"Quickness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the door and stood motionless by the jamb, waiting, ethereally white in the moonshine. Suddenly upon the gallery pillars flashed yellow light. She should have gone back to bed, but a thrill of unknown fear held her. By and by the yellow light went out with that quickness which tricks the hearing into believing that the vanishing had been accompanied by sound. She saw Warrington, fully dressed, issue forth cautiously, glance about, then pass down the gallery, stepping with the ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... house with McGregor during those first years in the city might have thought his life stupid and commonplace but to him it did not seem so. It was for the miner's son a time of sudden and tremendous growth. Filled with confidence in the strength and quickness of his body he was beginning to have also confidence in the vigour and clearness of his brain. In the warehouse he went about with eyes and ears open, devising in his mind new methods of moving goods, watching the men at work, marking the shirkers, ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... as usual on these occasions, the first that opened; for this sound reason, that Natalie's quickness was the quickness to be depended on in case ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... like a tiger cat's, flung himself on the door, slammed it shut, and locked it. And he had need of all his quickness, for he was playing fast and loose with death. Hito yelled and started for the second door through which he had come and near which the girl was crouching. But again Nicanor was too quick. He got between Hito and the door and stood ready to shut ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... doubt the Athenian public was by no means so learned as we moderns are; they were ignorant of many sciences, of much history,—in short of a thousand results of civilization which have since accrued. But in civilization itself, in mental power, in quickness of comprehension, in correctness of taste, in accuracy of judgment, no modern nation, however well instructed, has been able to equal by labored acquirements the inborn genius of the Greeks." (Mahaffy, J. P., ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... With the quickness of lightning Esperance thrust out his hand, seizing the Sultan's jeweled yataghan and drawing it from its scabbard. At the same time he raised it above his head and brought it down, aiming it straight at Maldar's heart. The ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... the beginning that Crab Wilson meant to throw no chance away, and that he would trust to his lightness of foot and quickness of hand until he should see something of the tactics of this rough-looking antagonist. He paced swiftly round several times, with little, elastic, menacing steps, whilst the smith pivoted slowly ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... I'll swear!" I retorted. "You took the poor devil's balls, and left him at the gate! Ay, it is rogues like you get me a bad name!" I continued, affecting more anger than I felt—for, in truth, I was rather pleased with my quickness in discovering the cheat. "You steal and I bear the blame, and pay to boot! Off with you and find the fellow, and bring him to me, or it will be the worse ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... sort of psychology is biological, and studies life from the outside. The other sort, relying on memory and dramatic imagination, reproduces life from the inside, and is literary. If the literary psychologist is a man of genius, by the clearness and range of his memory, by quickness of sympathy and power of suggestion, he may come very near to the truth of experience, as it has been or might be unrolled in a human being.[9] The ideas with which Locke operates are simply high lights picked out by attention ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... fast mule?—the very best mule from the stables of Don Balthasar himself—that murdered saint. The Captain-General had no such mules. His late excellency owned a sugar estate halfway between Rio Medio and Havana, and a relay of riding mules was kept there for quickness when His Excellency of holy memory found occasion to write his commands to the capital. The news of our escape would reach the Juez next day at the latest. Manuel would take care of that—unless he were drowned. But he could swim ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... bear her indorsement. She pursued her studies in my office, by my side, sat with me, walked with me, was my inexpressibly sweet and inseparable companion,—never left me but to go and sit with her mother. We knew all her intelligence, all her pure and delicate sensibility, the quickness and power of her perceptions, her seraphic love. She was all love, and loved all God's creation, even the animals, trees, and plants. She loved her God and Saviour with an angel's love, and died like ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... accepted, he retired in good order. He had, too, a half-defined feeling that in thus tempting fate still further, he made a sort of expiatory offering for his actual guilt. He said to himself, with that lightning-like quickness which thought possesses in a crisis, that since the principle for which he contended stood above the question of his individual transgression, it was but just that the motion should have been carried, and that now he was ready to take his punishment by losing his membership in ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... up and down, in a wild trance of feeling. Half a mile away was he sitting with Father Benecke?—winning perhaps their poor secret from the priest's incautious lips'? With what eagle-quickness could he pounce on a sign, an indication! And then the flash of those triumphant eyes, and the onslaught of ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... With the quickness of a cat, the Brazilian grabbed the chair and with a swinging blow tried to fell his assailant and dash past him. The man in gray dodged and pocketed his weapon. The next instant he had his prisoner by the throat ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... of every other form, with as little of their inconveniences as the imperfection attendant on all human inventions will admit: it has the monarchic quickness of execution and stability, the aristocratic diffusive strength and wisdom of counsel, the democratic freedom ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... us consider the goods of the soul: they are temperance, justice, courage, quickness of apprehension, ...
— Meno • Plato
... little unruly; brave, and such excellent horsemen, as almost to realise the fable of the Centaurs, charging an enemy with the impetuosity of lightning and disappearing with the quickness of thought, they requested me every moment to engage; but I know too well the value of regular infantry, and how ineffectual would be the efforts of light cavalry against their bayonets. I was obliged to restrain their ardour by every argument I could muster, principally by ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... and even when adult, on the hunting ground, that great non-sexual field in which their highest mental and physical activities are displayed, there is little or nothing which distinguishes materially between the male and female; in method, manner, and quickness they are alike; in devotion to man, they are psychically identical. (It is often said the female dog is more intelligent than the male; but I am almost inclined to doubt this, after long and close study of both forms.) It is at the ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... for you to do until we see exactly how things stand. I shall use you as my staff officer—that is, if you are willing, Sir Cyril. I have carried you off without asking whether you consented or no; but, knowing your spirit and quickness, I felt sure ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... women lacking this quality, have an intricacy of thought. There are those who think women can be taught logic; this is a mistake. They can never by any power of education arrive at the same mental status as that enjoyed by men, but they have a quickness of apprehension, which is usually called leaping at conclusions, that is astonishing. There, then, we have distinctive traits of a woman, namely, endurance, loving submission, and quickness of apprehension. Wifehood is the crowning glory of a woman. In ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... fifty, with a smooth-shaven face wrinkled at the corners of the mouth and eyes. His voice was the most curious thing about him; it was high and piping, more like a woman's than a man's. Yet his words and manner were masculine enough, and he moved and spoke with a nervous, jerky quickness. ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... the presence of this man who, though German-born, had elected to become an Englishman, and devote his very considerable intelligence—the Dean prided himself on his knowledge of human nature, and on his quickness in detecting humble talent—to the service of his adopted country, the sermon was perhaps a thought more fair, even cordial, to Britain's formidable enemy, than it would otherwise ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... head of such as we are, before the Chloes, Clarissas, and Pastorellas come down. One of these two is excessively in pain, that the ugly being called Time will make wrinkles in spite of the lead forehead-cloth; and therefore hides, with the gaiety of her air, the volubility of her tongue, and quickness of her motion, the injuries which it has done her. The other lady is but two years behind her in life, and dreads as much being laid aside as the former, and consequently has taken the necessary ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... conscious of his incompetence, but with a shrewdness that enabled him to combine other people's suggestions, constantly asked the opinion of the assistants in his department in making up new designs; and he had the quickness to see that Philip's criticisms were valuable. But he was very jealous, and would never allow that he took anyone's advice. When he had altered some drawing in accordance with Philip's suggestion, he always finished ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... large wooden vats are considered the best sort of vessels for holding this solution, as well as for making and preparing it; hogsheads, on a small scale, may be made to answer. It is particularly in the use of this solution that Mr. S——'s method consists; the quickness with which the solution acts is truly astonishing, and when we see it, there is cause of surprise in thinking why it was not found out before. As soon as the hides are taken out of the water, impregnated with sulphuric acid, Mr. S—— puts them into ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... hardly any more of him. He got his things together with a quickness that astonished me, and he and the Graf, who was going to Berlin by the same train, motored to Stettin to catch the last express. Just before they left he caught hold of my hand and pulled me into the library where no one was, and told me how he thanked God I was English. "Chris, ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... in such Foibles, as each of the Company thinks himself superior to.—Whereas WIT shews the Quickness and Abilities of the Person who discovers it, and places him superior to the ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... bear the impress of an older time, and that vaguely recall scenes in the Bible. Nature has traced out a line over our mountain ranges; the whole appearance of the country is different on either side of it. You will find strength of character up above, flexibility and quickness below; they have larger ways of regarding things among the hills, while the bent of the lowlands is always towards the material interests of existence. I have never seen a difference so strongly marked, unless it has been in the Val d'Ajou, where the northern side is peopled ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... of mine is a person of great quickness and talent, who, if she were not a beauty and a woman of fortune—that is to say, if she were prompted by either of those two powerful stimuli, want of money or want of admiration, to take due pains—would ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... perhaps, fortunate for the liberties of Greece that Themistocles, instead of Aristides, was left in full power at Athens. "The peculiar faculty of his mind," says THIRLWALL, "which Thucydides contemplated with admiration, was the quickness with which it seized every object that came in its way, perceived the course of action required by new situations and sudden junctures, and penetrated into remote consequences. Such were the abilities which were most ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... this answer, he marvelled at the Wazir's quickness of wit and would never again lend ear to aught of insinuations against him. Then said he to him, "How didst thou escape falling into the net?" And he replied, "Because my reason is unentangled in the toils of passion." And they also ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... think I have forgotten them,' she said, looking up with eager quickness; 'I do not regret his attempt because it was wrong!—O no! on that point I am armed—but because it was impossible it could end ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... with them regularly every day," Barnabas continued, "and I have learned that strength of arm, quickness of foot, and a true eye are all unavailing unless they be governed by a calm, unruffled temper, for passion clouds the judgment, and in fighting as in all else, it is judgment that tells ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... his self-composure with wonderful quickness. The mask of reticence dropped over his face again, and it was in the smooth deferential tones of a well-trained servant that ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... cook, a negro not remarkable for quickness of apprehension or general intelligence, received such an unmerciful beating from the captain that he was unable to attend to his manifold duties, and a portion of them fell to my share. Among them was the task of drawing off the regular allowance of rum, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... men: the teacher of carpentry must be more than a carpenter, and the teacher of the domestic arts more than a cook; for such teachers must instruct, not simply in manual dexterity, but in mental quickness and moral habits. In other words, they must be teachers as well as artisans. It thus happens that college-bred men and men from other higher schools have always been in demand in technical schools. If the college graduates were to-day withdrawn from the teaching force of the chief Negro industrial ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... Valleys, with the greater quickness of women, divining already something of the reason, had flushed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... murmured the detective with an uncontrolled quickness which wakened Audrey's old suspicions afresh—and which created a new suspicion, the suspicion that the fellow was simply playing with her. "I assure you I came here to recover; I'd heard it was the ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... new, most of the houses being substantial bricks. Here we met General Fry, the man who slewed Zollicoffer. The General is of plain, unostentatious appearance, a keen eye, lips compressed, the whole countenance denoting determination and quickness of perception. ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... now, but it was so dark at first," whispered Mr. Sinclair in reply—adding with that quickness of perception and readiness of invention which danger supplies to some minds—"I have come to watch him—you ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... more things, flattering and echoed by his followers. It made the blood tingle in David's veins to know that these men of plain, honest, country stock, like himself, believed in him and in his honor. In kaleidoscopic quickness there passed in review his life,—the days when he and his mother had struggled with a wretched poverty that the neighbors had only half suspected, the first turning point in his life, when he was taken unto the hearth and home of strong-hearted people, his years ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... a step towards the house, and Warner was about to follow him, when the glass doors were opened again and Diana Duke came out with more than her usual quickness across the lawn. Her face was aquiver with worry and excitement, and her dark earnest eyes fixed ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... The quickness of the conversions effected by the dragoons is easily to be accounted for. The principal cause was the free quartering of soldiers in the houses of the Protestants. The soldiers knew what was the object for which they were thus quartered. ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... interest on the other, a considerable time elapsed before the public at large were really impressed by the invention. Perhaps the uncanny and mysterious results of Rontgen's discovery, which seem to link it with the "black arts," have something to do with the quickness of its reception by all ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... blue-hatted men walked together; the red hats formed another party; the yellow hats a third; and so on. Each corps carried large yet shallow trays suspended from their shoulders—two men to a tray—and falling upon the piles of cheeses they gathered them up with incredible quickness. Then, when the trays were loaded with a pyramid of cheeses, off rushed the men to a wonderful Weigh House which Mr. van Buren says is famous throughout all North Holland. Inside were many men, busy as bees, weighing cheeses with enormous scales. Down dropped the trays; ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... Hiltners Frau Sabina bent down to her mother-in-law's ear—though she had lost her quickness of hearing, she had retained her sight perfectly—and, raising her voice, told her the name of the young lady who had just left them. Then she asked if she, too, did not admire Barbara's beauty, and what ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the same qualities. His brain is exceedingly fertile of ideas, his memory perfectly marvelous, his language pointed, easy-flowing and abounding in wit and humor. He exhibits singular quickness at repartee; he is fond of a joke, and will give and take with the keenest sense of enjoyment. His familiarity with standard literature serves him many a good turn; he makes it a duty to read thoroughly or to "dip into" every new book that is talked ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... widow's cap in honour of uncle's marriage,' observed Arthur, reading my looks with a child's mingled simplicity and quickness of observation. Mamma looked grave and Mrs. Maxwell shook her head. 'And aunt Maxwell is never going to leave off hers,' persisted the naughty boy; but when he saw that his pertness was seriously displeasing and painful to his aunt, he went and silently put his arm round her neck, kissed her ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... of her eagle ambition. Conscious that she was the favorite of the teacher, she disdained to cultivate the love and good-will of her companions. With a keen, bright intelligence, and remarkable retentiveness of memory, she mastered her studies with surprising quickness, and distanced all her competitors. Had she been amiable, her young classmates would have been proud of the honors she acquired, for it is easy to yield the palm to one always in the ascendant, but she looked down with contempt on those of inferior attainments, and claimed as a right ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... alternately upon the scalps and upon the prisoner. She, poor girl, is calm now; there is but one thought that makes her tired limbs shake with terror. She sees with a woman's quickness that there is no female among those who are looking at her as beautiful as she is. It may be that she may be required to light the household fires for one of her enemies. She sees the admiring countenance of one of the young Chippeway warriors ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... was beautifully done," said Yolanda. "You sprang upon the rock with the quickness of a panther, and the blow was dealt with the strength of a lion. I saw it all. When your battle-axe rose above the robber's head, death was written on the steel. It was beautiful to see you kill him, Sir Max. Strength is always beautiful in the eyes of a woman, but it ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... her own, Nor would that one, for scenes for action strong, Should let a life evaporate in song. As health and strength the brightest charms dispense, Wit is the blossom of the soundest sense: Yet few, how few, with lofty thoughts inspir'd, With quickness pointed, and with rapture fir'd, In conscious pride their own importance find, Blind to themselves, as the hard world is blind! Wit they esteem a gay but worthless power, The slight amusement of a leisure hour; ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... some tea and toast, and now she is trying to sleep. She does not wish to be disturbed—she asked me to tell you so." Miss Heredith glanced at her watch. "Dear me, it is nearly half-past six! I must go. Tufnell is so dilatory when quickness ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... line of its curve traced for him by the architect: the masons are dexterously handling and fitting their bricks, or, by the help of machinery, carefully adjusting stones which are numbered for their places. There is probably in their quickness of eye and readiness of hand something admirable; but this is not what I ask the reader to admire: not the carpentering, nor the bricklaying, nor anything that he can presently see and understand, but the choice of the curve, and ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... whoop of the warriors, a yell of rage and disappointment. A dozen shots were fired, but the bullets either flew over their heads or dropped short. The five did not take the trouble to reply. Confidence had returned to them with amazing quickness, and the most confident and joyous of all was ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... foolishly tickled, and they have been urged to mix themselves up with public affairs, and give their opinion on the universe. They can naturally have but scattering views on such subjects, and in default of personal judgment, they drift with the current, reacting with extreme quickness to any shock, for they are ultra-sensitive, with a morbid vanity which exaggerates the thoughts of others when it cannot express their own. This is the only originality at their disposal, and God knows they ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... Rupert lit the gas again. The little old lady turned her bird-like head as we all stumbled forward in the strong gaslight. Then, with a quickness that almost made me jump, she sprang up and swept a sort of old-fashioned curtsey or reverence. I looked quickly at Greenwood and Burrows, to whom it was natural to suppose this subservience had been offered. I felt ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... universality. In him nature had, so to speak, identified the individual with the nation, bestowing on him a character in the highest degree elastic, having lively sensibility but no depth of passion, little system of principle or conduct, but that promptitude of self- direction which supplies its place, a quickness of perception amounting almost to intuition, and an unexampled degree of activity, by which he was in some sort many men at once. No writer, even in the eighteenth century, knew so many things or treated so many subjects. That which was the ruin of some minds was the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... stenches arising from the gases of the belly and from outhouses, which to their smell are more fragrant than thyme. The approach and touch of these close up the interiors of their mind, and open the exteriors pertaining to the body, from which come their quickness in worldly things and their dullness ...
— Spiritual Life and the Word of God • Emanuel Swedenborg
... voraciously[14] and seems to have pounced on any new publication that came to the palace, among them the works of two slightly later Spanish playwrights, Lucas Fern['a]ndez and Bartolom['e] de Torres Naharro. With the quickness of genius and spurred forward by the malicious criticism of his audience, their love of new things and the growing opposition of the introducers of the new style from Italy, he picked up a little French and Italian, while Church Latin and law Latin early began to creep into his ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... good for the half-crazed runner, for it cleared his mind. But it made him no less desperate or careless. With strength almost maniacal he leaped at what he would have fled from at any other time, and, swinging his ax with the quickness of light, struck tremendously at the great lowering head. He yelled again as he felt stone cut and crash into bone, though himself swept aside once more as a great paw, sidestruck, hurled him into the bushes. He bounded to ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... coughing and sputtering, as Jimmy came up to a sitting posture with a quickness that was quite foreign ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... growing keener in proportion as his face became more gray. It was part of his professional acquirement to be able to draw his deductions from some snatch of human drama as he listened to its unfolding. His quickness and accuracy of judgment had, indeed, been a large element in his success; so that the habit of years enabled him to preserve a certain calmness of comprehension now. It lost nothing in being a studied calmness, since ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... by a Numidian who was crowned with a diadem of plumes. He hurled javelins with frightful quickness, giving at intervals a long shrill whistle. The great beasts, docile as dogs, kept an eye on him ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... wait. With the quickness born of many a hard won victory on the polo ground, his free left hand flew out and grasped the wrist behind one of the pistols. He pulled fiercely and irresistibly. An arm appeared, and a yell of ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... were awakened by a horrible, screeching yell. They started up in terror only to fall victims to the tomahawk of their merciless foe, or to hear a rifle shot and get a glimpse of a form with flying black hair disappearing with wonderful quickness in the forest. Wetzel always left death behind him, and he was gone before his demoniac yell ceased to echo throughout the woods. Although often pursued, he invariably eluded the Indians, for he was the fleetest runner on ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... Exposition," said Willy. "A Viking ship is coming over from Norway. The last descendant of Christopher Columbus, a knock-kneed Spaniard, is to be passed around for show, a tremendous humbug, always an acceptable dish to the Americans. Ritter owes this big order to his monkey-like quickness. The building commission applied to various sculptors, and Ritter sent them sketches for all the statues before the other artists had even wet ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Sfax go through the day now with the directed activity of those who once had got the worst of it, but have a hope of doing better next time. They gave me a lively and adventurous scene. They moved with silent and stealthy quickness. Their eyes glanced sideways from under their cowls. Their hands were hidden under their jibbahs. A few of them stared with the hate of the bereft. It is not possible to face everybody in a press which moves in all directions, and I was the only ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... annals of the histrionic art more illustrative of the infinite versatility of the human faculties, both physical and mental, and of the amazing extent to which cunning, ingenuity, contrivance, quickness of invention, and presence of mind can be cultivated, even in very young persons, than such cases as this just related. It seems, at first, incredible that a mere child could carry on such a complex piece ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... said as calmly as possible although she was conscious of a curious pride in him. "Somehow I knew if there was need for quickness you would act like that. I believe I was stupid enough to stand still until you jumped. Well, of course, you know ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... it," cried Cecilia, with quickness, "but is not any thing preferable to dwelling with ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... shall describe in more detail the suffrage campaigns and the National and International councils in which we took part; now it is of her I wish to write—of her bigness, her many-sidedness, her humor, her courage, her quickness, her sympathy, her understanding, her force, her supreme common-sense, her selflessness; in short, of the rare beauty of her nature as I learned ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... power to repeat, compare, and unite them, even to an almost infinite variety, and so can make at pleasure new complex ideas. But it is not in the power of the most exalted wit, or enlarged understanding, by any quickness or variety of thought, to INVENT or FRAME one new simple idea in the mind, not taken in by the ways before mentioned: nor can any force of the understanding DESTROY those that are there. The dominion of man, in this ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... telegraph-jee is temporarily absent when I arrive, but his farrash lets me inside the office yard, spreads a piece of carpet for me to sit on, and with commendable thoughtfulness shuts out the crowd, who, as usual, immediately begin to collect. The quickness with which a crowd collects in a Persian town has to be seen to be fully comprehended. For the space of half an hour, I sit in solitary state on the carpet, and endure the wondering gaze and the parrot-like chattering of a thin, long row of villagers, sitting ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... into the aged vehicle, and Hop Sing, with a quickness that was in surprising contrast to the indolence of the Mexican agent, put their ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... the Liberty party alike. And although a non-resistent, in that he eschewed the use of physical force, yet there never was born among the sons of men a more militant soul in the use of moral force, in the quickness with which he would whip out the rapiers, or hurl the bolts and bombs of his mother tongue at opponents. The pioneer must have been an unconscious believer in the annihilation of the wicked, as he must have been an unconscious believer in the wickedness of all ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... With the quickness of a cat Zaidos ripped off his uniform blouse, thrust it through the door, stretched his arms over his head, and with a mighty shove of his strong young legs thrust himself ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... better.—Because its role is one of movement, of morale, of morale and movement so united, that movement alone, often without a charge or shock action of any sort can drive the enemy into retreat, and, if followed closely, into rout. That is a result of the quickness of cavalry. One who knows how to make use of this quickness ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... him to see the changes in Daisy's face. Light and shadow came and went with struggling quickness. He expected her to speak, but she waited for several minutes; then she said in a troubled voice, "Papa, I will think ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... were under any illusions as soldiers of other days had been. Few nursed the old idea of being the lucky man who would escape. They knew the chances they were taking, the meaning of frontal attacks and of the murderous and wholesale quickness of machine ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... compound adjectives, are generally disapproved by good writers; yet we sometimes meet with them: as, hard-heartedness, for hardness of heart, or cruelty; quick-sightedness, for quickness of sight, or perspicacity; worldly-mindedness, for devotion to the world, or love of gain; heavenly-mindedness, for the love of God, or true piety. In speaking of ancestors or descendants, we take the noun, father, mother, son, daughter, or child; prefix the adjective grand; for ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... already been warned by the Police sergeant) merely glared and gurgled impotently. Private Nigg, who, as already mentioned, was slightly wanting in quickness of perception, was led away by the faithful Buncle, to have the outrage explained to him at leisure. It was Private Bogle who intervened, and brought the intellectual ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... and in this picturesque attitude her eyes met those of Arden Lacey. The sudden remembrance of the unkind return made to him, and the fact that she had therefore dreaded meeting him, caused her to blush deeply. Her feminine quickness caught his expression, a timid questioning look, that seemed to ask if she would act the part of the others. Edith was a society and city girl, and her confusion lasted but a second. Policy whispered, "You can still keep him as a useful friend, though you must keep him at a distance, ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... and above the natural ease and dignity which accompanies physical beauty, and the modesty, self-restraint, and deep earnestness which he had acquired under the discipline of the Laura, his Greek character was developing itself in all its quickness, subtlety, and versatility, until he seemed to Hypatia some young Titan, by the side of the flippant, hasty, and insincere talkers who made ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... moral judgment, has been an invaluable stimulus and comfort to me. Your uncle had retained that fruit of experience which makes a man of the world, as opposed to the narrow man of literature. He judged well of writing, because he had learned to judge well of men and things, not merely through quickness of observation and insight, but with the illumination of a heart in the right place—a thorough integrity ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... twigs; the leaves are laid one over another horizontally, forming a smooth bottom or interior. In external form it is a shapeless ball about 8 or 10 inches in diameter, and has an unfinished opening at the side. The birds build with astonishing quickness, picking up the leaves one after another from the ground just beneath the nest. When fresh the eggs are fleshy white, becoming pure white when emptied; they are large for the size of the bird, rather stumpy ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... neighbouring streets resounded with the clapping of hands. Similarly, during two or three hours of drawl, and the winnowing of many bushels of words, Madame Defarge's frequent expressions of impatience were taken up, with marvellous quickness, at a distance: the more readily, because certain men who had by some wonderful exercise of agility climbed up the external architecture to look in from the windows, knew Madame Defarge well, and acted as a ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... expediency, let us see whether reason will not furnish a like answer. The great majority of women in this country already possess sufficient intelligence to enable them to vote judiciously on nearly all questions of a local nature. I think this will be conceded. Secondly, with their superior quickness of perception, it is fair to assume that when stimulated by a demand for a knowledge of political principles—such a demand as a sense of the responsibility of the voter would create—they would not be slow in rising to at least the rather low level at ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... not serve with equal propriety for a slow movement as for a quick one; but to acquire both at once with the same trouble, begin with an open string, either the first or second, it will be equally useful; sustain the note in a swell, and begin the shake very slow, increasing in quickness, by insensible degrees, till it becomes ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... the Philosopher (Ethic. vi, 9), "one should take counsel in thought, and do quickly what has been counseled." But daring helps this quickness in doing. Therefore daring is not sinful ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... abundant than most people had supposed. They were somewhat surprised when these marvels were wrought by professedly green hands, but were given to suppose that these green hands must have had some remarkable quickness or aptitude for acquiring. That sparkling jelly, well-flavored ice-creams, clear soups, and delicate biscuits could be made by a raw Irish girl, fresh from her native Erin, seemed to them a proof of the genius of the race; and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... had done, his mind ran with lightning quickness to face this new emergency. But he was puzzled and helpless, for now her hands fell and she laughed weakly, almost hysterically. He searched for the key to this unnatural behaviour. He began, hesitatingly, expecting some word from her to ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... place being thus, and it seemed to him the night had passed with unnatural quickness. But he thought more of the fact that he had been beguiled into spending his wedding-night in a graveyard, in such questionable company, and of what explanation ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... tortuousness of the channel that we had to traverse, winding hither and thither through that vast expanse of reef, my heart almost quailed within me, and I felt inclined to doubt whether we three males possessed the ability, the skill, the quickness of eye, the readiness and strength of hand, to take the ship in safety through that apparently endless, twisting channel. But the feeling was merely momentary; an old adage flashed into my mind to the effect that one need ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... was neither clever nor gifted, but that I was merely skilful at not letting myself be caught out, and had a certain quickness of ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... are so elevated above the common understanding of their fellow-creatures, that they are by many charged with enthusiasm, and even with madness. When George II. was once expressing his admiration of Wolfe, some one observed that the general was mad. "Oh! he is mad, is he?" said the king with great quickness; "then I wish he would bite some other of my generals."—Thackery's Life ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... been allowed for the ruffian who stood beside the carriage to receive the plunder, when several voices, loud, clamorous, and eager, were heard in the quarter whence the traveller had come. By trampling with quickness, it was easy to imitate the sound of many feet. The robbers were alarmed, and one called upon another to attend. The sounds increased, and, at the next moment, they betook themselves to flight, but not till a pistol was discharged. ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... he always arranged what he intended to say, before he spoke; his quickness in conversation contradicts this notion: but it is very true, that before he sat down to write a note or letter, he completely arranged in his mind what he meant to express. He pursued the same method in respect to other composition; and he occasionally would walk several times about his ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... down the candles, my brain was all in a whirl with trying to think how I could get possession of the old cravat without exciting any suspicion. Chance, and a little quickness on my part in taking advantage of it, put the object within my reach in a moment. The man, having counted out the candles, asked the woman for some paper to wrap them in. She produced a piece much too ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... turned to greet a tall, lean individual more tanned than himself, with little, fine, weather lines about his eyes and an abrupt quickness of gesture which denoted his hair-triggered nerves. "What are you ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... having disappeared in a look of settled and abstracted care. His companion appeared little disposed to interrupt his meditations, but stood leaning against the naked walls, himself the subject of deep and sorrowful reflection. At length the former shook off his air of thought, with that startling quickness which seemed common to his manner; he approached a window, and, directing the attention of Wilder to the ship in the outer ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Macedonian kings crushed the liberties of Greece, the Roman Republic was ruined, not by its enemies, for there was no enemy it did not conquer, but by its own vices. It was free from many causes of instability and dissolution that were active in Greece—the eager quickness, the philosophic thought, the independent belief, the pursuit of unsubstantial grace and beauty. It was protected by many subtle contrivances against the sovereignty of numbers and against legislation by surprise. Constitutional battles had ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... coast, meeting the deep blues and greens of the Atlantic. On the headland across the Bay there are barrows that tell of days before the coming of Saxon and Norman; and among these sport numberless rabbits, vanishing with marvellous quickness at the slightest movement. In storm all is magnificence; in calm there is the brooding of a fathomless peace. It is a perfect rest to lie on the sandy dunes or breezy warrens, gazing dreamily at sky and ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... hunter, on projecting the lazo, had wheeled, with the quickness of thought; and, driving his sharp spurs into the ribs of his horse, caused the latter to gallop in the opposite direction. One might have supposed that he had taken fright at the bear, and was endeavouring to get out ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... all that the Herald of the Weather has to do, the care and quickness with which it must be done, and the excellent results he obtains, everybody who is at all interested in the changes of the weather ought to be grateful to him for his faithfulness ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... with statesmanlike energy. His Spanish soldiers called him the new Hannibal, and not merely because he had, like that hero, lost an eye in war. He in reality reminds us of the great Phoenician by his equally cunning and courageous strategy, and by the quickness of his ingenuity in turning to good account his victories and averting the consequences of ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... the exception of acetone and methyl-alcohol, for use upon the large scale.) These liquids not only dissolve the nitro-cellulose in the cold, but render the resulting gelatine compound less sensitive to concussion, and reduce its quickness of explosion (as in cordite). They also lower the temperature at which the nitro-glycerine becomes congealed, i.e., they lower the freezing point[A] of ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... health as not the least fortunate accident of his life. Nor is he immediately undeceived. The stir and speed of the journey, and the restlessness that goes to bed with him as he tries to sleep between two days of noisy progress, fever him, and stimulate his dull nerves into something of their old quickness and sensibility. And so he can enjoy the faint autumnal splendour of the landscape, as he sees hill and plain, vineyard and forest, clad in one wonderful glory of fairy gold, which the first great winds of winter will transmute, as in the fable, into withered ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pluck in his antagonist. I have seen him turn tail to a swallow, and have known the little pewee in question to whip him beautifully. From the great-crested to the little green flycatcher, their ways and general habits are the same. Slow in flying from point to point, they yet have a wonderful quickness, and snap up the fleetest insects with little apparent effort. There is a constant play of quick, nervous movements underneath their outer show of calmness and stolidity. They do not scour the limbs and trees like the warblers, but, perched upon the middle branches, wait, like true hunters, ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... up on the beach and grounded her. Harry Underwood stepped forward to assist me ashore, but Dr. Pettit, with unobtrusive quickness, was before him. ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... far higher in learning, solid, but slow in his performances; Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention." We see in this simile that the lesson of the Spanish Armada had not been forgotten, and that its appearance was still vividly ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... many of his friends knew he had, though I never perceived it. I supposed him to be only near-sighted; and indeed I must observe, that in no other respect could I discern any defect in his vision; on the contrary, the force of his attention and perceptive quickness made him see and distinguish all manner of objects, whether of nature or of art, with a nicety that is rarely to be found. When he and I were travelling in the Highlands of Scotland, and I pointed out to him a mountain which I observed resembled a cone, he ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... place; that which shall not be may yet come to a bad pass, and the blind race of man watches helpless the trammels it could shake off did it but greatly dare. My business, ladies and gentlemen, now is, as I have just explained to you, to attempt to puzzle your eyes by the quickness of my fingers. Yours, on the other hand, will be to detect the way—or modus operandi, as old Simon Magus used to say—in which I perform my little wonders—if you can. Will any gentleman lend me a ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... His quickness of wit was often shown. One day I saw him flying down the ravine with a large piece of bread in his bill. The stream below him was at this time being bricked over as a sewer. There was one part of two hundred ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... rise, let in the moonlight for a moment upon a small white speck across the road. He thought so: something whiter than a wet stone or a bleached stick,—or it might be fancy. Noiselessly and almost invisibly, for Dane could move like an Indian, and with such quickness, he was over the road and at the spot. There was no mistaking the token—it was a little glove of Wych Hazel's. Evidently dropped in haste; for one of her well-known jewelled fastenings lay glittering in his hand. But—Mrs. Gen. Merrick lived quite in another quarter of ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... the correspondent's movements—the quickness with which he took in the military situation, may be inferred from the dates of his letters. On January 6, 1862, he wrote a letter detailing affairs at St. Louis. On the eighth, he described affairs at ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... would have to stay behind. I relied upon him to hold the party together while I was away and to make the best of his way to Deception Island with the men in the spring in the event of our failure to bring help. Worsley I would take with me, for I had a very high opinion of his accuracy and quickness as a navigator, and especially in the snapping and working out of positions in difficult circumstances—an opinion that was only enhanced during the actual journey. Four other men would be required, and I decided to call for volunteers, although, ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... century, represented as an Englishman, a man of great wit and humor, but ignorant and hypocritical. His popularity excites the envy of the superior clergy, who seek to depose him from the priesthood by making public exposition of his ignorance, but by his quickness at repartee he always manages to turn the laugh against them.—Ascribed ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... deserve and should not receive." On the contrary, however, Mr. Gray, his attorney and confessor who did not write from long range, said: "As to his ignorance, he certainly had not the advantages of education, but he can read and write and for natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension is surpassed by few men I have ever seen. Further the calm, deliberate composure with which he spoke of his late deeds and intentions, the expression of his fiend-like face when excited by enthusiasm; still bearing the stains of the blood of helpless innocence ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... muscular and of the chief nervous system, by means of both of which qualities we keep our equilibrium. The more massive cerebellum with woman, together with the comparative shortness and tenderness of her bones, explains her comparative quickness and easiness of motion, her quicker and higher co-ordination of the muscles for their functions, and her knack of quickly sizing up a situation, and finding her way in the midst of a confusion of associations. Woman is furthermore aided in the latter faculty through the greater ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... sword-fish, with its long, narrow, conical sword, with which it cleaves the ice, was chasing the more timid cetacea; numberless spouting whales were clearly to be heard. The sword-caper, with its delicate tail and large caudal fins, swam with incomprehensible quickness, feeding on smaller animals, such as the cod, as swift as itself; while the white whale, which is more inactive, swallowed peacefully ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... availed himself of the liberty which then existed of working as fast and as much as he chose. On this point he says: "My constant attendance (I never making a St. Monday) recommended me to the master; and my uncommon quickness at composing occasioned my being put upon all work of dispatch, which was generally better paid. So I went on now ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... they flee from it in terror; and when they do, after due deliberation, take it in, their rise is so quiet, that you can seldom tell whether your fish weighs half a pound or four pounds and a half—unless you, like most beginners, attempt to show your quickness by that most useless exertion, a violent strike. Then, the snapping of your footlink, or- -just as likely—of the top of your rod, makes you fully aware, if not of the pluck, at least of the brute strength, of ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... that my mind was far superior to my sickly frame, and feared they should never raise me to manhood; contrary, however, to their expectations, I surmounted all these untoward appearances, and attracted much notice from my liveliness, quickness of repartee, and impudence: qualities which have been of much ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Clean-cut, calm, and dignified; it was singularly fascinating, not only by reason of its beauty, which was undeniable, but owing to the calm, almost superhuman power that lay in the gaze of the velvety eyes. There was no keenness of expression, no quickness of glance, and no seeking after effect by mobility of lash or lid. When he raised his eyes, the lower lid was elevated simultaneously, which peculiarity, concealing the white around the pupil, imparted an uncomfortable sense of inscrutability. ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... Devons perhaps excel all other races in quickness, docility, beauty, and the ease with which they are matched. With a reasonable load, they are said to be equal to horses as walkers on the road, and when they are no longer wanted for work they fatten ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... his mouth was handsome in its curve, and his teeth were good, and his chin was divided by a deep dimple. His figure was not only short, but stouter than that of the Ormes in general. He was very strong on his legs; he could wrestle, and box, and use the single-stick with a quickness and precision that was the terror of all the freshmen who had come in ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... fierce, brave bird. Then he pushed his way to the front of the company and looked up at Simone steadfastly, and his arms were still folded across his body and his sharp-featured face was tense with suppressed rage, and he spoke very quickly but clearly, too, for all the quickness ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... these days, however, the distinctions of master and servant are less broad than before, and in the field we shall be companions rather than master and follower. So, if you like to cast in your fortunes with mine, here is my hand on it. You have already proved your friendship to me as well as your quickness and courage, and believe me, you will not find me or my father ungrateful. But for you, I should now be in the cells, and your old master in no slight danger of finding himself in prison, to say nothing of the upset of the negotiations for which I came to London. ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... the rest, he punched the swinging ball and worked with the dumb-bells for an hour every morning and evening, and boxed twice a day with Ted Barton in the gymnasium, gaining as much profit as could be got from a rushing, two-handed slogger. Barton was full of admiration for his cleverness and quickness, but doubtful about his strength. Hard hitting was the feature of his own style, and ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the quickness of long practice. Gold-pan, coffee-pot, and cooking-pail were soon thawing the heaped frost-crystals into water. Smoke extracted a stick of beans from the sled. Already cooked, with a generous admixture of cubes of fat pork and bacon, the beans had been ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... always to be coaxed to go into company. Later in life, however, she was much more socially inclined, and took pleasure in making and receiving visits. She could neither dance nor sing, but in all amusements which require quickness and a ready wit she was very happy. She was very fond of children, and knew how to amuse them and to take care of them. As she had half a dozen younger brothers and sisters, she had ample opportunity to make ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... more compactly together, and the muffling of the oars was carefully looked to. Directions as to the order to be observed had been given before, and the boats fell into their appointed position with quickness and accuracy. ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... supply a father's place to the orphans of Alexander de Beauharnais, and a husband's to his widow. I admire the General's courage, the extent of his information, for on all subjects he talks equally well, and the quickness of his judgment, which enables him to seize the thoughts of others almost before they are expressed; but, I confess it, I shrink from the despotism he seems desirous of exercising over all who approach him. His searching glance ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... same family was named Celer (the Swift), because of the wonderful quickness with which he provided a show of gladiators on the occasion of his father's funeral. Some even to the present day derive their names from the circumstances of their birth, as for instance a child is named Proculus if his father be abroad when ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... Judas he represents, in every wrinkle of his face, and in every curl of his hair, and in every glare of his eye, and in every knuckle of his hand with which he clutches the money bag, hypocrisy and avarice and hate and low strategy and diabolism. The quickness with which he grabs the bribe for the betrayal of the Lord, the villainous leer at the Master while seated at the holy supper, show him to be capable of any wickedness. What a spectacle when the traitorous lips are pressed against the pure cheek of the Immaculate One, the disgusting smack ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... In these perilous achievements, wonder is excited less by the surpassing agility of these little creatures, frequently encumbered as they are by their young, which cling to them in their career, than by the quickness of their eye and the unerring accuracy with which they seem almost to calculate the angle at which a descent will enable them to cover a given distance, and the recoil to ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... such that he could go there. It was then given me to tell him that perhaps this was a sign that he would soon be received. The angels then told him to cast off his raiment, which, from the ardency of his desire, he did with a quickness that could scarcely be surpassed. By this was represented the character of the desires of those who are in the province to which the seminal vesicles correspond. It was said that such spirits, when prepared for heaven, are stripped of their ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg
... years, living part of the time with him at Sidney in Australia, and that at a subsequent visit to the island, the captain had, at his own request, permitted him to remain among his countrymen. The natural quickness of the savage had been wonderfully improved by his intercourse with the white men, and his partial knowledge of a foreign language gave him a great ascendancy over ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... my vanity was stronger than my good taste for a while, the quickness of childish instinct soon convinced me that Miss Burton had no real affection for me. Then I was puzzled by her spasmodic attentions when my father was in the room, and her rough repulses when I "bothered" her at less appropriate moments. ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing |
