"Knack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the habit of being shot over after two years of peace and the memory of the little chips of flying woodwork flicked from the bows of the dingy as he had pulled out into the river was distinctly discouraging. Whoever fired the shots had a pretty knack with a rifle. It was the whirr of a bullet just over his head persuaded him to put back to port. After that the firing ceased. As he dragged the almost foundering dingy on to the mud a fast motor launch went scurrying ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... She was good- looking—nay, handsome; she had the manners which Mrs. Furze knew that she herself lacked, and Charlie Colston, aged twenty-eight, was still disengaged. It was Mrs. Furze's way when she proposed anything to herself, to take no account of any obstacles, and she had the most wonderful knack of belittling and even transmuting all moral objections. Mr. Charlie Colston was a well-known figure in Eastthorpe. He was an only son, about five feet eleven inches high, thin, unsteady on his legs, smooth-faced, unwholesome, and silly. He had been taken into his father's business because ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... a rare notion had crept into his head. This scarlet uniform—for scarlet it was, with white and yellow facings—had come as a godsend. He would walk home in it, and if it didn't frighten twenty shillings out of Aunt Barbree he must have lost the knack ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the copious outpouring of his personal feelings, one says many things to a friend or kinsman that are totally without interest to the public, unless they are expressed in some distinctive manner or embody some originality of handling an ordinary event. This a writer may have the knack of doing artistically, even in a private and confidential letter, without betraying the touch of art; nor, indeed, can we ever know how many of the best modern letters are really improvised. Then, again, with regard to the anticipation ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... In the drawing-room." She watched the servant carry the discarded containers around the house, then turned to Rand. "You know, not the least of your capabilities is your knack of finding servant-replacements on short notice," she ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... is, however, these things are quite common. My own wife felt much the same way with myself, and yet we lived as happily as most people. Every young baggage must have her scenes and her sacrifices. Ah! what a knack they have got at magnifying everything! How do you do, my Lady Dunroe? half a dozen times repeated, however, will awaken her vanity, and banish ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Bannon had the knack of commanding men. He knew the difference between an isolated—or better, perhaps, an insulated—man and the same man in a crowd. Without knowing how he did it, he could, nevertheless, distinguish between the signs of ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... meted out to the dictator his deserts. Now he was conscious of an intense partisanship, of a personal loyalty, of a passionate wish to spend his life, too, in fighting for Roman freedom. And so, when this wonderful man asked him, who was merely a boy with a taste for moral philosophy, and a knack at translating Alcaeus and Sappho, to become one of his tribunes, and to go with him to meet the forces of Caesar's arrogant young nephew in one final conflict, it was no wonder he turned his back upon the schools and the Muses, and with fierce pride ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... fellow, and he had a knack of turning up whenever one wanted to do a civil thing by that poor girl. Where ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all mischief fair, Although he had a knack of joking; He did not make himself a bear, Although he had a taste for smoking And when religious sects ran mad, He held, in spite of all his learning, That if a man's belief is bad, It will not be improved ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... it ought to be far less pessimistic than it is, also, about what we can do in the way of schools and social life in civilisation and about civilisation's way of doing business. Is our little knack of Christianity (I find myself wondering) quite worthy of all this attention it is getting from The American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions? Why should it approve of civilisation with a rush? Does any one really suppose that it is really time to pat it on the back—yet?—to ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... knack of keeping appointments; and other men have a knack of missing them. I am one of the other men. Add to this, that I passed the evening at Portland Place, on the same seat with Rachel, in a room forty feet long, with Mrs. Merridew at the further ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... abnormal ability to do and then to undo a garment hitching behind. Nature, which so fashioned her elbows that she cannot throw a stone at a hen in the way in which a stone properly should be thrown at a hen, made suitable atonement for this articular oversight by endowing her joints with the facile knack of turning on exactly the right angle, with never danger of sprain or dislocation, for the subjugation of a back-latching frock. Moreover, years of practice have given her adeptness in accomplishing this ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... early morning ardour, a fresh earnestness of youth, which Rosamund seemed to have lost in the mere spending of money, and Diana in the mere guarding of it. Smith looked at her again and again. Her eyes and mouth were set in her face the wrong way—which was really the right way. She had the knack of saying everything with her face: her silence was a ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... father where he meant to dine. Sir Lionel was going to dine out. He usually did dine out. He was one of those men who have a knack of getting a succession of gratis dinners; and it must be confessed in his favour—and the admission was generally made in the dining-out world,—that Sir Lionel was worth ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... of the scallop—a commercial waste—were difficult to hang upon the short, blunt hooks; but Lawford seemed to have just the knack of it. He showed Louise how to lower the line ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... only wanted to get as far from Upperscote as ever he could, so he walked on; I can't say how he lived, but he didn't beg; he got a job here and a job there; but there are not so many things he knows the knack of, having been at school all his life. Once he took up with a man that sold salt, to draw his cart for him, but the man swore at him so awfully he could not bear it, and beat him too, so he left him, and he had lived terrible hard for about a month before he came here! So you see, Mother, there's ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rounded on every side of his nature. We are aware of no limit to which the mind of man may evolve; other men may appear who will surpass the Immortal Five, but this fact remains: none that we know have. Great men, so-called, are usually specialists: clever actors, individuals with a knack, talented comedians—who preach, carve, paint, orate, fight, manipulate, manage, teach, write, perform, coerce, bribe, hypnotize, accomplish, and get results. There are great financiers, sea-captains, mathematicians, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... accepted the suggestion with the generous good nature which is so marked in him. Indeed, nothing could be pleasanter than our relations. He was heart and soul in his work. His typewriters had no rest. He, like most of us, lacks the rare knack of brevity. He was especially stimulating to the younger officers who gathered about him and made his office as busy as a hive. He was especially helpful in the purchasing of ships and in every line where he could push on the work of ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... vehement and overpowering method he possessed great practical gifts. He had the knack of unraveling accounts, and while not technically skilled in bookkeeping, had a general and accurate knowledge which gave him prestige, whether in intricate civil or criminal cases. He was a rash talker, but the ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... farmers with whom I had to deal recently are "permissionaires"—they get pretty regular leave in the French Army. The peasant stock of the North of France has a knack of producing good fighting men—they are an unromantic race, but amazingly ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... make it a bit sooner than that," suggested the elder woman. "One can't always stop oneself just where one wants to when sliding down a slope. It has a knack of getting steeper and steeper as one ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... Is a statesman of world-wide fame, With a notable knack at rhetorical bosh To glorify somebody's name— Somebody chosen by Tuckerton's masters To succor the country from divers disasters Portentous ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... takes the results to City Hall. The operators make it or break it. Sure, they have rules to follow—if they want. But a good operator ignores the rules, and a bad operator goes by the book, and he's still no damn good. It's just like radar was sixty, seventy years ago. Some got the knack, ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick
... assigned to them in fiction, through the mere fact of giving their parents no leisure to dwell on irremediable grievances. Though her own apprenticeship to family life had been so short, she had already acquired the knack of rapid mental readjustment, and as she hurried up to the nursery her private cares were dispelled by a dozen problems ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... fair example of Mr Kipling's method of dealing with India. It is an able piece of descriptive writing. It is marked by a conscious and deliberate resolve that the "effect" shall be made. It shows us the Indian city from a high distance, as it appeared to an observer with a knack for vividly delivering his impressions. It is in no sense an inspired wrestle with the reality of India; and in that it is typical. Mr Kipling has never claimed to grasp or interpret his Indian theme. He has stood away almost ostentatiously from ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... not exist in the western world, but it was almost invented. Time and muscle, knack and touch, a trained eye and brain and an unlimited array of patterns hanging on fancy's walls, aided by a box of dry sand, were competent to give the charming results. No more striking contrast can be found between forlorn conditions and refined art products. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... barraquement, just back of the admiral's house, our cook was a Marin with a knack at omelettes. If we had to work through the night, going into black Nieuport, and down the ten-mile road to Zuydcoote, returning weary at midnight, a brave supper was laid out for us of canned meats, wines, and jellies—all set with the touch of one who cared. It was no ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... at me like that!" she said, with gay imperiousness. "You pale-eyed folk have a horrible knack of making one feel as if one is under a microscope. Your worthy uncle is just the same. If I weren't so deeply in love with him, I might resent it. But Nick is a privileged person, isn't he, wherever he goes? Didn't someone once say of him that he rushes ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... admitted to a frank intimacy in this little circle into which whim had led her. She spent most of her time with the children. She gave Elsie two hours' lessons a day, and, since she had a knack of making them interesting, Tinker often enjoyed the benefit of her teaching. After lessons she shared most of their amusements, and learned to be a pirate, a brigand, an English sailor, a Boer, and every kind of captive and conspirator. Since she occupied some of Elsie's time, Tinker had once more ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... said. "It's all in the drill—every man knowing what he has to do, and doing it at the proper moment. I'd give something if I had Dick's knack in detail organizing." ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... all his life a lover of the play and all that belonged to it. Dramatic literature he knew fully. He was one of the not very numerous people who can read a play: a knack, the fruit of much knowledge and some imagination, comparable to that of reading score. Few men better understood the artificial principles on which a play is good or bad; few more unaffectedly enjoyed a piece of any merit of construction. His own play was conceived with a double design; ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a light sleeper, as you know, with an uncomfortable knack of waking with the sun and roaming early. No matter how early I rose at Tresillack, Mrs. Carkeek seemed to have prevented me. Finally I had to conclude that she arose and dusted and tidied as soon as she judged me safely a-bed. ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... could repair their breaches, remained unshaken amidst all the rest of the rout, and delivered their fire on all sides. Thrice the young conqueror tried to break these fearless warriors; thrice he was driven knack by the valiant Count of Fuentes, who was seen carried about in his chair, and, in spite of his infirmities, showing that a warrior's soul is mistress of the body it animates. But yield they must: in vain through the woods, with his cavalry ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... daughter's doll! Hark ye, my friend, I have heard a sort of little song sung about the glass shoe, and it is not for a parcel of dirt it will go out of my hands. Tell me now, my good fellow, should you happen to know the knack of it, how in every furrow I make when I am ploughing I may find a ducat? If not, the shoe is still mine; and you may inquire for glass ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... and pleased to hear the kinship acknowledged. A good family, as families go, though I say it. We have held on to Dangan since Harry Fifth's time; and to our name since Guy of Welswe was made a thane by Athelstan. We have a knack, ma'am, of staying the course: small in the build but sound in the wind. It did me good, to-day, to see that son of yours step out for the ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... ranch isn't worth knowing. I've got to go up to the house now to look over some accounts and I'm going to leave you in his care. You remember, Sandy, that little scrap in Mexico I told you about? Well, these are the boys that stood at my back. They've got a knack for getting into a shindy on the slightest provocation and I look to you to keep them out of trouble. I warn you though that it ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... had a knack of opening his eyes when anything surprised him—tolerably wide, too, "What paper was it, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the knack of understanding those I once understood. Not that it needed anything of the sort. Man, you were admirably straight—and gentle, too—you that used to be intolerant. You mustn't think, though, that I'm convinced; I ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... it all now,' he said to those nearest him in the crowd. 'He is a French or Dutch sign-painter, one of ourselves, and he only wanted to have a joke against me. It is but fair to own that he has the real knack, and paints even better ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... to the Miss Pinkerton ideal of amusement blended with instruction. Hence one doubts if the "ultra-precious" school really pleases the child; and if he refuse the jam the powder is obviously refused also. One who makes pictures for children, like one who writes them stories, should have the knack of entertaining them without any appearance of condescension in so doing. They will accept any detail that is related to the incident, but are keenly alive to discrepancies of detail or action that clash with the narrative. As they do not demand fine drawing, so the artist must be ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... the writing of these bulletins upon Katy, and the replies came in the shape of long letters, she found herself conducting a pretty regular correspondence without quite intending it. Ned Worthington wrote particularly nice letters. He had the knack, more often found in women than men, of giving a picture with a few graphic touches, and indicating what was droll or what was characteristic with a single happy phrase. His letters grew to be one of Katy's pleasures; and sometimes, as Mrs. Ashe ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... she said. "Why Fred Jones taught me. He says I've got the knack, but not very much strength. Anyway, I fought that Barry kid the other day, ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... lugubrious, for though as a parson he was essentially a kindly, easy man, to whom humbug was odious, and who dealt little in the austerities of clerical denunciation, still he had his face of pulpit sorrow for the sins of the people—what I may perhaps call his clerical knack of gentle condemnation—and could therefore assume a solemn look, and a little saddened motion of his head, with more ease than people who are not often called upon ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... standing crops. Overhead the sky shone with pin-point stars; a breath of air stirred about them faintly; all seemed keyed to that tense furtive quiet of the doomed Jews. Not a child cried, not a woman sobbed; they had learned, direfully enough, the piteous art of the oppressed—the knack ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... the dark. Down the bank to the river!—quick, man, and cautious! If they smell us out now, we're no better than buzzard-meat!" And when we reached the water's edge: "You taught me how to paddle a pirogue, Jack; I hope you haven't lost the knack of it yourself." ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... of articles, apart from their usefulness, is an appetising occupation, and to exchange bald, uniform shillings for a fine big, figurative knick-knack, such as a windmill, a gross of green spectacles, or a cocked hat, gives us a direct and emphatic sense of gain. We have had many shillings before, as good as these; but this is the first time we have possessed a windmill. Upon these principles of human nature, Sir, is based the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all I was obliged to admire my friend Millington, who, by his powerful knack of eloquence, to the wonder of the whole company, sold Cave's Lives of the Fathers to Solomon the Magnificent, and the Scotch Directory to the Priests of the Sun; nay, he sold-Archbishop Laud's Life to Hugh Peters, Hob's Leviathan to Pope Boniface, and pop'd Bunyan's ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... not, however, appear altogether disconcerted in this my first essay, I got up, and, pushing my head with great force between two hammocks, towards the middle, where the greatest resistance was, I made an opening indeed, but, not understanding the knack of dexterously turning my shoulder to maintain my advantage, had the mortification to find myself stuck up, as it were, in a pillory, and the weight of three or four people bearing on each side of ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... has a knack of making herself comfortable. I have seldom seen a cosier retreat on a broiling summer's day, and in this dusty, dirty town. She has not breakfasted yet, nor, except for my cup of coffee, have I. I will do myself the pleasure ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... you may succeed, Kennedy," he said. "It is a poor lookout to be risking death continually in the service of a foreign king. I grant that we have the knack of making ourselves at home, wherever we may be, and there are Irish officers in every army in Europe; but, however successful Irishmen may be, they cannot but long to be among their own people in their own ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... hence he could never hope to play football on the 'Varsity; but he knew that many games are won by drop-kicks and by fellows especially trained and coached for that purpose, and they don't need weight and strength, but they must have the art, that peculiar knack which few possess. His inspiration was this: Perhaps he had that knack, perhaps he could practice faithfully, and develop into a sure drop-kicker. If he trained for a year, in his Senior season, he ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... place, and too girlishly glad in the excitement of change, the bustle and movement and novelty, to give a thought to anything else. The healthy young of the human race have a large capacity for enjoyment, and they have also the happy knack of banishing all thought which threatens to be an interruption to pleasurable sensation. When a thing was once settled it was Evadne's disposition to have done with it, and since she had come to satisfactory terms with Colonel Colquhoun and recovered from the immediate effects ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... was hot of head and ready of hand. He had a knack also of getting into tight places and extricating himself therefrom with amazing agility; which knack served to procure for him the admiration of his friends and the respect of his enemies. It was his first Frontier campaign, but it was not apparently ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... art of self-defense, in which, I was soon to learn, he was highly accomplished, for we had a few rounds together every day after that. He keenly enjoyed this form of exercise and I soon began to. My capacity for taking punishment without flinching grew apace and before long I got the knack of countering and that pleased him more even than my work in school, ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... that is toilsome and the joinings do not fit. If the movements of my hand are neither (too) gentle nor (too) violent, the idea in my mind is realized. But I cannot tell (how to do this) by word of mouth; there is a knack in it. I cannot teach the knack to my son, nor can my son learn it from me. Thus it is that I am in my seventieth year, and am (still) making wheels in my old age. But these ancients, and what it was not ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... whereas, in my opinion, lying only, and, which is of something a lower form, obstinacy, are the faults which are to be severely whipped out of them, both in their infancy and in their progress, otherwise they grow up and increase with them; and after a tongue has once got the knack of lying, 'tis not to be imagined how impossible it is to reclaim it whence it comes to pass that we see some, who are otherwise very honest men, so subject and enslaved to this vice. I have an honest lad to my tailor, whom I never knew guilty of one truth, no, not when it had been to his advantage. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... flowers. Let us ever remember that the imagination also has its products and the themes of a symphony may certainly be considered its children. The public often seems to have slight idea of the sanctity and mystery of a musical idea. Composers are considered people with a kind of "knack" in writing down notes. In reality, a musical idea is as wonderful a thing as we can conceive—a miracle of life and yet intangible, ethereal. The composer apparently creates something out of nothing, pure fancy being wrought ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... Yes, and for nothing else; but this does not imply that it should be unfinished, but that, when the painter has set down what the imagination grasped in one view, he shall stop, no matter where, and not attempt to eke out the deficiency by formula or by knack of fingers. Wherever the inspiration leaves him, there is an end of the picture. Beyond that we get only his personalities; no skill, no earnestness of intention, etc., can avail him; he is only mystifying himself or us. At these points we sooner or later come up with him, are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... Quite young, most beautiful, and formed for mirth, Bartholomea Galandi her name; The lady's parents were of rank and fame; Our JUDGE herein had little wisdom shown, And sneering friends around were often known To say, his children ne'er could fathers lack: At giving counsel some have got a knack, Who, were they but at home to turn their eyes, Might find, perhaps, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... comfort in Amante's society was, that whereas I was afraid of everybody (I do not think I was half as much afraid of things as of persons), Amante feared no one. She would quietly beard Lefebvre, and he respected her all the more for it; she had a knack of putting questions to M. de la Tourelle, which respectfully informed him that she had detected the weak point, but forebore to press him too closely upon it out of deference to his position as her master. And with all her shrewdness ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... any hurry to acquire either wealth or fame. He had a happy knack of enjoying the present hour—especially when there were one or two boon companions with him, and a pack of cards to be found; and, after his return to his mother's house, he appears to have entered upon ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... the labour of the farmer in his paddy field had been honoured by the State and dignified by ancestral blessings, there was luncheon in one of those deftly contrived reed-covered structures, of the building of which the Japanese have the knack, and the Governor asked some of us to say a few words. Then on a raised platform in the open there was enacted a comic interlude such as might have been seen in England in the Middle Ages. In the evening I was bidden to a dinner ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... altogether, and I have already sent one of mine back, as they have too much to eat, too little to do, and get quarrelsome and disagreeable." Thus it was the same old story, for Lady Burton, though she had the knack of living, was quite incapable of learning, or at any ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... paff is puff!" laughed Ulrich. "When I snap the twigs, you always hear them say 'knack, knack,' and 'knack' is a word too. The juggler Caspar's magpie, can ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... has a knack of winning its races on the post. Judgment, as the phrase goes, was on the point of being entered accordingly, when the defendant looked up towards the Bench with ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... confess again, were these tastes redeemed by very amiable qualities beneath the smooth external surface. There was plenty of feminine spite as well as feminine delicacy. To the marked fear of ridicule natural to a sensitive man Walpole joined a very happy knack of quarrelling. He could protrude a feline set of claws from his velvet glove. He was a touchy companion and an intolerable superior. He set out by quarrelling with Gray, who, as it seems, could not stand his dandified airs of social impertinence, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... but he's just as good as the real. He's a natural knack at putting bones in their places, and all that sort of thing. There was a man broke his leg horribly at Thirlwall the other day, and Gibson was out of the way, and Marshchalk set it, and did it famously, they said. So go, Ellen, and bring ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... you've a knack At holding the attention of the town; The worse for you when you have on your back What did not grow there—prithee put it down! For pride kills thrift, and you lack board and lodging, Even while the brickbats of ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... granted it at once, and as she wished to carry off the child with her, she gave a hundred francs as a present, while her husband drew up a writing. And the young woman, radiant, carried off the howling brat, as one carries away a wished-for knick-knack from ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... of one's friend. All this, and the rest of the serene and happy inspired daily life which a piece of 'unpunctuality' can ruin, and to which the guardian 'angel' brings as crowning qualification the knack of poking the fire adroitly—of this—what can one say but that—no, best hold one's tongue and read the 'Lyrical Ballads' with finger in ear. Did not Shelley say long ago 'He had no more imagination than a pint-pot'—though in those days he used to walk ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Clark's beaming face and warm-hearted manner to disarm their shyness they were perfectly natural, and enjoyed themselves as entirely as if they were at a dormitory tea or a sorority supper. The best part about Mrs. Clark was that she had the happy knack of forgetting her age and throwing herself back into the mental environment of sixteen. She was certainly not a stiff hostess; indeed her treatment of her guests was less conventional than that adopted by Rachel Moseley at the prefects' parties; she ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... thing from him in company that was at all striking; and depend upon it, Sir, it is when you come close to a man in conversation, that you discover what his real abilities are; to make a speech in a publick assembly is a knack. Now I honour Thurlow, Sir; Thurlow is a fine fellow; he fairly puts his mind ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... their way carefully; we do not give them as wide a berth as formerly, for the wakes they turn are no longer savage—but wakes, even when sent out by stern-wheelers at full speed, now give us little trouble; it did not take long to learn the knack of "taking" them. Whether you meet them at right angles, or in the trough, there is the same delicious sensation of rising and falling on the long swells—there is no danger, so long as you are outside the line of foaming breakers; ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... was therefore vain; nor could I hope to purchase my discharge, unless any charitable soul would lend me a large sum of money; for, though I made a good deal, as I have said, yet I have always had through life an incorrigible knack of spending, and (such is my generosity of disposition) have been in debt ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... resumed the costume nor led the life of a peasant. He wore sabots, as hundreds of other artists have done, before and since, when living in the country in France. Sabots are very cheap and very dry and not uncomfortable when you have acquired the knack of wearing them. In other respects he dressed and lived like a small bourgeois, and was monsieur to the people about him. Barbizon was already a summer resort for artists before he came there, and the inn was full of painters; while ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... prove of very slight profit to him, as author. Writing of his replies given to certain mathematical professors, who had sent him problems for solution, he remarks that, although he may have a happy knack of dispatching with rapidity any work begun, he always begins too late. In his fifty-eighth year he answered one of these queries, involving three very difficult problems, within seven days; a feat which he judges to be a marvel: but what profit will it bring him now? ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... done by a person from twenty-one years of age to fifty. I know no husbandry work (mowing hardly excepted) that is not equally within the power of all persons within those ages, the more advanced fully compensating by knack and habit what they lose in activity. Unquestionably, there is a good deal of difference between the value of one man's labor and that of another, from strength, dexterity, and honest application. But I am quite sure, from my best observation, that any given five men will, in their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... readers will remember, the detective had arranged to carry out a certain plan before he pounced upon the doctor. Our hero had the knack of making little necessary articles, and he had prepared a gag, which he inserted in the man's mouth after having first bound the fellow's hands under him. After inserting the gag, the detective released the man's hands temporarily, until he had removed the prisoner's outer and upper clothing, ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... said to herself as she sealed the letter, and looked at it with admiration, "I really have a knack for doing those things. I should think Aspasia Corfield would ask him by return—me, too, if she has any decency, though she has dropped me for fifteen years. She has a tribe of daughters.—Why I should play Miss ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Standifer, who, without a perceptible movement of his arm, shot Benton Sharp through the heart. It seems that the new Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History has been an old-time Indian fighter and ranger for many years, which accounts for the happy knack he ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... a bit of blue sky to go with them. They used to seem in those days, as I looked, mostly poor, underground creatures living in a sort of Subway of Things in a hateful, hard, little world of clothes, each with his little study or trick or knack of appearances, standing there and selling people their good looks day after day at so ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... cordially by the hands. I then commenced business as showman to the prince and this mass of people. At first his highness was timid, and would not look through the glasses of the peepshows, but when the people began he followed, and acquired the knack of looking through in a very short time. My compass and watch and keys were then all examined, and produced great amusement. What pleased him much was the screw by which the compass was stopped. I was dreadfully frightened ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... I tell you, or, what's better, show you. Come now, you devils. Look at the heels (Rasper's and Scrub's) of them ponies! Did ever you see anything like them!—look at the cutting there—Tony Dowlan never had the knack o' that tasty work in his dirty finger and thumb—and who done that? Why Mikey Brian—didn't I see him myself; and isn't he the boy that can 'bang Bannaker' at anything! Oh! he'll cut us elegant!—he'll do the squad for a fi'penny—and then, lads, there's them five others will be just one a-piece ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... soul. And every time he returned home he was more restless. So the Boones moved from place to place and each time others went along with them. Daniel had a knack of leadership, but no sooner would everyone be settled around him than he'd pack up and go to another place. Daniel couldn't be crowded. He had to have elbow room no matter where he had ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... for my valet. He looks quite a gentleman when dressed in his Sunday clothes, and his Scotch shrewdness serves us many a good turn. He has the knack of arresting any little advantages floating on the stream of travel, and securing them ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... your old knack of catching a tune, Moll. Come hither, wench, and sit upon my knee, for I do love ye more than ever. Give me a buss, chuck; this fine husband of thine shall not have all thy sweetness ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... and died something more than two centuries ago; but the Tregeagle or Tergagle of legend belongs to folk-lore rather than to modern social life. Very old ideas and superstitions have in some manner become attached to a recent name; tradition has a knack of bringing forward its dates; stories of immemorial antiquity are related as though they were the experience of the narrator's father or grandfather, and are modernised to suit that supposition. Legend ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... think it a great pity that he had not settled himself ashore in a good city practice," continued Dr. Ferris. "He had a great knack at pleasing people and making friends, and he was always spoiling for want of work. I was ready enough to shirk my part of that, you may be sure, but if you start with a reasonably healthy set of men, crew and officers, and keep good discipline, and ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... minute, Bob," said Mr. Waterman. Bob handed it over and his tutor showed him how to cast. Bob was awkward at first but he was soon casting very nicely. Bob was so interested trying to get the knack of casting that he wholly forgot that he was on a lake full of trout. He was therefore very much surprised to feel his fly ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... temporis acti [Lat.]. rule, standing order, precedent, routine; red-tape, red-tapism^; pipe clay; rut, groove. cacoethes [Lat.]; bad habit, confirmed habit, inveterate habit, intrinsic habit &c; addiction, trick. training &c (education) 537; seasoning, second nature, acclimatization; knack &c V. be wont &c adj.. fall into a rut, fall into a custom &c (conform to) 82; tread the beaten track, follow the beaten track, tread the beaten path, follow the beaten; stare super antiquas vias [Lat.]; move in a rut, run on in a groove, go round like a horse in a mill, go on in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Holl's protestations that Harry ought not to trouble the gentleman, the two lads were soon deep in their Caesar. Frank found, to his surprise, that the cripple boy had a wonderful knack of grasping the sense of passages, but that never having been regularly taught to construe, he was unable to apply the rules of grammar which he had learned. Frank taught him how to do this, how to take a sentence to pieces, how to parse it word by word, and to see how each word depended upon ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... failed to make a sensation, so far, and he had not been used to that sort of thing recently. For years he had been the cause of something unusual, every few hours, and in ways about as he chose. As it was now, he seemed to have lost his knack at this art, and to have fallen into the condition of an ordinary individual, concerning whom ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... a knack of persuading one to do what you will, even though one be disposed to take no notice of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... his own, and he hid his timidity under a brusque manner which gave him credit for a keener penetration than he actually possessed. And, strangely enough, Fate, with sardonic humor, had given him a knack, which so few painters possess, of catching on canvas the elusive charm of his feminine sitters, of investing with grace those characteristics he professed so much to despise. He had told Hermia Challoner that he did ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... What sort of man was Zachary? He was eminently sensible and conciliatory; he contrived to make northern barbarians hear reason in a way which puts him high among that section of the early popes who had the knack of managing uneducated swordsmen. He kept the peace in Italy to an extent which historians mention with admiration. Even Bale, that Maharajah of pope-haters, allows himself to quote in favor of Zachary, that "multa Papalem dignitatem decentia, eademque praeclara (scilicet) ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... is keenly developed, languages—or, in fact, anything else—can be learnt with amazing facility. The "knack" of learning languages is only due to observation; the greatest scientific discoveries have been due to mere observation; the greatest commercial enterprises are based on the practical results of observation. But ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... great as my vanity in repeating them; and yet in the whole narrative I can scarce promise you one adventure, as my account is rather of what I saw than what I did. The first misfortune of my life, which you all know, was great; but tho' it distrest, it could not sink me. No person ever had a better knack at hoping than I. The less kind I found fortune at one time, the more I expected from her another, and being now at the bottom of her wheel, every new revolution might lift, but could not depress me. I proceeded, therefore, towards London in ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... encouraged by overhearing the duke of Argyle, who sat in the next box to us, say, 'It will do—it must do! I see it in the eyes of them.' This was a good while before the first act was over, and so gave us ease soon; for that duke, besides his own good taste, has a particular knack, as any one now living, in discovering the taste of the publick. He was quite right in this, as usual; the good-nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... Dominie had frequently declined to write as he was bidden, and had suggested alterations which were invariably accepted, but to his astonishment Andrew would not give in. "I'll be stepping, then," he said coolly, "for if you hinna the knack o't I ken ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... his governing body, of which Aldous was one. The affair was difficult, personal, odious. To have wasted nearly three hours upon it was, to a man of Aldous's type, to have lost a day. Besides he had not his grandfather's knack in such things, and was ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... against the girl's shoulder. "It seems as if I might have saved more," he said, pitifully, "but—I have had heavy expenses, and somehow I didn't seem to have the knack that some men have. I made one or two investments that didn't turn out well. I didn't ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... her arm and uttering little panic-stricken shrieks that irritated Nan beyond measure. No one could conceive how hard it was for the girl not to desert her clinging companion. She knew in her heart that Louie would never master the knack unless she were made to rely upon herself. As long as she could depend on Nan's support she would not make any effort to use her own energy, nor would she exert her will-power to force herself to strike out alone. The ice was in perfect condition to-day, but it would not long remain ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... stakes and went to sea a bit. Trav. "Mem. Yankees, instead of putting up gravestones, pull up stakes, and go to sea, when a parent dies" [Aloud] You did not follow the sea long, for you have not the air of a mariner. Land. why, you see, I had a leetle knack at the coopering business; and larning that them folks that carry it on in the West Indies die off fast, I calculated I should stand a chance to get a handsome living there. Trav. And so you turned sailor ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... bonnet well, because it has been sent to me often for renovation. On one particular occasion it arrived in a cardboard box. On the top of the bonnet was a bunch of flowers, beautiful enough to make any bonnet accompanying it welcome, in whatever state of dilapidation. Aunt Cecilia has a knack of sending just the right sort of flowers, and they always bring a message, which everybody's ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... one episode, had it been possible. A month's separation had taught him to see how very silly he had been in regard to this woman,—and had also detracted much from those charms which had delighted him on board ship. She was pretty, she was clever, she had the knack of being a pleasant companion. But how much more than all these was wanted in a wife? And then he knew nothing about her. She might be, or have been, all that was disreputable. If he could not shake himself free from her, she would be a millstone ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... 1832, the time which we are considering, Madame Hanska was not even a name to Balzac; she was merely "L'Etrangere," an unknown woman who might be pretty or ugly, young or old; but who at any rate possessed the knack—or perhaps the author of "Seraphita" or of "Louis Lambert" would have said the power by transmutation of thought and sympathy—of interesting him ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... we are, you and I must do it, Bigot. Zounds! I learned to dig and delve when I was a stripling at Charlebourg, and in the trenches at Louisbourg, and I have not yet forgotten the knack of it! But where to get spades, Bigot; you are master ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... never could do all this. And yet I thought myself a fine fellow, I warrant you. And these sums! why man! I must make you my agent. I need one, I'm sure; for though I get an accountant every two or three years to do up my books, they somehow have the knack of getting wrong again. Those quarries, Mrs. Browne, which every one says are so valuable, and for the stone out of which receive orders amounting to hundreds of pounds, what d'ye think was the profit I made last ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... magistrate's office, and he could not induce a settlement without trial, he would generally refer them to some young attorney, for whom he would speak a good word at the same time. He was ever kind and courteous to these young beginners when he was the opposing counsel. He had a happy knack of setting them at their ease and encouraging them. In consequence he was the favorite of all who came in contact with him. When his heart was in a case he was a powerful advocate. I have heard more than one attorney say that it was little use to expect a favorable ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... carrying of the wand I may say I am almost perfect in already. I've been at it in the garden with your kind good lady since I came. I found it a bit difficult at first, sir. There's what you might call a knack to it, though from the congregation it looks simple enough. But there, what does a congregation know of the things a verger has to master any more than it does of what is required of a good chemist? Often and often when I was ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... of life and person, and was everywhere at home. In walking and riding, in skating and running, in games out of doors and in, no one of us all in the neighborhood was so expert, so agile as he. For, above all things, he had what we Yankees call faculty,—the knack of doing everything. If he rode with a neighbor who was a good horseman, Theodore, who was a Centaur, when he mounted, would put any horse at any gate or fence; for it did not occur to him that he could not do whatever was to be done. Often, after writing for a few hours in the morning, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... little thing. And moreover, I never paid a dollar for any man's vote and never promised one. There are some ways of doing a thing that are as good as others which other people don't happen to think about, or don't have the knack of succeeding in, if they do happen to think of them. My dear sir, I am obliged to knock some of your expenses in the head—for never a cent was paid a Congressman or Senator on the part ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... wheeled down in an easy-chair and superintending his riding. As these horses had little to do and were full of spirit, Vincent's powers were often taxed to the utmost, and he had many falls; but the soil was light, and he had learned the knack of falling easily, and from constant practice was able at the age of fourteen to stick on firmly even without a saddle, and was absolutely fearless as to ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... Croly, her husband, long a newspaper man of admitted power and executive force, Mrs. Croly was a constant help, as he too was to her. From him she learned not a little of her topical discernment and technical knack. He was never afraid of ability in whomever found, and he rejoiced that the sex of his wife, and the novel fact that she was the first woman in America to write daily for publication, gave to her and her subjects a vogue he and his could not command in ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... cleared. "You've got a knack," he said, almost graciously, "of putting a fellow in a good humour with himself, ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... familiarising ourselves with the ethics of Scripture, and with the hopes and powers that are treasured in Jesus Christ, so that our minds are made up upon a great many thorny questions as to what we ought to do, and that when crises or dangers come, as they have a knack of coming, very suddenly, and are sprung upon us unexpectedly, we shall be able, without much difficulty, or much time spent in perplexed searching, to fall back upon the principles that decide our conduct—that is essential to all ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... having no bearing on the question before him, which had been entertained by another set of tutors—those of Christchurch—where Selwyn had many friends, and where, probably enough, he indulged in many collegian's freaks. This knack of bringing up a mere suspicion, is truly characteristic of the Oxford Don, and since the same Head of this House—Dr. Newton—acknowledged that Selwyn was, during his Oxford career, neither intemperate, dissolute, nor a gamester, it is fair to give him the advantage of ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... Philetas professed to teach the art of poetry. A French critic and poet of our own time, M. Baudelaire, was willing to do as much 'in thirty lessons.' Possibly Philetas may have imparted technical rules then in vogue, and the fashionable knack of introducing obscure mythological allusions. He was a logician as well as a poet, and is fabled to have died of vexation because he could not unriddle one of the metaphysical catches or puzzles of the sophists. His varied activity seems to have worn him to a shadow; the contemporary satirists ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... gave his leisure to his grandchildren. He carved for us with his knife, with an especial knack for willow whistles. He showed us the colors that lay upon the world when we looked at it through one of the glass pendants of the parlor chandelier. He sat by us when we played duck-on-the-rock. He helped us with our kites and gave a superintendence to our toys. ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... there is no doubt of that; he is the happiest person in the family, by all odds; but then I think he has a natural knack at being happy; it is impossible for anything to ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... hill side. And he would struggle, as of old, to keep the front place, though by this time his "wind" had greatly failed. He would occasionally invite an old friend to take a quiet wrestle with him on the lawn, to keep up his skill, and perhaps to try some new "knack" of throwing. In the evening, he would sometimes indulge his visitors by reciting the old pastoral of "Damon and Phyllis," or singing his favourite song of "John Anderson my Joe." But his greatest glory amongst those with whom he was most ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... things to do in the cultivation of Attention is to learn to think of, and do, one thing at a time. Acquiring the "knack" or habit of attending closely to the things before us, and then passing on to the next and treating it in the same way, is most conducive to success, and its practice is the best exercise for the cultivation of the faculty of Attention. And on the contrary, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... could have done it easily," the Colonel declared, "only unfortunately there don't seem to have been any women about. Why, I've seen it done in Korea with a turn of the wrist. It's all knack." ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... made him go," loyally. "He had scruples, but really they seemed too silly, and Lorraine looked so ill, and he always has the knack of cheering her up and ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... the Duke of Argyll, who sat in the next box to us, say, 'It will do—it must do! I see it in the eyes of them.' This was a good while before the first act was over, and so gave us ease soon; for that Duke (besides his own good taste) has a particular knack, as any one now living, in discovering the taste of the public. He was quite right in this, as usual; the good-nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamour ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... was lost altogether, and once or twice a poor cook who could not swim was drowned by the boat filling and capsizing. The frail craft of this kind were of curious shape, and only a person who had the knack could row them. No more comical sport could be witnessed than the lurky race which was held every season. Many of the cooks never acquired the art of rowing straight, and whenever they put a spurt on the lurky would run amuck ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... began, and, attracting a crowd, was "moved on" by a policeman. A gentleman who recognised him proposed an adjournment to the beach, and there a sermon was preached, and has been repeated by Mr. Hall on several occasions, with a congregation of thousands. He has a peculiar knack of speaking in a tongue "understanded of the people," and his address to the Fairlop crowd on that Friday night "told" considerably. At its conclusion he quietly put on his hat, dropped into the crowd, and went his way; but the tone of criticism amongst his hearers was very favourable, ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies |
