"Virtuosity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... believer in the capitalistic system. He's enslaved to the old economic theories, supply and demand, and all that rubbish from the ruins of ancient Rome. He believes that gold is the only sound material for pillars of society. The aristocratic idea is in his bones." Edmonds, by a feat of virtuosity, sent a thin, straight column of smoke, as it might have been an allegorical and sardonic pillar itself, almost to the ceiling. "But he believes in fair play. Free speech. Open field. The ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... swimming, nor at steering or rowing; but one of the things I could do well, very well indeed, was walking on stilts. According to our family tradition we came from the region of Montpelier, whereas I personally ought by rights to be able, in view of my virtuosity as a stilt-walker, to trace my ancestry back to the Landes, where the inhabitants are, so to speak, grown fast to their stilts, and hardly take them off when they go to bed. To make a long story short, I was a brilliant stilt-walker, and in comparison ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... and women speak—give you truth broken into prismatic hues, and fear the pure white light, even if it is in me, but I am going to try." Thus the first contact with the "Lyric Love" of after days set vibrating the chords of all that was lyric and personal in Browning's nature. His brilliant virtuosity in the personation of other minds threatened to check all simple utterance of his own. The "First Poem" of Robert Browning had yet to be written, but now, as soon as he had broken from his "dancing ring of men and women,"—the Dramatic Lyrics and Romances and one or two outstanding ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... of those over which the virtuosity of modern times, rejoicing in evil, has hung so fondly, as giving melancholy proof of the 'duplicity of Raleigh's character'; as if a man who once in his life had told an untruth was proved by that fact to be a rogue from birth to death: while others have kindly given him the benefit of a ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... perversity. I can merely say in self-defence that, on the outside, Santa Maria sopra Minerva no more promised an inner beauty than Il Gesu, which is the most baroque church in Rome, without the power of coming together for a unity of effect which baroque churches sometimes have. It is a tumult of virtuosity in painting, in sculpture, in architecture. Statues sprawl into frescoed figures at points in the roof, and frescoed figures emerge in marble at others. Marvels of riches are lavished upon chapels and altars, which again are so burdened with bronze gilded or silver plated, and precious ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... all this is only a matter of words, of virtuosity in draftsmanship, which does no one any harm, and which probably seemed much more important at the time than it ever will again between now and Judgment Day. For substance we ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... "If virtuosity is acquired through obstinate work, guided by good studies, and helped by that indispensable element, natural aptitude, genius is a gift from Heaven, which neither treatise on harmony, nor the works on counterpoint, nor a given song, shall ever ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... paid him a lump sum, dismissed him and returned to the Cosmic Club, there to ponder the problem. What next? To accuse Ransom, the mysterious hirer of a B-flat trombone virtuosity, without sufficient proof upon which to base even a claim of cross-examination, would be to block his own game then and there, for Ransom could, and very likely would, go away, leaving no trace. Who was Ransom, anyway? ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and St. Monica, an immensely popular but affected and feeble composition. Some portraits by this artist may be also found on the walls. Greater than he in breadth of composition, opulence of colour and artistic virtuosity, was Paul Delaroche, whose Death of Queen Elizabeth, 216, end wall, now asserts itself. His greatest work, however, and one which won him much fame, is his well-known Hemicycle in the Beaux Arts (p. 319). A twin spirit with ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... rite at Dona Emilia's house reminded him of the time he lived in London as Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James. He did not like tea; and, usually, rocking his American chair, his neat little shiny boots crossed on the foot-rest, he would talk on and on with a sort of complacent virtuosity wonderful in a man of his age, while he held the cup in his hands for a long time. His close-cropped head was perfectly ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... embrace of a young farmer of heroic proportions; she was looking up at him, talking, as Denis could see, very seriously. What about? he wondered. The Malthusian League, perhaps. Seated in the corner among the band, Jenny was performing wonders of virtuosity upon the drums. Her eyes shone, she smiled to herself. A whole subterranean life seemed to be expressing itself in those loud rat-tats, those long rolls and flourishes of drumming. Looking at her, Denis ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... laughed Hippopopolis, "and I dare say holds much of the truth; but Nero's faulty execution is not proof of Apollo's virtuosity. For a woodland musicale given by the Dryads, say, to their friends, the squirrels and moles and wild-cats, and other denizens of the forest, Apollo will suffice. The musical taste of a kangaroo might find the strumming of his lyre by Apollo to its liking, but for ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs |
