to the Bad, that if by Gift of Nature they had the best of Voices, they would be discontented if they could not find some Means ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... might not be surprised unawares, prepared as great a navy as she could, and with singular care and providence, made all things ready necessary for war. And she herself, who was ever most judicious in discerning of men's wits and aptness, and most happy in making choice, when she made it out of her own judgment, and not at the discretion of others, designed the best and most serviceable to each several employment. Over the whole navy she appointed the Lord Admiral Charles Howard, in whom she reposed much trust; and sent him to ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... invited to the chair of Greek in this college. It was a position entirely suited to his tastes, his capacities, his studies. He brought to it not only ample learning and tastes delicate and cultivated, but the enlarged and generous spirit of a true scholar, and the aptness of an accomplished instructor. His ideal of attainment and of duty was very high, and he aimed at once to fit himself, by the most generous courses of study, to illustrate the more perfectly to his classes the poetry, the eloquence, the ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... evident curiosity, but merely bowed without speaking, and the other passed on. Either somebody overheard the remark, or the doctor repeated it elsewhere, for within a day or two it was all over town, and henceforth, by general consent, half in jest, half in recognition of the aptness of the title under the circumstances, Perez was dubbed Duke of Stockbridge, or more briefly referred to ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... entirely in this point of view that I have urged upon you the close consideration of the permanent influences of every present action. At your age, and with your inexperience, I know that there is an especial aptness to deceive one's-self by considering the case of those who, after leading a gay life for many years, have afterwards become the most zealous and devoted servants of God. That such cases are to be met with, is to the glory of the free grace ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... wages in money and a share in the crop, they will choose the former and work better. Many cases of negroes engaged in little industrial pursuits came to my notice, in which they showed considerable aptness not only for gaining money, but also for saving and judiciously employing it. Some were even surprisingly successful. I visited some of the plantations divided up among freedmen and cultivated by them independently without the supervision of white men. In some instances I found very good crops ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... speaking of "related species," of the "affinity" of a genus or other group, and of "family resemblance,"—vaguely conscious that these terms of kinship are something more than mere metaphors, but unaware of the grounds of their aptness. Mr. Darwin assures them that they have been talking derivative doctrine all their lives ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... American friends into our teachers' meetings on a Sabbath afternoon, or to the Sabbath-school at the intermission of public worship, where nearly the whole congregation remains, exhibiting a zeal and aptness in the discussion of religious truths scarcely surpassed in the most favored churches in New England. The weekly woman's prayer-meeting is sometimes left entirely in the hands of the native sisters, and any one of half a dozen is always ready without embarrassment to take the lead, discoursing ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... called an over-aptness to Anger: for the passion is Anger, and the producing causes many and various. Now he who is angry at what and with whom he ought, and further, in right manner and time, and for proper length of time, is praised, so this Man will be Meek since Meekness is praised. For the ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... his liking, emitted with great earnestness that the beggar, Blizzard, looked exactly like "the wrath of God." Whatever the boy's simile may convey to the reader, to Barbara, fresh from seeing the man himself, it had a wonderful aptness. ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... over-violently illuminated, has obscured its genesis and diverted attention from the simplicity and force of its fundamental principles.[1] In this, its progress has been like that of slang, which, gaining in popularity, must inevitably decrease in aptness and definiteness. ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess
... poetic purposes, metre resembles (if the aptness of the simile may excuse its meanness) yeast, worthless or disagreeable by itself, but giving vivacity and spirit to the liquor with which it is ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... could not even be certain that he had really understood the feeling shown by Cora Tuttle when she heard the man, who had once lavished attentions on her, express in this public manner a preference for her sister. A woman has great aptness in concealing a mortal hurt, and, from what I had seen of this one, I thought it highly improbable that all was quiet in her passionate breast because she had turned an impassive front ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... whose studies have led them into the same paths with the author will continually recognize those signs, trifling, but unmistakable, which distinguish the work of a master from that of a journeyman. Scholarship is indicated not only by readiness of allusion, and variety and aptness of illustration, but by a thorough self-possession and chastened eloquence of style. A genius for language comes doubtless by nature, but Mr. Marsh is too wise a man to believe that a knowledge of it comes in the same way; his learning has that ripened clearness which tells of olden vintages ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... throughout and had dominated the country. That enthusiasm could have but one effect, that of deepening and enriching Canadian loyalty to the Crown, and giving a new sense of solidarity among the people of Canada. "Our Indian compatriots," he concluded, "with picturesque aptness have acclaimed the Prince as Chief Morning Star. That name is well and prophetically chosen. His visit will usher in for Canada a new day full of wide-flung influence and ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... stood in sun and rain unoccupied, with a watchman and his wife, named Hope, who lived close by. The aptness of his name was that of the little Barbadian mule-tram which creeps through the coral-white streets, striving forever to divorce motion from progress and bearing the name Alert. Hope had done his duty ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... like a green bay tree," said Mark Shrewsbury, congratulating himself on the aptness of the quotation, and its suitability to the Archediaconal dinner-table. "It is the strangest story I have heard for a long time." Just then there was a pause in the general conversation, and Mrs. Selldon took advantage of it to make the sign for rising, ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... with inward delight and profound emotion what no musician, except Beethoven, has felt before." And Heinrich Heine had a keen perception of Berlioz's originality when he called him "a colossal nightingale, a lark the size of an eagle." The simile is not only picturesque, but of remarkable aptness. For Berlioz's colossal force is at the service of a forlorn and tender heart; he has nothing of the heroism of Beethoven, or Haendel, or Gluck, or even Schubert. He has all the charm of an Umbrian painter, as is shown in L'Enfance du Christ, as well as sweetness and inward sadness, the ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... Chief's son. Gruesome tales of the ferocity of the convicts. John still anxious to find some particular cave. His chart. The unsolved mystery of the boat. The clothing of the natives. Bracelets. Glitter to attract natives. Weaving, the only industry. The aptness of native women to adopt fancy articles of dress and ornament. John's scheme, anticipating the wedding of Sutoto and Cinda. A "State affair." The mission to the Professor. Sending the Pioneer to Wonder Island. Stut captain of the ship. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... again spoke in the course of this morning's business, which was chiefly occupied in debating on the admissibility of the evidence brought forward by the prosecutors. The quickness and aptness of his arguments, with the admirable facility and address with which he seized upon those of his opponents, the counsel, were strong marks of that high and penetrating capacity so strikingly his characteristic. The only defect in his speaking is ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... designs possessing an artistic unity expressive of an idea plain enough to tell its own story. He had matured both his mechanical resources and his artistic method by the time the campaign of 1884 came on, and he had founded a school which could apply the style to American politics with aptness superior to his own. It was Bernhard Gillam, who, working in the new Keppler style, produced a series of cartoons whose tremendous impressiveness was universally recognized. Blaine was depicted as the tattooed man and was exhibited in that character in all sorts of telling situations. ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... official aptness went leisurely by. Nielje flew into the house, locking and bolting the door. Her face was red as she rolled on the floor, her hands at her sides. Lora, alarmed, thought she was seriously hurt or hysterical from fright; but the laughter ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... feelings probably inherent in the shepherd of the flock, since my wards might well be likened, I thought, to helpless young sheep. By this comparison I mean no disrespect; the simile is employed because of its aptness and for no other reason. It would ill become me, of all men, to refer slightingly to any of our student-body, we at Fernbridge making it our policy ever to receive only the daughters of families having undoubted social standing in their respective communities. ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... attractive language, but also as to original or characteristic thought. There was such an entire absence of all self-seeking about the man, and he so thoroughly identified himself with the people whose interests he pleaded, that, possessing a fair readiness of speech, and aptness for ad captandum argument, he could not fail to secure the favourable attention of earnest men on a subject where their interests were ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... portions of his speeches by heart, but his addresses show a remarkable thoroughness of preparation, else they could not be so thickly sown as they are with pregnant facts, telling figures, and apt illustrations. His pudding is too full of plums to be the work of the moment. Such aptness of quotation as he displays is sometimes a little too happy to be spontaneous; as when, in alluding to the difference between men's professions out of office and their measures in office, he quoted ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... Where power was of God's gift to whom he gave Supremacy of merit—the sole means And broad highway to power, that ever then Was meritoriously administered, Whilst all its instruments, from first to last, The tools of state for service high or low, Were chosen for their aptness to those ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... EUGENIUS, "most sensitive, and, as it were, soulful of human instruments, lends itself, with particular aptness, to the purposes of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... and waters of Currituck, their numbers were far greater in years long gone, before the white man with shot and gun came roving among the reedy marshes. Long before George Durant's advent into the State, the Indians with that aptness for nomenclature for which they are noted, had given to this haunt of the wild fowl the name of "Coretonk," or Currituck, as now called, in imitation of the cry of the ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... subsequently come out from among the mountains. Mr. Hunt, who first descried them, checked the eagerness of his companions, knowing the unwillingness of these Indians to part with their horses, and their aptness to hurry them off and conceal them, in case of an alarm. This was no time to risk such a disappointment. Approaching, therefore, stealthily and silently, they came upon the savages by surprise, who fled in terror. ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... was nature and harmony. Miss Phillips was a great favorite in Boston where she made her debut at the Tremont Theatre in January, 1842, in the play of "Old and Young," personating five characters, and introducing songs and dances. Although very youthful, she displayed great aptness and evinced remarkable musical talent. On the 25th of September, 1843, she first appeared on the boards of the Boston Museum, which then stood at the corner of Tremont and Bromfield Streets, where the Horticultural ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... to these serious detriments the costumes were very poor, especially the disguise of Alonzo as the Hollander, and Haunce's own 'fantastical travelling habit,' dresses on the aptness of which the probability of the intrigue can be ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... own opinions upon you, except now and then when he loses his temper a little on the debatable ground between religion and politics, repeats that quotation you are vainly trying to recall, or delights you by the beauty and aptness of a new one. He gives to a course of systematic sight-seeing the freedom and variety of a ramble with a cultivated and sympathetic companion. We would not be ungrateful to that inestimable impersonality, Murray, for all are his debtors, even Mr. Hare for the plan of his books; but, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... smile. I went with him to the house, where we found the engine in charge of the fireman, and all ready for a start. Kroller got upon the platform, and I followed him. I had never seen a man betray such a peculiar aptness amid machinery as he did. He let on the steam in an instant, but yet with care and judgment, and he backed up to the baggage carriage ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... own history by saying, I went to a North Country school, where I was noted for my aptness in learning; and my skill at 'prisoner's base,'—upon my word I purposed no pun! I was intended for the Church. Wishing, betimes, to instruct myself in its ceremonies, I persuaded my schoolmaster's maidservant to assist me towards promoting a christening. My ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Thomas Bailey Aldrich to George Ade's Fables in Slang is a far cry, but one is as typical a style of humor as the other. Ade's is the more distinctly original, for he not only created the style, but another language. The aptness of its turns, and the marvelous way in which he hit the bull's-eye of human foibles and weaknesses lifted him into instantaneous popularity. A famous bon mot of George Ade's which has been quoted threadbare, but which serves excellently ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... down the book, drawn by the aptness of the text to my problem. Had Maupassant given me the key of the whole enigma? Was this astonishing genius, who had so wrought upon our imaginations, was he a criminal irresistibly driven to tell us the ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... and mild and much of the time could be spent out of doors. Matilda, frail but with that gentle tenacity of life that marks many women for longevity, settled at once into the semi-rough life of the cabin with innate delicacy and aptness. The rooms Sandy had so lovingly planned and furnished became hers after the first day, and no truer compliment could have been paid her host than this homelike acceptance of his thoughtfulness. To see her soft, bright knitting in the sitting-room ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... hands upon the latch, and God alone knew what was behind the gate. Toil, with a certainty, but our lives had known it. Death, perchance. But Death had been near to all of us, and his presence did not frighten. As we climbed towards the Gap, I recalled with strange aptness a quaint saying of my father's that Kaintuckee was the Garden of Eden, and that men were being justly punished with blood ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for you know I was a ready speaker. If my friends could only have seen that I was peculiarly fitted for public life and advanced me sufficient means, I would have returned it tenfold. But no; I was forced into other things for which I had no great aptness or knowledge, and years of struggling poverty and repeated disappointment followed. At last your father died and gave us enough to buy a cheap farm out here. But why go over our experience in the West? My plan of making sugar from the sorghum, which promised so brilliantly, has ended in the most ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... Their aptness therefore to conclude that they can be happy without it, is one great occasion that men often are not raised to the desire of the greatest ABSENT good. For, whilst such thoughts possess them, the joys of ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... envy him,—he is not just the man fitted for this destination. A Knight of the Garter should be a man prone to show himself, a public man, one whose work in the country has brought him face to face with his fellows. There is an aptness, a propriety, a fitness in these things which one can understand perhaps ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... was now thrown, the kindness of which he was hourly the recipient, called into vigour abilities that would have been stifled for ever beneath the blighting influences that surrounded him under his former master. The old gentleman had him taught to read and write, and his aptness was such as to highly ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... authority; to genuine excellence, whether moral or intellectual, he was always ready to pay unbounded deference. That strenuous application which was one of his most remarkable gifts in manhood showed itself in his youth, and his application was backed or inspired by superior intelligence and aptness. After he had been two years at the Ecole Polytechnique he took a foremost part in a mutinous demonstration against one of the masters; the school was broken up, and Comte like the other scholars was sent home. To the great ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... graphic description of these sacred localities, refers with great aptness to scenes and personages which history has made famous. It is a chatty ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... leanness, waking, sighing, &c. Quest. An delur pulsus amatorius? or Of mind. Bad, as Fear, sorrow, suspicion, anxiety, &c. A hell, torment, fire, blindness, &c. Dotage, slavery, neglect of business. or Good, as Spruceness, neatness, courage, aptness to learn music, singing, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... 9th, the Toronto Women's Literary and Social Progress Club had gathered in public for the first time in the City Council Chamber to consider the Suffrage question. Mrs. McEwan presided and a paper "treating pithily and with much aptness on the subject of the Franchise" was read by Miss E. Foulds, who moved a Resolution "that in the opinion of this Meeting the Parliamentary Franchise should be extended to women who possess the qualifications which entitle men to vote." This and a second resolution proposing the formation of a society ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... expressive the simple word can become in the hands of a master. Dante's verb and noun are now proverbial. As for Mr. Davidson, Gray's clear-cut lines in the Elegy can supply no more instances of perfect aptness than those which I quoted some time ago of the lark. Notice the ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... that anything should be universally tasted and approved by a Multitude, tho' they are only the Rabble of a Nation, which hath not in it some peculiar Aptness to please and gratify the ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... prison-houses not at all; the air that visits them is no better than the life within,—heavy, stifling, stupefying. For relief I betook me to the study of the Siamese language, an occupation I had found very pleasant and inspiring. As for Boy, who spoke Malay fluently, it was wonderful with what aptness he acquired it. ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... held her face long to it, as though its sweetness kept her senses willing prisoners; turning to the other, she smelt it for a short instant and then drew away, her face, that told every mood with unfailing aptness, twisted into disappointment or disgust. She leant out looking down on me; now behind her shoulder I saw the King's black face, half-hidden by the hangings of the window. She glanced at the first flower, then at the second, held up both her hands for a moment, ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... hert is as apt to take wysdome As is an olde, and if it rotyd be It sawyth sede of holy lyfe to come Also in children we often tymes se Great aptness outwarde and syne of grauyte But fyll an erthen pot first with yll lycoure And euer after it shall smell ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... pleases," replied the newcomer, "Jean Passepartout, a surname which has clung to me because I have a natural aptness for going out of one business into another. I believe I'm honest, monsieur, but, to be outspoken, I've had several trades. I've been an itinerant singer, a circus-rider, when I used to vault like Leotard, ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... sea, a band was playing, and all the inhabitants had congregated to converse and walk. What a contrast to the country from which we had just come! No man can judge of the superiority of England, whether in the beauty and elegance of its women, the cleanliness of its towns, the multiplicity and aptness of its comforts, but he who has wandered in other parts of the world. Grumblers are domestic; just the same as spoiled brats cry for the very sake of peevishness, because they know not the pain of denial. ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... his talk, or a sunny geniality which served instead. Perhaps my recollection of a pervading element of humour is the more vivid, because the best talks were with Mr. Huxley, in whom there is the aptness which is akin to humour, even when humour itself is not there. My father enjoyed Mr. Huxley's humour exceedingly, and would often say, "What splendid fun Huxley is!" I think he probably had more scientific argument (of the nature of a fight) with ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... daily attended the school and worked faithfully under the untiring tutelage of Chloe and Harriet Penny, who entered into the work with new enthusiasm engendered by the interest and the aptness of the Snare Lake Indians—absent qualities among the wives and children ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... desperation. The suddenness of this sinister conclusion had in it something comic and unbelievable. It loosened my grip on my mental processes. A Latin tag came into my head about the facile descent into the abyss. I marvelled at its aptness, and also that it should have come to me so pat. But I believe now that it was suggested simply by the actual declivity of the street of the Consuls which lies on a gentle slope. We had just turned the corner. All the houses were dark and in a perspective of complete solitude our two shadows ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... continents. Many of them are most strikingly happy, and flood his subject with light. The smiles that break out upon the sea of upturned faces, and the laughter that whispers round the assembly, are often due as much to the aptness as to the humor of the illustration: the mind receives an agreeable shock of surprise at finding a resemblance where only the widest dissimilarity had ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... aptness of the description; but, indeed, Felipe had sometimes a strange felicity in rendering into words the sensations of the body. 'And your mother, too,' said I; 'she seems to feel this weather much. Do you not ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... instigate the various eastern tribes to rise at once, and by a simultaneous effort to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. It is difficult at this distant period to assign the proper credit due to these early accusations against the Indians. There was a proneness to suspicion and an aptness to acts of violence on the part of the whites that gave weight and importance to every idle tale. Informers abounded where tale-bearing met with countenance and reward, and the sword was readily unsheathed when its success was certain ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... an aptness in the quotation; for at Arpinum, a few years before, was born that Caius Marius, seven times consul of Rome, who had at least the virtue of manhood in him, if he ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... his mother's thoughts. This instinctive genius is often—though seldom in such a high degree—to be found in creatures of the same stock: they hardly need to look at each other to know each other's thoughts: they can guess them by the breathing, by a thousand imperceptible signs. This natural aptness, which is fortified by living together, was in Lionello sharpened and refined by his ever wakeful malevolence. He had the insight of the desire to hurt. He detested Christophe. Why? Why does a child take a dislike to a person who has never done him any harm? It ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... addressed himself to Wellington and to the new King, William IV., assuring them that, under the Government of Louis Philippe, France would not seek to use the Belgian revolution for its own aggrandisement; and, with his old aptness in the invention of general principles to suit a particular case, he laid down the principle of non-intervention as one that ought for the future to govern the policy of Europe. His efforts were successful. So complete an understanding ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... inventive skill believed that he would some time achieve success. It is his favourite, his most original, and novel work. For many triumphs of mind over matter Edison has been called the 'Napoleon of Invention,' and the aptness of the title is enhanced by his personal resemblance to the great conqueror. But the phonograph is his victory of Austerlitz; and, like the printing-press of Gutenberg, it will ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... pretty wit and I admire it as I admire most of his brilliant qualities, but I fail to see the aptness of this last gibe. At the club this afternoon I picked up an entertaining French novel called En felons des Perles. On the illustrated cover was a row of undraped damsels sitting in oyster-shells, and the text of the book went to show how it was the hero's ambition to make a rosary ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... nook where two high hedges met, and where the grass was elastic and dry, he lightly rested his arm on her waist, and practised with her the new step of fascination. Instead of music he whispered numbers, and she, as may be supposed, showed no slight aptness in following his instructions. Thus they moved round together, the moon-shadows from the twigs racing over their ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... there were portraits of authors, and I noticed a faded newspaper cutting pinned up. The headlines ran: "Literary Pedlar Lectures on Poetry." I read it through. Apparently the Professor (so I had begun to call him, as the aptness of the nickname stuck in my mind) had given a lecture in Camden, N.J., where he had asserted that Tennyson was a greater poet than Walt Whitman; and the boosters of the Camden poet had enlivened the evening with missiles. It seems that the chief Whitman ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... power, well-nigh amounting to genius, seemed to dwell in the swarthy forehead beneath the double curve of ebony hair that lay upon it like a crown, and gleamed in the light like a varnished surface; but like many another actress, Coralie had little wit in spite of her aptness at greenroom repartee, and scarcely any education in spite of her boudoir experience. Her brain was prompted by her senses, her kindness was the impulsive warm-heartedness of girls of her class. But who could trouble over Coralie's psychology when his eyes were dazzled by those smooth, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... natural course by the accident of his position as the son of the leading Conservative statesman of the day. From first to last he was at heart a moderate Liberal. After making allowance, however, for this deflecting agency, it must be admitted that in the highest quality of the statesman, "aptness to be right," he was surpassed by none of his contemporaries, or—if by anybody—by Sir George Cornewall Lewis alone. He would have been more at home in a state of things which did not demand from its leading statesman great popular ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... show the Low German race as pure barbarians, great at destruction, but incapable of constructive work. Professor Rolleston, who has opened several of these early heathen tombs of our Teutonic ancestors, finds in them everywhere abundant evidence of "their great aptness at destroying, and their great slowness in elaborating, material civilisation." Until the Anglo-Saxon received from the Continent the Christian religion and the Roman culture, he was a mere average Aryan barbarian, with a strong taste for war and plunder, but with ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... few of the number that have been credited to him. He had a wonderful memory, and a fine power of making his hearers see the scene he wished to depict; but the final charm of his stories lay in their aptness, and in the kindly humor that left ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... Punch would, in London, have occasioned measureless ridicule and disgust. The difference in what is vaguely styled temperament does not wholly explain the contrast between the two peoples, for the performance was creditable both to the readiness of the King in an emergency and to the aptness of his people, the main distinction being that in Italy there was in 1821, and still is, a recognized and cultivated language of signs long disused in Great Britain. In seeking to account for this it will be remembered that the Italians have a ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... end of his life, took such a pride in his company that he affected to furnish his chambers with their pictures." Amongst the benefits to be derived from such a club as that of which Mr. Pool was president, Roger North mentions "Aptness to speak;" adding: "for a man may be possessed of a book-case, and think he has it ad unguem throughout, and when he offers at it shall find himself at a loss, and his words will not be right and proper, or perhaps too many, and his expressions ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... your Sister as it seems, for what desert I dare not know, unless a handsome subject for your charities, or aptness in your noble will to do it, have showred upon my wants a timely bounty, which makes me rich ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... female, though not permitted to speak in the Church, had often this aptness for teaching. Such was the case with the excellent Priscilla, Acts xviii. 26. The aged women were required to be "teachers of good ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... recollection. I thought of the jolly old hunter who always concluded the operations of the day by discharging his rifle at his candle after he had snugly ensconced himself in bed; and of the celebrated scene in which Henry Clay won an old hunter's vote in an election, by his aptness in turning into a political simile some points in the ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... wind that blows nobody any good," however, and the aptness of the adage was well illustrated in the present instance, the men feasting on roast pork, besides putting by some tit-bits salted down for a rainy day, at the expense ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the deepest passion in him, even as defeating the hopes of the Vaufontaines was more than a religion with the Duke. By no trickery, but by a persistent good-nature, alertness of speech, avoidance of dangerous topics, and aptness in anecdote, he had hourly made his position stronger, himself more honoured at the Castle Bercy. He had also tactfully declined an offer of money from the Prince—none the less decidedly because he was nearly penniless. The Duke's hospitality he was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the less chance was thereof his being fit for any other world. What could it do for him there,—this beautiful grace and elegance of feature,—where there was no form, nothing tangible nor visible? what good that readiness and aptness for associating with all created things, doing his part, acting, enjoying, when, under the changed conditions of another state of being, all this adaptedness would fail? Had he been gifted with permanence on earth, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the Limericks of Edward Lear, they were easily imitated. What is not so intelligible is, that they seem to have fascinated many people who were assuredly not dull. Even Johnson condescended to commend the aptness of the pseudonym, and to speak of the performance as "ingenious and diverting." Horace Walpole, writing to Montagu in December 1766, professes to have laughed over them till he cried. It was "the newest piece of humour," he declared, "except the Bath Guide [Anstey's], that ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... noble hearts, To whom mysterious seas have been In midnight watches, lonely calm and storm, A stern, sad disciple, And rooted out the false and vain, And chastened them to aptness for Devotion and the deeds of war, And death which smiles and ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... now put all the aptness on Of Figure, that Proportion Or Color can disclose; That if those silent arts were lost, Design and Picture, they might boast From you a newer ground, Instructed by the heightening sense Of dignity and reverence In their true ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... She did not remember one day what she had said the day before; for each day she coolly asserted whatever was demanded by the necessity of the moment. He, on the contrary, had an excellent memory; and his mathematical mind ranged the evidence powerfully against her. Her gifts were more aptness and quickness than anything else, they were without training, without cohesion, and permeated with passion at all points. Therefore he could, at any moment, crush her defence; but whenever this happened, it was so ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... comfort of the labourer in this life, and his salvation in the world to come.... Likewise, adding hereunto her great appearance of love to me, her desire to be taught and instructed in the knowledge of God, her capablenesse of understanding, her aptness and willingness to receive anie good impression, and also the spirituall, besides her owne incitements ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... touching stories.' She also adds, 'Many were the lessons of wisdom and faith I have delighted to learn from her.' . . . . 'She continued a great favorite in our meetings, both on account of her remarkable gift in prayer, and still more remarkable talent for singing, . . . and the aptness and point of her remarks, frequently illustrated by figures the ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... translation is faithful to the original, and the subtitle calls attention to the aptness of the Discourse as a defense of Pope's satiric practice.[25] It is so apt, indeed, that one could almost suspect Pope himself of making the translation and submitting it to Harte or his publisher. Pope had already invoked Boileau's name and precedent in the letter from "William Cleland"; ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... the rule of the English in India to be found in history. It has been compared to the dominion which Rome held over so large a portion of the world; but the comparison has not the merit of aptness. The population of the Roman Empire, in the age of the Antonines, has been estimated at 120,000,000, including that of Italy. The population of India is not less than 150,000,000, without counting any portion of the conquering race. Rome was favorably situated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... gallant, much-loved, early epauletted fellows, who did not let twenty-one catch them without wives sealed with the authentic wedding kiss, nor allow twenty-two to find them without an heir. But they had a sad aptness for dying young. It was altogether supposable that they would have spread out broadly in the land; but they were such inveterate duelists, such brave Indian-fighters, such adventurous swamp-rangers, ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... prince, who died at Rotherhithe, and was buried in the church-yard there, in December, 1784, there are some points of resemblance to the case under our notice. The natural and unforced politeness of the youth, his aptness at conforming, in all proper things, to the habits and customs of those to whose hospitality he was intrusted; his warm and single-hearted affection for such persons, in whatever station, as showed him kind offices, his desire for mental improvement; his resignation ...
— Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian - A Memoir • Thomas Boyles Murray
... rendered you quick in expression, and impatient of contradiction; or if, from whatever other cause, you have contracted an unhappy peevishness of temper, or asperity of manners, or harshness and severity of language, (remember that these defects are by no means incompatible with an aptness to perform services of substantial kindness); if nature has been confirmed by habit till at length your soul seems thoroughly tinctured with these evil dispositions, yet do not despair. Remember that the Divine Agency is promised, "to take away the heart ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... very correct view of the excellent mode in which dissenting ministers are generally called to their important work. First, their gifts in prayer and conversation upon Divine things, and aptness in illustrating and confirming what they advance from the Scriptures, is noticed; and, secondly, they are encouraged to pray with and address the poor children in a Sunday school. If they manifest an aptness to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... motive induced the Jews to live amongst nations who almost invariably treated them as enemies, and to remain at the mercy of sovereigns whose sole object was to oppress, plunder, and subject them to all kinds of vexations? To understand this it is sufficient to remember that, in their peculiar aptness for earning and hoarding money, they found, or at least hoped to find, a means of compensation whereby they might be led to forget the servitude to which they ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... Thus, in the third or fourth generation, where all have been blacksmiths, the child will be born with the muscles of the right arm more developed than those of the left, and the first plaything he demands is a hammer. So, where a family have been traders, will the offspring naturally discover an aptness for bargaining and commerce. This is illustrated in the instincts of the Jews, a people of extraordinary brain and wonderful tenacity of purpose. Five thousand years since, a small fragment of the Semitic race, residing in Mesopotamia between the waters of the Euphrates ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... seems to be to the ancient Ligurian town of Nicaea, now Nice, in France. The "perfumed sea" would then be the Ligurian sea. But one half suspects that it was the scholarly and musical sound of the word, rather than any aptness of classical reference, that led to the use of ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... in any matter requires two things. The first is the virtue itself that pronounces judgment: and in this way, judgment is an act of reason, because it belongs to the reason to pronounce or define. The other is the disposition of the one who judges, on which depends his aptness for judging aright. In this way, in matters of justice, judgment proceeds from justice, even as in matters of fortitude, it proceeds from fortitude. Accordingly judgment is an act of justice in so far ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... labor. In a large majority of cases—especially in the dairy districts, at least, comprising the Eastern and Middle States—the farmer cares more for the milking qualities of his cows, especially for the quantity they give, than for their fitness for grazing, or aptness to fatten. These latter points become more important in the Western and some of the Southern States, where much greater attention is paid to breeding and to feeding, and where comparatively slight attention is given to the productions ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... simple strain. It may be doubted whether this description of Hunt's poetry, had it been published in Adonais, would have been wholly pleasing to Hunt. Neither does it define, with any exceptional aptness, the particular calibre ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... bent of his disposition, and the habits of his mind; notice every manifestation of fixed opinions, and then transfer to his architecture as much of the feeling he has observed as is distinct in its operation. This he should do, not because the general spectator will be aware of the aptness of the building, which, knowing nothing of its inmate, he cannot be; nor to please the individual himself, which it is a chance if any simple design ever will, and who never will find out how well his character ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... And not only the Sacred Writers, but others make use of this Comparison. The Grecians of old were wont to call the Snow, ERIODES HUDOR Wooly Water, or wet Wool. The Latin word Floccus signifies both a Lock of Wool and a Flake of Snow, in that they resemble one another. The aptness of the similitude appears in three things." "1. In respect of the Whiteness thereof." "2. In respect of Softness." "3. In respect of that Warming Vertue that does attend the Snow." [Here the reasoning must not be omitted.] "Wool is warm. We say, As warm as Wool. Woolen-cloth has a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... slight as the matter seemed, it apparently called for some declaration, or intimation, or faint foreshadowing of policy in reference to the conduct of the war, and the final treatment of the Rebels. But the President's Yankee aptness and not-to-be-caughtness stood him in good stead, and he jerked or wiggled himself out of the dilemma with an uncouth dexterity that was entirely in character; although, without his gesticulation of eye and mouth,—and especially the flourish of the whip, with which ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... be the "right street" and its accompaniments must wear an aspect of at least seeming to belong to the right order of detachment and fashionable ease, one was always in debt and forced to keep out of the way of duns, and obliged to pretend things and tell lies with aptness and outward gaiety. Sometimes one actually was so far driven to the wall that one could not keep most important engagements and the invention of plausible excuses demanded absolute genius. The slice of a house between the two big ones was a rash feature ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... whether it is used to denote the dead languages or the obsolete or obsolescent forms of thought and diction in the living language, or to denote other items of scholarly activity or apparatus to which it is applied with less aptness. So the archaic idiom of the English language is spoken of as "classic" English. Its use is imperative in all speaking and writing upon serious topics, and a facile use of it lends dignity to even the most ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... poem of extraordinary power, has so much more markedly the defects of his qualities that I take it to be, at the utmost, the poise of the first gradual refluence. This analogy of the tidal ebb and flow may be observed with singular aptness in Browning's life-work—the tide that first moved shoreward in the loveliness of "Pauline," and, with "long withdrawing roar," ebbed in slow, just perceptible lapse to the poet's penultimate volume. As for "Asolando," I would rather regard it as the gathering of ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... only varying the expression of his thought to say, Jesuitical education strikingly exemplifies, how much intellectual culture may be superinduced upon the mind, without awakening intellectual life—without developing a spontaneous aptness to appreciate, seek, find, embrace the truth. The head is filled with the thoughts of others-many ascertained facts and just conclusions. It can reason aright in the circles of thought, where it has been trained to move; but elsewhere, ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... Carver, already governor of the colony, and William Bradford, his lieutenant and successor. The governor was the first to speak, and the somewhat measured accents of his voice, with its inflections at once kindly and haughty, told of gentle breeding, of a calm and dignified temper, and of an aptness at command. ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... tale, dear Hugh, without any association of its incidents with the old respectable chronicles of the Historians is what I should wish you could always do. That is the happy manner with Romance; that is the enviable aptness of the child. But when (by the favour of God) you grow older and more reflective, seeking perhaps for more in these pages than they meant to give, you may wonder that the streets, the lanes, the tenements herein set forth so ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Maupassant undoubtedly is, as the critic to whom I alluded has said, "through the simple aptness of his terms and ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... separation of the two people. Metaphor of this kind is undoubtedly useful to the political speaker in that it enables him to be apt without being exact, and thereby frees him from the possibility of being pinned down to a stated position, but in serious discussion exactness rather than aptness is desired, and to the thinking man the figure of speech, by which the notion of two lines running always parallel without meeting is applied to the course of development of two races living together in one ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer's way. His friends were those of his own blood, or those whom he had known the longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness in the object. ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... argue the coldness of a tree. Thus the myrtle and well fern, though not hot, but confessedly cold, are green all the year. Some imagine this comes from the equal and duly proportioned mixture of the qualities in the leaf, to which Empedocles hath added a certain aptness of pores, through which the nourishing juice is orderly transmitted, so that there is still supply sufficient. But now it is otherwise in trees whose leaves fall, by reason of the wideness of their higher and narrowness of their lower pores; for the latter do ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... as on the other side there is a natural malignity. For there be that in their nature do not affect the good of others. The lighter sort of malignity turneth but to a crossness, or frowardness, or aptness to oppose, or difficilness, or the like; but the deeper sort to envy and mere mischief. Such men in other men's calamities are, as it were, in season, and are ever on the loading part: not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus' sores; but like flies that ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... well-read person; his range of allusive phrases was limited, but there was a peculiar aptness in circumstances which made him think of rats leaving a doomed ship. He very nearly said so. He had grown suspicious and embittered. Could it be that the old woman had such an excellent nose? But the unreasonableness of such a suspicion ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... class of my College whom I have not fitted for it by the Primary course. They are taught their first lessons by my students; hence [15] the aptness to assimilate pure and abstract Science is ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... their hearts and lives and to lead them to ask, "Can we not all do more than we are now doing and do all with a better spirit?" A Mission is conducted by a Priest specially invited for the purpose and is chosen for his aptness in carrying on such special work. If well conducted and blessed of God a Mission brings great spiritual blessings to the Parish in which it is held and its happy results are to be seen in the awakened life and renewed energy ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... responsive to all demands. His power of phrasing runs the whole gamut from the most pellucid simplicity to the most triumphant originality. His figures of speech, drawn from all realms, are penetrating in quality, of startling aptness. Equally characteristic is his versification, varying as it does from passages of melodic smoothness and grace to lines as strident, broken, and harsh as the thought they dramatically reflect. In narration, whether in the brilliant rapidity and ease of a ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... artist has this advantage over the rest of the world, that his friends offer not only their appearance and their character to his satire, but also their work. I despaired of ever expressing myself with such aptness or with such fluency. In those days conversation was still cultivated as an art; a neat repartee was more highly valued than the crackling of thorns under a pot; and the epigram, not yet a mechanical appliance by which the dull may achieve a semblance ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... singular aptness, for he had hardly uttered them when Roderick came out from the house, evidently in his darkest mood. He stood for a moment gazing hard at ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... In housewife matters, of aptness to learn and activity to execute, she is eminently mistress; and during my absence in Nithsdale, she is regularly and constantly apprentice to my mother and sisters in their dairy ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... correction or with a syllable that might seem, to an ear less true, redundant. This gives to his most carefully chiseled productions an air of spontaneous ease, and has made him eminent as a sonneteer. His sonnet on 'Sleep' is one of the finest in the language. The conciseness and concentrated aptness of his expression also—together with a faculty of bringing into conjunction subtly contrasted thoughts, images, or feelings—has issued happily in short, concentrated pieces like 'An Untimely Thought,' 'Destiny,' ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... inconsistencies in dwelling upon accidents in Tess's life as if they were vital features. It was for herself that he loved Tess; her soul, her heart, her substance—not for her skill in the dairy, her aptness as his scholar, and certainly not for her simple formal faith-professions. Her unsophisticated open-air existence required no varnish of conventionality to make it palatable to him. He held that education had as yet but little affected the beats of emotion and impulse on which ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... Bruyere we have seen no more ample, virile phrases, in which anger, admiration, indignation, studied and concentrated passion, appear with more rigorous precision and more powerful relief. He is almost the equal of La Bruyere in the arrangement of skillful effects, in the aptness and ingenuity of developments, in the terseness of impressive summaries, in the overpowering directness of unexpected arguments, in the multiplicity of literary achievements, in the execution of those passages of bravura, portraits, descriptions, comparisons, creations, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the country, Jonathan, and noticed an immense rock split and shattered by the roots of a tree, or perhaps by the might of an insignificant looking fungus? I have, many times, and I never see such a rock without thinking of its aptness as an illustration of this Socialist philosophy. A tiny acorn tossed by the wind finds lodgment in some small crevice of a rock which has stood for thousands of years, a rock so big and strong that men choose ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... either no intrinsic value, or no acceptant capacity, there is no effectual value; that is to say, no wealth. A horse is no wealth to us if we cannot ride, nor a picture if we cannot see, nor can any noble thing be wealth, except to a noble person. As the aptness of the user increases, the effectual value of the thing used increases; and in its entirety can co-exist only with perfect skill of use, and ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... ready wit, a quickness and aptness at selecting and applying quotations, and a countenance that is as solemn and as blank as the back side of a tombstone when he is delivering a particularly exasperating joke. One night a negro woman was burned to death in a house next door to us, and Riley said that our landlady ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... up—apparently against the writer's will—of certain of the master's letters and mots.... It is useful and pleasant reading; for not only does it prove the painter to have a certain literary talent—of aptness, unexpectedness, above all impertinence—but also it proves him never to have feared the face of art-critical man.... To him the art-critic is nothing if not a person to be educated, with or against the grain; and when he encounters him in the ways of error, he leaps upon him joyously, scalps ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... towards himself. How like a mother! What mother has not had the best of children? They despised her remarks and pitied her because her son was so unlike other boys and caused her anxiety. There was nothing to complain of in his work when he stuck to it. What a carpenter he might be with such aptness! Only he should not interfere in things he could not understand, and should not disturb people's belief in the religion ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger |
