"Aptitude" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... genius in his soul came with no less surprise on himself than on the world. It was from the same slowness of self-appreciation that, afterwards, in the full flow of his fame, he long doubted, as we shall see, his own aptitude for works of wit and humour,—till the happy experiment of "Beppo" at once dissipated this distrust, and opened a new region of triumph to his versatile ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... met with a race not darker than the Portuguese, and a remarkably handsome people, who seemed to have a peculiar aptitude ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... tell what her feelings were toward him. She liked him because he helped her with her lessons and minded her like a slave; but she could also become thoroughly put out with him sometimes, because he was clumsy and tiresome and did not know how to play. She had to admire his diligence and his aptitude for learning, yet at times she fairly despised him for not being able to show off what he ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... lasted through life, though the London cousin had been as prosperous as the country one had been the reverse. The provincial trade in arms declined with the close of the York and Lancaster wars. Men were not permitted to turn from one handicraft to another, and Robert Headley had neither aptitude nor resources. His wife was vain and thriftless, and he finally broke down under his difficulties, appointing by will his cousin to act as his executor, and to take charge of his only son, who had served out half his time as apprentice to himself. There had been delay until the peace with France ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine "Cremona." He consents to take for his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for technique, but not the soul of an artist. The youth, has led the happy, careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American and he cannot, with his meagre past, express the love, the passion and the tragedies of life and all its happy phases as can the master who has lived life in all its ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... matter as it ought to yield them.... In fact, all experience tends to show that the state as well as the chemical composition of our food must be considered; in other words, that the digestibility and aptitude for assimilation are not less important ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... Aduarte stressed the importance of a knowledge of the language of the natives, which there would have been Tagalog, to the success of the mission. Domingo de Nieva, one of the four members of the mission, learned it rapidly and well, and soon began to preach to the Indians in their own tongue. His aptitude for languages and its usefulness to the Dominicans must have been very great, for Aduarte in listing the priests who originally volunteered in Spain makes few comments about individuals, but of Nieva he remarks that ...
— Doctrina Christiana • Anonymous
... effects would then be explained by the identity of the cause. The more and more complex eye would be something like the deeper and deeper imprint of light on a matter which, being organized, possesses a special aptitude for ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... in the middle of the country that sericulture chiefly nourishes. The smallest output of raw silk is from the most northerly prefecture and from the prefecture in the extreme south-west of the mainland. But human aptitude plays its part as well as climate. The Japanese hand is a wonderful piece of mechanism—look at the hands of the next Japanese you meet—and in sericulture its delicate touch is used to ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... Perhaps Benjamin West's aptitude for picture-making in his infancy, while he was learning to walk and to talk, did not exceed that of hosts of other children, in like circumstances, in every generation since his time. But many curious things were remembered and told of this baby's performances after he had developed ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... that she was the Swift One, that she had that amazing aptitude for swift flight through the trees. She needed all her wisdom and daring in order to keep out of the clutches of Red-Eye. I could not help her. He was so powerful a monster that he could have torn me limb from limb. ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... as is said in Aristotle's Ethics,[50] the aptitude for the virtues is implanted in us by nature; hence those things which come under the virtues arise from the dictates of natural reason; but it belongs to religion to offer external reverence to the Divine Nature. Ceremonial, however, ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... Australia. He was dead too. There didn't seem to be any of her ancestry as wasn't dead, but they had all been swells. She had been educated privately, she had, by a relative; and had early displayed an aptitude for dancing, though her friends at first had much opposed her going upon the stage. There was a lot more of it—you know the sort of thing. Of course, she was a connection of one of our best known judges—they all are—and ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... on that time, I see that my worst sin was not so much my resolve to sell myself for money, as my aptitude for playing the contemptible comedy of pretended love for days and months and years. I, who only felt a kind of indifference for Richard, which sometimes deepened into disgust, pretended to be moved by genuine passion. Yes, I have paid ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... smiled at her derisively. His instinct for effective poses asserting itself, he began showing off his aptitude with the revolver. He twirled it, with elaborate carelessness, on his trigger finger, and with one movement of his wrist, stopped it, at the same time drawing a bead on the ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... "And at this point we first find the Hebrew people, with polygamy still clinging to it as a survival from the times of ignorance, but with the marriage-tie solidly established, strict and sacred, as we see it between Abraham and Sara. Presently this same Hebrew people, with that aptitude which characterized it for being profoundly impressed by ideas of moral order, placed in the Decalogue the marriage-tie under the express and solemn sanction of the Eternal, by the Seventh Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery." And again: "Such was Israel's genius ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... the Fanariotes, who were trained to official aptitude and immorality under the Turks—of the politicians of the revolution who deserted the cause of their country for the service of the protecting powers at the last national assembly—and of a large class of educated men not bred to commerce, who have resorted to Greece ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... tant bien que mal with much assistance from his mother, who taught herself everything that she thought the boy should know, and shared his lessons in order to push him gently forward. And on the whole, he did very well in this particular of language, showing much aptitude, though not perhaps much application. I would not assert that the ladies, with an opinion very common among women, and also among youth in general, did not rather glory in the thought that he could do almost anything he liked (which was their opinion, and in some degree while he was very ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... Hermit, knowing the weakness of woman, and her little aptitude for the life apart, had feared that he might be disturbed by the nearness of his penitent; but she faithfully held to his commands, abstaining from all sight of him save on the Days of Obligation; and when they met, so modest and ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... the higher duties of statesmanship, and was not personally equal to the weighty responsibilities which devolved upon him. He was overshadowed by the ability of at least three members of his cabinet, and was keenly sensible of their superiority. He had, however, a certain aptitude for affairs, was industrious, and in personal character above reproach. Mr. Webster described him with accuracy when he spoke of him as ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... conquest of Lydia, and subsequently of the Greek cities and islands along the coast of the AEgean, had doubtless enriched the empire by the acquisition of active subject populations, whose extraordinary aptitude in the arts of peace as well as of war might offer incalculable resources to a sovereign who should know how to render them tractable and rule them wisely. Not only did they possess the elements of a navy as enterprising and efficacious as that of the Phoenicians, but the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... is a beneficial thing when you look at it the right way. By fashion all kinds of new things are started throughout the country, and you discover certain people who have a special aptitude. It becomes the fashion to do various things, and in many cases people become interested and develop their own special tastes ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... discharged, and ready for impregnation. At other times, when sexual intercourse would be necessarily fruitless, the instinct of the animal leads her to avoid it; and the concourse of the sexes is accordingly made to correspond in time with the maturity of the egg and its aptitude ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... invitation to the magistrates' table." Endicott had undoubtedly received a good education. His natural force of character had been brought under the influence of the knowledge prevalent in his day, and invigorated by an experience and aptitude in practical affairs. There is some evidence that he had, in early life, been a ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... one chief difficulty with city government is the bewildering vastness and multifariousness of the details with which it is concerned. The modern city has come to be a huge corporation for carrying on a huge business with many branches, most of which call for special aptitude ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... objection to being robbed at the outset of his career, and had thereby revealed himself as a person of dangerous ideas which, if pursued to their ultimate, would make an end of all manner of illegitimate profits; and I am not careful to suggest that any special aptitude for a soldier's life on my own part was responsible for the dead set which was made at me by all the non-coms, of the regiment. There was one troop-sergeant-major, as already stated, who was currently known throughout the corps as The Pig. A furious and determined attempt ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... fondness I have just mentioned, which men bear so remarkably to their own works and notions; it arose from false reasonings on the effects of the customary figure of animals; it arose from the Platonic theory of fitness and aptitude. For which reason, in the next section, I shall consider the effects of custom in the figure of animals; and afterwards the idea of fitness: since if proportion does not operate by a natural power attending some measures, it must ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a pilot should have courage, skill, knowledge, aptitude and confidence; but he always went on to say that all these together amounted to very little unless you have a bushel of common sense. I think he was right. I had to earn part of my tuition in the Aviation school because I didn't want to ask my father ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... first ridding them of this hindrance. Once rid of it, not only the children, but even the grown persons of all ages will learn our letters, language, and literature—as well on account of the ease of our writing, and the relief from the burden of the other, as because of their natural aptitude, the gentleness of their dispositions, and their natural adaptability to guidance, when there ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... he used it at times with amazing dexterity, as, for instance, the latter part of this very adventure will prove, if I can ever prevail on him to narrate it. On the whole I should say that he disapproved of finesse much as he disapproved of swearing, but had a natural aptitude for both.] ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... angrily. "Look, this is supposed to be restricted information, but the Exploration Service doesn't rely on individual aptitude tests alone to make up a crew. There's another factor—call it an inaptitude factor. In its simplest terms, it comes to this: that a crew can't work together only if each member is the most efficient at his job. He has to need the others, each one of the others. ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... deceived by the early evidences of talent; for instance, interest in melodies, correct feeling for time, an instinct for accenting the important notes, inclination for some peculiar though often perverted style of performance, quick apprehension, a natural aptitude for playing, a nice hearing, animation, rapid progress, docility, superficial gayety; even if all or a part of these traits are observable in early youth, they must not excite too sanguine hopes. I have often met with such phenomena, ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... recommended Tate we are not wholly able to explain. Dryden alleges "charity" as the single impulse of the appointment,—not the merit or aptitude of the candidate. But throughout life Dorset continued to countenance Nahum, serving as standing dedicatee of his works, and the prompter of several of them. We have remarked the want of judgment which Lord Dorset exhibited in his anxious patronage of the scholars and scribblers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... upstanding chap, half Russian and half Swiss, and therefore qualified by his breeding to speak many languages; for the Russians are born with split tongues and can give cards and spades to any talking crow that ever lived; while the Swiss lag but little behind them in linguistic aptitude. It seemed such a pity that this man was not alive when the hands knocked off work on the Tower of Babel; he could have put the job through without extending himself. No matter what the nationality of a guest might be—and ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... soul. It told him that he did nothing to speak of in return for his good income and the fine house in which he lived in such comfort, and troubled him on this score more than it would have troubled a man with less aptitude for goodness; and it omitted to tell him that he had more direct influence for righteousness than many a man who would have consciously exercised all the gifts with which he might have been endowed. He simply could not bring himself to visit his parish regularly, two or three afternoons ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... humble position as an Engineer subaltern he attracted the notice of his superiors, not merely by his energy and activity, but by a special aptitude for war, developing itself amid the trench work before Sebastopol in a personal knowledge of the enemy's movements such as no other officer attained. We used to send him to find out what new move the Russians ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... opinion that for the majority of mankind a little of mathematics, even, goes a long way. Of course this is quite consistent with their being of immense importance as an instrument to something else; but it is the few who have the aptitude for thus using them, not the ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... He is young, and you will assist his youth with your counsel. He is diffident of himself, and you will encourage him with your assurance and obedience; but he is brave, he is beloved, he is trusted; and above all, he possesses that innate aptitude for war, that power of infusing courage into the timid and lending strength to the weak, which is the gift of God alone, and without which no ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... recognise their rights as wards of the Canadian Government. They are placed on large reserves, {402} where they can carry on farming and other industrial occupations for which the Canadian Government, with commendable liberality, provide means of instruction. Many of the Indians have shown an aptitude for agricultural pursuits which has surprised those who have supposed they could not be induced to make much progress in the arts of civilised life. The average attendance of Indian children at the industrial and other schools is remarkably ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... herself. She must choose her own method; but it would help her, I think, to schedule the stitches for herself according to her own ways and wants. The most suitable stitch may not suit every one. Individual preference and individual aptitude count for something. It is not a question of what is demonstrably best, but ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... mirror, in which he looked at the picture.—"And now," he said, "will you both come and breakfast with me? I have a smoked ham and some very fair wine!... Eh! eh! the times may be bad, but we can still have some talk about art! We can talk like equals.... Here is a little fellow who has aptitude," he added, laying a hand on Nicolas ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... style in that speech is in perfect keeping with her habitual modes of thought and discourse: even in her most spontaneous expressions we have a reflex of the same intellectual physiognomy. For the mental aptitude which she displays in the trial seems to have been the germinal idea out of which her whole part was consistently evolved; as the Poet's method often was, apparently, first to settle what his persons were to do, and then to conceive and work ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... experiments. To Morris reading them it was wonderful, especially as Stella had received no training in the science of electricity, that she could have grasped the subject thus thoroughly in so short a time. Evidently she must have had a considerable aptitude for its theory and practice, as might be seen by the study that she gave to the literature which he lent her, including some manuscript volumes of his own notes. Also there were ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... conveyed the secret information. This is a form of activity of which it is of course not possible to give any full account; it seems, however, clear that in a remarkably short time Bismarck shewed great aptitude for his new duties. His letters to Manteuffel are full of curious information as to the intrigues of those who are hostile to Prussia. He soon learns to distrust the information supplied by the police; all through his life he had little ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... two women; all at once the idea of offering to finish Pauline's education occurred to me; and the offer was made and accepted in the most perfect simplicity. In this way I came to have some hours of recreation. Pauline had natural aptitude; she learned so quickly, that she soon surpassed me at the piano. As she became accustomed to think aloud in my presence, she unfolded all the sweet refinements of a heart that was opening itself out to life, as some flower-cup ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... Sudanese, Somalis, and various negroes coming from the White and Blue Niles, that is, from the region which previous to the Mahdi's insurrection was occupied by the Egyptian Government. Stas lived with all on intimate terms and having, as is usual with Poles, an extraordinary aptitude for languages he became, he himself not knowing how and when, acquainted with many of their dialects. Born in Egypt, he spoke Arabian like an Arab. From the natives of Zanzibar, many of whom worked as ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... sees nothing but organic resemblances and disdains the differences of aptitude. By consulting only the bones, the vertebrae, the hair, the nervures of the wings, the joints of the antennae, the imagination may build up any sort of genealogical tree that will fit with our theories ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... "the natives believe that ingenuity and dexterity in seal-catching (their highest art and virtue) is hereditary; there is really something in it, for the son of a celebrated seal-catcher will distinguish himself, though he lost his father in childhood." But in this case it is mental aptitude, quite as much as bodily structure, which appears to be inherited. It is asserted that the hands of English labourers are at birth larger than those of the gentry. (25. 'Intermarriage,' by Alex. Walker, 1838, p. 377.) From the correlation which ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... a great actor, says:—'Je lui veux beaucoup de jugement; je le veux spectateur froid et tranquille de la nature humaine; qu'il ait par consequent beaucoup de finesse, mais nulle sensibilite, ou, ce qui est la meme chose, l'art de tout imiter, et une egale aptitude a toutes sortes de caracteres et de roles; s'il etait sensible, il lui serait impossible de jouer dix fois de suite le meme role avec la meme chaleur et le meme succes; tres chaud a la premiere representation, il serait epuise et froid comme le marble a la troisieme,' &c. Diderot's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... natives a tribute of gold and silver. The Indians, instead of being protected and civilized, were only too often reduced to serfdom and confined to a laborious routine for which they had neither the aptitude nor the strength; while the government at home was too distant to interfere effectively in their behalf. Driven by cruel taskmasters they died by thousands from exhaustion and despair, and in ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... with what other people, perhaps quite indolently, think, or suppose others to think, about it. And here the charge of Socrates against those professional teachers of the art of rhetoric comes to be, that, with much superficial aptitude in the conduct of the matter, they neither reach, nor put others in the way of reaching, that intellectual ground of things (of the consciousness of love for instance, when they are to open their lips, and presumably their souls, about that) in true contact with which alone can there be a real ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... obliged to borrow. Besides this the chief steward wrote every year telling him of fires and bad harvests, or of the necessity of rebuilding factories and workshops. So the first task Pierre had to face was one for which he had very little aptitude ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... willingness, voluntariness &c. adj[obs3].; willing mind, heart. disposition, inclination, leaning, animus; frame of mind, humor, mood, vein; bent &c. (turn of mind) 820; penchant &c. (desire) 865; aptitude &c. 698. docility, docibleness[obs3]; persuasibleness[obs3], persuasibility[obs3]; pliability &c. (softness) 324. geniality, cordiality; goodwill; alacrity, readiness, earnestness, forwardness; eagerness &c. (desire) 865. asset &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... story to a poem will give a factitious merit in the eyes of many critics, which could not be an occasion of vainglory to the consciousness of the most vainglorious of writers. You made me smile by your suggestion about the aptitude of critics aforesaid for courting Lady Geraldines. Certes—however it may be—the poem has had more attention than its due. Oh, and I must tell you that I had a letter the other day from Mr. Westwood ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... leaving their undoubted traces behind them, but no "local habitation" with a name; for that we are first indebted to the Romans, who, after finding the Briton a foe not unworthy of his steel, ultimately subjugated him and found him not an inapt pupil in Roman arts and civilization. Of the aptitude of the Briton to learn from his conquerors we have evidence in the fact, mentioned by the Roman writer Eumenius, that when the Emperor Constantius wished to rebuild the town Augustodunum (now Antun) in Gaul, about the end of the 3rd century, he employed workmen ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... marriage; to pretend that your daughter is a musician when she has with the greatest difficulty been coached into playing three piano-forte pieces which she loathes; to use your own mature charms to attract men to the house when your daughters have no aptitude for that department of sport; to coach them, when they have, in the arts by which men can be led to compromize themselves; and to keep all the skeletons carefully locked up in the family cupboard until the prey is duly ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... of some doubting Thomases who regard all bargains as snares and delusions, it is certain that many real bargains are offered among the numerous things advertised as such; but to profit by them, I may add, one must have an aptitude, either natural or ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... sulphur, ash, and water, and these form data which at once show the nature of a fuel and give some indication of its value. To ascertain the quantity of the sulphur, ash, and water with accuracy involves more skill and aptitude than can be bestowed by the non-professional public; the consequence is that experiments entailing less time and precision, like those devised by Berthier and Thompson, have been tried more or less extensively. In France and Italy, Berthier's method—slightly modified in some instances—has been ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... before this took place, however. From the first, she showed a most unusual aptitude in learning the mechanical part of her profession, and her extraordinary memory made it easy for her to remember the lectures which were given for the nurses three times a week, generally by the house ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... rather the lecturer than the advocate. He is able to instruct and delight an impartial and disinterested audience by the extent of his information, by his acquaintance with general principles, by the clearness and aptitude of his illustrations, by vigour and copiousness of style; but where he has a prejudiced or unfair antagonist to contend with, he is just as likely to put weapons into his enemy's hands as to wrest them from him, and his object seems to be rather to deserve than to obtain success. The ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... as the joint product of nature and nurture. Nature gives the raw material, character is the carved statue. The raw material includes the racial endowment, temperament, degree of vital force, mentality, aptitude for tool or industry, for art or science. These birth-gifts are quantities, fixed and unalterable. No heart-rendings can change the two-talent nature into a ten-talent man. No agony of effort can add a cubit to the stature. The eagle ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... received a letter from my mother, who told me that poor Alexandre had been very ailing, and that after a serious attack he had become timid and excessively suspicious; that, however, he was quite harmless, and in spite of the disordered state of his health and reason he showed an extraordinary aptitude for mathematics. There was nothing in these tidings to surprise me. Often, as I studied the diseases of the nervous centres, my mind reverted to my poor friend at Saint Julien, and in spite of myself I foresaw for him the general ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... Hate and Competition. Up yonder, beyond the Porte du Roi, rivalry has set up a counter-shrine, with a competing saint, with all the hateful accessories of a pretty face, a younger figure, and a graceful if less skilled aptitude in the making of ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... quaint-ness of phraseology, "the one was born alone to speak what the other only knew to write!" The simple truth of the matter being that for the making of a consummate actor, reader, or impersonator, not only is there required, to begin with, a certain histrionic instinct or dramatic aptitude, but a combination—very rarely to be met with, indeed—of personal gifts, of physical peculiarities, of vocal and facial, nay, of subtly and yet instantly appreciable characteristics. Referring merely to those who are skilled as conversationalists, ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... we must recall the period at which the earliest settlers came from England, and the political heritage which they consequently brought with them. This heritage included a certain aptitude for local government, which was fostered in the south by the rise of a class of large landowners and in the north by the Congregational Church system. It included also a great tenacity of the subject's rights as against the State—the spirit of Hampden refusing payment of ship-money—and ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... instrument at all. The will of an Omnipotent Spirit is no sooner exerted than executed, without the application of means; which, if they are employed by inferior agents, it is not upon account of any real efficacy that is in them, or necessary aptitude to produce any effect, but merely in compliance with the laws of nature, or those conditions prescribed to them by the First Cause, who is Himself above ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... very time of the scene at St. Cloud, fortune was preparing for the First Consul another matrimonial trouble. His youngest brother, Jerome, then aged nineteen years, had shown much aptitude for the French navy, and was serving on the American station, when a quarrel with the admiral sent him flying in disgust to the shore. There, at Baltimore, he fell in love with Miss Paterson, the daughter of a well-to-do merchant, and sought her hand ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... answered the mother, agreeably flattered, "he has great aptitude, and learns all that is set before him. He has but one fault, he is somewhat wilful; but really, on referring for the moment to what he said, do you truly believe that Mithridates used these precautions, and ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... criticised the technical schools because they do not teach mechanical intuition. The schools have enough to do in the time available if they teach principles and sufficient practice to enable the principles to be understood. The aptitude to design, which must be what is meant by mechanical intuition, requires very considerable practical experience, which you will readily learn if you do not keep yourself above it. If you have used your leisure hours to study why a certain piece of mechanism was made in a certain way rather ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... mind cast a hue of melancholy over the pleasure the young Venetian felt in his mistress' presence. A woman's instinct has amazing aptitude for harmony of feeling; it assumes the hue, it vibrates to the note suggested by her lover. The pungent flavor of coquettish spice is far indeed from spurring affection so much as this gentle sympathy of tenderness. The smartness ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... if they had been born to millions!" retorted Athalie. "Ignorance and aptitude, that is white slavery. It's absolutely nothing else. And in cases where the ignorance is absent, the aptitude is there. If a girl has an aptitude for becoming some man's mistress she'll probably do it whether she's ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... extended literary enterprise which as a whole represents the genuine bent of his talent and character will be struck with his exceptional power of traversing perseveringly long sections of this enterprise for which he has no natural aptitude and in which he takes no pleasure. Military courage is with most men chiefly a matter of temperament and impulse, but there have been conspicuous instances of great soldiers and sailors who have frankly acknowledged that they never lost in battle ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... English gentleman of average cultivation knew it; that is to say, not enough to justify him in writing about it. He knew as much of metaphysics as a clever lad was likely to pick up at Edinburgh during the reign of Dugald Stewart; his essays in that kind, though they show some aptitude and abundant confidence, do not now deserve serious attention. His chief speculative performance was an essay upon Beauty contributed to the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' of which his biographer says quaintly that it is 'as sound as the subject admits of.' It is ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... fellow, with an exceptionally graceful figure and what I call a typical German face (typical, I mean, in one line of development)—open, frank, handsome, with the broad traits, smiling lips, clear and direct guileless eyes, waving hair and aptitude for geniality which are the chief characteristics of that type—not the highest, perhaps, but a good one, nevertheless—honest, loyal, brave—a kind which makes good fathers and good soldiers—how many a hundred are mourned ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... efficient. There are in every army, and certainly in ours, a number of officers who do not violate their duty in any such way as to give reason for a court-martial or dismissal, but who do not show such aptitude and skill and character for high command as to justify their remaining in the active service to be Promoted. Provision should be made by which they may be retired on a certain proportion of their pay, increasing with their length of service at the time of retirement. There is now a personnel ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... also received a lesson. We found—what indeed we had expected—that the poor children were very ignorant, but we also found what we did not expect—namely, such an acute intelligence and aptitude to receive instruction as admonished us of the danger of leaving them to grow up under evil influences to become master-spirits in crime and pests to society. Many of the faces that we had just seen were very expressive—indeed, painfully so. Some of them seemed ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... no traces of their blood in the province. If such there are, they may perhaps be found in some of the tribes on both sides of the Salt Range, such as Gakkhars, Janjuas, Awans Tiwanas, Ghebas, and Johdras, who are fine horsemen and expert tent-peggers, not "tall heavy men without any natural aptitude for horsemanship," as Sir Herbert Risley described his typical Panjabi (p. 59 ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... typical red man of to-day is a rancher on a large or small scale. He has displayed quite as much intelligence and aptitude for the work as could be expected. There have been serious handicaps, other than the tradition among us that the cultivation of the soil is a feminine rather than a manly occupation. I may mention the occupation of the best lands by white ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... generosity gave him the choice of three—the Church, the Law, or Medicine. Hate had given him too keen a comprehension of his father to permit him the mistake of argument. He temporized. Let him be sent to college, and there he would discover where his aptitude lay. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... elegantly on nothing a year, we use the word "nothing" to signify something unknown; meaning, simply, that we don't know how the gentleman in question defrays the expenses of his establishment. Now, our friend the Colonel had a great aptitude for all games of chance: and exercising himself, as he continually did, with the cards, the dice-box, or the cue, it is natural to suppose that he attained a much greater skill in the use of these ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... himself had not waged the hard-fought war against the soil, but he had as a matter of course understood everything that had to do with tilling the soil ever since he could crawl, and his hands had an inborn aptitude for spade and rake and plough. But he had not inherited his father's joy in the soil; his thoughts had struck out in a new direction. Yet this endless bondage to the soil lay rooted in him, like a hatred, which gave him a survey unknown to his father. He was reasonable; he did not lose ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... aptitude for domestic matters, and after some rough places were made smooth and some sharp corners rounded off, things went quite as smoothly as in many houses where the presiding genius ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... you had the stuff," The Barbarian was booming. "I knew they had to start breeding men out on the coast sooner or later. Here—give me your other wrist." The blade burned his skin twice each way—once for victory and once for special aptitude—and then Myka pressed a cloth to ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... as well as those others with whom he had come in contact. They had discovered in him all that which Father Adam had been so prompt to realise. They had found in him a young, untrained mind, untrained in their own calling, whose natural aptitude was amazing, and whose courage and confidence were beyond words. But greatest of all was the perception he displayed. They realised he never required the telling of more than half the story. Intuition and inspiration completed it for him without the labour of their words. The result ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... asleep. A prayer was repeated before and after dinner. The visitors seemed to think our dishes very palatable, and even the Royal Family ate with good appetite, though they had so recently made a substantial meal. Their conduct was extremely decorous, and showed much aptitude in imitation. They made use of the knives, forks, and spoons as readily as if they had been always accustomed to them; and the wine, though by no means despised, was very ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... fostering our school among the Indians, and of encouraging the teacher in this discouraging and very difficult task, cannot be overestimated. Rev. Wm. Case, thinking that I had some aptitude for teaching, wrote me a day or ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... abundant materials to form a good effective Militia in this Province. The youth are in general docile and orderly, and have a great aptitude to attain the requisite discipline; there are also a number of disbanded soldiers and other persons acquainted with discipline, scattered through the country; so that there are few districts, but where there are persons qualified ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... you notice 'a certain want of aptitude'? Well, I don't think I am naturally a bad nurse, Aunt Anna. The patients like me, and they don't die of the dumps when I am about. Only I can't practise nursing by the rule of three, and as a consequence I get myself reported. Sister Allworthy has reported me three times, bless her! ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... how much their reputation and interest depended on the exertions which they made. After serving a few years (seldom more than eight, or less than four), they generally obtained appointments in the church, and thus transferred to another field the intellectual industry and aptitude for communicating knowledge, by which they had distinguished themselves in the university. It may well be conceived that, by stimulating and exemplifying diligence, their influence on their brethren in the ministry was not less considerable ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... so much ruin and neglect. Novelty, pleasant to most people, is particularly delightful, I think, to me. I am not easily dispirited when I have the means of pursuing my own fancies and occupations; and I believe I have some natural aptitude for accommodating myself to circumstances. But, as yet, I stroll about here, in all the holes and corners of the neighbourhood, in a perpetual state of forlorn surprise; and returning to my villa: the Villa Bagnerello ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... widely in many of their characteristics, that success in rendering the one, though greater than any which I can hope to have attained, would afford no presumption that the translator would be found to have the least aptitude for the other. As a matter of fact, while the Odes still continue to invite translation after translation, the Satires and Epistles, popular as they were among translators and imitators a hundred years ago, have scarcely been attempted at all since that great revolution in literary ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... is much more that is true and manly, honest and bold. Transcendentalism has its occasional vagaries (what school has not?), but it has good healthful qualities in spite of them; not least among the number a hearty disgust of Cant, and an aptitude to detect her in all the million varieties of her everlasting wardrobe. And therefore, if I were a Bostonian, I think ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of the clock by the chime now sounding from the stables. I have fed on bread and milk (a dreadfully opaque diet) and I await the morning Church in humble hope. It will begin in half an hour. We keep early hours in the country. So you will be able exactly to measure my aptitude and fullness for letter writing by the quantity written now, before I bolt off for hat, gloves, and prayerbook. I always put on my thickest great coat to go to our Church in: as fungi grow in great numbers about the communion ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... its preservation many other bodies by which it is, as it were, regenerated. The human mind increases its aptitude in proportion to the number of ways in which the body can be disposed. The idea constituting a formal being of the human mind is not simple, but is highly complex. An idea of each component part of the body ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... a number of Professors of Military Science and Tactics show conclusively that local conditions as to average age and aptitude of students, interest taken in military training by the student body, support given by the school authorities, etc., are so different in different schools that it would be impossible to write a book for general use that would, in amount of material, arrangement and otherwise, ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... the surprise, almost to the consternation of the world, Japan boldly engaged in war with the huge colossus which bestrode Asia and half of Europe, and to the amazement of the nations showed a military aptitude and preparation and a command of resources which enabled her to defeat the armies of Russia in every engagement, to capture the great stronghold of Port Arthur, to win victories on the sea as notable ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... lies in a very singular consideration—yet in one upon which we do not remember ever to have heard a word of comment. We allude to a tendency in the public mind toward logic for logic's sake—a liability to confound the vehicle with the conveyed—an aptitude to be so dazzled by the luminousness with which an idea is set forth as to mistake it for the luminousness of the idea itself. The error is one exactly analogous with that which leads the immature poet to think himself sublime wherever he is obscure, because obscurity ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... reading of good verse can in time correct. "Candy and Health," and "If You Were Down and Out," by James Mather Mosely, are two typical newspaper interviews with representative men. Mr. Mosely shows much aptitude as a reporter, having an almost professional ease and fluency. This is not literature, but it is good journalism. "The Dinner Never Paid For," by Viola Jameson, is a piece of characteristic light fiction; commendably innocuous, and not at all overburdened with philosophical complexity. ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... 1: The powers of the nutritive part have not an inborn aptitude to obey the command of reason, and therefore there are no habits in them. But the sensitive powers have an inborn aptitude to obey the command of reason; and therefore habits can be in them: for in so far as they obey reason, in a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... representative of reviving Art Ennobling effects of Art when inspired by lofty sentiments Brilliancy of Art in the sixteenth century Early life of Michael Angelo His aptitude for Art Patronized by Lorenzo de' Medici Sculpture later in its development than Architecture The chief works of Michael Angelo as sculptor The peculiarity of his sculptures Michael Angelo as painter History of painting in the Middle ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... thirsty canary had only, in a literal sense, to put his shoulder to the wheel and the job was done. This propensity gave Mrs. Rouncewell great uneasiness. She felt it with a mother's anguish to be a move in the Wat Tyler direction, well knowing that Sir Leicester had that general impression of an aptitude for any art to which smoke and a tall chimney might be considered essential. But the doomed young rebel (otherwise a mild youth, and very persevering), showing no sign of grace as he got older but, on the ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... strange and ridiculous; rooks, in the breeding season, attempt sometimes in the gaiety of their hearts to sing, but with no great success; the parrot-kind have many modulations of voice, as appears by their aptitude to learn human sounds; doves coo in an amorous and mournful manner, and are emblems of despairing lovers; the wood-pecker sets up a sort of loud and hearty laugh; the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, from the dusk till ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... than those of his contemporaries; his sentences are less fiery and excitable; though he can be witty when he wishes, he is never frivolous; and a tone of earnest intimate passion lingers in his faultless rhythms. With his great powers of expression he combined a wonderful aptitude for the perception of the subtlest shades of feeling and of mood. He was sensitive to an extraordinary degree—with the sensitiveness of a proud, shy nature, unhardened by the commerce of the world. There is, indeed, an unpleasant side to his Confessions. Rousseau, like most explorers, ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... early training under the Brothers of the Christian Schools. Even at that early date young Ryan showed signs of mental activity which gave promise of one day producing substantial and lasting results. He evinced rare aptitude for knowledge, and made rapid progress in its attainment. His thoughtful mien and modest look soon won for him the respect and friendship of his teachers and the esteem and affection of his companions. It was noticed that he had an instinctive reverence for sacred things and places, ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... the adult woman's voice is wholly unlike that of the child's thin register. Her medium tones, even when sung softly, have a fuller and more resonant quality, and if she lead in songs, etc., the pupils, with the proverbial aptitude for imitation, will inevitably endeavor to imitate her tone-quality. They can only do so by using the thick register, which it is so desirable to utterly avoid. It is worse yet for a man to lead the ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... some respects, and I fancy he may really become a prize in the way of a waiter at one of the hotels. These fellows who have brought themselves up on the street do sometimes develop a surprising aptitude for business, and I am greatly mistaken if this one is not of that stamp. I'll take him off your hands in the morning, Augusta, and he can't demoralize Pliny in one evening. Besides," he added as a lofty afterthought, "if my son can be injured by ...
— Three People • Pansy
... before I had taken my last look at about nine o'clock, and had mentally resolved to go out before daybreak and repeat Coleridge's celebrated hymn; but I advise any one who has any such liturgic designs to execute them over night, for after a day of climbing one acquires an aptitude for sleep that interferes with early rising. When I left last evening its countenance was "filled with rosy light," and they tell us, that hours before it is daylight in the valley this mountain top breaks into brightness, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Part of the time she lived in New Orleans, and part of the time in a country district. She only went to school until she was 14, and was somewhat retarded on account of changing about and illnesses. However, it is said she always liked her school and showed fair aptitude for study. At 14 she returned to New Orleans and, desiring to be a dressmaker, started in that trade. She worked in several places, but finally ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... until his lamented death in the year 1869.1 Messrs. Temple, Riggs, and Calhoun at Smyrna, and Messrs. Schneider and Ladd at Broosa, had made the Greek language their principal medium of intercourse with the people. Mr. Riggs having a rare aptitude for acquiring languages, had begun to edit works in the Bulgarian, Armenian, and ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... is, as I have said, the chief part of the barber's vocation. But it must be remembered that the incidental function of removing his whiskers in order to mark him as a well-informed man is also of importance, and demands long practice and great natural aptitude. In the barbers' shops of modern cities shaving has been brought to a high degree of perfection. A good barber is not content to remove the whiskers of his client directly and immediately. He prefers ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... suggestionability. However, we may mention two. The first, the mental inertia of the subject: * * * the consciousness is completely empty: an idea is suggested, and reigns supreme over the slumbering consciousness, * * * The second is psychic hyperexcitability, the cause of the aptitude for suggestion." "For example, we say to a patient: 'Look, you have a bird in your apron,' and no sooner are these simple words pronounced than she sees the bird, feels it with her fingers, and sometimes even hears it sing." "Again, in place of speech we engage the attention of the patient, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... side, the younger generation of Rover boys, as well as their sisters, were brought up very much as one large family. At first they were sent to private schools in the Metropolis, but the boys, led by Andy and Randy, showed such an aptitude for fun and horseplay that their parents were compelled ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... and she dreaded nothing now so much as losing his love, though she had no grounds for fearing it. But she could not help being grateful to him for his attitude to her, and showing that she appreciated it. He, who had in her opinion such a marked aptitude for a political career, in which he would have been certain to play a leading part—he had sacrificed his ambition for her sake, and never betrayed the slightest regret. He was more lovingly respectful ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... noticed that," Ditmar replied, who was quite willing to have it thought that his inquiry was concerned with Janet's aptitude for business. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... talk to the girl herself. The painter had long ago discovered that Cynthia was an individual. She had good blood in her: as a mere child she had shouldered the responsibility of her father; she had a natural aptitude for books—a quality reverenced in the community; she visited, as a matter of habit; the sick and the unfortunate; and lastly (perhaps the crowning achievement) she had bound Jethro Bass, of all men, with the fetters of love. Of course I have ended up by making her a paragon, although I am ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... exactly what the other young man is. He comes of the Brahmin caste of New England. This is the harmless, inoffensive, untitled aristocracy referred to, and which many readers will at once acknowledge. There are races of scholars among us, in which aptitude for learning, and all these marks of it I have spoken of, are congenital and hereditary. Their names are always on some college catalogue or other. They break out every generation or two in some learned labor which calls them up after they seem to have ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the end of his disillusion. He thinks to secure repose on the breast of Nature, the alma mater, to whom Goethe and Wordsworth and Browning each in his own way turned, and were rewarded by consolation and refreshment. We should be prepared to find Mr. Hardy, with his remarkable aptitude for the perception of natural forms, easily consoled by the influences of landscape and the inanimate world. His range of vision is wide and extremely exact; he has the gift of reproducing before us scenes ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... the author. He viewed it as not only a blot upon his dignity, but an annoyance to his professional fame. Numerous critics have laughed at it; but apart from the shorter poems, the main theme showed much aptitude of poetic imagery, invention, and harmony of expression. Glance at the following lines, which contain much of the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... very simple, and easily to be comprehended, not a moment was lost in the execution. With surprising order and aptitude, the chiefs led off their parties; one line of dark warriors penetrating the forest on the eastern side of the basswood, and another on its western; while a goodly number scattered themselves on the prairie itself, in its front. In less than a quarter of an hour, signals came from ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... climbing the steep streets at a canter with little horses hardly bigger than flies, with an aptitude for climbing perpendicular walls. It was strange to enter a walled city through low and gloomy gates, on this continent of America. Here was a small bit of mediaeval Europe perched upon a rock, and dried for keeping, in this north-east corner of America, a curiosity that has not its equal, in ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... numbers of persons, both old and young, what may be called the natural aptitude of healing. They are kept back from trying to help because it is regarded as so dangerous a thing to go near fever, and also to interfere where only professional skill is legally allowed. To apply such ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... round altogether—a tall, stalwart man whose face was full of the serenity that comes from breadth and poise, but whose mind, as she herself knew well enough, was too habituated to the broad treatment of big matters to have any aptitude for repartee and chatter. She liked to disconcert him, and it was usually an easy thing to do. "And I wish, while you have your hand in, you would just come up and nail some weather-strips on ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... having to sustain the character of the Apothecary, had been as yet wholly unable to get any more of the part into his head than the general idea that he was very hungry, which—perhaps from old recollections—he had acquired with great aptitude. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... been somewhat checked. Under good regulations they might, no doubt, be rendered serviceable; but every alteration of their condition, with regard to the hospitals, to be an improvement, must bring them nearer to the superior condition of responsible nurses, chosen for their aptitude, and remunerated according ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... whenever he referred to the Negro. Ignorant of the fact that science shows that no race is superior to another, Jefferson considered the blacks inferior to the Indians, believed that they lacked literary ability, the finer senses of other races and although exhibiting a little aptitude in music were both physically and mentally inferior to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... now treated of is of so varied a nature, requiring so great a knowledge of anatomy, and so much experience and aptitude, that I have deemed it advisable to reserve for a separate chapter the explanations of the processes to be learned, to avoid, at the outset, confusing the learner by asking him to attempt too much. This chapter may therefore be considered a finishing ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... end of July, and cannons think it necessary to fire off, squibs and crackers to blaze and fizz, fountains to run wine, kings to make speeches, and subjects to crawl up greasy mats-de-cocagne in token of gratitude and rejouissance publique!—My dear sir, in their aptitude to swallow, to utter, to enact humbugs, these French people, from Majesty downwards, beat all the other nations of this earth. In looking at these men, their manners, dresses, opinions, politics, actions, history, it is impossible to preserve ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... elementary rudiments of Latin grammar. But not having any natural aptitude for aquiring classic learning so called, I fear I made but little progress during the three years that I remained at the High School. Had the master explained to us how nearly allied many of the Latin and Greek roots were to our familiar English words, I feel assured ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... by Russian troops. But the season was now too far advanced for military operations, and the Russians, after enormous losses, withdrew to the Danube to resume the offensive the following spring. The winter was spent in bringing up reserves. The Czar finding that he had no aptitude as a general withdrew to his capital, intrusting the direction of the following campaign to Diebitsch, a Prussian general, famous for his ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... find men who combine the rare qualities necessary for a confidential dragoman; such a person would be invaluable, as he would represent all the cardinal virtues, at the same time that he must possess a natural aptitude for his profession, and a store of patience, with the most unruffled temper. The natives dread the interpreter, they know full well that one word misunderstood may alter the bearing of their case, and they believe that a little gold judiciously applied may exert a peculiar ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... methods of the religious revivalist into the practice of politics, and he enlisted strange allies when he found a vehicle for his patriotic fervour in the language of the prize-ring. He prided himself on his aptitude for political strategy, and professed a sympathy with the mind of the man in the street which was keener even than that of Lord Northcliffe. His views were always short-sighted, and he had the most superficial knowledge of the deeper problems of war and politics. Before the ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... asked: "Can I become a great mathematician?" What must be my answer? "You must have a natural aptitude and capacity for mathematics to be a great mathematician. If you have not that capacity, you cannot be a great mathematician in this life." But this does not mean that you cannot learn any mathematics. To be a great mathematician you must be born with a special ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... who had a Southern aptitude for gesture, took one little hand from behind her, twirled it above her head with a pretty air of disposing of some airy nothing in a presumably masculine fashion, and said, ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... For this reason he could not neglect his work, although it had not a first place in his heart. As he was industrious, he did not fail in it; because it was not the thing he loved best, he did not markedly succeed. It was too late to change his profession, and he found in himself no such decided aptitude for anything else as should make him know that this or that would have been preferable; but he knew now that the genius of the physician was not his, that to do his work because it was duty, and to attain the respectable success ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... to the element in which it moves. To birds he has given a clothing of feathers; and to quadrupeds, of furs, adapted to their latitudes. Where art is requisite in providing food for future want, or in constructing a needful habitation, as in the case of the bee and the beaver, a peculiar aptitude has been bestowed, which, in all the inferior races of animals, has been found adequate to their necessities. The crocodile that issues from its egg in the warm sand, and never sees its parent, becomes, it has been well said, as perfect and as knowing ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... themselves. Hall says "their memory is remarkably good, and their intellectual powers, in all that relates to their native land, its inhabitants, its coasts, and interior parts, is of a surprisingly high order" (I., 128). But what is of particular interest is the great aptitude Eskimos seem to show for art, and their fondness for poetry and music. King[255] says that "the art of carving is universally practised" by them, and he speaks of their models of men, animals, and utensils as "executed in a masterly style." Brinton indeed says ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... hung a huge sabre, with which he gallantly performed the duties of his present profession. It cannot be said the Lieutenant had none of the qualities of a soldier, for he was courageous enough; but, beyond that, his aptitude for military duties was not pre-eminent. He always marched, or rather shuffled along, with a stoop in his back, which made his shoulders as high as his head. He had not the slightest idea of moving in time; but this was of little consequence, for none of ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... Socrates; and there is a certain admiration for the father, Demodocus, who joyfully resigns his son, if the teacher will admit him to his friendship and impart all that he can. But it is a higher result of a higher order of society, when a young man with aptitude to follow science and assimilate knowledge sees in the most perilous service of civilization a rarer illumination of mind and heart. In the great scheme of things, where all grades of human worthiness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... sister bred up at a foreign Court—had first compassionated and then admired her. From her twelfth year upwards her intellectual superiority had been recognised in the convent, alike by the nuns and their pupils. Her aptitude at all learning, and her simple but profound piety, had impressed everybody. At fourteen years of age they had christened her "the little wonder;" but later, seeing that their praises embarrassed and even distressed her, they had desisted from such loving flatteries, and were content to worship ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... gift to be a good director, and any man who shows aptitude for this rle has generally little time to dance, and has to work very hard ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... teacher. Miss Benson, who had returned to Ranga Duar and remained there longer than she had originally intended, owing to fever contracted in the jungle, joined him in these studies and astonished her fellow-pupil by her aptitude and quickness of apprehension. But her presence proved disastrous to him. Thrown constantly together as they were, spending hours every day side by side, the subaltern realised to his dismay that he was falling ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... bodies are situated at distances more remote from each other than had been previously imagined, and that the reasons which led Tycho to reject the Copernican theory were based upon erroneous conclusions, and could, with greater aptitude, be employed in its support. It was ascertained that the distance of the Sun from the Earth, which at different periods was surmised to be ten, twenty, and forty millions of miles, was much greater than had been previously estimated. ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... maternal imagination, uninfluenced by what Mr. Thorpe had said below stairs, conjured up an appalling vision of Zack before his father's looking-glass, with his chin well lathered, and a bare razor at his naked throat. The child had indeed a singular aptitude for amusing himself with purely adult occupations. Having once been incautiously taken into church by his nurse, to see a female friend of hers married, Zack had, the very next day, insisted on solemnizing the ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... could not really be friends with this fascinating person until she learned to speak her language. Palmer—partly by nature, partly through early experience in the polyglot tenement district of New York—had more aptitude for language than had Susan. But he had been lazy about acquiring French in a city where English is spoken almost universally. With the coming of young Madame Deliere to live in the apartment, he ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... had been my pupils. At the request of the minister, I had neither taken leave of them nor informed any one of my departure. The lad whom I now saw was a fine spirited boy, who had strongly attached himself to me, and shown great aptitude, as well as deep desire, for knowledge. He knew very little when I came to him, but great pains had enabled him to advance rapidly. The interest which he manifested, called forth in me a corresponding disposition to assist him; and the grateful boy, altogether overlooking ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... which these stages have had on the theatres of other countries. Both the English and Spaniards possess a very rich dramatic literature, both have had a number of prolific and highly talented dramatists, among whom even the least admired and celebrated, considered as a whole, display uncommon aptitude for dramatic animation, and insight into the essence of theatrical effect. The history of their theatres has no connexion with that of the Italians and French, for they developed themselves wholly out of the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... had shown the great fertility of the land in Louisiana, especially on the banks of the Mississippi, and its aptitude to the culture of tobacco, indigo, cotton, and rice; but the labourers were very few, and many of the new comers had fallen victims to the climate. The survivers found it impossible to work in the field during the great heats ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... he was not a sage at all till he grew old, and all he knew of woman then was from memory. But then, again, he can have no memory of her, seeing he never knew her. The man who has an aptitude for wisdom busies himself jealously with his little aptitude and nothing else; cultivates and cherishes it; holds it forth and ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... think we made few mistakes. Davies had a supreme aptitude for the work. Every hour, sometimes every minute, brought its problem, and his resource never failed. The stiffer it was the cooler he became. He had, too, that intuition which is independent of acquired skill, and ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... very coherent and consistent in conception on the author's part, perhaps, and on that account all the more difficult. Miss ESME HUBBARD gave us pathos skilfully reserved in her clever study of an old, old countrywoman turned trousers-maker; and little DINKA STARACE showed quite astonishing aptitude (or the most wonderful training) in the part of her granddaughter. Miss BABS FARREN also did well with her rather intrusive ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... to pursue their studies. The most remarkable of these was perhaps Sulien, the future bishop of St. David's. Sulien the Wise was born shortly before the date of the battle of Clontarf in the district of Cardigan. In early youth he displayed much aptitude for learning, and in middle life, about 1058, "stirred by the example of the fathers," he paid a visit to the Irish schools in order to perfect his studies. He spent thirteen years in that country, and then established a famous ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... truth. In how many societies the problems of philology which face every person who speaks English are left unattempted! And if the inquiring or the successfully inquiring class of minds is small, much smaller, of course, is the class of those possessing the scientific aptitude in an eminent degree. During the last age this most distinguished class was to a very great extent absorbed in the study of phenomena, a study which had fallen into arrears. For we stood possessed, in rudiment, of means ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... obscure and neglected condition of the free Negroes, some of them by their industry, frugality, and aptitude won a place in the confidence and esteem of the more humane of the white population. Owning their own time, many of the free Negroes applied themselves to the acquisition of knowledge. Phillis Wheatley, though nominally a slave for some years, stood at the head of the intellectual Negroes ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... founded. They can show that it is a matter of dispute whether some of these modified forms are varieties or separate species. They can show, too, that the changes daily taking place in ourselves—the facility that attends long practice, and the loss of aptitude that begins when practice ceases—the strengthening of passions habitually gratified, and the weakening of those habitually curbed—the development of every faculty, bodily, moral, or intellectual, according to the use made of it—are all explicable ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... from his perch up in the netting over the car, where he had clambered as being the most dangerous place immediately accessible, "is one of the great drawbacks to the use of balloons in warfare. Unless a man has natural aptitude, and is specially trained for the work, his observations from a balloon are of no use, a bird's-eye view of a country giving impressions so different from the actual ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... in us a rooted distrust of improvised statesmanship, even if we did not believe politics to be a science, which, if it cannot always command men of special aptitude and great powers, at least demands the long and steady application of the best powers of such men as it can command to master even its first principles. It is curious, that, in a country which boasts of its intelligence, the theory should be so generally held that the most complicated of human contrivances, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... cheerful, he not being so already, is like bidding him treble his fortune, or add a cubit to his stature. The quality of a cheerful, buoyant temperament partly belongs to the original cast of the constitution—like the bone, the muscle, the power of memory, the aptitude for science or for music; and is partly the outcome of the whole manner of life. In order to sustain the quality, the physical (as the support of the mental) forces of the system must run largely in one particular ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... as he sat stretching himself in an easy chair in the drawing-room, before the fire, previously to his dressing for dinner. It was a November evening, and he had been out all day, and on such occasions the aptitude for delay in dressing is very powerful. A strong-minded man goes direct from the hall door to his chamber without encountering the temptation of ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... its place as a factor in the progress of the world. In our orphanage and educational work we have tried to keep these two ideas constantly before us, and to offer incentives to and opportunities for useful life-work in whatever branch, from the humblest to the highest, a child showed aptitude. ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell |
