"Originality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... industrial work, and a few by written work alone. In subject-matter and original thought, South Dakota's work compared favorably with that of other schools of like age and conditions, especially in simplicity and originality. ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... think there is much courage or originality in giving utterance to truths that everybody knows, but which get overlaid by conventional trumpery. The only distinction which it is necessary to point out to feeble-minded folk is this: that, in asserting the breadth and depth of that significance which gives to fashion and fortune their ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... of the other Saxon and Norman kings were, as a general rule, less voluminous even than these that have been named; and probably did not exceed them in originality. [9] The Norman princes, from William the Conqueror to John, I think without exception, bound themselves, and, in order to mqintain their thrones, were obliged to bind themselves, to observe the ancient ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... from the School of Art, her well-worn portfolio under her arm, thinking how many successive generations of boys and girls she had drilled through 'free-hand,' 'perspective,' and even 'life' with an unvarying average of failure and very moderate success, and how little talent or originality had come to the front, though all might be the better for knowing how to use eyes ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... THE CHINESE MANNER (fig. 230).—All Chinese embroidery displays undoubted originality and wonderful skill and judgment in the choice of material and colour. It excels particularly, in the representation of figures, flowers, and animals, but differs from European work in this, that instead of using flat stitch and ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... whom took upon themselves to be important agents of the world's destiny, yet were simply bores of a very intense water. Such, I imagine, is the invariable character of persons who crowd so closely about an original thinker as to draw in his unuttered breath, and thus to become imbued with a false originality. This triteness of novelty is enough to make any man of common sense blaspheme at all ideas of less than a century's standing, and pray that the world may be petrified and rendered immovable in precisely the worst moral and physical state that it ever yet arrived at, rather than be benefited ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... without highways, where a strange face still excited interest and a journey of thirty miles made even one of the more important inhabitants the Ulysses of his vicinage—in short, a spot, as so many more that once could be found in Germany, with all the failings and the virtues, all the originality and the narrowness that can flourish ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... harmony of the Originating Spirit within itself is duly regarded, then the individual mind affords a fresh center from which the Spirit contemplates itself in what I have ventured to call its Artistic Originality—a boundless potential of Creativeness, yet always regulated by its own inherent ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... Robert, or "King," Carter of Corotoman in Lancaster County. There is no doubt about it: he was an oyster lover. He not only knew a way to hold oysters over an extended period—one wishes one knew what it was—but he had the courage and originality to eat them in July, contrary ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... Meilhan has so much originality of character, and I admit only originality of mind. He puts his horse in his chamber, which is an original idea, to be sure; but I think horses had better be kept in the stable, where they would certainly be more comfortable. And these dreadful poets are such ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... level with the surface of the ground; and the wall, in this subterranean part of the building, is considerably thicker than it is above. The balustrade of quatrefoils above appears coeval with the rest, and may be regarded as tending to establish the originality of that in the nave of the abbey church of ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... well repay the enthusiasm and energy of every girl who has a gift in this direction. What the girl with ability for this work needs to bring to her problem is, not only enthusiasm and energy, but originality and initiative. "I have a real gift," she should say to herself; "how can I make the best use ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... violates the conventions as to start with a mother whose moral instability is a worry to her children, and a hero who longs to be a practical builder despite a parental command to follow art—such a tale can at least claim the merit of originality. Mr. J. D. BERESFORD would be fully justified in claiming this and much more for An Imperfect Mother (COLLINS). Here is an interesting, fascinating and certainly unusual story, in which only two characters are of any real moment, Cecilia, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... men. They anticipate lines of action; philosophers generally follow (Machiavelli's theories the practice of Louis XI., Nietzsche's that of Napoleon I.). The critic recognises the tentative steps of genius in letters. The work of fine delicacy and reserve, the work that follows, lacking the real originality, is liable to neglect, and may become the victim of ill-luck, unfair influence, or other extraneous factors. Yet on the whole, so numerous are the publics of to-day, there never, perhaps, was a time ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... sense of the term, they have never had to keep, and their squalid abiding-places, overrun with wretched and quarrelsome half-clad children, and bare of the commonest comforts of life, have offered very unattractive fields for womanly originality and painstaking endeavor. A cheerful, quiet home, wherein the laborer is always sure of warmth and light and wholesome food, has in it a saving grace which all the creeds in Christendom cannot compass ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... so condenses and systematizes general military instruction and the work done at Plattsburg so that it may be easily utilized in training other troops. No broad claim for originality is made except in the arrangement of all available material; the bibliography makes acknowledgment to all texts so utilized. Besides bringing helpful reminders to new officers regarding the elements of modern warfare, ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... has numerous references to Gawain's skill in healing. Of course the advocates of the originality of Chretien de Troyes will object that these references, though found in poems which have no connection with Chretien, and which are translations from lost French originals of an undetermined date, are one and all loans from ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... owned indeed that Francis Thompson was a puzzle to his contemporaries of the nineties. He paid the usual penalty of vaulting originality. The decade is famous for its bold experiments and shining successes in the art of poetry. One might expect that a public, grown accustomed to exquisitely wrought novelties and eager to extend them a welcome, would have been preordained to recognize and hail the genius of Thompson. But it was not ...
— The Hound of Heaven • Francis Thompson
... Schools, we would dissect his magnificent pages, which afford so rich a field for scientific observation. We would, in the first place, analyze his Nocturnes, Ballades, Impromptus, Scherzos, which are full of refinements of harmony never heard before; bold, and of startling originality. We would also examine his Polonaises, Mazourkas, Waltzes and Boleros. But this is not the time or place for such a study, which would be interesting only to the adepts in ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... case, as we have before hinted, with even the most original. Had not Shakspeare and Milton been "celestial thieves," their writings would have been far less rich and brilliant than they are; although, had they not possessed true originality, they would not have taken their present lofty position in the world of letters. So, to say that Burns was much indebted to his predecessors, and that he often imitated Ramsay and Fergusson, and borrowed liberally from the old ballads, is by no means to derogate from his genius. If he ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... reconcile the degree of unanimity and cooeperation which is requisite for the full exertion of social power, with that amount of individuality which would be useful in promoting a progressive change. Spontaneity or originality is disintegrating in its immediate tendency. It disturbs the order of society, though, in the end, on the whole, it is advantageous. Thus we have the tenacity of old habits and prevailing sentiments on ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in his works and proved by his biography, is so perfectly honest, open, home-bred English, that we claim him with pride—as belonging exclusively to England. His originality is of English growth; his satire broad, bold, fair-play English. He was no screened assassin of character, either with pen or pencil; no journalist's hack to stab in secret—concealing his name, or assuming a forged ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... and Boru, instead of having to face all those girls again. She had tried at first to find her place among them, but the old dread of being "different" made her shy and self-conscious; even with Daphne before her as an example of the charms of originality she had ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... the north, meanwhile, Eustace Le Neve worked away with a will at the idea for his viaduct. As he rightly wrote to Cleer, the need itself inspired him. Love is a great engineer, and Eustace learned fast from him. He was full of the fresh originality of youth; and the place took his fancy and impressed itself upon him. Gazing at it each day, there rose up slowly by degrees in his mind, like a dream, the picture of a great work on a new and startling principle—a modification ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... his studies, that we had very little in common to bring us together; and I hardly remember any striking fact connected with him, except one or two speeches at the Union Club, when in eloquence and originality he far outshone ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... that has not been invented, and that has in it every evidence of divine originality, is pure and simple deism. It must have been the first and will probably be the last that man believes. But pure and simple deism does not answer the purpose of despotic governments. They cannot lay hold of religion as an engine but by mixing it with ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... however, so easily satisfied.* The statue bearing his inscription, of which the lower part was discovered by Naville at Bubastis, appears to have been really carved for himself or for one of his contemporaries. It is a work possessing no originality, though of very commendable execution, such as would render it acceptable to any museum; the artist who conceived it took 'his inspiration with considerable cleverness from the best examples turned out by the schools of the Delta under the Sovkhotpfts ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and the soul. He is well aware—though not fully at first—that these conceptions were familiar to St. Bernard and many a Catholic mystic; it was for the poetic apprehension and expression of them that he claimed originality; or, at least, for their unification and systematic development. "That his apprehensions were based generally—almost exclusively, on the fundamental idea of nuptial love must," as Mr. Champneys says, "be admitted." This was the governing category of his mind; the mould into ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... aid of foot-notes to an old edition, a multitude of the most absolute plagiarisms from various authors. From the Bible mainly, and also from the Greek and Latin poets, he has taken nearly all his ideas; and every one of the words he uses are to be found in the dictionary. Talk of originality, after that! His conceptions also are sometimes absurd; for instance, the Address to Light. No one, who has not been stultified by theological nebulosities, ought to fail to know, as we knew when we first began ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... two young people in America, which may end in a friendship of a summer, or extend to the cordial esteem of a lifetime, or result in marriage. I always liked the girl; she had such a sunny temper, such a flow of originality in her mental attitude towards people and things without being a wit or a critic, and so much piquancy in all her little ways. She would take to matrimony, I should say, like a duck to water, with unruffled plumage, but as a wife she would never be commonplace, or anything but engaging, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... she was unfeignedly surprised when, on her way to Washington, whither she traveled with many others, her society was sought by those whom she had long regarded with something akin to awe. She did not guess how her enthusiasm and fresh originality stimulated persons of lower vitality ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... on taking home with him, and Tchirikov, his best man, a Moscow conciliation-board judge, Levin's companion in his bear-hunts. The dinner was a very merry one: Sergey Ivanovitch was in his happiest mood, and was much amused by Katavasov's originality. Katavasov, feeling his originality was appreciated and understood, made the most of it. Tchirikov always gave a lively and good-humored support to ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Harte's stories lies in their originality of conception, their well-defined local color, and the chaste richness of their literary style. The power to pique one's interest to the last page belongs to Mr. Harte above all other writers of stories of American life. His latest book has all the good qualities of its ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... interest you to know that the Nevada Buildings at the San Francisco Exposition were erected "on the originality" of Fred, de Longchamps, and though their cost was comparatively small, they compared favorably with any ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... self-reliance, together with a dislike of such cruelty as had been officially (so to speak) recognized as cruelty, and a sense of public service to a State run by and for the public schools; but it would have required far more originality than he possessed ever to look at Life from any other point of view than that from which he had been born and bred to watch Her. To fully understand harbinger, one must, and with unprejudiced eyes and brain, have attended one of those great cricket matches ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... earlier and fresher models. Perhaps I hear some one cry out: But this is not the way to be original! It is not; nor is there any way but to be born so. Nor yet, if you are born original, is there anything in this training that shall clip the wings of your originality. There can be none more original than Montaigne, neither could any be more unlike Cicero; yet no craftsman can fail to see how much the one must have tried in his time to imitate the other. Burns is the very type of a ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... taking the world—for this pioneer of an everybody's literature had his subjectivities—into books. What a survival of one long-past day, for instance, in "A Ramble from Richmond to London"! What truth to the surface of common things, to their direct claim on our interest! yet with what originality of effect in that truthfulness, ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... the meeting was over and Mr. Craig had gone away. The men would hang about and talk the lesson over, expressing opinions favourable or unfavourable as appeared to them good. Then it was that all sorts of views, religious and otherwise, were aired and examined. The originality of the ideas, the absolute disregard of the authority of church or creed, the frankness with which opinions were stated, and the forcefulness of the language in which they were expressed, combined to make the discussions altogether marvellous. The passage between Abe Baker, the ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... lattice of this sick chamber; I was almost content to forget it. All within me became narrowed to my lot. Tame and still by habit, disciplined by destiny, I demanded no walks in the fresh air; my appetite needed no more than the tiny messes served for the invalid. In addition, she gave me the originality of her character to study: the steadiness of her virtues, I will add, the power of her passions, to admire; the truth of her feelings to trust. All these things she had, and for these ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... Benny from Grandpa.' 'For a good girl, from Susy's grandmother.' 'Jim, from Aunt Minnie and Aunt Aggie.' 'Lucy, with love from Aggie and Minnie.' And Clarence! What hearts you have got! Well, I always say there never were such thoughtful girls, and you always show such taste and such originality. I long to get at the things." She keeps fingering the large bundle marked with her husband's ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... its essentials, has undergone no material change since we have any record of it; and to use any other word than "beauty" for what we mean by beauty, or than "goodness" for what we mean by goodness, would seem a mere superstition of originality. The interpretation offered, in what follows, of the existence of these experiences is sufficiently startling to require no assistance from novelty of phrasing to give it interest and poignancy. That our souls are actually able to touch, in the darkness ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... neighbouring landowners! How clearly he exposed their faults and failings! How thoroughly he knew the story of certain ruined gentry—the story of how, why, and through what cause they had fallen upon evil days! With what comic originality could he describe their little ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... it was written in the orderly book) 'than strict adherence to the principles of free trade;' and that if the deputation doubted it, they might read Burke." A leading morning journal remarked, that Sir R. Routh's reply to the Achill deputation had not even the merit of originality; for there was an Eastern story, in which it was related how a deputation of Sheiks came, once upon a time, to the Calif, and announced the sad intelligence that all their date trees had withered, and his ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... himself. In energetic minds, truth soon changes by domestication into power; and from directing in the discrimination and appraisal of the product, becomes influencive in the production. To admire on principle, is the only way to imitate without loss of originality. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... connection between the philosophical systems of Sankara, Ramanuja and Anandathirtha, and the Arabian merchants who came to India in the first centuries of the Hejira, and he is no doubt fully entitled to any credit that may be given him for the originality of his discovery. This mysterious and occult connection between Adwaita philosophy and Arabian commerce is pointed out in p. 212 of his book, and it may have some bearing on the present question, if it is anything more than a figment of his fancy. ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... on their side. Of the rest of the population an immense number were the indifferent, who had no sympathies to spare for any beyond their own fireside circles. In the course of time sensation writers came up on the surface of society, and by way of originality they condemned almost every measure and person of the past. "Emancipation was a mistake;" and these fast writers drew along with them a large body, who would fain be slaveholders themselves. We must never ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... natural. But genius in itself is not an abnormal mental condition. It does not even consist of an extraordinary memory, vivid imagination, quickness of judgment, or of a combination of all of these. Kant defines genius as the talent of invention. Originality and productiveness are the fundamental elements of genius. And it is an almost instinctive force which urges the author on in his creative work. In the main his activity is due less to free will than ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... the writing as it is entertaining in the reading. It is actual comedy of the most artistic sort, and it is handled with a freshness and originality that is unquestionably novel."—Boston Transcript. "A feast of humor and good cheer, yet subtly pervaded by special shades of feeling, fancy, tenderness, or whimsicality. A merry thing in prose."—St. ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... for an outspoken criticism, and when he became tired of it, he sent an ultimatum to the effect that if he were not released at once, he would break out himself, take a rifle and bundle of cartridges and hold the Lovcen (a high mountain) against all comers. The originality of his threat gained him his freedom. Since then he has kept a closer guard over that unruly member and only unburdened himself in the seclusion of the Club. Otherwise P., myself, and a young and intensely patriotic Scotchman completed the ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... a subject on which (as he perhaps knew) the German never could resist enlarging, for in common with most German masters, he was giving birth to a new Grammar, which, from the daring originality of its plan, and its extreme simplicity, was destined to supersede ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... matron, in a white lace mantilla, with three very juvenile daughters; and if these ladies sometimes yawned, they never shivered. For myself, I confess that if I sometimes shivered, I never yawned. A long list of bulls was sacrificed, each of whom had pretentions to originality. The banderillos, in their silk stockings and embroidered satin costumes, skipped about with a great deal of elegance; the espada folded his arms, within six inches of the bull's nose, and stared him out ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... journey, when relating why Lord Byron could not accompany him in an excursion to Negropont; for he energetically expresses his regret at being obliged to separate, even for so short a time, from a companion, who, according to him, united to perspicacity of wit and originality of observation, that gay and lively temper which keeps attention awake under the pressure of fatigue, softening ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... check; for to the French taste Mark Twain's pleasantry appeared macabre, his wit brutal, his temperament dry to excess. By some, indeed, his exaggerations were regarded as symptoms of mental alienation; and the originality of his verve did not succeed in giving a passport to the incoherence of his conceptions. "It has been said," remarked M. Forgues, with keen perception, "that an academician slumbers in the depths of every Frenchman; and it was this which prevented the ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... such persons as are called merry fellows and good companions are very often more esteemed by men than the virtuous and orderly, and most of the young men of Siena followed Sodoma, extolling him as a man of originality. And this Sodoma, being an eccentric, and wishing to please the common herd, always kept at his house parrots, apes, dwarf donkeys, little Elba horses, a talking raven, barbs for running races, and other suchlike creatures; from which he had won such a name among the vulgar, ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... find the translation of the speeches in idiomatic English, but it may be pointed out that in most cases that defect is due to the translator having aimed at preserving, as far as possible the stamp of originality as it ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... century is rendered chiefly remarkable by the power he showed (in his time singularly exceptional) of harmonising the ideas of mediaeval mysticism with some of the most characteristic features of modern religious thought. A man of deep and somewhat ascetic piety, and gifted with much originality and with a cultured and progressive mind, he had many readers and a few earnest and admiring adherents, yet was never greatly in sympathy with the age in which he lived. Three or four generations earlier, or three or four generations later, he would have found much more that ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... could not have made a better short abstract, even his terms standing "as heads of chapters." He goes on to say that he would at once write to Mr. Wallace offering to send his MS. to any journal; and concludes: "So my originality is smashed, though my book [the forthcoming 'Origin of Species'], if it will have any value will not be deteriorated, as all know the labour consists in the ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... surrender of Guthrum, Alfred, feeling that the power was now in his hands, had had ample time to reflect on the course which he should pursue with his subjugated enemies; and the result to which he came, and the measure which he adopted, evince, as much as any act of his life, the greatness, and originality, and nobleness of his character. Here were two distinct and independent races on the same island, that had been engaged for many years in a most fierce and sanguinary struggle, each gaining at times a temporary ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... when in England girls are in the schoolroom and come down to dessert, this 'child of the wilderness' had more courage, discretion, and power of mind than many a woman of mature age nurtured in idleness and luxury, with minds carefully drilled and educated out of any originality or self-resource that nature ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... child of Nature, who did, freshly, what he would, regardless of the strained discretion of others, or a futile, scheming hypocrite, screaming after forced puerilities, without even a finger on the skirts of originality? ...
— The Folly Of Eustace - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... readers. No one could tire reading these sermons. They are as racy as a magazine article, as instructive as a lecture, and as impressive and lofty as a message from God. They are thoroughly American for their fearlessness, their living energy, and their originality. Sermons of this high order are sure to ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... reasons for all these illogicalities. Children do not want to be treated altogether as adults: such treatment terrifies them and over-burdens them with responsibility. In truth, very few adults care to be called on for independence and originality: they also are bewildered and terrified in the absence of precedents and precepts and commandments; but modern Democracy allows them a sanctioning and cancelling power if they are capable of using it, which children are not. To treat a child wholly as an adult would be to mock ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... old pigtails for this blind belief in themselves, which grows out of the boastful arbitrariness of the Rococo, in the midst of and in spite of the constraint of the Pigtail, and is closely connected with the mad cult of originality practised by so many individual types. We have strong doubts concerning the excellence of our advanced mental development, while in the days of our great-grandfathers nobody doubted that that age, which we properly stigmatize with the sobriquet of the Pigtail Age, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... have seldom been duplicated, and that when the same topic has been twice used, the handling of it has been so different that little duplication has been noticeable. Each oration well represents the originality and the individuality of the writer or orator. Duplication is shown in the quotations, and it is therefore suggested ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... paraphrasing in conversation the purple passages from contemporary writers. He said them exquisitely and sometimes his own embroidery was as good as the original. This discipleship, however, always suggested to me a lack of originality. In especial Matthew Arnold had an extraordinary influence upon him, almost as great indeed ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... Conjuracion de Venecia (1834) and Aben Humeya (1836: it had already been given in French at Paris in 1830), mark the first public triumph of romanticism in Spain. But Martinez de la Rosa lacked force and originality and his works merely paved the way for the greater triumph of the Duke of Rivas. Angel de Saavedra, DUQUE DE RIVAS (1791-1865), a liberal noble, insured the definite triumph of romanticism in Spain by the successful performance ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... means, but the motive was as vulgar as the art was great. To surround his interior with a sort of invidious sanctity, to tantalise society with a sense of exclusion, to make people believe his house was different from every other, to impart to the face that he presented to the world a cold originality—this was the ingenious effort of the personage to whom Isabel had attributed a superior morality. "He works with superior material," Ralph said to himself; "it's rich abundance compared with his former resources." Ralph was a clever ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... consented, but said there was no need of much preparation, as he should not be for staying long, for he did not wish me to be Londonized, and to lose my country freshness and originality by too much intercourse with the ladies of the world. I thought this folly; but I did not wish to contradict him now: I merely said that I was of very domestic habits, as he well knew, and had no particular wish to ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... enthusiasm into a disquisition on medicine; and dropping in one fine day at Professor Gambert's,—the pensioned schoolmaster,—he proved himself no mean adversary in a discussion upon natural history. He invariably approached a subject with a refreshing originality, and on one occasion maintained with an obstinacy born of conviction that the reason Moses had prohibited the Jews from eating pork was because ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... can fuse the elements. Hold your place; do not try to shift into the place that another occupies. Keep your eye on what you have to work with, not on what somebody else has. The ultimate result, the originality, flavor, distinction, usefulness of your life, depend on the care, the reverence, and the intelligence with which you work up and out from where you are ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... said this quietly, and in a tone of regret, but without the slightest intention of expressing poetical ideas, or laying claim to originality of thought. Yet his distinct denial of being an angekok or wise man, and his sentiments regarding the voices of Nature, only confirmed his countrymen in their belief that he was the greatest angekok they had ever seen ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... theories, I eagerly welcome. How much of the conception is original with me, I cannot say. It is the product of my groping interpretation of the theories of many brilliant scientific minds of today—humbly combined with perhaps some originality of my own. The mind flings far afield when it starts to grope with the Unknown. Try it! Read what I have written and then let your mind roam a little further. Probe a little deeper. Perhaps we may contribute something. It is only by that process—each mind following some other's cleared path ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... was to write caustic epigrams. At the school examination in 1815, the aged poet Derzhavin was among the visitors; and when he heard the boy read his "Memories of Tzarskoe Selo," he at once predicted his coming greatness. As is natural at his age, there was not much originality of idea in the poem; but it was amazing for its facility and mastery of poetic forms. Karamzin and Zhukovsky were not long in adding their testimony to the lad's genius, and the latter even acquired the habit of submitting his own poems to ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... tone which is characteristic of such an era as the Elizabethan age in England. In short, justice or toleration, since it encourages men to push on to the limit of their powers, promotes not only originality and diversity, but ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... status of existing parties, be a stickler for creed, ceremonies, and stale opinions, and adhere to ancient orthodoxy in medicine and religion. The animal faculties, since they are staid and regular, are naturally antagonistic to genius, sensibility, and originality. Their mental tendencies have been fairly described and their physiological results may be ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... The originality of this gentleman's intellect and manners, led me subsequently to make further inquiry; and I find one of his sermons reported by a recent traveller, who, after stating that his oratory made a deep impression on the congregation of the Sailors' chapel in Boston, who sat with ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... however, not in the gorgeous mosaics alone that we find the delight and originality of S. Vitale. The whole church is amazingly different from anything else to be seen in Italy, for it is altogether outside the Roman tradition, an absolutely Byzantine building as well in its construction as in its decoration. It must be compared ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... and western Europe, driving out native art and substituting a conventionalized copy of Graeco-Roman or Italian art, which is characterized alike by its technical finish and neatness, and by its lack of originality and its dependence on imitation. The result was inevitable. The whole external side of life was lived amidst Italian, or (as we may perhaps call it) Roman-provincial, furniture and environment. Take by way of example the development of the so-called 'Samian' ware. The ...
— The Romanization of Roman Britain • F. Haverfield
... scene of "As You Like It," for their own amusement, not for an audience, in the wilderness at Hampton Court. They were by no means prodigies, but it did not surprise me that my son, when he grew up, should be first a good actor, then an artist of some originality, and should finally turn all his brains and industry to new developments in the art of the theater. My daughter has acted also—not enough to please me, for I have a very firm belief in her talents—and has shown again and ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... appeared, and although he had already a considerable literary reputation in Edinburgh, and some in London, the amount of his original publications was then but small. Indeed, on the austere principles of those who deny 'originality' to such things as reviews, or as the essays in the Minstrelsy, it must be limited to a mere handful, though of very pleasant delights, the half-dozen of ballads made up by 'Glenfinlas,' 'The Eve of St. John,' the rather ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... out by the other yacht, but could not be distinguished, and, for the last time, they sat down to dinner. Three days' companionship on board of a vessel, cooped up together, and having no one else to converse with, will produce intimacy; and Pickersgill was a young man of so much originality and information, that he was listened to with pleasure. He never attempted to advance beyond the line of strict decorum and politeness; and his companion was equally unpresuming. Situated as they were, and feeling what must have ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to any journal in the world. Willis is the lightest and most mercurial 'knight of the quill' in all the tournament. It is astonishing with what dexterity, felicity, and grace he touches off the veriest trifle of the day, investing the trite with originality, and giving the value of wit and poetry to the worthless and the dry. Pity that this brilliant 'quid nunc' should degenerate into a mere trifling 'arbiter elegantiarum,' and expend his buoyant and ductile genius in the indictment of ephemeral paragraphs. His ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... and enthusiastic? Is it not a self-complacent dream? Are the tendencies adverted to so productive? Is any such genius really forming as is here claimed? Is it not, on the contrary, now fully understood that the Americans are a commonplace people, meagre-minded money-makers, destitute of originality? What have they done to demonstrate genius yet?—These skepticisms are somewhat prevalent nowadays, and are a natural enough reaction from Fourth-of-July flatulencies. Let them have their day. The fact will vindicate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... Hundred Eight, is modeled after the "Liber Veritatis." But the book surpasses Claude's, and Turner knew it, and this may have led him to burst his shackles and cast loose from his idol. For, in Eighteen Hundred Fifteen, we find him working according to his own ideas, showing an originality and audacity in conception and execution that made him the butt of the critics, and caused consternation to rage ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... "I have a silent sorrow here," was avowedly written by Sheridan, as the music of it was by the Duchess of Devonshire—two such names, so brilliant in their respective spheres, as the Muses of Song and Verse have seldom had the luck to bring together. The originality of these lines has been disputed; and that expedient of borrowing which their author ought to have been independent of in every way, is supposed to have been resorted to by his indolence on this occasion. Some verses by Tickell are mentioned as having supplied ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... foot of the descent she paused again, and looked to the right and left. Captain Phippeny was watching her from his vantage ground above. His figure was one unmistakably of the seaboard. His trousers were of a singular cut, probably after a pattern evolved in all its originality by Mrs. Phippeny, her active imagination working towards practical effect. In addition, he wore a yellow flannel shirt ribbed with purple, which would hopelessly have jaundiced a rose-leaf complexion, but which, having exhausted ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... for he firmly believed that he knew life and considered his knowledge of it something unshakeable, stable and perfect. My silence seemed to him to give him a right to strike a fuller note in his stories of Caucasian life—a life full of so much wild beauty, so much fire and originality. ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... may be thought of Clerk's claim to originality in constructing a system of naval tactics, and it has been seriously impugned, there can be no doubt that his criticisms on the past were sound. So far as the author knows, he in this respect deserves credit for an ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... opportunity of garnering something worth saying, a rule of Parliamentary life that might be recommended to the attention of some who shall here be nameless. For the rest it was the same grinding out of barrel-organ tunes in varied keys that has been going on these three years. McKenna gave touch of originality to his remarks in winding up debate by avoiding reference to the late Giraldus Cambrensis. Thus momentarily refreshed, Members gratefully went out to Division Lobby, and Third Reading was carried ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 27, 1914 • Various
... house. Most of these ideas have been ridiculed, because experience has proved that families seldom reside comfortably in crowded quarters. The tribes of which we are writing, while they destroy the originality of the communistic ideas of the Nineteenth Century, also disprove the arguments which are principally brought against them. In these singular houses or colonies, several families live together in perfect harmony. There are no instances on record of disputes such as are met with in boarding-houses ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... of it in the literature. This era produced nothing of inspired or reformatory force. A profound pessimism stifled all originality. Korolenko alone, who was living during the greater part of this time as a political prisoner in distant Yakutsk, where he did not imbibe the untoward influences of the reaction, remained unmoved and strong. Anton Chekhov, too, survived the gloomy ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... these was Rocco, supreme and unapproachable. Half-way along the suite of kitchens, Rocco had an apartment of his own, wherein he thought out those magnificent combinations, those marvellous feats of succulence and originality, which had given him his fame. Visitors never caught a glimpse of Rocco in the kitchens, though sometimes, on a special night, he would stroll nonchalantly through the dining-room, like the great man he was, to receive the ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... He returned to Strathmiglo, and while busily plying the shuttle began to compose verses for his amusement. These compositions were jotted down during the periods of leisure. Happening to quote a stanza to Dr Paterson of Auchtermuchty, his medical attendant, who was struck with its originality, he was induced to submit his MSS. to the inspection of this gentleman. A cordial recommendation to publish his verses was the result; and a large number of subscribers being procured, through the exertions of his medical friend, he appeared, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... there is no instance of any ancient writing proved to be a forgery, which combines excellence with length. A really great and original writer would have no object in fathering his works on Plato; and to the forger or imitator, the 'literary hack' of Alexandria and Athens, the Gods did not grant originality or genius. Further, in attempting to balance the evidence for and against a Platonic dialogue, we must not forget that the form of the Platonic writing was common to several of his contemporaries. Aeschines, Euclid, Phaedo, ...
— Alcibiades I • (may be spurious) Plato
... Brethren, under Spangenberg's guidance, entered on a new phase. In originality they had lost; in sobriety they had gained; and now they were honoured by the orthodox party in Germany as trusted champions of the faith delivered once ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... contemporary literature is found, to my thinking, in the vice which has been very graphically called effectism, or the itch of awaking at all cost in the reader vivid and violent emotions, which shall do credit to the invention and originality of the writer. This vice has its roots in human nature itself, and more particularly in that of the artist; he has always some thing feminine in him, which tempts him to coquet with the reader, and display qualities that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ignores and defies honor, and which not a single redeeming feature. It has neither wisdom nor wit, no spirit, no genius, no impulsiveness, scarcely boyish mirth. A narrow range of stale practical jokes, lighted up by no gleam of originality, seems to be transmitted from year to year with as much fidelity as the Hebrew Bible, and not half the latitude allowed to clergymen of the English Established Church. But besides its platitude, its one over-powering ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... the narrow way. Mr. Heatherbloom leaned back, his gaze straight ahead, but Betty Dalrymple looked around with interest at the people of divers shades and hues, and, for the most part, in costumes of varying degrees of picturesque originality. After having narrowly escaped running over a small proportion of the juvenile colored population overflowing from odd little shops and houses, they reached the transportable zinc shed that served as a cable office. Here Miss Dalrymple indited rapidly ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... the reverend gentleman's scrutiny with modest grace, almost as if it flattered her. And indeed there was nothing whatever of ill-breeding in Mr. Wyvern's mode of instituting acquaintance with his parishioner; one felt that he was a man of pronounced originality, and that he might be trusted in his variance from the ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... the throat of Cash Dallam, owner of the National House, Blue Creek's leading, and likewise only, hotel. The National was a board structure, formerly painted—with some originality of taste—a bright orange hue, relieved with red trimmings round doors, windows and eaves. But the sun had blistered and the hot desert winds had cracked and peeled its originally gaudy hues, and it was ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... agreeing with his, he had the satisfaction of transcribing literally and verbatim the speech made by the Companion of Jehu to citizen Jean Picot. Then, this conversation written down, he exclaimed with an accent that lent a singular stamp of originality ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... birthright, she took her place in the social world as a queen by virtue of her position, her gifts, and her heritage. Already, before her marriage, she had changed the tone of her mother's salon. She brought into it an element of freshness and originality which the dignified and rather precise character of Mme. Necker had failed to impart. She gave it also a strong political coloring. This influence was more marked after she became the wife of the Swedish ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... such intensity of imaginative power Browning must have known—even if it were but for moments—by experience. And again, there is impressive truth and originality in the description of the state of the poet's mind which succeeded the wreck of his early faith and early hopes inspired by the voice of Shelley—the revolutionary faith in liberty, equality and human ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... premium you put on originality!" responded Mrs. Staggchase. "That is all very well for her, but how ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... course, no easy task to infuse a spirit of originality into matter which has already achieved such a measure of celebrity as have these wild and wondrous tales of Rhineland. But it is hoped that the treatment to which these stories have been subjected is not without a novelty of its own. One circumstance ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... of life; but from the tyranny of the government, and probably from the effects of his long incarceration in a damp, unhealthy jail. It is the best and most scriptural guide that has ever appeared to aid us in the performance of relative duties: written with originality of thought and that peculiar and pious earnestness which so distinguishes all ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... stories which have gathered about his name; but for ourselves the interest which attaches to Polycarp is far greater. This importance he owes to his peculiar position, rather than to any marked greatness or originality of character. Two long lives—those of St John and of Polycarp—span the period which elapsed between the personal ministry of our Lord and the great Christian teachers living at the close of the second century. Polycarp was the disciple of ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... the glory of having elaborated a system of private law that was logically deduced from clearly formulated principles and was destined to become the fundamental law of all civilized communities. But even in connection with this private law, where the originality of Rome is uncontested and her preeminence absolute, recent researches have shown with how much tenacity the Hellenized Orient maintained its old legal codes, and how much resistance local customs, the woof of the life of nations, offered to unification. In truth, ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... in the fact, that being called to Rome especially to adorn the palace of the so-called head of the Church, and called as the chief representative of the Christian artists of his time, Raphael had neither religion nor originality enough to trace the spirit of poetry and the spirit of philosophy to the inspiration of the true God, as well as that of theology; but that, on the contrary, he elevated the creations of fancy on the one wall, to the same rank as the objects of faith upon the other; that in ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... philosophy was much more definite than Coleridge's; it gave substance to his character and edge to his intellect, and, in the end, can scarcely be distinguished from the emotion generating his verse. There is, however, no trace of originality in his speculative writing, and we need not regret that, after hesitating whether to be a metaphysician or a poet, he decided against philosophy. Before finally settling to poetry, he at one time projected a complete and systematic account of the operations of the human mind. ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... to supply the terms of the required definition. I have seen it, and yet the definition does not satisfy me. "Original"! Well—more or less; but to use old materials in a novel manner is quite enough for originality. The girl brought up as a boy is not absolutely new or original, vide Tom Noddy's Secret, and multiply the heroine of that farce by three. The three men hunting after the three girls and obtaining ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... Paris, slightly anterior to the poet of Troyes, and in all probability the source of part at least of his work) were posterior and probably derivative. Now this, of itself, would of course to some extent put up Chrestien's value. But it, and the necessary corollaries from it, as originality and so forth, by no means exhaust the additional honours and achievements which have been heaped upon Chrestien by M. Paris and by others who have followed, more or less accepted, and in some cases bettered his ascriptions. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... because each writer, one in making notes of commonplaces on sleep, the other in a speech about sleep, uses the regular expression 'Uprouse,' and the poetical commonplace 'Golden sleep' for 'Good rest.' There was no originality in the matter. ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... the spiritual or metaphysical requisitions of the former, he must necessarily find himself without an audience, except here and there an individual or possibly an isolated clique. His writings, to do them justice, are not altogether destitute of fancy and originality; they might have won him greater reputation but for an inveterate love of allegory, which is apt to invest his plots and characters with the aspect of scenery and people in the clouds, and to steal away the human warmth ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and belonged to Wes. Her chief characteristic was her devotion to Dinkey. She worshiped Dinkey, and seconded her enthusiastically. Without near the originality of Dinkey, she was yet a very good and sure pack-horse. The deceiving part about Jenny was her eye. It was baleful with the spirit of evil,—snaky and black, and with green sideways gleams in it. Catching the ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... apparently no originality. As in the oldest days of their drama the Romans had copied the Greeks, so they copied them still. We may believe that the acting was often excellent; especially in respect of intonation and gesture, but little can be said for the play, whether from the point of view of literature or of morals. ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... are young we may be susceptible to the new, only because it is new to us. We are ready to welcome in book or speech anything which charms us with a novelty we readily mistake for originality. After we have crossed a line it may be well that most of us should become a bit obstinate, a little stiff in our beliefs, lest we be blown about by every wind of doctrine.[2] At the same time, there is always the danger ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... must be left for ethnologists more industrious and better informed than myself to decide. In any case, the possible common Aryan source will tend to obscure the truth, just as it often does the derivation of Rommany words. But nothing can detract from the inexpressibly quaint spirit of Gipsy originality in which these odd credos are expressed, or surpass the strangeness of the reasons given for them. If the spirit of the goblin and elfin lingers anywhere on earth, it is ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... can peruse without confessing the acuteness and strength of its reasoning, the nice discrimination of its criticism, and the precision and purity of its diction. Whatever difference of opinion may be formed as to some of its conclusions, no one will deny that the originality and importance of its views make it a substantial accession to theological science; and that, within the range permitted by the subject, it presents, on the whole, one of the noblest specimens of scholarship, and elegance of composition, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... persuading him to accept payment. Meanwhile we were obliged to make an attempt to dig out the tent, regardless of the weather; the situation was no longer endurable. We waited all the forenoon in the hope of an improvement; but as none came, we set to work at twelve o'clock. Our implements showed some originality and diversity: a little spade, a biscuit-tin, and a cooker. The drift did its best to undo our work as fast as we dug, but we managed to hold our own against it. Digging out the tent-pegs gave most trouble. After six hours' hard work we got the tent ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... our fellow-passengers, Mr. Ruby, is the type of a vulgar tradesman. Without any originality or magnanimity in his composition, he has spent twenty years of his life in mere buying and selling, and as he has gener- ally contrived to do business at a profit, he has realized a considerable fortune. What he is going to do with the money, he does not seem able to say: his ideas do not go ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... contribution if our account contained only what we saw, in our rapid travel; for I have a theory that any addition to the great body of print, however insignificant it may be, has a value in proportion to its originality and individuality,—however slight either is,—and very little value if it is a compilation of the observations of others. In this case I know how slight the value is; and I can only hope that as the trip was very entertaining ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the virtue of originality," she admitted, "and it never fails to excite curiosity. I am sorry you were misled. Nothing could be more distressing than to be mistaken for the heroine of a story and then turn out to be a mere nobody in the end. I've no doubt that if the amiable Miss Blithers were ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... want of serious interest in contemporary intellects renders them more accessible to the earliest symptoms of superficial shiftings of taste. They are anxious to be at the head of the fashions in thought as well as in dress, and pure love of novelty serves to some extent in place of genuine originality. Amongst such men Walpole deserves a high place; and it is not easy to obtain a high place even amongst such men. The people who succeed best at trifles are those who are capable of something better. In spite of Johnson's aphorism, it is the colossus who, when he tries, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... three classes:—those which by their originality have recently led discussion into altogether new channels; those which have attracted deserved attention as powerful special pleas upon one side or the other in great current questions; and finally, purely critical and analytical dissertations. The series will aim to ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... will disdain the old worn-out distinctions of a hackneyed universe— eschew all baronies, mine host, and cast earldoms and dukedoms to the shades. The immortal Locke has unlocked his fertile mind to furnish you with appellations suited to the originality of your condition and the nature of your country. Ah! here comes the Cacique of Pedee, in ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and pastures new." The zest of life with them is emphatic. Their humor is fresh, unbounded, sincere; there is no trace of cynicism. In folk literature we do not feel the presence of a "writer" who is mightily concerned about maintaining his reputation for wisdom, originality, or style. Hence the freedom from any note of straining after effect, of artificiality. In the midst of a life limited to fundamental needs, their literature deals with fundamentals. On the whole, it was a literature for entertainment. A more learned upper class may have concerned itself then about ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... pictures influence us. The introduction of them into daily newspapers is an important development of the arts of suggestion. Mediaeval art in colored glass, carving, sculpture, and pictures reveals the grossness and crass simplicity of the mediaeval imagination, but also its childish originality and directness. No doubt it was on account of these latter characteristics that it had such suggestive power. It was graphic. It stimulated and inflamed the kind of imagination which produced it. It found its subjects in heaven, hell, demons, torture, and the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... of church organization among the Puritan plantations is the more remarkable in view of the notable independence and originality of the leading men, who represented tendencies of opinion as widely diverging as the quasi-Presbyterianism of John Eliot and the doctrinaire democracy of John Wise. These variations of ecclesiastico-political theory had much to do with the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... character, was capable of energetic but solitary resolutions, and possessed little influence over his colleagues, although he talked much. M. Laine, on the contrary, had a warm and sympathetic heart under a gloomy exterior, and an elevated mind, without much vigour or originality. He spoke imposingly and convincingly when moved by his subject; formerly a Republican, he had paused as a simple partisan of liberal tendencies, and being promptly acknowledged as the head of the Commission, consented without hesitation to become its ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... something more from the pen of the same author. This is at last announced. In Metzel Changes His Mind, Miss Schauffler strengthens the impression made by her first book that she is a writer of marked originality. Here again she has provided an unusual setting for her tale. The scene is largely laid in a pathological laboratory, surely a new background for a romance. It is a background, moreover, which is used most effectively ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Diocletian himself. When Constantine, therefore, established a new seat of government at Byzantium, he adopted a policy inaugurated before his day as essential to the preservation of the Roman dominion. He can claim originality only in his choice of the particular point at which that seat was placed, and in his recognition of the fact that his alliance with the Christian church could be best maintained in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... of his characters, the melody of his songs, and the originality of his quaint, but beautiful conceptions, Governor Taylor's lectures are temples of thought, lighted with windows ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... a remarkable story: full of vivid fancy and quaint originality. In its most fantastic imaginings it carries with it a sense of reality, and derives a singular attraction from that combination of simplicity, originality, and subtle humour, which is so much appreciated by lively and thoughtful ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... was the Major's idea goes without saying. At Looe they had neither the originality ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... To my mind the occurrence of such a vision in the daytime is more impressive than if it had happened in a midnight dream. Readers are therefore asked to correct the misrelation, which affords an instance of how our imperfect memories insensibly formalize the fresh originality of living fact—from whose shape they slowly depart, as machine-made castings depart by degrees from the sharp hand-work of ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... to be two ten-penny nails. The boat building industry was thriving and the boys often went aboard a new boat picking up the nails the carpenters let fall in their work. The nail idea was Lin's and we must accord her some degree of originality. ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... such minds are seldom distinguished by an air of originality: they are anticipated in their happiest efforts; and if they are found to differ in anything from their predecessors, it is only in irregular sallies and trifling conceits. The more extensive therefore your acquaintance is with the works of those who ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... of some works is stylistic; a technical pre-occupation stands them instead of some robuster principle of life. And with these the execution is but play; for the stylistic problem is resolved beforehand, and all large originality of treatment wilfully foregone. Such are the verses, intricately designed, which we have learnt to admire, with a certain smiling admiration, at the hands of Mr. Lang and Mr. Dobson; such, too, are those canvases where dexterity or even breadth of plastic style takes the place ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... well-defined roots existing in all countries, from which spring the current legends of the supernatural; and therefore for the germs of the stories in this book the Author claims no originality. These legends differ one from the other only in local color and in individual treatment. If the Author has succeeded in clothing one or two of these norms in some slightly new vesture, he ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... half, we encounter the history of a people without a government, more than that, without a land, a people stripped of all the tangible accompaniments of nationality, and nevertheless successful in preserving its spiritual unity, its originality, complete ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... Once more the bold originality of Aeschylus displays itself. Here is a theme unique in Greek literature. The strife between the two races of gods opens out a vista of the world ages before man was created. It will provide a solution to a very difficult problem which will confront ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... of Erasmus. His enormous industry, the vast store of classical learning which he gradually accumulated, Erasmus shared with others of his day. In patristic study he may have stood beneath Luther; in originality and profoundness of thought he was certainly inferior to More. His theology, though he made a greater mark on the world by it than even by his scholarship, he derived almost without change from Colet. But his combination of vast learning ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... does not offer entertainment pure and simple, depending on mere wit or felicity, but is also capable of stirring an educated curiosity—in a way which I hope will be exemplified in the following pages. They are intended to have an attraction independent of any originality of subject, any happiness of general design, any verisimilitude in the piling up of fictions. This attraction is in the veiled reference underlying all the details of my narrative; they parody the cock-and-bull stories of ancient poets, historians, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... to do with his own things what he pleases, provided, in so doing, he does not infringe upon the rights of others. On this point, it appeared that the editor thought and argued differently, and Mr. Freeman said, that in taking the above ground, he did not claim originality, for it is a principle of law, as laid down in Blackstone, Paley, and others—it is the language of great commentators, and upon it he would stand or fall, and leave the distinguished editor to battle ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... the observation that a great nation in a state of decay betakes itself to the fine arts. Perhaps no one has made the observation yet. It is certainly among the records of my brain, but I may possibly have put it there myself. If so, I make it now, for the possibilities of originality are getting scarce and will soon disappear from the face of the earth as completely as the mastodon. The present application of the saying is to the people of Goa, who, while they carry through the world patronymics which breathe of conquest ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... was born at Mersbury, in Swabia, and studied medicine at the University of Vienna. He read freely the books written by the authors already mentioned, and accepted much of their teaching. His originality consisted principally in applying to the sick this universal principle, by means of contact and passes, while his predecessors infused the vital spirit through the use of talismans and of magic boxes. He took his medical degree in 1766 and chose as the subject of his inaugural dissertation ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... "a greater width of view and intellectual power" than woman's does; that in the feminine utterances "little beyond the actual love of this life is imagined";[277:1] and that in such utterances "we notice . . . an absolute want of originality and of power to look at the passion of love in an abstract sense outside the woman herself ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... its fame on assiduous imitation rather than originality. But at what cost? Its people had degenerated in the process from thinking humans to dumb, driven cattle, going, going, for ever going, but non-comprehending the why or the wherefore of it all, beyond the arrogant assumption of "welt-politik." Every refining trait ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... of originality, or shall we say individuality, about the lady,"—he observed, with a critical, not to say insolent stare in Maryllia's direction,—"The French term 'beaute du diable' expresses it best. But whether the charm will last, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... built by a young painter, who was intoxicated by a first success, and had been perforce resold almost as soon as it was habitable. It was in the palatial Renaissance manner and had fantastic interior arrangements which consisted of modern conveniences framed in a setting of somewhat artificial originality. Count Muffat had bought the house ready furnished and full of hosts of beautiful objects—lovely Eastern hangings, old credences, huge chairs of the Louis XIII epoch. And thus Nana had come into artistic surroundings ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... had first become interested in her. As soon as she began to feel at ease with him, her shyness rapidly disappeared, and he was astonished to discover that the stiff, silent girl whom he had thought rather dull possessed cultore and originality such as few girls of his acquaintance could lay claim to. His assurance beyond possibility of doubt that she was as really glad to see him whenever he called as she said she was, and that though his speech ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... one's own, is to have other people's affairs brought before us in a shape that is interesting; this is sure to happen from your pen; our affairs and management will have an air of simplicity or importance that will not fail to strike; and I am convinced you have conducted them with as much originality as if you had been conducting discussions in politics or philosophy; and what more worthy of experiments and system (its importance and its errors considered) than ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... popular legends, and a free use of the songs of other bards, are features perfectly consistent with poetical originality. In fact, the most original writer is still drawing upon outward impressions—nay, even his own thoughts are a kind of secondary agents which support and feed the impulses of imagination. But unless there be some grand ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... him in with me and show him the ropes, but he couldn't learn anything worth while that way. He'd simply be a copy-cat. He'd develop no originality. Besides, I'd rather see him in some other line. You understand, Ellins? Something a little more substantial. Got to find it for himself, though. He's got to make good on his own hook before I'll help him any more. So out ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... successful because he is less ambitious.... It is to be hoped that Mr. Ramakrishna's interesting sketches of Southern Indian village life will obtain a wide circulation in England. He is to be congratulated on having produced a work of no little merit and originality.—Madras Mail. ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... considered under three divisions or types, differing in form, but essentially the same in character. In adopting this classification, which is by no means restricted to this single valley, I do not claim originality, but follow that used by the best writers on this subject. My limitation of the types and general definitions may, however, be found to differ somewhat ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... as much as M. Zola, have insistently claimed the absolute and incontrovertible right to compose—that is to say, to imagine or observe—in accordance with their individual conception of originality, and that is a special manner of thinking, seeing, understanding, and judging. Now the critic who assumes that "the novel" can be defined in conformity with the ideas he has based on the novels he prefers, and that certain immutable rules ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... to charge Cicero with a want of originality as a philosopher, and on that score to depreciate his works. The charge is true, but still absurd, for it rests on a misconception, not merely of Cicero's purpose in writing, but of the whole spirit of the later Greek speculation. The conclusion drawn from the charge is also ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... some extent in the whole world, on account of natural conditions which limit the forms of life possible in one region; for nature is intolerant in her laxity and punishes too great originality and heresy with death. Such moral integration has occurred very markedly in every good race and society whose members, by adapting themselves to the same external forces, have created and discovered their common soul. Spiritual unity is a natural product. There ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... believe that the idea was not unjust; he ranged airily, like a blue-fly, from one agglomeration of ordure to another; and he finally suggested a task, not necessary to dwell on, but which reached the utmost height or depth of originality in connection with such a subject. Mr. Lyddon laboured under some shadow of doubt, but he quickly agreed when his man reminded him of the past ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... because they are believed to be vulgar. They come down to us from rough old days; but they are relics of a time when life, if rough, was at least kind and hearty. We admire that life on the stage, we ape it in novels, we affect admiration and appreciation of its rich picturesqueness and vigorous originality, and we lie in so doing; for there is not an aesthetic prig in London who could have lived an hour in it. Truly, I should like to know what Francois Villon and Chaucer would have thought of some of their modern adorers, or what the lioness Fair-sinners ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland |
