"Adept" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Judge, as he gravely took his stand behind his brother advocate, and studied, with the eye of an adept, the field of battle. "We were noticing it when you came in. It's a sad thing, but ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... the ladder he laughed, and he said, "I'm afraid I'm not much of an adept at tarring. It's only been my second attempt, and it takes me such an awful time to get rid of the amount of the tar which I so freely distribute over myself. But I am sure you won't mind our primitive ways, and if this abode is not as pretentious as the old castle in County Cork, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... to the flow, either by word or act. He was not especially acquainted with the ways of women, but being a close observer of nature and an adept at reasoning from analogy, he assumed that a sudden storm meant equally sudden clearing, so he held his peace and, ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... Spanish millionaire Jack went under a most radical change. He was an adept at disguises, and no one would ever have suspected in the young Spaniard who could not speak English the real Jack Alvarez, the acute detective. Our hero arranged to play a dual role, and it was as Jack Alvarez he met the baron. There had come a complete change ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey
... an appellation for the august William? Adept in the art of warfare he surely is; but have not the Fatherland's victories under his rule been those of peace, and those only? Has Germany been involved in strife possessing the dignity of war since he came to the throne? Has she not, on the other hand, made ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... is said to have told a representative of a daily paper, that "an adept in Theosophy uses his supernatural powers solely for his own convenience, just as ordinary people avail themselves of a messenger, or the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... were, of course, playing exactly the same game, and either because they were more adept at it, or because the Asterisks' snipers were more reluctant to give up a position after it was 'spotted' and hung on gamely, determined to fight it out, a slow but steady tally was added to the ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... secretary of state.[10] Newcastle, the most prominent figure among the great whig nobles, derived his power from influence; he had an unrivalled experience in party management and as a dispenser of patronage, and though personally above accepting a bribe of any kind, he was an adept at corrupt practices. He would have been incapable of conducting the war, for he was ignorant, timid, and vacillating, but he knew how to gain the support of parliament and how to find the supplies ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... happiness. The Emperor listened to me attentively, and frequently concurred in my opinion as to the principles of the prosperity and stability of States. One day he took my hand and pressed it affectionately, as if to assure me of his friendship and protection. Though I knew him to be an adept in the art of dissimulation, yet his affected kindness appeared so natural that I thought all his unfavourable feeling towards me was at an end. I spoke to persons by whom our two families were allied, requesting that they would assure the Emperor ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... fashion, and the world, suddenly, becomes the most delightful place of residence in all the universe. Indeed, it is her favorite miracle, this. For at work of this sort the old Philistine knows that she is an adept; and she has rejoiced in the skill of her hands, with a sober workmanly joy, since Cain first went a-wooing in ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... have many traditions regarding Solomon, invariably represent him as adept in necromancy, and as being intimately acquainted with the language of beasts and birds. Josephus, the great Jewish historian, distinctly states that Solomon possessed the art of expelling demons, that he composed such incantations also by which distempers ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... an adept at evasion you are, Hermotimus! How you slip through one's fingers! However, it is all the better this time; you fancied yourself out, but you have ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... age—a love for money, which was insatiable. I must acknowledge that the company and mode of living were more to my satisfaction than the vigils, hard fare, and constant prayer, with which the old man had threatened me, when I proposed to enter the community, and I soon became an adept in dissimulation and hypocrisy, and a ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... the usual character of men who are given to various exertions and many plans, he was accurate and profound. He was an adept in classical literature and the use of the classical tongues; his writings are adorned with their finest passages. He was familiar with a number of modern languages; his own style is one of the best examples of strength and perspicuity among English writers. He was ready on every ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... the supernatural as with the natural. On my way, I visited him.... Know thou next, O Emir, I too have had occasion to make inquiries of the future. The vulgar would call me an astrologer—not a professional practising for profit, but an adept seeking information because it lifts me so much nearer Allah and his sublimest mysteries. Very lately I found a celestial horoscope announcing a change in the status of the world. The masterful waves, as you may know, have for ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... on the basis of the Koran, it inculcates or expounds a kind of spiritual transcendentalism; in which the adept is raised above the necessity of formal laws, which are only requisite for those who are not capable of rising to a full intelligence of the supreme power. To gain this height, by devout contemplation, must be the personal work and endeavor of each individual. The revelation ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... decided way with the furnishing of it; and, though Lady Tranmore professed to admire it, the result was, in truth, too French and too pagan for her taste. Her own room reflected the rising worship of Morris and Burse-Jones, of which, indeed, she had been an adept from the beginning. Her walls were covered by the well-known pomegranate or jasmine or sunflower patterns; her hangings were of a mystic greenish-blue; her pictures were drawn either from the Italian primitives or their modern followers. Celtic romance, Christian symbolism, ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... day, these lively debates found especial favour. The most brilliant courtiers and bravest knights, the gravest scholars and officers of state alike took part in them. Messer Galeazzo, as we have seen, was an adept at the game, and could wield his pen and challenge fair ladies in defence of Roland as gallantly as he couched his lance to ride in the lists or wielded his sword in the thick of the battle. So, too were the Marchesino Stanga and ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... be brought about—though the method is one which I do not often use—by means of a love philtre carefully compounded to suit the circumstances of the case. If you will come here to-morrow at dusk, the lady of this house—a worthy woman, though rough of speech and no true adept—will hand it to you." ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... a hearty breakfast off the aforesaid bacon and eggs, with soft tack laid in the day before, and washed all down with some most excellent coffee, in the concoction of which beverage Bob was an adept, and then, as soon as he had washed up, and put matters to rights in his pantry, and made arrangements for dinner, I went below and turned in ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... Among our quill cavalry-men was a fat gentleman from Philadelphia, who had great fear of death, and who used to "tear" to White House, if the man "Pat" shot a duck in the garden. He was a hearty, humorous person, however, and an adept ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... little way, and then on our way back go in as though we had just seen something we wanted?" suggested Angela, who was an adept at trying to spare people's feelings. "P'r'aps Mrs. Bennett won't be in her ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Thine evil doom In Golgotha and Khartoum, And the brutes, the work of Thine hands, Fill with injustice lands And stain with blood the sea: If still in my veins the glee Of the black night and the sun And the lost battle, run: If, an adept, The iniquitous lists I still accept With joy, and joy to endure and be withstood, And still to battle and perish for a dream of good: ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you, and confess later. I have never lied to my wife, M'sieu—except upon rare occasions," Mr. La Branche chuckled merrily. "And even then only about trifles. So, the result? Absolute trust; supreme confidence on her part. A happy state for man and wife, is it not? Ha! I am a very good liar, an adept, as you shall see, for I am not calloused by practice and therefore liable to forgetfulness. With me a lie is always fresh in my mind; it is a matter of absorbing interest, hence I do not forget myself. Heaven knows the excitement of nursing an innocent ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... a doctor was promptly called to attend him. My mother was also a kind of doctor and often rode all over the plantation to dose ailing Negroes with herb teas and home medicines which she was an adept in compounding. In cases of [HW: minor] illness, she could straighten up the ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... happened in the arrangement with Mr. Oswell, for we met him on the Zouga on our return, and he devoted the rest of this season to elephant-hunting, at which the natives universally declare he is the greatest adept that ever came into the country. He hunted without dogs. It is remarkable that this lordly animal is so completely harassed by the presence of a few yelping curs as to be quite incapable of attending to ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... conceived a still more sagacious plan, on noticing Romeo. They were the best of friends; it was easy to catch him. He did so, removed the saddle, broke the girth and placed it near the prostrate figure of the quack. Nothing could have more perfectly resembled an accident. An adept in crime could not have performed this task with finer skill, and he was free now to turn to the rest of the work that he must do to conceal this ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... out a few butterflies on cork, but I never ended them, nor became an adept at skinning ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... Temptation is very often indirect. It is compact of wiles and subtleties and stratagems. It is adept at taking cover. It does not make a frontal attack unless the obvious state of the soul's defences justifies such a method of attempting a conquest. The stronger a man is, the more subtle and difficult are the ways of ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... finished, the adept is informed that the object of the degree which he has just received is to recover the word lost by the death of Adoniram, and to revenge this martyr of the ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... was not making much progress among the young girls. Almost everything people talked about outside his cadet life was unknown to him; what he could talk about seemed to have no interest for any one, unless indeed it might interest Giselle, who was an adept in the art of sympathetic listening, never having herself anything ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... conversationalist. Mrs. Easterfield, who, after the confidences of the morning, could not help looking at him as something more than an acquaintance, talked to him a good deal, and tried to make the time pass pleasantly, at which business she was an adept. All this was very pleasant to Dick, but it did not compensate him for the almost entire loss of the society of Olive, who seemed to devote herself to the entertainment of the Austrian secretary. Mrs. Easterfield was very sorry that the young foreigner had ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... said to be a corruption of Habelardus, substituted by himself for a nickname Bajolardus given to him when a student. As a boy, he showed an extraordinary quickness of apprehension, and, choosing a learned life instead of the knightly career natural to a youth of his birth, early became an adept in the art of dialectic, under which name philosophy, meaning at that time chiefly the logic of Aristotle transmitted through Latin channels, was the great subject of liberal study in the episcopal schools. Roscellinus, the famous canon of Compiegne, is mentioned by himself as his ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to such a degree, that Clapperton was unable to stand for half an hour after; he then suddenly got well, both as to the pain in his side, and a severe diarrhoea, which had troubled him for some time. The worthy caboceer, who had shown himself such an adept in practical pathology, was of the same opinion with others of his species, that a preventive is better than a remedy; but were this principle to be acted upon by the medical caboceers of the metropolis of England, we should not ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... quite think that. I don't suppose you can make them. You'd have first to learn the trade and show that you were an adept." ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... Rieux, who one and all agreed in identifying the accused as the same Arnauld du Thill who had been born and had grown up under their very eyes. Several deposed that as he grew up he had taken to evil courses, and become an adept in theft and lying, not fearing even to take the sacred name of God in vain, in order to cover the untruth of his daring assertions. From such testimony the judge naturally concluded that Arnauld du Thill was quite capable of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... barber. The Caliph indeed can be scarcely got to submit himself to the test, but we will get an ape, and if this honest man shaves him, as he says he can, without inflicting a scratch, I will adjudge him to be a very proficient barber and an adept in each branch of his ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... an adept in the art of caring for himself, one of the most successful worldings of his time, yet he wrote, thought, toiled incessantly, for his fellow men. He had little education obtained as it is supposed an education must be obtained. He was commonplace. No one has ever told of his "silver tongue," ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... have acquired this power. In them thought and will act as one. In the vast majority of human beings thought and will are not yet in entire harmony, and do not act as one. In the regenerated one (the adept) heart and head act in perfect unison. The adept thinks what he wills, and wills what he thinks. In unregenerated humanity will and thought are divided and occupy two different centres. In them the will has its seat in the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... branch by his tail or feet, turning head over heel. The more these jumps are sudden and unexpected, the surer the success. Laura understands this, and at the same time is conscious that to do this would be as easy for her as to dance on a rope. She considers me an adept in these kinds of gymnastics, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... however, there is not much reason to believe that this somewhat extravagant fashion is based upon any genuine liking, or any very widespread understanding. The truth is that, for all the adept tub-thumping of publishers, Conrad's sales still fall a good deal behind those of even the most modest of best-seller manufacturers, and that the respect with which his successive volumes are received is accompanied by enthusiasm ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... Rabbi was Jose bar Chalafta, and his remark was made to a lady, possibly a Roman matron of high quality, in Sepphoris. Rabbi Jose was evidently an adept in meeting the puzzling questions of women, for as many as sixteen interviews between him and "matrons" are recorded in Agadic literature. Whether because prophetic of its subsequent popularity, or for some other reason, this particular dialogue in which ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... a Genius and mountain of mind; L a Logician expert and refined; A an Adept at rhetorical art; D was the Dark spot that lurked in his heart; S was the Subtlety that led him astray; T was the Truth that he bartered away; O was the Cypher his conscience became; N was the New-light that lit up the same; ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... of Homoeopathic admirals) would have called cholera, and not one of them died, though treated in the common way, and it is my firm belief that, if such a result had followed the administration of the omnipotent globules, it would have been in the mouth of every adept in Europe, from Quin of London to Spohr of Gandersheim. No longer ago than yesterday, in one of the most widely circulated papers of this city, there was published an assertion that the mortality in several Homoeopathic Hospitals was not quite five in a hundred, whereas, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... slow-coming tide. But the only thought that possessed him was that Steve was in trouble out there, perhaps drowning, and that he must get to him. The water splashed into his eyes and blinded him, for Tom was not an adept swimmer, and not once could he so much as sight Steve. Neither was the appeal for help repeated and Tom's heart sank. Behind him, as he was dimly aware, others were following, and he wished they would hurry. Once, when he was opposite the points, he tried ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... happened a thing that will explain, O kadi, why I have come to you this day to tell my story. I am an adept in my craft, and therefore was one of those entrusted to use the roomal. My particular victim was a comely youth, perhaps seventeen years of age—son of a landowner, he had told me in confidence, travelling with a bag of gold mohurs for his father. This lad had been in my close companionship ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... embracing a knowledge of the common and statute law authorities from Blackstone down. The address abounded in historical and literary allusions which show its author to be a person of broad culture as well as an adept in "book learning." Following came another address from Mrs. Bloomer, in which she disposed—as he expressed, to Dr. McNamara's entire satisfaction—of the stock biblical argument down from Moses ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the old captain yielded the wheel whenever it came his turn to toss, and he proved to be an adept at the game, ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... one must live, Philippe preferred it to be in America, for in no other country could an adept acquire so much money. And Philippe knew the whole dining world. With Celine and the baby, Paul, Philippe dwelt in an apartment that would really amaze madame by its appointments of luxury, in East 38th Street, and only the four flights to climb. And Paul was three, the ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... whatever a particular book-hunter's idiosyncrasy may be, not to feel interested in some of the collections which these enterprising and ruthless biblioclasts manage to get together. Mr. Purcell is an adept at this game, of which, doubtless, Mr. F. Harvey, of St. James's Street, is one of the most clever, as he is certainly the most eminent of professors. Mr. Purcell's collection of prints, engravings, press-cuttings, and so forth, cover an extraordinarily wide field. In fifty cases ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... detours, and when about to halt, a surveying gaze will locate the safest and most suitable position for his temporary camp. Such capacities serve with obvious advantage in defensive and offensive war tactics. Prompt in seizing an advantage and in avoiding danger, he has also learnt to be an adept in ruses to decoy and mislead an enemy, and as for self-help and resourcefulness, there is hardly a situation or difficulty conceivable which will not be successfully surmounted. The usual Boer can also fend for himself and cope with the minor perplexities of every-day life in the field, which ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... few funny stories—given quizzical answers to some of her questions. Quizzical, yes; but she could not be sure then there was not wisdom in them, and that humiliated her. She had never conceived of such a man. And, be it added gratuitously, Virginia deemed herself something of an adept ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... believe any one. I shall be glad, now, to hear your views on the subject of those who cure demoniacal possession; the effect of their exorcisms is clear enough, and they have spirits to deal with. I need not enlarge on the subject: look at that Syrian adept from Palestine: every one knows how time after time he has found a man thrown down on the ground in a lunatic fit, foaming at the mouth and rolling his eyes; and how he has got him on to his feet again ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... break, though neither can articulate a reason for his foreboding. The reason lies embedded, but not yet laid bare, in all the previous cases dimly suggested by the actual one, all calling up the same conclusion, which the adept thus finds himself swept on to, he knows not ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... distinction is drawn between exoteric and esoteric doctrine (the "true word") and the various phases of Buddhist thought are arranged in ten classes. Of these the first nine are merely preparatory, but in the last or esoteric phase, the adept becomes a living Buddha and receives full intuitive knowledge. In this respect the Tantric school resembles the teaching of Bodhidharma but not in detail. It teaches that Vairocana is the whole world, which is divided into Garbhadhatu (material) and ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... had gone to nature, and now acted as if her foot were on her native heath. Her step was light, yet never uncertain. Her progress was easy, and, although different, was quite as graceful as if she were promenading the piazza, proving that she was an adept in mountain-climbing. It was evident, however, that to Miss Wildmere a mountain was a terra incognita. She trod uncertainly, her feet turned on loose stones that hurt her, and before the first steep ascent was passed, she panted and was glad ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... delayed their departure as did some Kenyahs who were on their way to Apo Kayan, and the people of the kampong did not go to their ladangs. The following day the sound of the gong was again heard, but this time it was occasioned by the fact that an adept had taken augurs from the flight of the red hawk, and to him it was ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... this moment that Beatrice and Catherine appeared together on the scene. Captain Bertram, who thought himself an adept in a certain mild, sarcastic description, was about to gratify Lady Georgiana with a graphic account of the Bells' supper-table, when his gaze met the kind, clear, happy expression of Beatrice Meadowsweet's eyes. He felt his heart stir within him. The Bells were ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... a work whose unknown character only heightened its importance gave point to every effort now made by this young man, and lent to his studies that vague touch of romance which made them a delight, and him an adept in many things he might otherwise have cared little about. At eighteen he was a graduate from the Sorbonne, and a musical virtuoso as well. He could fence, ride, and carry off the prize in games requiring physical prowess ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... this series of experiments you will be something of an adept at radio and are in a position to plan your final set. For this set you will need to purchase certain parts complete from reputable dealers because many of the circuits which I have described are patented and should not be used except as rights to use are obtained by the purchase ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... describes it in his article on a Deity, above alluded to, as the "Youngest Daughter of the Sciences, born amid flames, and cradled in rollers of fire." If there were any one science to which he was more specially devoted than to any and all others, it was chemistry. But he really seemed an adept in all, and shone about everywhere ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... book for children. Miss Walton proves herself a perfect adept in understanding of school-room joys and sorrows, and her name ought to become a household word amongst our ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... a great gardener, Miss Fleda, I hear," said the old gentleman. "My son says you are an adept ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... known one of these barbs to break or come loose, so adept are the blacks in securing them. The point is about 6 inches long, and on the barbless end is tightly wound successive layers of fibrous bark, until its size is adjusted to the socket in the haft. Above the swathing of bark a strong line is made fast; the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... country, was Ben Clark, a young man who had lived with the Cheyennes during much of his boyhood, and who not only had a pretty good knowledge of the country, but also spoke fluently the Cheyenne and Arapahoe dialects, and was an adept in the sign language. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... adept in his art, if one may judge from the countless errors which he allowed to creep into this immortal poem when it first appeared in print. One can imagine the identical copy now before us being handed over the counter in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... spot. There were grids to walk on, but these more resembled greasy poles, for the slabs had been placed longitudinally on cross runners, and many of us used to slide off the end into some swampy hole. One of "B" Company's officers was a particular adept at this, and fell into some hole or other almost every night. These parties often managed to add to our general excitement by discovering some real or supposed spy along their route, and on one occasion there was quite a small stir round Cookers Farm by "something which ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... our national legislature. Three years ago, however, he was a more conspicuous personage. He was then chairman of the Board of Directors of the Brush Light Company; and according to Henry Labouchere's statements in Truth, he was a "notorious guinea-pig." He was certainly an adept in the profitable transfer of shares: so much so, indeed, that at length the shareholders revolted against their pious chairman, and appointed a committee to investigate his proceedings. Whereupon this modern Knight ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... this time become an adept in hunting, and though still very far behind his companions in skill with the rifle, was able to make a fair contribution towards the provisioning of the camp. The hunters now divided into two parties, three going out in search of game on one side of the line ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... and he doubtless seized upon the palliata form as the natural medium for the exploitation of his talents. By Cicero's time considerable technical equipment was required; the actor must be an adept in gesticulation, gymnastic and dancing.[92] Appreciable refinement had been reached in Quintilian's age, for he scores the comic actor who departs too far from reality and pronounces the ideal player him who ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... possible to man; he may even excel in them so as to be a wonder to his fellows by reason of his vast stores of knowledge, and yet know nothing of that light within the mind by which he apprehends them. Nay, more! he may even be a marvellous adept in the theory of religion, and yet, alas! alas! may never have seen its SUN—may still be in the blackness of gross darkness, because he knows not Jesus, the Light of the world, whom to know is ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... but said nothing. I fancied that she detected the subterfuge. Yet she had not tried, and did not try now to avoid us. Either she had no connection with the case we were investigating or she was an adept actress. ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... essential passion; but they drifted instead into a discussion regarding the practice of sorcery in the middle ages. She was surprised to learn that she was not only a believer, but was apparently an adept in all the esoteric arts. But the subject being quite new to her, she followed with difficulty his account of a very successful evocation of the spirit of a mediaeval alchemist, a Fleming of the fourteenth century, and wonder often interrupted ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... an adept in deception. He was digging among his flower-beds when his master approached him, and it did not escape the nobleman's observation that the spade went into the ground and was drawn out again with increased rapidity as he drew near, and that the head of Baptiste, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... peculiar element, wherein she "lived and moved, and had her being," was the kitchen. Nobody's hare-ragout and geese giblets, not even those of the most experienced cook far and near, ever turned out so tasty as hers; in the preparation of sauces she was a perfect adept; vegetables, such as savoy and cauliflower, were dressed by Rettel's cunning hand in a way that could not be beaten, since she knew in a moment through a subtle unfailing instinct when there was too much or too little dripping; and her short cakes put ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Collins, who was a wondrous adept at "daping, dapping, or dibbling" with a grasshopper, and who once brought in a string of trout which he laid out head to tail on the grass before the house in a line of beauty forty-seven feet long. A mighty bass voice had this Collins also, and could sing, "Larboard Watch, Ahoy!" "Down ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... A.—: to take her for her first visit to the theatre. We got to the Lyceum in good time, and the play was capitally acted. I had hinted to Beatrice (Miss Ellen Terry) how much she could add to Lucy's pleasure by sending round a "carte" of herself; she sent a cabinet. She is certainly an adept in giving gifts ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... return to your royal island with as little eclat as you came thither? The world, my dear Countess, has changed since we were young. Men fought in the Civil War with good swords and muskets; but now we fight with indictments and oaths, and such like legal weapons. You are no adept in such warfare; and though I am well aware you know how to hold out a castle, I doubt much if you have the art to parry off an impeachment. This Plot has come upon us like a land storm—there is no steering the vessel in the teeth of the tempest—we must run for the nearest ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... did not become bolder and bolder as she continued her evil practices, but, unlike thieves generally, she grew to be more and more cautious. She acquired in time remarkable skill at showing an outwardly honest face. Indeed she became such an adept at dissimulation that the suspicion of even Jason Philip, aroused as it had been during the course of a careful investigation, was dispelled by ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... being followed in all my movements by the agents of this adept in villainy, I took care, upon leaving Mr. L——, to repair to the hotel of the sporting man I was personifying. Making myself square with the proprietor I took up my quarters in the room of my sporting friend, and the better to deceive any spy who might be lurking about, I received his ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... He blunders as much as you would do if left to your own selection. Those who have recourse to him seldom speak gratefully of his skill. He relieves you, it is true,—but of your money, not your malady; and the only branch of his profession in which he is an adept is that which enables him to bleed you! O mankind!" continued Augustus, "what noble creatures you ought to be! You have keys to all sciences, all arts, all mysteries, but one! You have not a notion how you ought ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... adept cook. He was fond of making surprising delicacies, and boy-like, they were always the kind that had honey of some sort in their composition. Without any knowledge of cooking, but knowing, in a general way, that eggs and ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... old Mr. Courtenay kept from time to time glancing around him, as though in fear of detection; hence I was in constant dread lest he should look behind him and discover me slinking along their path. I am by no means an adept at following persons, but in this case the stake was so great—the revelation of some startling and unparalleled mystery—that I strained every nerve and every muscle to conceal my presence while ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... descriptive power that distinguished her novels—that art of seizing grand general effects together with picturesque detail, and depicting them in a simple and straightforward manner, in which she was an adept. It must be added that the diffuseness which characterizes her fiction, also pervades her correspondence. Neither can be adequately represented by extracts. Her composition is like a gossamer web, that must ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... them once tried to strike Isobel. This was when she was nearly thirteen. Isobel replied with the schoolroom inkpot. She was an adept at stone-throwing, and other athletic arts. It caught her instructress fair upon her gentle bosom, spoiled her dress, filled her mouth and eyes with ink, and nearly ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... the Piper swept, Smiling first a little smile, As if he knew what magic slept In his quiet pipe the while: Then, like a musical adept, To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled Like a candle flame where salt is sprinkled; And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, You heard as if an army muttered; And the muttering grew to a grumbling; And ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... I am a better adept in the perusal of men's countenances and manners than many, and there are signs of lowering discontent and gloomy cowardice, arguing ill for unity of measures, on which our safety greatly rests. Yet my fancies may ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... it is said, were sent for. An Italian singer strove to reproduce in the Kremlin the evening entertainments of the Tuileries. By such means Napoleon expected to dupe a government which the habit of reigning over ignorance and error had rendered an adept in ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... as of considerable utility by Sir William Thomson in his juror report at the Centennial Exposition of 1876, recommending it for award. This leading physicist of his age, afterward Lord Kelvin, was an adept in telegraphy, having made the ocean cable talk, and he saw in Edison's "American Automatic," as exhibited by the Atlantic & Pacific company, a most meritorious and useful system. With the aid of Mr. E. H. Johnson he made exhaustive tests, carrying ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... wheel. What were they, these figures? I knew not, and yet gazing upon them, thought which took no words to clothe itself mutely read their meaning. Here were the culminations of the human, towering images of the good and evil man may aspire to. I looked at the face of the evil adept. His bright red-brown eyes burned with a strange radiance of power; I felt an answering emotion of pride, of personal intoxication, of psychic richness rise up within me gazing upon him. His face was archetypal; the abstract passion which eluded ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... the Armenian revolt. Early in the spring a Persian army invaded Armenia, under a general called Hazaravougd. Vahan allowed himself to be surprised, to be shut up in the city of Dovin, and to be there besieged. After a while he made his escape, and renewed the guerilla warfare in which he was an adept; but the Persians recovered most of the country, and he was himself, on more than one occasion, driven across the border and obliged to seek refuge in Roman Armenia, whither his adversary had no right to follow him. Even here, however, he was not safe. Hazaravougd, at the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... Sings itself over, and so the game Re-starts itself wherein I am kept Like a glowing brazier faintly blue of flame So that the delicate love-adept Can warm her hands and invite her soul, Sprinkling incense and salt of words And kisses pale, and sipping the toll Of incense-smoke that ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... However, the gnawing means as much to the squirrel as the eating, for the squirrel's teeth grow constantly and he must continually wear them off or he dies, stabbed by his own incisors which grow in the arc of a circle. Yet the squirrel is an adept at getting at the tiny, toothsome seed and he can strip a cone of its scales far faster than I can, even if I use my knife. He holds the cone stem end upward in his fore paws which are so like hands, severs the base of the scale with ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... had accomplished the change of mood with the rapidity of a transformation scene—in which form of art, by the way, he was a great adept. ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... on the broad face of the elder did not alarm Deerfoot, who had seen much more frightful countenances among his own people. He gazed calmly into the eyes of the warrior, as the two stood close together with their hands clasped. The Indian is an adept in concealing whatever emotions may stir him, but Deerfoot saw the savage was puzzled over his action. He could not but know that the Shawanoes were the most warlike Indians in the Mississippi Valley, and one of the last ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... blew out with the breeze. He and I then plied the paddles. We appeared to be making fair progress, too, although the raft moved but slowly. But the wind soon dying away, we had our paddles alone to depend on. Manley tried to scull with the oar, but he was not an adept at the art, and it did not help us much. When we watched the shore we had left, we saw that we had made some progress; but when we looked ahead towards the side of the lake we wished to reach, it appeared no nearer than when we stood on the ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... this man, through the first perilous season of youth, so abnormally safe from youth's most wonted peril,—to this would-be pupil of realism, this learned adept in the schools of a Welby or a Mivers,—to this man, love came at last as with the fatal powers of the fabled Cytherea; and with that love all the realisms of life became ideals, all the stern lines of our commonplace destinies undulated into curves of ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... an adept at capturing this little animal. The hunter places a small looking-glass near the hole and, in concealment near by, he patiently awaits developments. When the prairie dog comes out of his hole to take an airing he immediately sees his reflection in the glass and takes it for an intruder. In ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... cold barrels of two revolvers were leveled at his head and, with the address and skill of a practiced adept, Sam passed his twisted steel wire "come alongs" around the outlaw's wrist, and Jim Cummings' career stopped short. Any attempt at escape was hopeless, and in silent surrender he held out his other hand and Chip snapped the ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... deal with the problem of keeping a woman quiet. He saw that she was taking the trail toward Fred Thurman's, and that she was riding swiftly, as if she had some errand in that direction, something urgent. Al was very adept at reading men's moods and intentions from small details in their behavior. He had seen Lorraine start on several leisurely, purposeless rides, and her changed manner held a significance which he did not attempt ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... I found this adept interesting when he sat opposite me, and he incited the count to vivacity. He contributed a very good anecdote illustrative ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... vaguely recognized his many poor qualities and clearly saw his few good ones. He could shoot, when permitted, with the best; no horse, however refractory, had ever been known to throw him; he was an adept at following the trails left by rustlers, and that was an asset; he became of value to the community; he was ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... observed by a profound adept in human physiology, that if a woman waxes fat with the progress of years, her tenure of life is somewhat precarious, but if haply she withers as she grows old, she lives forever. Such promised to be the case ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... boys' story, full of incident and adventure, and told in the lively style in which Mr. Fenn is such an adept."—Globe. ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... sums from the crown, usually after giving many years' credit, while many other years were needed by his heirs to get in the balance of the royal indebtedness. Philippe's younger brother, Jean Jacques Caffieri (1725-1792), was a sculptor, but was sufficiently adept in the treatment of metals to design the fine rampe d'escalier which still ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... How to begin was more than she knew, and she stayed silent a full five minutes, looking earnestly at the point of her shoe, till Lucy, who was an adept in such cases, thought it best to proceed to business at once, and save Rose the delicate operation of opening the ball herself; and so, in her own way, half ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... look nicer than any one here," Mr. Halloway added, in thorough conviction. "You must be an adept in ironing." Phebe laughed softly in pure pleasure. It was so new to have such pretty things said to her. "Would it be very wrong to slip away together for a rest?" he continued, leading her a little farther along. "Let us sit down on the steps here and recruit. I have talked my throat hoarse to ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... place without his suspecting it?" the Soudrys understood their friend's wishes. Do not forget that Soudry, for the last seventeen years chief of police of the canton, was doubly shrewd through his wife, an adept in the particular wiliness of a waiting-maid ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... not by the ancients, but by Berber cultivators of long ago. Gazing upon these venerable stones we were led to talk of past times, of buried treasures and their wondrous lore. One of his uncles, he tells me, is versed in the black arts and an adept at raising hoards; he learnt it from a Moroccan. But bad luck had dogged his footsteps lately. He discovered a treasure whose guardian jin offered to surrender it if he brought three things: a white goat, certain materials for fumigation, and "the book." ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... jewelry houses had in their employ lapidaries more skilled than Mrs. Dalliba. She pursued her studies for the mere love of the science, devoting a year in Italy to mosaics, cameos, and intaglios. And yet the Crevecoeur cameo had puzzled wiser heads than Mrs. Dalliba's, adept though she was. It was cut from a solid heart-shaped gem, a layer of pure white, shading down through exquisite gradations into deep green, and representing Aphrodite rising from the sea; the white foam rose gracefully, with arms extended, scattering ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... Europeans. He is passionately fond of music, wild over poetry, inquisitive about paintings, a connoisseur in everything—I cannot remember all. He has friends who know architecture, and though skilled in his own profession, he is an adept in others. ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... boys do, sound and vigorous in health, passing the winters in attendance upon the district schools, and the summers in working on the farm. "The only distinctive trait exhibited by the child was mechanical ingenuity; he excelled in caricature, was an adept in constructiveness, having made countless wagons, windmills, and weapons for his comrades, attaining the height of juvenile reputation as the inventor of what he called ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... a tunnel and something which took a great many years longer in making. We shall soon meet with a very remarkable and famous old gentleman, who is a great adept at digging, and at landscape gardening likewise; and he has dug out a path for himself through the chalk, which we shall take the liberty of using also. And his name, if you wish to know it, is ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... hands deep in his pockets, stared out among the skyscrapers and gave way to a fit of remorse. It was foreign to his nature to do petty underhanded tricks. Grand strategy—yes. At that he was an adept, and not the shiftiest, craftiest schemes he had ever devised had given him a moment's uneasiness. But to be driving a ten-dollar-a-week typewriter out of her job—to be maneuvering to deprive her of a for her brilliant marriage—to be lying to an old ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... or newsboy, he is an adept in all the tricks of the trade; and as a fast young man about town among his kind, he is worthy his white prototype: the swagger, the impertinent look, the coarse remark, the loud laugh, are all in the best style. As a lounger and starer also, on the street corners of a Sunday ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... times he would ask himself if he were equal to the task. But beneath the surface of conversation, the same thing was in the mind of the Regent, who had already managed affairs quite as difficult, and she began most cleverly to arrange the means. She sent for one of her secretaries, an adept in all arts necessary for the perfect government of a kingdom, and ordered him to give her secretly a false message during the supper. Then came the repast, which the lady did not touch, since her heart had swollen like a sponge, and so diminished her stomach, for ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... holidays in lurking about with pipes in their mouths at places where they were unlikely to be disturbed, instead of joining in some hearty and healthy game. When he began to "learn" smoking, he found it anything but pleasant; but a little practice had made him an adept, and he found a certain amount of enjoyable excitement in finding out cozy places by the river, where he and Upton might go and lounge for an hour ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... of art which is so little understood out of Italy. I was surprised to learn that they were all from the hand of the owner. My evident admiration pleased my new friend, and led to talk upon his part, which showed him no less elevated in his theories of art than an adept in the practice. Without fatiguing the reader with irrelevant criticism, it is necessary, perhaps, as elucidating much of the design and character of the work which these prefatory pages introduce, that I should briefly observe, that he insisted as much upon the connection ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Government; but his intentions rambled, and his reform fancies, more mystical then political, proceeded not so much from the idea of the interests of the State as from the influence of a secret doctrine with which he was imbued. The statesman in him was but an adept in magic; for Ministers he took mere charlatans. Skilled conjurers replaced ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... possess," he wrote in the Second Part of the "Rights of Man," "more of what is called consequence in the world than any one of Mr. Burke's catalogue of aristocrats." Paine sincerely believed himself to be an adept who had found in the rights of man the materia prima of politics, by which error and suffering might be transmuted into happiness and truth. A second Columbus, but greater than the Genoese! Christopher had discovered a new world, it is true, but Thomas had discovered the means of making a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... to have towards you, the inward and spiritual gratitude and affection, though I am not always an adept in ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... occasion to observe that Mrs. Chirrup is an incomparable housewife. In all the arts of domestic arrangement and management, in all the mysteries of confectionery-making, pickling, and preserving, never was such a thorough adept as that nice little body. She is, besides, a cunning worker in muslin and fine linen, and a special hand at marketing to the very best advantage. But if there be one branch of housekeeping in which she excels to an utterly ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... rich and independent as his invention had made my countryman, Dr. Auer, of Welsbach; then I should be able to travel instead of remaining in Vienna. In the dream I was traveling with my invention, with the, it is true, rather awkward glass top-hat. The dream work is peculiarly adept at representing two contradictory conceptions by means of the same mixed image. Thus, for instance, a woman dreamt of herself carrying a tall flower-stalk, as in the picture of the Annunciation (Chastity-Mary is her own name), but the stalk was bedecked with thick white blossoms ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... plenty, reducing tete-a-tetes in a corresponding ratio. He did get one opportunity, however, and used it well. They had so many things to talk about in common, that she could not help finding him good company. She might well be pleased, for he was an adept in the curious art of being agreeable, as other people are in chess or billiards, and had made a special study of her tastes, as a physician studies a patient's constitution. What he wanted was to get her thoroughly interested in himself, and to maintain her in a receptive condition ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... whole face would light up. At other times she would stop and reread a passage with evident approbation. Page after page was covered with the mystic language of the modiste, in which Pauline must have been an adept—as what young woman is not?—for she made no erasures, and inserted ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... no pleasure in superfluity, they take means to increase the roots that are their food—diet so simple that their health is assured." Still, it is known that in their defence against the marauding Caribs the Porto Ricans were courageous, and had become adept with arrow and club, and it was believed by some of the first explorers that they ate ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... island had thus once been inhabited. After Sannikov had fetched Chenitzyn from Faddejev Island, where he had passed the summer in great want of provisions, and ordered him, who was probably a greater adept at the pen, to draw up a report of his own interesting researches, he commenced his return journey on the 8th Nov./27th Oct. and arrived at Ustjansk on ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... were others of our rival's service. I saw at once it would be difficult to have access to Hamilton. He was lying on a stretcher within talking range of the table and had one arm in a sling. Now, I hold it is harder for the unpractised man to play the spy with everything in his favor, than for the adept to act that role against the impossible. One is without the art that foils detection. The other can defy detection. So I stood inside with my hand on the door lest the click of the closing latch should rouse attention, but had no thought of ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... is shown by my remembering the exact spot where the crime was committed. It probably lay all the heavier from my love of dogs being then, and for a long time afterwards, a passion. Dogs seemed to know this, for I was an adept in robbing their ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... and airy lightness of touch, but they were mostly penned, as he himself tells us, for his own pleasure and that of his friends, not for general publication. There are, nevertheless, charming pieces in the collected edition of Hooft's poems, and he was certainly an adept in the technicalities of metrical craft. But Hooft himself was ambitious of being remembered by posterity as a national historian. He aimed at giving such a narrative of the struggle against Spain as would entitle him to the name of "the Tacitus of the Netherlands." He wished ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... Mr. Hennage. Both by nature and professional training he was more adept in the science of deduction than most men, and while he had never seen Donna's marriage license he firmly believed that she had been married. He had looked for the publication of the license in the Bakersfield papers. Not having seen it, ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... read, madam? Look at this envelope. Doubtless we shall find more soon, and what was inside them. I shall no doubt be gratified by learning in good time what a well-finished and full-blown adept in a ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy |
