"Originality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... buildings of Alexandria. In an obituary article published in the "Revue des Deux Mondes," Theophile Gautier wrote: "Marilhat was a Syrian Arab. He must have had in his veins some blood of the Saracens whom Charles Martel did not kill.... One of the glories of Marilhat was that he preserved his originality in presence of Decamps. The talents of these two men are parallel lines, it is true, but they do not touch each other. The more fruitful fancy of the one is balanced by the character in the works of ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... prepared to play an independent part without noise and show, assimilating that which commended itself to his mind, and rejecting that which found no appropriate soil in him, in a manner characteristic of genuine originality. ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... agents of the world's destiny, yet were simply bores of a very intense water. Such, I imagine, is the invariable character of persons who crowd so closely about an original thinker as to draw in his unuttered breath and thus become imbued with a false originality. This triteness of novelty is enough to make any man of common-sense blaspheme at all ideas of less than a century's standing, and pray that the world may be petrified and rendered immovable in precisely the worst moral and physical state that ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... get credit, even from their enemies, for being a quick-witted, imaginative, and artistic people, yet they display astonishingly little taste or originality in their domestic architecture. In Connaught, where the Celtic genius may be supposed to have the freest opportunity for expressing itself, the towns are all exactly alike, and their resemblance consists in the ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... had to sit there with her for certain hours while she taught them sewing and all the early Victorian virtues. Their father made himself responsible for the rest of their education, which he conducted with considerable vigour and originality. Maria, the eldest, was the child of promise. Long before Maria was eleven he "conversed" with her on "the leading topics of the day, with as much pleasure and freedom as with any ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... realized that in Washington, willing or unwilling, I might be compelled to do, to a certain extent, what other people pleased; but such demands have their reasonable limits, and I therefore determined to ignore the dictates of fashionable sentiment and practice a little originality on my own account. I accordingly decided to wear a handsome and elaborate dress of a fashion of at least a generation before—a light, blue silk with its many flounces embroidered in straw in imitation of sheaves of wheat. In former years ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... a strange mediaeval tale in prose—when he published "Atalanta in Calydon" in 1865. I remember taking up the quarto in white cloth, at the Oxford Union, and being instantly led captive by the beauty and originality ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... employ the facts of life, not for the sake of the fact, but to communicate his feeling by thus bodying it forth in concrete symbols, there is explicit testimony. In an essay dealing with his own method of composition, Poe writes: "I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view . . . I say to myself, in the first place, 'of the innumerable effects or impressions of which the heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select?' Having chosen a novel first, and secondly, a vivid ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... her peace; and all I could do was to stand and stare and then hold out my hand. She took it formally, though her color heightened. I saluted Aunt Lucinda also, who glared at me. "How do you do?" I said to them both, with much originality and daring. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... impresses itself upon them as easily as the name of the brewery is impressed on a beer bottle. And their function is to catch all the young fellows attending the university, to drive out of their minds any glimmering originality that may chance to be there, and to put upon them the stamp ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... paltry passions of our nature, and having never attempted to conceal them, he awakens us to reflection upon ourselves while we contemplate in him a being of our own species, yet different from any other, and whose originality excites even more ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... yourself? Your fathers believed the old Confessions, imagined Christ to be divine, and the Scriptures inspired. We do not blame them much, for they knew no better. But, if you follow in their footsteps, the world will never give you any credit for originality; your slow chariot will move on in the old rut; you will never accomplish anything; your generation will be in advance of you. Be a man! The field of usefulness, prominence, and honor, opens before you. Think for yourself! ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... tending more and more to the confirmation of Lachmann's general view, but to the rejection of his specific conclusions. That is to say: The poem is a working-over of old songs; but just how many of these there were, where the dividing lines come, and how much merit of originality may rightly be claimed for the nameless 12th century ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... architect of Verona; Selva, Domenico Rossi, Visentini, have drawn the plans and directed the construction of these princely dwellings, without reckoning the unknown artists of the Middle Ages who built the most picturesque and most romantic of them—those which give Venice its stamp and its originality. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... performance, with little touches that recall both Balzac and Meredith. Mr. Hope, being disinclined to follow any of the beaten tracks of romance writing, is endowed with exceeding originality."—New York Times. ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... one point of view, and one artistic method. Nay, further, he has one supreme interest, which he pursues everywhere with a constancy shown by hardly any other poet; and, in consequence, his works have a unity and a certain originality, which make them in many ways a ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... whose brutality has not a single redeeming feature. It has neither wisdom nor wit, no spirit, no genius, no impulsiveness, scarcely the mirth of boyish frolic. A narrow range of stale practical jokes, lighted up by no gleam of originality, is transmitted from year to year with as much fidelity as the Hebrew Bible, and not half the latitude allowed to clergymen of the English Established Church. But besides its platitude, its one overpowering ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... each writer, one in making notes of commonplaces on sleep, the other in a speech about sleep, uses the regular expression 'Uprouse,' and the poetical commonplace 'Golden sleep' for 'Good rest.' There was no originality in ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... the virtue of originality," she admitted, "and it never fails to excite curiosity. I am sorry you were misled. Nothing could be more distressing than to be mistaken for the heroine of a story and then turn out to be a mere nobody in the end. I've no doubt that ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... upwards of forty years since Sir Walter Scott published his Border Minstrelsy, and during his 'raids,' as he facetiously termed his excursions of discovery in Liddesdale, Teviotdale, Tyndale, and the Merse, very few ballads of any note or originality could possibly escape his enthusiastic inquiry; for, to his love of ballad literature, he added the patience and research of a genuine antiquary. Yet, no doubt many ballads did escape, and still remain scattered ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... Dawson, Congregational preacher and evangelist, was born in Towcester, Northamptonshire, in 1854. He was educated at Kingswood School, Bath, and Didsbury College, Manchester. He has long been known as an author of originality and pure literary style. In 1906 he received the pastorate of Highbury Quadrant Congregational Church, London, and accepted an invitation to do general evangelistic work under the auspices of the National Council of the Congregational ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... Amazons, by Mr. PINERO, is a specimen of the genus. To see The Amazons ought to supply the terms of the required definition. I have seen it, and yet the definition does not satisfy me. "Original"! Well—more or less; but to use old materials in a novel manner is quite enough for originality. The girl brought up as a boy is not absolutely new or original, vide Tom Noddy's Secret, and multiply the heroine of that farce by three. The three men hunting after the three girls and obtaining access to them at school—substituting, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... "almost too tired to stand." We note that one of the pupils' names is given as "Robert Elsmere." While it may not be essentially a fault thus to use the name of a famous character of fiction, we feel that the exercise of a little more originality might have avoided this appropriation of Mrs. Humphry Ward's celebrated hero. Miss Guilford's fundamental talent is unmistakable, but needs cultivation and practice before it can shine out in ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... his time singularly exceptional) of harmonising the ideas of mediaeval mysticism with some of the most characteristic features of modern religious thought. A man of deep and somewhat ascetic piety, and gifted with much originality and with a cultured and progressive mind, he had many readers and a few earnest and admiring adherents, yet was never greatly in sympathy with the age in which he lived. Three or four generations earlier, or three or four generations ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... His very paternity was obscure, although the village of Gavrillac had long since dispelled the cloud of mystery that hung about it. Those simple Brittany folk were not so simple as to be deceived by a pretended relationship which did not even possess the virtue of originality. When a nobleman, for no apparent reason, announces himself the godfather of an infant fetched no man knew whence, and thereafter cares for the lad's rearing and education, the most unsophisticated of country ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... about that. The originality of men is commonplace as it's most novel. This man is on a par with the rest, if you call it original for him to have ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... scoffer, not only piety, but a better taste, revolted; and had Lord Byron, in touching on such themes in Childe Harold, adopted a tone of levity or derision, (such as, unluckily, he sometimes afterwards descended to,) not all the originality and beauty of his work would have secured for it a prompt or uncontested triumph. As it was, however, the few dashes of scepticism with which he darkened his strain, far from checking his popularity, were among those attractions which, as I have said, independent of all the charms of the poetry, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the utmost dimensions of the board on which it was painted. Rather an original idea, one would say, to have a blue orb of day instead of a golden one—such as adorned so many other inns on the great post-road—but originality had had nothing whatever to do with it. The wandering painter who produced this remarkable work of art happened to have no vestige of any colour but blue left upon his palette, and he discoursed so eloquently of the superiority ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Bible in Spain, a man who is remarkable for his extraordinary powers as a linguist, and for the originality of his character, not to speak of the wonderful adventures he narrates, and the ease and facility with which he tells them. He kept us laughing a good part of breakfast time by the oddity of his remarks, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... enough and had, indeed, during his later years, been something of a society man, but there everything was straight-forward and simple. There was no tradition, no convention, no standard. Because other people did a thing was no reason why you should do it—originality was welcomed rather than otherwise. But here there were so many things that you must do, and so very, very many that you mustn't; and if you were a Trojan, matters were ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... to cut out about one-fourth of the matter, while Franklin tried to comfort the writhing author with his cheerful story about the sign of John Thompson the hatter. Forty-seven years afterwards, in reply to the charge of lack of originality brought against the Declaration by Timothy Pickering and John Adams—charges which have been repeated at intervals ever since—Jefferson replied philosophically: "Whether I gathered my ideas from reading ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... told me that the originality and beauty of the designs which the Wilkinses had furnished the firm of late had attracted general attention; that they had said the best ones were the work of a sister in England, the others of the sister living with them. When he told ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... The want of originality, which among the mestizos, appears to arise from their equivocal position, is also to be found among the natives. Distinctly marked national customs, which one would naturally expect to find in such an isolated part of the world, are sought for in vain, and again and again the stranger ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... streaming crowd on the sidewalks flowing by. The ladies (and the same in Denver) are all fashionably drest, and have the look of "gentility" in face, manner and action, but they do not have, either in physique or the mentality appropriate to them, any high native originality of spirit or body, (as the men certainly have, appropriate to them.) They are "intellectual" and fashionable, but dyspeptic-looking and generally doll-like; their ambition evidently is to copy their eastern sisters. Something far different and in advance must appear, to tally ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... had hitherto been content if her half-learnt lessons did not win a scolding from Miss Harper, began to put more zeal into her work. She was a bright girl, and could easily win class laurels if she wished, though she disliked any continuous efforts. Her essays were full of originality, and she was quick at understanding anything which required reasoning, but she had little patience for remembering dates and facts, and was not capable of Patty's steady plodding. Though both Maud Greening and Kitty Harrison had become more friendly, Vera ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... he would change to the inside of the coach when an opportunity should offer, and leave the Superior Being to sit "wrapped in the solitude of his own originality." ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... pensive—his graceful and quiet manners, all told in his favour, and gave him a good start, but further acquaintance always sustained the first impression. He was intelligent and well-informed, without any alarming originality, or too positive convictions. He listened not only with patience but with interest to all, and ever avoided controversy. Here are some of the elements of a ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... was regarded in her set as a wit, a reputation acquired by reason of the fact that she possessed a certain knack for adapting slang humorously (for there was no originality to her alleged wit), now bent her head and looked at her brother incredulously. "My word! ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... those of us who have been raised in respect for German science and in admiration for its methods, as well as for its discoveries. Certainly, from Liebig to Roentgen and to Behring, from Kant to Wundt, Germany has counted many distinguished pioneers. In the matter of fecund originality, however, and creative inspiration, Italy and France have always equaled, if not surpassed, her. She has had no Marconi, no Pasteur ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... seriously to grieve over her hopeless lack of artistic talent and she had never attempted to caricature. Tims was thinking of a young fellow of a college who had lately died of brain disease. In the earlier stages of his insanity, it had been remarked that he had an originality which had not been his when in a normal state. What if her friend were developing the same terrible disease? If it were so, it was no use fussing, since there was no remedy. Still, she felt a desperate need to ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... of the form of expression which sorrow takes in Caucasian life, I must close my brief and imperfect sketch of Caucasian literature. I hope I have amply proved the assertions which I made in a previous paper with regard to the originality and innate intellectual capacity of the Caucasian highlanders; but whether I have or not, the reader must, I am sure, admit that the proverbs, songs and anecdotes above translated are at least indications of great latent capability, of unusual versatility ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... and the String. One of the best illustrations I know of the keenness and originality of a wild bear's mind and senses, is found in Mr. W. H. Wright's account of the grizzly bear he did not catch with an elk bait and two set guns, in the Bitter Root Mountains. This story is related in ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... general as ill suited to the production of vigorous native poetry as the flower-pots of a hot-house to the growth of oaks. That the author of the Paradise Lost should have written the Epistle to Manso was truly wonderful. Never before were such marked originality and such exquisite, mimicry found together. Indeed in all the Latin poems of Milton the artificial manner indispensable to such works is admirably preserved, while, at the same time, his genius gives to them a peculiar charm, an air ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Carolina, acted with boldness and originality. He divided his little army into two bodies, one of which cooeperated with Marion's partisans in the northeastern part of the state, and threatened Cornwallis's communications with the coast. The other body he sent under Morgan to the ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... slightly indented flutings." He then suggests certain improvements in the design, which would have made the bridge "unexceptionably the most novel and the most tasteful in the metropolis. Even as it is, it is scarcely surpassed for lightness, elegance, and originality by any in Europe. It is of the same family with the beautiful little bridge in Hyde Park, between the new entrance and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... was why the Black Colonel had sent me the historic epistle, laughing in his sleeve, I had no doubt, at the slim originality of his method. He was for gentle means, if he could so win his ends and Marget, but if they answered not, then, like my Lord Mar with Jock Forbes of Inverernan, he would be "forced to put other means into execution." While I was the immediate target for his threat, ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... admirable one. The problems which he faced were varied and difficult, but most of them were met sensibly and with success. To be sure, he did not grasp the social and economic forces behind the monetary agitation; nor did he have the insight and originality necessary for attacking the problem of industrial unrest as it appeared in the strike of 1877. But neither did his associates, nor his successors in the presidency for many years to come. On the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... natural originality pleased me greatly, and as we were going up the steps at the landing-place, I offered her my full apologies; she accepted the carriage. I ordered breakfast, and told a 'vetturino' to get a very handsome chaise ready while we had our ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the ledger school of criticism; Milton's strength and originality; his choice of a sacred subject; earlier attempts in England and France; Boileau's opinion; Milton's choice of metre an innovation; the little influence on Milton of Spenser, and of Donne; Milton a pupil of the dramatists; the history of dramatic blank verse; Milton's handling of the measure; ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... pushing forward to a position in the field of juvenile journalism that will make it the ne plus ultra. Its stories sparkle with originality and interest, and its poems are the best. Published at $3 a year by James Elverson, Philadelphia, Pa. Send for ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... in the humorous portrait of old Nestor, or make us suppose that the sympathetic mockery of the poet is the sycophantic adulation of the editor to his statesman employer, Pisistratus. If any question may be left to literary discrimination it is the authentic originality of the portrayal ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... Professor Bales, of the University, lectured here on 'The Prime Function of Education.' He said it was the development of the individual, and that the chief end of educational work was the promotion of originality. And yet, when I think along original lines—when I depart from stereotyped formulae, and state boldly that I will not accept any religion, be it Presbyterian, Methodist, or Roman Catholic, that makes a God of spirit the creator ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... adopted. In this case Jefferson rendered a service similar to that of framing the Declaration of Independence. His plan was somewhat theoretical and visionary, but largely practical, and it was constructive work of a high order, displaying not so much originality as sympathetic appreciation of what had already been done and an instinctive forecast of future development. Jefferson seemed to be able to gather up ideas, some conscious and some latent in men's minds, and to express them in a ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... altered her superficially. Parisian polish became rust on this coarsely tempered soul. Gifted with a cunning which had become unfathomable, as it always does in those whose celibacy is genuine, with the originality and sharpness with which she clothed her ideas, in any other position she would have been formidable. Full of spite, she was capable of bringing discord into ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... all learning is possible. It makes possible the preservation of our social inheritance. As James says, "Habit is the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent." Because of its power of limitation it is sometimes considered the foe of independence and originality, but in reality it is the only road to progress. Other things being equal, the more good habits a person has, the greater the probability of his doing original work. The genius in science or in art or in statesmanship is the man who has made habitual many of the activities ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view—for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest—I say to myself, in the first place, "Of the innumerable effects or impressions of which the heart, the intellect, ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... Scene des six derniers livres de L'Eneide. Par C.V. de Bonstetten. Geneva, 1805. 8vo.—The first part of this work, the nature of which is expressed by the title, is much superior to the travels of Addison, in extent of classical research, in originality of views, and in clearness of description: in this part there are also interesting particulars respecting Latium. In the second part, the author principally dwells on the Campagna, the causes of its depopulation, and its agriculture; this introduces ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... and a free use of the songs of other bards, are features perfectly consistent with poetical originality. In fact, the most original writer is still drawing upon outward impressions—nay, even his own thoughts are a kind of secondary agents which support and feed the impulses of imagination. But unless there be some grand pervading principle—some invisible, yet most distinctly ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... asserted by experts that he owed the success of his watch, not so much to originality of invention, as to the exquisite skill and precision of his workmanship. He had one of the most perfect mechanical hands that ever existed. It was the touch of ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... in America, why could he not do the same in Scotland? But I never had the courage to use that argument, though it was often on the tip of my tongue, and instead I agreed with him heartily adding, with reckless originality, 'If the man stuck to his work, and kept away ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... one could by no means call her, but, enchanted by her natural loveliness, her mind, and her unaffectedness, you forgot this in a few moments. A rare facility in appreciating the comic of every-day life, and a good-humored originality in its representation, always afforded her rich material for conversation. It was as if Nature, in a moment of thoughtlessness, had formed an insipid countenance, but immediately afterward strove to make good her fault by breathing into it a soul, which, even through pale blue eyes, pale ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... remains one of the first of his time, through his originality and polished form. He is an exalted lyrical singer who seldom bothers about the good and humble truth, which French poets are now seeking so persistently and patiently. He strives to set down dreams, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... largely Stoic in tone. He has nothing but contempt for the Epicureans, and cannot forgive their neglect of literary style. As Cicero's philosophical writings have been severely attacked for want of originality, it is only fair to recollect that he resorted to philosophy as an anodyne when suffering from mental anguish, and that he wrote incredibly fast. He issued two editions of his Academics. The first ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... this has been excelled by any modern Christian teacher, though the vivid originality of the Buddha's and of St. Paul's descriptions of love cannot be denied. The subject, however, is too many-sided for me to attempt to describe it here. Suffice it to say that the men of the coming religion will be distinguished ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... into feudal laws." Thus we see that the principal subject of the book is the relation of laws to the circumstances of the country in which they exist. In this also is its chief value and its claim to originality. The Philosophers of the eighteenth century, following the example of the churches, believed that there was an absolute standard of justice to which all laws could easily be referred, independently of the country in which the laws ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... earliest visit pay, And faded maids their lingering blooms delay. Delightful scenes of elegance and ease! Realms of the gay, where every sport can please." 297Thus sings the Bath poet, Bayly; who, if he is somewhat too servile an imitation of Moore in his style, has certainly more of originality in his matter than generally distinguishes poems of such a local nature. One of the greatest characters in the city of Bath was the worthy host of our hotel, the Castle; at whose door stood the rubicund visage of our Cheltenham ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... wear velvet coats are atheists. He probably overstated the amount of intellectual and spiritual audacity to be expected from him who, setting the picturesque before the conventional, dons a coat of velvet. But it really does require some originality even to wear a white hat and a white waistcoat in a London July. The heat is never so great but that the majority of males endure black coats and black shiny hats. The others are in a minority. The voice ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... apt to give to beginners—"Go to the theatre; study its conditions and mechanism for yourself"—is, in fact, of very doubtful value. It might, in many cases, be wiser to warn the aspirant to keep himself unspotted from the playhouse. To send him there is to imperil, on the one hand, his originality of vision, on the other, his individuality of method. He may fall under the influence of some great master, and see life only through his eyes; or he may become so habituated to the current tricks of the theatrical ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... the prime of life should settle their differences with their fists. Young Lincoln's few serious combats were satisfactorily decisive, and neither they nor his friendly wrestling bouts ended in the quarrels which were too common among his neighbours. Thus, for all his originality and oddity, he early grew accustomed to mix in the sort of company he was likely to meet, without either inward shrinking or the need ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... of the government, and probably from the effects of his long incarceration in a damp, unhealthy jail. It is the best and most scriptural guide that has ever appeared to aid us in the performance of relative duties: written with originality of thought and that peculiar and pious earnestness which so ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... arm, thinking how many successive generations of boys and girls she had drilled through 'free-hand,' 'perspective,' and even 'life' with an unvarying average of failure and very moderate success, and how little talent or originality had come to the front, though all might be the better for knowing how to use ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his earlier Oracles. Some have claimed a literary habit for the stock of Abiathar.(97) Yet the first words of God to Jeremiah—before I formed thee in the body I knew thee, and before thou camest forth from the womb I hallowed thee(98)—as well as the singular originality he developed, rather turn us away from his family traditions ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... might talk without an object Jealous without having the right to be jealous Lovers never separate kindly Magnificent air of those beggars of whom small towns are proud Nobody troubled himself about that originality One who first thought of pasting a canvas on a panel Simple people who doubt neither themselves nor others Superior men sometimes lack cleverness The door of one's room opens on the infinite The one whom you will love and who will love you will harm you The past is the only human ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger
... aims at arriving at the simple sense of the text, the so-called "Pesohat,'' on solid grammatical principles. It is in this that, although he takes a great part of his exegetical material from his predecessors, the originality of his mind is everywhere apparent, an originality which displays itself also in the witty and lively language of his commentaries. To judge by certain signs, of which Spinoza in his Tractatus Theologico Politicus makes ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... theories the practice of Louis XI., Nietzsche's that of Napoleon I.). The critic recognises the tentative steps of genius in letters. The work of fine delicacy and reserve, the work that follows, lacking the real originality, is liable to neglect, and may become the victim of ill-luck, unfair influence, or other extraneous factors. Yet on the whole, so numerous are the publics of to-day, there never, perhaps, was a time when supreme genius or even supreme talent was so sure of recognition. ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... other man likely to be making love to his daughter. Nevertheless he had brought back a plan with him from Scotland, which, he thought, would put an end to all future difficulties. The helplessness of Lucy Bertram had moved his heart. Besides, he was more amused than he cared to own by the originality of the Dominie. He had easily obtained, by means of Mr. Mac-Morlan, a furnished house in the neighbourhood of Ellangowan, and he resolved for a time at least to repose himself there after his campaigns. His daughter Julia would ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Ludmilla was found the next day by Mrs. Henderson, crying softly over her work at the mosaic department-work which was only the mechanical arrangement from patterns provided, for she had no originality, and would never attain to ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... avoiding the dictation of the workmen in the town. The Parisian fancy work employs a large number of people who can work at their own homes. In this, and in the whole industry of Paris, the division of labour is very great; but the fancy work offers a good deal of scope for originality and taste, and the workman of Paris is glad to furnish both. He will delight himself by working night and day to execute a sudden order, to be equal to some great occasion; but he cannot so well be depended upon when the work falls again into its even, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... bids me add," continued the lawyer, consulting a little sheet of notes, "that although these volumes are very valuable to the practical builder, you must be careful not to lose originality. He tells you also not to be 'hadden doun'—his own expression—by the theory of strains, and that Portland cement, properly sanded, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he quietly observed, "without meaning to put forward any pretentious claims to originality, but by simply turning to account some advantages that have never before befallen contemplative mortal eye, why not construct a little hypothesis of our own regarding the nature of these grooves and the causes that gave them birth? Look at that great chasm just ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... meditation, in—to tell the truth—the invention of foolish terms of endearment: "Dear Wife," "Dear Little Wife Thing," "Sweetest Dearest Little Wife," "Dillywings." A pretty employment! And these are quite a fair specimen of his originality during those wonderful days. A moment of heart-searching in that particular matter led to the discovery of hitherto undreamt-of kindred with Swift. For Lewisham, like Swift and most other people, had hit upon, the Little Language. Indeed it was ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... the "Iliad." The immediate success of these performances seems to have set him upon his next poem, the "Essay on Criticism," which was published by Lewis in 1711. His mastery over his medium was still more noticeable than the originality of his thought. But this cento of exquisitely chiselled critical commonplaces goes far toward being a chef d'oeuvre of mere manipulative skill; and we are still, by our daily use of some of its lines, justifying the truth of Addison's dictum, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... the discovery of perpetually various interest amidst the incidents of actual life; and the absence of inventive capacity is very assuredly proved by the narrow selection of subjects which commonly appear on the walls of our exhibitions. But yet it is to be always remembered, that more originality may be shown in giving interest to a well-known subject than in discovering a new one; that the greatest poets whom the world has seen have been contented to retouch and exalt the creations of their predecessors; and that the painters of the ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... captains of the age, and, moreover, the masses, as they appeared in their blind tusslings, are restored to sight with the freshness and fulness of Nature. Although this historical review is strictly illustrative, it is altogether incomparable for vividness and originality of presentation. The treatment of official personages is startlingly new. All ceremony toward them gives place to a fearful familiarity, as of one who not only sees through and through them, but oversees. Grave Emptiness and strutting Vanity, found in high places, are mocked with immortal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... the hope of catching something to make his mournful number complete. He happens upon Mr. Jonas Academy, an honest cracker, from Christ's parish, who visits the city on a little business. Jonas is a person of great originality, is enclosed in loosely-setting homespun, has a woe-begone countenance, and wears a large-brimmed felt hat. He is just the person to make the number complete, and is led in, unconscious of the object for which he finds himself ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... world. Willis is the lightest and most mercurial 'knight of the quill' in all the tournament. It is astonishing with what dexterity, felicity, and grace he touches off the veriest trifle of the day, investing the trite with originality, and giving the value of wit and poetry to the worthless and the dry. Pity that this brilliant 'quid nunc' should degenerate into a mere trifling 'arbiter elegantiarum,' and expend his buoyant and ductile genius in the indictment of ephemeral paragraphs. His genius, it is true, has little ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... followed, and said the things which convulsed us with laughter in our tender years, and which cause us to smile in our maturity in the recollections they bring back. It was the same bold joke and the same grimace. The quips and quirks force on us the fact that there is but little originality in the human mind, and this was substantially the reflection of Rounders as he turned an indifferent ear to the wearisome wit. He prided himself on his acumen, and was not to be taken in with such worn buffoonery. Yet I trow that even Rounders envied the children who gave themselves over ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... been felt by one living in an age of bardic production. That independence and originality of thought, which caused Milton to despise the poets of the Restoration, are impossible in the simple stages of civilisation. The scribe who appended this very interesting comment to the subject of his own handiwork must have been ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... are of mixed gold and clay—deep and invigorating truth, dreary and depressing fallacy seem to me combined therein. In George Borrow's works I found a wild fascination, a vivid graphic power of description, a fresh originality, an athletic simplicity (so to speak), which give them a stamp of their own. After reading his Bible in Spain I felt as if I had actually travelled at his side, and seen the "wild Sil" rush from its mountain cradle; wandered in the ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... and tinged with mystery and romance, Montague could understand how Charlie made an interesting and appealing figure. "He says I'm different from any girl he ever met," said Alice—a remark of such striking originality that her cousin could not keep back ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... character of the matter of the entomological bulletins, it will inevitably be influenced by the needs and demands of the people of the respective States, and while originality should be kept in mind, there must needs be in the earlier years of the work much restatement of what is already well known. That some results have been published of work which reflects no particular ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... enjoyed the pleasant give and take of friendly conversation, dearly as I loved even the irresponsible monologue or the biting repartee, yet still more was I attached to the silent worship of the valse's mazy rhythm. 'BUT,' I went on to say, 'but,' I added, with surprising originality, 'every rule has an exception. YOU are the exception. May I have two dances, and then we'll try one ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... is simply nonmoral, we ascribe a greater amount of freedom to it. In the case of a crime we most urgently demand the punishment for such an act; in the case of a virtuous act we rate its merit most highly. In an indifferent case we recognize in it more individuality, originality, and independence. But if even one of the innumerable causes of the act is known to us we recognize a certain element of necessity and are less insistent on punishment for the crime, or the acknowledgment of the merit of the virtuous act, or the freedom of the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... regarding the origin of species of animals in general which has any scientific existence—that propounded by Mr. Darwin. For Lamarck, sagacious as many of his views were, mingled them with so much that was crude and even absurd, as to neutralize the benefit which his originality might have effected, had he been a more sober and cautious thinker; and though I have heard of the announcement of a formula touching "the ordained continuous becoming of organic forms," it is obvious that it is the first duty of a hypothesis to ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... adoration. The people's absolute reign will give to literature and the arts—whose harmonious shape is still but roughly sketched—a splendor boundless as the rest. National cliques cultivate narrowness and ignorance, they cause originality to waste away; and the national academies, to which a residue of superstition lends respect, are only pompous ways of upholding ruins. The domes of those Institutes which look so grand when they tower above you are as ridiculous as ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... traditional paths, the daring pioneer was likely to find insurmountable obstacles placed in the way of his advancement. The studies were "imprisoned" within the limits of a certain set of authors, and originality in thought or teaching was to be ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... There is a refreshing originality (sic) in the al fresco meals partaken of in the fresh open air, in a comfortable trench—so comfortable that legs are twelve inches too long, knees in the way of your chin, and somebody's boots making doormats of your tiny bit of cheese. Water and ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... the walls, it was crowded with casts, lay figures, arms, tripods, vases, draperies, and costumes of all ages, weapons of all nations, books in all tongues. These cumbered the floor; whilst around hung smaller pictures, sketches, and drawings, replete with originality and force. With chalk he could do what he chose. I remember he once drew for me a head of hair with nine of his sweeping, vigorous strokes! Among the studies I remarked that day in his apartment was one of a mother who had just lost her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... peculiar independence of the Englishman's disposition; a feeling which prompts him to suit his own humor, rather than fall in with the prevailing cast of social sentiment, or of natural beauty and expression; and which, therefore,—there being much obstinate originality in his mind,—produces strange varieties of dwelling, frequently rendered still more preposterous by his love of display; a love universally felt in England, and often absurdly indulged. Wealth is worshiped in France as the means of purchasing pleasure; in Italy, ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... planned garments with a freedom and bravery which astonished while it delighted her daughter. She combined twenty styles into one style of terrifying originality. She conceived dresses of a complexity beyond the labor of any but a divinely inspired needle, and others again whose simplicity was almost too tenuous for human speech. She discussed robes whose trailing and voluminous richness could with ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... in chiselling, and they were certainly the draughtsmen of an age in which the art of drawing was practically lost among painters; and it was because they learned how to draw that so many of them became great painters when the originality of two or three men of genius had ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... with the most ill-balanced of minds, belongs more properly to the preceding age, though he lived to 1868; and it is from this age that the novelists probably drew their eccentric types. But between eccentricity and vigorous originality who ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... to bring her to a proper sense of the accepted values in this affair, but my aunt's originality of outlook was never so invincible. "Men don't tell on one another in affairs of passion," I protested, and ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... necessary reflection of it in the literature. This era produced nothing of inspired or reformatory force. A profound pessimism stifled all originality. Korolenko alone, who was living during the greater part of this time as a political prisoner in distant Yakutsk, where he did not imbibe the untoward influences of the reaction, remained unmoved and strong. Anton Chekhov, too, survived the gloomy ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... assistant chefs, and a further army of unconsidered menials. Over all these was Rocco, supreme and unapproachable. Half-way along the suite of kitchens, Rocco had an apartment of his own, wherein he thought out those magnificent combinations, those marvellous feats of succulence and originality, which had given him his fame. Visitors never caught a glimpse of Rocco in the kitchens, though sometimes, on a special night, he would stroll nonchalantly through the dining-room, like the great man he was, to receive the compliments of the hotel habitues—people of insight who recognized ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... for all those whom they control, and, as soon as that tension is released at the highest point, a perfunctory performance with all its well-known side features, the waste and the idleness, the lack of originality and the unwillingness to take risks, must set ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... at least this point of originality, that it ends with the wedding of somebody other than the heroine, or rather, I should say, the chief heroine, because, strictly speaking, all three daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Radmall might be said jointly to fill this post, but it is Christina, the eldest, who fills most of it. The other two ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... or '45; the hero a Jacobite, and connected with one or other of the enterprises of those periods; and the author, to show how unprejudiced he is, and what original views he takes of subjects, must needs speak up for Popery, whenever he has occasion to mention it; though, with all his originality, when he brings his hero and the vagabonds with which he is concerned before a barricadoed house, belonging to the Whigs, he can make them get into it by no other method than that which Scott makes his rioters employ to get into the Tolbooth, burning ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... seeking,"[C] that they should not be satisfied with the common routine of life,—that they should aspire to something higher, better, holier, than they had now attained. Where this element of aspiration existed, she demanded no originality of intellect, no greatness of soul. If these were found, well; but she could love, tenderly and truly, where they were not. But for a worldly character, however gifted, she felt and expressed something very like contempt. At this period, she had no patience with self-satisfied mediocrity. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... have a fine taste for yachting and shooting and racing, and amusing yourself generally; that you find that THEY amuse you, and you would like your luxury and your dollars to stand as an equivalent to their independence and originality; that, being a good republican yourself, and recognizing no distinction of class, you don't care what this may mean to them, who are brought up differently; that after their cruise with you you don't care what life, what ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... reason?—to be left alone, not to be worried with her dependence upon him. That no doubt of her fidelity ever seemed to enter his mind, was capable of anything but a complimentary interpretation; he simply took it for granted that she would be faithful—in other words, that she had not spirit or originality enough to defy conventional laws. To himself, perhaps, he reserved a much larger liberty. How could she tell where, in what company, his evenings were spent? More than once he had been away from home all night—missed the last train, ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... with one another in affirming that Penguin art has from its origin been distinguished by a powerful and pleasing originality, and that we may look elsewhere in vain for the qualities of grace and reason that characterise its earliest works. But the Porpoises claim that their artists were undoubtedly the instructors and masters of the ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... have come down to us, ancient as well as modern, so great is the preponderance of those in Pali and Sanskrit, that the Singhalese can scarcely be said to possess a literature in their national dialect; and in the books they do possess, so utter is the dearth of invention or originality, that almost all which are not either ballads or compilations, are translations from one or other ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... with an independence so spontaneous that it did not suggest conscious opposition to the received ways of thought to which ordinary women are confined, but rather a complete ignorance of them. Adela felt herself startled, but never shocked, even when the originality went most counter to her own prejudices; it was as though she had drunk a draught of most unexpected flavour, the effect of which was to set her nerves delightfully trembling, and make her long to taste it ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... the Athenaeum, and the magazines, and more of this literature would be eminently refreshing and acceptable. It is no exaggeration to say that among the American writers of to-day no one has greater breadth, vigor, originality and power than Kate Field. She is by virtue of wide outlook and comprehension of important matters, entirely free from the tendency to petty detail and trivial common-place that clogs the minds and pens of many women-writers. Her foreign letters to the Tribune discussed ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... the soul till you can order them for yourselves. And thus, if it is your curse and your shame to be as spongy, and soapy, and oily, and slippery as Anything himself; if you choose your church and your reading with any originality, sense, and insight, you need not fear but that you will be let live till you die an honest, upright, honourable, fearless gentleman: no timid friend to unfashionable truth, as you are to-night, but a man like Thomas ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... Goodman "Joe." He found that he disliked the name of Josh, and, as he did not sign it again, it was presently dropped. The office, and Virginia City generally, quickly grew fond of him, delighting in his originality and measured speech. Enterprise readers began to identify his work, then unsigned, and to enjoy its fresh phrasing, even when it was only the usual local item or mining notice. True to its name and reputation, the paper had added ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Great, he promised the Cubans that they should be able to cast their purses upon the public pavement, and yet find them there again after many days. Stories are current in Cuba of the general's singular mode of administering justice, which in many cases partook of an originality somewhat whimsical ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... precedent are more apt to succeed, for by throwing aside precedent they show they have originality instead of the ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... countrymen. By intercourse with the learned, and by the friendships which he formed, he soon became thoroughly German, which he proved by his poems, which were distinguished above the crowd of such compositions by the originality of their style, and peculiar vigour. From 1804 to 1806 he published the "Almanack of the Muses," in conjunction with Varnhagen von Ense. At the peace of Tilsit he left the army, and visited France, when his ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... thematic arrangement, and the unexcelled provision which it affords for unity, contrast, corroboration, balance, and whatever else a thoroughly satisfactory structural design seems to demand. Hence, while brief triumphs of apparent "originality" may be achieved by simply running counter to this and similar designs, it seems scarcely possible that any musical form could be contrived that would surpass the sonata-allegro, the last and highest of ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... beautiful, that I thought only of the pose, without realizing how painful it must have become to the artist. I ask Mile. Darbois' pardon. Also, I should like another stage director. I propose M. Maurice Renaud, our ingenious collaborator, to whom we owe our magnificent costumes, and originality of our decorations." ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... portion related to the sore subject of his litigated claim to originality in the discovery of the Differential Calculus,—a matter in which Leibnitz felt himself grievously wronged, and complained with justice of the treatment he received at the hands of his contemporaries. The controversy between him and Newton, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... we ought rather to say that Europeans hold Averroes as the author of this doctrine, because they saw him isolated from his antecedents. But Mohammedans gave him little credit for originality. He stood to them in the light of a commentator on Aristotle, and as presenting the opinions of the Alexandrian and other philosophical schools up to his time. The following excerpts from the "Historical Essay on Averroism," by M. Renan, will show how closely the Sarscenic ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... in the originality nor in the novelty of the Horatian message, which, as a matter of fact, is surprisingly familiar, and perhaps even commonplace. It lies rather in the appealing manner and mood of its communication. It is a message living ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... author of the "Anatomy of Melancholy," and for other writers of that class, was a pure matter of temperament. His thoughts were always his own. Even when his words seem cast in the very mould of others, the perfect originality of his thinking is felt and acknowledged; we may add, in its superior wisdom, manliness, and unaffected sweetness. Every sentence in those Essays may be proved to be crammed full of thinking. The two volumes will be multiplied, we have no doubt, in the course of a few years, into as many hundreds; ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... staircase was finished, but the main lines of the structure are so suggestive of the earlier work that I cannot but imagine this fine piece of French Renaissance to be a deliberate copy, by a master strong enough to retain his own originality of treatment, of the main design that appears in ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... Argemone, 'he seems to want life, originality, depth, everything that makes a great man. He knows nothing but what he has picked up ready-made from books. After all, his opinions are the one redeeming ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... learning and wisdom are by no means equivalent terms. Isolation and entire dependence upon himself; give independence of character and favor that self-inquiry which best enables man to comprehend and measure the motives of his fellow. Crowded together in cities originality is lost, mind becomes as it were acadamized; and though the intercourse is favorable to the acquisition of knowledge, it is most unfriendly to that individuality, independence, and purity, without which ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... not in the gorgeous mosaics alone that we find the delight and originality of S. Vitale. The whole church is amazingly different from anything else to be seen in Italy, for it is altogether outside the Roman tradition, an absolutely Byzantine building as well in its construction as in its decoration. It must be compared with the later S. Sophia ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... varied; but there seemed to be no dish like Coleridge's conversation to feed upon—and no information so instructive as his own. The orator rolled himself up as it were in his chair, and gave the most unrestrained indulgence to his speech; and how fraught with acuteness and originality was that speech, and in what copious and eloquent periods did it flow. The auditors seemed to be wrapt in wonder and delight, as one conversation, more profound or clothed in more forcible language than another, fell from ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... incongruousness, the best—so Alexina Russell said—that it invariably made you smile, and anything in this weary world that caused a smile was not wholly bad. Miss Sarah Leigh pretended to admire it, and declared she wanted to meet the architect. Of all things she liked originality. Mrs. Millard heard her disdainfully. Any departure from tradition was objectionable in her eyes, and she was deficient in a sense of humor. Judge Russell complained that now St. Mark's had taken to high-church customs, and the Terrace ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... whose originality he did not dream of questioning, took profound hold of his conviction and admiration; and two or three times that evening, as his canoe glided homeward in the twilight, its one long, smooth ripple gleaming on ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... couches and fauteuils of the room were occupied, and certain delicious toilettes were even spread on rugs or on the bare, reflecting floors. On every hand could be heard artistic discussions, serious and informed and yet lightsome in tone. If it was not the real originality of jazz music that was being discussed, it was the sureness of the natural untaught taste of the denizens of the East End and South London, and if not that then the greatness of male revue artistes, and if not that then the need of a national theatre and of a minister of fine arts, and if ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... quietly, and in a tone of regret, but without the slightest intention of expressing poetical ideas, or laying claim to originality of thought. Yet his distinct denial of being an angekok or wise man, and his sentiments regarding the voices of Nature, only confirmed his countrymen in their belief that he was the greatest angekok they had ever ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... is an attempt to bridge the chasm between the external world and the soul. His nature was too deep to remain satisfied with the mere impressions of the senses. The union of the world without with the world within gave him a view of the universe and of human life full of originality and suggestiveness. ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... reproachfully, that our Constitution does not even recognize God; yet on a Constitution modelled upon ours Mexican statesmen could graft an Established Church, with a monopoly of religion! Just where imitation would have been more creditable to them than originality, they became original. It has been said, in their defence, that the Church was so powerful that they could not choose but admit its claim. This would be a good defence, had they sought to make a Constitution in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... velvet or brocade, everybody with badges, everybody with blue blood," Eve interrupted flippantly; "nobody with ideas, nobody with enthusiasms, nobody with an ounce of originality—ugh!" ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... the bear that M. de Chateaubriand remarked it among the ursine tribes of the New World. But philosophers inform us that old age is apt to revert to the habits of youth, and Sechard senior is a case in point—the older he grew, the better he loved to drink. The master-passion had given a stamp of originality to an ursine physiognomy; his nose had developed till it reached the proportions of a double great-canon A; his veined cheeks looked like vine-leaves, covered, as they were, with bloated patches of purple, madder red, and often ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... commenced in 1121, but Bishop Joceline of Wells (1206-1242) rebuilt it from the middle of the choir to the west end. The Early English work shows considerable differences to that in Salisbury and Ely Cathedrals, being carried out by a local school of masons, who show considerable originality in design. The glory of Wells is centred in its west front. The deep buttresses on the towers cast shadows which only serve to show up the marvellous sculptured figures of saints and kings, which may represent a ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... bishop's fame will not be lessened by his adopting what was good in the works of the learned physician. He doubtless thought far more of the benefit which he could render to the youthful Wykehamists, than of either the originality or smoothness ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... narrow way. Mr. Heatherbloom leaned back, his gaze straight ahead, but Betty Dalrymple looked around with interest at the people of divers shades and hues, and, for the most part, in costumes of varying degrees of picturesque originality. After having narrowly escaped running over a small proportion of the juvenile colored population overflowing from odd little shops and houses, they reached the transportable zinc shed that served as a cable office. Here Miss Dalrymple indited rapidly a most ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... wits sharpened by his own originality and a sheath knife, the headman promptly discovered that the ceremony of exorcism could not be performed because the local wizard had departed with every ounce of magic for the front. Still there were obstinate and fearful persons who wished ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... He sent his manuscript to the press with hardly any alteration, and took for his motto, Prolem sine matre creatam;[1] in allusion to the originality of his conception, and the total want of any previous model on which it had been formed. The work appeared in the month of July 1748; and its success, so far as the sale went, was prodigious. Before two years had elapsed, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... prejudice of the pocket of the individual, has a mellow and kindly effect upon his disposition. In an old member of the profession, one who has grown gray in the service, there is a rich unction of originality that brings him out from the ranks of his fellowmen in strong relief. His habitual conversancy with the world in its strangest varieties and with the secret history of character, gives him a shrewd estimate of the human heart. He is quiet, and unapt to be struck with wonder at any of the ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... a greater fool than I thought him, and mistakes his native weakness of mind for originality. If you had heard the imbecile nonsense he talked to me for political shrewdness, and when he had shown me what a very poor creature he was, he made me the offer of himself! This was so far honest and above-board. It was saying in so many words, "You see, I ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... parrot-like propensities of all inferior races, but Travers, much as the solution appealed to him, could not accept it. A parrot that assumes with apparent ease the ways of his master within a fortnight, and thereby retains a striking originality of his own, is not an ordinary parrot, and the conviction was dawning on Travers that Nehal Singh was not an ordinary Hindu. The unusual simplicity of his dress, which nevertheless concealed a costly and refined taste, his firm though unpretentious bearing, the energy with which he had overthrown ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... and the vast majority were enthusiastic. Chesterton claimed Browning as a poet not for experts but for every man. His treatment of the Browning love affair, of the poet's obscurity, of "The Ring and the Book," all receive this same praise of an originality which casts a true and revealing light for his readers. As with all his literary criticism, the most famous critics admitted that he had opened fresh windows ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... clearly he exposed their faults and failings! How thoroughly he knew the story of certain ruined gentry—the story of how, why, and through what cause they had fallen upon evil days! With what comic originality could he describe their little habits ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Sheridan, as the music of it was by the Duchess of Devonshire—two such names, so brilliant in their respective spheres, as the Muses of Song and Verse have seldom had the luck to bring together. The originality of these lines has been disputed; and that expedient of borrowing which their author ought to have been independent of in every way, is supposed to have been resorted to by his indolence on this occasion. Some verses by Tickell are mentioned as having supplied one of the best ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... of a man's life seems to possess the freedom and originality which in truth only belong to his character as he apprehends it, and the mere apprehension of it by his intellect is what constitutes his career; and since what is original in every single action seems to the empirical consciousness to be always ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... which so delight the natives of India and Africa. The name is taken from the way in which they are prepared, namely, by means of a jet of intense flame, and great skill and dexterity is required on the part of the workman, who can display his talent and originality by ornamenting them with flowers and arabesques. The combined effects of light and colour are often very beautiful, and seem a fit adornment for all those eastern and southern nations over whom a halo of fable and romance ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... loveliness and her womanliness, there shone a light from within. Like the gleam from the lamp that lives in an opal, this mind-brightness of Maxine's pierced the clouds of her beauty capriciously, now half-veiled, now shining forth. It was the light of that flame which men call originality. Maxine saw the world by the light of her own lamp. Adams, though he had seen far more of the world than she, had seen it by the light ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... that so keen a wit as his cousins s could be entrapped into the humor of decrying the time one happens to live in, and admiring any epoch one knows next to nothing about, and entrapped by the notion of its originality, above all things; the idea being the stale commonplace of asses in every age, and the manner of conveying the idea being a mere imitation of the German writers, not the good ones, bien entendu, but the quill-drivers, the ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... a striking degree all the characteristics of the successful soldier. His methods were all stamped with tenacity of purpose, with originality and ingenuity. He depended for his success more upon the powers of invention than of adaptation, and the fact that he has been compared, at different times, to nearly every great commander in history is ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... I think,' she said, catching my arm. 'That big mill down yonder hasn't ground the originality altogether out of you. I adore originality. It was clever of you to catch at the suggestion of this arrangement. Lois Cayley, you say; any relation of a madcap Captain Cayley whom I used once to know, in the ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... subjects, and to develop it generally, is to write down carefully all we have to say about it? People indeed differ in matters of this kind, but I think that writing is a stimulus to the mental faculties, to the logical talent, to originality, to the power of illustration, to the arrangement of topics, second to none. Till a man begins to put down his thoughts about a subject on paper he will not ascertain what he knows and what he does not know; and still ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... value? As for present popularity, it depends on two qualities, each singly, or both united,—cowardice and charlatanism; that is, servile compliance with the taste and opinion of the moment, or a quack's spasmodic efforts at originality. But why bore you on such matters? There are things more attractive round us. A good ankle that, eh? Why, pardon me, it is strange, but you don't seem to ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Originality, unselfishness, genius of the rarest order, are all displayed in these letters; already had her mind grasped some great truths which it requires the average philosopher half a century to discover, when at seventeen, she says, "Man is the epitome of the universe. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... really stood up to such an antagonist (the elder woman had to recognise in general in whose veins it was that the blood of the Manglers flowed) on account of this very circumstance of her attaching more importance to Miss Tramore's originality ("Her originality be hanged!" her ladyship had gone so far as unintelligently to exclaim) than to the prospects of the unfortunate Guy. Mrs. Vesey actually lost sight of these pressing problems in her admiration of the way the mother and the daughter, ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... rather clever thing to say. He really believes, no doubt, that it is original—it is, at any rate, neat, as he indicates by his evident expectation of applause. The remark follows upon the physical or mental stimulus as the night the day; he cannot, then, be true to any other impulse. Originality was inhibited in him since his great-grandmother's time. He has "got ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess
... the pleasure of reading French, and he had nowhere to turn for tragic literature but to the classics, which he read in literal versions while he renewed his faded Latin with the help of a teacher. But he believed that his originality as a tragic author suffered from his reading, and he determined to read no more tragedies till he had made his own. For this reason he had already given up Shakespeare. "The more that author accorded with my humor (though I very well perceived ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells |
